r fame were indisputably theirs: therefore, the first, the royal
crown, never seemed more resplendent than when worn in exile. The glory
of a Jewish king of the exile seemed to herald the realization of the
Messianic ideal. So it happens that many a family in Poland, England,
and Germany, still cherishes the memory of Rabbi Saul the king, and that
"Malkohs" everywhere still boast of royal ancestry. Rabbis, learned in
the Law, were his descendants, and men of secular fame, Gabriel Riesser
among them, proudly mention their connection, however distant, with Saul
Wahl. The memory of his deeds perpetuates itself in respectable Jewish
homes, where grandams, on quiet Sabbath afternoons, tell of them, as
they show in confirmation the seal on coins to an awe-struck progeny.

Three crowns Israel bore upon his head. If the crown of royalty is
legendary, then the more emphatically have the other two an historical
and ethical value. The crown of royalty has slipped from us, but the
crown of a good name and especially the crown of the Law are ours to
keep and bequeath to our children and our children's children unto the
latest generation.

JEWISH SOCIETY IN THE TIME OF MENDELSSOHN

On an October day in 1743, in the third year of the reign of Frederick
the Great, a delicate lad of about fourteen begged admittance at the
Rosenthal gate of Berlin, the only gate by which non-resident Jews were
allowed to enter the capital. To the clerk's question about his business
in the city, he briefly replied: "Study" (_Lernen_). The boy was Moses
Mendelssohn, and he entered the city poor and friendless, knowing in all
Berlin but one person, his former teacher Rabbi David Fraenkel. About
twenty years later, the Royal Academy of Sciences awarded him the first
prize for his essay on the question: "Are metaphysical truths
susceptible of mathematical demonstration?" After another period of
twenty years, Mendelssohn was dead, and his memory was celebrated as
that of a "sage like Socrates, the greatest philosophers of the day
exclaiming, 'There is but one Mendelssohn!'"--

The Jewish Renaissance of a little more than a century ago presents the
whole historic course of Judaism. Never had the condition of the Jews
been more abject than at the time of Mendelssohn's appearance on the
scene. It must be remembered that for Jews the middle ages lasted three
hundred years after all other nations had begun to enjoy the blessings
of the modern era. Verita