Note (return) — Chapter IV

After several busy months at St. Petersburg and frequent consultations with Count Uvarov, Lilienthal returned to Vilna, and two weeks later he published his circular letter, Maggid Yeshiiah (The Announcer of Good Tidings)10 The "good tidings" were that an imperial ukase (June 22, 1842) would convene a council of distinguished Jews at St. Petersburg, to deliberate how to "re-educate" the Jews. Accordingly, in the early part of April, 1843, the notables, from different places and with diametrically opposed views, assembled in the Russian capital. Representing the Jews, there were Rabbi Isaac Volozhin, the dean of the Tree of Life Yeshibah, perhaps the strongest man present; Rabbi Menahem Mendel Shneersohn of Lubavich, leader of the Hasidic reform sect; Joseph Heilprin, the financier and banker of Berdichev, and Bezalel (Basilius) Stern, principal of the Jewish public schools of Odessa. Representing the Government were Count Uvarov, Chevalier Dukstaduchinsky, and others, with de Vrochenko, Minister of State, as chairman and Lilienthal as secretary. Montefiore of England, Crémieux of France, and Rabbi Philippson of Germany had been invited, but they failed to come. The council decided to open Jewish public schools in every city where Jews reside, and also two rabbinical seminaries, the one in Vilna, the other in Zhitomir, the former being considered the Jewish metropolis of the northwestern part, the latter, of the southwestern part, of Russia. They also proposed to do away with the Judeo-Polish garb, and suggested certain alterations in the prayer book.