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What Linnaeus, Agassiz, and Cuvier did in the field of natural philosophy, they accomplished in their chosen province of Jewish history. Levinsohn was the first to express the opinion that the Russian Jews hailed, not from Germany, as is commonly supposed, but from the banks of the Volga. This hypothesis, corroborated by tradition, Harkavy established as a fact.
A disciple of Isaac Bar Levinsohn, and visibly affected by the influence of Wessely and Abraham Bar Lebensohn, he devoted himself to poetry. The first volume of his poems appeared at Wilna in 1851. His earliest productions go back to the middle of the last century. He is a remarkable stylist, and, in some of his works, his language is both simple and polished.
Fear of the orthodox environment compels him to observe almost complete silence with reference to Hasidism, although, in his private correspondence and in his anonymous writings he denounces it severely. Levinsohn was not satisfied to propagate his ideas by purely literary means.
His claim to fame, however, consists in the influence he exerted upon Russian Jews. Like Levinsohn, he was a constructive force. In his younger days, he had inveighed against the benighted rabbis and the antiquated garb, but moderation came with discretion. He would not sweep away by force the accumulation of hundreds of years.
Among those who laid the foundations for the study of this almost unexplored department of Jewish history, the settlement of Jews in Russia and their vicissitudes during the dark ages, the most prominent are perhaps Isaac Bär Levinsohn, Abraham Harkavy, and Simon Dubnow. There is much to be said of each of these as writers, scholars, and men. Here they concern us as Russo-Jewish historians.
Another uncle of his had performed a similar task in 1749. True scion of a noble family, Levinsohn followed in their wake, and his effort was declared to be a "sharp sword forged by a master, to fight for our honor." He found himself poor, sick, and alone, and deprived of his fine library. In those days, and for a long time before and afterwards, Hebrew authors were paid in kind.
They were condemned as rank heresies by the all-powerful obscurantists and hailed as a gospel of the approaching renaissance by that handful of progressives who dreamt of a new Jewish life and, cowed by the fear of persecution, hid these thoughts deep down in their breasts. A similar fear compelled Levinsohn to exercise the utmost reserve and caution in criticizing the existing order of things.
As the history of this period is incomplete without an acquaintance with the lives of some of the Maskilim who sowed the seeds that burst into blossom under the favorable conditions of the "sixties," I shall select, as specimens out of a multitude, the two who, more than any others, furthered the cause of Haskalah, Isaac Bär Levinsohn and Mordecai Aaron Günzburg.
It has, moreover, considerable scientific merit, being one of the first research works in the domain of talmudic theology. A number of other publications by Levinsohn deal with Hebrew philology and lexicography.
Levinsohn was the first of the Jewish humanists who maintained direct relations with the Russian authorities. Czar Nicholas I gave him a personal audience, and several times sought his advice on problems connected with the endeavor to ameliorate the social condition of the Jews.
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