Note (return) — Chapter III
Reading edition
The feeling of tolerance manifested itself also in the Jewish attitude towards the Gentiles. "O that we were identified with the nations of our time, created by the same God, children of one Father, and did not hate each other because we are at variance in some views!" This exclamation of Doctor Hurwitz19 found an echo in the works of the other Maskilim that wrote in Hebrew, but more especially of those who used a European language. They were deeply interested in whatever marked a step forward in their country's civilization. The opening of a gymnasium in Mitau (1775) was a joyful occasion, which inspired Hurwitz's Hebrew muse, and at the centennial celebration of the surrender of Riga to Peter the Great (July 4, 1810), the craving of the Jewish heart, avowed in a German poem, was expressed "in the name of the local Hebrew community to their Christian compatriots." The last stanza runs as follows: