The theory expounded in Pinsker's pamphlet made a strong appeal to the Russian Jews, not only on account of its close reasoning but also because it gave powerful utterance to that pessimistic frame of mind which seemed to have seized upon them all.

Its weakest point lay in the fact that it rested on a wrong historic premise and on a narrow definition of the term "nation" in the sense of a territorial and political organism.
Pinaker seems to have overlooked that the Jews of the Diaspora, taken as a whole, have not ceased to form a nation, though of a type of its own, and that in modern political history nations of this "cultural" complexion have appeared on the scene more and more frequently.
[Footnote 1: The first edition appeared in Berlin, in 1882.

It bears the sub-title: "An Appeal to his Brethren by a Russian Jew," It was published anonymously.] Lacking a definite practical foundation, Pinsker's doctrine could not but accomodate itself to the Palestinian colonization movement, although its insignificant dimensions were entirely out of proportion to the far-reaching plans conceived by the author of "Autoemancipation." Lilienblum and Pinsker were joined by the old nationalist Smolenskin and the former assimilator Levanda.

_Ha-Shahar_ and _ha-Melitx_ in Hebrew and the _Razsvyet_ in Russian became the literary vehicles of the new movement.

In opposition to these tendencies, the _Voskhod_ of St.
Petersburg[1] reflected the ideas of the progressive Russian-Jewish _intelligenzia_, and defended their old position which was that of civil emancipation and inner Jewish reforms.