However, his life took a tragic turn: not only did his wife die of cholera in the next decade, but all of their nine children as well, and he became, again quoting Liptzin, "a prophet of doom, admonishing his co-religionists not to venture too date along the alluring road of western enlightenment and assimilation..." [Liptzin, 1972, 49] When that doom came, in the form of the anti-Semitic reaction and pogrom after the assassination of Alexander II, he became again a comforter, as well as a Zionist, affiliated with the Hovevei Zion and Bilu pioneers, writing songs such as ""Die Sokhe"" ("The Plough") and ""Shivath Zion"" ("Homecoming to Zion").