ews, thus creating a desire to ‘prepare the hearts’ of the people in advance of their integration into Russian society.
Ha-Karmel suffered throughout most of its existence from difficulties with respect to its circulation and from lack of funds, which troubled Fuenn, harming not only his livelihood but his health as well. Issues did not appear on time or in proper serial order during the bulk of the newspaper's duration, and with the demise of its existence as a weekly, even the number of pages allotted to each issue was reduced. Even with occasional material assistance from the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia or from the Russian authorities, ha-Karmel found it difficult to contend with the broader distribution of its competitors ha-Melits and ha-Maggid; after it turned into a monthly, it failed to compete with ha-Shaḥar (Heb. ‘The Dawn’), published by Perets Smolenskin (1842–1882) in Vienna, which was the most influential monthly of that time. The financial challenges facing ha-Karmel were further exacerbated by the inability of Fuenn to cultivate and to maintain a consistent cadre of writers of high quality, who would contribute regularly their writing to the newspaper. This problem, therefore, forced him to rely increasingly upon local forces in Vilnius, which steadily turned ha-Karmel into a local and provincial newspaper. These difficulties ultimately overcame Fuenn and ha-Karmel ceased to exist in 1880.