INTERCESSION OF WESTERN EUROPEAN JEWRY The mask of the Russian Government was soon torn down also before the yes of Western Europe.

In the initial stage of Lilienthal's campaign, public-minded Jews of Western Europe were inclined to believe that a happy era was dawning upon their coreligionists in Russia.

At the instance of Uvarov, Lilienthal had entered into correspondence with Philippson, Geiger, Cremieux, Montefiore, and other leaders of West-European Jewry, bespeaking their moral support on behalf of the school-reform and going so far as to invite them to participate in the proceedings of the Rabbinical Commission convened at St.Petersburg.

The replies from these prominent Jews were full of complimentary references to Uvarov's endeavors.

The _Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums_,[1] in the beginning of the forties, voiced the general belief that the era of persecutions in Russia had come to an end.
[Footnote 1: A weekly founded by Dr.Ludwig Philippson in 1837.