r poets
of the period. Needless to say, the Jewish-Russian press was an enemy of
ultra-orthodoxy. Osip Rabinovich, the leading Russo-Jewish journalist,
made his debut with an article in which he denounced the superstitious
customs of his people in unmeasured terms.[15] The motto chosen for the
Razsvyet (1860) was "Let there be light," and the platform it adopted
was to elevate the masses by teaching them to lead the life of all
nations, participate in their civilization and progress, and preserve,
increase, and improve the national heritage of Israel.[16]

Yet journalists and poets were outdone by scholars and novelists in the
battle for reform. Lebensohn's didactic drama _Emet we-Emunah_ (_Truth
and Faith_, Vilna, 1867, 1870), in which he attempts to reconcile true
religion with the teachings of science, was mild compared with _Dos
Polische Yingel_ or Shatzkes' radical interpretations of the stories of
the rabbis in his _Ha-Mafteah_ (_The Key_, Warsaw, 1866-1869), and both
were surpassed by Raphael Kohn's clever little work _Hut ha-Meshullash_
(_The Triple Cord_, Odessa, 1874), in which many prohibited things are
ingeniously proved permissible according to the Talmud. But the most
outspoken advocate of reform was Abraham Mapu (1808-1867), author of the
first realistic novel, or novel of any kind, in Hebrew literature, the
_'Ayit Zabua'_ (_The Painted Vulture_). His Rabbi Zadok, the
miracle-worker, who exploits superstition for his own aggrandizement;
Rabbi Gaddiel, the honest but mistaken henchman of Rabbi Zadok; Ga'al,
the parvenu, who seeks to obliterate an unsavory past by fawning upon
both; the Shadkan, or marriage-broker, who pretends to be the ambassador
of Heaven, to unite men and women on earth,--in these and similar types
drawn from life and depicted vividly, Mapu held up to the execration of
the world the hypocrites who "do the deeds of Zimri and claim the reward
of Phinehas," whose outward piety is often a cloak for inner impurity,
and whose ceremonialism is their skin-deep religion. These characters
served for many years as weapons in the hands of the combatants enlisted
in the army arrayed for "the struggle between light and darkness."

The waves of the Renaissance and the Reformation sweeping over Russian
Jewry reached even the sacred precincts of the synagogues, the batte
midrashim, and the yeshibot. The Tree of Life College in Volozhin became
a foster-home of Haskalah. The rendezvous of the brightest Ru