This spiritual atmosphere could not fail to have its effect upon the Jews, with their naturally emotional and responsive natures. Enthusiasm for science and poetry seized them, and Jewish Spain became "the home of civilization and of spiritual activity--a fragrant garden of joyous, gay poetry, as well as the seat of earnest research and clear thought." Like the Mozarabs, the Christians who lived amongst the Mahometans, the Jews made themselves acquainted with the language and literature of the people of the land, and often surpassed them in knowledge. But whilst the Mozarabs gave up their own individuality, forgot their own language--Gothic Latin--could not even read the creeds, and were ashamed of Christianity, the Jews of Spain, through this contact with Arabs, only increased their love and enthusiasm for their mother-tongue, their holy law, and their religion. Through favorable circumstances Jewish Spain was in a position at first to rival Babylonia, then to supersede it, and finally to maintain its superiority for nearly five hundred years. Three men were the founders of the Judæo-Spanish culture: (i) Moses ben Chanoch, the Talmudical scholar, who had been carried captive to Cordova; (2) The first Andalusian grammarian, Menachem ben Saruk; (3) and the creator of the artistic form of Jewish poetry, Dunash Ibn-Labrat. This culture, however, unfolded through one man, who by means of his high endowments, his pure character and prominent position, was enabled to give it the proper impulse. This man was Abu-Yussuf Chasdaï ben Isaac Ibn-Shaprut (915-970), a member of the noble family of Ibn-Ezra. He was the first of a long succession of high-minded persons who made the protection and furthering of Judaism the task of their lives. Chasdaï was quite modern in his character, entirely different from the type of his predecessors. His easy, pliant, and genial nature was free both from the heaviness of the Orientals and the gloomy earnestness of the Jews. His actions and expressions make us look upon him as a European, and through him, so to speak, Jewish history receives a European character. His ancestors came from Jaen; his father Isaac, who probably lived at Cordova, was wealthy, liberal, and in a measure, a Mæcenas. The son inherited from him a love of science, and the worthy application of riches. He attained only a theoretical knowledge of medicine, but in literature, as well as in diplomacy, he was a master. Not only did he know Hebrew and Arabic well, but he also knew Latin, then understood only by the clergy amongst the Spanish Christians.