Russo-Jewish
merchants. Its original officers were Joseph Yosel Guenzburg, President;
his son Horace Guenzburg, First Vice-president; Rabbi A. Neuman, Second
Vice-president; the Brodskys, and, the most active of them all, its
Secretary, Leon Rosenthal (1817-1887). Busy as he was with his financial
affairs, Rosenthal devoted considerable time to the propagation of
enlightenment among his coreligionists. Many a youthful Maskil was
indebted to him for material as well as moral support, and it was due to
him that Osip Rabinovich finally succeeded in publishing the Razsvyet
(Dawn, 1860), the first journal in Russian devoted to Jewish interests.

The Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment was not unlike the
Alliance Israelite Universelle, only on a smaller scale. Its object was
"to spread the knowledge of the Russian language among the Jews, to
publish and assist others in publishing, in Russian as well as in
Hebrew, useful works and journals, to aid in carrying out the purposes
of the Society, and, further, to assist the young in devoting themselves
to the pursuit of science and knowledge." For several years, owing to
the indifference of the public, it had a hard struggle to live up to its
ideal. But continuously, if slowly, it gained in membership, so that in
1884 it had an affiliation of 545. During the first twenty years of its
existence its income amounted to 338,685 rubles, its expenditures to
309,998 rubles. In 1880 it endowed an agricultural college for Jewish
boys. When, in the same year, medical schools for women were opened, and
Jewish girls in large numbers took up the study of medicine, the Society
set aside the sum of 18,900 rubles for the support of the needy among
them. Many a young man was aided in the pursuit of his chosen career by
the Society. It directed its activities principally to the younger
generation, yet it did not neglect the older. With its assistance
Sabbath Schools and Evening Schools were opened in Berdichev, Zhitomir,
Poltava, and other cities; libraries were founded; interesting Hebrew
books on scientific subjects were published. Thus it had a two-fold
object: in those who were drifting away it aimed to reawaken knowledge
or love of Judaism by translating some of the most important Jewish
books into Russian (the Haggadah, in 1871, the prayer book, Pentateuch,
and Psalms, in 1872) as well as text-books and catechisms; and it
popularized science among those who would not or could not read