(1755-1793); the equally prominent, but at first somewhat less liberal Phinehas Horowitz was rabbi and dean in Frankfort-on-the-Main for over thirty years (1771-1805); his brother Shmelke, regarded as a saint, was chief rabbi of Moravia (1775).  Another Horwitz, Aaron Halevi, was rabbi of Berlin, one of those who favored Mendelssohn’s translation of the Pentateuch; while the cultured and profound Talmudist Raphael Hakohen, whose grandson, Gabriel Riesser, became the greatest champion of Jewish emancipation Germany has yet produced, was offered the rabbinate of Berlin (1771).  He declined the post, and finally became chief rabbi (1776-1803) of the united congregations of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck.  It is also recorded that Samuel ben Avigdor, the last rabbi of Vilna, held the rabbinate of Koenigsberg,[21] and there certainly must have been many more who, because of their inferior positions, cannot be so easily traced.  Besides, Germany, as we have seen, was the common fatherland of the greater part of both Slavonic and Teutonic Jews.  It never remained a terra incognita to the former for any length of time.  Its proximity to Russia, the business relations between the Jews of the two countries, intermarriage, and, with a few insignificant exceptions, the identity of language, made the Jews of both countries come into closer contact than was possible with any other Jews.  For the studious, Germany possessed the attraction which the “land of universities” exerts upon seekers after knowledge the world over.  To whom, indeed, could the profound and abstruse speculations of Leibnitz and Kant make a stronger appeal than to the Jew who had been initiated into metaphysical abstractions from his very childhood?  It is no wonder, then, that immigration from Russo-Poland into Germany was constantly on the increase, until, under Alexander II, the advancement of Russian civilization put a stop in a measure to these roamings, to be resumed under Alexander III and Nicholas II.

The Russo-Polish youth, therefore, found himself quite at home in the country of Mendelssohn, and thither, in case of necessity, he would go.  In the eleventh century Jews had gone from Germany to Poland.  In the eighteenth they retraced their steps from Poland to Germany.  Outnumbering by far those who went there from choice or by invitation, were those compelled to go in search of a livelihood.  “When I reached the age of twenty, peaceful and comfortable in my father’s house, I began to hope that henceforth I should pursue my studies uninterrupted.  But all at once my father lost his fortune, and I was forced to go somewhere to provide for myself.  So I became a melammed in Berlin.”  This piece of autobiography in the preface to a Talmudic treatise by Reuben of Zamoscz might have been written by many others, too.  But there were also the goodly number led thither by thirst for knowledge, whose remarkable abilities attracted the admiration of Jew and Gentile alike.  Wessely the poet and Linda the mathematician more than once expressed surprise at the amount of learning many of the poor immigrants were found to possess.[22]