such communal bodies have done good and great work for their brethren. The co-operation of English and French Jews in the Damascus affair of 1840, when the Jewish quarter was sacked and Montefiore, Crémieux, and Munk were delegated to Alexandria and Constantinople, to intervene for their oppressed co-religionists, marked a turning-point in Jewish history. It was the first time that Western Jews had worked together for the protection of Jewish interests all over the world. A more recent instance of persecution, the forced abduction and baptism of Mortara in Rome, led to the establishment in 1860 at Paris of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. And, when the position of this international body was threatened by the Franco-Prussian War, it was deemed advisable, to found in England the Anglo-Jewish Association to carry on the work. The Association started as an English branch of the parent institution, but has, ever since 1871, maintained a separate existence, though the two have always preserved friendly and indeed intimate relations. Its successive presidents have been Jacob Waley, Baron H. de Worms. Sir Julian Goldsmid, M.P., and Claude G. Montefiore.
The Jewish Board of Deputies was founded in 1846 to watch the interests of the Jews of Great Britain and Ireland. Originally composed only of ‘'Deputies of the Portuguese Nation', it now consists of representatives of various Metropolitan and Provincial Synagogues, and may be taken to be fairly representative of the Jewish community in this country, although a considerable number of Jews resident in England are not members of such Synagogues. Among its presidents have been Sir Moses Montefiore, his nephews, J. M. Montefiore. Sir Joseph Sebag Montefiore. and Arthur Cohen Q.C., D. L. Alexander, K.C., and now Sir Stuart Samuel. The Board is concerned, inter alia, with the protection of rights of the Jews in this country in respect to such matters as marriages, Sabbath observance, &c. But, especially in Sir Moses' time, it never failed, in cases of emergency, to invite
