 In 1780 Maimon, went again to Berlin. This journey was much more successful and Maimon established a close connection with Moses Mendelssohn and entered the circles of the Haskala (the Jewish Enlightenment movement) in Berlin. Yet neither Berlin nor its enlightened Jews provided a real home for Maimon. For the cultured Jews of Berlin, Maimon was a rude Ostjude (East-European Jew), who spoke awful German accompanied by a variety of wild gesticulations. They did, however, acknowledge the genius of this person, who could, for example, read a difficult book of mathematics for the first time, and then explain it — in his savage manner — a short while later. Similarly, Maimon had little appreciation for these fine bourgeois who, free from any barriers which would impede their ability to study the sciences, only contented themselves with a shallow acquaintance with what a civilized person should know. Furthermore, they lacked the sharpness of mind of his fellow Talmudists in Poland. Maimon does seem to have had a genuine appreciation for Mendelssohn, both because of his kindheartedness and because, unlike most others of the circles of the Jewish Enlightenment, Mendelssohn had a reasonable grasp of the Talmud and rabbinic literature.