In order to gain the confidence of the Jews for the proposed reforms, the Committee suggested that the Government should invite the "enlightened" representatives of the Jewish people to participate in the discussion of the projected measures of reform.
Turning their eyes towards the West, where Jewish assimilation had already begun its course, the Polish Committee decided to approach the Jewish reformer David Frielaender, of Berlin, who was, so to speak, the official philosopher of Jewish emancipation, and to solicit his opinion concerning the ways and means of bringing about a reorganization of Jewish life in Poland.

The bishop of Kuyavia,[1] Malchevski, addressed himself in the name of the Polish Government to Friedlaender, calling upon him, as a pupil of Mendelssohn, the educator of Jewry, to state his views on the proposed Jewish reforms in Poland.

Flattered by this invitation, Friedlaender hastened to compose an elaborate "Opinion on the Improvement of the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland." [2] [Footnote 1: A former Polish province, compare Vol.

I, p.

75, n.