ethos in the nineteenth-century sense of the term. This national ethos would
not fully mature until after 1881, but its earliest expression is detectable
within the Russian Haskalah. Writing in 1868, Peretz Smolenskin, the editor
of Ha-Shachar, captured this ethos:
When people ask what the renewal of the Hebrew language will give us
I shall answer: it will give us self-respect and courage.... Other peoples
may erect stone monuments ... and spill their blood like water in order
to perpetuate their own name and language.... We have no monument,
country, or name, and the only memory remaining to us from the
destruction of the Temple is the Hebrew language. ... Our language is
our national fortress.The spread of Haskalah in Russia during the 1860s and 1870s culminated
the transformation of world Jewry during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies. In 1750, Judaism was overwhelmingly synonymous with Rabbinic
Judaism, non-rabbinic forms of the religion being deemed odd and heretical.
By 1880, traditional Judaism still predominated in Russia, the Ottoman
Empire, and the eastern parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, but non-rabbinic
forms of Judaism such as Reform had conquered Germany and America,
while progressive forms of Judaism had made inroads everywhere. This
change called into question the very nature of Jewish identity. In 1750, the
litmus test for inclusion within the Jewish community was adherence to rab-
binic laws and customs, and acknowledgment of rabbinic authority. While
Jewish identity was still defined in 1880 in religious terms, was this still as
pervasive a litmus test? Moreover, in 1750 the existence of a neutral ground
between Jews and non-Jews was more the exception than the rule. By 1880,
world Jewry appeared to be well on the way toward complete political equal-
ity and acceptance by mainstream society. But was it?
178 The age of enlightenment and emancipation, 1750–1880