attractive figure, stands at the
beginning of the period, surrounded by his disciples Wessely, Homberg,
Euchel, Friedlaender, and others, in conjunction with whom he gives Jews
a new, pure German Bible translation. Poetry and philology are zealously
pursued, and soon Jewish science, through its votaries Leopold Zunz and
S. J. Rappaport, celebrates a brilliant renascence, such as the poet
describes: "In the distant East the dawn is breaking,--The olden times
are growing young again."

_Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortraege der Juden_, by Zunz, published in 1832,
was the pioneer work of the new Jewish science, whose present
development, despite its wide range, has not yet exhausted the
suggestions made, by the author. Other equally important works from the
same pen followed, and then came the researches of Rappaport, Z.
Frankel, I. M. Jost, M. Sachs, S. D. Luzzatto, S. Munk, A. Geiger, L.
Herzfeld, H. Graetz, J. Fuerst, L. Dukes, M. Steinschneider, D. Cassel,
S. Holdheim, and a host of minor investigators and teachers. Their
loving devotion roused Jewish science and literature from their secular
sleep to vigorous, intellectual life, reacting beneficently on the
spiritual development of Judaism itself. The moulders of the new
literature are such men as the celebrated preachers Adolf Jellinek,
Salomon, Kley, Mannheimer; the able thinkers Steinheim, Hirsch,
Krochmal; the illustrious scholars M. Lazarus, H. Steinthal; and the
versatile journalists G. Riesser and L. Philipson.

Poetry has not been neglected in the general revival. The first Jewish
poet to write in German was M. E. Kuh, whose tragic fate has been
pathetically told by Berthold Auerbach in his _Dichter und Kaufmann_.
The burden of this modern Jewish poetry is, of course, the glorification
of the loyalty and fortitude that preserved the race during a calamitous
past. Such poets as Steinheim, Wihl, L. A. Frankl, M. Beer, K. Beck, Th.
Creizenach, M. Hartmann, S. H. Mosenthal, Henriette Ottenheimer, Moritz
Rappaport, and L. Stein, sing the songs of Zion in the tongue of the
German. And can Heine be forgotten, he who in his _Romanzero_ has so
melodiously, yet so touchingly given word to the hoary sorrow of the
Jew?

In an essay of this scope no more can be done than give the barest
outline of the modern movement. A detailed description of the work of
German-Jewish lyrists belongs to the history of German literature, and,
in fact, on its pages can be found a due apprecia