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 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ORIENTAL STUDIES 
 
 Vol. IX 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ODEKN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 1850-1912 
 
 1: 
 
 BY 
 
 ABRAHAM SOLOMON WALDSTEIN 
 
 I 
 
 Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for 
 
 THE Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty 
 
 of Philosophy, Columbia University 
 
 Nfto York 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1916 
 
\ 
 
 ■Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/evolutionofmoderOOwaldrich 
 
MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ORIENTAL STUDIES 
 
 Vol. IX 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 MODEEN HEBEEW LITEEATURE 
 
 1850-1912 
 
 BY 
 
 ABRAHAM SOLOMON WALDSTEIN 
 
 Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for 
 
 THE Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty 
 
 OF Philosophy, Columbia University 
 
 • > 'j • • ' ' • ^ . . 
 
 • ■••,• J '. ' • ' . • 
 
 J • » • * 
 
 Neto York 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1916 
 
Copyright, 1916 
 By Columbia University Press 
 
 Printed from type February, 1916 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 LANCASTER. PA. 
 
' J 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In writing this book, I have had in view not so much the 
 appreciation of the individual authors and their productions per 
 se, as their relation to the period in which they lived, the ideas 
 and emotions by which they were, consciously or unconsciously, 
 actuated, and what they contributed, as individuals or as a 
 class, to the development of Hebrew literature. In short, I pur- 
 pose to give here the evolution of the latter rather than its 
 history, in the common sense of the term. This mode of treat- 
 ment has been more and more pursued by literary historians 
 since Taine; and should, in particular, be followed by any one 
 that writes for a reading public to whom the literature treated 
 is entirely foreign. Readers such as these are certainly more 
 interested in the trend of thought, in the flux and flow of ideas, 
 and in the artistic temperament of the period as a whole and in 
 the literature as a whole, than in any particular writer. Hence, 
 some authors, who would otherwise deserve a fuller treatment, 
 have been dealt with rather summarily. For though as indi- 
 vidual writers they may be of very high standing, yet their 
 contribution to the development of Hebrew literature may have 
 been less marked than that of other writers of inferior talent, 
 who have, nevertheless, formed links in the chain of this develop- 
 ment, and who have consequently been treated more fully. 
 
 I have selected as my subject the period between the fifties of 
 the last century and our own time, and I did not go back to the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, which is generally considered 
 the terminus a quo of modern Hebrew literature, for the following 
 reason. As I am here dealing mainly with belles-lettres and 
 allied branches, I could have found very little scope in the 
 literature of the hundred years preceding the middle of the 
 nineteenth century. The novel in Hebrew had not yet been pro- 
 duced. In the domain of poetry, the only productions of the 
 
 333617 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 period that can stand critical examination are : some lyrical out- 
 bursts in the dramas of M. H. Luzzatto, a small number of 
 poems by Wessely, Sh. Cohen, Letteris, Adam Lebensohn, and 
 some other stray verse, representing in all perhaps one medium- 
 sized volume. Moreover, with the exception of some passages 
 in the scientific "letters" of S. D. Luzzatto, the prose of the 
 period did not even present what one may call literary tempera- 
 ment. The spirit of the time, particularly that of the first half 
 of the nineteenth century, was scientific, the writers centering 
 their efforts mainly on historic research; and only in this field did 
 Hebrew literature show any sort of creativeness. But the ac- 
 count of these investigations could hardly fit into the scheme of 
 this book. I have, therefore, relegated this long period in 
 modern Hebrew, as well as a brief account of Mediaeval Hebrew 
 literature, to the introductory chapter. 
 
 VI 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Preface v 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 1. Post-Biblical Hebrew Literature 1 
 
 2. The Evolution of Post-Biblical Hebrew 8 
 
 I. Romanticism: The Creation of the Hebrew 
 
 Novel 14 
 
 II. The Second Stage of the Haskalah Movement . . 24 
 1. The Movement; the Newspaper and the Maga- 
 zine 24 
 
 III. Fiction during the Second Stage of the Has- 
 
 kalah Period : Literary Criticism 32 
 
 1. The Novel and the Short Story 32 
 
 IV. Fiction during the Second Stage of the Has- 
 
 kalah Period (Continued) 42 
 
 2. Poetry: Literary Criticism 42 
 
 V. Peretz Ben Moshe Smolenskin (1839-1884) 57 
 
 VI. The Revival Movement 67 
 
 VII. Shalom Jacob Abramovitz and Shalom Rabinovitz 75 
 VIII. The Revival Movement in Its National Sig- 
 nificance 86 
 
 IX. Contemporary Hebrew Poetry 99 
 
 X Retrogression and Progress 112 
 
 XL The Feuilleton, Literary Criticism, and Allied 
 
 Branches: Conclusion 119 
 
 Index , 125 
 
 vu 
 
« • • 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. POST-BIBLICAL HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Hebrew literature did not end with the close of the Canon of 
 the Old Testament, but has continued its existence through all 
 the devious paths of Jewish history down to our own time, always 
 expressing the spirit, the influences, the material and spiritual 
 condition of the Jewish people during the long ages of its struggle 
 and suffering. During all these years, Hebrew literature has 
 shared the fortunes of the Jewish people, it has been swayed by 
 the same influences, and subject to the same varying atmospheric 
 pressure. For two reasons the line of demarcation between the 
 different periods of this literature stands out very clearly against 
 the light of history, perhaps more than in any other litera- 
 ture. In the first place, as the Jewish spirit has always been 
 collective rather than individualistic, the movement of Hebrew 
 literature has generally been, so to speak, en masse; and it is 
 always easier to define the limits of a collective movement than 
 to trace individual tastes and influences. Secondly, the various 
 periods of Hebrew literature, at least up to the nineteenth 
 century, were as a whole co-extensive with the periods of Jewish 
 history as connected with this or that particular country. It is 
 enough to recall to mind the history of the Jews in Spain, for 
 example, and the so-called Spanish period of Hebrew literature 
 immediately stands before the mind's eye, clear-cut, well-rounded, 
 and well-defined. The division of Hebrew literature into distinct 
 periods, is, therefore, easy and natural. 
 
 The literary production that immediately followed the Bible, 
 that was dependent upon it and, in a manner, created in its 
 2 1 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 spirit, was the Talmudic literature. This, probably, embraces a 
 longer period than that of the Bible, beginning long before the 
 close of the Canon of the Old Testament and continuing down 
 to the tenth century, when the Talmudic colleges in Babylonia 
 were closed — an event which practically amounted to the closing 
 of the Talmudic Canon. Like the Biblical literature, that of the 
 Talmud bears the stamp of the collective spirit of the Jewish 
 people rather than that of the individual; in it, likewise, the 
 influence of foreign culture is almost imperceptible. Further- 
 more, in the latter as in the former, we still inhale the fresh and 
 fragrant odor of mother earth, the Talmudic activity having 
 begun while the Jews were still leading a fully developed organic 
 and national life. Even in Babylon, where the Talmud was 
 given its final and most complete shape, they enjoyed a semi- 
 autonomous life, engaging in all the various economic pursuits 
 of the land, and standing in close touch with nature — perhaps 
 more so than at any other time in the diaspora. As a result, 
 we find reflected in the Talmud, in its Halakic as well as in its 
 Agadic part, an all-sided and complete national existence. 
 
 For some time before the close of the Talmudic Canon, a 
 change had been gradually taking place in Hebrew literature, 
 affecting both its content and its form. This change was 
 mainly due to the fact that Hebrew literature had come under 
 the potent influence of Arabic culture. The various literary 
 branches, which, in the Talmud, had been heaped in a confused 
 jumble, now began to be differentiated and systematized, while, 
 at the same time, the individual element became more defined 
 and more pronounced. This period culminated in the so-called 
 Spanish age in Hebrew^ literature (c. 1000-1300), the Iberian 
 peninsula then being the main center of literary activity. It was 
 a time of real creativeness, during which Hebrew, though in- 
 fluenced by the Arabic, struck out on a path of its own. In 
 Rabbinics, it was the most intellectual age, giving Talmudic 
 literature an almost scientific treatment as regards classification 
 and interpretation. In poetry, it was, with the exception of 
 our own time, the most flourishing age in the diaspora, pro- 
 
 2 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ducing such noble poets as Ibn Gebirol and Halevi. In romance, 
 too, some not unsuccessful attempts were made. As for specula- 
 tion, it was the period of the creation of a religious philosophy and 
 of grammatical and other sciences, both among the Arabs and 
 among the Jews. This age, as was natural, laid its impress upon 
 subsequent productions in Hebrew. The r ime — borrowed from 
 the Arabs — which had been first introduced into Hebrew poetry 
 during this time,^ domina ted Hebrew versifi cation down to the 
 beginning orthe eighteenth ^gfijj^rv. and the meter, also Arabic 
 in origin, exerted an influence even as late as the middle of tt^g, 
 nineteenth, whereas the creations of that period were a perennial 
 '^ source of inspiration for later poets and philosophers. But, as 
 if exhausted by the too great intellectual strain, Hebrew litera- 
 ture, for the next three or four hundred years, presents almost a 
 blank. The violent persecutions of the Jews on the part of the 
 Christian world and the consequent segregation of the former 
 in the Ghettos and their indulgence in Rabbinic casuistry, on 
 the one hand, and in Kabbalah, on the other, robbed them of 
 the joy of life, and together with it, of the real power of literary 
 creativeness. Here and there a Jewish scholar may have culled 
 some gleanings from the thought of the Spanish masters, now 
 and then a noble piyut (hymn) may have been indited, but as a 
 whole, little of lasting value was created during this time. 
 
 The beginning of the eighteenth century marks a renaissance 
 in Hebrew letters. It was in Italy that the revival was initiated. 
 The Jews of that country had been for centuries under the in- 
 fluence of Spanish Jewry; with them, moreover, a number of 
 Jews driven from Spain had found refuge. In Italy, therefore, 
 the tradition of the Jews of the Iberian peninsula and their 
 splendid achievements lingered to a later age than elsewhere in 
 Europe, with the exception of Turkey. It is only when we bear 
 these facts in mind that we are able to understand the appearance 
 in Italy of a literary phenomenon such as M. H. Luzzatto. a 
 
 1 The first Hebrew poet known to have used rime was the paitan Yajaaj^^g,. 
 700 C. E.). He used as his model the Arabic rimed prose, or rime without 
 ■ meter (sajf. G. Karpeles, "Geschichte der Judischen Literatur," 2te Auflage, 
 V. 1, p. 325. Cf. Nicholson, "A Literary History of the Arabs," p. 74. 
 
4 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 religious philosopher, nay, a Kabbalist 25ct^ excellence, and, at 
 the same time, a poet and dramatist of a modern stamp. For 
 only among the Rabbis of Spain could his prototype be found. 
 Luzzatto, it is true, was influenced in his lyrical dramas by the 
 Italian; in fact, he adapted a couple of dramas from that lan- 
 guage; it is not, however, in the dramatic but in the lyrical 
 element that the importance of his works lies. Luzzatto has, 
 moreover, the merit of having discredited the heavy and arti- 
 ficial Arabic rime and, to a great extent, also the meter,^ under 
 which the Hebrew poets had labored since the days of Dunash 
 Ibn Labrat (tenth century). 
 
 ~ The revival in Hebrew literature, however, began as a move- 
 ment about the middle of the eighteenth century. During his 
 generation, Luzzatto had stood almost alone in his literary 
 endeavors. He did not even have a reading public (it is char- 
 acteristic that his masterpiece "La-Yesharim Tehillah" was 
 published in fifty copies only) ; but the impulse that he had given 
 to modernism in Hebrew bore fruit in the following generation. 
 At this time Germany became the main center of activity. 
 Italy, it is true, still continued to contribute its share to Jewish 
 learning as well as to Hebrew literature. The sonnet, for ex- 
 ample, which originated in Italy, was first introduced into 
 Hebrew by the poets of that country, notably by the Luzzatto 
 family. But Germany now became the center from which there 
 radiated to the Jews influences not only literary but also social 
 and educational. 
 
 Hebrew literature in the German period centered around a 
 monthly called "Meassef " (the Magazine), after which the whole 
 period is named (the period of the Meassefim). The promoters 
 of this magazine, a group of lovers of Hebrew in Koenigsberg and 
 elsewhere in Germany, were the disciples of Moses Mendelssohn, 
 the German- Jewish philosopher and Schoengeist. In those days 
 Europe was dominated by the rationalistic rather than the 
 scientific temper, and cosmopolitan rather than nationalistic 
 tendencies held sway. To the latter fact may, at least partly, 
 
 1 "Leshon Limmudim," the part that is still in manuscript. 
 
 4 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 be attributed Mendelssohn's dictum that the Jews represented^ 
 a religious but not a national body. And these tendencies, to- 
 gether with the precept of their teacher, were introduced into 
 literature by the. Hebrew writers of the time. The latter, more- 
 over, were not quite earnest about their work in Hebrew; they 
 regarded it partly as a pastime, partly as a sort of introduction 
 to the native literature. Hence, the Hebrew literature of the 
 time had no atmosphere of its own and could, therefore, not 
 present any real originality or creativeness, or even temperament 
 and personality. Imbued with the rationalistic spirit, it pos- 
 sessed all the dryness and lack of imagination and emotion 
 characteristic of rationalism; and disregarding the national 
 element, it neglected a living source of inspiration, which might 
 have stood Hebrew poetry in good stead. ^ 
 
 The writers of the Meassefim period were thus too devoid of 
 earnestness to be able to create a great literary movement. They 
 had neither the genius to rise above the level of imitation, nor 
 the refinement of soul of their spiritual leader, Mendelssohn, 
 to create even an ephemeral aesthetic philosophy. The literary 
 heritage that this period left to Hebrew was, therefore, not 
 great; yet it laid its impress upon the productions in that language 
 down to the middle of the nineteenth century, and beyond. This 
 century of Hebrew literature (c. 1750-1850) is generally called 
 the Haskalah period. Strictly speaking, however, it is the first 
 stage of the Haskalah period, in contradistinction from its second 
 stage, which falls during the second half of the nineteenth century 
 and which will be treated at length in the main body of the book. 
 Haskalah connotes enlightenment, education, whence the name 
 Maskilim, the enlightened, illuminati, the votaries of Haskalah. 
 The atmosphere of this period was the same as that of the 
 Meassefim. The spirit was rationalistic and, to say the least, not 
 nationalistic, whereas the literary creations were almost entirely 
 "(devoid of the personal element an d, with v ery few exceptions^ 
 "occasional, perfunctory, ephemeral^ The odor of the salon, of 
 mutual admiration and self-satisfaction, permeates the works of 
 
 1 F. Delitzsch, "Zur Geschichte der juedischen Poesie," Leipzig, 1836, p. 105. 
 
 5 
 
/ 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 the Maskilim, as it does, to some extent, the European literature 
 of the time. As for the rehgious attitude of the Maskilim of this 
 period, though their beliefs as influenced by the German illumi- 
 niati, were tinged with deistic tendencies, yet they did not go 
 out in open warfare against the accepted Jewish ceremonies; but, 
 in this respect, were conciliatory rather than otherwise. This 
 characteristic draws a sharp line of distinction between them 
 and the Maskilim of the second stage of the Haskalah period, 
 whose attitude towards the faith of their people was militant 
 and antagonistic,, "' 
 
 In the first quarter of the nineteenth century the center of 
 activity in Hebrew literature was transferred to Galicia. In 
 Germany, many causes had conspired to effect a divorce between 
 the Hebrew language and Jewry. The economic condition of 
 the latter was probably the main factor in effecting this breach. 
 As big traders and merchants, the Jews of that country, chafing 
 under the pressure of political disabilities, then still prevailing 
 in Germany, found the native language more available than 
 Hebrew for purposes both of commerce and emancipation. 
 Hebrew, therefore, passed away from Germany with the last 
 issue of the Meassef. In Galicia, however, the economic and 
 social position of the Jews was different There they were 
 leading more or less a sedentary Ghetto life, being petty traders 
 and artisans; hence, the necessity for studying the native lan- 
 guage w^as not so strongly felt among them. Moreover, in 
 Galicia, a country of divers tongues, Hebrew could easily hold 
 its own among the Jews. This language, therefore, became a 
 more natural literary expression of the illuminati in this country 
 than it had been in Germany. 
 
 The gains that Hebrew literature made during this subdivision 
 of the Haskalah period were, as above indicated, hardly in the 
 domain of belles-lettres, the novel not yet having been invented 
 and the poem still being dominated by the spirit of the Meassefim. 
 The only progress made was in the so-called Hokmath Yisrael 
 Xlewish Science), which was undoubtedly influenced by Biblical 
 criticism and historical investigation which then came to the 
 
i 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 fore. Among the Jews, however, there was only one man, N. ^ 
 Krochm al, who made an independent and somewhat systematic 
 study of the BibKcal times. For the rest, Jewish Science centered 
 its energy upon the middle ages, a preference to be accounted 
 for by the fact that for the Jew, the pious Jew — the initiator 
 of this study, S. J. Rapoport, and many other scholars en- 
 gaging in it were orthodox Jews — the mediaeval times presented 
 less slippery ground than those of the Bible. 
 
 This age, commonly called the Galician period of Hebrew 
 literature, was by no means confined to Galicia. There, it is 
 true, Hokmath Yisrael was initiated, and there the magazines 
 busying themselves with it were published; but Jewish science 
 had able representatives also in other countries: Germany, 
 Russia, Italy; and as for poetry, the foremost poet of the time, 
 Adam Lebensolyi, was not a Galician but a Russian Jew. 
 
 In R ussia, the Haskalah movement, which was introduced 
 somewhat later than elsewhere, assumed a peculiar character. 
 In other places it was influenced by surrounding circumstances 
 and surrounding cultures; in that country it was hardly touched, 
 at its inception, by the Russian spirit, but was still dominated 
 by that of Germany. Many reasons may be adduced for this 
 cultural phenomenon. In the first place, the Haskalah iij 
 Russia was a continuation of that in Germany. Then, again, 
 German, the parent language of the Jewish vernacular, Yiddish, 
 was more accessible, even to the Russian Jews, than the native 
 "Russian. Finally, as the movement was first introduced into 
 Lithuania, notably Wilna, it could hardly be touched by Russian 
 culture or literature; for these had not yet spread beyond the 
 pale of Russia proper.^ And it was not till about the middle of ^ 
 
 1 Several examples may here be cited in corroboration of this: — (a) The 
 Maskilim in Russia were surnamed by their adversaries, till late in the 19th 
 century, Berlinites, i. e., people permeated by the spirit prevalent in Berlin. 
 {b) Nicholas I, in his endeavors to educate the Jews, employed a German 
 apparatus simultaneously with a Russian. A German Jew, Lilienthal, was 
 entrusted with the task, and in some places the language of the school estab- 
 lished by the government for the Jews, was not Russian but German, (c) The 
 mutual ignorance of each other's life was so great with the Jew and the Russian 
 that the Shylock character, in which the typical and professional rogue is 
 
 7 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE ( 
 
 the nineteenth century, after Russia had taken the lead in 
 Hebrew Hterature, that Russian influences began to tell upon 
 the Haskalah, leading it off on a divergent line. With this 
 "phase, however, we come to the very subject with which this book 
 purports to deal. 
 
 2. THE EVOLUTION OF POST-BIBLICAL HEBREW 
 
 It is difficult to tell in what direction Hebrew might have 
 developed, had its life-thread not been broken some two thousand 
 years ago. Its sister language, Arabic, has separated, since 
 the days of Arabic conquest and the flourishing of Arabic civiliza- 
 tion, into a literary and a vernacular, which are almost as dis- 
 tinctly different from each other as two dialects can be. The 
 linguistic deposits that the successive waves of nationalities had 
 left in Greece since its Byzantine period, had so profoundly 
 affected the language that only with difficulty did it escape, at 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century, becoming a mere 
 daughter language of ancient Greece. And yet Greek and 
 Arabic flourished, declined, and revived again on their native 
 soil, having constantly had the touch of mother earth to renew 
 their failing strength. In the case of Hebrew, which is in the 
 possession of a race widely scattered and of highly assimilative 
 powers, would it not have become a mixture of tongues and 
 dialects as differentiated from each other and from the mother 
 tongue as the Romance or the Germanic languages have become? 
 Even as it is, there has been a marked distinction between the 
 styles of the Hebrew authors living in different countries, where 
 the influence of the various foreign languages is noticeable. 
 
 This is, however, idle speculation. Hebrew did cease to be a 
 living tongue in the sense of everyday use, as far back as the 
 Babylonian exile, remaining down to our own time merely a 
 language of the book. And yet Hebrew has been to the Jews 
 
 represented as a Jew, was again and again repeated in Russian literature in 
 the first half of the nineteenth century, being found even among the noblest 
 of Russian writers: Poushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Turgeniev, for example, — 
 a phenomenon much less frequently to be met with in the second half of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 8 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 more than Latin has been to the learned world. The latter 
 language became colorless with the last Roman; in the post- 
 Roman period, it has never borne the impress of the genius of 
 any nationality — not even in Italy, the habitat of the nearest 
 of kin to the Romans, and not even in the days of the Renaissance, 
 when the greatest enthusiasm for Latin prevailed. Hebrew, on 
 the other hand, has never ceased to receive the impress of the 
 national genius, as it has never ceased to represent it. It is true, 
 that in the course of its history, Hebrew received some telling 
 influences from the outside — a process inevitable in the case of a 
 language that has constantly been in touch with so many and 
 such varied tongues in the diaspora. Yet Hebrew has essentially 
 retained its original and national purity even down to the present 
 time, when, with the expansion of its literature in all directions, 
 the sluices were opened for an inrush of borrowed terms and 
 for the creation of countless neologisms. 
 
 The evolution of post-Biblical Hebrew down to recent times 
 has been going on in stages, each one of which has left its peculiar 
 mark upon the language. There was, in the first place, the 
 Mishnaic-Talmudic-Midrashic literature, which presents a style 
 and terminology quite different from those of Biblical Hebrew. 
 I mention this triple literature in one breath, because it bears, 
 in general, a common character; there is, however, some difference 
 between the individual parts, in contents as well as in linguistic 
 contribution. The Mishna, comprising theologic and juristic 
 decisions, presents a keen contrast, with its dry, precise, and 
 lucid style, to the pregnant, impassioned, and paraphrastic 
 diction of the Bible. But, though recruited to some extent from 
 Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, its neologisms are fundamentally 
 Hebraic. The Talmud and the Midrash, on the other hand, 
 written mainly in the Jewish vernacular of the time, Aramaic, 
 offer a style and terminology that incline towards those of the 
 latter, even where Hebrew holds its own against it. Now, it 
 can not be known how much the colloquial ancient Hebrew 
 contributed to the terminology of this triple literature; certain 
 it is that the wealth of new terms stored up or created in the 
 
 9 
 
 K 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 latter, made possible the manifold development of later Hebrew 
 literature. 
 
 The transition of the Hebrew to the so-called Spanish period 
 was a gain in another direction, in style and vocabulary. For 
 Rabbinics, the Talmudic literature had provided both style and 
 terminology, and for poetry and romance Biblical Hebrew 
 offered a plentiful supply. Not so with philosophy and science, 
 particularly the former. The Biblical and Talmudic styles are 
 anything but philosophic. There is a total absence of philosophic 
 terms, such as have been created by the Greeks, for instance, or 
 even of theologic terms such as we discover in the scholastic , 
 literature. The philosophy of life and the Godhead are treated 
 in the Bible and in the Talmud in images rather than in terms. 
 When, therefore, under the influence of the Arabs, Greek thought 
 and its demand for precision were to be dealt with in Hebrew, 
 there was no escape by circuitous ways, by paraphrase and 
 circumlocution. A philosophic terminology had to be created; 
 and it was created. And if we add to this gain that of the 
 terminology of grammatical science, we will have a conception 
 of the linguistic contributions of that period to Hebrew. 
 
 The space of a few hundred years intervening between the 
 Spanish period and the eighteenth century added hardly any- 
 thing either literary or linguistic to Hebrew; but the gains of 
 the preceding periods provided the latter with a working vocabu- 
 lary for a modern literature, which was to become constantly 
 richer in contents and wider in scope. Not that all the wealth 
 of style and vocabulary created and hoarded up during the 
 preceding ages were exploited right at the beginning of the 
 modern period. On the contrary, the terminology of post- 
 Biblical Hebrew literature was at first rejected as not puristic 
 enough and only that of the Bible was reverted to. Many 
 reasons may be adduced for this return to the original source of 
 the Hebrew. The beginnings of modern Hebrew literature were 
 made by Jewish writers in Germany, where the Talmud was 
 less known and less valued than in other countries. Then, 
 again, the appreciation of the Bible as a work of art having 
 
 10 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 just begun, it was natural for that generation to give the 
 preference to the picturesque BibHcal diction rather than to the 
 unadorned though more precise later Hebrew style. And, so, 
 just as the renaissance in Italy brought with it the cultivation 
 and imitation of the classic Latin, and in France the imitation 
 of the classic Greek (notably Ronsard), in the same way the 
 renaissance in Hebrew literature expressed its admiration of 
 classic Hebrew by the rejection of any word or form not found in 
 the Bible. 
 
 Had the Hebrew literature of that time stood in closer contact 
 with life, this tendency would have been swept away by the 
 demands of reality, which could not be satisfied with the flowery 
 style and the few hundred roots found in the entire treasury of 
 the Bible. And in fact, whenever a scientific subject was dealt 
 with — a grammar, a philosophic work, a book on "Jewish 
 Science" — recourse had to be had to the mediaeval accretions 
 of the Hebrew.^ Literature proper, however, belles-lettres and 
 aUied branches, was not only limited to the Biblical vocabulary, 
 but was stylistically an imitation and, in its greatest part, an 
 abuse, of the style and phraseology of the Bible. The flowery, 
 "Melizah," phrase, a euphemism of peculiar character, half 
 imitation and half distortion of the Biblical verse to suit a 
 certain fanciful meaning, entirely mastered Hebrew literature. 
 
 This condition was, of course, incongruous with the conception 
 of a modern Hebrew literature, and could, therefore, remain 
 unmodified only so long as the latter held aloof from life and 
 confined itself to the abstract. But the further its scope widened 
 and the more frequently it began to deal with live problems, the 
 keener the question arose of the adaptability of Hebrew to 
 
 1 It may here be remarked that the speculative writings in Hebrew were 
 dominated during that time, and till late in the nineteenth century, by the 
 diction of the Spanish-Jewish thinkers. Now, most of the works of these 
 thinkers were originally written in Arabic and only later were they translated 
 into Hebrew. And, as translation had then not yet risen to the height of an 
 art, the versions were so greatly marred by Arabisms as very frequently to 
 obscure the sense. Yet, these solecisms, strange to say, infiltrated themselves 
 even into modern philosophic and historic works, and it was not till recent 
 times that they were entirely eliminated from the Hebrew. 
 
 11 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 modern life and thought. If this language was to become the 
 real and effective mouthpiece of the latter, then it could not 
 remain on the level that history had placed it some two thousand 
 years previously. This fact became clear, for the first time, 
 with the establishment of the first modern Hebrew weekly, 
 "Ha-Maggid," in 1856, and demands for the modernization of 
 the language accordingly became insistent;^ but it was not till 
 much later, under the influence of the national revival, when 
 Hebrew began to develop in Palestine even as a vernacular, 
 that these demands assumed definite form, bringing the language 
 back to the point where it had left off at the end of the Spanish 
 period, and resuming the work of adapting it to modern needs. 
 
 Neo-Hebrew, whether in its literary aspect or as a vernacular, 
 has not gone so far from the original as modern Greek, for 
 instance. The process of development of the Hebrew as a 
 vernacular is too recent for that; and it is always easier to pre- 
 serve the purity of a language in literature than in speech. 
 Yet, it does not require the gift of prophecy to predict that 
 before long ancient Hebrew will disappear under new linguistic 
 layers. Even now. Biblical Hebrew has been almost overlapped 
 by modern creations; so much so that one nursed upon the 
 Haskalah literature will only with difficulty master the present 
 style and vocabulary, unless the thread of development has 
 been closely followed. And what direction Hebrew will take 
 when modern life and culture will be at its height in Palestine 
 can easily be foreseen. 
 
 Neo-Hebrew has developed on the following main lines: The 
 Bible, the original source of Hebrew, has, needless to say, been 
 thoroughly ransacked and fully exploited. The Talmudic litera- 
 ture, too, which forms a really inexhaustible mine for neo-Hebraic 
 purposes, has been resorted to extensively. And the same was 
 the case with the reproductions of the Spanish period. As for 
 new creations in our own time — and their name is legion — there 
 has been, besides the self-reproducing neologisms, a wide choice 
 of general European terms and words from the sister language, 
 
 1 Ha-Maggid, 1861, Nos. 9, 10, 15. 
 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Arabic, with which the Hebrew vocabulary has been recruited. 
 As for the grammatical and idiomatic structure of the sentence, 
 it has essentially remained the same as that of the old Hebrew. 
 Yet many important changes have been affected in this direction, 
 making the language more flexible and bringing it nearer to 
 modern analytic tongues. A few instances may here be given.^ 
 The Hebrew perfect, imperfect, and participle, which were long 
 ago pressed into the service of the past, future, and present 
 respectively, are being more and more strictly adhered to in their 
 latter function, and together with it there has again come into 
 good use the past progressive — the participle with the perfect of 
 the verb hayah (to be) — already employed in the Talmud, under 
 the influence of the Aramaic. The verbal forms of the latter lan- 
 guage, shafel and nithpael, and, less frequently, nithpoel, have 
 been made extensive use of; and, at the same time, verbs found 
 in the Bible, say, in only qal or piel have also been put into the 
 other grammatical forms. Verbs have been constructed from 
 general European terms mostly in the piel, whereas new nouns 
 have been created in accordance with the verbal form in which 
 the root is found in Hebrew. 
 
 From this brief sketch of the development of Hebrew from the 
 time it ceased to be a spoken tongue until it has reappeared in 
 our own time as a vernacular, one may see that it has never 
 been a dead language, in the real sense of the term. It has con- 
 tinued growing and leading some sort of life, however inane this 
 life may have been at times, acting as the mouthpiece of the most 
 characteristic Jewish productions and supplying certain national 
 demands. Moreover, in the long course of its development, it 
 has become more supple and plastic, and thus adaptable to 
 modern usage. As for the future of this language it depends 
 upon the vitality of the Jewish people and upon the measure of 
 cultural independence that the latter will be able to maintain in 
 Palestine and elsewhere. 
 
 1 The reader may be referred in this respect to the excellent work of Dr. Leo 
 Metman: "Die Hebraeische Sprache," Jerusalem, 1904. 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ROMANTICISM, THE CREATION OF THE HEBREW NOVEL 
 
 The middle of the nineteenth century is not merely a con- 
 ventional time-division in the history of Hebrew literature, but 
 is a natural boundary line sharply marking off two distinct 
 literary tendencies and types of literature. Modern Hebrew 
 literature already had had behind it a history of some hundred 
 years, — a history interesting at least as regards the influences it 
 had undergone in the course of its wandering from country to 
 country. But, with the exception of the endeavors of the so- 
 called Jewish Science (Hokmath Yisrael) during the Galician 
 period, modern Hebrew literature could hardly lay claim to any 
 originality or creativeness. It was, in the main, in spirit as well 
 as in form, composed of imitations, generally poor imitations, of 
 the productions of the surrounding European literatures. In 
 spirit, it was deistic, rationalistic, cosmopolitan, of the colorless 
 type tliat prevailed, say, among the German "illuminati" at thg 
 end of the eighteenth century, or among the French writers of 
 the Voltairian school, — minus the revolutionary spirit of the 
 latter. There was in Hebrew literature, and, for that matter, 
 in Hebrew society at large, no truly great ideal, national or even 
 cosmopolitan, towards which to strive, no great passion to stir 
 the emotions, no broad perspective to fire the imagination. The 
 ephemeral, the occasional, the petty, satisfied the Hebrew poet 
 and the writer, and interested the Hebrew reader. Only at rare 
 intervals could you hear a truer, deeper, more original note. 
 
 The middle of the nineteenth century brought a new departure 
 in Hebrew literature. At that time there appeared a volume of 
 poems, small in compass, but of a freshness, originality, and 
 sincerity hitherto unknown, — poems that were for Hebrew what 
 the "Lyrical Ballads" of Wordsworth and Coleridge had been 
 for English literature. The beginning of the fifties, moreover, 
 
 14 
 
ROMANTICISM; CREATION OF THE HEBREW NOVEL 
 
 saw what was of even greater importance: the birth of the 
 Hebrew novel. And this new departure manifested itself not 
 only in the quality but also in the spirit, in the temper, of the 
 new literary productions. The same transformation that had 
 taken place in European literature at the beginning of the 
 century, was now imperceptibly taking place in the Hebrew .-^ 
 In the latter, as in the former, the reaction was against the 
 dryness, the unction, the formality, of the old pseudo classic ' 
 literary spirit, — a reaction that resulted in the so-called Romantic] 
 movement. 
 
 In Hebrew literature, however, this new movement can be 
 termed romantic by courtesy only. It was so symptomatically, 
 but not consciously. The search for the mystico-romantic 
 "blue flower" could hardly become a real passion with the 
 modern, sober-minded Jew. Besides, in Hebrew, romanticism 
 was a belated blossom. It came into the world when even a 
 Hugo was renouncing it in European literature, when Flaubert 
 was already producing his realistic masterpieces, and when the 
 predominance of the "fourth estate" with its real struggles and 
 demands, was being established in politics as well as in literature. 
 Hence, TIcbrew romanticism, in the first place, was of short 
 duration, and, in the second place, assumed a healthier aspects 
 than, let us say, German romanticism. It expressed itself in a. j 
 love for the ancient and the mediaeval, in a religiosity — in the, ^ 
 case of Lebensohn, the poet of the period, — in a greater appreci-^ 
 ation of nature, and in a love for romantic adventure of the 
 kind represented in the works of Eugene Sue. 
 
 The embodiment of romanticism in poetry was Micah Joseph 
 Lebensohn (182S-1852), He was the son of Adam Lebensohn, 
 a sentimental, conventional poet, well known in his day and of 
 considerable influence upon Hebrew poetry. As the son of a 
 Maskil, M. J. Lebensohn enjoyed from his childhood a more 
 thorough secular education than the contemporary Hebrew 
 writers. The transition from the Jewish — the sacred — to the 
 profane mode of thought was, therefore, with him, not accom- 
 
 15 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 panied by the internal struggle and the moral strain that went 
 with the transition of the Maskilim who, in their youth, had 
 been confined to "the four cubits of the Law." Lebensohn thus 
 grew up in a freer atmosphere than they, and he was more sin- 
 cerely and more completely given to the enjoyment of life and 
 its beauties. Hence, we find in his poems, for the first time in 
 modern H ebrew l iterature, sincerely passionate notes of nature 
 and of love. 
 
 The poems of Lebensohn fall into two divisions: historic or 
 '^narrative and purely lyrical poems. The romantic tendency of 
 the poet finds utterance particularly in the former. The back- 
 ground is historic, ancient or mediaeval, and there is manifest 
 in them a religious yearning, which, indeed, pervades almost all 
 his poems, but which is strongest here. The best, longest, and 
 most representative of these poems is "Faith and Knowledge," 
 or, as the exposition to the title runs : " To prove that faith gives 
 man joy during his lifetime and delight even after death, and 
 that knowledge without faith deprives him of both." The poem 
 is composed of "two illustrations" taken from the two tradi- 
 tional or legendary phases of the life of king Solomon: that of 
 Solomon the young man, full of youthful vigor, the lover of 
 Shulamith, and the author of Canticles, and that of Solomon the 
 old man, the pessimistic philosopher and author of Ecclesiastes. 
 In a mystico-romantic fashion Lebensohn connects the youthful 
 optimism of Solomon with religious faith, and the pessimism of 
 his old age with lack of faith, and like the romantic Chateaubriand 
 with his "Genie de Christianisme," Lebensohn thought he had 
 proven with his "Faith and Knowledge" the preference of faith 
 over knowledge and the value of the former for life. What he 
 did prove with this poem, however, was that a poet of great 
 promise was arising in Hebrew literature, — a promise that was, 
 alas, not destined to be fulfilled, as Lebensohn died at the age of 
 twenty-four. For, in spite of the tendency of the poem, and in 
 spite, again, of a certain conventionality of phraseology — the 
 mosaic Biblical style, — and the somewhat conventional stanza — 
 the four-stress quatrain with alternate rime, — in spite of all this, 
 ' "~~ - 16 
 
ROMANTICISM; CREATION OF THE HEBREW NOVEL 
 
 the poem is truly noble, manifesting poetic fire, idyllic beauty, 
 and vividness of erotic emotion which remind one of Keats, with 
 whom, in fact, Lebensohn had much in common. 
 
 The other long poems of Lebensohn do not rise to the height of 
 "Faith and Knowledge," although there are some fine lyric 
 touches in all of them. Yet, the psychologic struggle, in the 
 poem "Joel and Sisera," between the duty of Joel as hostess to 
 Sisera and the fove Tor her people, is superbly depicted. 
 
 The shorter poems of Lebensohn deal generally with personal 
 emotion and sentiment, such as love, appreciation of nature 
 blended with religious reflections, and hope or despair engendered 
 by his own sickly condition. But there are also to be found some 
 poems of more general and non-personal import, among which 
 may be counted "To the Stars," perhaps the most beautiful of, 
 his shorter poems, where he hurls a complaint to the stars against 
 the misery and corruption of our world. The tone of his poems, 
 Kowever, is, in general, by no means pessimistic; on the contrary, 
 the poet clings to life with all the tenacity of which a consumptive 
 is capable. He grasps at the pleasures of life, delights in the 
 beauties of nature, writes very pretty playful little poems on the 
 subject of love; but, at the same time, with the clear conscious- 
 ness of the chill iron grip of death upon him, he curses the spell 
 that the love of this world has cast upon him : 
 
 "Cursed be the love of life forever! 
 Most woful pang of all human sorrow! 
 Soul from body it suffers not to sever, 
 Whisp'ring hopes delusive for the morrow." 
 
 In brief, Lebensohn was no innovator as regards poetic form, 
 style or meter; but, with respect to intrinsic value, he was the \^^ 
 
 first great poet in modern Hebrew literature. He was inspired^ 
 By what is noblest in man and nature, and, in his turn, ser ved as 
 an inspiration to future Hebrewpoets. 
 
 There were at that time also a number of versifiers, the most 
 noted of whom was E. ]\I. Werbel, who wrote a few original 
 
 3 17 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 poems and made some translations from European literature. 
 The poetic value of Werbel's works is, however, slight. His most 
 important poem, " Edim Neemanim," is a narrative based upon 
 the known Talmudic legend of the rat and the well, which were 
 taken as witnesses to an oath of constancy between two lovers 
 accidentally meeting in the wilderness, and which avenged the 
 breaking of the pledge. The subject is, to be sure, romantic 
 enough, and in the hands of a true poet it might have become a 
 real epic; but Werbel could not rise above a dry, though smooth, 
 telling of facts. 
 
 The romantic par excellence was, however, Abraham Mapu 
 (1808-67), who was also the creator of the Hebrew novel. Mapu 
 was born in a small town in Russia and received an education in 
 accordance with traditional Judaism, devoting himself, in 
 particular, to the study of the Talmud. Being, however, of a 
 dreamy nature, he did not find sufficient spiritual food in the 
 dry laws and dialectics of the Halachic part of the Talmud, but 
 was always attracted by the Agadic part, with its fanciful stories 
 and legends. The emotional religious fervor of Hasidism, too, 
 had great fascination for him, and he became attached to it for a 
 time. As for the Kabbalah, its temptation for him lay in its 
 mysteries, which he not only studied deeply, but even attempted 
 to translate into practice. 
 
 With the secular world of letters he became acquainted by 
 mere chance. He accidentally happened upon a Latin version 
 of the Bible, from which he studied that classic tongue, by aid 
 of the Hebrew text; and when he later became proficient in this 
 language and began to study its literature, a new world was 
 opened before him, into which he threw himself with all the 
 plasticity and impressibility of his mind. Thenceforth he took 
 up Russian, German, and French, drinking deep draughts at 
 the fountains of their literatures. And the influence of these 
 literatures was in accord with his temperament. For, with a 
 nature such as his, mild, timid, dreamy, and impressible, he 
 could not but fall under the influence of the fantastic novels of a 
 
 18 
 
ROMANTICISM; CREATION OF THE HEBREW NOVEL 
 
 Eugene Sue rather than of the matter-of-fact stories of a Balzac. 
 Add to this, moreover, the circumstances under which he lived: 
 his being confined to the stifling atmosphere of the Talmudic 
 academy, and to the narrow limits of a small town, with its 
 monotonous, stagnant life, — and it will readily be understood 
 why his creative powers sought an outlet in the romantic, distant 
 past rather than in the petty, uninteresting present of his sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 The literary heritage of Mapu is not large: four novels in all, 
 only three of which are extant. Of the fourth we have but a 
 fragment, the rest having been destroyed in manuscript, through 
 the machinations of his conservative adversaries. Three of these 
 novels deal with historic subjects and one with modern life. 
 "Ahabath Zion" (The Love of Zion) was the first work produced 
 by him. It deals with the times of the prophet Isaiah and of 
 the kings Ahaz and Hezekaiah. Mapu began to write it in 
 1831, but, in his timidity in the face of so great an innovation as 
 the introduction of a new literary species, the novel, into Hebrew 
 literature, he withheld it from the public till 1853. About that 
 time, a bolder spirit, Kalman Schulman, a quasi romantic, pub- 
 Hshed, with great success, a translation of Eugene Sue's "Mys- 
 teries of Paris;" and this daring feat encouraged Mapu to pro- 
 duce his own innovation. 
 
 "Ahabath Zion" created a sensation with the Hebrew reading 
 public, — a sensation due, to be sure, not so much to tlie literary 
 value of the book as to the novelty of the enterprise. For, 
 regarded from the artistic point of view, this novel — and for that 
 matter, all Mapu's novels — has very great defects. There is, 
 for example, no attempt at character drawing. His heroes are 
 not individual ities; nor do they even represent types. They are 
 pimply idealizations, the offspring of the author's fancy: gentlq, 
 kind, of dove-like sweetness and angelic beauty; in short, em± 
 bodiments of virtue and loveliness. Their activities are wholly 
 determined by external circumstances. They themselves are 
 endowed with all the weakness and timidity of the author, are at 
 times rather cowardly, afraid to run in the face of Providence or 
 
 19 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 of society, and prone to seek their ends through intrigue rather 
 than through an open display of courage. In one respect, how- 
 ever, Mapu's heroes are Homeric, in that they are ever ready to 
 weep, whether the occasion call for tears or not. 
 
 All this is generally true of Mapu's virtuous heroes. His 
 villains — ordinarily as misshapen in body as in soul — do show 
 some individuality and strength of character. This fact mani- 
 fests more than anything else the influence of the French romantic 
 novelists of the Eugene Sue type, in whose novels, as in those of 
 Mapu, we admire the rogues more than the namby-pamby, 
 washed-out heroes. Take, for example, Reumah, one of the 
 characters in Mapu's second historical novel, "Ashmath- 
 Shomeron" (The Guilt of Samaria), a sort of depraved Joan of 
 Arc, of the kingdom of Ephraim, who is the daughter of a prof- 
 ligate mother and of Zichri, "the hero of Ephraim," the proto- 
 type of the cruel, corrupt mediaeval robber-knight. The author 
 designed to embody in this heroine the cruelty of her father as 
 well as the depravity of her mother. Yet, Reumah is not 
 entirely unsympathetic. It is true that she is the rallying point 
 of the wild orgies in Ephraim; but she is, at the same time, the 
 object of inspiration for the Ephraimitish young men in honest 
 warfare, and though violent in love, she is constant. Similarly 
 Mapu's other rogues, though more villainous than the one 
 ( described above, are imposing at least with their strenuous 
 wickedness. 
 
 • / The native powers of Mapu, then, lie not in character drawing, 
 / but rather in his plot and in the charm of his story telling. This 
 L charm arises from a naivity, from an innocent, firm belief in the 
 final victory of good over evil, — and in it, as well as in a successful 
 imitation of the picturesqueness, though not of the strength, of 
 the Isaianic style, lies his success. All this is particularly true 
 of the first novel of Mapu, "Ahabath Zion." Here, the plot is 
 simple and smooth, and it runs swiftly along, carrying the 
 interest of the reader with it. Yet, even in this story there are 
 some unfilled gaps and a number of questionable knots in the 
 weaving of the plot. This defect is still more apparent in his 
 
 20 
 
/■ '6 , _ 
 
 ROMANTICISM; CREATION OF THE HEBREW NOVEL ^>^^ 
 
 longer novels: "Ashmath Shomeron" (two parts) and "Ayit 
 Zabiia" (five parts).. Here, especially in the latter, the thread of 
 the story is much more of a tangle than in " Ahabath Zion." The 
 intricacies of the plot, though skillfully formed, are rather hard^ 
 to follow; and the same is true of their unravelling in the denoue- _ 
 ment, — where the discrepancies are more apparent in these two 
 novels than in his first book. Some unnecessary incidents are 
 conjured up for no other reason apparently than to lend more 
 complication to the incidents, and interstices are often left open, 
 because the heroes do not possess the strength to carry their 
 decisions into action. Mapu, in his romantic zeal, moreover, 
 sometimes overdraws the situation . Placing the scenes of 
 activity of his first two novels in Palestine, during the decadence 
 of the northern kingdom, Ephraim, he contrasts the life of the 
 Judeans with that of the Ephraimites, painting the former in the 
 most ideal and the latter in the darkest colors. Zion, or, more 
 specifically, Jerusalem, is for ]\Iapu an enchanted Camelot, 
 where the people, at least, the aristocracy, are knights sans peur 
 et sans reproche; and if there chance to be a plotter or rogue 
 among them, he generally hails from Samaria. Ephraim, on 
 the other hand, is represented in all that drunkenness and vile 
 corruption, against which the prophet Isaiah launches his most 
 effective denunciations. 
 
 The tendencies and ideas represented ii^Magu's novels^^yjg 
 rather conservative. The heroes are usualb^orn into the aris- 
 tocracy — the nobility or the money-aristocracy, — with whom he 
 'sympathizes more than with the masses. In general, his romap- v 
 ticism is not of the revolutionary, Byronic, type. Neither is u 
 it pessimistic of the type of Leopardi, or mystical of the Ger- 
 man type. He was too gentle for the first kind and too much 
 of a modern Jew for the other two, — his indulgence in the 
 Kabbalah being merely a youthful vagary. His was rather a 
 romanticism of the type of the "Lake School" poets: dreamy 
 idyllic, quietistic, — indulging in the vague rather than in the 
 "mystip. To these characteristics is due the fact that Map 
 heroes always yearn for the _ciuie t to be found in the bosom of 
 
 21 
 
 :he \ 
 u's J 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 natujg. This longing stands in sharp contrast to the stirring 
 incidents and vicissitudes which they undergo, — incidents in 
 which, it is true, they play rather a passive part. It is natural, 
 therefore, that we find in his novels some fine romantic descrip- 
 tions of nature, coupled with praise and admiration for idyllic 
 life. 
 
 These characteristics are, to a greater or lesser degree, true of 
 all Mapu's novels. In "Ayit Zabua" (The Painted Hawk), 
 however, a story of modern life, we find ourselves in a different 
 atmosphere from that of his other two novels, aside from the fact 
 that the latter represent a different mode of life. The publi-_ 
 cation of "Ayit Zabua" falls in a new period in the life of eastern 
 7ewry and Hebrew literature,— a period that will be dealt with 
 at length in a future chapter. Here, it may be said in brief, 
 that the tendencies of the new period were those of the Haskalah 
 movement in its second stage. At that time the demand for 
 religious reforms became loud and the struggle acute between 
 old beliefs and a modern interpretation of religion. And these 
 tendencies are reflected in ]Mapu's novel of modern times, "Ayit 
 Zabua." Traces of this conflict may be found, to be sure, even 
 in his historic novels. Zimri, in " Ahabath Zion," for example, is 
 a type of hypocrite later developed by Mapu in Rabbi Zadok, the 
 villain of "Ayit Zabua," and the false Ephraimite prophet in 
 " Ashmath Shomeron" is an earlier version of the wonder-worker 
 of the nineteenth century. But it is in "Ayit Zabua" that 
 we find ourselves right in the midst of the struggle. Upon re- 
 ligious reforms as such, Mapu, indeed, touches only off-handedly; 
 but the atmosphere of the novel is militant. The hypocrites, 
 that is to say, the extreme orthodox, are arrayed in battle against 
 the enlightened, the Maskilim, the religious reformers, — with the 
 natural result — natural from the point of view of Mapu — that 
 the latter ultimately carry off the victory. 
 
 Such is Mapu the romantic and the father of the Hebrew novel. 
 He is no creator of character; nor is his plot flawless. His suc- 
 cess lies in the charm of his story telling rather than in the 
 logical sequence of events. By dint of this and by his successful 
 
 22 
 
ROMANTICISM; CREATION OF THE HEBREW NOVEL 
 
 application of Biblical phraseology to his subject^ he exerted 
 considerable influence upon the further development of Hebrew 
 hterature; and by reason of this charm his "Ahabath Zion." 
 became a classic read with delight by old and young even in our 
 own time. 
 
 23 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SECOND STAGE OF THE HASKALAH MOVEMENT 
 
 1. The Movement; the Newspaper and the Magazine 
 
 The romantic movement in Hebrew literature, for the reasons 
 given above, was incidental and of short duration. Besides the 
 two representatives discussed in the preceding chapter, very few 
 writers tried their hand at the romantic poem or sto^y. Thence- 
 forth, from about 1860 to 1880, roughly speaking, Hebrew 
 literature resumed its old Haskalah tradition, though on a di- 
 vergent line, subjecting to its tendencies the newly acquired 
 literary domain, the novel, as well as the poem and the newspaper. 
 What was the new departure in the Haskalah movement? In 
 its first stage the sentiment of the Maskilim had, to a great 
 pxtent, been purely educational. The Haskalah had concerned 
 itself with the mind rather than with the life of the Jew. It had 
 "Hbeen an idea, not a passion. Now, all this was changed. The 
 Haskalah movement became a passionate advocate in behalf of 
 Jewish life and Jewish reality. Moreover,— and this was the 
 main feature of the new stage of the movement — the attitude 
 towards Jewish religion, which before had been conciliatory, 
 now became threatening. Demands were put forward for 
 religious reforms, such as it was impossible for the orthodox Jew 
 to grant. A conflict was, therefore, inevitable. 
 
 The cause of this new drift in the movement is to be sought not 
 
 so much in the inherent character of the latter as in the new 
 
 # influence by which it was now swayed. Previously — since the 
 
 / Haskalah originally hailed from Berlin — it had stood under the 
 
 I influence of German literature, where the opposition to the 
 
 I existing social, religious, and political institutions had not been 
 
 ^^o pronounced as in later Russian literature. Now, however, 
 
 it was the turn of the latter to bring some of its ideas to bear upon 
 
 the Haskalah and Hebrew literature. The greatest impulse to 
 
 the introduction of Russian ideas into the Pale was given by 
 
 24 
 
 > 
 
THE SECOND STAGE OF THE HASKALAH MOVEMENT 
 
 the educational opportunities offered to the Jews by Alexander II. 
 Some endeavors in this direction had indeed been made by 
 Nicholas I, who had established secular schools for the Jews in 
 many large centers. But, as these efforts on his part had been 
 in glaring contrast to his political attitude towards the Jews, 
 they had not met with success, being regarded with suspicion as 
 an expression of sinister intentions. Yet, the way had been pre- 
 pared; and when the more magnanimous Alexander II threw 
 open the doors of the high schools and the universities to the 
 Jewish people, the latter took ample advantage of this liberality 
 and flocked thither with that fervidness and thirst for knowledge, 
 which have always been characteristic of the race. In this 
 manner, the Jews came into closer contact with Russian life, 
 Russian culture, Russian ideas and literature. What wonder, 
 therefore, that Russian influences now began to assert themselves 
 in Hebrew life and letters? 
 
 What was the condition of Russian literature at that time? 
 Russia had just passed through a period of literary reaction, 
 which had ended with the death of Nicholas I, and was strikin g 
 out in an entirely different direction. Writers such as Herzen, j 
 Pisarev, Dobrolubov, Tschernishefsky, Turgeniev, Dostoyevsky I 
 (in his first years), and Tolstoy were laying their impress upon it 
 and were leading it on the path of radicalism. And this radi- 
 calism did not express itself in mere revolutionary ideas. It 
 was — particularly in the case of the critics Pisarev and Tschernis- 
 hefsky — of a coarser fibre. It constituted what is popularly 
 known as nihilism and became, from the point of view of litera- 
 ture, a gross materialism, which discouraged poetic activities 
 and which esteemed, let us say, Biichner's "Force and Matter" 
 far above the creations of a Poushkin. 
 
 Among the Russians themselves, this spirit penetrated every 
 phase of life: social, religious, and political. It is true that 
 political conditions were of a nature such as to curb any open 
 attack upon the established order; but the revolutionary spirit 
 asserted itself in spite of all restraint and persecution, cropping 
 out through every crevice and cranny in life and in literature. 
 
 25 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 When its influence reached the Jewish Pale, however, it found 
 but one native element which it could combat and upon which 
 it could force reforms — religion. For, as the political and 
 economic, and, in a measure, even the social, life of the Jews was 
 being created for them by an external force, to fight against which 
 within the enclosures of the Ghetto would have been like trying 
 to sail on dry land, there remained only the religious life that 
 was of their own making and that they could fashion at their will. 
 Moreover, the whole matter rested upon a somewhat mistaken 
 conception of Judaism, For, at that time, Judaism was not yet 
 variedly interpreted and differentiated, into nationalism and 
 religion, two factors working independently of each other, but 
 was confined within the circumscribed limits of religion, with 
 which Jewish life and Jewish reality were inseparably connected . 
 Reforms in Jewish religion, therefore, meant for the radical 
 « reforms in Jewish life. And more than this. The Maskil, the 
 Jewish liberal, labored under the false assumption that it was 
 the Jewish customs, the religious beliefs or misbeliefs, which 
 stood as a barrier between the Jew and the non-Jew, between the 
 Jew and his own happiness. Hence the zeal of the Maskil for 
 religious reforms. 
 
 This religious struggle was taken up particularly by the 
 Hebrew wing of the Maskilim, the Hebrew writers and their 
 adherents, those who had enjoyed a more or less thorough Hebrew 
 education. The Russo-Jewish wing, the professionals, the 
 graduates of Russian universities, had another mission before 
 them,— supplementary to that of the Hebrew wing: to present a 
 bold front to the external enemy and to rouse public opinion 
 against Jewish disabilities, for which purpose they established 
 Russo-Jewish new^spapers and created a considerable Russo- 
 Jewish literature. Now and then, to be sure, there would take 
 place, on their part too, some skirmishing in behalf of religious 
 reforms ; but this would happen rather in order to pay tribute to 
 the spirit of the time than as a matter of real necessity, — for 
 the Russo-Jewish readers had long before departed from tradi- 
 tional Judaism, in the strict sense of the word. 
 
 26 
 
THE SECOND STAGE OF THE HASKALAH MOVEMENT 
 
 This zeal for religious reform evinced by the intellectuals was, 
 however, by no means shared by the masses. In the first place, 
 both the Hebrew and the Russo-Jewish wings spoke in languages 
 not understood by the people at large. Then, again, their 
 tendencies were of too negative a character to be attractive to 
 "^"he latter; for though they were of service to Judaism by curbing., 
 superstition and making a breach in the Ghetto wall to admits 
 some fresh air from without, yet they did not offer the key they 
 had promised to the solution of the Jewish problem. The 
 Maskilim, therefore, did not get a large following from among the 
 masses; but, on the contrary, provoked their antagonism. As a 
 consequence, Jewish society was divided into two antagonistic 
 camps. There were, on the one hand, the Maskilim, who formed 
 the Jewish aristocracy, distinguished from the masses both in 
 outward appearance and in psychology, vain, superficial, ration- 
 alistic in ideas and often loose in morals, inclined towards assimi- 
 lation ; idealistic and with missionary zeal in their youthful days, 
 but cynical, selfish, indifferent to Jewish affairs — an indifference 
 tantamount at times to actual Jew-hatred — when youthful 
 idealism had evaporated. On the other hand, there was the 
 bulk of the Jewish people, clinging to ancient traditions, fanatic, 
 superstitious, opposed to any innovation, looking at the Maskilim 
 with suspicion, and persecuting them whenever possible. 
 
 This was the atmosphere that surrounded Hebrew literature, 
 and these were the influences and tendencies by which it was 
 swayed during the second stage of the Haskalah period. 
 
 Under these circumstances, when Hebrew literature was getting 
 a hold upon Jewish life and Jewish reality, it was natural for the 
 newspaper and the magazine to begin playing a role in Hebrew 
 literature, gradually occupying the place of the quasi-scientific, 
 quasi-literary magazine of the first stage of the Haskalah period. 
 Thus in 185G there was established the first Hebrew weekly^^ 
 '*Ha-Maggid." Its place of publication, it is true, was Lyck, 
 Austria; but it was merely a literary makeshift on the part of 
 Silberman, the editor, who, though a Russian Maskil, established 
 
 ■ 27 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 the newspaper abroad, because of the difficulties met with in 
 Russia in a new undertaking of the kind. He counted, however, 
 upon Russian Jewry as his main support, and the Maskilim of 
 that country, on their part, regarded the " Ha-Maggid " as their 
 own organ. 
 
 The standard of the Ha-Maggid, both as a newspaper and as a 
 Hterary magazine, was by no means high. Silberman himself 
 was a mere literary upstart, who had neither the knowledge nor 
 the literary ability for the undertaking. And these defects were 
 stamped upon the features of the newspaper. It hardly offered 
 a trace of the "leader," or editorial, in its columns; it took up no 
 live topic to discuss, — and it never uttered a cry of revolt against 
 the grinding oppression of the Jews in Russia or elsewhere. Its 
 main features as a newspaper were the items of news and corre- 
 spondences. Otherwise, its contents were similar to those of 
 the magazine of the previous period: poems of occasion, notes 
 on Biblical exegesis, and quasi-scientific treatises. Moreover, 
 the Hebrew style of the " Ha-Maggid " was generally cramped, 
 stilted, and ungrammatical. Yet the paper was received by 
 the Maskilim with enthusiasm, for it was, after all, the first 
 newspaper in Hebrew; and, as Silberman possessed the energy 
 and force of will to continue its publication under conditions 
 however unfavorable, there gradually rallied about him some 
 of the ablest writers of the time, who finally succeeded in giving 
 it the semblance of a real newspaper. 
 
 The "Ha-Maggid" published abroad could, however, not for 
 long satisfy the demands of the Russian Hebraists, among whom 
 life was becoming tenser and more effervescent. Accordingly, 
 there sprang up, during 1860-62, three Hebrew weeklies in 
 Russia itself: "Ha-Karmel," "Ha-Zefirah," and "Ha-Mehz." 
 The " Ha-Karmel," published in Wilna, "the Lithuanian Jerusa- 
 lem," which was then a nest of the Maskilim of the older stamp, 
 was edited by Samuel Joseph Fuenn. Fuenn was a Maecenas of 
 Hebrew literature, a well known scholar and the author of several 
 works, the most important of which are: "Ha-Ozar" (1884), 
 an encyclopedic Hebrew dictionary, and a history of the Jews, 
 
 28 
 
THE SECOND STAGE OF THE HASKALAH MOVEMENT 
 
 in two volumes, the spirit of which is traditional-rationahstic 
 and the arrangement a medley. The " Ha-Karmel " was an im- 
 provement upon the " Ha-Maggid." Its Hebrew was more cor-- 
 rect, the news more interesting, and the material more taste- 
 fully arranged; yet as a newspaper it did not stand on a much 
 higher plane than the latter. 
 
 Nor did the " Ha-Zefirah " rise to a much higher level. This 
 weekly was established in Warsaw, in 1862, by H. S. Slonimsky. 
 It was discontinued after an existence of some six months, reap- 
 peared in Berlin twelve years later and from there was transferred 
 back to Warsaw. Slonimsky was less of a Hebrew scholar than 
 Fuenn; but, on the other hand, he was a mathematician and an as- 
 tronomer of originality and inventiveness, who was famed as such 
 not only in Hebrew circles, but also in the non- Jewish world. Ac- 
 cordingly, the " Ha-Zefirah," while under his editorship (1862-80), 
 became a popular scientific newspaper, — but not much more. 
 
 All these weeklies, though distinctly to be classed among the 
 products of the new phase of the Haskalah period, still repre- 
 sented in essence the spirit of the old stage. Neither the dis- 
 heartening relation of the outside world to the Jewish people, 
 nor the internal religious conflict that was just arising in Jewry, 
 were reflected, to a sufficient extent, in these newspapers. The 
 first Hebrew weekly that really approached the standard of a 
 modern newspaper and, at the same time, represented the spirit 
 of the age of the Haskalah, was the "Ha-Meliz," established in 
 1860 in Odessa, by Alexander Zederbaum and Goldenblum. The 
 former, who was the editor in chief, was neither a Hebrew scholar 
 like Fuenn nor a man of science like Slonimsky; but he was more 
 a man of the world than either, and was, besides, endowed with 
 marked energy, good common sense, and earnestness of purpose. 
 With these qualities he not only succeeded in making the " Ha- 
 Meliz " a respectable newspaper, expressing the spirit of that age, 
 but he was versatile enough to grasp the new situation brought 
 about, after 1880, by the revival period — to be treated in a sub- 
 sequent chapter — in Russian Jewry, and make his newspaper the 
 organ of the new movement. 
 
 29 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 As to the tendency of the " Ha-Meliz," its title is indicative 
 enough and Hkewise characteristic of the age: "The Ha-MeHz 
 (interpreter) between the People and the Government and 
 between Rehgion and Enhghtenment." And the newspaper 
 really carried out its program. "An intermediary between re- 
 ligion and enlightenment," — that was really a euphemism for 
 "partisan of religious reforms." Hence it became the center of 
 the Haskalah conflict. As for it becoming an interpreter between 
 the Jewish people and the government, its attitude towards the 
 latter was much more flattering than towards the former. And 
 for good reason. The Maskilim believed that the educational 
 opportunities then granted to the Jews in Russia were the begin- 
 I nings of their ultimate emancipation. Hence, the policy of 
 / being "quieter than water and lower than grass" — as the Russian 
 / saying goes — that the Jewish press of the time assumed in respect 
 I to Jewish oppression, and hence the flattering, nay the fawning, 
 1^ attitude towards the government. 
 
 Besides these weeklies, there were also a few Hebrew monthlies, 
 which embraced the cause of the Haskalah. "He-Haluz" 
 (1866-1889) was edited by J. H. Shorr. Being a Galician Jew, 
 the editor was loyal to the traditions of the Maskilim of his 
 country, the creators of the so-called "Jewish Science," in that 
 he allotted a liberal space in his magazine to this "Hokmath 
 Yisrael." He outstripped them, however, in historic investi- 
 gation; for, whereas they handled the Scriptures and other sacred 
 books with all deference and veneration, he, on the contrary, 
 introduced higher Biblical and Talmudic criticism into the 
 Hebrew, a thing unheard of until then in that literature. He 
 engaged in this criticism, however, not merely with the intention 
 of furthering science, but also with a view to religious reform, 
 contributing his share to the latter by the verve and gusto with 
 which he attacked his subject as well as by his merciless over- 
 hauling of the sacred texts. 
 
 "The Ha-Shahar," another and more successful monthly, was 
 edited and published in Vienna during the years 1876-88, by 
 
 30 
 
THE SECOND STAGE OF THE HASKALAH MOVEMENT 
 
 Perez Smolenskin. Around this magazine there rallied a group 
 of the ablest writers of the age, bearing aloft the standard of the 
 Haskalah, — writers such as the philosophico-scientific Solomon 
 Rubin, the greatest Hebrew poet of the time, Judah Loeb Gordon, 
 the short story writer, M. D. Brandstaedter, the publicist, M. L. 
 Lilienblum, and the like. These men came, each with his pecu- 
 liar Haskalah weapon, to launch attack after attack upon super- 
 stition and ultra-orthodoxy. The " Ha-Shahar " thus became 
 ^e oracle of the Maskilim, eclipsing in influence all the other 
 Hebrew newspapers and magazines of the time. 
 
 The " Ha-Shahar " was, however, not merely a Haskalah peri- 
 odical. Its collaborators, it is true, were given a free hand to 
 preach a revision of the religious customs and laws, but the editor, 
 Smolenskin, himself had a more positive ideal to impart to his 
 readers. He was a person of fiery temperament, thorough 
 idealism, and indomitable energy, and, besides, he possessed, 
 to an extent unequalled among the other writers, a passionate 
 devotion to his people and to Hebrew literature. And all this 
 was mirrored in the "Ha-Shahar." In this periodical the editor 
 surprised the ]\Taskilim by denouncing the Haskalah that hailed 
 from Berlin, particularly that phase of it which, consciously or 
 unconsciously, countenanced assimilation. He, moreover, car- 
 ried on a vigorous propaganda for Jewish nationalism, the 
 revival of Hebrew, and, later, for the rehabilitation of Palestine. 
 These characteristics mark both Smolenskin and the " Ha-Sha- 
 har " as forerunners of the revival period in Jewry, by dint of 
 which they exerted a tremendous influence on Hebrew literature. 
 
 Partly in zeal for the Berlin Haskalah, but mainly, it seems, 
 from more personal motives^ Gottlober, a versifier greatly admired 
 in his day, estabhshed the monthly ''Ha-Boker Or" (1876-86), 
 m opposition to the "Ha-Shahar." The "Ha-Boker Or" dis- 
 played neither the critical acumen of the " He-Haluz " nor the fire 
 and earnestness of the " Ha-Shahar." It succeeded, however, 
 in gathering about itself a group of able writers, admirers, and 
 adherents, and it exerted some influence upon its generation. 
 
 31 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 FICTION DURING THE SECOND STAGE OF THE HASKALAH 
 PERIOD; LITERARY CRITICISM 
 
 1. The Novel and the Short Story 
 
 The Haskalah novel proper really begins with "Ayit Zabua" 
 r (1860), a story by A. Mapu. The creator of the Hebrew novel 
 Vwas also the first to introduce into it the Haskalah conflict. 
 TKe story form for Haskalah purposes was, however, employed 
 before that time by Isaac Erter (1792-1851), a Galician physician. 
 Erter wrote a few combative essays in the form of fantastic 
 stories, which were collected after his death and republished in 
 one volume under the title "Ha-Zofeh LeBeth Yisrael" (1858). 
 The historic relation of the " Ha-Zofeh," or, rather, the various 
 stories in it, to the Hebrew novel is similar to that of " Sir Roger 
 de Coverley" to the English novel, with this difference that the 
 "Ha-Zofeh" is more fantastic than "Sir Roger." "Gilgul Nefesh" 
 may serve as the most illustrative example of the book. It is 
 the autobiography of a soul in process of transmigration for 
 several hundred years, and is a criticism of every phase of Jewish 
 public life, particularly the life and institutions of the Hasidim, 
 those scapegoats of the Haskalah literature. The spirit is here 
 rationalistic of the Voltairian kind, and there is no appreciation 
 of the poetry and the deeper religious sentiment of Hasidism. 
 'T3ut the humor is exquisite and the description of the various 
 transitions of the soul from body to body, human and beastly 
 alternately, shows art and imagination. The reception accorded 
 the " Ha-Zafeh " was indeed so favorable, that it was eventually 
 canonized among the classics of Hebrew literature. 
 
 To return to Mapu's "Painted Hawk." It may here be 
 added, to the account given of it in the first chapter, that in this 
 story are found the faults of Mapu's historic novels without their 
 merits. In the " Painted Hawk," the Biblical inspiration, for 
 which Mapu was so well adapted by his gentle and romantic 
 nature, was no longer at work. He now had to draw largely upon 
 
 32 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 his own resources; and as there was an inherent weakness and 
 helplessness about his personality, he imparted these tempera- 
 mental defects to his heroes and to the story as a whole. The 
 plot, though developed rather skillfully, is not marked by any 
 action worthy of the name; and in the end the situation is saved 
 by a deus ex machina in the form of a rich uncle, who bequeathes 
 to his heroes a goodly sum, sufficient to live "happily for ever 
 after." And for all these faults we are no longer compensated 
 by the Biblical charm which generally radiates from Mapu' 
 other works. Furthermore, even his Hebrew style loses in this 
 novel a great deal of its beauty. Dealing with a modern subject, 
 the author makes an attempt at modernizing also his style, em- 
 ploying, though very sparingly, some neo-Hebraic terms and 
 expressions, — with the result that his Hebrew forfeits much 
 of its pristine picturesqueness, without gaining in precision. 
 On the same level with "Ayit Zabua " (The Painted Hawk), 
 ly place "Ha-Aboth WeHa-Banim" (Fathers and Children, 
 I&y S. J. Abramovitz. The title was probably suggested 
 !^rgeniev's novel of the same name, with which, however, 
 it has nothing in common, except that in both novels there is 
 portrayed the difference between the old generation and the 
 new. This story does not as yet betray the genius of the author, 
 Abramovitz, who was later to become the great story writer 
 of the Yiddish and Hebrew literatures. It lacks the broad 
 human sympathies that we find in his later works. The atmo- 
 sphere is entirely that of the Haskalah: the old generation, the 
 pious, is foolish and brutish; the young generation, the repre- 
 sentative of the Haskalah views and tendencies, is idealized and 
 "painted in glowing colors. The style of this novel is still that of 
 the age of the Haskalah. There is no trace of the exuberance, 
 the suggestiveness, and the humor — due to stylistic combi- 
 nation — ^that are to be found in his later works, but use is still 
 made of the conventional Melizah, or mosaic style characteristic 
 of the period. Yet, even in this story, we find, now and then, a 
 Hebraized Yiddish colloquialism, a conceit that he later de- 
 veloped very successfully. There is, moreover, an attempt at 
 4 33 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 observation and description of nature, a thing sadly wanting in 
 most of the other Haskalah works. In one more particular, 
 however, Abramovitz here distinguishes himself from the other 
 Maskilim: they were generally aristocratic in their inclinations; 
 ^ he extends his sympathies towards the uneducated masses. He 
 believes that they should be provided with works presenting 
 their own humble life and written in their own language, Yiddish . 
 Abramovitz, therefore, suiting his action to his words, soon 
 abandoned Hebrew for Yiddish literature, returning to the 
 former only after it had acquired some measure of popularity 
 among the masses. 
 
 These novels, and a few others of the kind, were, however, 
 merely transitional. They represented, it is true, the Haskalah 
 tendencies; but the Haskalah conflict with religion was not yet 
 so clearly pronounced in them. This conflict attained its fullest 
 expression in the novel "Ha-Dath WeHa-Hayyim/' (Religion and 
 Life, 1876), by R. A. Braudes. According to the original plan 
 of the author, the story was to consist of five parts, but only 
 three of these were ever published. Of these three parts, the 
 first two alone are important for our purpose, having been 
 written during the most exciting days of the Haskalah. In 
 this work all the combustible material of the conflict was gathered 
 together and set ablaze, and in it all the faults and the merits of 
 the period can be discovered. Yet the story has some praise- 
 worthy features of its own. 
 
 To a Jew of our own age, to whom religion has become a matter 
 of mere personal belief, which does not interfere with his com- 
 munal interests, the motive of " Ha-Dath WeHa-Hayyim " would 
 seem flimsy enough; but at that time, the questions this author 
 raised were of vital importance, at least, so they seemed to the 
 Maskilim. These questions hinge upon the minutiae of the 
 Jewish Law. The author, it is true, is leading up, in the course 
 of the story, to more essential religious issues; but the novel 
 breaks off before reaching the more interesting struggle, probably 
 by reason of the inability of the author to cope with a more 
 strenuous situation. 
 
 34 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 With all this, however, there is certainly a great advance in this 1 
 novel over, say, Mapu's " Painted Hawk," both [in construction and 
 in characterization. Though incident and tendency are welded 
 together, yet the plot is by no means flimsy, as one would expect 
 *n a novel of purpose, — both elements being harmoniously pro- 
 portional. The plot is smooth, rational, and carries one along 
 agreeably. In characterization, it is true, the novel is not so 
 felicitous. The chief hero, Samuel, despite the author's assurance 
 that he is the future Jewish Luther, is not quite convincing. 
 Neither is he strong enough nor has he knowledge enough for an 
 intellectual religious reformer. Yet, even he presents some fine 
 psychologic moments. Witness, for example, the militant scene 
 in the synagog, between Samuel and the Rabbi, when the former 
 suddenly breaks down on hearing the Rabbi's decision no longer 
 to admit him to his house, which for Samuel meant a separation 
 between him and his beloved, the stepdaughter of the Rabbi. 
 Or, again, notice the internal struggle that Samuel experiences at 
 the discovery that this same sweetheart of his is a matter-of-fact, 
 materialistic girl, who has no sympathy with his reform tenden- 
 cies, — and then his final rejection of her. It is to be remarked 
 that Braudes always brings about a separation between two 
 lovers whose affection depends more upon externals than upon 
 affinity of soul, though, curiously enough, he argues both by 
 word and by example, that it is possible for two people to be 
 close friends, even though they widely differ in temperament as 
 well as in ideas. 
 
 If Braudes did not depict a really great hero in Samuel, he 
 rose, on the other hand, to some artistic height in his minor 
 _characters. Take, for example, the Talmudic student, "The 
 Birzian," with his fickleness and his numerous amours, who 
 ridicules Samuel for the depth of his love, but who finally him- 
 self falls a victim to a serious love affair. Then, again, there is 
 the old-fashioned schoolmaster, with his constantly exposed chest 
 and uncouth manners, whose open-heartedness, passionate and 
 pedantic seeking after truth, and tribulation of mind at finding 
 himself influenced by Samuel's eloquent appeal for religious 
 
 35 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 reforms, lend him an individuality such as Braudes has seldom, 
 if ever, succeeded in bestowing upon any of his other characters. 
 These and a few more minor characters are worthy of the pen of 
 a great master. 
 
 All this is true of the first two parts of the novel. The third 
 part, written several years later, during the twilight of the 
 Haskalah period, bears a relation to them akin to that borne by 
 the second part of Faust to the first. It gives the impression of 
 an afterthought. In the first two parts there is atmosphere, fer- 
 vor, movement; there is very little of all this in the third. Here, 
 the plot is shaky, the movement imperceptible, and the chief 
 hero, Samuel, is settling down to the life of an inactive lover. 
 He becomes the sedate school teacher of a small town, with a 
 touch of vague Socialistic tendencies about him. In short, 
 when we speak of "Ha-Dath WeHa-Hayyim " and its place in 
 Hebrew literature, we mean merely the first two parts of the 
 novel. 
 
 Braudes wrote several other stories, some of which are almost 
 as important from the literary-historic point of view as his 
 "Ha-Dath WeHa-Hayyim," though artistically they are inferior 
 to the latter. Two of these novels are to be mentioned in this 
 place as representing two stages in the history of Hebrew litera- 
 ture different from the Haskalah period: "The Extremes" 
 (1886) and " Whence and Whither " (1891) . The former pictures 
 two contrasting phases of Jewish life, that of the large city, 
 with its hollowness and polished superficialities, and that of the 
 small country town, rugged and uncouth externally, but serene 
 in its quietude, sincere in piety, and pure in family life. The 
 gist of the story is as follows: an inhabitant of a small town, 
 Hezron, a Hasid of poetic temperament, a husband and father, 
 comes to Odessa and is immediately charmed by its life and 
 superficial splendor, including a pretty girl of rather colorless 
 character, in whose meshes he becomes entangled. This girl's 
 brother, who is somewhat of a rake, and who has enjoyed the 
 life of the large city to satiety and is now tired of it, makes his 
 abode, for a time, in the very town from which his sister's lover 
 
 36 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 hails, and is enchanted by the primitive quaUties of the place, 
 plus the charms of an innocent beautiful country girl, the sister- 
 in-law of Hezron. 
 
 The plot, as may easily be seen, is a tangle engendered in the 
 mind of the author rather than a mesh of incidents woven by 
 the fates. It is true, that, given the atmosphere of "The 
 Extremes," people might act in a manner similar to that of the 
 heroes in this novel; but the plot as a whole gives one the im- 
 pression of being forced. In the denouement the author does 
 rise to some psychologic height, especially while extricating the 
 two main heroes from their difficulties. But, whereas a great 
 master would here have found scope for a pure tragedy or 
 comedy, Braudes introduces a deus ex machina in the person 
 of a grandfather, who cuts the Gordian knot and brings about a 
 final disentanglement. As to characterization, there is hardly 
 any worthy of the name. The heroes and heroines are colorless, 
 weak, helpless, and weepers to the extent of making the story a 
 comedie larmoyanie. 
 
 The artistic significance of "The Extremes" is thus not great. 
 Its importance lies, however, in the fact that it presents a new 
 phase in Hebrew literature, — the transition from the Haskalah 
 to a more modern period. The atmosphere is entirely different 
 from that of " Ha-Dath WeHa-Hayyim," and the two extremes 
 depicted in this story are not simply the life of the city as con- 
 trasted with that of the country. It is the life of Odessa, worldly 
 and empty of Jewish ideals, set over against that of a small 
 Volhynian town, the habitat of Hasidism, with its glowing fancy 
 and fanaticism. And, then, the reconciliation of the two ex- 
 tremes through the mediation of the grandfather hailing from 
 Wilna, the "Lithuanian Jerusalem," the abode of Haskalah, — 
 as modified by Braudes to suit the purpose of his story — which 
 unites in itself both worldly wisdom and Jewish learning. The 
 novel thus bears a somewhat symbolic character, suggesting the 
 possibility of a conciliation between worldliness and Jewish 
 religiosity, provided both relax somewhat of their rigor. 
 
 With all this, however, the significance of " The Extremes " is 
 
 37 
 
 I 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 not exhausted. Two more features may be pointed out as enhanc- 
 ing its value as a transition novel : the endeavor of the author at 
 a greater precision of style, and his sympathy with the life of the 
 Hasidim, — a sympathy that assumed much greater proportions 
 in later Hebrew literature. 
 
 Braudes' other novel above mentioned, "Whence and 
 Whither," was written during the period of the national revival, 
 its subject matter being taken from that period. The story 
 remained unfinished, and is only illustrative of the inability of 
 Braudes to treat a positive movement. 
 
 The significance of the productions of Braudes, then, was not 
 great. His creative powers were limited, at times unequal to 
 the task in hand, failing here and there to give a finishing touch 
 to character, and now and then leaving the work little more than 
 a torso. The individual, moreover, was not freed in his stories 
 from serfdom to society and social ideals. Yet the novels of 
 Braudes have the merit of reflecting the conflicts and ambitions 
 of a whole period, as well as of showing some advance as regards 
 precision of style, coordination of incident, and improvement in 
 characterization. 
 
 Contemporaneously with Braudes, there appeared in Hebrew 
 literature a short story writer of some talent, M. Brandstaedter 
 (b. 1844), Brandstaedter was a prominent Galician manu- 
 facturer, who wrote occasionally, and published only one volume 
 of sketches during the Haskalah period. He began his literary 
 career — if the case of a merchant dallying with literature may 
 be called a career — in 1869, the same year in which Smolenskin 
 founded the " Ha-Shahar," in which most of Brandstaedter's 
 sketches were published. He stood under the irresistible influence 
 of Smolenskin, for which reason he should by rights be classed 
 among the waiters of the transition period, were it not for the 
 fact that he presented no positive tendency, and that he was still 
 infused, to a great extent, with the spirit of the Haskalah. 
 
 Brandstaedter's works were admired in their time as the most 
 successful short stories in Hebrew. Even the modern reader 
 
 38 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 will find in them some verve, a fine vein of humor, and a certain 
 mastery of technique. It would be in vain, however, to look 
 in his stories for any sort of characterization. In this respect, he 
 was entirely the child of the Haskalah age, for which the problem 
 was the main issue. And to the credit of Brandstaedter be it 
 said that the problem for him was not merely religious reform. 
 In his sketches he ridicules not only the Hasidim, but also the 
 superficial lustre of the Haskalah, — of that Haskalah which 
 consists in teaching the children to prate a few words of French, 
 to despise everything Jewish, and to affect an air of romance 
 borrowed from the French novel. The following scene, from 
 one of his sketches, may serve as an ilhistration of the manner in 
 which he satirized the superficiality and affectation resulting 
 from this sort of education: 
 
 "Simon (a coxcomb and empty-headed fellow) met Miriam (a flirt 
 and a light-minded girl) walking in the garden. He greeted her, 
 looked at the ground and sighed. 
 
 ' Why are you sighing, Sigmund? ' Miriam asked in a compassionate 
 tone. 
 
 'Because I am not well, because . . . because I am in love.* 
 Miriam did not reply, looked down in her turn, and sighed. 
 
 'And why are you sighing?' asked Simon. 
 
 'Because I am not well either,' rephed Miriam, 'because . . . 
 because I also am in love.' 
 
 'And with whom are you in love?' asked Sigmund. 
 
 'And with whom are you in love?' asked Miriam. 
 
 'Whom should I love . . . ?' 
 
 'And whom should I love more than . . . ?' And before Miriam 
 had finished speaking, she found herself in the arms of Simon, and 
 numberless kisses had been exchanged. And all these great and 
 wonderful things occurred in the space of a few short moments." 
 
 The result of all this pretension to romance can to some extent 
 be divined from the title of the sketch: "The Beginning and 
 the End of a Quarrel." 
 
 It may be remarked, moreover, that some of his other sketches, 
 notably "Sidonia, or a Broken Heart," — perhaps the best of his 
 stories, rising at times to idyllic beauty — deal, not with the 
 
 39 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 subject of Hasidism, but with the results of this pseudo Haskalah 
 sort of training. Yet, the greatest number of Brandstaedter's 
 sketches — among which are to be classed his clever but entirely 
 unpoetic narrative verses and the story "Mordecai Kizavitz," 
 the latter forming the basis of his fame — are of a distinctly 
 Haskalah temper. Religious conflict, or, at least, Hasidaic 
 superstition, forms the subject matter of many a sketch; the ideal 
 of a modern rabbi, cherished so much among the Maskilim, is 
 represented in "Mordecai Kizavitz"; and there is to be found 
 even an assimilatory tendency ("Dr. Joseph Alfasi"), which was 
 characteristic, in a greater or lesser degree, of the Maskilim, 
 All this clearly marks Brandstaedter as a writer of the Haskalah 
 age. 
 
 There were many other writers who tried their hand at the 
 short story, among them the poets Gordon and Gottlober. The 
 stories of the former are distinguished by their humor, coarse at 
 times, and by their caustic satire. His prose writings were, 
 however, eclipsed by his poetic productions, wherein we find 
 focused, even more than in " Ha-Dath WeHa-Hayyim," the 
 tendencies of the Haskalah. 
 
 When we pass in review the achievements of the Haskalah 
 period in the domain of the novel and the story, we find them 
 indeed very attenuated and anemic. We cannot point to any 
 work that rises much above the average, whereas many of the 
 productions sink decidedly below the level of the ordinary. The 
 advance that the Hebrew story had made since the days of 
 romanticism was almost imperceptible: here and there a char- 
 acter — a minor character — was more individualized and set ux 
 relief; now and then we may note a gain in technique, or an 
 attempt at modernizing the Hebrew style, in order to adapt it 
 to live purposes. On the other hand, we find a retrogression i n _^ 
 the Haskalah story in one important particular: in appreciation 
 of nature. Not one description can be pointed out in the whole 
 range of the novel or story of that age, in which there is any 
 indication of more than a conventional treatment of the world of 
 out-of-doors. And this relative lack of progress, this submerging 
 
 40 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 jof the personal element in the story, can not be laid entirely at 
 the door of the individual writers, but is also due to the spirit of 
 the age. It was a period in which tendency was paramount, 
 and the latter, as always happens in such cases,^blighted talent 
 and sacrificed the individual to the social ideal. Braudes, the 
 most talented of the Haskalah novelists, for example, had more 
 mettle than his works, with their lack of finish, might lead one 
 to believe. Had he devoted himself solely to the][]craft of nar- 
 rating and not wasted his energies on preaching, we' might have 
 had in " Ha-Dath WeHa-Hayyim " a novel as near to perfection 
 as any, and in Braudes himself a master of no mean degree. As 
 it was, his Haskalah tendency killed his art. And this was true 
 not only of the prose writers, but also of the poets of the period. 
 
 41 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FICTION DURING THE SECOND STAGE OF THE HASKALAH 
 
 PERIOD (Continued) 
 
 2. Poetry; Literary Criticism 
 
 The poetic output of the Haskalah period was considerable, 
 both as regards quantity and quahty; yet even here the spirit of 
 the age, the withering bhght of tendency, was strongly felt. 
 Just as there was no individuality in the novel, so, likewise, 
 there was no personality in the poem. In every branch of 
 poetry, notably lyricism, we perceive a marked decline from the 
 passionate, throbbing, and beauty-loving outbursts of a Micah 
 J. Lebensohn. There is no lack of verve and scathing satire, 
 but there is an absence of real convincing power, of the qualities 
 of durability, of a deeper appreciation of life and its ideals, and 
 of a positive valuation of things. In the militant temper of the 
 time, the personal element is subordinated to the clash and 
 conflict of the social ideals. Hence the relative predominance, 
 at that period, of the drama and the narrative poem, with their 
 lack of emotion and direct presentation of life outside of the 
 individual. 
 
 The allegorical drama "Emeth We-Emunah" (Truth and 
 Faith, 1867), by Abraham D. B. Lebensohn (1789-1877), may 
 be regarded as the first poetic endeavor of the kind mentioned 
 above. A. Lebensohn, the father of the poet Micah J. Leben- 
 sohn, belonged, by the nature of his lyrics, to the first, the "hu- 
 manistic," stage of the Haskalah period, being considered its 
 greatest poet. Even in "Enieth We-Emunah" there is a distinct 
 humanistic touch in the desire to wed Faith to Wisdom; for the 
 Maskilim of the second stage of the period were striving for 
 more than this, — they desired to adapt Faith to Life. Yet 
 the future conflict was already foreshadowed in "Emeth We- 
 Emunah," at least in the portrayal of Rabbi Zib'on, meaning 
 allegorically "the painted one," the Tartuffe of Hebrew literature. 
 
 42 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 "Emeth We-Emunah" was influenced in its setting by the 
 similarly allegorical drama " La-Yesharim Tehillah" of the cele- 
 brated M. H. Luzzatto, with this main difference: whereas the 
 dramatis personae of the latter represent impersonated virtues 
 and vices as such, those of " Emeth We-Emunah " embody the 
 attributes of Wisdom and Folly: Wisdom, Reason, Truth. The 
 last mentioned is to be married to Belief or Credulity, the 
 daughter of Crowd and Folly — or, rather. Ignorance; but by the 
 intervention of Zib'on the union is foiled. Truth is imprisoned 
 and Falsehood, dressed in Truth's attire, takes his place as the 
 fiance of Faith. Finally, however, Reason comes on the scene, 
 releases Truth, and reinstates him in his oflBce as husband of 
 Faith. Such was the adoration of reason among the Maskilim 
 and such their optimism! ^ 
 
 " Emeth We-Emunah " is in some respects inferior, while in 
 others it is superior to "La-Yesharim Tehillah," We miss in it 
 the lyric beauty and the really romantic atmosphere of the latter, 
 as well as its simplicity and warmth of style. Even the echo in 
 the woods, — a dramatic subterfuge — which oracularly foretells 
 future events, imitated from " La-Yesharim Tehillah," sounds 
 more artificial in Lebensohn's drama. Its style, moreover, is 
 more pompous, though generally rather smooth, while, at times, 
 it is marred by excessive punning. " Emeth We-Emunah " has, 
 however, more dramatic effect and less of the deus ex machina 
 than "La-Yesharim Tehillah." 
 
 "Tifereth Li-Bene Binah" is another allegorical drama, pub- 
 lished in the same year as " Emeth We-Emunah " and also in- 
 fluenced by "La-Yesharim Tehillah." The author, A. B. Gottlober 
 (1811-1899), frankly acknowledges the influence. Like "La- 
 Yesharim Tehillah," it is dedicated to the pupil of the author on his 
 wedding day, and like the latter, it has the echo in the woods. 
 The meter, however, is that of another drama of Luzzatto, " Mig- 
 dal Oz." The dramatis personae are: Honor, as king. Glory, his 
 daughter, born to him by his wife Modesty, etc. The quality of 
 this drama, which is not above criticism, bears the same relation 
 to "La-Yesharim Tehillah" as does "Emeth We-Emunah." 
 
 43 
 
 IS, I 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Gottlober's poetic and literary activity did not confine itself, 
 
 however, to this lyrical drama; his productions bear the stamp 
 
 of three distinct periods in Hebrew literature: the first and 
 
 second stages of the Haskalah, and the national revival. Gott- 
 
 lober was one of the celebrated poets of his day and was, in a 
 
 measure, regarded with veneration as the Hebrew Boileau. To 
 
 \ us he appears a mediocre versifier, resembling Southey in beating 
 
 j about for a subject and in preferring blank verse as a means of 
 
 I poetic conveyance. 
 
 Gottlober made his debut with a very tolerable poem: "Le- 
 Toledoth Ha-Shir WeHa-Melizah," tracing the history of poetry 
 down to modern times and singing its praises in enthusiastic 
 fashion. He soon fell, however, into the banalities of the time 
 (the first stage of Haskalah). He indited poems of occasion, 
 wrote an elegy on the death of Nicholas I — an event that had 
 caused joy throughout the Jewish Pale in Russia, — and cringingly 
 hailed all advances as regards education made by the government 
 towards the Jews, calling upon the latter to awaken and listen 
 to the voice of wisdom — alias Haskalah. 
 
 The disposition of Gottlober was far from romantic; and so 
 romanticism passed by without touching him. Soon we find 
 him at the second stage of the Haskalah, in the firing line of the 
 conflict. The greatest part of his literary activity, in poetry as 
 well as in prose, centers in this period; but a marked insincerity 
 pervades all he produced at this time. His national poems 
 written after 1880, under the influence of the national revival, 
 strike, on the other hand, a more sincere and truly poetic note. 
 In one of these poems, "Asire Ha-Tikwah," he confesses, like 
 so many other Maskilim, his disappointment of the aspirations of 
 the preceding age; and now, an old man of seventy, he sees the 
 only hope of his people in Zion. The best poems of this period 
 are "The Bird in the Cage," "The Bird with the Clipped Wings," 
 and "A Voice Is Singing in the Window," — all pertaining to the 
 neo-national aspirations. 
 
 Gottlober also wrote a few stories of no great value and a couple 
 of quasi-scientific works: "Investigations into the Origin of 
 
 44 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 the Karaites" (1864) and "Kabbalah and Hasidism" (1869),— 
 the former in the rationaHstic spirit, and of hardly any scientific 
 value; the latter a polemic and written, of course, from the 
 Haskalah point of view. Besides all this, he edited the monthly 
 " Ha-Boker Or," the nature of which has already been described. 
 
 Unlike Gottlober, Jehudah Loeb Lewin (b. 1845), known by 
 his nom-de-plume Yehallel, brought with him a considerable 
 amount of earnestness, fervor, and passion; and had he had a 
 corresponding fluency of style and ease of rhythm, he might have 
 stood in the first rank of the Hebrew poets of the time. Facility 
 of execution was, however, by no means the forte of Lewin. His 
 verse, is generally halting and laborious. In the course of 
 j'^ears, it is true, he acquired more skill in the manipulation of the 
 rhythm, so that in some poems, such as "Helpless Wrath" and 
 "The Voice of the Lord," for example, the rhythm is almost in 
 harmony with the solemn subject matter, and in " Of the Songs 
 of Zion," Lewin nearly attains melody. But he hardly ever gets 
 beyond monotony of meter, generally employing the tame, 
 pedestrian hendecasyllabic line, and the conventional sextet 
 stanza of the period. 
 
 Monotony is the bane not only of Lewin's meter, but of the 
 substance of his poems as well. Only a few inspired strains are 
 distinguishable in his verse, whether of the Haskalah or of the 
 revival period; and to these few notes he tunes his harp again and 
 again. "Helpless Wrath," in which the poet utters a cry of 
 despair against the present order of society, and "The Voice of 
 the Lord," where he expresses his conviction that Haskalah is 
 the panacea of all human evils, may be cited as his representative 
 Haskalah lyrics; for all the rest of Lewin's lyrical effusions of that 
 period are written in the one or the other vein. And the same 
 is the case with his revival lyrics. The cry of protest against 
 Jewish oppression and the consolation in Zion are the key notes 
 of almost all he produced during that time. His narratives, 
 on the other hand, though lacking imagination, contribute some 
 elements to Hebrew literature that were in a great measure 
 absent in other poems of the kind then written. In "Kishron 
 
 45 
 
/ 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Ha-Maase," for example, — ^the most socialistic^ of his writings, — 
 the story of a person rising from poverty to opulence and power 
 by the sheer force of will, with the intention of improving human- 
 ity, but, by the irony of fate, becoming an oppressor instead of a 
 reformer — we find emotion and psychologic insight; whereas the 
 small narrative poem "Jewish Happiness" shows the humorously 
 pathetic. 
 
 Mention must also be made in this connection of a long narra- 
 tive poem, "Ivehal Refaim" (1867), written by the arch Haskalah 
 publicist, Lilienblum. He was by no means a poet by the grace 
 of God, although we have a number of poems from his pen. 
 "Kehal Refaim" is, however, a piece of very clever workmanship. 
 It consists of a series of scenes in the hereafter, where people, 
 who were holding various public offices during their lifetime, come 
 to judgment before the Lord. The characteristic foibles of these 
 notables of Jewish society are delineated in this poem with a 
 spirit and an acuteness representative of the best of the Haskalah 
 period. 
 
 The central figure of Haskalah poetry, however, was Judah^ 
 Loe b Gordon (1831-1892). This poet began his literary career 
 as a romantic, reverting to the ancient or mediaeval world for 
 his material. A number of poems were written by him in this 
 romantic mood, the best known of which is " The Love of David 
 and Michal," a Biblical epic in twelve cantos. Here we see the 
 unmistakable influence of Micah J. Lebensohn; the meter is 
 similar to that of the narratives of the latter — the four stress 
 quatrain with alternate rime — and the style has a romantic 
 flavor. Gordon, however, never attained to the mellowness of 
 style, the deep sentiment, and the romantic sereneness found 
 in Lebensohn. In "Ahavath David U-Michal" we already see 
 the rhetorician and the faultless metrician to come. Otherwise, 
 there is hardly any predominant poetic feature in this twelve 
 canto poem. There is no appreciation of nature, of primeval 
 scenery, such as one would expect from a poem dealing with 
 
 1 It may be remarked that Lewin was one of a group of early Jewish socialists, 
 who began their propaganda in Hebrew. 
 
 46 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 primitive life. Neither is love the motive power, as one would 
 anticipate of a romantic narrative. Nor are the deeds of David 
 depicted with truly poetic grandeur. With less heaviness of 
 style and monotony of narration than "Shire Tifereth," which 
 Gordon took as a model, "Love of David and Michal" resembles 
 the former in that it is not much more than a paraphrase of the 
 Biblical story thrown into modern verse. And if a romantic 
 element is sought for in this poem, it can be found, at most, in 
 the last stanza, where the harp of David, making music, according! 
 to tradition, of its own accord, whenever the breath of the north! 
 wind touched it, became silent simultaneously with the death of I 
 Michal. ' 
 
 The other epic poem of Gordon, "The Wars of David with 
 the Philistines," can lay more claim to epic qualities, in style 
 and in rhythm as well as in treatment. It was to have been a 
 long poem, modelled, according to the assertion of the poet, after 
 the "Iliad," Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered," etc., not to say a 
 word about the "Shire Tifereth." Had he finished it, we might 
 have had a work of real poetic significance; for Gordon did have 
 a power of narration, and the poem possesses some of those quali- 
 ties which contribute to the making of a successful epic. Un- 
 fortunately, it remained a torso. 
 
 To this romantic period, likewise, belong a few more of Gor- 
 don's longer poems: "Asnath, Daughter of Potifera," presenting 
 some fine lyric touches; "David and Barzilai," where the sim- 
 plicity of country life is contrasted with the pomp and luxury of 
 court and city Hfe; "In the Depth of the Ocean," a pathetic 
 narrative based on the story of the banishment of the Jews from 
 Spain; and a small lyrical drama of great beauty, "Alas 
 Brother!", written on the occasion of M. J. Lebensohn's death. 
 The last mentioned is imbued with genuine sentiment and is a 
 noble expression of grief at the death of the young poet, the 
 friend and inspirer of Gordon. 
 
 These poems, particularly " David and Michal," — " The Wars 
 of David" being a posthumous publication — immediately gained 
 for the poet the foremost place in Hebrew poetry; but with these 
 
 47 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 his romantic period closes. Henceforth, he appears as the 
 champion of Haskalah, his fame as such ecHpsing that which he 
 had attained as a romantic poet. In fact, neither in his make-up 
 nor by his education, neither in his sympathies nor by his literary 
 influences, could he have become a romanticist yar excellence. 
 In his make-up, Gordon had infinitely more of Voltaire and of Popu5 
 than of Shelley; he was capable of producing a "Dunciad" rather 
 than a "Queen Mab." As for his education, he was brought up, 
 as were most of the Lithuanian Jews of the time, upon the dry 
 Talmudic studies, which were not even relieved by the perusal 
 of the fantastic Kabbalistic " Zohar," the spiritual food of the 
 Hasidim, or by a deeper understanding of the poetic and literary 
 significance of the Bible. Finally, the literary influences on 
 Gordon were mainly those of the Russian nihilistic school, wdth 
 Pisarev and Tschernishefsky at the head, people who decried 
 the beautiful and the imaginative and deified the utilitarian. 
 All this combined to make of Gordon, not the poet of hope, the 
 prophetic comforter of his people, the passionate preacher for a 
 higher, nobler, more spiritual life, but the utilitarian, ration- 
 alistic, Haskalah poet, the passionate s coffer, the scathing 
 satirist, the effective hater. 
 
 The second period of Gordon's poetic activity extends, roughly 
 speaking, over the space of fifteen years, from 1865 to about 1880, 
 and it embraces most of his narratives, some minor poems, and 
 some fables. Of the narratives, the best known, — as a matter 
 of fact, the most popular of all Gordon's poems — are: "The 
 Point of a Yod" and "The Two Josephs Ben Simon." The 
 theme of the former was not uncommon among the Hebrew 
 writers of the time. Bath-shua, a beautiful and wealthy maiden, 
 who has enjoyed the privileges of a secular education, is married, 
 against her will, to a Talmudic student, who knows nothing 
 either of the world or of the responsibilities that he is now taking 
 upon himself. Consequently, when his father-in-law and sup- 
 porter becomes impoverished, he, the husband of Bath-Shua and 
 the father of two children, is forced to repair to sunnier climes in 
 order to woo fortune there for himself. 
 
 48 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 The "land beyond the sea" is a lotus producing country, and 
 people who reach its shores sometimes forget those whom they 
 have left behind. The husband of Bath-Shua, too, coming 
 there, gradually forgot his nearest of kin at home. Meanwhile, 
 Bath-Shua met with a modern man, a Maskil, and, naturally, 
 fell in love with him. The two lovers decided to find out her 
 husband and get a divorce from him. And they succeeded. 
 But, alas! In the divorce bill the name of Hillel, the husband, 
 appeared without the letter Yod, whereas according to some 
 religious authorities it is to be written with a Yod. The Rabbi, 
 therefore, declared the divorce bill invalid, and the two lovers 
 were thus separated forever. 
 
 The motive of this poem would at first sight seem to be really 
 tragic. The fact that the point of a Yod could effect a separa- 
 tion between two lovers and keep the woman a grass widow all 
 her lifetime, would strongly appeal to the sentiment of pity or 
 even of horror. In reality, however, this motive is slight and 
 by no means convincing. As the Yod is not essential, according 
 to most religious authorities, in the name of Hillel, Fabi, the 
 lover of Bath-Shua, could have appealed, with success, to other 
 Rabbis, not so rigid as the one of their own town. But here 
 another characteristic of the Haskalah writers comes to the fore. 
 Their heroes are destitute of any energy of their own. If they 
 lose the game, it is due to the machinations of the villain, and if 
 they win, it is not as the result of their own activity, but is a sort 
 of fata lity, of predetermination. 
 
 Another characteristic feature of the "Point of a Yod," 
 marking Gordon as the true representative of Haskalah, is the 
 absence of deep sentiment, and a nobler understanding and 
 appreciation of love, or of real beauty. "Pie who has not seen 
 the daughter of Hefer, Bath-Shua, has never seen a beautiful 
 woman," — the poet asserts. But, when he sets about de- 
 scribing her, he does not even succeed in enabling us to visualize 
 the woman, despite the five long stanzas which he wastes in the 
 effort. When, on the other hand, the poet wishes to give a 
 ludicrous picture of Bath-Shua's husband, he does so successfully 
 5 49 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 in two lines: "He has calf's eyes, forelocks like tails, and a face 
 like that of the fig of Rabbi Zadok," ^ — a conventional and by 
 no means individualistic description, but yet, sufficient to make 
 clear to us the appearance of the Talmudic student. Again, after 
 the life-disappointment of Bath-Shua, she sums up her complaint, 
 in the following words, with which the poem ends: "Upon me, 
 too, fortune once smiled; my children and I might have lived 
 happily, leading a life of pleasure like all other women, — but the 
 point of a Yod was my bane," — an ending both unpoetic and 
 characteristically utilitarian. 
 
 Broader and nobler in conception is Gordon's other long narra- 
 tive poem: "The Two Josephs Ben Simon." It is the embodi- 
 ment of all the hopes and aspirations of the Maskilim. The story 
 is that of a young man whose ambition is to become an en- 
 lightened Rabbi, in order that he may soften the rigidity of the 
 Jewish Law. For this purpose he goes to Padua, Italy, where 
 he divides his time between the study of the Jewish Law and 
 that of medicine, so that he may later be able to bring religion 
 into harmony with life and science. With this ambition, Joseph 
 Ben Simon returned to Russia, after he had completed his 
 course of studies abroad. But, alas! his dream was not to be 
 realized. As soon as he had stepped on Russian soil again, he 
 was arrested and sent to Siberia — for the crime of another. 
 During his long absence from home, a passport in his name had 
 been issued to another person — a thing quite common in those 
 days of official arbitrariness — who had committed a murder and 
 escaped, leaving the passport behind at the scene of the crime. 
 And the fact that the passport bore his name, was sufficient for 
 the real Joseph Ben Simon to be sentenced to life imprisonment. 
 
 In this narrative, then, there is a real tragic element : the hero, 
 
 rising above his surroundings and representing a social ideal, 
 
 finally succumbs to the will or arbitrariness of society. Gordon, 
 
 however, was the child of his age, a period in which art was sub- 
 
 1 Rabbi Zadok foresaw, according to tradition, the destruction of Jerusalem 
 by the Romans, and in order to avert the calamity, he fasted forty years in 
 succession, sucking out the juice of a fig every evening, in this manner sus- 
 taining his life. 
 
 50 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 servient to tendency; therefore, a poem that might have been 
 shaped into a real tragedy, ultimately resulted in a mere farce. 
 The hero shows hardly any individuality; he represents a type 
 or, to be more explicit, an abstract idea. Like the hero in "The 
 Point of a Yod," moreover, he yields to fate without even an 
 attempt at resistance. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that the " Two Josephs Ben Simon " 
 excels "The Point of a Yod" in conception as well as in breadth 
 of view, the greater popularity fell to the share of the latter. 
 Why this preference? It is probably to be sought for in the 
 character of the man of the period regardless of the tendencies of 
 the generation. In the first place, "The Point" has the semb- 
 lance of a love story. Then, again, the point of the story: the 
 fact that a Yod, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, 
 could blight the life of a beautiful young woman, strongly 
 appealed to sentiment. Finally, the success of this poem must 
 be attributed also to the artistic finish, as far as style and meter 
 is concerned, which marks it in distinction from "The Two 
 Josephs." 
 
 The materialistic-utilitarian influence of Russian literature on 
 Gordon may be seen still more clearly in two other longer poems : 
 "Zedekiah in the Guard House" and "In the Jaws of the Lion." 
 The former is a very pathetic poem. It is the complaint of 
 Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, whose children were slaughtered 
 before his eyes by Nebuchadrezzar, and himself blinded and 
 thrown into prison. This poem is marked not only by a freely 
 expressed atheism, but by a total misapprehension of the moral 
 greatness of the noblest and gentlest of the prophets, Jeremiah. 
 "What ill have I done? How have I transgressed?" moans 
 Zedekiah. "Because I did not yield to Jeremiah? A cowardly 
 fellow! A man of cringing disposition who gave us a shameful, 
 slavish advice : ' Surrender ! ' . . . And what is the desire of this 
 priest of Anathoth? That we carry no burden on the Sabbath! 
 . . . He has, moreover, created a new covenant for Judah: all 
 the people, both great and small, must study the Law . . . . 
 All shall be scribes and prophets .... Each will say : ' I shall 
 
 51 
 
 J 
 
II 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 neither plough nor thresh, for I am one of the kingdom of priests 
 and of the holy people' .... And the land will be filled with 
 priests and prophets, with visionaries and day-dreamers, chasing 
 the east wind and gazing into the clouds," — a strain worthy of 
 Voltaire. And a similar spirit imbues "In the Jaws of the 
 Lion," a narrative of the time of the Jewish war with the Romans. 
 
 Gordon also wrote a considerable number of lyric poems and 
 rimed fables. The latter are mostly translations or adaptations 
 from the known fabulists: Aesop, Lafontaine, Krilov, etc., while 
 many are his own. His translations are rather skillful and have 
 a flavor of originality about them. In general, Gordon was 
 successful in his translations, which include some of Byron's 
 "Hebrew melodies," some of Schiller's poems, etc. His original 
 fables, like most of his other poems, bear the impress of the 
 Haskalah. They are taken from the life of the bipeds rather 
 than from that of the quadrupeds— as was natural for a person 
 whose education practically excluded nature— and are pointed 
 with pungent satire. 
 
 Gordon's nature and love lyrics are devoid of real sentiment 
 and a true appreciation of the beautiful, but are rhetorical and 
 smack of pliilosophy. His other lyrics and his reflective verse: 
 ^ The G raveyard" — which bears a similarity to Gray's "Elegy," 
 —"The Blessing of the Righteous," "With Our Young and 
 Our Old We Shall Go," "My Sister Ruhamah,"— the last two of 
 which were set to music— all these show a fund of sentiment and 
 sincerity seldom attained by Gordon in his love and nature poems. 
 
 Among Gordon's lyrics there has been included a longer poem, 
 "^^ tb.e Mfl2!L- ^^ i -^lSJ i^'" which deserves special attention. 
 This poem has hitherto been neglected by critics and over- 
 shadowed in popular estimation by his longer narratives. But 
 unjustly so. For it is a masterpiece, probably the most inspired 
 of Gordon's productions, representing him at his best, in all 
 poetic qualities. The humor is superb, the satire deep and 
 thoroughgoing, and its vigor and pathos are not frequently met 
 with in his works. All this, coupled with a perfection of meter 
 and phraseology, stamps the poem as a true work of art. 
 
 52 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 The theme of "In the Moon" is original and highly imagina- 
 tive. The moon serves, according to the conception of Jewish 
 myth, as recorder of the actions of man on our sinful globe, 
 making use of her rays as absorbents and of her rocks and cliffs 
 as tablets upon which to inscribe the records. Now, it happened 
 that our poet was accidentally translated to that star. There 
 he was astonished to find an uninhabited world, where "is no 
 house, no field, no tree or plant, no railroad or tax on wine, — ^no 
 officer to ask who I am and whether I have a passport." And 
 in his wonderment, the poet addresses himself to the Lord: 
 "Why didst thou create a world in vain? — Why didst thou 
 hasten to rest on the seventh day? Hadst thou labored one or 
 two days more, thou wouldst have formed here, too, men like 
 unto the fishes of the sea!" Whereas on our globe, "people shed 
 blood for every clod of earth." And while the poet is thus 
 haranguing, he meets an angel, the secretary of heaven, who 
 explains to him the function of the moon, exciting in this manner 
 the curiosity of the poet, who requests the angel to let him see 
 those interesting records. His request was, however, refused, 
 on the plea that his life would be forever embittered at the sight. 
 Meanwhile the dawn rises, and our poet is compelled to take hold 
 of a ray and descend to earth. 
 
 From that time on the poet can find no rest. His desire to 
 see the records of the moon develops into a passion. He devises 
 different means of ascension but all in vain. He makes a 
 balloon, which carries him only as high as the gas will allow. 
 The Zaddik (wonder worker), to whom he applies, becomes 
 confused at the sight of the "pidion" (the fee), and mixes up the 
 amulet of the poet with that of a barren woman, with the result 
 that the poet begets children while the woman ascends to heaven. 
 He tries other devices, but they are all frustrated by various 
 odd accidents. At last, he wins the first premium in the lottery. 
 Having thus become suddenly enriched, he is carried to heaven 
 "on the saddle of flattery." This time he is received with great 
 respect by the heavenly secretary; for "even on high they 
 respect the rich, and a thousand shekels are more valued than a 
 
 53 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 myriad of poems." And now he attains the desire of his heart, 
 and is shown the records of the moon. 
 
 The sight is far from comforting. The whole misery of the 
 Jewish people, social, economic, and intellectual, is here por- 
 trayed in plastic images, vivid in execution and vibrating with 
 emotion. 
 
 It is important to observe, that, though still imbued with the 
 Haskalah spirit, this masterpiece, written at the zenith of 
 Gordon's poetic vigor, strikes a note not found in his earlier 
 poems. Here, the poet is no longer solely the Haskalah repre- 
 sentative, but is drifting towards the revival ideals that were 
 then beginning to exert their influence upon the Jews. For, if 
 he does not grasp at the new ideals as the saving grace of Israel, 
 he is, at least, inclined to lend an ear to them, at the same time 
 expressing his disappointment in the old Haskalah ideals. The 
 poem ends with the following note of despair: "Behold, here is 
 another record full of bubbles continually bursting like foam on 
 the water. 'What are these?' 'These are the hopes to which 
 thou didst raise thine eyes in the days of thy youth.' 'Alas!' 
 I cried, and covered my face; of all my dreams not one has 
 survived; 'a purified society,' 'the education of my rabbis,' 
 'the settlement of the land (Zion),' 'the rejuvenation of my 
 people.' — And woe-stricken and desolate, I fell from heaven 
 down to earth." 
 
 If a play upon words be permissible, one might say that the 
 last words of this noble poem of Gordon's were symbolic of his 
 further poetic activity. For, "In the Moon" was his last and 
 greatest attempt to hold his own with the Hebrew muses. Soon, 
 however, he descended therefrom, never again to rise to its 
 heights. This poem was written during the years 1878-1882, 
 at the end of the Haskalah and the beginning of the national 
 revival period. After that he wrote a few vigorous poems and^ 
 some fine satiric verse; these were, however, late gleanings. 
 And though he survived that destructive period whose mouth- 
 piece he was, he never got beyond the negative attitude to 
 Judaism. 
 
 54 
 
FICTION DURING SECOND STAGE 
 
 Gordon's poetic productions have undergone a fate similar to 
 that of Pope's poems, with which they have much in common. 
 The laurels that he had won during his lifetime have long ago 
 dried up; his influence is dead, and some critics even go to the 
 length of denying him the poetic gift altogether, arguing from 
 the absence in his poems of certain qualities, such as love of the 
 beautiful, which go into the make up of poetry. But, both the 
 adoration of the poet during his lifetime and his condemnation 
 by some later critics have been unjust. The truth of the matter 
 is, that, as it was poor criticism on the part of his contemporaries 
 to place him in the foremost rank of really inspired poets, so it 
 is only conventional criticism, cut out according to hard and fast 
 rules, that can deny him poetic endowment. That Gordon was 
 not a poet of the first rank, is certainly true; but that he could 
 at times rise to a great height of poetic expression, can be wit- 
 nessed by his masterpiece "In the Moon;" can be testified to by 
 some of his other poems, as well as by some passages even in his 
 verbose and prosy longer narratives. As for the argument 
 pointing to the lack of appreciation of real beauty and of nature, 
 though this fact may detract so much from his poetic significance, 
 yet, to a great extent, it may be attributed to the general short- 
 comings of the period. The generation of the Haskalah was 
 simply devoid of the sense of beaut}' and of the feeling for nature^ 
 just as was the generation of Pope in England and that of Vol- 
 taire in France. And for similar reasons. In one phase, however, 
 Gordon excels all other Hebre w poets, and that is, in his ener- 
 geti c satiric ve m. 
 
 Literary Criticism 
 
 Literary criticism during the Haskalah period stood on a much 
 lower plane than the novel and the poem. One need not wonder 
 at this. Criticism is, in a measure, the harvest of literature, its 
 soundness and truth depending upon the previous development of 
 the latter; and modern Hebrew literature had not yet grown to an 
 extent that could give scope to the operation of criticism. Criti- 
 cism could, therefore, not attain at that time to any great height of 
 truth or great depth of understanding. Yet, even at the begin- 
 
 55 
 
 ^ 
 
/ 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 ning of the period we hear a note of common sense, which un- 
 doubtedly did not remain without effect upon Hebrew Hterature. 
 
 The names of two critics stand out prominently : A. J. Paperno 
 and A. Kovner, both of whom were active between 1864 and 
 1870. Neither of them was creative in this field. They promul- 
 ' gated no literary laws, nor did they portray any literary move- 
 ment. Their fame rests upon a pamphlet or two (" Kankan 
 Hadash Male Yashan," 1868, by A. J. Paperno; "Heker Dabar," 
 1865, "Zeror Perohim," 1868, by A. Kovner), where they effec- 
 tively set forth the literary follies rather than the currents of 
 the age. They show no great critical acumen nor any deep 
 understanding of literature. Both are imbued with the Haskalah 
 spirit, and with the literary and critical tendencies of Russian 
 literature, from which they largely drew their inspiration. Their 
 point of view is chiefly utilitarian; hence they judged a literary 
 production at its face value rather than according to its intrinsic 
 artistic merits. Yet they rendered a signal service to Hebrew 
 literature, at least as far as externals are concerned. The spirit 
 by which they were influenced and under which they labored, 
 naturally excluded every superfluity, everything purely ornate 
 in literature as well as in life. Hence, their sustained attack 
 upon the flowery Melizah style of Hebrew, which often sacrificed 
 sense to a nice turn of a Biblical phrase, and upon similar 
 tawdry, conventional abuses of the language. The strictures of 
 these two critics, to be sure, were not received with very good 
 grace by their contemporaries. But they undoubtedly contrib- 
 uted more than a mite to the simplification of Hebrew style. 
 
 These were the most prominent critics of the time. For the 
 rest, Hebrew literary criticism confined itself almost exclusively 
 to reviews of books. 
 
 1 
 
 56 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PERETZ BEN MOSHE SMOLENSKIN 
 (1839-1884) 
 
 The biographer of Peretz Ben Moshe Smolenskin, R. Brainin, 
 is obviously right in saying that the Smolenskin whom we know 
 from his novels and essays, is not the one that might have been, 
 had he written under different circumstances. In his works we 
 see only his silhouette, not his real portrait. While his literary 
 personality and great talent were still in the making, his life 
 was cut short, and Hebrew literature was bereft of one of its 
 sincerest, most talented, and most sympathetic writers. 
 
 It would perhaps seem strange, at first sight, to speak of a 
 writer of forty five, who already had behind him some fifteen 
 years of literary activity, as still having been in his literary teens. 
 The talents of Byron and Poe were fully developed before they 
 had reached the years of Smolenskin, and they would probably 
 not have added much to their fame, had they attained to twice 
 their actual age. The literary, at least, the poetic, career of 
 Lamartine was practically ended at forty, though he lived to be 
 well advanced in years. In the case of Smolenskin, however, 
 every page of his writings testifies to the fact that we have before 
 us a man of great literary power, but, at the same time, that this 
 power is artistically unripe, warped, and uncontrolled. And 
 little wonder. Neither were his pre-literary life and training 
 conducive to an adequate preparation for his literary career, nor 
 did the conditions under which he carried on his activity tend 
 fully to bring out his literary powers. Born in poverty and 
 brought up partly under the influence of the Yeshiboth (Tal- 
 mudic academies), and partly under that of Hasidism, — in an 
 atmosphere, hostile to the spirit of modernism and secular 
 literature, Smolenskin received neither the education nor the 
 literary training necessary for the essayist, novelist, and spiritual 
 
 67 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 leader he later became. And even after he had attained, by 
 sheer richness of talent, greatness of heart, and personal energy, 
 to that ambitious eminence, his work was carried on under the 
 stress of such abject need and forced hurry, ^ that he was not in a 
 position to attend to artistic workmanship. For, Smolenskin 
 was a very busy man, dividing his time between editing and 
 managing a Hebrew monthly — "Ha-Shahar" — directing a print- 
 ing firm, writing essaj^s, novels, and criticisms, and taking a 
 goodly share in general Jewish affairs, — all of which, however, 
 barely yielded him a livelihood. 
 
 Smolenskin's literary activity (1869-84) extends over the end 
 of the Haskalah period and the beginning of the revival of the 
 Jewish national spirit, as it expressed itself in the form of the 
 Hibbath Zion movement. 
 
 What the second phase of Haskalah was, we have had occasion 
 to see. By the end of this period a reaction set in. Even the 
 arch enemies of ultra-orthodox Judaism, such as Lilienblum and 
 Gordon, saw that they had gone too far,— too far from the 
 point of view of Jewish nationalism. For the later phase of the 
 Haskalah movement had been essentially, though not con- 
 sciously, assimilatory. "Be a Jew in your own house, but a 
 man in society," — had been the cry. But, as a result, the 
 man was beginning to assert himself at the expense of the 
 Jew, just as the life of the world without was beginning to 
 replace the inner Jewish life, that of the Jewish home, of the 
 synagog, of the Yeshibah. Reality overreached and deceived the 
 devotees of the Haskalah; and therein lies the tragedy of the 
 movement. The Maskilim of the rank and file proved a failure, 
 as Jewish men and women. Even the enlightened Rabbis and 
 teachers, upon whom the leaders had laid so much hope, betrayed 
 
 1 The following may be cited as examples of Smolenskin's hurried writing : 
 In one of his novels, "The Inheritance," he confuses the names of the heroines 
 in the second part of the story. And literary tradition has it, moreover, 
 that he once wrote a whole story of some sixty compact pages in print at one 
 sitting, because he had to feed the printer's devil in one of the current numbers 
 of "Ha-Shahar," which was to appear on the next morning, — a feat that re- 
 minds one of John Wilson, editor of "Blackwoods." 
 
 58 
 
PERETZ BEN MOSHE SMOLENSKIN 
 
 them. They formed a class for themselves, haughty and selfish, 
 standing apart from Jewish interests, looking down upon their 
 brethren that still sat in the "benighted" Ghetto, and occupying 
 the function of slaves to the Russian government rather than- 
 that of teachers and leaders of their people. This condition 
 naturally could not but wring out a cry of despair from the leaders 
 of the Maskilim, at least from the Hebrew section. 
 
 The positive expression of this reaction was the national 
 revival, which began as a comparatively widespread and popular 
 movement, in the early eighties, after the notorious anti-Jewish^ 
 jiot s in Russia. This movement, which expressed itself at first 
 in the form of Hibbath-Zion (The Love of Zion), i. e., a return 
 lo the land, the language, and the faith of the ancestors, is 
 regarded by some as the product of Jewish repression. Nothing 
 can be more superficial than this opinion. There are no sudden 
 leaps and bounds in nature. Even earthquakes have their 
 history of evolution. The Hibbath-Zion movement, quickened 
 and ripened as it was by the national calamities in the eighties, 
 is undoubtedly to be attributed to the reaction against the 
 Haskalah movement. And if proof be needed for this assertion, 
 we may go to the living fact, Smolenskin, who was the strongest 
 link between the two movements. 
 
 In Smolenskin we see the unmistakeable evolution from the 
 Haskalah to the revival movement. He, too, saw in Haskalah 
 a means of uplifting his people, and he, too, made Hasidism a 
 target at which he sped some of his winged and most pointed 
 arrows. The " Ha-Shahar," moreover, was one of the strongholds 
 of the Maskilim, to which the most militant of them contributed 
 their materials. Yet, Smolenskin did not follow the old grooves 
 which they had cut out for him. He was more penetrating and 
 more constructive in his views and ideas. In his consuming 
 love for his people, Smolenskin felt even at the beginning of his 
 career, what the Maskilim were to realize later, that they were \ 
 over-shooting the mark in their zeal for Haskalah. 
 
 Smolenskin developed, in a series of essays published in " Ha- 
 Shahar," an almost systematic theory of the evolution of Jewish 
 
 59 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 history, — a theory that, to a great extent, dominates his works 
 and draws a sharp Hne of distinction between him and the 
 MaskiUm. His view is ideahstic, in contradistinction from theirs 
 which was materiahstic. Notice, for example, the difference 
 between the materiahstic view taken by Gordon in the poem 
 "Zedekiah in the Guard House" and the ideologic view taken 
 by Smolenskin in his essay "Am 01am," as regards the part 
 played by the prophets in Jewish history, and you will see 
 what a contrast there is between the conception of the latter 
 and that of the Maskilim as regards Judaism. 
 
 Smolenskin's view of Jewish history is not quite scientific, but 
 it is full of penetration and is instinct with warm feeling for his 
 people. The history of the Jewish people is, according to Smolen- 
 skin, indissolubly connected with that of the Torah, not in its 
 theologic sense, but in its moral significance. The Torah was 
 given to the Jews with the purpose of uplifting them spirit- 
 ually. The external frame that held them together at the 
 beginning of their national existence was, of course, their own 
 country; but what united them as a spiritual body and gave them 
 their characteristic tone was the Torah. It was the spirit of 
 the Torah and its moral greatness that imbued the Jews with 
 national endurance and elasticity even after they had lost their 
 national independence. And Smolenskin lays stress upon the 
 point that the Jews have remained a nation to this day and are 
 not merely a religious sect, as the German-Jewish philosopher, 
 Moses Mendelsohn, asserted. Against this latter theory and its 
 corollary, the so-called Berlin Haskalah, Smolenskin severely 
 inveighed, pointing out its denationalizing tendency and the 
 national havoc which it had wrought among the immediate 
 disciples of Mendelsohn, as well as among later generations. 
 This judgement passed upon Mendelsohn's theory — and, by the 
 way, also upon the man himself, — in one of Smolenskin's most 
 penetrating essays, "Eth Laasoth," naturally met with resent- 
 ment on the part of the Maskilim, who considered themselves 
 the heritors of the Berlin Haskalah ; but it was ultimately adopted 
 in Hebrew literature as a truism. 
 
 60 
 
PERETZ BEN MOSHE SMOLENSKIN 
 
 From this view of Jewish history held by Smolenskin arises his 
 opposition to the extreme reform movement, in the shape which 
 it assumed among the German Jews, and his difference of opinion 
 with the MaskiHm as regards the educational endeavors among 
 the Jews. Since the Torah is not merely a religious code but a 
 product of, as well as a stimulus to, the national spirit, and since 
 it continued to develop along national lines all through Jewish 
 history, it follows that it cannot entirely be stripped of its later 
 forms, and be based simply upon a couple of dogmas; for then 
 you strip it of its whole significance, which is really national, and 
 make it a mere theologic abstraction. It is true that Jewish 
 religion needs a pruning, on account of some undesirable shoots 
 which have overgrown it during long ages ; but this should by no 
 means be done artificially. Educate the people and the reforms 
 will come by themselves. There is no use in demanding of a 
 blind person that he appreciate the beauties of nature; open his 
 eyes and nature will reveal itself to him in all its grandeur. 
 
 Another factor in Jewish nationalism, perhaps more important 
 than religion, was, for Smolenskin, the Hebrew language and 
 literature. If religion is one means of preserving national 
 existence, Hebrew is the only repository for the national attri- 
 butes and creations. Hence, Hebrew should be cherished as a 
 prime national factor jjer se. And in this respect, again, he 
 differs from the Maskilim, for whom Hebrew was a preferable, 
 but not an essential, channel of IlaskalaL. 
 
 [n these two things, then, in the reversion to Jewish religion 
 and in regarding Hebrew as essential to nationalism, Smolenskin 
 "wasTEeTorerunner of the national revival movement. The third 
 and most important requisite of the revival, the rehabilitation of 
 Palestine, was at first disregarded by Smolenskin, evolving with 
 him only in the course of years. 
 
 — Ht'"have gone to the length of discussing Smolenskin's theory of 
 Jewish history, not only because it is interesting in itself, or in 
 order to point out the difference between him and the Maskilim, 
 but because it is necessary to the understanding of his novels 
 and of the development of Hebrew literature as a whole. Smol- 
 
 61 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 enskin came to the latter with a new message, — one that was more 
 positive and constructive than that of the Maskihm. For him, 
 Hebrew as such was of paramount importance. And though 
 encouraging Haskalah and himself marked by many a trait of 
 the Maskil, he freed Hebrew literature, by theory and practice, 
 from the Haskalah tendency, from the tyranny of bias, making 
 it an aim in itself and not merely a means of conveying certain 
 opinions. In this manner, Hebrew literature was given more 
 scope for the purely artistic and literary, and for the freer 
 development of individual character. 
 
 Though Smolenskin contributed to the advancement of Hebrew 
 literature by freeing it, in a measure, from the onesidedness of 
 tendency, he could not entirely liberate his own novels from the 
 shackles of the age. As regards appreciation of nature, for ex- 
 ample, his novels are as deficient as the other stories of the 
 time. Not a bit of blue sky, fleecy cloud, or green turf do we 
 find in them; they carry us along on their swift currents of 
 events, without giving us time to admire a beautiful scene that 
 we may meet on our way. Nor is the art in his novels flawless. 
 Smolenskin was, it is true, a man of temperament; but his 
 temperament was that of the preacher rather than that of the- 
 artist. The plot is not so loose, flimsy, and irrational as, let us 
 say, that of Mapu's "Ayit Zabua;" but there is much even in 
 Smolenskin's novels that is questionable and out of joint. In 
 general, to use a figure of Brunetiere, his novels float about in their ^ 
 frames, for Smolenskin makes great use of character and event 
 for the purpose of sermonizing, moralizing, and perorating on 
 anything and everything under the sun. And as it happens 
 with many an author whose vanity gets the better of his artistic 
 taste, Smolenskin prided himself upon his commonplace phi- 
 losophizing more than upon the really enduring phases of his 
 novels. Thus, in a letter to a friend, he expresses his great satis- 
 faction at the rather banal discussion of the relation of Hamlet 
 to Faust, which, in his eyes, surpasses in importance the whole 
 novel "The Joy of the Wicked," in which he succeeded in casting 
 up some interesting psychologic problems. 
 
 62 
 
PERETZ BEN MOSHE SMOLENSKIN 
 
 If Smolenskin is diffusive in the plot of his novel, he is, how- 
 ever, capable of dealing with a single situation in a masterly 
 manner. Witness, for example, the scene between the Austrian 
 Jewish detective and the typically Viennese girl ("The Inheri- 
 tance," pt. 3, ch. 2). See also the conversation between the 
 " batlanim "" (typical Talmudic students) in the synagog, in 
 the introductory chapter of J^'The Ass's Burial," and also part 
 of the scene between the emigrants to America ("Pride and 
 Overthrow"), — in all these you will find an abundance of humor 
 and, at the same time, a knowledge of men in the various pur- 
 suits of life. 
 
 The knowledge of men, — this is another characteristic that 
 distinguishes Smolenskin from the Maskilim. The views and the 
 sympathies of the latter were narrow, bookish; the atmosphere 
 was attenuated, and the sphere of activity limited to one class, 
 the middle class, which was, in its turn, artificially divided into 
 "enlightened" and "unenlightened." InSmolenskin's novels, 
 the range of view is wide, comprehensive. It embraces not only 
 various classes but also various nations. See, for example, 
 "Ha-Toeh BeDarkey Ha-IIayyim," his best known novel, which 
 like "David Coppcrfiel<l," though with less coherence of events, 
 is the "truth and fiction" about the life of the author. What a 
 kaleidoscopic view we get here of personages, classes, and 
 peoples! Not only Russian Jewry passes in review before us, 
 in a great many phases and in a variety of classes, but also the 
 Jewries of some other countries, the author reflecting, at the 
 same time, in marginal acute remarks upon other nationalities. 
 It must, however, be owned that Smolenskin was not always 
 just in dealing with other nationalities, his attitude towards them 
 being at times prejudiced by the love he bore his own nation. 
 His view of the Polish revolution may serve as an example of 
 his bias. With a great deal of truth about the inefficiency of 
 the Polish revolutionaries, the bragging and vanity of their 
 leaders and their petty quarrels for office, and, particularly, their 
 thanklessness towards their Jewish allies, he yet treated them 
 with a severity and lack of sympathy tantamount to cruelty. 
 
 63 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Smolenskin's novels mark a departure in Hebrew literature in 
 many other important directions. In the first place, he intro- 
 duced real tragedy into the Hebrew. His predecessors, such as 
 Mapu, kept tragedy in the background. They worked, so to 
 say, deductively. When they introduce us to the scene of 
 action, the great crime — the pivot of the story — has already 
 been committed. The virtuous person, i. e., the Maskil, has 
 been put out of the way, and his family, also composed of the 
 enlightened, is now suffering at the hands of villainy; but we 
 can predict from the very beginning the ultimate triumph of 
 virtue. It is true that Smolenskin's contemporaries, Gordon, 
 for example, who aimed at demonstrating the ill results of 
 bigotry and superstition, have given us tragedies; they were, 
 however, not real, dramatic, but pseudo, tragedies. There was 
 no play of will against will, but of idea against idea. The 
 characters were abstractions, without individuality. Will, 
 character, did not count for much, for the disaster came about 
 by the hard heartedness of a Rabbi or a predeterminate religious 
 law. Smolenskin, on the contrary, presented tragedy in its 
 really tragic and dramatic elements. Not that he was more 
 pessimistic than the Maskilim. He who entitled one of his 
 novels "The Reward of the Virtuous," ending it with the exulting 
 words: "Truly, this is the reward of the Righteous!" — can 
 indeed not be accused of pessimism. But, his range of view 
 being more comprehensive than that of the Maskilim, he found in 
 life more tragedy than they. Besides, being a person of great 
 strength of will and character, and of indomitable energy, it was 
 natural for him to endow his heroes with the same qualities. 
 Hence, the really dramatic element in his novels. 
 
 The psychologic element, then, plays a great part in Smolen- 
 skin's novels; indeed, if it does not always form the axis upon 
 which they revolve, it at least constitutes a component part of 
 them. Even in "Ha-Toeh BeDarkey Ha-Hayyim," primarily a 
 novel of manners, the character of the main hero evolves into tragic 
 individuality; consumed as he is by sexual love for his own sister, 
 whom he, at first, did not know to be any relative of his, and 
 
 64 
 
PERETZ BEN MOSHE SMOLENSKIN 
 
 finally killed when hurling himself in passionate despair against 
 a rioting mob in Russia. Similarly, the heroes of his other 
 novels. Note the boldly delineated psychic features of the 
 passionate heroine of "The Inheritance," Peninah, with all the 
 consciousness of the shame of her sinful parents, and her im- 
 petuous humbling of herself before her friends, on account of it. 
 Contrast, at the same time, her character with that of the calm, 
 brilliant Viennese girl, in the same novel; healthy, charming, 
 lively, full of wit, with a loving heart and a pleasant admixture 
 of innocence and common gense. Witness, again, the noble, but 
 fitful and whimsical hero of the same story, Zerahiah, who brings 
 upon himself, because of his eccentricities, a host of misfortunes 
 and a series of real or imaginary humiliations. Finally, Smolen- 
 skin, in at least two of his novels, makes individuality the very 
 pivot of the story. In "The Ass's Burial," the ultimate ruin and 
 death of the hero are the results of his boastful and vainglorious 
 character; and the motive of "The Joy of the Wicked" hinges 
 upon the fickleness of the hero, who abandons his beautiful wife 
 and child to follow a commonplace girl. 
 
 When we speak of the psychologic element of Smolenskin's 
 novels, however, it is to be understood in the relative sense of 
 the word, as compared with other Hebrew novels of the time. 
 Considered by themselves, they leave many a psychologic gap. 
 The characters are at times blurred and indistinct. The dis- 
 tinctive traits of the hero in the "The Ass's Burial," for example, 
 are not clearly enough delineated to justify the motive of the 
 story. Again, when Smolenskin happens upon a problematic 
 character, he is sometimes at a loss as to the manner of handling 
 it. Take, for example, the heroine of the story related by the 
 "friend of Zarhi," in "Pride and Overthrow." The author 
 introduces us to a girl of the type of George Eliot's Gwendolen, 
 very beautiful and very whimsical, whose word is law unto her 
 parents and who sets the hearts of all young men aflame. He 
 leaves this enigmatic character, however, so well adapted for 
 deeper psychologic study, entirely undeveloped, and, moreover, 
 gives the story the ridiculous ending of making the heroine elope 
 6 65 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 with a Polish nobleman, who afterwards drives her to commit 
 moral suicide, — an ending that has become almost a hobby with 
 Smolenskin, at least, in some episodes of his novels. And 
 speaking of this heroine, one cannot help thinking of another 
 interesting feature in the novels of Smolenskin, namely, the 
 stress that he lays upon Jewish education as a factor in the 
 development of character, pointing out, in this story and in many 
 others, the moral ills engendered by the lack of such education, — 
 a theory quite in keeping with his national views. 
 
 Finally, a word as to the style of Smolenskin. This author is 
 a purist, but not in the same sense as Mapu had been. He 
 never hesitated to make use of a Biblical phrase, whenever it 
 suited his purpose; but he did not abuse this practice, always 
 avoiding the pun and quibble of the Melizah. His style is 
 energetic, exuberant, and full of life; but there is a total absence 
 in it of the imaginative and the figurative, which are essential 
 qualities in the style of fiction. 
 
 In short, Smolenskin's novels mark an advance in Hebrew 
 literature. He freed the latter from the tyranny of bias, of 
 tendency and, at the same time, began the emancipation of the 
 individual in fiction, bringing in the personal element and 
 thereby giving character and individuality free scope to develop. 
 By his energy, earnestness, and personal charm, moreover, he 
 gave the Hebrew an impetus which raised it to a height more 
 considerable than that to which it had ever before risen during 
 the last century. His influence was great both upon his con- 
 temporaries and upon later writers. In his lifetime he drew 
 about himself a circle of literary friends and he helped to develop 
 many a young talent; and after he was gone, his impress still 
 remained upon Hebrew thought and Hebrew letters. 
 
 66 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE REVIVAL MOVEMENT 
 
 The revival period in Hebrew literature, as well as in Jewish 
 life, was one of reaction to that of the Haskalah movement. 
 We have seen that the latter was, in the main, negative, and 
 not apt to endear Jewishness to its votaries. It did not directly 
 touch the masses of the people, but upon the Maskilim it had, 
 in a measure, a disintegrating effect. A movement such as this 
 could not for long remain at full tide. The people as a whole 
 was Jewish, nationalistically Jewish; and their economic and 
 political sufferings, moreover, were not alleviated by the en- 
 deavors of the Haskalah. What the Maskilim did accomplish 
 was the freedom and tolerance of religious opinion within Jewry 
 itself; but what about their belief in Haskalah as the medium 
 through which to solve Jewish problems in relation to the outside 
 world? This was a dream that flitted away as soon as they 
 rubbed their eyes and awoke to the truth. And the truth, the 
 reality was disappointing in the extreme. Hence the note of 
 despair in the writings of the period at its twilight. 
 
 The natural decadence of the Haskalah, then, and the potent 
 influence of Smolenskin were the negative and positive forces 
 respectively, that prepared the way for the revival movement. 
 That, however, which gave the strongest impetus to the latter, 
 were the riots against the Jews in Russia during 1881-82. This 
 cruel occurrence effected at one blow what it would have taken 
 decades of quiet propaganda to accomplish. It brought back 
 to the fold those who had strayed away; it tore the people away 
 from disintegrating external influences, and it created a Jewish 
 national policy. It aroused the slumbering consciousness of 
 the Jews, and taught them to seek their salvation not in assimi- 
 lation with other peoples, not in a currying of favor with them 
 by means of a slavish imitation of their manners and customs, 
 
 67 
 
/ 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 but in segregation, in an internal strengthening and developing 
 of their own resources. 
 
 This new movement, which assumed the concrete form of 
 "Hibbath Zipn," a forerunner of political Zionism, was a rever- 
 sion to a distinctively Jewish life, to the language of the an- 
 cestors as a living tongue, and to the land of the ancestors as a 
 source of vital strength. Its influence upon Jewish reality was 
 immense. Between the years 1882 and 1891, when Hibbath 
 Zion reached its high water mark, some forty or fifty thousand 
 Jews left eastern Europe and settled in Palestine. There they 
 built up a number of colonies, and founded a community which 
 was later to create a national and cultural atmosphere of no 
 mean significance. Schools and societies sprang up in all parts 
 of the diaspora, for the purpose of reviving the Hebrew language. 
 As for the literature, it was no longer to be regarded simply as a 
 medium for propaganda, but as an aim in itself, as a literature 
 that should express the national genius and embody Jewish 
 cultural life. 
 
 The evolution of Hibbath Zion into a fully conscious national 
 movement was, however, a gradual process. In its inception, 
 it was a vague reality. To the masses, in so far as it had enlisted 
 their sympathy and cooperation, it meant but a means of escape 
 from immediate suffering. The journalist regarded it merely as 
 a solution to the material Jewish problems; whereas to the poet 
 it was an undefined romantic yearning for the old glory of mother 
 Zion. That it was, at first, no more than this sort of yearning, 
 can best be seen from the attitude of the poets that ushered in 
 this revival period in Hebrew literature: M. Z. Mane, M. M. 
 Dolitzky, and C. Shapiro. 
 
 Mane began his literary activity in 1879, at the age of twenty, 
 but was not destined to develop a talent that was of no mean 
 degree: for he wasted away of consumption in 1885. His poetic 
 career thus falls at the extreme end of the Haskalah and at the 
 beginning of the revival period. From the former he inherited I 
 the puristic style, the hendecasyllabic line, and the sestet stanza. / 
 Otherwise, there is a wide gap between him and the poets of 
 
 68 
 
THE REVIVAL MOVEMENT 
 
 that age. And the distinction is not merely due to the difference 
 in period, but it is also, and perhaps mainly, temperamental. 
 For Mane was an artist by profession, a painter of promise, — a 
 fact that is of great importance in his case. This accounts for 
 his great devotion to art and nature for their own sake, and 
 this also explains the fact that though he belonged to the new 
 period, he was not its mouthpiece in so conscious a manner as, 
 for instance, Dolitzky. 
 
 Mane came to Hebrew literature with a new prece pt: art foi 
 art's sake, or beauty for its own sake. As a theory, he formu- 
 lated it in one of his essays, "The Aim of the Arts and Their 
 Function." "The aim of the arts, of poetry, music, and the 
 plastic arts," he says, "is beauty .... For beauty is an aim 
 in itself." Had an utterance such as this ever before fallen from 
 the lips of a Hebrew! And this theory Mane, consciously or 
 unconsciously, applied in practice to his poems. He lived in 
 an artistic world of his own, and his absorption in art and in 
 nature was so thorough that he entirely forgot the living world 
 around him. Not a word of protest against the atrocities com- 
 mitted upon the Jews in Russia, in 1881-2, is heard in his poems; 
 nor do we. find in them a trace of such a necessary component of 
 lyric poetry as love. 
 
 There are some points of resemblance between Mane and one^ 
 of his predecessors, Micah J. Lebensohn. Both shared the same 
 fate, dying young and of the same disease, and both were enam- 
 ored of the beautiful. But with this the resemblance is ex- 
 hausted; for the rest, there is the difference of individuality be- 
 tween them. Lebensohn's central passion is love, which he 
 worshipped even at the expense of art; Mane's master passion is 
 art, even to the exclusion of love. Lebensohn is the stronger, 
 the more passionate nature: Mane is the gentler nature and the 
 greater artist. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest number of Mane's poems, certainly the 
 most interesting, deal with nature. One finds in them, it is 
 true, no great variety of scenery. The arcana of nature are not 
 revealed to the poet; nor are the might of the storm-tossed 
 
 69 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 ocean and the depth of the forest primeval known to him. It is 
 the simple scenery of European Russia, such as Mane knew it, 
 of which he sings. He loves above all those phenomena of 
 nature which accord, in their calmness, and, perhaps, also in 
 their picturesqueness, with his own artistic and gentle tempera- 
 ment : the sunrise and sunset, for example, which either form the 
 theme of a great many of his poems or, at least, tinge them with 
 their colors. Mane, however, makes up for this lack of scenic 
 variety by the diversity of presentation of these simple moods 
 of nature. And he presents them as the impressionist would 
 paint them: here and there a vigorous touch, a dab of light, an 
 expression by masses of color, — a process that in poetry, how- 
 ever, leaves the picture at times somewhat vague and unfinished. 
 
 Mane, unlike Lebensohn, was too much preoccupied with his 
 wasting disease to be able to abandon himself to the enjoyment 
 of life and to give vent to any sort of hilarious mood. A dreamy, 
 melancholy tone vibrates through all his poems and a desolate 
 loneliness pervades even the verses he indited to his friends. 
 It is only in the bosom of nature that he finds consolation: 
 " Were it not for the birds singing so brightly, offering their songs 
 in cheery delight, and the odorous flowers refreshing my soul, 
 appearing before me in multitude of colors; were it not for the 
 sparkling stars, the eyes of heaven, that brighten the dark 
 night for me, — my soul would no longer yearn for life, nor the 
 sparks of hope rise within me." It is, moreover, through the 
 medium of nature, through its simple phenomena that Mane has 
 attained to a deeply religious sentiment, and it is by means of 
 communion with this same agency that he thinks and sings of 
 mother Zion. 
 
 In brief. Mane was the first to reintroduce the personal ele- 
 ment into Hebrew poetry; and he did it with a vengeance, 
 substituting for the collective, class sentiment of the Maskilim 
 the self-centered individualistic emotion and making up for 
 their neglect of nature by an idolatrous adoration for it and 
 absorption in it. As for his participation in the temper and the 
 aspirations of the age, "The Love of Zion" was for him — vague 
 
 70 
 
THE REVIVAL MOVEMENT 
 
 yearning woven into the woof of his dreams rather than a pal» 
 pable reaHty that could take possession of his whole being. 
 
 Some time before his death, Judah L. Gordon addressed a poem 
 to M. M. Dolitzky, saying: "Here is my pen, go and take my 
 place!" This happened in 1891, when the younger poet was 
 compelled to leave Russia for America. Gordon was then past 
 his poetic activity, and Dolitzky, too, had already dehvered 
 himself of the best there was in him. This greeting, therefore, . 
 on the part of the former was, it is evident, a mere complimentary 
 rhetorical flourish; for poor as Gordon was as a critic, he could 
 not have found in Dolitzky's verse much more than smoothness 
 and swing to justify the crowning of the latter as poet laureate 
 after himself. For Dolitzky never attained the breadth of view 
 or even the pathos of the elder poet. He brought nothing new 
 to Hebrew literature; nor has he otherwise shown any originality 
 in his verse. He made his debut with a narrative poem, of little 
 value, which represented the life of the Hasidim and was written 
 in the style and tone of the Haskalah poetry. Later he was 
 carried off into the vortex of the revival, the poetic expression of 
 which he became. 
 
 The fame of Dolitzky rests chiefly upon his Zionides, some of 
 which were set to music and became popular songs. If these 
 poems, however, were critically examined, they could hardly 
 stand the test; for they would be found cold, declamatory, preg- 
 nant with sentimentality rather than with sentiment. But the 
 ease and smoothness of versification and, particularly, the 
 romantic halo with which the poems surrounded "Mother 
 Zion," or, to be more explicit, the halo with which Mother Zion 
 encompassed the poems, made them appear unrivalled in the 
 eyes of the Hebrew reader, then in the first flush of the revival. 
 Yet, it would be unjust to Dolitzky to deny him sentiment 
 altogether. Poems such as "On the Ruins of Zion" and "My 
 Request" show both nobility and reality of sentiment. 
 ""^-Dolitzky's muse became atrophied in America, a land that 
 has so far been unfavorable to the development of the Hebrew 
 
 71 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 language and literature. He produced in this country, too, a 
 number of poems, a ballad of the time of the crusades, and a 
 longer, rather tedious, narrative poem, which he seems to have 
 written or, at least, begun in Europe, but only a fragment of 
 which was published there. Of all these poems, however, only 
 the one entitled "Whose Dawn Art Thou?", on the flitting hopes 
 and aspirations of youth, — though not displaying any originality, 
 and being, in the main, a repetition of a previous production, 
 "Visions and Errors," — yet presents some inspired lines. 
 
 Dolitzky also wrote, in the form of a novel, the story of his 
 expulsion from Russia; and in America he took to writing 
 Yiddish stories of the dime novel kind. 
 
 I Constantine A. Shapiro (1840-1900), is, both as a man and 
 as a writer, perhaps the most interesting as well as the most 
 tragic figure in modern Hebrew literature. In his youth, he 
 tasted of the forbidden fruit of the Haskalah, for which he was 
 persecuted and driven from home. He then went to St. Peters- 
 burg, where he hoped to satisfy the cravings of his artistic 
 temperament. In that city he committed the crime against 
 himself and his people which was to fill him for the rest of his 
 life with remorse and bitterness. He, there, joined the Greek 
 Orthodox Church. And this step was made not out of con- 
 viction, but at the blind impulse of a momentary feeling. During 
 the first days of his stay in St. Petersburg, he had become sick 
 from misery and starvation and had been taken care of by a 
 Russian girl, poor, simple, and kind. Half out of gratitude and 
 half out of love, he led her to the altar, receiving her hand to- 
 gether with her religion. 
 
 From that time on, Shapiro steadily rose in worldly affairs. 
 Displaying great talent in photography, he became the court 
 artist of a Russian prince and the official photographer of the 
 academy of arts, his fame spreading all over the Russian capital, 
 and beyond it. But he paid for all this with the peace of his 
 soul; for, from the moment of his conversion he knew no rest. 
 The new society, into which he had entered, was not congenial 
 to him. 
 
 72 
 
THE REVIVAL MOVEMENT 
 
 "In vain have I plunged into the waters of Jordan, 
 In vain have I sought to brighten my gloom; 
 No rest shall I find till I lie in my tomb," — 
 
 he complains in one of his pathetic poems. The world from 
 which he had departed, on the other hand, spurned him as a 
 renegade. His passionate soul, therefore, which yearned for 
 sympathy and recognition and which was so sensitive to blame, 
 to the terrible word " meshummad " (renegade), was rent in twain. 
 A number of poems, intense in their passion, bear witness to the 
 self torture, to the mental agony, of the poet; and in some of 
 them his overpowering feeling rises to a white heat and he vents 
 his rage not only against himself, but against the world as a 
 whole : 
 
 "0 that my arms could the world infold 
 
 And my lips could emit some swift flaming breath; 
 
 'round all creation Fd tighten my hold. 
 
 And clasp it to stifling, kiss it to death." 
 
 And he was so haunted by the offence of his conversion, that he 
 came to regard it not as a voluntary act on his part, but as the 
 result of a sort of fatality. 
 
 In contrast with this strength of passion, which attests Sha- 
 piro's own state of mind and feeling, stands the gentleness with 
 which he approaches Jewish national subjects. He expresses a 
 tenderness, an infinite yearning for the life of the Ghetto and its 
 ideals. In the poems dealing with these subjects, Shapiro's 
 imagination is aglow with memories and portraits, and his verse 
 is instinct with emotion and with love for the Jewish people and 
 its sacred possessions. Even the old time Hebrew teacher, 
 otherwise not a great favorite with the modern Jew, touches a 
 tender cord in his heart, whereas the teacher's sweet, innocent 
 little daughter altogether brightens up the gloom of the Heder 
 (Hebrew school). Jewish legends. Biblical figures and stories, 
 tune his lyre to the songs of the rejuvenation of the Jewish 
 people, and to the "Prinzessin" Sabbath he devotes a couple 
 of poems Heinesque in their representation of its holiness and 
 sublimity. 
 
 73 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 These national poems must have been a balsam to Shapiro's 
 wounded heart. The intensity of his passion is relaxed; a gentle 
 sadness pervades them all, and they emit a warmth that pene- 
 trates the heart like new wine. Yet, even in these he sometimes 
 gives vent to his sullen remorse. Here and there a groan is 
 wrung from his breast or a note of despair chimes in, which tells 
 the tale of his anguish and his tortured feelings. And in a 
 posthumous poem he pictures this mental state in an excrutiating 
 manner, representing himself as being spurned by his people in 
 the midst of a joyous scene in the rejuvenated Zion. 
 
 The artistic significance of Shapiro's poems is not very great. 
 There is in them a constant conscious struggle for expression, — 
 a struggle due to an insufficient knowledge of the Hebrew; and 
 the rhythm suffers accordingly. Yet Shapiro contributed to 
 Hebrew poetry some of the finest verse and some of the most 
 original figures, of which the following stanza may serve as an 
 illustration : 
 
 "In vain are you shedding the brine of your eyes; 
 The torment within will nor cease nor depart. 
 Hell you'll not quench with the dew of the skies, 
 Nor with tears will you still the live flame of the heart." 
 
 These poets, then, while ushering in the new period in Hebrew 
 literature and in the life of eastern Jewry, did not yet give 
 utterance to a fully conscious national sentiment, such as was 
 to develop in the nineties. The exponent and theoretician of 
 Jewish nationalism was still to come, and the Love of Zion was, 
 at least to the poets of the time, simply a more modernized 
 spiritual Zion of the prayer book. 
 
 74 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SHALOM JACOB ABRAMOVITZ AND 
 SHALOM RABINOVITZ 
 
 Before approaching the more modern phases of Hebrew 
 hterature, as influenced and dominated by the conscious nation- 
 aUstic movement, two writers are to be considered, who, at first 
 glance, seem to occupy a place for themselves, apart from the 
 course of evolution of Hebrew literature, but who, looked at 
 more closely, prove to be links, and important ones, in the chain 
 of development. These are: Shalom Jacob Abramovitz and 
 Shalom Rabinovitz. 
 
 When we left Abramovitz in the sixties of the bygone century, 
 he had already done some useful work, but he had hardly mani- 
 fested any signs of the great gifts that he later unfolded. When 
 he reappeared in Hebrew literature, somewhere about 1887, his 
 fame as a story writer had already been established. He had 
 not only made a mark in literature, but he had struck out on a 
 new path all by himself. When he had left Hebrew, he had 
 done so with the express purpose of going down to bring light 
 into the humble dwellings of those Jews for whom Yiddish, not 
 Hebrew, was the medium of literary expression. He, accordingly 
 produced some of his best works in Yiddish, a language which he 
 greatly enriched with his peculiar genius and for which he created 
 the literary style. He returned to Hebrew only after its ex- 
 pansion under the national influence, when it had reformed its 
 diction, modernized its vocabulary, and widened its scope, en- 
 croaching even upon the territory of the Yiddish among the 
 masses. We are, however, justified in speaking of Abramovitz 
 as a Hebrew writer, not only because he did some original work 
 in this language, but also because he translated his Yiddish pro- 
 ductions into Hebrew, — a translation tantamount to original 
 creation as regards style, the reshaping of the material, and the 
 addition of new features. 
 
 75 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Abramovitz is, in some measure, still under the spell of the 
 Haskalah movement. The Maskil, the man of the book, is 
 idealized in his works, and at times set up as a kind of Christ 
 suffering for humanity. His characters, though much more 
 distinct than those of the Haskalah novel, generally stand out 
 not as individuals but as types. Like the Maskilim, again, 
 though from a different point of view, he seeks the cause of 
 Jewish misery not so much in external circumstances as in the 
 internal condition of the Jews. Yet, he is far in advance of the 
 Maskilim, not only in point of talent but also as regards tendency 
 and temperament. The very fact that he selects his heroes from 
 "the lower strata of society" and that he substitutes the eco- 
 nomic for the religious conditions as the primary cause of Jewish 
 sufferings, forms a wide gap between him and the Haskalah 
 writers. Yet Abramovitz lived and worked mainly in the pre- 
 revival period, to which, in a large measure, he owes his inspira- 
 tion; he, therefore, could not break through this charmed circle 
 even during the later period. "I was drawn thither" (to the 
 bygone age), he says, in his humorous way, in the preface to 
 "The Priziv," "to that corner of Jewish life, where my old 
 familiar heroes live, — those heroes of whom I used to tell my 
 audience strange and fantastic, weird and wonderful stories. 
 I met them, thanked be the Lord, all hale and sound, with their 
 old caprices and quaint ways. They are fruitful and they mul- 
 tiply, play the fool at times, and, as formerly, pull each other 
 by the nose on account of a trifle. . . . We immediately recog- 
 nized one another and were glad to see each other well and alive. 
 I regarded them with delight and fed my eyes on their forms, 
 reviewing them from head to foot. And now I am giving a 
 description of some of them in this book." This was written in 
 1884, when new types with different tendencies and aspirations 
 had already appeared on the stage of Jewish history. Even, 
 when Abramovitz deals with a subject of our own age, as in his 
 shorter sketches written since 1887, his heroes are, in the main, 
 taken from those types that belong to his favorite age rather 
 than to ours. 
 
 76 
 
SHALOM JACOB ABRAMOVITZ 
 
 A writer with a propensity such as this, with a fondness for a 
 particular age, is in danger of centering attention upon the 
 period at the expense of character, is Hable to generaUze the 
 latter rather than to individualize it, to present types illustrating 
 the period rather than individuals illustrating themselves. And 
 that is precisely what happens to the heroes of Abramovitz. 
 "Here you have, gentlemen," he says in one of his stories, "the 
 picture of Benjamin the sage and counsellor, whose like is rarely 
 to be met with in Israel in our own day," — and this characteriza- 
 tion is very telling as regards the method of Abramovitz in his 
 stories. Not that he was incapable of admirably delineating 
 individual character. The masterly drawing of Fishke the 
 Lame, in the "Book of Schnorrers" — a masterpiece of its kind — 
 conclusively proves with what power Abramovitz could wield 
 the pen in giving individuality to character. It was only the 
 absorption in the period which made him neglect personalities. 
 And this absorption seems to have been a conscious one; it seems 
 to have been the ambition of the author to represent and per- 
 petuate in story a whole period complete in detail and vivid and 
 rounded in description. And here is really where the strength 
 of Abramovitz lies; for he succeeded in fully entering into the 
 spirit of the time, reproducing it by means of typified character 
 and representation of manner. 
 
 Abramovitz is best known by his nom-de-plume, Mendele 
 Mocher Sefarim (Mendele the Book Seller), and a more fortunate 
 name he could not have taken to himself. For " Book Seller " is 
 not to be understood in the English but in the Ghetto sense of 
 the word. It is a travelling book dealer, a person curious and 
 inquisitive, a good listener to stories and a good narrator; and 
 though somewhat more learned than his fellow Jew, he is yet a 
 man of the people, without the slightest haughtiness or pride. 
 And the literary physiognomy of Abramovitz, with his curiosity 
 and inquisitiveness, his remarkable acquaintance with the life 
 and manners of the people, the public psychology of the age, his 
 marvelous power of story telling, and his racy colloquial style, 
 completely answer to this description of Mocher Sefarim. To 
 
 77 
 
/ 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 this, however, may be added another important trait of Abramo- 
 vitz, which, again, often goes to the completion of the cast of 
 features of a happy-go-lucky book vender, — a blithe and homely 
 humor. 
 
 The humor of Abramovitz is peculiarly his own and, at the 
 same time, distinctively Jewish; yet the influence of the great 
 Russian humorist, Saltykov, is clearly felt therein. This can 
 'be seen in different manifestations, in the democracy and sym- 
 pathy with the common people, in the tearful laughter, and 
 in the fact that, like the Russian humorist, Abramovitz generally 
 places his heroes in the town Glupsk — in Russian it is Glupov — 
 namely. Fool's Town. It must be remarked, however, that the 
 Jewish humorist adds another place, a characteristically Jewish 
 place, as the scene of action for his stories: Kabzansk, namely, 
 Poor-Town. Here the whole misery of his people is both sym- 
 bolized and described. Here, the universal legend of the Jewish 
 riches becomes a mockery; young and old are in a constant state 
 of starvation, and the hunt for bread degenerates, because of 
 poverty, into a seeking for prey. Here, moreover, humility, en,- 
 forced by suffering and persecution, sinks to degradation and 
 pusilanimity. Then, again, the drowning of the voice of nature, 
 the demands of nature, in the voice of God, the commands of 
 God, and the soothing of passion with the words of the Law, — 
 all of which prove that under the outer crust of misery and 
 degradation the heart is vitally sound and even capable of exalta- 
 ' tion to poetic nobility. 
 
 This misery and degradation and this poetry of the Ghetto, 
 of the real, Russian Ghetto, Abramovitz pictures with so much 
 Anglican vividness of detail, with such pathetic humor and 
 sympathetic affection, that the period stands out to us, as it 
 undoubtedly will stand out to future generations, as clear and 
 distinct as society in Cranford in Gaskell's novel of that name. 
 These are the qualities to be sought in the stories of Abramovitz, 
 and these, plus a penetrating humoristic-satiric vein and a 
 naturally colloquial style, are what assign him a foremost place 
 in Hebrew literature. 
 
 78 
 
SHALOM JACOB ABRAMOVITZ 
 
 The works of Abramovitz may be roughly divided into two 
 parts: stories taken directly from life and allegorical or symr«, 
 bolical narratives. In the stories of the first class, he is at his 
 Hbest in the "Book of Schnorrers." It is the simple story 
 of a beggar, Fishke the Lame, who was married to a blind beggar 
 woman that became faithless to him, preferring the company 
 of another, stronger than he and the leader of the whole strag- 
 gling band of beggars. Fishke, disgusted with his wife, falls in 
 love with a hunch-backed, black eyed maiden, as soulful as 
 himself, who lives in the same company. But here, too, the 
 "Red One," the lustful leader, is in the way, teasing and torturing 
 them, and, finally, ejecting Fishke altogether from the band. 
 
 The "Book of Schnorrers" is the masterpiece of Abramovitz. 
 The artistic temperament, pure and simple, is here exhibited. 
 There is no conscious or unconscious tendency to preach, as 
 there is in most of his other works, and, in general, it is the 
 most objective of his writings. We, therefore, find the author 
 at his best in this story. The character of Fishke stands out 
 boldly and in all its simplicity, indelibly impressing itself upon 
 the recollection of the reader. A most delightful humor is 
 blended with a pathos that is just sufficient to rouse sympathy 
 for the hero. And there is a wonderful power of narration, 
 which grips one's interest and holds it from beginning to end. 
 Finally, there is in this story a wealth of scenic description and 
 an appreciation of nature, which alone would suffice to set 
 Abramovitz above the Haskalah novelist, if nothing else would, 
 and of which one may be justified in citing the following examples : 
 
 "The sky is all blue, marred here and there by a slight cloud. 
 The sun burns hot; not a breeze blows, not a stir of breath. 
 Neither the corn nor the trees are moving; they stand silent and 
 patient. A few cows lie in the field with necks outstretched, 
 shaking their ears, while some impatiently paw on the ground 
 or strike it with their horns. One ox, with raised tail, is racing 
 to and fro; he suddenly stops, bends down his forehead, breathing 
 heavily and snorting, lowing and kicking up his hoofs, while the 
 steam rises from his nostrils. Beside an old willow, crooked and 
 
 79 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 cloven by lightning, a few horses are standing together, shadowing 
 each other with their necks, and wagging their tails to brush off 
 the flies and mosquitoes. On the top of the tree, a crow, wrapped 
 up in a small praying shawl of mixed white and blue is swinging 
 himself on a twig. Bowing his head in prayer and prostrating 
 himself, faintly hopping, stretching out his neck, straightening 
 his head, and, then, dozing off with open eyes. Silence reigns 
 over the whole road; not a leaf is stirring, not a flap of a bird's 
 wing is heard. Only the flies and mosquitoes, nimble folk, are 
 keeping holiday in the atmosphere, flitting here and there, buz- 
 zing some secret into the ear and then disappearing." 
 
 Or the return from a fair : 
 
 "Farmers' wagons and carts are coming and going, some with 
 nothing but a bit of straw spread on the bottom, and some laden 
 with utensils and all sorts of saleable articles. On one wagon 
 lies a pig wholly hidden in a sack, poking out only the tip of his 
 nostril into the air and uttering grunts that reverberate in the 
 distance and jar upon the ear. To the back of next wagon, 
 laden with earthenware, is fastened a dapple cow with only one 
 horn, straining with all her strength to break away and run home 
 to see how her sisters fare in the stall. Two patient oxen broad- 
 hipped and big-bellied, accustomed to work and quietly bear the 
 yoke, are chewing the cud with earnestness and great intentness. 
 At the same time, the goat of the innkeeper, jumps, with wicked 
 design, on to the crowded wagon, steals up to a bag full of some- 
 thing, puts her head into it, and, getting a mouthful of eatables, 
 immediately withdraws it, sneezing and jerking her tail, chewing 
 rapidly, moving her jaws and beard at the rate of sixty moves a 
 minute. Meanwhile, her eyes wander on all sides, lest some 
 danger be at hand. A village cur, thin and emaciated, lame in 
 one leg and with a bushy tangle at the end of his tail, who has 
 been dismissed from service and is now supporting himself at 
 the dunghill of the community, comes limping, raising his eyes 
 to the wagon and looking at it respectfully from a distance. 
 Then he grows more daring, comes nearer, and sniffs out from 
 somewhere a dry bone, which no longer has even the tiniest 
 
 80 
 
SHALOM JACOB ABRAMOVITZ 
 
 amount of humidity, limps away hastily with his treasure in 
 his mouth, stretches out on the ground and chews at the bone, 
 holding his head sideways on his paws. A horse fastened to the 
 fence, standing idle and drowsy, with open eyes and drooping 
 underlip, suddenly takes it into his head to move across towards a 
 pair of oxen, who stand opposite him, eating hay out of one sack, 
 in order to share their supper. But, on his way he is careless 
 enough to entangle his pole in the wheel of the other wagon, 
 almost overturning it. Whereupon, the horse of the other wagon 
 gets frightened and, jumping out of its harness, kicks the neigh- 
 boring horse, who, on his part, feels insulted and rears neighing 
 aloud. The goat, then, grows excited and leaps down upon the 
 cur squeezing his tail; thereupon the cur jumps up and runs away 
 limping and howling." 
 
 Next in importance of this class of stories are: "Homunculus" 
 and "In the Valley of Weeping." The art of the former rests 
 mainly upon the skilful linking together of the chain and se- 
 quence of events, through which the hero passes before coming 
 to the position of "little man" in the community, — whereas 
 "In the Valley of Weeping" distinguishes itself with its broad 
 latitude and with its kaleidoscopic view of the manners of the 
 period. Neither of these stories, however, attained the artistic 
 perfection of the "Book of Schnorrers." There is hardly any 
 character drawing in either: the hero of "Homunculus" is a type 
 rather than an individual, whereas in " In the Valley," with the 
 exception of a few minor personages that are individualized, in 
 the manner of Dickens, by ludicrous external traits rather than 
 by psychologic attributes, the characters are generally pale and 
 anaemic. Moreover, if in the other stories of Abramovitz there 
 is very little plot commensurate with their length, in "In the 
 Valley," the attempt at such is brought to a speedy and abrupt 
 ending. Yet, both stories mentioned abound in striking situa- 
 tions and in unexcelled descriptions of Ghetto life and manners. 
 Moreover, there is in them, at least, one interesting cord that 
 strikes a novel note in Hebrew literature, namely, insight into 
 the life and spirit of children. Attempts at representing the 
 7 81 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 latter in story had been made even before Abramovitz. But 
 what were those children? Merely men and women in short 
 clothes. Abramovitz was the first to give a picture of the child 
 consistent with its nature. And he did it with gusto, with a 
 sort of thrilling pleasure. He loves not only to delineate its 
 character but also to trace its growth and development into 
 manhood. Three stories bear witness to this fondness for 
 children: "Homunculus," "In the Valley," and "In Those 
 Days," — in all of which the children described are real, children 
 of flesh and blood. Hershele in "The Valley of Weeping," 
 probably in imitation of a quack, plays the physician, operates 
 upon the foot of his little friend with a rusty nail, and then cures 
 it with a concoction of his own make, not forgetting salt as an 
 important ingredient of the medicine. Shlomele, in "In Those 
 Days," lives through in imagination all the stories and legends 
 found in the Bible or told him by his teacher. And Isaac 
 Abrahamze's fancy is so possessed with the "manikin" (the 
 reflection in the pupil of the eye), that he strikes his mother a 
 hard blow in the head, in order that he may see the manikin 
 jump out of her eyes. 
 
 Of the purely imaginative works of Abramovitz, two may be 
 singled out: "The Mare" and "The Travels of Benjamin III." 
 The former is an allegory of the Jewish people, its life and 
 condition among the nations. The mare is the Jew (in accord- 
 ance with a verse in Canticles: "Unto the mare in Pharaoh's 
 chariot do I compare thee, my beloved"), windbroken, foot-sore, 
 pestered by flies and gnats, molested and driven from place to 
 place by the scum of humanity, and ridden upon by friend and 
 foe. This story distinguishes itself by a soaring flight of imagina- 
 tion. The representation of the mare, half beast and half en- 
 dowed with human intelligence, now showing consciousness as 
 regards its own wretched state and now returning to the con- 
 dition of beastly insensibility; and then the episodes such as 
 the revel in the air with Satan, though rather incoherently 
 connected with the main story, — all this marks "The Mare" as 
 one of the most imaginative works in literature. "The Travels 
 
 82 
 
SHALOM JACOB ABRAMOVITZ 
 
 of Benjamin III" is the story of a Jewish dreamer, who sets out, 
 with his companion, from his native town, on a quest of the lost 
 ten tribes of Israel, who are supposed, by legend, to live some- 
 where beyond Sambatyon, a river unapproachable; and, after 
 many mock-heroic adventures, the hero and his companion are 
 caught and sold into the army. The story strongly reminds 
 one of " Don Quixote," by which it was undoubtedly influenced. 
 Like the latter, it is not to be regarded as the satire of an indi- 
 vidual, but is rather a parody on the condition of the Jewish 
 people, poor, famishing, and miserable, yet seeking the salvation 
 of the whole world together with its own; but suffering, in the 
 end, for the sins of others. 
 
 Finally, a word in regard to the style and literary influence of 
 Abramovitz. In point of style, he stands between the Maskilim 
 and the more modern writers. His form of expression is too 
 exuberant and not precise enough for purposes of modern realism. 
 In his endeavor to make his style as colloquial as possible, he in- 
 troduced many Yiddishisms into Hebrew and made frequent use 
 of the Talmudic phraseology, which is nearer in spirit to modern 
 Yiddish than is the Biblical diction. Hence, in a measure, his style, 
 like that of the Maskilim, bears the eclectic, Melizah character, 
 yet it is racy and spirited, the Talmudic phraseology serving as a 
 sort of seasoning for it. Its influence upon the more modern 
 Hebrew style was, therefore, direct and fruitful. With this, 
 however, the influence of Abramovitz is not exhausted; his 
 humor, his treatment, his sympathy with the common people 
 have also had their wholesome effect upon Hebrew literature. 
 And if a concrete example of this effect be desired, it will be 
 found in Shalom Rabinowitz. 
 
 Shalom Rabinowitz 
 
 The introductory remark made about Abramovitz, as regards 
 his Hebrew and Yiddish productions, also holds good in the 
 case of Shalom Rabinowitz, or, as he is best known by his nom- 
 de-plume, Shalom Aleichem. Like Abramovitz, the latter wrote 
 most of his works in Yiddish and later translated them into 
 
 83 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Hebrew, in such a manner as not to betray their Yiddish original. 
 We are thus justified in giving this author, too, a place in Hebrew 
 literature. 
 
 In the first works of Rabinowitz we see not only the influence 
 of Abramovitz but a direct imitation of his works. "Rabchik 
 (a dog)," for example, strongly reminds one of "The Mare," 
 and the same, at least, in some measure, may be said of " Methu- 
 shelah." Later, Rabinowitz struck out in an independent direc- 
 tion, only now and then betraying the influence of the older 
 humorist, by a simile, a passage, or a turn of phrase. There is, 
 however, a resemblance more essential than this between the 
 two humorists. Like Abramovitz, Rabinowitz takes his heroes 
 from the bygone generation — though to a much greater extent — 
 and, like the former, he does not concern himself with the 
 psychology of his characters, but describes them, in Dickens- 
 like manner, by a ludicrous gesture or form of expression, — a 
 practice that, at times, degenerates with him, as with Dickens, 
 into a mannerism. 
 
 ""T^hese are, in the main, the points of resemblance between the 
 two Jewish humorists. The points of difference are just as inter- 
 esting and instructive. In the first place, there is no preachment 
 or tendency in the stories of Shalom Aleichem, as is to be found 
 in these of the older writer. The former has nothing to plead 
 for his heroes. He stands aside, observes their manners, their 
 conversation, their mode of life, and these he describes as they 
 are, or as they present themselves before his mind's eye, with 
 their faults, their squint and stammer humorously magnified. 
 He seldom extends sympathy to them. Abramovitz laughs 
 with tears in his eyes; the laugh of Shalom Aleichem is cruel, 
 Mephistophelian. Then, again, the humor of the former is that 
 of the great writer, of a Dickens or a Thackeray, and is not the 
 principal aim of the author, but serves merely as a seasoning 
 to the story, whereas the humor of Shalom Aleichem is that of 
 the professional humorist, of a Mark Twain, which is an aim in 
 itself. And these differences between teacher and disciple are 
 Slot due to mere temperament, but are to be sought also in the 
 
 84 
 
SHALOM JACOB ABRAMOVITZ 
 
 difference of period during which they lived. Abramovitz was 
 active mainly during the time when his heroes were a part of the 
 social order. Hence, his sketches reflect not only the single 
 situation with which he deals, but also the whole life or, at least, 
 an important phase of the life of the society. Shalom Aleichem 
 lives in an age when the heroes he describes are merely an 
 outgrowth from a previous period, almost an anachronism: the 
 light that he throws upon them, therefore, gives the impression 
 of the brilliancy of the sun before its setting. They can interest 
 us only as a dying type of individuals of a dead period. See his 
 "Kathrielians," a series of portraits that constitute a rounded 
 whole, one of Shalom Aleichem's best works. We are, indeed, 
 acquainted with each and every one of them individually; we 
 know that they have existed and that they still exist. But 
 Kathrilevke as a society, as a social order, seems to us unreal, 
 as a thing of the past. Or, take "Tobias the Milkman," — per- 
 haps the masterpiece of our author, — whom he almost succeeded 
 in endowing with psychologic individuality. Tobias is also a 
 personage whom we know well; but, as one of a bygone age, 
 he can hardly find himself in the society of our own time. It is 
 then, in this absence of personal interest, in the fact that Shalom 
 Aleichem lives outside of the atmosphere of his heroes, that we 
 may find, at least in part, the objectivity of this humorist. 
 
 In short, the difference between the humor of Abramovitz 
 and that of Rabinowitz may be summed up as follows: that of 
 the former approaches the French type, which is a criticism of 
 life; that of the latter comes near the American type, in which 
 an external, ludicrous characteristic, a manner of expression, 
 individual or racial, a popular saying or a current story, is seized 
 upon, exaggerated and carried to the extent of mannerism. Such 
 is the humor of Shalom Aleichem, and therein lies his success as 
 well as his shortcoming. 
 
 \ 
 
 85 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE REVIVAL MOVEMENT IN ITS NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 With the writings of Shalom Aleichem we have come down 
 to our own time; but this writer was assigned a place in the 
 previous chapter, because of the relation he bears to Abramovitz. 
 He is, however, a unique figure in Hebrew literature, and can be 
 regarded as a rather loose link in the chain of its development. 
 If we desire to resume the thread of evolution, we must go back 
 to the end of the eighties. At that time there came upon the 
 scene a thinker of some power and ability — A. Ginsburg — who 
 exerted a marked influence upon the revival movement as well 
 as upon Hebrew literature. 
 
 Ginsburg, better known by his nom-de-plume Ahad Ha-Am 
 (One of the People), was an active member of the movement long 
 before 1889, but it was only in that year that he first made his 
 appearance before the reading public. Up to that time he was un- 
 willing, as he said, to take up the pen and become a public man. 
 But the movement began to take a form and a direction unde- 
 sirable in themselves and fraught with dangers to its future 
 development. The economic feature was the most pronounced 
 in it, and its activity was feverish and short sighted. Purchases 
 of land in Palestine were made noisily, boisterously; the slightest 
 success, real or imaginary, in the colonies in that country was 
 exaggerated by the newspaper and the public meeting, with the 
 good intention of turning public sentiment in favor of Palestine 
 and the movement. The results, however, could not fail to be 
 disastrous. During the nine years, from 1882 to 1891, some 
 fifty thousand Jews went to settle in Palestine, most of whom 
 were destitute, having broken with the last means of sustenance 
 in their native countries. And there is no telling how many 
 thousands or tens of thousands more Jews would then have 
 poured into that land, once the flood of immigration had been 
 
 86 
 
REVIVAL MOVEMENT IN ITS NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 turned thither in that artificial way; and there is no telHng how 
 many thousands or tens of thousands would have been sacrificed 
 in this manner in that agriculturally and industrially undeveloped 
 country, had not the Porte put a stop to it, by pulling in the 
 drawbridge in 1891, and forbidding the Jews to settle in the land. 
 
 In the midst of this feverish agitation, which swept away even 
 such cool thinkers as Lilienblum, Ahad Ha-Am was the only 
 one in the movement to retain his balance. In 1889, when this 
 excitement was at its zenith, he published a couple of articles 
 entitled: "This Is Not the Way^" in which he set forth the evils 
 of Hibbath Zion in the form which it had assumed, at the same 
 time pointing out the direction that it should henceforth take, 
 if it was to maintain its position as a national movement : " Hib- 
 bath Zion" has hitherto made the mistake of overemphasizing 
 the economic and, in a manner, the political significance of the 
 rehabilitation of Palestine by the Jews. The truth is, that this 
 country, small in area and industrially undeveloped, cannot 
 solve either of these Jewish problems. It can neither serve as a 
 centripetal force to attract the eddies of wanderers driven from 
 their homes by starvation ; nor can it be a refuge for the millions 
 of Jews persecuted in their present native lands. Any other 
 center of immigration, say America, may serve this purpose 
 infinitely better than Palestine. In short, this country cannot 
 and will not solve the problem of the Jews, but that of Judaism — 
 a dictum that has since been often quoted in literature and on 
 the platform. Palestine is to become a center merely for Jewish 
 culture, which has been steadily degenerating during all the 
 years of the dispersion. And the endeavors of Hibbath Zion 
 should be bent solely towards this aim. 
 
 This is the gist of the couple of articles published by Ahad 
 Ha-Am in 1889; and it was a veritable bomb thrown into the 
 camp of the adherents of the cause. It roused a storm of oppo- 
 sition on the part of the journalists and active "Lovers of Zion," 
 who saw their idea of Palestine as a panacea for all Jewish ills 
 overthrown by this novel opinion. Yet this was not the last 
 word of Ahad Ha-Am to rouse resentment. Every article that 
 
 87 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 he subsequently published became an event to stir up commotion. 
 Not that he was sensational or that he tried in any other way 
 to draw the attention of the public to himself. Very few authors 
 in any literature have been so free from the vice of courting 
 publicity as he. It was the force of his argument, the directness 
 of his manner, the vigor and lucidity of his style, that brought 
 his ideas home alike to friend and foe, and that finally exalted 
 him to the height of spiritual leader of Hibbath Zion, and made 
 him a potent factor in Hebrew literature. 
 
 Ahad Ha-Am later developed, in a series of essays, a rounded 
 and consistent theory of Zionism as well as of Judaism as a 
 whole. The basis of his theory is purely cultural-nationalistic: 
 The Jews have never been a mere religious sect, as is maintained 
 by some, but a national entity, whether they lived in their own 
 land or in the diaspora. In their dispersion, they entered the 
 various countries as a distinct nationality and have always lived 
 there as such. Their national spirit, the moral vigor, which was 
 moulded in their own country and was so creative in the prophets, 
 was a great preservative power to maintain the national existence 
 of the Jews even after they had lost their political independence. 
 In so far Ahad Ha-Am is in accord with his predecessors, by whom 
 he was undoubtedly influenced: S. D. Luzzatto and Smolenskin, 
 who likewise lay emphasis upon the theory that Jewish nation- 
 alism has been a fact prevalent throughout Jewish history, and 
 who, together with another thinker of the nineteenth century, 
 N. Krochmal, offer a spiritual interpretation of Jewish history. 
 But he made a further contribution to the theory of Jewish 
 nationalism. Luzzatto, himself deeply religious, and Smolen- 
 skin, theoretically religious, regarded Jewish faith as indis-^ 
 solubly connected with Jewish nationality; Ahad Ha-Am draws 
 a sharp and distinguishing line between the two. It is true, he 
 maintains, that the religion of Israel is a product of the national 
 genius; but this merely means that the former is dependent upon 
 the latter, not vice versa. Even the moral spirit of the Jewish 
 people, which seems at first sight to be so inseparably welded 
 together with religion, has in reality been an independent cre- 
 
 88 
 
REVIVAL MOVEMENT IN ITS NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 ative power, manifesting itself in religious forms only during the 
 time when religion dominated national life. But, in our own 
 time, national consciousness, which has steadily been growing 
 among the Jewish people, can and will take the place of religion 
 as the creator of national values. This is the contribution that 
 Ahad Ha-Am made to the theory of Jewish nationalism. He 
 based it purely upon sentiment, upon consciousness, freeing it, 
 Irom dogma and thus flinging its doors open for the free-thinkey 
 and atheist and even for one still farther removed from Judaism, 
 And this theory presented with such trenchant logic, and in 
 phrases and expression as striking and pregnant as those of 
 Matthew Arnold, could not but act as a stimulant to Hebrew 
 thought. There is no exaggeration in saying that Ahad Ha-Am 
 dominated Hebrew literature in the decade between 1890 and 
 1900. 
 
 The year 1891 may be regarded as a landmark in modern 
 Hebrew literature. In that year, the latter began to assume an 
 entirely European character. Shalkowitz, known by the pseu- 
 donym Ben-Avigdor, commenced to issue a series of stories, 
 sketches, and poems, under the name of "Sifre Agorah" (Penny 
 Series), to which there contributed, besides the editor himself, 
 some of the most talented Hebrew writers. The intrinsic value 
 of this series is by no means great. Not one of the contributions 
 rises above mediocrity, and in the realistic sketches of the editor 
 himself there is too much conventionality and too minute and 
 oppressive detail. Yet its success was immediate and decisive. 
 The manner of publication was in itself something novel in 
 Hebrew; whereas the realism of the series was hailed as a new 
 gospel, and it contributed its mite towards the establishment 
 of realism in the literature as a whole. Its fame, moreover, 
 went even beyond the limits of the Hebrew; for some of the 
 sketches of this series were translated into other languages, both 
 as illustrative of modern tendencies in Hebrew literature and as 
 representative pictures of Jewish life. Furthermore, this publi- 
 cation later developed and branched off into two important 
 publishing companies, "Ahiasaf" and "Tushiah, "which have 
 
 89 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 done good work towards the uplifting and aggrandizing of Hebrew 
 literature in every respect. And that all this was done under 
 the direct influence of Ahad Ha-Am may well be attested by the 
 fact that Ben-Avigdor dedicated to him one of his sketches, 
 "Moses," drawing a comparison between Ahad Ha-Am and the 
 Biblical leader. 
 
 The writer who introduced the ideas of Ahad Ha-Am into 
 jfiction was, however, Mordecai Z. Feierberg. The heritage that 
 he bequeathed Hebrew literature is rather small; it consists of a 
 longer story and a few smaller sketches, which were the result of 
 three years of literary activity, for he died very early, at the 
 age of twenty five. But in these few productions is revealed a 
 talent of considerable power, a personal note of yearning towards 
 the great and the noble, a soul quivering with emotion and 
 idealism. 
 
 Feierberg nourishes his offspring, pelican-like, with his own 
 life's blood. There is an unrelieved subjectivity in his writings, 
 which read somewhat like an autobiography. Here is the 
 easily impressed, gentle child of the Ghetto, with his plastic mind, 
 who is frightened into bad dreams by Jewish legend, but who is 
 cured by the magic power of an amulet ("The Amulet"). Here 
 is his little world, full of misery in the Heder and at home (" In 
 the Dark of Night"): and there again is the flutter of the emo- 
 tions of the child poet at the knowledge that his beloved calf 
 is to be killed before her eight days' grace are over, and who 
 staunchly believes in supernatural intervention ("The Calf"). 
 And there, again, the same "Hafni the Dreamer" is growing 
 accustomed to "loving the night and the shadows," because 
 then he can test opinions and theories that run perhaps cross- 
 grained to those of his previous studies, but that fill him at 
 the same time with inextinguishable hunger after light and 
 life ("Shadows"). Finally, observe the passionate, personal 
 "Whither," which, together with "In the Dark of Night," 
 secured Feierberg his place in Hebrew literature. 
 
 "In the Dark of Night" is based upon the legend of a Jewish 
 boy who was taken by force in his infancy to the house of a 
 
 90 
 
REVIVAL MOVEMENT IN ITS NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 Polish nobleman and brought up there in ignorance of his origin; 
 but, coming to the age of reason, he is urged by his dead father 
 to return to the fold, — and the boy acts accordingly. With 
 Feierberg, however, this story assumes a symbolic character, 
 alluding to the story of the last few decades of external influ- 
 ences and internal struggle in Jewry, and with the issue still in 
 the balance. Here is the Ghetto child, gifted and studious, 
 but allured, forcibly drawn, by the richer and more varied life 
 without; however, at last awakening to self-consciousness, he 
 returns to his own people. But this return can after all not be 
 complete. He has tasted too much of the light without to be 
 satisfied with the stifling atmosphere within. The contest 
 between these sentiments is great and tragic; but the victory 
 seems to be on the side of the inner self, of the Jewish national 
 self -consciousness . 
 
 ** Whither" is. in a measure, supplementary to "In the Dark"; 
 it answers the question which the latter leaves unanswered: the 
 complete harmony between the Jew in the man and the man 
 in the Jew is possible only in one way, in the building up of a 
 perfect Jewish center in the ancestral land. The hero of this 
 story is really no new figure in Hebrew literature. He is a herit- 
 age of the Haskalah novel. His history is that of the heroes of 
 the latter; for, like them, Nahman was brought up upon the 
 Talmud, and, like them, he revolts, after having come in contact 
 with a broader knowledge and culture, against its autocratic 
 hold of Jewish life and mind. But there is something in the 
 make-up of the hero of "Whither" that stamps him as an 
 original creation, and, at the same time, as a child of the transi- 
 tion period in the history of European Jewry. In the first place, 
 his revolt is deeper and more comprehensive than that of the 
 Haskalah heroes. It goes beyond the religion of his people; 
 the whole mode of Jewish life is unbearable to him. He could, 
 therefore, not be satisfied with a few reforms in the Law, but 
 would seek an entirely new modus for his people. Secondly, 
 there is in this story a high pitch of passion and a psychologic 
 analysis entirely foreign to the Haskalah literature. And, in 
 
 91 
 
 \ 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 order to complete the comparison or the contrast between 
 "Whither" and the Haskalah novel, it may be pointed out that, 
 in spite of the fact that the former is also a problem story, it is 
 yet remarkably free from the bane of tendency. The problem 
 with which Feierberg deals and the solution that he gives to it — 
 a solution given in the spirit of Ahad Ha-Am's theory — are not 
 simply a system of thought, but are grown together with his 
 whole being. Hence, the impression that "Wliither" makes is 
 that of a palpable reality, the psychologic struggle of its hero 
 being not the conflict of abstract ideas, but the flutter of a living 
 soul in constant state of agitation. 
 
 We have seen that the psychologic element is prevalent in 
 Feierberg's sketches. This feature marks him as a representative 
 of the more modern spirit in Hebrew literature. For it is with 
 the rise of Jewish national consciousness that the real emanci- 
 pation of the individual in fiction began. In the Haskalah 
 period, with all its conflict for the freedom of the individual, it 
 was, after all, the spirit, the moral, the sentiment of a class that 
 permeated the Hebrew. In Smolenskin, the Maskil of his time, 
 though there was some character drawing, it was still done off- 
 handedly, unconsciously, imperfectly. Even with Abramovitz, 
 who was, in spirit, still farther removed from that period, char- 
 acters presented types rather than individuals. It is only with 
 the revival that the latter received their full recognition. 
 
 Another important feature of contemporary Hebrew literature 
 is its favorable attitude towards Hasidism. This is not due 
 merely to religious tolerance, which has become a matter of course 
 in contemporary Jewish life; but has a deeper literary signifi- 
 cance. In the first place, Hasidism is more subjective than its 
 rival creed, "Mithnagdism;" its saints have displayed more 
 individuality and its adherents more life and character. The 
 modern writer of the story could, therefore, find a richer harvest 
 of material in Hasidism than elsewhere. Then, again, the 
 symbolistic movement, which has been infiltrated into contem- 
 porary Hebrew literature, could also find more scope in Hasidism, 
 which has a Kabbalistic undercurrent. 
 
 92 
 
REVIVAL MOVEMENT IN ITS NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 One of the most representative of this individualistic and 
 symbolistic spirit, a writer whose fame went beyond the limits 
 of Hebrew literature, is I. L. Peretz. This author, like Abramo- 
 vitz and Shalom Aleichem, has written most of his works in 
 Yiddish, translating them later into Hebrew, and like them he 
 generally takes his themes and characters from the life of a 
 bygone age, seldom attempting to portray a modern man or 
 describe a modern situation. But there is a vast difference 
 between him and the other two writers. In the first place, 
 they are primarily humorists, which he is not. Their humor 
 flows easily, unrestrainedly. If they exaggerate and caricaturize, 
 it is the exaggeration and the caricature of the humorist, of the 
 Micawber and the Pickwickian type. Peretz can not create a 
 humorous character or situation; his humor, whenever he 
 employs any, is forced, far-fetched. Witness, for example, 
 "The Heritors of Pharaoh," "Venus and Shulamith," or "My 
 Uncle Shachna and My Aunt Yahna," — all of which are intended 
 for humorous sketches. What do they provoke? Surely, not 
 a hearty laugh, but a doubtful smile. A more fundamental 
 difference, however, between the two humorists and Peretz is, 
 that the former are writers of manner not of personality, whereas . 
 the latter is much more a delineator of character, of psychologic 
 states of mind, than of manners. Take his "Pictures of Travel" 
 — in the provincial towns of Russia. How much a Heine, an 
 Abramovitz, a Shalom Aleichem could have made of them ! With 
 Peretz, however, they appear tame and sober, and, in places, 
 lifeless. His psychologic studies, on the other hand, particularly 
 in some pathologic phases, bespeak the great master. The 
 hero of "A Night of Terror" is torn between two conflicting 
 sentiments. He has inherited both the gentleness, the yielding 
 weakness of his mother and the business ferocity of his father. 
 And these traits, antagonistic to each other, come to a real clash 
 after his marriage, when the love of gain and his affection for 
 his gentle, pleading wife, herself the type of his mother, stand in 
 the way of each other and make him hesitate as to what course 
 to take, — an indecision that finally kills his beloved wife. The 
 
 m 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 hero of "The Charitable Man" makes his escape from his native 
 town, the poor of which know him too well, not because he 
 begrudges them the few rubles he spends on them, but because 
 he loathes their beggarly manner of approaching him for an 
 alms. In "Yosele Yeshibah Bahur," the unsatisfied sexual 
 desire of the hero leads him to suicide; and in "His Defense" a 
 father, who killed his daughter because she had gone astray, 
 pleads not guilty, maintaining that he did not slay his daughter, 
 who was innocent and still alive, but her shadow, her bad sem- 
 blance. Finally, witness the masterly sketch "Who Am I?", — 
 the tangled and confused thoughts of a half madman. Read 
 all this, and you will see with what force and truth Peretz is 
 capable of depicting important psychological moments. 
 
 From the sketches cited above, one can see that Peretz has a 
 preference for the abnormal, whether as a psychologic entity or 
 as a specific mood. These abnormalities he follows to the inner- 
 most recesses of the soul, and in that camera obscura he lays 
 bare before us the minutiae of its struggles and agitations. For, 
 with Peretz, the human drama, the play of emotions, is but 
 seldom acted without; it is generally played within. His psy- 
 chologic sketches are not stories in the real sense of the word, 
 but studies; and the more the subject is out of the ordinary, the 
 worthier it is of study. As such he also takes the life of the 
 Hasidim. In the stories of that life there is no apotheosis of 
 Hasidism, as you may find in the stories of other modern Hebrew 
 writers. In Peretz there is to be found an undercurrent of 
 irony, which is at times displeasing and out of accord with the 
 subject. And the reason is apparent. Peretz is in reality of 
 aristocratic inclinations; the democracy shown in his works is 
 not inherent in him, — it is strained. He always takes his stand 
 on an elevation, from which he looks down upon his heroes. He 
 can, therefore, not regard them without some prejudice, such 
 as comes from a natural haughtiness and artificial condescension. 
 
 The defects found in the Hasidaic stories of Peretz stand out 
 more glaringly in his "Folk Stories," a series of popular tales and 
 legends of Jewish saints. In these stories, the popular style is 
 
 94 
 
REVIVAL MOVEMENT IN ITS NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 forced, the simplicity of narration artificial, and one can almost 
 discover a knowing squint in them. In spite of all this, however, 
 Peretz is at his best in these " Folk Stories." His imagination is 
 here given full play and almost always kept at a soaring height. 
 By reason of this, as well as by a certain charm of narration, the 
 stories succeed in transporting us into the world of legend. 
 
 JuDAH Steinberg (1863-1908) 
 
 In the works of Peretz, as we have seen, the triumph of the 
 individual is not yet complete. Peretz is a master in the deline- 
 ation of the complicated, the abnormal ; he hardly ever attempts 
 to portray a normal character, a complete personality. The 
 individual in Hebrew fiction has first found complete and varied 
 representation in the writings of Judah Steinberg. This author 
 began to write late in life and died after a very short period of 
 literary activity; and yet he bequeathed to Hebrew literature a 
 heritage considerable in bulk as well as in quality. His stories 
 and sketches are marked by a grasp and compass of individuality 
 and by a variety of psychological study surpassing those of any 
 other Hebrew writer. Not that his works are always above 
 mediocrity. It was inevitable in a writer whose output was 
 intensive and uninterrupted to produce, at times, quantity at 
 the expense of quality. But even his weaker productions give 
 the impression not of a lack of talent, but merely of an absence 
 of finish due to overhastiness in workmanship; for even they, 
 to say the least, introduce a psychologic problem or present an 
 outline, a skeleton of individual character. 
 
 Steinberg is one of the sincerest, most direct, and most penetrat- 
 ing of short story writers. He neither seeks eft'ect nor mystery; 
 but paints life as it is, and paints it truly, sincerely. Yet there 
 is no superficiality in his presentation of life and the individual. 
 In the stories of Steinberg, as in those of Henry James, we find 
 the multifarious nuances of character sketched with remarkable 
 truth and delicacy. Witness, for example, his longer story 
 "Father and Son," and you will see with what fineness of touch 
 he lays bare every secret fold of the human heart. Every 
 
 95 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 psychologic turn takes us by surprise, seems almost a mood rather 
 than a state of mind or sentiment; and yet it is convincingly 
 true, as true as in the stories of James. Or, again, take the small 
 story "Mordecai Kizler." This also is given rather a surprising 
 turn at the end, but a turn entirely original in its conception. 
 In this story, Steinberg describes a rich merchant of forceful and 
 tyrannical character, who, half from inclination, half at the 
 bidding of his Hasidaic saint, overwhelms his employees with 
 gifts, in season and out of season, at the same time, however, 
 robbing them of all initiative and independence of mind. But 
 the time comes when this strong will must bend before one still 
 more powerful. The merchant gets a new employee, who refuses, 
 "on principle," to take any gift from his master and thereby sur- 
 render his individuality. Kizler cannot rid himself of this 
 servant, as he stands in need of the latter, more than the latter 
 of him. Under these circumstances, one might expect the con- 
 ventional climax: a clash of wills, perhaps some sort of tragedy. 
 But Steinberg does nothing of the kind. With artistic skill, he 
 tones down these two strong wills, when brought together, to a 
 conflict with themselves rather than with each other. The 
 business of the proud merchant, Mordecai Kizler, has of late 
 been going somewhat awry, and, in addition, his daughter is 
 dangerously ill. Superstitious as he is, he imagines that all this 
 has happened as a punishment because he has not completely 
 carried out the bidding of his saint, to be generous towards his 
 employees, as there is still one to whom he has not been able to 
 extend his liberality. He, therefore, decides that on the next 
 holiday he will insist upon Gisnet, his employee, accepting a 
 present from him. "If I cannot compel him, I shall try to ask 
 him, to implore him . . . After all he is not a brute." And the 
 story winds up with the following dramatic scene : 
 
 "And he stands bowed down before Gisnet, like a person begging 
 for his life. 
 
 — Take it! What will you lose by it? It is of great importance! 
 I can not reveal the matter to you. You would not believe it. Please 
 accept! 
 
 96 
 
REVIVAL MOVEMENT IN ITS NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 Gisnet looks in confusion at his imploring master. He can neither 
 yield nor refuse: 
 
 — I cannot, sir, it's against my principles. 
 
 — Please do accept! 
 
 — But my principles! 
 
 — It's a question of life and death! 
 
 — Is it so important that you would have me act against my prin- 
 ciples? 
 
 — Please accept! 
 
 — But my principles! 
 
 Both suddenly became aware of an imploring gentleness in each 
 other's voice, a gentleness unusual with them up to that time. And 
 they were dumbfounded." 
 
 From the sketch cited above, another characteristic feature 
 of Steinberg is to be noticed. He often places characters in 
 juxtaposition, that affect or supplement each other, with the 
 result that they bring each other into relief or exert a wholesome 
 mutual influence. Thus, the niggard and the lavish persons are 
 "well contrasted in "Hezekiah Kuzner"; the nobility of character 
 of "Leibush Bulgar" is brought out by that of his wife; fickleness 
 and solidity of mind are marvelously typified in "Two Young 
 Women." See also, in this respect, " Shlome Harif," " A Groan," 
 and "DanMirsky." 
 
 The characters of Steinberg are endowed with a charm but 
 seldom to be met with in modern Hebrew fiction, — a charm due 
 to a naivety, an integrity of belief, and an attachment to principle 
 — characteristics with which they distinguish themselves. It 
 would be tautology to speak of these traits when his stories of 
 the life of the Hasidim are treated, inasmuch as naivety is basic 
 in this life, in its spiritual side, in the unquestioned and persistent 
 belief of the Hasidim, for example, -in the godliness and infalli- 
 bility of their saints. It may be pointed out, however, that this 
 quality holds good in these stories not only as regards the beliefs 
 and superstitions of the sect but also in respect to their individual 
 life. For, here, too, it is not the symbol, the mysticism that 
 interests Steinberg, but the living personality. Hence, the 
 Hasidaic stories of this author are equally distant from the 
 8 97 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 disparaging descriptions of the Maskilim and the idealizing of 
 the symboHsts. 
 
 The stories of Steinberg, then, present, in one way, the culmi- 
 nating point of the evolution of individuality in Hebrew fiction. 
 There are very few problematic natures among his heroes; and 
 the Weltschmerz, that which expresses itself through individual 
 unrest and suffering, has not found strong utterance in his 
 characters. But, on the other hand, there is a wealth of indi- 
 vidualities in the works of Steinberg; for this author hardly ever 
 repeats himself, hardly ever offers an old character overhauled 
 for a new creation. And all this he presents to us in a style 
 lucid, fluent, convincing, without posing and without the slightest 
 shade of mystic obscurity. 
 
 98 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 CONTEMPORARY HEBREW POETRY 
 H. N. BlALIK 
 
 The poems of Bialik are marked by pathos, loftiness of con- 
 ception, and artistic beauty. Their pathos never degenerates 
 into sentimentaUty, but is of a sort that, coupled with virility 
 and strength of expression, makes a Byron or a Victor Hugo, and 
 wedded to seriousness and loftiness of idealism, gives birth to the 
 preacher and the prophet. And Bialik possesses these qualities 
 in a high degree. He is, with the possible exception of Jehudah 
 Halevi — a Hebrew poet of the Middle Ages — the most repre- 
 sentative Jewish national poet, inheriting the pathetic idealism 
 and the prophetic seriousness of his people; at the same time 
 giving full expression to the national grief, and, to some extent, 
 to the national aspirations. 
 
 Bialik's poems may generally be divided into national and 
 universal, each division presenting its own peculiarities. In his 
 national poems, he only at rare occasions tunes his lyre to a 
 joyous melody. His muse is not the bright being of Goethe's 
 poems, revealing herself when "Der junge Tag erhob sich mit 
 entziicken," and imparting to the poet her cheerful mood: 
 "Sie lachelte, da war ich schon genesen; zu neuen Freuden stieg 
 mein Geist heran." The Hebrew muse reveals herself to our 
 
 poet : 
 
 "In a darksome nook, in mournful mood, 
 And robed in garb of widowhood." 
 
 It is a woebegone muse such as this that bestows her poetic gifts 
 upon our Hebrew poet; his national poems are, therefore, sullenly 
 passionate and eloquently pathetic. 
 
 It is not, however, a Jeremiah that we discover in the national 
 poems of Bialik, one sitting on the ruins of Jerusalem and help- 
 lessly lamenting the desolation. Nor is it a paitan (mediaeval 
 
 99 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Hebrew hymn writer) imploring the God of Israel for revenge 
 against the enemies of his people. It is the fire-giving Pro- 
 metheus, rising to his full strength and consciousness and tearing 
 at his shackles, that reveals himself to us in Bialik's verse. It is 
 the Jewish genius, who had been sitting for centuries, silent and 
 hopeless, on the ruins of his people, but who has risen when the 
 measure was filled and the misery no longer endurable, and has 
 thrown the gauntlet both to man and God. In one of his finest, 
 though obscurest, poems, "The Fiery Scroll," Bialik chisels in 
 verbal marble the image of this national genius: 
 
 "On the ruins, robed in pillars of smoke, his feet resting on 
 dust and ashes, his head weighed down with the burden of grief, 
 he sits, mute and desolate, gazing before him on Jerusalem laid 
 waste. The wrath of the universe is gathered on his brow and 
 eternal silence is congealed in his eye. And one groan, subdued 
 and deep, rose from the extremity of the world and rolled along 
 and brake in the silence of the weeping. It was the heart of the 
 world that brake. And the Lord could suppress his grief no 
 longer. And he sprang up, uttering a cry that rang over all the 
 worlds, and broke away from the ruins and came into hiding . . . ." 
 
 Such intensity of passion and dark mood of protest pervades 
 almost all of Bialik's national poems; but they rise to their highest 
 expression in the "Poems of Wrath," a series written on the 
 occasion of the Kishineff massacre in 1903. For obvious reasons, 
 the main poem of the series, "In the City of Slaughter," with its 
 three hundred lines of heroic verse, can not be given here. 
 Suffice it to remark that for passion and strength of expression 
 it can be equalled only by the calamity it describes. An attempt 
 is here made, however, to render the last, shorter, poem of the 
 series : 
 
 "I ween in weary night starlike will I be extinct, 
 
 Leaving no trace of my grave; 
 But fumes volcano-like my wrath after me will emit, 
 
 When its flames are subdued 
 And continue as long as the thunderbolt peals in the sky 
 
 And surges rage in the ocean. 
 
 100 
 
CONTEMPORARY HEBREW POETRY 
 
 0, would that your woe and distressing were treasured entire 
 
 In the bosom of earth, 
 And the wastes of the skies and the wastes of the field, verdure 
 
 And stars therewith be watered. 
 And live therein and quicken them and grow old and be renewed and 
 fade 
 
 And again blossom with them. 
 And nameless and formless and landless the outrage ye suffered, 
 
 Shall abide to the last generation 
 And voiceless to heaven and hell may it howl and delay 
 
 The redemption of mankind. 
 And when at the end of the world, the sun of justice deceitful 
 
 Will shine on the graves of your slain, 
 And the banner of falsehood with insolence skyward will flutter 
 
 O'er the heads of your slaughterers. 
 And the counterfeit seal of the Lord engraved on the banner 
 
 Will dazzle the eye of the sun, 
 And the haughty feet capering and jubilee of festival lying 
 
 Will shake your holy frames in the grave, — 
 The splendor of heaven shall darken and the sun shall be turned 
 
 Into a stain of your innocent blood, 
 Cain's token on the brow of the world and a token 
 
 Of the weakness of God's broken arm. 
 And each star shall quake to his neighbor: Here is the terrible lie; 
 
 Here is the unutterable sorrow! 
 And the God of revenge, wounded and heartsore, shall arise, 
 
 And go forth with bright, flaming sword." 
 
 Bialik is preeminently the poet of the woe of his people; to 
 the national hopes and aspirations he but seldom gives expression 
 in his verse. When he does so, however, his vehemence of 
 emotion is transformed into majestic sereneness, calling, like a 
 deutero-Isaiah, for the revival of his people, inspiriting the 
 vanguard of the national rejuvenation, and severely chastising 
 the sluggish: 
 
 " Rise, ye wanderers of the desert, depart from the wilderness ! 
 The road is still distant and fiercely rages the battle. — Barely 
 forty years have we been wandering among the mountains, and 
 in the sand have we buried sixty myriad corpses. But regret 
 we not the carcasses of the sluggish, dead in their slavishness — 
 leap we over the slain ! Let them rot in their disgrace, stretched 
 
 101 
 

 EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 over their packs which from Egypt on their shoulders they bore. — 
 The sun will rejoice to shed his rays for the first time over a 
 mighty generation, — Rise, then, ye wanderers and abandon the 
 desert. — Every one hear the voice of the Lord in his own heart. 
 Proceed, ye pass to-day to a new land ! " And when the response 
 to the poet's appeal does not keep apace with his impatience: 
 
 "Verily, grass is the people, like unto a desiccated tree! 
 Verily, a carcass is the people! For the voice of the Lord is 
 thundering here and there, and they do not rise lion-like and 
 they do not stir. — They are leaves fallen from the tree, moss 
 growing on a knoll, barren vines, faded blossoms. Will the 
 dew revive them? And when the clarion will sound and the 
 banner be raised, will the dead ones awake, will the dead ones 
 stir?" 
 
 Bialik is, however, capable not only of vehemence of passion, 
 but also of infinite tenderness. None of the Hebrew poets has 
 grasped and represented so well the spirit of the Ghetto and its 
 poetry as he, and none has shown so much sympathy and so 
 much tenderness of feeling for the departing spirit of the Ghetto 
 as he. Read his "On the Threshold of the Beth Hamidrash" 
 (the last resort of the study of sacred literature in accordance with 
 Jewish tradition), "The Midnight Prayer," "The Talmudic 
 Student," — his first longer poem, by which his fame was estab- 
 lished, — and particularly the little gem of a poem: "In Soli- 
 tude," — a lament of the Shechinah, the old spirit of the Ghetto, 
 at being bereaved of her children, whom "the wind is carrying 
 off and the light is sweeping away" one by one. Read all these 
 simultaneously with his other, passionate poems, and you will 
 see how Bialik is capable of giving expression to the whole gamut 
 of feeling. 
 
 The poetic activity of Bialik is, however, by no means con- 
 fined to national themes. It is true that for pathos and pro- 
 phetic grandeur one must turn to his national poems; but loftiness 
 of conception and artistic beauty we can find mainly in his other 
 verse. Not that he is here infallible. His verse seldom attains 
 the music of a Poe or a Swinburne; and in his descriptions of 
 
 102 
 
CONTEMPORARY HEBREW POETRY 
 
 nature he at times overreaches himself. He is too subjective, 
 too much the pent-up child of the Ghetto let loose, communing 
 too eloquently with mother nature. He could hardly describe, 
 at one stroke, a single mood of nature, such as, for example, the 
 famous little poem of Goethe, beginning "Auf alien Gipfeln" 
 presents. Bialik's horizon is too expansive for a description 
 like this, the flux and reflux of light and shadow too rapid with 
 him, and his spontaneity too vigorous and too little restrained. 
 He manifests in his nature poems a wealth of delightful similes 
 and metaphors and a richness of glowing colors reminding one 
 of the Venetian school of painters; but these qualities sometimes 
 mar, by their very profusion, the picture as a whole. Again, in 
 his amatory poems, though manifesting a good deal of vivacity 
 and delicacy, he is yet too playful, dallying too much with love 
 to impress us with the seriousness of his passion. In his series 
 of "Folk Poems," however, there are some very beautiful love 
 verses, of which the following may serve as an illustration: 
 
 "Evening, night, and dreary morn, 
 
 I raise my eyes to the clouds forlorn ; 
 Sweet clouds, dear clouds, tell me true, 
 Is not my love yet come to woo?" 
 
 The real greatness of Bialik as a consummate artist is, however, 
 
 manifest in those poems in which he alights upon a central figure 
 
 or idea as the theme of his poem. As such are, among others, 
 
 "The Pigmies," "The Lake," and, preeminently, "The Dead of 
 
 the Desert." The first is based upon the fairy tale of the 
 
 mountain genii digging treasures in the dead of night. It is a 
 
 poem not exceeding seventeen quatrain stanzas; but in delicacy 
 
 of touch and harmony of rhythm it, perhaps, surpasses anything 
 
 Bialik has written. He here succeeds in shedding a soft, dreamy 
 
 light upon the midnight scene and the dwarfs at work, wrapping 
 
 both in delightful enchantment. "The Lake," a description of 
 
 nature in many moods, as reflected in the waters of the lake, is a 
 
 masterpiece both as regards imagery and scenery. Finally, 
 
 "The Dead of the Desert" is a real creation of genius, both for 
 
 grandeur of conception and magnificance of form. This poem 
 
 103 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 is based upon a Talmudic legend concerning the last generation 
 that had been in bondage in Egypt, and died, according to 
 tradition, one and all, in the wilderness. The Talmudic legend, 
 always fond of exaggerating the mental and physical capacities 
 of the Jewish ancestors, represents the Dead of the Desert as 
 giants, whom the wrath of the Lord alone could strike down. 
 They are stretched, sixty myriad strong, in a secluded dale 
 hardly accessible to mortals, with faces upturned and bodies so 
 hardened by sand and storm as to resist the talon of the eagle 
 and the claw of the lion. They are, moreover, regarded as 
 sacred; to touch their property is quite fatal. And Bialik, 
 taking up this legend, has given it a universal significance, and 
 has treated it with such dramatic power and artistic beauty, 
 both in description of scenery and in majesty of verse, that the 
 poem may be ranked among the masterpieces of the world's 
 literature. 
 
 The poem is divided into four main parts: (1) The description 
 of the dead lying stretched at full length and in their whole 
 strength. (2) A series of scenes in which the kings of the birds, 
 beasts, and reptiles: the eagle, the lion, and the serpent, suc- 
 cessively make vain attacks upon them. (3) The succeeding 
 silence of the desert, followed by its rising, in all its desolate 
 might, "to avenge the waste" that the Lord has imposed upon 
 it, and the simultaneous rise of the dead, in their grim titanic 
 power, against the decree that they die in the desert and be not 
 admitted to the holy land. (4) The desert is, however, soon 
 appeased, and the dead return to their former state of passivity. 
 And in the silence, there appears in the distance an Arabian rider, 
 who, detached from his caravan, is borne along by his swift 
 courser in the direction of the Dead. But, amazed, he darts 
 back to his companions, telling them of his adventure. Where- 
 upon, the Sheikh relates marvellous stories regarding "the people 
 of the book." "And the Arabs listen and the fear of Allah is 
 inscribed on the faces. And they pace leisurely beside their 
 heavily laden camels. And for a long time their white turbans 
 gleam on the horizon and the hump of the camels gently swing 
 
 104 
 
CONTEMPORARY HEBREW POETRY 
 
 and then disappear in the bright distance, as if they bore hence 
 an ancient legend on their backs." 
 
 It is hardly necessary to draw attention to the grandeur of 
 conception which is apparent in the mere outline of the poem. 
 One scene will, however, be rendered here, that of the attack of 
 the serpent on the Dead, a scene illustrating Bialik's great 
 power of description: 
 
 "And then, when the desert grows faint in the noon heat, 
 A tiger snake, beam-like, of the serpents gigantic. 
 Crawls out to bask in the sun the rings of his tender, sleek body. 
 Now he coils up in the sand, lies still, neither moves nor breathes. 
 All melting in the softness and splendor, inhaling the great glory of 
 
 Hght, 
 And now he rises and stretches, and exposes his length to the sun, 
 Opening his mouth to his brilliance, and gleaming in his gold scaly 
 
 coat, 
 Like the only spoiled child of the desert, fondled and caressed, he 
 
 appears then. 
 
 Of a sudden — up starts the serpent, darts from his place and crawls 
 on, 
 
 Gliding, writhing, and shuffling on the face of the sand heaps, the 
 scorching. 
 
 He meets the array of the corpses, ceases his hissing and is silent; 
 
 Raises the third part of his body, like a column clad hieroglyphic. 
 
 Darts his crest forward, the golden, with neck stretched and won- 
 dering eyes. 
 
 Scans from extreme to extreme the array of the foe in sweet slumber. 
 
 And vast is the army and numerous the bodies there lying in repose, 
 
 With faces bared towards heaven and brows knit fiercely and 
 frowning. 
 
 And the hatred, the ancient, deep cherished since Adam, up flashes 
 
 Into green flame in the piercing snaky twain eyes, the fix6d. 
 
 And a quiver of ill passion thrills through him from fangs to his 
 wriggling tail tip. 
 
 And behold him eagerly bending, wrathful and all aflutter, 
 Like a rod of munition o'er the neighboring sleepers suspended, 
 His hydra head with vengeful designing and viper-like hissing is 
 
 curved, 
 Quivering, wrathful, and glowing are the twain swarthy forks of his 
 
 tongue. 
 
 105 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Of a sudden, the serpent is startled, withdrawing his body the loath- 
 some, — 
 
 Startled by the calmness majestic and the powerful splendor in 
 slumber; 
 
 Darts back his full length and o'ertopples and writhes aside and 
 moves onward. 
 
 Hissing and hobbling and sparkling in the bright distance, the 
 gleaming. 
 
 And silence once more is prevailing; and stretched lie the mighty, 
 unpestered. 
 
 In the poems of Bialik we find the influence of Ahad Ha-Am's 
 ideas and of previous poetic productions, notably those of Gordon, 
 as regards style and form. The influence of the latter is, how- 
 ever, traceable only in his earlier poems. When he began to feel 
 the strength of his own wings, his flight became entirely inde- 
 pendent of any model. His pathos, the vigor of his expression, 
 his richness of style, and the beauty and variety of his meter, — 
 all this has greatly affected modern Hebrew poetry. His influ- 
 ence has, however, been not only literary, but also educational. 
 He has edited a juvenile as well as a popular series of books, has 
 simplified the Hebrew Bible for the use of beginners and pub- 
 lished a classified and modernized edition of the Agadic legends 
 and sayings, and has done similar useful educational work which 
 has served as a model for other writers. 
 
 Saul Tschernihovsky 
 
 Tschernihovsky stands next to Bialik in importance in con- 
 temporary Hebrew poetry. He began his poetic career about 
 the same time as Bialik, and he is perhaps the only Hebrew poet 
 who does not stand under the influence of the latter, but who, 
 on the contrary, was partly imitated by him in at least one 
 respect, in meter. Tschernihovsky was, moreover, the first to 
 introduce into Hebrew poetry what had hitherto been lacking 
 therein — enjoyment of life and an admiration for the Greek 
 spirit. This fact is due not solely to temperament, but also to 
 education. For, while Bialik enjoyed a thoroughly Hebrew 
 education, in the old sense of the term, Tschernihovsky was 
 
 106 
 
CONTEMPORARY HEBREW POETRY 
 
 brought up in a European manner and far from the pulsating 
 life of the Ghetto. Hence, the difference between the two 
 both in poetic note and in sympathies. In Bialik the tone is 
 generally grave, dismal, and, at times, protesting and querulous. 
 The erotic sentiment does not occupy a prominent place with 
 him; and if any sort of enjoyment is to be found in his poems, it is 
 only delight in nature. In Tschernihovsky, with all his Jewish 
 gravity of tone, there is yet hardly anything morose or dismal. 
 The enjoyment of life is complete in his poems. It is keen, 
 intense, comprising besides the joys of nature, also the essentials 
 of the creed of every good epicurean : wine and women. 
 
 This consideration of difference between the two poets, — a 
 difference due to education and environment as well as tempera- 
 ment, may be extended still further. Bialik, brought up in 
 the Ghetto, though himself, as a modern man, renouncing its 
 life, yet expresses, at times, a yearning for it, its poetry, its 
 moral grandeur. Tschernihovsky has no understanding for it; 
 his sympathies lie far beyond it. This difference cannot be 
 illustrated more clearly than by citing the following characteristic 
 verses from the two poets respectively: 
 
 "And once more, my beth midrash (Talmudic academy), with bowed 
 head like a beggar and desolate like thyself, do I stand upon thy 
 threshold. Shall I weep for thy waste or shall I weep for my own, or 
 shall I mourn for both?" (BiaUk: "On the Threshold of the Beth 
 Midrash.") 
 
 "I have come to thee, God long since forgotten, God of ancient 
 times and other days, — I bow before life, might, and beauty. I bow 
 before all delight, which the carcasses of men, life's foes, snatched out 
 of the hands of the Almighty, the God of the enchanted desert, the 
 God who had conquered the Canaanites by storm, but who was bound 
 by them with the straps of Phylacteries — ." (Tschernihovsky: "Be- 
 fore the Image of Apollo. ") 
 
 This difference between them is even more strikingly illus- 
 trated by their nature and love poems. In Bialik the erotics 
 are incidental, imagined rather than experienced; with Tscherni- 
 hovsky, they quiver with real life, and the fragrance of love is, 
 moreover, interwoven even with those poems that are not pri- 
 
 107 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 marily erotic. Again, the broad perspective in the nature verse 
 of Biahk, the unbounded panorama, the "high heaven," the 
 abundance of Hght and brilHancy of color, the infinite dehght in 
 nature and impHcit surrender to it, — all this betrays the Ghetto 
 child let loose for the first time to enjoy the beauties of nature. 
 Hence he often loses control over his material. Tschernihovsky 
 lacks all this abandon; his communion with nature is a more 
 orderly one. For him it is the most natural thing in the world 
 to take a stroll in the fields, pick a flower and put it into one's 
 button-hole, or make a wreath of roses to adorn the tresses of 
 one's beloved. No Ghetto wall ever shut off light from him or 
 stood between him and nature. His contemplation of it is, 
 therefore, calmer, though much less exalted than that of Bialik; 
 his pictures of nature, at least, in one of its moods, are, at times, 
 better rounded in themselves. See, for example, the following 
 beautiful little poem which has in the original the additional 
 merit of showing nature perfectly at rest in the first stanza and 
 changing to sudden movement in the second: 
 
 "Evening" 
 
 "From the mountain sides 
 The shadow softly glides. 
 
 Playing in the golden brook. 
 The ripple lies dreaming. 
 The sickle down is beaming — 
 
 Hush and silence in every nook. 
 
 The north star flashing glows, 
 Zephyr gently blows, 
 
 Warbles in the brooklet stream 
 And nestles in the rushes. 
 Lo! there a cherub flashes, 
 
 To heaven borne in a starry beam." 
 
 See, moreover, such poems as "Splendor" and "Nocturno," by 
 Bialik and Tschernihovsky respectively, and the contrast will be 
 striking enough and illustrative enough. 
 
 These are the achievements of Tschernihovsky in the domain 
 of Hebrew poetry : the perfect, well rounded picture of nature in, 
 
 108 
 
CONTEMPORARY HEBREW POETRY 
 
 at least, one of its moods, the adoration of the Greek spirit, and 
 love as an integral part of poetry. This, and something else : the 
 poetic form. Tschernihovsky entered Hebrew literature almost 
 as a foreign element, bringing along with him European influ- 
 ences. His themes have now and then a European local color; 
 some of his love poems, such as: "1 Dreamed the Lay of a 
 Nightingale," "And Your Name I Carry on the Wings of Song," 
 "Everything Is Forgotten," etc., are distinctly Heinesque, and 
 in his poem "Ideal," unless it be mere coincidence, the influence 
 can be traced as far back as Petrarch. With Hebrew models 
 thus disregarded and with influences brought from foreign 
 literatures, Tschernihovsky could not but bring in a system of 
 meter and rime not before used in the Hebrew. There is, there- 
 fore, in his verse a variety of rhythm wielded with so much grace 
 and force, that even Bialik could not withstand their charm, not 
 to mention the minor poets. In diction, too, though not so great 
 a master of the language as Bialik, he is yet more independent 
 of preceding models, his style thus being entirely his own. 
 
 With this the poetic range of Tschernihovsky is exhausted. 
 His national lyrics and his poems of protest distinguish them- 
 selves by their beauty rather than by their strength or pathos. 
 Of his narratives, "Mordecai and Yoakhim" possesses delightful 
 humor interwoven with a satiric vein, reflecting on conditions 
 in Russia; "On a Hot Day" manifests penetration into the life 
 of the child, and "Baruch of Mayence" distinguishes itself by 
 its pathos. The last mentioned is, in fact, the most poetic of his 
 longer narratives, and this because of its lyrical outpourings, 
 for Tschernihovsky is essentially a lyric not an epic poet. And 
 though all of these narratives are written not without talent; 
 they are, on the whole, too prosy and too unimaginative to be 
 good epics. 
 
 In brief, the talent of Tschernihovsky is supplementary to 
 that of Bialik. He sings of the man in the Jew, just as the latter 
 sings of the Jew in the man. He introduced into Hebrew poetry 
 the sense of enjoyment of life, and he has the merit of having 
 brought in a variety of meter hitherto unused in the language. 
 
 109 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 Other Hebrew Poets 
 
 Jacob Cohen is a tender and impressionable poet. He is an 
 idealist and his verse is ethereal, in both of which characteristics 
 he resembles Shelley, though his poems lack Shelley's strength 
 and beauty. He displays some originality of conception, par- 
 ticularly in the poems: "The Face of the Lord," "Concerning 
 the Frogs," "Lilith," — the last being suggestive of Swinburne's 
 "Laus Veneris." As for strength, it is to be sought in his poems 
 of protest, such as "Birionim," in which, it may be remarked, 
 the influence of Bialik, both in rhythm and mode of expression, 
 is keenly felt. 
 
 Diametrically opposite in poetic temperament is Z. Schneer. 
 He is no idealist and his themes are real and palpable. He is 
 only indirectly affected by the wave of national revival. There 
 is, at times, a gentle pessimistic vein in his poems; one must not 
 overestimate, however, the sincerity of this gloomy conception 
 of life in a young poet such as Schneer, but great margin should 
 be left, in this respect, for the fashion of the age. For true 
 pessimism would be quite irrelevant to the poet's rapture in 
 the rays of the sun and with the passionately erotic element in 
 poems such as "A Confession" and "Thus Do We Kiss"; more- 
 over, at least in one pjace he plays the traitor to his pessimism, 
 in the "Vision of Man," where man is foretold to conquer not 
 only nature but God himself, and to become as creative as he. 
 As for the quality of Schneer' s verse, it is full of life and beauty; 
 the rhythm has harmony and tunefulness, the imagery is rich, 
 varied, and striking, and the movement quick and bold. 
 
 Besides his lyrics, Schneer has written also a couple of longer 
 poems, in the grandiose, epic style and meter, a la Bialik; but 
 these have, on the whole, been a failure, — for Schneer is too 
 quick and buoyant for the epic style. His prose, on the other 
 hand, some of which was obviously written in imitation of the 
 liveliest and most playful prose writer in Hebrew, Katzenelson, 
 is marked by life and beauty. 
 
 Of the minor poets — and their name is legion — may be 
 
 110 
 
CONTEMPORARY HEBREW POETRY 
 
 mentioned Jacob Steinberg, who is rather dreary and mono- 
 tonous both as regards meter and tone. A vein of sadness 
 pervades all his poems, the kind of sadness that is, at least 
 partly, due to the lack of real creativeness. He is, at times, 
 obscure, symbolistic, especially when necessary for purposes of 
 rime or meter. He has one single master passion, love, a draft 
 upon the world of emotion, which he changes into small coin, 
 some of which have the true ring of silver and gold, but most of 
 them have the hollow jingle of mere dross. 
 
 If in Steinberg we find, at least, some depth and seriousness of 
 emotion, we look in vain for them in I. Katzenelson. This writer 
 is, as indicated above, the most playful Hebrew prose master, 
 and this playfulness we also find in his poems. Hardly one 
 serious mood or scenic description, hardly one serious sentiment 
 do we discover in them. His theme is a tit-bit of natural scenery 
 and a flitting, momentary emotion, which are done in a fanciful 
 rather than in an imaginative manner. And yet, Katzenelson's 
 poems please by their very playfulness, by their "nonsense 
 verse," by their lilt, lightness, and jerkiness. 
 
 Katzenelson has also written some dramas of considerable 
 literary importance. 
 
 Jacob Fichman is more promising as a critic than as a poet. 
 His verse is elegant and his tone is subdued. He never stirs in 
 us any deeper emotion than sympathy. His descriptions of the 
 dawn and the twilight during the different seasons of the year 
 possess more of the quality of painting than of poetry; yet they 
 have some perspicuity and are boldly drawn. 
 
 Thus, lyric poetry has been the strongest point in modern 
 
 Hebrew literature, excelling all other literary branches in personal 
 
 expression and artistic workmanship. In this domain, the 
 
 literary powers, at least with the greatest representative of our 
 
 time, Bialik, evolved out of themselves, hardly aided by any 
 
 outside influence. We, therefore, have in Hebrew lyric poetry 
 
 the highest expression of the age both of the individual and the 
 
 national personality. 
 
 Ill 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 RETROGRESSION AND PROGRESS 
 
 The period of revival, that of exalted hopes and ardent 
 desires, in the eighties, was followed by a time of gloom and 
 disappointment. The Hibbath Zion movement had been too 
 prodigal in promises, which it could not make good. The hopes 
 that it had aroused were not realized, and the progress it was 
 making was in inverse proportion to the Jewish misery and the 
 longing for self-emancipation which the movement itself had 
 awakened. The young generation, imbued with national pride, 
 found the atmosphere of the Ghetto too stifling and its four 
 walls too narrow for their human and national aspirations. 
 They were striving out into the wide world, which was beckoning 
 to them and tempting them on, there where one could walk with 
 head erect and the hitherto pent up emotions be given full sway. 
 But when they came to that wide, tempting world, they met with 
 the usual rebuff, and, disappointed, they had to retreat, with- 
 drawing into their own dark selves. The strain was, it is true, 
 relaxed under the influence of the daughter movement of Hibbath 
 Zion, political Zionism, which again kindled high hopes within 
 the breast of the Jew; but this was merely a momentary allevi- 
 ation, to be soon set at nought by the self-refutation of the 
 movement and by a consequent disappointment. 
 
 All this has had its undoubted effect upon the shaping of 
 contemporary Hebrew fiction, notably the story and the novel. 
 But there were also other important factors that contributed to 
 its make-up. The influence of Russian literature and the first 
 hand acquaintance with European thought and literary and 
 social movements had an untold effect upon Hebrew liter- 
 ature. This acquaintance was made possible mainly by the 
 spread of the Russian Jewish students to the universities 
 abroad — the Jewish youth being obliged to seek an intellectual 
 refuge outside of Russia, on account of the exclusion laws in the 
 
 112 
 
RETROGRESSION AND PROGRESS 
 
 higher schools of that country. The Weltschmerz, feigned or 
 real, which has found utterance in various ways in Europe, 
 coupled itself with the national and the individual sorrow that 
 had been rankling in the breast of the young Jew, and created 
 among a number of the contemporary Hebrew writers a fund of 
 pessimism which has, to a great extent, made itself felt in their 
 productions. At the same time, there was brought into Hebrew 
 literature the individualism of a Nietzsche, scientific method, 
 artistic taste and form, precision of word and description, and 
 realism as understood by Zola and Maupassant. As for form, 
 the unsettled life of the Jew, particularly in Eastern Europe, his 
 restlessness and his propensity for migration, have been favorable 
 to the short story rather than to the lengthy novel. There has 
 thus been created a Hebrew story, artistic in technique, and, 
 generally, psychologic in presentation, delineating the individual 
 in a variety of moods and situations; but, at the same time, 
 marked by a minute, torturing self-analysis, by an impotence in 
 the will of the heroes, and by an outlook upon life that is gloomy 
 and despondent. 
 
 A representative of this class of writers is Micah Joseph 
 Berditschevsky, This author is an opponent of Ahad Ha-Am 
 and his ultra-nationalistic ideas, and has almost succeeded in 
 establishing a literary school for himself, his writings having, 
 for the moment, caught the fancy of the public. Ahad Ha-Am 
 regards Jewish life from the viewpoint of the national genius; 
 even his theory of the redemption of Israel is not that of material 
 but of spiritual salvation. Berditschevsky revolts against this 
 apotheosis of the spirit. Jewish life has, in his view, been too 
 much narrowed down in the Galuth, has been reduced to 
 asceticism. It is, therefore, necessary that there be "a revalu- 
 ation of values" in Jewish reality. The encroachments of the 
 spirit must be limited, and the flesh be given its full rights and 
 privileges. 
 
 Berditschevsky has been influenced in this view of life by the 
 individualistic theories of Nietzsche, — an influence that is mani- 
 fest in the style, terminology, and the general tenor of his essays. 
 9 113 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 He has also produced a considerable number of stories and 
 sketches. Of these, the portraits of the individuals of his own 
 town are real and vivid; his sketches of the life of the Hasidim 
 are, at times, striking in the manner of their ending; his tales 
 based upon Jewish legend, on the other hand, are marked by 
 lack of imagination, — and his stories of modern life represent 
 that morbidness and minute, unrelieved psychologic analysis 
 characteristic of the class of writers above described. 
 
 One of the most representative of the pessimistic group of 
 Hebrew story writers, of those who hold that "Life is but an 
 empty dream," is J. Domoshevitzky, or, as he is best known by 
 his nom-de-plume, J. Bershadsky (1871-1908). The literary 
 activity of this writer expressed itself in two novels and a number 
 of short stories. It is the former, however, that are the most 
 characteristic, and, therefore, will be discussed in this connection. 
 Of these two novels, "Aimless" was the first published, but 
 anyone reading this and then following it up with "Against the 
 Current," the other novel of Bershadsky, will conclude that the 
 latter was the first written, for in it we find "Aimless," as it were, 
 in embryo. In "Against the Current," the author broaches a 
 theme, which he defends: the vain endeavors of the Jews to 
 hold their own under present circumstances; and if we want to 
 have a real understanding of the writings of Bershadsky, both 
 in themselves and as being illustrative of the spirit of the age, we 
 must bear this theme in mind. For, it is this that determines 
 not only the action and characters of "Against the Current," but 
 also, in a great measure, those of "Aimless." As regards the 
 period as well as the characters with which the novels deal, the 
 former serves as introductory to the latter, as it seems to repre- 
 sent a somewhat less advanced stage of the national revival, and 
 Sapirstein, one of the main characters in "Against the Current," 
 is the foreshadowing, the prototype, of Adamovitz, who is the 
 central figure in "Aimless." Like the attitude of Adamovitz, 
 that of Sapirstein towards the revival, in fact, towards every 
 movement, is negative, with only this difl^erence, that the 
 character of the latter is not yet so outspokenly pessimistic as 
 
 114 
 
RETROGRESSION AND PROGRESS 
 
 that of the former. Sapirstein is in a stage that is nearer to 
 scepticism; within him the struggle is still going on. "The Jew 
 must not yield his national, racial, or even his religious self, he 
 argues, as long as these conceptions (of race, nation, and religion) 
 still exist. This is absolutely clear. And yet he (the hero) is 
 not in sympathy with the nationalists and Palestinians. He 
 does not see any other way out of the dilemma; and yet he 
 can not acknowledge that this isHhe right issue." This is the 
 state of mind of Sapirstein, who, by the way, leads, at least, a 
 decent life. Adamovitz, on the other hand, is a full-fledged 
 pessimist, not believing in any positive ideal, remaining cold 
 and pessimistic to everything that surrounds him and, at the 
 same time, leading the life of a semi-debauchee, out of sheer 
 ennui; and finally, not even "able to die a decent death." 
 
 The repetition of the same character in both novels is thus 
 not accidental, is not due solely to lack of creativeness, but is 
 indicative of the state of mind of the author, the state of mind of 
 a whole class of Hebrew writers. There is one more char- 
 acteristic feature, however, in these two novels, — a feature 
 entirely Bershadsky's own, and that is, his lack of temperament. 
 Emotion plays a very insignificant part in his writings ; reasoning 
 is the motive power in them. To this rationalism is partly due 
 the author's disparaging view of the Jewish revival, which is 
 really based upon sentiment as much as upon reasoning, and 
 upon the former perhaps more than upon the latter. But this 
 rationalism had a further effect upon the two novels. In the 
 first place, to it is to be ascribed the too bulky amount of dis- 
 cussion therein found. Again, it greatly mars the delineation 
 of his female characters. Adamovitz and Bershadsky's other 
 heroes stand out more or less clearly as individuals; Rose Lipshitz 
 and his other heroines are quite hazy, their distinguishing char- 
 acteristics depending almost entirely upon the degree of ration- 
 ality or reasonableness they possess. Finally, it has, in general, 
 a pernicious effect upon characterization. There is indeed 
 psychologic insight and acumen in the individualization of 
 Bershadsky's heroes; but the process is painful rather than 
 
 115 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 enjoyable. The psychologic problem that a Peretz, for example, 
 presents, the psychologic fineness of a Judah Steinberg, manifest 
 the joy of creativeness. The authors themselves intently watch, 
 as it were, their own heroes develop. Bershadsky, in opening 
 the secrets of the heart, goes about it with the pitilessness of a 
 vivisector and leaves behind an open wound. His soul studies 
 are, therefore, painfully dry; they one and all manifest an intel- 
 lectual strain, a minute psychologic laboratory study. With all 
 this, however, Bershadsky has the merit of having created at 
 least one individuality, Adamovitz, a living personality, boldly 
 delineated, and, at the same time, the expression of a despondent 
 class, probably a passing class of Hebrew writers. 
 
 Lack of temperament can by no means be laid to the charge 
 of J. H. Brenner. In this author, sentiment overwhelms ration- 
 ality; his works, therefore, suffer from too much sanguinity. 
 Brenner is a restless personality. His roving instinct has ex- 
 pressed itself not only in migrations from land to land, but also 
 from ideal to ideal, and the further he has gone in his material 
 and spiritual vagabondage, the more embittered and pessimistic 
 he has become. He has great strength of expression, his style 
 being perhaps the most vigorous in Hebrew prose fiction. His 
 narrative talent is very considerable, and he has a penetrating 
 eye both as regards character and manners. But it is deplorable 
 that his pessimism has of late affected his writings. There is 
 now an almost insulting off-hand mannerism in his style; his 
 psychologic delineations have grown into negative and frag- 
 mentary water color sketches, and his humor has been turned into 
 grim satire, whereas the journalistic, controversial element has 
 found predominance in his stories over the belletristic. 
 
 The pessimism of J. Berkovitz is neither so thoroughgoing as 
 that of Bershadsky nor so violent as that of Brenner. With him, 
 art has gotten the better of the gloomy outlook on life and has 
 toned it down to a mere malicious whisper. Yet, his heroes are 
 greatly affected by this mild pessimism. Their individuality 
 generally does not stand out prominently by reason of its own 
 merits, but, as in the paintings of Rembrandt, it is brought into 
 
 116 
 
RETROGRESSION AND PROGRESS 
 
 relief by means of the background. It is circumstances, the 
 society within which the heroes of Berkovitz find themselves, 
 within which, in fact, they feel all their loneliness and ennui, 
 that bring out their individuality. Not their strength of char- 
 acter, therefore, but their weakness, their impotence, is what 
 attracts our attention. They are commonly extinguished vol- 
 canoes, people in whom the youthful fire has given out, who 
 have become disappointed in the ideals they had cherished, 
 but who are, after all, out of joint in the profane atmosphere 
 that surrounds them. 
 
 The stories of Berkovitz distinguish themselves otherwise by a 
 good technique, a beauty of style, and a mild but pleasing humor 
 that has not been uninfluenced by that of his father-in-law, 
 Shalom Aleichem. 
 
 Of the other contemporary writers of the same school, may 
 be mentioned G. Schofman and H. D. Nomberg. The former 
 has advanced in realism as far as the pathologic, and has suc- 
 ceeded in stifling in himself all emotions of the creator. The 
 stories and sketches of Nomberg exhibit less art than those of 
 Berkovitz, but his heroes present more individualization, their 
 personalities rising into prominence by virtue of their own 
 attributes and characteristics. Yet the latter belong to the 
 same category of men and women as the creations of the other 
 authors of the class described above. They are individuals 
 inactive and nerveless, living in a nebulous world of their own, 
 without the power of adaptability to the society around them 
 and without the faculty of absorbing any bright rays that 
 radiate from the world without. 
 
 With this class of writers, may be contrasted a group of 
 novelists and story writers of talent, who stand under the direct 
 influence of the national revival and whose perspective is more 
 sunny. In the productions of these writers, light and shadow 
 are fairly harmoniously distributed; the heroes are generally 
 healthier and more balanced and possess more mettle and 
 energy, — and the atmosphere is charged with more life and 
 activity. Of these may here be mentioned A. A. Kabak and 
 
 117 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 M. Smeliansky. The former is the author of a number of short 
 stories and one novel, "In SoUtude," the heroes of which are 
 well defined and the single incidents well presented but not 
 coordinated with sufiicient skill. Smeliansky is more talented 
 and more productive. He is the most gifted of a group of authors 
 whose talent has developed on Palestinian soil and in whose 
 creations the fresh fragrance of mother earth is felt. He has 
 written a number of sketches of the life of the Palestinian Arabs 
 and some stories and novels of the life of the Jews of that country, 
 particularly those living in the colonies. 
 
 118 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE FEUILLETON, LITERARY CRITICISM, AND ALLIED 
 BRANCHES; CONCLUSION 
 
 There are some other literary branches, cognate to fiction, 
 which have found expression in the Hebrew: the feuilleton, 
 Hterary criticism, the prose poem, etc. The feuilleton, a literary 
 product originating with the French and almost unknown in 
 English, made its appearance in Hebrew shortly after the 
 creation of the newspaper; it is only of late, however, that it has 
 attained to any sort of perfection. Previously, during the age 
 of the Melizah, it had run the risk of degenerating into a mere 
 vehicle for punning; for was not the Hebrew style as a whole 
 simply a play upon words, dependent upon the brilliance of the 
 language rather than upon that of personality? And such, in 
 the main, the Hebrew feuilleton of that time really was. The 
 contemporary feuilleton, on the contrary, is, like the story 
 and the poem, a real criticism of life, and, like them, it is marked 
 by a personal note and by artistic workmanship never before 
 known in this domain in Hebrew literature. In criticism, too, 
 great advance has been made since the days of Kovner (see 
 supra, p. 56). The Hebrew has, to be sure, not yet given birth 
 to a Taine or a Brandes; but there has sprung up a good deal of 
 native talent, which, with a better understanding of literary 
 principles and a keener appreciation of artistic values, exerted 
 a wholesome influence upon Hebrew letters. And corresponding 
 progress has been made also in other directions. 
 
 Of the numerous writers in the various branches, only a few 
 names can here be mentioned and the briefest notice given 
 them: 
 
 The talent of David Frishman is not confined to the feuilleton 
 alone, but extends likewise over the domains of story, poetry, 
 and criticism. Yet, his writings are assigned a place here, 
 because it is in the feuilleton that he really excels; in fact, the 
 
 119 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 spirit and tone of this kind of literary production dominate all 
 his works. 
 
 Frishman has never directly identified himself with the national 
 revival movement; he is too Mephistophelian for that. He is 
 essentially an iconoclast, and were it not for the considerable 
 esthetic taste that he possesses, his cynicism would have gotten 
 the upper hand in his writings. It is this taste, plus a dash and 
 brilliancy of style, that has been his saving grace. For he dis- 
 plays neither depth nor originality or creativeness in any of the 
 literary branches in which he has engaged. In his stories there 
 is almost a total lack of imagination; they are set down with skill, 
 but they are inventions, not creations. His lyrics are deficient 
 in sincerity, and his ballads exhibit an imitation of Heine both 
 in form and treatment. In his criticisms there is some taste 
 and insight, but there is, at the same time, a lack of constructive 
 power and they are exercised with a good deal of malignity. His 
 portraits of men, of literary and other notabilities, particularly 
 as regards their foibles and ludicrous sides, are vivid and recon- 
 structive. In all these, however, there are to be found the 
 characteristic squint and smack of the feuilleton ; for this is the 
 proper domain of Frishman. In his feuilletons, the poignancy 
 and brilliancy of style stand him in good stead, lending him an 
 air of originality and giving animation to his remarks and criti- 
 cism of life, however trite and superficial they be. 
 
 Different in tone from the feuilletons of Frishman are those of 
 A. L. Levinsky. Those of the former approach the satiric essay; 
 they lay hold on a subject, exhaust it, lay bare all its foibles, and, 
 strike home caustically at all weak points. The feuilletons of 
 Levinsky are formed of lighter stuff. They are humorous 
 rather than satiric; they are a criticism of life without the sting 
 and bitterness of censure. They generally do not grapple with 
 one subject only, but deal with life as it is reflected in passing 
 events and transitory occurrences, connecting all these into one 
 whole, not so much by means of a central idea as by a suggestive 
 phrase or expression. Their humor is peculiarly Jewish; the racy 
 Talmudic diction, the good-natured, familiar, conversational 
 
 120 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 style, and the well-feigned naivety of the provincial Jew, — all 
 these are employed by Levinsky with great effect. In short, 
 Levinsky is the typical, characteristically Jewish, feuilletonist. 
 
 The feuilleton, as well as criticism, has been manipulated with 
 some skill also by N. Sokolov; but neither of these rises with 
 him above the level of drawing-room talk. He is, however, the 
 greatest Jewish journalist writing for Jews; at any rate, he is 
 the typical journalist, fluent and ubiquitous, writing in several 
 languages with equal ease and on every subject within the 
 range of the article and the essay: social, political, and literary. 
 His style is as protean as his writings ; it is plastic, easily adapting 
 itself to the nature of the latter, though somewhat crude and 
 unpolished. His knowledge is extensive, and he has a good deal 
 of common sense and a quickly assimilative power. 
 
 One of the finest stylists in Hebrew is R. Brainin, whose diction 
 is brilliant, though exhibiting a good deal of posing and seeking 
 after effect. Brainin displayed great activity in various literary 
 branches: journalism, the story, criticism, and biography. His 
 journalistic writings are of no great value and his stories are the 
 work of an amateur. As regards his criticisms, they have con- 
 tributed their mite towards the placing of certain authors in 
 Hebrew. On the whole, however, his literary ideas and tastes 
 are dictated by outside influences to such an extent as to be 
 rather misleading in some cases. For the critical principles in 
 vogue in European literatures cannot always be applied to the 
 Hebrew, without leaving margin for racial and circumstantial 
 differences. And Brainin does not always take this truth into 
 consideration. It is mainly in biography that this writer really 
 excels. He is the Boswell of Hebrew literature, dogging his 
 Johnson at every step, and, in this manner, throwing light not 
 only upon his life but also upon his times. 
 
 Joseph Klausner is the disciple of Ahad Ha-Am, judging things 
 from the point of view of his master's precepts. He possesses 
 marvelous erudition and a certain amount of historic insight; 
 but he exhibits hardly any originality of thought. He is active 
 in many fields: critical, historical, journalistic, making a mark in 
 
 121 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 them all. And if in his criticisms he does not penetrate to the 
 real essence of the literary creations, his opinions are yet generally 
 suggestive. 
 
 Of the younger critics, J. Fichman is very promising. There 
 is, it is true, too much circumstantiality and temperamental 
 effusion in his critical works; but out of them emerge a* fine 
 artistic taste, a great power of analysis, and a more than a medi- 
 ocre reconstructive ability. 
 
 The prose poem has been essayed by many; but none has 
 been so successful in it as H. Zeitlin. This writer has been 
 largely influenced by Nietzsche, like whom he seeks God in 
 man; he is pathetic, emotional, and a great weeper. There is a 
 good deal of coquetry in his writings, which, however, contain a 
 great deal of beauty. He has also written a number of philo- 
 sophic essays and has contributed to the understanding of the 
 life and doctrines of the Hasidim. 
 
 In this book, the author has endeavored to trace the evolution 
 of Hebrew literature from the middle of the nineteenth century 
 to our own time, in its relation to Jewish history and to the 
 foreign cultures and literatures amidst which it grew and by 
 the tendencies and ideas of which it was influenced. In this 
 course of development, Hebrew literature has made marked 
 progress in all directions. From a meandering streamlet, for- 
 gotten by the inhabited world and underfed by rains and dews 
 from heaven, it has broadened out into a lordly river, swelled by 
 tributaries and constantly gaining in depth. In point of art, 
 there has been an advance both in expression and in representa- 
 tion of the subject, [n the observation and appreciation of 
 nature, too, immense gains have been made. As for char- 
 acterization and the manifestation of the personal element as a 
 whole, there has been a veritable "revaluation of values." The 
 movement has been going on, to use a Spencerian phrase, from 
 the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, the differentiation and 
 individualization taking place both in the creations and in the 
 the authorsmselves, in their manners and mannerisms, and 
 
 122 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 in their forms of expression. Hebrew literature has indeed 
 travelled a great distance from the novels of Mapu, where the 
 heroes are mere embodiments of ideas, of virtues and vices, 
 without even representing types, to the stories and sketches of a 
 Steinberg, with their varied and highly individualized char- 
 acters, and from the class sentiment of the Maskilim to the very 
 personal equation in the contemporary literary productions, as 
 influenced by Nietzsche's "superman." 
 
 A word as to the future of Hebrew literature. For many 
 reasons, the uncertainty as to the progress of this literature in 
 times to come is quite legitimate. It is true that the Hebrew 
 is the heritage of an eleven-million-headed people, that it has a 
 history of thousands of years, and that it has, moreover, advanced 
 considerably for the last half century. All this, however, cannot 
 serve as an indicator of its further progress in the future; for 
 there are many causes that work against it in our own time — 
 causes that threaten its very existence. In the first place, 
 Hebrew is, after all, a language understood by comparatively few 
 of the Jews, and spoken by still less. Then, again, it is every- 
 where exposed to the unequal competition of the native lan- 
 guages, which constantly encroach upon its territory, just as 
 they encroach upon that of the Jewish vernacular, Yiddish. 
 What, then, is the future of Hebrew literature? What are its 
 hopes of maintaining itself with such odds in its disfavor? 
 When the Hebrew poet Bialik recently visited Palestine, he 
 was asked how it was that he had not given his people a poem 
 which should embody the national aspirations of the nation and 
 nerve it to self -activity. He answered: "It is for you, Pales- 
 tinian Jews, who are in the process of building up a new national 
 life, to give us Jews of the diaspora, whose national existence is 
 in the state of dissolution, this song of national revival." May 
 not the reply of Bialik serve as a key to the problem of Hebrew 
 literature? In the western countries Hebrew is doomed to 
 extinction; as a matter of fact, Hebrew is even now semi-extinct 
 in western Europe and in America. For no culture, however 
 elastic it be, can for long preserve, under modern conditions, its 
 
 123 
 
EVOLUTION OF MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE 
 
 integrity in the midst of other cultures, which are upheld by 
 life and circumstances. It is in Palestine, where a young Jewish 
 national life is now striking root, budding out and unfolding 
 itself in all directions, particularly the cultural, that Hebrew 
 literature will ultimately have to seek refuge. There, in the 
 land of its birth, opposed by no vigorous foreign culture, Hebrew 
 will be able to work out its future destiny, provided the course 
 of its development is not cut short by some external intervention. 
 
 124 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abramovitz, Shalom Jacob, 33, 34, 
 
 75, 76, 77, 78, 83 
 Against the Current, 114 
 Ahabath Zion, 19, 20, 23 
 Ahad Ha-Am, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 106 
 Ahavath David U-Michal, 46, 47 
 Ahiasaf, 89 
 Aim of the Arts and Their Function, 
 
 The, 69 
 Aimless, 114 
 Alas Brother, 47 
 Alexander II, 25 
 Am Olam, 60 
 Amulet, The, 90 
 Ashmath-Shomeron, 20, 21, 22 
 ^sire Ha-Tikwah, 44 
 Asnath, Daughter of Potifera, 47 
 ^ss's Burial, The, 63, 65 
 Aj/i/ Za6w, 21, 22, 32, 33 
 
 Balzac, 19 
 
 Baruch of Mayence, 109 
 
 Before the Image of Apollo, 1 07 
 
 Beginning and End of a Quarrel, The, 
 
 39 
 Ben-Avigdor, 89 
 Berditschevsky, M. J., 113 
 Berkovitz, J., 116 
 Berlinites, 7, note 
 Bershadsky, J., 114, 115, 116 
 Bialik, H. N., 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 
 
 106, 107, 108, 109 
 Bird in the Cage, The, 44 
 Bird uyith Clipped Wings, The, 44 
 Birzian, The, 35 
 
 Blessing of the Righteous, The, 52 
 Book of Schnorrers, The, 77, 79 
 Brainin, R., 57, 121 
 Brandstaedter, M. D., 31, 38 
 Braudes, R. A., 34, 35, 38, 41 
 Brenner, J. H., 116 
 
 Calf, The, 90 
 Charitable Man, The, 94 
 Cohen, Jacob, 110 
 Confession, A, 110 
 
 Criticism, Biblical, 30; literary, 55, 
 119 
 
 David and Barzilai, 47 
 
 Dead of the Desert, The, 103, 104, 105 
 
 Dolitzky, M. M., 68, 71, 72 
 
 Domoshevitzky, J., 114 
 
 Dan Mirsky, 97 
 
 Drama, 42 
 
 Dunash Ibn Labrat, 4 
 
 Edim Neemanim, 18 
 Emeth We-Emunah, 42, 43 
 Erter, Isaac, 32 
 Eth Laasoth, 60 
 Extremes, The, 36, 37 
 
 Fables, 52 
 
 Faith and Knowledge, 16, 17 
 
 Father and Son, 95 
 
 Feierberg, Mordecai Z., 90, 92 
 
 Feuilleton, The Hebrew, 119 
 
 Fichman, Jacob, 111, 122 
 
 Fiery Scroll, The, 100 
 
 Folk Poems, 103 
 
 Folk Stories, 94 
 
 Frishman, David, 119, 120 
 
 Fuenn, S. J., 28 
 
 Gebirol, Ibn, 3 
 
 Gilgul Nefesh, 32 
 
 Ginsbm-g, A., 86 
 
 Gogol, 8, note 
 
 Goldenblum, 29 
 
 Gordon, Judah Loeb, 31, 40, 46, 51, 55 
 
 Gottlober, A. B., 31, 40, 43, 44 
 
 Graveyard, The, 52 
 
 Groan, A, 97 
 
 Ha-Aboth WeHa-Banim, 33 
 
 Ha-Boker Or, 31, 45 
 
 Ha-Dath WeHa-Hayyim, 34, 36,40 
 
 Ha-Karmel, 28, 29 
 
 Halevi, 3 
 
 Ha-Maggid, 12, 27, 28 
 
 Ha-Meliz, 28, 29, 30 
 
 Ha-Ozar, 28 
 
 Ha-Shahar, 30, 31, 58, 59 
 
 Hasidism, 18, 32, 92 
 
 Haskalah, 5, 6, 7, 24; Poetry of, 42; 
 
 the Berlin, 60 
 Ha-Toeh BeDarkey Ha-Hayyim, 63, 
 
 64 
 Ha-Zefirah, 28, 29 
 Ha-Zofeh LeBeth Yisrael, 32 
 
 125 
 
INDEX 
 
 Hebrew Language, 8, 9, 11, 61 
 
 Hebrew Literature, division of, 1 ; evo- 
 lution of post-Biblical, 8; Galician 
 Period of, 6, 7; German Period of, 
 4; growth of, 1; Mishnaic, 9; 
 Modern, 14, 122; Renaissance of, 
 in 18th Century, 3; Spanish Period 
 of, 2; Spirit of Talmudic, 2; the 
 Revival Period in, 67; the future 
 of, 123 
 
 Hebrew Poetry, Contemporary, 99; 
 Greek spirit in, 106; Lyric, 111 
 
 He-Haluz, 30, 31 
 
 Heker Dabar, 56 
 
 Helpless Wrath, 45 
 
 Heritors of Pharaoh, The, 93 
 
 Hezekiah Kuzner, 97 
 
 Hibbath Zion Movement, 58, 59, 68 
 
 Hokmath Yisrael, 6, 7, 14 
 
 Homunculus, 81, 82 
 
 In Solitude, 118 
 In the City of Slaughter, 100 
 In the Dark of Night, 90, 91 
 In the Depth of the Ocean, 47 
 In the Jaws of the Lion, 51, 52 
 In the Moon at Night, 52, 53, 54, 55 
 In the Valley of Weeping, 81 
 In Those Days, 82 
 Influences, Russian, 25 
 Inheritance, The, 63, 65 
 Investigations into the Origin of the 
 Karaites, 44 
 
 Jewish Happiness, 46 
 
 Joel and Sisera, 17 
 
 Joy of the Wicked, The, 62, 65 
 
 Kabak, A. A., 117 
 
 Kabbalah, 3, 18 
 
 Kabbalah arid Hasidism, 45 
 
 Kankan Hadash Male Yashan, 56 
 
 Kathrilevke, 85 
 
 Katzenelson, L, 111 
 
 Kehal Refaim, 46 
 
 Kishron Ha-Maase, 46 
 
 Klausner, Joseph, 121 
 
 Kovner, A., 56 
 
 Krochmal, N., 7 
 
 Lake, The, 103 
 
 La-Yesharim Tehillah, 4, 43 
 
 Lebensohn, Abraham D. B. (pseu- 
 donym, "Adam"), 7, 15, 42 
 
 Lebensohn, M. J., 15, 17, 42, 46, 69 
 
 Lermontov, 8, note 
 
 Le-Toledoth Ha-Shir WeHa-Melizah, 
 44 
 
 Levinsky, A. L., 120 
 Lewin, Judah Loeb, 45 
 Lilienblum, M. L., 31, 46 
 Lilienthal, M., 7, note 
 Literature, Yiddish, 34 
 Luzzatto, M. H., 3, 4, 43 
 Luzzatto, S. D., 88 
 
 Man6, M. Z., 68, 69, 70 
 
 Mapu, Abraham, 18, 19, 22, 32; 
 
 Characters of, 20 
 Mare, The, 82 
 Maskilim, 5, 16, 26, 58, 59, 67; 
 
 Antagonism to, 26 
 Maupassant, 113 
 Meassef, 4 
 
 Meassefim Period, 5, 6 
 Melizah, 11, 33 
 Mendele Mocher Sefarim, 77 
 Mendelssohn, Moses, 4 
 Metman, Dr. Leo, 13, note 
 Midnight Prayer, The, 102 
 Migdal Oz, 43 
 
 Mordecai and Yoakhim, 109 
 Mordecai Kizavitz, 40 
 Mordecai Kizler, 96 
 My Request, 71 
 My Sister Ruhamah, 52 
 Mysteries of Paris, Translation of, 19 
 
 Nationalism, Jewish, 31 
 Neo-Hebrew, 12, 13 
 Newspapers, Russo-Jewish, 25 
 Nicholas I, 25 
 Nietzsche, 113 
 Night of Terror, A, 93 
 Nomberg, H. D., 117 
 Novel, The Hebrew, 15, 18 
 
 Of the Songs of Zion, 45 
 On the Ruins of Zion, 71 
 On the Threshold of the Beth Hami- 
 drash, 102 
 
 Paperno, A. J., 56 
 Peretz, I. L., 93, 94, 95 
 
 Pictures of Travel, 93 
 
 Pigmies, The, 103 
 
 Pisarev, 48 
 
 Poems of Wrath, 100 
 
 Poetry, Lyric, 16; Narrative, 16; 
 
 Nature, 16, 69 
 Point of a Yod, The, 48, 49, 51 
 Pouskin, 8, note . 
 Pride and Overthrow, 63, 65 
 
 Rabbinics, 10 
 Rabchik, 84 
 
 126 
 
INDEX 
 
 Rabinowitz, Shalom, 75, 83, 84, 85 
 Rapoport, S. J., 7 
 Reason, Adoration of, 43 
 Reforms, Religious, 25 
 Revival, National, 59, 61 
 Reward of the Virtuous, The, 64 
 Rime, 3 
 
 Romanticism, 15, 47 
 Rubin, Solomon, 31 
 Russian Literature, Influence of, 25, 
 51, 112 
 
 Schneer, Z., 110 
 
 Schofman, G., 117 
 
 Schorr, J. H., 30 
 
 Schulman, Kalman, 19 
 
 Science, Jewish, 6, 7 
 
 Shalkowitz, 89 
 
 Shalom Aleichem, 83, 85 
 
 Shapiro, C. A., 68, 72, 73, 74 
 
 Shire Tifereth, 47 
 
 Shlome Harif, 97 
 
 Sidonia, or the Broken Heart, 39 
 
 Sifre Agorah, 89 
 
 Silberman, 27 
 
 Slonimsky, H. S., 29 
 
 Smeliansky, M., 118 
 
 Smolenskin, Perez, 31, 57, 62; novels 
 
 of, 66, 67 
 Socialists, 46, note 
 Sokolov, N., 121 
 Sonnet, The, 4 
 Steinberg, Jacob, 111 
 Steinberg, Judah, 95, 96, 97 
 Sue, Eugene, 19 
 
 Talmudic Student, The, 102 
 Terminology, of Philosophy, 10; of 
 
 Grammatical Science, 10 
 This is Not the Way, 87 
 Thus Do We Kiss, 110 
 
 Tifereth Li-BenefBinah, 43 
 
 To the Stars, 17 
 
 Translations, 52 
 
 Travels of Benjamin III., The, 82 
 
 Tschernihovsky, Saul, 106, 107, 108, 
 
 109 
 Tschemishefsky, 48 
 Turgeniev, 8, note 
 Tushiah, 89 
 Two Josephs Ben Simon, The, 48, 50, 
 
 51 
 Two Young Women, 97 
 
 Uncle Shachna and My Aunt Yahna, 
 93 
 
 Vision of Man, The, 110 
 
 Visions and Errors, 72 
 
 Vocabulary, 10 
 
 Voice is Singing in the Window, A, 44 
 
 Voice of the Lord, The, 45 
 
 Wars of David with the Philistines, 
 
 The 47 
 Werbel, E. M., 17 
 Whence and Whither, 36, 38 
 Whither, 90, 91, 92 
 Who Am n, 94 
 Whose Dawn Art Thou?, 72 
 With our young and our old we shall 
 
 go, 52 
 
 Yehallel, 45 
 
 Yosele Yeshibah Bahur, 94 
 
 Zedekiah in the Guard-House, 51, 60 
 Zederbaum, Alexander, 29 
 Zeitlin, H., 122 
 Zeror Perohim, 56 
 Zionides, 71 
 Zola, 113 
 
 127 
 
VITA 
 
 I was born on July 14, 1874, in Yanovo, Government of Kovno, 
 Russia. I received my early education in a Hebrew School and 
 a Talmudic Academy; at the same time studying Russian and 
 German privately. I came to America in 1896, where I engaged 
 first in manual labor and then in the teaching of Hebrew. In 
 1898 I entered Harvard University as a special student, and in 
 1901 I became a regular student there. I devoted myself chiefly 
 to the study of the Semitic Languages; but I also took courses in 
 German, French, Latin, Greek and history. I was graduated 
 from there in 1902, with honors in Semitics; but, because of my 
 inability to make the necessary payments, the degree of B.A. 
 was not conferred on me before 1906. Between 1904 and 1911 
 I attended Columbia University — in the aggregate, six terms 
 — devoting my studies to Semitic Languages, Philosophy and 
 Sociology. 
 
 Abraham Solomon Waldstein. 
 
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