Though Russian Jewry "has never
experienced any of the ritualistic struggles that Germany has
witnessed,"[14] yet reform and Haskalah always went hand in hand. The
attacks on tradition by the Maskilim of the "forties" and the early
"fifties" were mild and guarded compared with the assaults by the
generation that followed. With the appearance of the periodicals the
combat was intensified. Ha-Meliz, and, later, Ha-Shahar in Hebrew, and
Kol Mebasser in Yiddish were the organs of those who were dissatisfied
with the old, and sought to introduce the new. It was in the latter that
_Dos Polische Yingel_ (_The Polish Boy_), by Linetzky, first appeared,
and it proved so popular that the editor published it in book form long
before it was finished in the periodical. In an article on _The Ways of
the Talmud_, by Moses Loeb Lilienblum, the prevailing Jewish religious
observances were vehemently attacked. This was followed by another
article from the pen of Gordon, _Wisdom for Those Who Wander in Spirit_,
with suggestions for adapting religion to the needs of the times, and a
still more powerful one, _The Chaotic World_, by Smolenskin.
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