I avail myself of the word: but in what consists their nationality?
They are termed _a body_: in what do they assimilate? They are
designated _the British Jews_: how are they identified with the title?
The phrase, "Members of a certain Synagogue," conveys to the mind the
only idea to which we can find any corresponding reality; for, in
truth, beyond what _it_ implies, the Jews are _not united_ for any
definite design or purpose; and while it would have been reasonable to
expect, _a priori_, that the votaries of a faith set apart from all
others, should have had some common bond of union in their affairs, we
are startled by the consideration that there exist at this moment in
London alone, a number of distinct Jewish Congregations, _independent_
of each other, with separate wants and interests, having nothing in
common but their religion: and all the great and noble advantages to
be obtained by numbers, having a unity of purpose, are either
unrecognised, or merged and lost in that separation of interests which
makes the respective pecuniary benefit of each Congregation the
greatest, if not the only object of its existence.

The provincial Congregations are precisely in the same injurious
position, and sensibly feel the want of a defined and constituted
authority--to decide upon many differences that arise--to interfere
for the extinction of animosities (trifling in themselves, but made
gigantic by continued contest) easy to be reconciled by a power to
which all would feel compelled to bow--yet as pregnant with important
consequences, if unchecked, as those causes which led for a period to
the downfall of monarchy in these realms. The evil appears, so far as
regards the Metropolitan Congregations, to have originated at, and
been continued from, the period of the second settlement of the
Israelites in this country. To the rapid increase of numbers and
wealth, during the absence of one efficient regulating power, we can
trace the successive formation of so many distinct communities.

To those elements which ought to have contributed to our strength, we
thus owe our weakness, and that disorganisation and separation of
interests which characterises the various proceedings of our body, in
the formation of the necessary places of worship, and in other
affairs. Had our ancestors provided a government at the outset, or
placed us under the control of an adequate authority, no material
disagreements would have taken place. But the