They were held in disgrace and were often the victims of cruel persecutions, from which some saved themselves by conversion.

A more favorable soil for cultural endeavors was found in the extreme south of the Pale of Settlement as well as in its northern section: Odessa, the youthful capital of New Russia, and Vilna, the old capital of Lithuania, both became centers of the Haskalah movement.
As far as Odessa was concerned, the seeds of enlightenment had been carried hither from neighboring Galicia by the Jews of Brody, who formed a wealthy merchant colony in that city.

As early as 1826 Odessa saw the opening of the first Jewish school for secular education, which was managed at first by Sittenfeld and later on by the well-known public worker Bezalel Stern.

Among the teachers of the new school was Simha Pinsker, who subsequently became the historian of Karaism.

This school, the only educational establishment of its kind during that period, served in Odessa as a center for the "Friends of Enlightenment." Being a new city, unfettered by traditions, and at the same time a large sea-port, with a checkered international population, Odessa outran other Jewish centers in the process of modernization, though it must be confessed that it never went beyond the externalities of civilization.
As far as the period under discussion is concerned, the Jewish center of the South can claim no share in the production of new Jewish values.
While yielding to Odessa in point of external civilization, Vilna surpassed the capital of the South by her store of mental energy.