The Haskalah Movement in RussiaRaisin, Jacob S. (Jacob Salmon)
Religion
The Haskalah Movement in Russia
Raisin, Jacob S. (Jacob Salmon)
Haskalah -- Soviet Union; Jews -- Soviet Union
Some champions of reform did not rest satisfied with mere innovations
and improvements. They went so far as to discard Judaism altogether and
improvise religions of their own. Moses Rosensohn of Vilna was the
first, in his works _Advice and Help_ (_'Ezrah we-Tushiah_, Vilna, 1870)
and _The Peace of Brothers_ (_Shelom Ahim_, ibid.), to suggest a way to
cosmopolitanism and universalism through Judaism.[19] In 1879, Jacob
Gordin founded in Yelisavetgrad a sort of ethical culture society called
Bibleitsy (also Dukhovnoye Bibleyskoye Bratstvo, Spiritual Bible
Brotherhood), which obtained a considerable following among the workmen
of the section. It advocated the abolition of ritual observances, even
prayer, and the hastening of the era of the brotherhood of man. It
preached, in the words of one of its leaders, that "our morality is our
religion. God, the acme of highest reason, of surest truth, and of the
most sublime justice, does not demand useless external forms and
ceremonies."[20] Following the organization of the Bibleitsy, and based
on almost the same principles, branches of a Jewish sect, which called
itself New Israel (Novy Izrail), were started almost simultaneously in
Odessa and Kishinev. In the former city, the organization was headed by
Jacob Prelooker, in the latter, by Joseph Rabinowitz. Prelooker, who
after graduating from the seminary at Zhitomir became a school-master at
Odessa, sought to bring about a consolidation between his own people and
Russian Dissenters (Raskolniki: the Molocans, Stundists, and
Dukhobortzi). The theme of his book, _New Israel_, is a "reformed
synagogue, a mitigation of the cleavage between Jew and Christian, and
recognition of a common brotherhood in religion." Rabinowitz went still
further, and preached on actual conversion to one of the more liberal
forms of Christianity.[21]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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