he
German language. To the member of the Lovers of the New Haskalah,
surreptitiously studying the Bible of the "Dessauer," the Hebrew was
rather a translation of, or commentary on, the German, and served him as
a bridge to cross over into the otherwise hardly accessible field of
German literature.

The cities on the borders of Russia were the first strongholds of
Haskalah, and among them, as noted before, few struggled so intensely
for their intellectual and civil emancipation as those in the provinces
of Courland and Livonia. Though their lot was not better than that of
their coreligionists, yet, having formerly belonged to Germany, and
being surrounded by a people whose culture was superior to that of the
rest of Russia, they were the first to adopt western customs, and were
surpassed only by the Jews in Germany in their desire for reform. Their
strenuous pleadings for equal rights were, indeed, ineffectual, but this
did not lessen their admiration for the beauties of civilization, nor
blind them to its benefits. "Long ago," remarks Lilienthal, "before the
peculiar Jewish dress was prohibited, a great many could be seen here
[in Courland] dressed after the German fashion, speaking pure German,
and having their whole household arranged after the German custom. The
works of Mendelssohn were not _trefah pasul_ [unclean and unfit], the
children visited the public schools, the academies, and the
universities."[27]

The beautiful city of Odessa, on the Black Sea, at that time just out of
its infancy and full of the virility and aspiration of youth, was also
in the full glare of the German Haskalah movement. With its wide and
straight streets, its public and private parks, and its magnificent
structures, it presents even to-day a marked contrast to other Russian
cities, and the Russians, not without pride, speak of it as "our little
Paris." In the upbuilding of this southern metropolis Jews played an
exceedingly important part. For, as regards the promotion of trade and
commerce, Russia had outgrown the narrow policy of Elizabeta Petrovna,
and did not begrudge her Jews the privilege of taking the lead. The
"enemies of Christ" were permitted, even invited, to accomplish their
"mission" also in Odessa, and thither they accordingly came, not only
from Volhynia, Podolia, and Lithuania, but also from Germany, Austria,
and especially Galicia. Erter, Letteris, Krochmal, Perl, Rapoport,
Eichenbaum, Pinsker, and Werbel became bette