ABSTRACT
East European Jewry in the Enlightenment era of proto-nationalism until the emergence of the Zionist movement in the late 1880s, the Jews formulated an image and a stance towards each of the four or five major facets on the basis of the admittedly only fragmentary sometimes superficial. France also had a real presence in the culture of the higher classes in Eastern Europe; and some elements of French culture passed from them to small circles in the Jewish community. An educated Jewish public might very well have read English literature in translation - from Shakespeare and Byron to Dickens and Oliver Goldsmith, and others. One could say that Smolenskin envisioned a kind of 'praiseworthy revolution' in Jewish society, leading to structural changes without impairing its framework and organic continuity. In all the statements and writings of the Jewish intelligentsia and Zionist activists until 1917, there is no greater sign of deep spiritual affinity between Jews and England.
