lacking in the German Maskilim, anxious
for naturalization as they were. It was the Slavonic Maskilim who
mastered Hebrew in its purity, as it had not been mastered since the day
of Judah Halevi. In those days of transition the diligent student can
find, in germ, what was later to develop into the resplendent poetical
flowers produced by the Lebensohns, the Gordons, Dolitzky, Schapiro,
Mane, and Bialik.

The Slavonic contributors to the Meassef, the first Hebrew literary
periodical (1784-1811), were not conspicuous in number, but if quality
can compensate for quantity, they made up for it by the value of their
articles. Dubno and Maimon enriched the early issues, the one with
poetry, the other with philosophy; and when it began to struggle for its
existence, and was on the point of giving up the ghost, Shalom Cohen
(1772-1845) came to the rescue, and, as editor, prolonged its existence
by a few years. Among the best articles in the Meassef are those of
Isaac Halevi Satanov (1733-1805). This "conglomeration of contrasts,"
whom Delitzsch regards as the restorer of Hebrew poetry to its primitive
beauty and purity, was the embodiment of the period in which he lived.
"He was," we are told, "a thorough master of Jewish traditional lore,
and at the same time a most advanced thinker, a profound physicist, and
an inspired poet; a master of the old school and at the same time the
founder of the new school, the national-classical, of Hebrew poetry."
His pure and precise style, his good-natured, Horace-like, delicate, yet
unmistakable, humor, he showed in a series of books bearing the name of
Asaf, which still must be counted among the gems of Hebrew
literature.[36]

Satanov was greatly in favor of expanding the Hebrew language, but the
first to borrow expressions from the Talmud literature or coin words of
his own was Mendel Levin, also of Satanov, Podolia (1741-1819), the
friend of Mendelssohn while in Berlin, the inspirer of Perl and Krochmal
while in Brody, the companion of Zeitlin and Schick while in Mohilev.
The Meassefim, the name generally applied to all who participated in the
publication of the Meassef, were shocked by what they regarded a
profanation of the sacred tongue. Their idea was that Hebrew was to be
utilized as a means of introducing Western civilization. Afterwards it
was to be relegated once more to the holy Ark. To Levin Hebrew had a far
higher significance. Not only should Western civilization be introduce