autoemancipation

Updated: May 26, 2025

Lacking a definite practical foundation, Pinsker's doctrine could not but accomodate itself to the Palestinian colonization movement, although its insignificant dimensions were entirely out of proportion to the far-reaching plans conceived by the author of "Autoemancipation." Lilienblum and Pinsker were joined by the old nationalist Smolenskin and the former assimilator Levanda.

Simon Dubnow - History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II: From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander: III. (1825-1894)

Such is the way of Jewish autoemancipation, in contradistinction from the civic emancipation, which had been bestowed by the dominant nationalities upon the Jews as an act of grace and which does not safeguard them against anti-Semitism and the humiliating position of second-rate citizens.

Simon Dubnow - History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II: From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander: III. (1825-1894)