The changing relation of the synagogue and the community is proving the truth of the hoary platitude that history repeats itself. During the Middle Ages the synagogue was the heart of the secular as well as of the religious life of the community; it was a social center as well as a house of prayer. There the poor man found succor, the stranger acquaintances, the children their teachers, and the young people “their fates.” It would be almost impossible to list all the private and public interests which, clustering about the synagogue, bore witness to the vital part this institution played in medieval Jewish life. This prominent role was due to the enforced isolation of the Jewish community; thanks to the Ghetto walls the Jewish group constituted a city within a city. Once the Jewish population was concentrated into separate quarters, the synagogue became to the segregated community what the home was to the individual family; it was not only a place of meeting, but also a clearing house for individual and communal joys and sorrows. But the intimacy was broken down by the political emancipation that came to Jewry at the end of the eighteenth century. Slowly, as the old functions of the synagogue were taken over by special institutions housed in their own buildings, the synagogue began to be used purely as a house of worship; aside from this, its sole concern seemed to be the Sunday school. Applicants for charity were referred to the charity office across the street; social functions took place at the clubs; legal disputes were no longer decided by a rabbinical court. True, there were few large cities in this country in which the Jewish community did not point with pride to its magnificent house of worship; but in the majority of cases these gorgeous buildings (I am writing throughout of the synagogues of the reform wing) were dark six days and nights a week. In this respect, they differed little from the churches about them.