haracteristic of the idea of religious
reforms in Judaism which sprang to life in the beginning of the
eighties. A fortnight before the pogrom at Yelisavetgrad, which
inaugurated another gloomy chapter in the annals of Russian Jewry, the
papers reported that a new Jewish sect had appeared in that city under
the name of "The Spiritual Biblical Brotherhood." Its members denied all
religious dogmas and ceremonies, and acknowledged only the moral
doctrines of the Bible; they condemned all mercantile pursuits, and
endeavored to live by physical labor, primarily by agriculture.

The founder of this "Brotherhood" was a local teacher and journalist,
Jacob Gordin, who stood at that time under the influence of the
South-Russian Stundists [1] as well as of the socialistic Russian
Populists. [2] The "Spiritual Biblical Brotherhood" was made up
altogether of a score of people. In a newspaper appeal which appeared
shortly after the spring pogroms of 1881 the leader of the sect, hiding
his identity under the pen-name of "A Brother-Biblist," called upon the
Jews to divest themselves, of those character traits and economic
pursuits which excited the hatred of the native population against them:
the love of money, the hunt for barter, usury, and petty trading. This
appeal, which, sounded in unison with the voice of the Russian
Jew-baiters and appeared at a time when the wounds of the pogrom victims
were not yet healed, aroused profound indignation among the Jews.
Shortly afterwards the "Spiritual Biblical Brotherhood" fell asunder.
Some of its members joined a like-minded sect in Odessa which had been
founded there in the beginning of 1883 by a teacher, Jacob Priluker,
under the name of "New Israel."

[Footnote 1: A Russian sect with rationalistic tendencies which are
traceable to Western Protestantism.]

[Footnote 2: See above, p. 222.]

The aim of "New Israel" was to facilitate, by means of radical religious
reforms conceived in the spirit of rationalism, the contact between Jews
and Christians and thereby pave the way for civil emancipation. The
twofold religio-social program of the sect was as follows:

The sect recognizes only the teachings of Moses; it rejects the
Talmud, the dietary laws, the rite of circumcision, and the
traditional form of worship; the day of rest is transferred from
Saturday to Sunday; the Russian language is declared to be the
"native" tongue of the Jews and made obligatory in every-day life;