[28]
Smolenskin was endowed with the ability and courage that characterize
the born leader. He possessed an iron will and unflinching
determination, before which obstacles had to yield, and persecution
found itself powerless. His talent to grasp and appreciate the true and
the beautiful rendered him the oracle of the thousands who, to this day,
are proud to call themselves his disciples. To him Haskalah was not
merely acquaintance with general culture, or even its acquisition. It
was the realization of one's individuality as a Jew and a man. Gordon's
advice, to be a Jew at home and a man abroad, found little favor in his
estimation; for Haskalah meant the evolution of a Jewish man _sui
generis_. He equally abhorred the fanaticism of the benighted orthodox
and the Laodicean lukewarmness of the advanced Maskilim. To fight and,
if possible, eradicate both, he undertook the publication of The Dawn
(Ha-Shahar, Vienna, 1869), a magazine in which he declared "war against
the darkness of the Middle Ages and war against the indifference of
to-day!"
Not like the former days are these days, he says in his foreword
to Ha-Shahar.
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