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Updated: June 7, 2025
The drop cannot become a deluge instantaneously. Persevere in your laudable ambition, publish your good and readable books, and the result, though slow, is sure." Thus lived and labored the first of the Maskilim, an idealist from beginning to end. Persecution did not embitter, nor poverty depress him.
Gordon's advice, to be a Jew at home and a man abroad, found little favor in his estimation; for Haskalah meant the evolution of a Jewish man sui generis. He equally abhorred the fanaticism of the benighted orthodox and the Laodicean lukewarmness of the advanced Maskilim. Not like the former days are these days, he says in his foreword to Ha-Shahar.
Even in Vilna and Minsk, towns which later put themselves on record as opposed to Government schools, the Jews yielded gladly to the innovations of such Maskilim as S. Perl, G. Klaczke, I. Bompi, and the distinguished philanthropist David Luria, who took the initiative in transforming the educational system of these cities.
All these Maskilim, so many hands reaching out into the light, were both the cause and the consequence of the longing for enlightenment characteristic at all times of the Slavonic Jew. Graetz and his followers among the latter-day Maskilim delighted in calling them "they that walk in darkness."
Many of them even hindered the colonization movement, because, if allowed to mature, it would deprive them of their income. In addition to this, the Jews were now burdened, through the instrumentality of the Maskilim, with a tax on the candles lighted on Sabbath eve, yielding annually over one million rubles, the greater part of which went into the coffers of greedy officials.
The book was finished in 1823, but, owing to Levinsohn's pecuniary circumstances, it remained unpublished till 1828. Meanwhile it circulated in manuscript among the leading Maskilim of Russia, Austria, and Germany, and established its author's reputation wherever it was read. Levinsohn was one of those who understand the persuasive power of the still small voice of sweet reasonableness.
There also, in 1847, the leading Maskilim started a reform synagogue, which they named Taharat ha-Kodesh, the Essence of Holiness. It should not be forgotten that, if Lilienthal met with mighty opposition, he also had powerful supporters. There were many who, though remaining in the background, strongly sympathized with his plan.
Nor would the Maskilim have accomplished their aim, had the material they found at hand been different from what it was. The Jews in the land of the Slavonians were fortunate in being regarded as aliens in a country which, as we have seen, they inhabited long before those who claimed to be its possessors by divine right of conquest.
It was further agreed that a Consistory be created, to supervise Jewish affairs and establish schools and technical institutes wherever necessary. To these main points were added several others of minor importance. The Maskilim of Besascz insisted that steps be taken to stop the prevailing custom of premature marriages.
The truth was that, instead of the reported Russification, there had set in a vigorous reaction, which rendered the position more critical. Both sides had become desperate. Some Maskilim, emboldened by the interest the Government evinced in their efforts, had resorted to all manner of means to accomplish their object, and frequently allied themselves with the oppressors.
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