ion of the Dekabrists by Nicholas I the scheme died
"a-borning," and sank into oblivion. Later, David Gordon revived the
yearnings of Judah Halevi by his articles in the weekly Ha-Maggid
(1863), which he edited in Lyck, Prussia. Smolenskin's writings resound
with a love for Zion from the very beginning of his literary career. And
a rising young Hebraist, Eliezer ben Yehudah, while still a student of
medicine, wrote, in 1878, and again in 1880, stirring letters to the
editor of Ha-Shahar, in which he advocated the return to the Holy Land
and the revival of the holy tongue as a _conditio sine qua non_ for the
realization of the Jewish mission. These views, at first advocated by
the Hebrew-writing and Hebrew-reading Maskilim, gradually filtered into
the various strata of Russo-Jewish society, and when the clouds began to
gather fast in Russia's sky, and the change in the monarch's policy
augured the approach of evil times, Zionism rapidly made enthusiastic
converts even among the most Russified of the Jewish youth. On November
6, 1884, for the first time in history, a Jewish international assembly
was held at Kattowitz, near the Russian frontier, where representatives
from all classes and different countries met and decided to colonize
Palestine with Jewish farmers.

Since then Haskalah in Russia has become nationalistic and Palestinian.
Even those who were at first opposed to it gradually grew friendly, and
finally became "lovers of Zion" (Hobebe Zion). Among the Russo-Jewish
students in Vienna, Smolenskin, the militant Zionist, organized an
academic society, Kadimah, a name which, meaning Eastward and Forward,
contains the philosophy of Zionism in a nutshell. Seeing that the
Alliance Israelite Universelle encouraged emigration to America, both he
and Ben Yehudah published violent attacks on the French society, and
endeavored to thwart its plans as far as possible.[9] The Hebrew weekly
Ha-Meliz, published in St. Petersburg, was a staunch supporter of the
movement, and a little later Ha-Zefirah, published in Warsaw, which was
at first indifferent, if not antagonistic, joined the ranks. In Russian,
too, the Razsvyet and especially the Buduchnost spread Zionism among
their readers, while books, pamphlets, and poems were published in
Yiddish for circulation among the masses. In addition to the Hobebe Zion
societies formed in many cities, secret societies were organized, such
as the famous Bene Mosheh (Sons of Moses), which had