sentation far exceeds that of twenty years ago, from the point of view of communal benefit it certainly is inferior. The present members prefer to be known as Englishmen possibly of the Jewish persuasion rather than as English Jews. It goes without saying that not one has identified himself in the slightest with the Jewish National Movement, while the East African project is carefully avoided. Of the twelve Jewish members of Parliament, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Stuart Samuel are the only ones prominently connected with Jewish institutions. It is true that Mr. Isaacs has occasionally presided at a communal dinner, that Col. Lucas is a member of one or two committees that he never attends, that the Hon. Walter Rothschild is a member of a family whose name is proverbial in Anglo-Jewry, that Sir Harry Samuel is a member of the governing body of the Reform Synagogue and that Sir Edward Sassoon was for a few months the President of the Elders of the Sephardic Community. The services of these gentlemen to the community in combination, have, however, in reality amounted to little real work.
Of Mr. Cohen and Mr. Stuart Samuel a different story can be told. The former comes of a family that has for three generations given the community some of its best members. In the history of modern Anglo-Jewry the names of three generations of Levi Barnet Cohen, of Louis Cohen, and of Lionel Cohen come prominently forward. Mr. Benjamin Cohen has devoted a large portion of his life to public work, both communal and general. He has been in Parliament since 1892 and was for many years a member of the London County Council. In the community his most prominent offices have been the vice-presidency of the United Synagogue and the chairmanship of the Jewish Board of Guardians. The former institution, a union of practically all the larger congregations of the metropolis, is the most influential of communal organizations. The Jewish
Board of Guardians, the equivalent of the United Hebrew Charities of New York, has attained such a position in the world of philanthropy that its methods are held up as the pattern to all similar institutions and its treatment of cases is quoted throughout the length and breadth of the land. As president of this institution Mr. Cohen succeeds his brother Mr. Lionel Cohen, the founder of the Board as well as of the United Synagogue, and on his retirement from that exacting office after many years' service he retained his membership on the Board and is still among the most regular attendants at its meetings. Mr. Stuart Samuel is president of the Home and Hospital for Jewish Invalids, the best equipped institution in the community and the admiration of all its visitors. The institution is almost the youngest in Anglo-Jewry, and practically throughout its career Mr. Samuel has been at the head of its affairs. To him is to a considerable extent due the palatial building in which its inmates dwell and the ease with which its coffers are filled.
With regard to the personalities of the members a few particulars may be of interest. Of Mr. Cohen I have already spoken. Rufus Isaacs, although still only forty-five, is one of the few leaders at the English bar. His services are continually on demand on all sides and seldom a case of any size is heard with which he is not connected. Despite the commanding position he has already attained, Mr. Isaacs did not adopt law until his twenty-seventh year. He is a nephew of Sir Henry Isaacs, formerly Lord Mayor of London, and is clearly marked out for great preferment and high office in the state. In the political and legal worlds it has more than once been prophecied that Mr. Isaacs will be the first Jewish Lord Chancellor, or the first professing Jew to hold that office. Lord Herschell, Mr. Gladstone's last Lord Chancellor, was also of Jewish birth. The name of Capt. Jessel reminds us of another Anglo-Jewish