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Updated: May 10, 2025
Once he had his own organ, Ha-Shahar, Smolenskin wrote and published novel after novel in it, beginning with his Ha-To'eh be-Darke ha-Hayyim. In Ha-Shahar it appeared in three parts. Later it came out in book form, in four volumes. It is the first work of the Hebrew realistic school worthy of being classed as such.
It was said above, that Smolenskin wrote the early chapters of his Ha-To'eh while at Odessa, and, also, he planned another novel there, "The Joy of the Hypocrite". When he proposed working out the latter for publication in Ha-Meliz, the editor rejected the idea disdainfully, saying that he preferred translations to original stories, so little likely did it seem that realistic writing could be done in Hebrew.
Everywhere he makes Jewish society the object of study, and everywhere he suffers disillusionment. Ha-To'eh is a veritable encyclopedia of Jewish life at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century. As a work of fiction, the novel cannot bear inspection.
Translations continued to enjoy great vogue, and it was vain for Smolenskin, in the introduction to his novel Ha-To'eh be-Darke ha- Hayyim, to warn the public against the abuses of which translators were guilty. The readers of Hebrew sought, besides novels, chiefly works on the natural sciences and on mathematics, especially astronomy.
The reputation of Ha-Shahar was firmly established by the publication of Smolenskin's great novel Ha-To'eh be-Darke ha- Hayyim in its columns. In this as in the rest of his works, he is the prophet denouncing the crimes and the depravity of the ghetto, and proclaiming the revival of national dignity.
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