The appearance of Jewish periodicals in St. Petersburg was another change in the life of Russian Jewry. The first publication, the daily Hebrew-language newspaper "Ha-Melits" (The Intercessor) was soon followed by the Hebrew-language magazine "Mitzpah" (The Watchtower). These publications were subject to censorship. Their publisher was Alexander Tsederbaum, a prominent leader of the Russian Haskala movement.
In addition to the Hebrew-language periodicals, Tsederbaum also founded several publications in Russian, which were not censored: "Russky Yevrey" (The Russian Jew), "Rassvet" (The Dawn) and others. However, the readership of these publications was very small even in St. Petersburg, to say nothing of the Pale. But this was just the beginning.