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Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn must have been absolutely confident of the outcome of the extraordinary social program in which they participated when they had their four children and later themselves baptized into the Christian faith. They felt justified by their action as the move promised what many German Jews at the beginning of the nineteenth century had been hoping for, namely, unconditional integration and total acceptance by the mainstream society with equality of civilian rights without discrimination. It must have seemed like a miracle after centuries of segregation, abuse, degradation, humiliation, restricted residence, misery and wretchedness to which they had been subjected by the surrounding communities. How simple it must have appeared: reject one's Jewish identity to participate unconditionally in the civil life of the host community. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the call of the times. A Utopia! Heinrich Heine, the German Jewish poet said, 'It would be a passport to European culture and civilization' and indeed it was a change greatly encouraged by the proponents of emancipation who sincerely believed that converted Jews would be well rewarded by being welcomed as equal citizens with full rights before the law...........let them only discard the Jewishness in them and they will become as one of us. Such naivety we can appreciate with hindsight and the knowledge of the horrors which were later heaped upon the Jews of Europe.

At that time the idea of assimilation was eagerly grasped by many Jews. However, such idealist transformations in society do not occur overnight. Life for the few privileged wealthy and well established court Jews of Berlin who had benefited from a private liberal education and social acceptance by their neighbors was not intermingled with the mass of ghetto Jews whose Yiddish language, distinctive clothing, dietary customs and narrow education kept them isolated from mainstream society. The Edict of Emancipation of 1812 granted by Prussia's King Frederick William III gave the Jews the right to vote in civil elections, a move which was seen as a step towards acceptance of a Jewish community living among them but its realization was ineffective. Later the choices offered to the Jews would cause great disruption and confusion within their structured society. The Hep! Hep! riots of 1819 were a constant reminder of the animosity and anti-Semitic sentiments which surrounded the Jews. The common cry of the rioters fell upon the ears of all Jews alike, irrespective of their status in society.

The much revered and learned philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, father of Abraham, was born in Dessau in 1729, the son of an impoverished scribe. He arrived in Berlin as a poor student to study with his rabbi, David Fränkel; such was his thirst for knowledge that he soon won fame throughout Europe for his teachings and philosophical writings. Moses married Fromet Guggenheim, became a successful businessman and a leader of the Enlightenment movement. He urged his fellow Jews to exchange their garb and streimels which he believed aroused hostility and suspicion among the locals, for ordinary German clothing and to learn to speak German. This, he assured them, would help them identify with mainstream society and enable them to participate in cultural and civic matters. He foresaw a time when that change would bring about a community of people of equal status all worshipping their Maker in their chosen individual manner without hindrance. Moses did not advocate conversion and remained a practicing Jew throughout his life. He died in 1786; his grave can be seen in Jüdischer Friedhof Berlin-Mitte.

Abraham (1776 –1835) was one of six children born to Moses and Fromet. In keeping with their parents' thinking, the children were all given a liberal education participating in Jewish and German culture alike and they met many of the outstanding thinkers of the day. Abraham and his brother Joseph became successful bankers establishing a private bank Mendelssohn & Co. which existed on the Jägerstrasse in Berlin from 1815 until the end of 1938 when the Nazis closed it. Abraham's marriage to Lea Salomon was blessed with four extremely gifted children, Fanny, Felix, Rebecca and Paul...Abraham's interests embraced a love of music and a deep interest in religious matters. Having been exposed to his father's philosophy of equal but different, he decided that equal and the same was more in keeping with his own ideas. Consequently his sons were not circumcised and his four children were baptized and brought up in the Christian faith. When Fanny was confirmed in 1819 her father wrote a long letter to her explaining his actions… it contained this sentence:-'In professing your faith you have accomplished what society requires of you: you can say that you are a Christian. Now you must be what your human duty requires you to be: truthful, faithful, good. Towards your mother and -I have the right to demand this too – your father, be faithful and devoted unto death'… She was expected to become an irreproachable convert, a shining light, an example to Jews and Christians alike. The same standards were demanded of her three siblings. That year brought a wave of pogroms throughout Germany and the cry of 'Hep,hep Judenjung!' (Get the Jew boy!) could be heard everywhere.

Fanny and Felix were both exceptionally musically gifted children. Felix would follow a career in music whilst Fanny, in keeping with the thinking of the times, would devote her life primarily to her husband, a devout Christian, Wilhelm Hensel, the court painter, and music would become her prime hobby. Felix and Fanny, affectionately known as F major and F minor remained devoted to one another and in constant communication throughout their lives. The four Mendelssohn children were educated privately at home. No expense was spared and the finest of tutors were employed to give them a rounded balanced education comprising brainwork, gymnastics and the arts. Music, painting, drawing, horse-riding, dancing, swimming and outdoor games were all encouraged. Life for the Mendelssohn children was not conducive to frivolity. Their studies were continuous and intense, their formidable mother wanted children who were irreproachable and not charged with the abandonment of Christianity. History, geography, German, Greek, French, English, Italian, mythology and so on, together the four of them faced their parents' exacting demands. The effects of his mother's severity stayed with Felix all his life, his friends commenting frequently on his nervousness and restlessness.

Felix was tutored by Carl Friedrich Zelter, the celebrated Berlin musician, a devotee of Bach and Handel and close friend of Wolfgang von Goethe, the great German poet and writer whose classical ideals he imbibed. He taught Felix to compose along classical lines, to compose music with clarity, balance, restraint and formal structure. It was a style which well became a well educated, elegant, controlled man not given to extremes of behavior. Everything was lyrical and orderly, there was no build up of intense passion as was found in his contemporary, Beethoven's, works, and everything about his music was controlled and graceful. It was a style which Victorian England and its Queen Victoria found delightfully acceptable and embraced with gratitude.

His conversion to Christianity at a young age did not isolate Felix from the anti-Semitic sentiments around him. Living in Berlin among the very Jews who had known his grandfather Moses and the Christians who respected his learning must have provoked many a lively discussion among them. Felix, together with the support of his family, would have liked the directorship of the famous Singacademie in Berlin where Zelter had been its director and several members of the Mendelssohn family took part in the choir, but anti-Jewish members blocked his advancement. Felix had never felt comfortable in Berlin and accepted a post far away in Leipzig where he established the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra and Conservatory.

Felix's life followed a charmed path blessed with domestic bliss, professional success free of financial worries and close family ties throughout his life. There appeared to be no cloud in the blue sky until the death of his beloved father Abraham in 1835 and later his mother. A year after Abraham's death Felix began to plan his famous oratorio 'Elijah', in his own words to his friend, the priest Julius Schubring, "It appears to me that the dramatic should predominate……..the personages should act and speak as if they were living beings………..In fact I imagined Elijah as a real thorough going prophet such as we could do with again today, strong, zealous, but also irate and wrathful, and morose, contrary to the courtly mob and popular rabble, contrary to the rest of the world, and yet borne aloft as if on wings of angels." The oratorio was presented at the Birmingham Festival in August 1846. The work reveals an intensity of emotion not previously shown in any of Felix's works. He was obviously deeply moved by the power of the story. Could it have been that his Jewish soul was finally stirred into action? The words of the oratorio carry an intensely emotional message… ….." Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. This day let it be known that Thou are God and I am Thy servant! O show to all these people that I have done these things according to Thy word! O hear me God and answer me and show these people that Thou art Lord God and let their hearts again be turned!"…The 'Times' of August 1847 reported thus:- 'something quite amazing. It was not the done thing to applaud oratorio performances, but on this occasion, such niceties went by the board, swept aside by a volley of plaudits, vociferous and deafening, From an audience of two thousand, six encores were called for something remarkable, ………Felix returned to Leipzig exhausted from his travels and work to receive the news of the sudden death of his lifelong companion and mentor Fanny. He suffered a stroke which led to his death on November 4^th 1847. His life's work completed, Felix was laid to rest alongside his sister in Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof I., Berlin.

Felix had earlier refused to change his name to Bartholdy despite being told by his father that it was no more possible to have a Christian Mendelssohn than a Jewish Confucius. Was it just possible that following the deaths of his parents Felix came to question his imposed conversion to Christianity?

In 1892 Leipzig paid tribute to Felix by erecting a statue of him which dominated the square outside the Gewandhaus. A fitting tribute to a man whose works were considered a national treasure. Only forty-four years later the 'Leipziger Tagezeitung' on 16 September, 1936 published the following article. 'Without wishing to distract from the merits of the composer, it is undeniable that it goes against the healthy instinct of our nation when – prompted by false piety and consideration – we let stand a monument to a Jew, while we consistently endeavor to expunge the damage done to our cultural heritage by Judaism'…………….During the night of November 10^th 1936 the statue was removed and hacked to pieces.