Samson Wertheimer was the most famous Jew in Europe around the year 1700. Bright, able and fortunate, he succeeded in whatever he undertook. Princes, kings and emperors sought him out. Prince Eugene of Savoy, the greatest military commander of the day, publicly acknowledged that, without Wertheimer's help, he could not have stopped the Turks from overrunning Christian Europe.

Yet Wertheimer did not consider this part of his life a success. He thought that his most important achievement was to prevent, at least temporarily, the publication of one of the most vicious attacks on Judaism and the Talmud. All his worldly success was, it seemed to him, only a preparation for his service to the Jewish people. 

Alfred Apsler, with his gift for the dramatic, introduces the reader to this interesting personality. He thereby gives us a picture of the life of the Central European Jews in the days before their Emancipation.

From the dust jacket