people, so that uninstructed coreligionists would see Judaism in its true light. At the same time he found himself obliged to exercise great care in the treatment of the subject in order to avoid creating undue antagonism. Levinsohn presents in his "Bet Yehudah" a wonderfully clear and logical exposition of Jewish religious philosophy. According to him the Jewish religion may be summed up in two principles of belief: faith in one God, which involves the negation of idol-worship; and love of one's neighbour. He shows by numerous citations that the latter means the love not only of one Jew for another, but the love for any neighbour, irrespective of faith. He presents a history of the various Jewish sects, enumerates the contributions of the Jews to learning and civilization, and at the end suggests a plan for the reorganization of Jewish education in Ukraine. He urges the necessity of founding rabbinical seminaries fashioned after the German institutions, training the Jewish youth in religious and secular learning, opening elementary Jewish schools throughout the Pale, abolishing the institution of melammedim, and establishing agricultural and industrial schools. Bet Yehudah exerted a powerful influence on the Jews of Russian Empire and gave a plan of action to the progressive elements in Russian Empire Jewry. The book acquired renown outside of the Russian Empire also. It was translated into Polish, and the scholar Geiger read several chapters of it before an audience in the Breslau synagogue. But though Bet Yehudah was completed in 1829, it remained unpublished until 1838. Efes Dammim and other polemical works Around this time, the Jewish community of Zaslavl in Volhynia was accused of ritual murder; many families were imprisoned, and the entire community was in despair. Levinsohn's opponents then laid aside their enmity and turned to him as the only man capable of proving the falsity of the accusation. In spite of his sickness Levinsohn began his Efes Dammim, in defense of the accused Jews. But the necessary means not being forthcoming, he was obliged to spend his own money in collecting material and information. "The purpose of my book," says Levinsohn, "is to acquit the Jews before the eyes of Christians, and to save them from the false accusation of using Christian blood." Efes Dammim is written in the form of a dialogue between a patriarch of the Greek Church in Jerusalem, Simias, and the chief rabbi in the