One of the chief figures in the process both of the revival of Hebrew and the revival of Hebrew education in the second half of the nineteenth century was Peretz Smolenskin in 1842-1885. Smolenskin’s attitude towards Hebrew and the revival of Hebrew is associated with his views on the state and future of the Jewish people as a whole. For Smolenskin, the Torah and the Hebrew language were the main pillars of the Jewish people in a sense the land of the Jews. In the first volume of his new journal Ha-shahar, shortly after his arrival in Vienna in 1868, Smolenskin compared the attitude of other national groups to their languages with that of the Jews to Hebrew. The passage from ‘Et la’asot’ shows that with respect to language issues as well as other matters Smolenskin had solidly conservative, anti-revolutionary, pro-law-and-order views, he disapproved of attempts by other nations to rock the Hapsburg boat either politically or linguistically.
