The first Hebrew novel, Ahavat Ziyyon (”The Love of Zion”, 1852), by Abraham Mapu, is a florid Romantic idyll set in the days of the prophet Isaiah, in which Mapu, like all Haskala writers, employs phrases culled from the Bible and adapted to the thought the writer wishes to express.

A teacher of religion and German, Mapu is an influential advocate of the Haskala.

The heavily plotted novels of Lithuanian novelist Abraham Mapu, influenced stylistically by Victor Hugo and Eugène Sue, romanticize a sovereign Israel and indirectly pave the way for the revival of Jewish nationalism and the Zionist movement.

His second novel, Ashmat Shomron (Guilt of Samaria, 1865), is a biblical epic about the hostility between Jerusalem and Samaria in the time of King Ahaz.

His third, Ayit tzavua' (The Hypocrite; 1858-69), marks a departure.

Dealing with contemporary life in the ghetto and attacking its social evils, it portrays a new type, the maskil (possessor of Haskala), in a fight against orthodox obscurantism.

Another novel, Hoze hezyono (The Visionary; 1869), an exposé of Hasidism, is confiscated by religious authorities.