182 ZYDZIpromoting Polish-Jewish understanding. In the political crisis of 1861-2, vividly
portrayed in Kraszewski's novels Dziecie starego miasta (A Child of the Old
City, 1863) and Zyd (The Jew, 1865), Warsaw's Jews played a leading role in
the patriotic demonstrations. Synagogues were closed in solidarity with the
Catholic churches, in protest against police excesses; rabbis appeared in the
company of priests and pastors at public services and funerals; Chief Rabbi
Meisels was arrested, and imprisoned. Here was the high point of the assimila-
tionist trend. In a mood of patriotic euphoria, it looked to many that the com-
mon humanity of Poles and Jews would overcome their mutual rivalries and
suspicions. During the January Rising of 1863, a Jewish journal, Jutrzenka (The
Morning Star), edited by Ludwik Gumplowicz (1838-1909), boldly called for
the total integration of Jews into Polish life.^6 It was not to be. The collapse of
the Rising bred widespread disillusionments. Many Jews, like many Poles, felt
that their sacrifices had brought no concrete benefits; and each was tempted to
blame the other for the resulting tribulations. Assimilation slowly faded from
fashion, first in Russian Poland, and then in the other Partitions.^7 In many ways,
it was a noble ideal, fuelled by the desire to surmount the ancient barriers which
divided peoples who lived in the same land, breathed the same air, 'were subject
to the same diseases', and might have been 'healed by the same means'.
Unfortunately, from the viewpoint of most Jewish leaders, Assimilation was
heading in the direction of the complete submergence of a separate Jewish iden-
tity. To both conservatives and radicals, it seemed that the Jews were being
asked to solve their problems by going into voluntary liquidation. As the Jewish
historian Dubnow commented, 'Polonisation of the Jews assumed menacing
[sic] proportions'.^8 Henceforward, Jewish reformers increasingly execrated
such assimilationist ideas as continued to circulate, turning instead to projects
which sought not to transcend the Jewish heritage, but to reinforce and to
expand it.
The Hebrew Revival sprung directly from the work of those earlier maskilim
who, as part of their educational experimentation, had dared to use the sacred
language of the Scriptures as a medium for secular literature. It displayed many
of the features of other cultural revivals which all over Eastern Europe in that
same era were rescuing moribund national languages from oblivion. In Galicia,
the first pioneer of modern Hebrew was Jozef Perl (1774-1839) of Tarnopol,
whose satirical writings made fun of the obscurantist habits and attitudes of the
Chassidim. On the Russian side of the frontier, the scholar and philologist,
Izaac Ber Levinsohn (1788-1860) of Krzemieniec, undertook the task of re-
constituting the vocabulary and syntax of Hebrew for contemporary usage. In
the hands of their successors, the Hebrew language was adapted to a variety of
literary genres, some purely artistic, others overtly political. The historian
Nachman Krochmal (1785—1840) of Tarnopol, whose Guide to the Perplexed of
the Age appeared in 1851, is sometimes seen as the first ideologist of Jewish
Nationalism. His outlook was shared by Abraham Mapu (1808-67) of Slobodka
near Odessa, who wrote historical novels, and by a long line of Hebrew mask-