Here he wrote in 1873 one of his ripest works, “The Mare, or Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” (Die Klache).  In his allegorical narrative he depicts a homeless mare, the personification of the Jewish masses, which is pursued by the “bosses of the town” who do not allow her to graze on the common pasture-lands with the “town cattle,” and who set street loafers and dogs at her heels.  “The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” (the Government) cannot make up its mind whether the mare should be granted equal rights with the native horses, or should be left unprotected, and the matter is submitted to a special commission.  In the meantime, certain horsemen from among the “communal benefactors” jump upon the back of the unfortunate mare, beat and torment her well-nigh to death, and drive her for their pleasure, until she collapses.

Leaving the field of polemical allegory, Abramovich published the humorous description of the “Travels of Benjamin the Third” (Masse’ot Benyamin ha-Shelishi, 1878), [1] portraying a Jewish Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, who make an oversea journey to the mythical river Sambation—­on the way from Berdychev to Kiev.  A subtle observation of existing conditions combined with a profound analysis of the problems of Jewish life, artistic power matched with publicistic skill—­such are the salient features of the first phase of Abramovich’s literary activity.

[Footnote 1:  A famous Jewish traveller by the name of Benjamin lived in the twelfth century.  Another modern Jewish traveller by the name of Joseph Israel, who died in 1864, adopted the name Benjamin II.  Abramovich humorously designates his fictitious travelling hero as Benjamin III.]

In the following period, beginning with the eighties, his literary creations exhibit greater artistic harmony in their content.  As far as their linguistic garb is concerned, they combine the Yiddish vernacular with the Hebrew national tongue, which are employed side by side by our author as the vehicles of his thought, and reach at his hands an equally high state of perfection.

6.  THE HARBINGER OF JEWISH NATIONALISM (PEREZ SMOLENSKIN)

The artistic portrayer of life was, however, a rare exception in the literature of the Haskalah.  Riven by social and cultural strife, the period of enlightenment called rather for theories than for art, and the novelist no less than the publicist was called upon to supply the want.  This theoretic element was paramount in the novels of Perez Smolenskin. (1842-1885), the editor of the popular Hebrew magazine ha-Shahar. [1] The pupil of a White Russian yeshibah, he afterwards drifted into frivolous Odessa and still later to Vienna, suffering painfully from the shock of the contrast.  Personally he had emerged unscathed from this conflict of ideas.  But round about him he witnessed “the dead bodies of enlightenment, which are just as numerous as the victims of ignorance.”  He saw the