Is such a king in the world now? If not, the men who could choose a king are in the world. There has been no king of the Jews since before the Christian Era, but until about the eleventh century there were Princes of the Exile, those who represented the headship of the Jews who were dispersed through the nations. They were and still are called "exilarchs," or Princes of the Exile. They were attended by the wise men of Israel, they held court, they gave the law to their people. They lived abroad wherever their circumstances or convenience dictated, in Christian or Mohammedan countries. Whether the office was discontinued with the last publicly known exilarch or merely disappeared from the surface of history, whether today it is entirely abandoned or exists in another form, are questions which must wait. That there are offices of world jurisdiction held by Jews is well known. That there are world organizations of Jews--organizations, that is, within the very strong solidarity of the Jewish nation itself--is well known. That there is world unity on certain Jewish activities, defensive and offensive, is well known. There is nothing in the condition or thought of the Jews which would render the existence today of an exilarch distasteful to them; indeed, the thought would be very comfortable. The Jewish Encyclopedia remarks: "Curiously enough, the exilarchs are still mentioned in the Sabbath services of the Ashkenazim ritual * * * The Jews of the Sephardic ritual have not preserved this anachronism, nor was it retained in most of the Reform synagogues of the nineteenth century." Is there, then, a Jewish Sanhedrin?--a governing or counseling body of Jews who take oversight of the affairs of their people throughout the world? The Jewish Sanhedrin was a most interesting institution. Its origin and method of constitution are obscure. It consisted of 71 members, with the president, and performed the functions of a political senate. There is nothing to show whence the Sanhedrin derived its authority. It was not an elective body. It was not democratic. It was not representative. It was not responsible to the people. In these qualities, it was typically Jewish. The Sanhedrin was chosen by the prince or priest, not with the purpose of safeguarding the people's interest, but to assist the ruler in the work of administration. It was thus assembled by call, or it was self-perpetuating, calling its own members. The arrangement seems to have been that well-known device by which an aristocracy can maintain itself in power whatever the political construction of the nation may be. The Jewish Encyclopedia says: "The Sanhedrin, which was entirely aristocratic in character, probably assumed its own authority, since it was composed of members of the most influential families of the nobility and priesthood."