Note (return) — Chapter V

The striving for intellectual enlightenment manifested itself in the refining of religious customs. Though Russian Jewry "has never experienced any of the ritualistic struggles that Germany has witnessed,"14 yet reform and Haskalah always went hand in hand. The attacks on tradition by the Maskilim of the "forties" and the early "fifties" were mild and guarded compared with the assaults by the generation that followed. With the appearance of the periodicals the combat was intensified. Ha-Meliz, and, later, Ha-Shahar in Hebrew, and Kol Mebasser in Yiddish were the organs of those who were dissatisfied with the old, and sought to introduce the new. It was in the latter that Dos Polische Yingel (The Polish Boy), by Linetzky, first appeared, and it proved so popular that the editor published it in book form long before it was finished in the periodical. In an article on The Ways of the Talmud, by Moses Löb Lilienblum, the prevailing Jewish religious observances were vehemently attacked. This was followed by another article from the pen of Gordon, Wisdom for Those Who Wander in Spirit, with suggestions for adapting religion to the needs of the times, and a still more powerful one, The Chaotic World, by Smolenskin. The muse ceased to content herself with "flame-songs that burn their pathway" to the heart. She preferred to appeal to the head. She no longer tried