Willingly, did space permit, we would follow the author through his account of the Judaism of his time. The majority of Jews, he says, are poor, yet annually they send “Almes to Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron.” The Jews never “torment, or abuse, or put to any cruel death, any Brute Beast.” Very few Jews are able to speak Hebrew; all learn the language of the countries where they are born. “Onely those of the Morea still retain the Hebrew Tongue also, and use it in their Familiar Letters.” In Italy, he records, the Talmud “continues utterly prohibited,” and copies are not to be found in the country. Jews do not regard “Vowes” as “commendable”; yet “when they are made, they ought to be kept.” Not many now observe the “tradition” against eating “Fish and Flesh together.” He tells us of an arrangement by which, for the Sabbath, some “so ordered the matter aforehand, that the Fire should kindle itself at such and such a time.” The Passover bread is made in “flat cakes of divers forms and shapes.” The “Ceremonie with a Cock,” on the eve of the Day of Atonement, “is now left off both in the East and in Italy, as being a thing both Superstitious and Groundlesse.” But they still, on Purim, “as often as they hear Haman named, beat the ground, and make a great murmuring noise.” Bigamy “is seldome or never used.” Marriages are usually performed before full moon, and the favorite days are Wednesdays and Fridays, with Thursdays for widows. “Little boyes, with lighted torches in their hands,” sing before the bridal couple, who are seated under the canopy. The Ketubah is read at the marriage. Modena mentions the charms against _Lilit_, and name-changing in case of sickness. He describes how, in Germany, in the case of girls, “the Chaunter goeth home to the Parents house, and lifting the child’s cradle on high, he blesseth it, and so giveth it the Name.” Modena also informs us that the Karaites were, in his time, numerous in Constantinople, Cairo, and Russia. Modena records that among the Jews “there are many women that are much more devout and pious than the men, and who not only endeavour to bring up their children in all manner of Vertuous Education; but are a means also of restraining their husbands from their Vitious Courses, they would otherwise take, and of inclining them to a more Godly way of Life.” With which handsome and just compliment we will take leave of our author. PART III PART III MENASSEH AND REMBRANDT