brew as a national
language, "without which there is no Judaism." In order the more
successfully to demolish the idea of assimilation, Smolenskin bombards
its substructure, the theory of enlightenment as formulated by Moses
Mendelssohn, with its definition of the Jews as a religious community,
and not as a nation, though in his polemical ardor he often goes too
far, and does occasional violence to historic truth.

[Footnote 1: From Isa. 44. 7.]

[Footnote 2: From Eccles. 3. 2.]

In both works one may discern, though in vague outlines only, the theory
of a "spiritual nation." [1] However, Smolenskin did not succeed in
developing and consolidating his theory. The pogroms of 1881 and the
beginning of the Jewish exodus from Russia upset his equilibrium once
more. He laid aside the question of the national development of Jewry in
the Diaspora, and became an enthusiastic preacher of the restoration of
the Jewish people in Palestine. In the midst of this propaganda the life
of the talented publicist was cut short by a premature death.

[Footnote 1: The conception of a "spiritual nation" as applied to
Judaism has been formulated and expounded by the author of the present
volume in a number of works. See his "Jewish History" (Jewish
Publication Society, 1903) p. 29 et seq., and the translator's essay
"Dubnow's Theory of Jewish Nationalism" (reprinted from the
Maccabaean, 1905). More about this theory will be found in Vol. III.]

The same conviction was finally reached, after a prolonged inner
struggle, by Moses Leib Lilienblum (1843-1910), who might well be called
a "martyr of enlightenment." However, during the period under
consideration he moved entirely within the boundaries of the Haskalah,
of which he was a most radical exponent. Persecuted for his harmless
liberalism by the fanatics of his native town of Vilkomir, [1]
Lilienblum began to ponder over the question of Jewish religious
reforms. In advocating the reform of Judaism, he was not actuated, as
were so many in Western Europe, by the desire of adapting Judaism to the
non-Jewish environment, but rather by the profound and painful
conviction that dominant Rabbinism in its medieval phase did not
represent the true essence of Judaism. Reform of Judaism, as interpreted
by Lilienblum, does not mean a revolution, but an evolution of Judaism.
Just as the Talmud had once reformed Judaism in accordance with the
requirements of its time, so must Judaism be reformed by us in