As a result, the role of the Society in the dissemination of enlightenment reduced itself to a mere dispensation of charity, and the great crisis of the eighties found this organization standing irresolute at the cross-roads.
3.

THE JEWISH PRESS In the absence of a comprehensive net-work of social agencies, the driving force in this cultural upheaval came from the periodical Jewish press.

The creation of several press organs in Hebrew and Russian in the beginning of the sixties was a sign of the times.

Though different in their linguistic medium, the two groups of publications were equally engaged in the task of the regeneration of Judaism, each adapting itself to its particular circle of readers.

The Hebrew periodicals, and partly also those in Yiddish which addressed themselves to the masses, preached _Haskalah_ in the narrower sense.