risky, and the Duke of Orleans. The
confidence of such as these brought Falk a considerable fortune, a large
part of which he bequeathed to a charity fund, the interest of which the
overseers of the United Synagogue still distribute annually among the
poor.[34] Shortly before "Doctor" Falk's death (1782), there settled in
London Phinehas Phillips of Krotoschin, the founder of the Phillips
family, which has furnished two Lord Mayors to the city of London.

It was not merely because of its business facilities that England
appealed to the Slavonic Jews. Baruch Shklover, or Schick (1740-1812),
went thither to study medicine, and it was from English literature that
he selected the material for his _Keneh ha-Middah_ (Prague, 1784;
Shklov, 1793), on trigonometry. It would appear that the first Hebrew
book, _Toledot Ya'akob_, printed for a Jew in England, was, as the name
of the author, Eisenstadt, suggests, that of a Slavonic Jew. Although a
silversmith by profession, Israel Lyons (d. 1770) was appointed teacher
of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. He acquired repute as a Hebrew
scholar, and published, in 1757, the _Scholar's Instructor_, or _Hebrew
Grammar_ (4th ed., 1823), and in 1768 a treatise printed by the
Cambridge Press, _Observations and Inquiries Relating to Various Parts
of Scripture History_. In the same chosen field labored Hyman Hurwitz
(1770-1844), the friend of Coleridge, who founded the Highgate Academy
(1799), and wrote an _Introduction to Hebrew Grammar_, _Vindica
Hebraica_, and _Hebrew Tales_, which were translated into various
languages. He finally became professor of Hebrew in University College,
London.

A younger contemporary of Abrahamson, the Jewish German medallist, was
Solomon (Yom Tob) Bennett (1780-1841), the engraver of Polotsk, who
spent a number of years at Copenhagen and Berlin in perfecting himself
in his art. Among his works is a highly praised bas-relief of Frederick
II, which was much admired by the professors of the Academy. An ardent
lover of liberty, of which there was little more in Germany at that time
than in Russia, he left for England, where he spent the remaining years
of his life, in Bristol. Besides being an artist and an engraver he was
a profound theologian, anxious to defend the cause of Judaism against
enemies within and without. The enemy within he attacked in his cutting
criticism of Solomon Cohen's _Rudiments of Religion_, and the enemy
outside, in his other work, _