In 1889, Spektor was elected an honorary member of the Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews of Russia; in the same year he declared himself emphatically opposed to the proposed celebration of his rabbinical jubilee. His efforts to save the Volozhin yeshiva from being closed by the government proved unsuccessful, but his sponsorship of the institution known as "Kovnoer Perushim" assisted to provide a substitute. His other varied activities included participation in the Kovno kollel and membership of the Hovevei Zion movement. He corresponded with the leading rabbis of western Europe, and was the anonymous friend who induced Samson Raphael Hirsch to write "Ueber die Beziehung des Talmuds zum Judenthum" (an 1884 defense of Talmudic literature against anti-Semitic slanders in Russia). In his later years he was revered by the Jews of Russia, and came to be considered the pre-eminent "halakhic" (Jewish law) authority of his time; his death caused mourning in Orthodox communities throughout the world.