urther
research, I shall feel amply rewarded. Without prejudice and without
partiality, by an honest presentation of facts drawn from what I regard
as reliable sources, I have tried to unfold the story of the struggle of
five millions of human beings for right living and rational thinking, in
the hope of throwing light on the ideals and aspirations and the real
character of the largely prejudged and misunderstood Russian Jew.

In conclusion, I wish to express my gratitude and indebtedness to those
who encouraged me to proceed with my work after some specimens of it had
been published in several Jewish periodicals, especially to Doctor
Solomon Schechter, Rabbi Max Heller, and Mr. A.S. Freidus, for their
courtesy and assistance while the work was being written.

JACOB S. RAISIN.

E. Las Vegas, N. Mex.,

Thanksgiving Day, 1909.

CHAPTER I

THE PRE-HASKALAH PERIOD

?-1648

"There is but one key to the present," says Max Mueller, "and that is the
past." To understand fully the growth and historical development of a
people's mind, one must be familiar with the conditions that have shaped
its present form. It would seem necessary, therefore, to introduce a
description of the Haskalah movement with a rapid survey of the history
of the Russo-Polish Jews from the time of their emergence from obscurity
up to the middle of the seventeenth century.

Among those who laid the foundations for the study of this almost
unexplored department of Jewish history, the settlement of Jews in
Russia and their vicissitudes during the dark ages, the most prominent
are perhaps Isaac Baer Levinsohn, Abraham Harkavy, and Simon Dubnow.
There is much to be said of each of these as writers, scholars, and men.
Here they concern us as Russo-Jewish historians. What Linnaeus, Agassiz,
and Cuvier did in the field of natural philosophy, they accomplished in
their chosen province of Jewish history.[1] Levinsohn was the first to
express the opinion that the Russian Jews hailed, not from Germany, as
is commonly supposed, but from the banks of the Volga. This hypothesis,
corroborated by tradition, Harkavy established as a fact. Originally the
vernacular of the Jews of Volhynia, Podolia, and Kiev was Russian and
Polish, or, rather, the two being closely allied, Palaeo-Slavonic. The
havoc wrought by the Crusades in the Jewish communities of Western
Europe caused a constant stream of German-Jewish immigrants to pour,
since 1090, into the comparat