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
David Friedlaender (1750-1834) was then considered the legitimate
successor of Mendelssohn, whose friend he had been for more than twenty
years. He resembled his master in many respects, though he lacked both
his genius and his sympathy. Mendelssohn translated the Pentateuch and
the Psalms into German, Friedlaender translated the Haftarot (selections
from the Prophets) and the prayer book. Mendelssohn encouraged the
publication of the Meassef; he did likewise, and contributed several
articles to the journal. But, unlike his master, or, as he claimed, like
his master in secret, he held exceedingly latitudinarian views on
Judaism. In his later years he advocated abolishing the study of Hebrew
in the schools and discarding it from the prayer book. He even rejoiced
that by attending the services in Protestant churches many Jewish
families were becoming acquainted with the religion he himself would
have accepted on certain conditions.[6]
It was to Friedlaender that Bishop Malchevsky, actuated, as he
maintained, by a desire to render the Jews worthy of the enjoyment of
civil rights, applied for suggestions, in 1816, when the missionary zeal
of Alexander I was first aroused. He responded in a pamphlet, _On the
Improvement of the Israelites in the Kingdom of Poland_,[7] in which he
declared that the quickest way of "civilizing" the Jews would be to
deprive their rabbis of power and influence, to force them to dress in
the German fashion, and use the Polish language, to admit them to the
public schools and other educational institutions, and, above all, to
abrogate the laws discriminating between them and their Gentile
countrymen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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