the knot of
disabilities.

But these events failed to cure the political _naivete_ of Levinsohn. In
1831 he laid before Lieven, the new Minister of Public Instruction, a
memorandum advocating the necessity of modifications in Jewish religious
life. Again in 1833 he came forward with the dangerous proposal to close
all Jewish printing-presses, except those situated in towns in which
there was a censorship. The project was accompanied by a "list of
ancient and modern Hebrew books, indicating those that may be considered
useful and those that are harmful"--the hasidic works were declared to
belong to the latter category. Levinsohn's project was partly
instrumental in prompting the grievous law of 1836, which raised a cry
of despair in the Pale of Settlement, ordering a revision of the entire
Hebrew literature by Russian censors. [1]

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 42 et seq.]

Levinsohn's action would have been ignoble had it not been naive. The
recluse of Kremenetz, passionately devoted to his people but wanting in
political foresight, was calling Russian officialdom to aid in his fight
against the bigotry of the Jewish masses, in the childish conviction
that the Russian authorities had the welfare of the Jews truly at heart,
and that compulsory measures would do away with the hostility of the
Jewish populace toward enlightenment. He failed to perceive, as did also
some of his like-minded contemporaries, that the culture which the
Russian Government of his time was trying to foist upon the Jews was
only apt to accentuate their distrust, that, so long as they were the
target of persecution, the Jews could not possibly accept the gift of
enlightenment from the hands of those who lured them to the baptismal
font, pushed their children on the path of religious treason, and were
ruthless in breaking and disfiguring their whole mode of life.

In his literary works Levinsohn was fond of emphasizing his relations
with high Government officials. This probably saved him from a great
deal of unpleasantness on the part of the fanatic Hasidim, but it also
had the effect of increasing his unpopularity among the orthodox. The
only merit the latter were willing to concede to Levinsohn was that of an
apologist who defended Judaism against the attacks of non-Jews. During
the epidemic of ritual murder trials, the rabbis of Lithuania and
Volhynia addressed a request to Levinsohn to write a book against this
horrid libel. At their suggestion