interpenetrate the Jewish communities with the conceptions of modern
life.

Since the French Revolution the ghetto has produced valiant champions of
every good cause, politicians, legislators, poets, who have taken part
in all the movements of their day. But it has also given birth to a
legion of men of action sprung from the people and remaining with the
people, who, in the name of liberty of conscience and in the name of
science, fought the same battles upon the field of traditional Judaism
that the others were fighting outside.

A whole school of literary humanists undertook the work of emancipating
the Jewish masses, and pursued it for several generations with admirable
zeal. Hebrew became an excellent instrument of propaganda in their
hands. Thanks to their efforts, the language of the prophets,
inarticulate for nearly two thousand years, was developed to a striking
degree of perfection. It was shown to be a flexible medium, varied
enough to serve as the vehicle for any modern idea.

The great wonder is that this modern literature in Hebrew made itself
without teachers, without patrons, without academies and literary
_salons_, without encouragement in any shape or form. Nor is that
all. It was impeded by inconceivable obstacles, ranging from the
fraudulence of an absurd censorship to the persecution of fanatics. In
such circumstances, only the purest idealism, and the most
disinterested, could have ventured to enter the lists, and could have
come off the victor.

While the emancipated Jew of the Occident replaced Hebrew by the
vernacular of his adopted country; while the Rabbis were distrustful of