" With the establishment of the rabbinical seminaries in
Zhitomir (1848), this former centre of Hasidism became the nursery of
Haskalah. The movement was especially strong in Vilna, the "Jerusalem of
Lithuania," as Napoleon is said to have called it. From time immemorial,
long before the Gaon's day, it had been famous for its Talmudic
scholars. "Its yeshibot," says Jacob Emden in the middle of the
eighteenth century, "were closed neither by day nor by night; many
scholars came home from the bet ha-midrash but once a week. They
surpassed their brethren in Poland and in Germany in learning and
knowledge, and it was regarded of much consequence to secure a rabbi
from Vilna." Now this "city and mother in Israel" became one of the
pioneers of Haskalah, all the more because, in addition to the public
schools and the rabbinical seminary, the Jews were admitted to its
university on equal terms with the Gentiles. "Within six years,"
exclaims Mandelstamm, "what a change has come over Vilna! Youths and
maidens, anxious for the new Haskalah, are now to be met with
everywhere, nor are any ashamed to learn a trade." The schools exerted a
salutary influence on the younger generation, and the older people, too,
began to view life differently, only that they were still reluctant to
discard their old-fashioned garb.
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