Simon Dubnow
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 126
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ...were at first adapted to the mental level of grown-up children, efi patiating upon the benefits of secular education and the " favors " of the Government consequent upon it. H a-K armel expired in 1870, while yet in its infancy, though it continued to appear at irregular intervals in the form of booklets dealing with scientific and literary subjects. H a-M elitz was more successful. It soon grew to be a live and courageous organ which 'Before that time, the only weekly in Hebrew was ha/-Maggid, " The Herald," a paper of no particular literary distinction, pub llshed since 1856 in the Prussian border-town Lyck, though addressing itself primarily to the Jews of Russia. hurled its shafts at Hasidism and Tzaddikism, and occasionally even ventured to raise its hand against rabbinical Judaism. The Yiddish weekly Kol M ebasser, ' which was published during 1862-1871 as a supplement to ha-Melitz and spoke directly to the masses in their own language, attacked the dark sides of the old order_of things in publicistic essays and humoristic stories. Another step forward was the publication of the Hebrew monthly ha-Shahar, "The Dawn," which was founded by Perez Smolenskin in 1869. This periodical, which appeared in Vienna but was read principally in Russia, pursued a twofold aim: to fight against the fanaticism of the benighted masses, on the one hand, and combat the indifference to Judaism of the intellectuals, on the other. Ha-Shahar exerted a tremendous influence upon the mental development of the young generation which had been trained in the heders and yeshibahs. Here they found a response to the thoughts that agitated them; here they learned to think logically and critically and to distinguish...