The cities on the borders of Russia were the first strongholds of Haskalah, and among them, as noted before, few struggled so intensely for their intellectual and civil emancipation as those in the provinces of Courland and Livonia.  Though their lot was not better than that of their coreligionists, yet, having formerly belonged to Germany, and being surrounded by a people whose culture was superior to that of the rest of Russia, they were the first to adopt western customs, and were surpassed only by the Jews in Germany in their desire for reform.  Their strenuous pleadings for equal rights were, indeed, ineffectual, but this did not lessen their admiration for the beauties of civilization, nor blind them to its benefits.  “Long ago,” remarks Lilienthal, “before the peculiar Jewish dress was prohibited, a great many could be seen here [in Courland] dressed after the German fashion, speaking pure German, and having their whole household arranged after the German custom.  The works of Mendelssohn were not trefah pasul [unclean and unfit], the children visited the public schools, the academies, and the universities."[27]

The beautiful city of Odessa, on the Black Sea, at that time just out of its infancy and full of the virility and aspiration of youth, was also in the full glare of the German Haskalah movement.  With its wide and straight streets, its public and private parks, and its magnificent structures, it presents even to-day a marked contrast to other Russian cities, and the Russians, not without pride, speak of it as “our little Paris.”  In the upbuilding of this southern metropolis Jews played an exceedingly important part.  For, as regards the promotion of trade and commerce, Russia had outgrown the narrow policy of Elizabeta Petrovna, and did not begrudge her Jews the privilege of taking the lead.  The “enemies of Christ” were permitted, even invited, to accomplish their “mission” also in Odessa, and thither they accordingly came, not only from Volhynia, Podolia, and Lithuania, but also from Germany, Austria, and especially Galicia.  Erter, Letteris, Krochmal, Perl, Rapoport, Eichenbaum, Pinsker, and Werbel became better known in Russia than in their own land.  As the Russo-Polish Jews had carried their Talmudic learning back to the countries whence they originally received it, so the Galician Jews, mostly hailing from the city of Brody, where Israel Zamoscz, Mendel Levin, Joseph Hakohen, and others had implanted the germs of Haskalah, now reimported it into Russia.  The Jews of Odessa were, therefore, more cultured than other Russian Jews, not excepting those of Riga.  Prosperous in business, they lavished money on their schools, and their educational system surpassed all others in the empire.  In 1826 they had the best public school for boys, in 1835 a similar one for girls, and in 1852 there existed fifty-nine public schools, eleven boarding schools, and four day schools.  The children attended the Richelieu Lyceum and the “gymnasia” in larger proportion