little known, unappreciated
treasures of knowledge and experience, accumulated in the course of many
centuries.

In the preface to this book, Zunz, the democrat, says that for his
brethren in faith he demands of the European powers, "not rights and
liberties, but right and liberty. Deep shame should mantle the cheek of
him who, by means of a patent of nobility conferred by favoritism, is
willing to rise above his _co-religionists_, while the law of the land
brands him by assigning him a place among the lowest of his
_co-citizens_. Only in the rights common to all citizens can we find
satisfaction; only in unquestioned equality, the end of our pain.
Liberty unshackling the hand to fetter the tongue; tolerance delighting
not in our progress, but in our decay; citizenship promising protection
without honor, imposing burdens without holding out prospects of
advancement; they all, in my opinion, are lacking in love and justice,
and such baneful elements in the body politic must needs engender
pestiferous diseases, affecting the whole and its every part."

Zunz sees a connection between the civil disabilities of the Jews and
their neglect of Jewish science and literature. Untrammelled,
instructive speech he accounts the surest weapon. Hence the homilies of
the Jews appear to him to be worthy, and to stand in need, of
historical investigation, and the results of his research into their
origin, development, and uses, from the time of Ezra to the present day,
are laid down in this epoch-making work.

The law forbidding the bearing of German names by Jews provoked Zunz's
famous and influential little book, "The Names of the Jews," like most
of his later writings polemic in origin, in which respect they remind
one of Lessing's works.

In the ardor of youth Zunz had borne the banner of reform; in middle age
he became convinced that the young generation of iconoclasts had rushed
far beyond the ideal goal of the reform movement cherished in his
visions. As he had upheld the age and sacred uses of the German sermon
against the assaults of the orthodox; so for the benefit and instruction
of radical reformers, he expounded the value and importance of the
Hebrew liturgy in profound works, which appeared during a period of ten
years, crystallizing the results of a half-century's severe application.
They rounded off the symmetry of his spiritual activity. For, when
Midrashic inspiration ceased to flow, the _piut_--synagogue
poetry--es