Riven between such monstrous extremes, Polish Jewry was unable to attain even to a semblance of normal development.
2.

THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF ENLIGHTENMENT Though intensely engaged in this cultural movement, Russian Jewry did not yet command sufficient resources for carrying on a well-ordered and well-systematized activity.

The only modern Jewish organization of that period was the "Society for the Diffusion of Enlightenment amongst the Jews," which had been founded in 1867 by a small coterie of Jewish financiers and intellectuals of St.Petersburg.It would seem that the Jewish colony of the Russian metropolis, consisting of big merchants and university graduates, who, by virtue of the laws of 1859 and 1861, enjoyed the right of residence outside the Pale, did not yet contain a sufficient number of competent public workers.

For during the first decade of the Society its Executive Committee included, apart from its Jewish founders--Baron Guenzburg, Leon Rosenthal, Rabbi Neuman--, two apostates, Professor Daniel Chwolson and the court physician, I.
Berthenson.
The purpose of the Society was explained by one of the founders, Leon Rosenthal, in the following unsophisticated manner: We constantly hear men in high positions, with whom we come in contact, complain about the separatism and fanaticism of the Jews and about their aloofness from everything Russian, and we have received assurances on all hands that, with, the removal of these peculiarities, the condition of our brethren in Russia will be improved, and we shall all become full-fledged citizens of this country.

Actuated by this motive, we have organized a league of educated men for the purpose of eradicating our above-mentioned shortcomings by disseminating among the Jews the knowledge of the Russian language and other useful subjects.
What the Society evidently aimed at was to place itself at the head of the Russian-Jewish _intelligenzia_, which had undertaken to act as negotiators between the Government and the Jews in the cause of Russification.