However, as soon as the Russian Riessers applied themselves to their task, they met with insurmountable difficulties.  When the Razswyet, which was edited by Osip (Joseph) Rabinovich, attempted to lay bare the inner wounds of Jewish life, it encountered the concerted opposition of all prominent Jews, who were of the opinion that an organ employing the language of the country should not, on tactical grounds, busy itself with self-revelations, but should rather limit itself to the fight for equal rights.  The latter function again was hampered by the “other side,” the Russian censorship.  Despite the moderate tone adopted by the Razswyet in its articles on Jewish emancipation, the Russian censorship found them incompatible with the interests of the State.  One circular sent out by the Government went even so far as to prohibit “to to discuss the question of granting the Jews equal rights with those of the other (Russian) subjects.”  On one occasion the editor of the Razswyet, _, in appealing to the authorities of St. Petersburg against the prohibition of a certain article by the Odessa censor, had to resort to the sham argument that the incriminated article referred merely to the necessity of granting the Jews equality in the right of residence but not in other rights.  But even this stratagem failed of its object.  After a year of bitter struggle against the interference of the censor and against financial difficulties—­the number of Russian readers among Jews was still very small at that time—­the Razswyet passed out of existence.

Its successor Sion ("Zion"), edited by Solovaychik and Leon Pinsker, who subsequently bec me the exponent of pre-Herzlian Zionism,[1] attempted a different policy:  to prove the case of the Jews by arraigning the anti-Semites and acquainting the Russian public with the history of Judaism. Sion, too, like its predecessors, had to give up the fight in less than a year.

[Footnote 1:  See later, p. 330 et seq.]

After an interval of seven years a new attempt was made in the same city.  The Dyen ("The Day”) [1] was able to muster a larger number of contributors from among the increased ranks of the “titled” intelligenzia than its predecessors.  The new periodical was bolder in unfurling the banner of emancipation, but it also went much further than its predecessors in its championship of Russification and assimilation.  The motto of the Dyen was “complete fusion of the interests of the Jewish population with those of the other citizens.”  The editors looked upon the Jewish problem “not as a national but as a social and economic” issue, which in their opinion could be solved simply by bestowing upon this “section of the Russian people” the same rights which were enjoyed by the rest.  The Odessa pogrom of 1871 might have taught the writers of the Dyen to judge more soberly the prospects of “a fusion of interests,” had not a meddlesome censorship forced this periodical to discontinue its publication after a short time.