HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I UNTIL THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER III
by S.M. Dubnow
A Project Gutenberg EBook
3. THE JEWISH PRESS
In the absence of a comprehensive net-work of social
agencies, the
driving force in this cultural upheaval came from the
periodical Jewish
press. The creation of several press organs in Hebrew and
Russian in the
beginning of the sixties was a sign of the times. Though
different in
their linguistic medium, the two groups of publications
were equally
engaged in the task of the regeneration of Judaism, each
adapting itself
to its particular circle of readers. The Hebrew
periodicals, and partly
also those in Yiddish which addressed themselves to the
masses, preached
_Haskalah_ in the narrower sense. They advocated the
necessity of a
Russian elementary education and of secular culture in
general; they
emphasized the uselessness of the traditional Jewish
school training,
and exposed superstition and obscurantism. The Russian
publications,
again, which were intended for the Jewish and the Russian
_intelligenzia_, pursued in the main a political goal, the
fight for
equal rights and the defence of Judaism against its
numerous detractors.
In both groups one can discern the gradual ripening of
the social Jewish
consciousness, the advance from elementary and often
naive notions to
more complex ideas. The two Hebrew weeklies founded in
1860,
_ha-Karmel_, "The Carmel," in Vilna, and
_ha-Melitz_, "The Interpreter,"
in Odessa, the former edited by Fuenn and the latter by
Zederbaum, [1]
were at first adapted to the mental level of grown-up
children,
expatiating upon the benefits of secular education and
the "favors" of
the Government consequent upon it. _Ha-Karmel_ expired in
1870, while
yet in its infancy, though it continued to appear at
irregular intervals
in the form of booklets dealing with scientific and
literary subjects.
_Ha-Melitz_ was more successful. It soon grew to be a
live and
courageous organ which hurled its shafts at Hasidism and
Tzaddikism, and
occasionally even ventured to raise its hand against
rabbinical Judaism.
The Yiddish weekly _Kol Mebasser_, [2] which was
published during
1862-1871 as a supplement to _ha-Melitz_ and spoke
directly to the
masses in their own language, attacked the dark sides of
the old order
of things in publicistic essays and humoristic stories.
[Footnote 1: Before that time, the only weekly in Hebrew
was
_ha-Maggid_, "The Herald," a paper of no
particular literary
distinction, published since 1856 in the Prussian
border-town Lyck,
though addressing itself primarily to the Jews of
Russia.]
[Footnote 2: "A voice Announcing Good
Tidings."]
Another step forward was the publication of the Hebrew
monthly
_ha-Shahar_, "The Dawn," which was founded by
Perez Smolenskin in 1869.
This periodical, which appeared in Vienna but was read
principally in
Russia, pursued a two-fold aim: to fight against the
fanaticism of the
benighted masses, on the one hand, and combat the
indifference to
Judaism of the intellectuals, on the other. _Ha-Shahar_
exerted a
tremendous influence upon the mental development of the
young generation
which had been trained in the heders and yeshibahs. Here
they found a
response to the thoughts that agitated them; here they
learned to think
logically and critically and to distinguish between the
essential
elements in Judaism and its mere accretions. _Ha-Shahar_
was the staff
of life for the generation of that period of transition,
which stood on
the border-line dividing the old Judaism from the new.
The various stages in the Russification of the Jewish
_intelligenzia_
are marked by the changing tendencies of the Jewish
periodical press in
the Russian language. In point of literary form, it
approached the
European models more closely than the contemporary Hebrew
press. The
contributors to the three Russian-Jewish weeklies, all of
them issued in
Odessa, [1] had the advantage of having before them
patterns of Western
Europe. Jewish publicists of the type of Riesser and
Philippson [2]
served as living examples. They had blazed the way for
Jewish
journalism, and had shown it how to fight for civil
emancipation, to
ward off anti-Semitic attacks, and strive at the same
time for the
advancement of inner Jewish life.
[Footnote 1: _Razswyet_, "The Dawn," 1860,
_Sion_, "Zion," 1861, _Dyen_,
"The Day," 1869-1871.]
[Footnote 2: Gabriel Riesser (died 1863), the famous
champion of Jewish
emancipation in Germany, established the periodical _Der
Jude_ in 1832.
Ludwig Philippson (died 1889) founded in 1837 _Die
Allgemeine Zeitung
des Judentums_, which still appears in Berlin.]
However, as soon as the Russian Riessers applied
themselves to their
task, they met with insurmountable difficulties. When the
_Razswyet_,
which was edited by Osip (Joseph) Rabinovich, attempted
to lay bare the
inner wounds of Jewish life, it encountered the concerted
opposition of
all prominent Jews, who were of the opinion that an organ
employing the
language of the country should not, on tactical grounds,
busy itself
with self-revelations, but should rather limit itself to
the fight for
equal rights. The latter function again was hampered by
the "other
side," the Russian censorship. Despite the moderate
tone adopted by the
_Razswyet_ in its articles on Jewish emancipation, the
Russian
censorship found them incompatible with the interests of the
State. One
circular sent out by the Government went even so far as
to prohibit "to
to discuss the question of granting the Jews equal rights
with those of
the other (Russian) subjects." On one occasion the
editor of the
_Razswyet_, _, in appealing to the authorities of St.
Petersburg against
the prohibition of a certain article by the Odessa
censor, had to
resort to the sham argument that the incriminated article
referred
merely to the necessity of granting the Jews equality in
the right
of residence but not in other rights. But even this
stratagem failed
of its object. After a year of bitter struggle against
the interference
of the censor and against financial difficulties--the
number of Russian
readers among Jews was still very small at that time--the
_Razswyet_
passed out of existence.
Its successor _Sion_ ("Zion"), edited by
Solovaychik and Leon Pinsker,
who subsequently bec me the exponent of pre-Herzlian
Zionism,[1]
attempted a different policy: to prove the case of the
Jews by
arraigning the anti-Semites and acquainting the Russian
public with the
history of Judaism. _Sion_, too, like its predecessors,
had to give up
the fight in less than a year.
[Footnote 1: See later, p. 330 et seq.]
After an interval of seven years a new attempt was made
in the same
city. The _Dyen_ ("The Day") [1] was able to
muster a larger number of
contributors from among the increased ranks of the
"titled"
_intelligenzia_ than its predecessors. The new periodical
was bolder in
unfurling the banner of emancipation, but it also went
much further than
its predecessors in its championship of Russification and
assimilation.
The motto of the _Dyen_ was "complete fusion of the
interests of the
Jewish population with those of the other citizens."
The editors looked
upon the Jewish problem "not as a national but as a
social and economic"
issue, which in their opinion could be solved simply by
bestowing upon
this "section of the Russian people" the same
rights which were enjoyed
by the rest. The Odessa pogrom of 1871 might have taught
the writers of
the _Dyen_ to judge more soberly the prospects of "a
fusion of
interests," had not a meddlesome censorship forced
this periodical to
discontinue its publication after a short time.
[Footnote 1: The name was meant to symbolize the
approaching day of
freedom. It was a weekly publication.]
The next few years were a period of silence in the
Russian-Jewish
press. [1] The rank and file of the Russian Jewish
intellectuals, who
formed the backbone of the reading public of this press,
became
indifferent to it. Living up conscientiously to the
principle of a
"fusion of interests," they failed to recognize
the special interests of
their own people, whose only duty they thought was to be
Russified,
i.e., obliterated and put out of existence. The better
elements among
the _intelligenzia_, however, looked with consternation
upon this
growing indifference to everything Jewish among the
college-bred Jewish
youth. As a result, a new attempt was made toward the
very end of this
period to restore the Russian-Jewish press. Three
weeklies, the _Russki
Yevrey_ ("The Russian Jew"), the _Razswyet_
("The Dawn"), and later on
the _Voskhod_ ("The Sunrise"), were started in
St. Petersburg, all
endeavoring to gain the hearts of the Russian Jewish
_intelligenzia_. In
the midst of this work they were overwhelmed by the
terrific cataclysm
of 1881, which decided the further destinies of Jewish
journalism in
Russia.
[Footnote 1: We disregard the colorless _Vyestnik Russkikh
"Yevreyev"_
("The Herald of Russian Jews"), published by
Zederbaum in the beginning
of the seventies in St. Petersburg, and the volumes of
the _Yevreyskaya
Bibliotyeka_ ("The Jewish Library"), issued at
irregular intervals by
Adolph Landau.]
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