If, during the first years passed in Metz, he was so popular that the community would not allow him to accept the post of rabbi at Fürth, offered to him, he must have made himself disagreeable later on, as during his difficulties, he could not find supporters there, nor any witnesses to his innocence. If he committed only a small portion of the mean actions with which he was reproached, his life must have presented a striking contrast to the sermons which he composed. Eibeschütz did not feel at home in Metz; he missed the bustling, argumentative band of young admirers, and the wide platform on which to display his Talmudical erudition. In France there were fewer students of the Talmud. It was therefore pardonable that he strenuously exerted himself to obtain the post of rabbi of the "three communities" (Hamburg, Altona, and Wandsbeck). Thanks to the efforts of his connections and admirers, and his fame as the most distinguished of Talmudists and miracle workers, the choice fell on him. As the Jews of the three towns had their own civil jurisdiction, based on Rabbinical law, they required an acute rabbi, a lawyer, and they could not, from this point of view, have made a better selection.
But an evil spirit seems to have entered Altona with his instalment, which threw into disorder not only the three communities, but also the whole of German and Polish Judaism. Eibeschütz, though not free from blame, must not alone be made answerable. The tendency of the age was culpable, and Jacob Emden, an unattached rabbi, was more especially the prime mover in the strife. He desired to unmask hypocrisy, and in doing so laid bare the nakedness of his Jewish contemporaries.
Jacob Emden Ashkenazi (abbreviated to Jabez; born 1698, died 1776) resembled his father Chacham Zevi, as a branch its parent stem; or rather he made the father whom he admired extravagantly his model in everything. The perverted spirit of the age prevented his following his natural bent and inspirations. A true son of the Talmud, he seriously believed that a Jew ought to occupy himself with other branches of knowledge only during "the hour of twilight," and considered it unlawful to read newspapers on the Sabbath. He, too, was well versed in the Talmud, and set a high value on the Kabbala and the Zohar, of the dangerous extravagances of which he at first knew nothing. Philosophy, although he possessed no knowledge of it, was an abomination to him. In his perverseness he maintained it to be impossible that the philosophical work, "The Guide," could have been composed by the orthodox rabbi, Maimuni. In character he was just, truth-loving, and staunch, herein forming a sharp contrast to Jonathan Eibeschütz. Whatever he considered as truth or false, he did not hesitate forthwith to defend or condemn with incisive acuteness; it was contrary to his nature to conceal, dissimulate, hide his opinions, or play the hypocrite. He differed from Eibeschütz in another respect. The latter was agreeable, pliant, careless, cheerful, and sociable; Emden, on the contrary, was unsociable, unbending, earnest, melancholy, and a lover of solitude. Well-to-do, and maintaining himself by his business, Emden was always disinclined to undertake the office of a rabbi. He was too well aware of his own craving for independence, his awkwardness, and impetuosity. Only once was he induced to accept the office of rabbi, in Emden (from which he derived his surname); but he relinquished it after a few years on account of his dislike to the work and from ill-health, and settled in Altona. He obtained from the king of Denmark the privilege of establishing a printing-press; built a house with a private synagogue, and, with his family and a few friends, formed a community within the community. He indeed visited the exchange, but he lived enwrapped in a dreamworld of his own.