A new Judæophobia sprang from the neo-Christian school, which, as its originators obtained political influence, grew much stronger than that of old orthodox Christianity. It is remarkable that the twofold reaction, that of the Church, brought about by Schleiermacher, and that of the political world, which is connected with Gentz, had its rise in the Judæo-Christian salon in Berlin. But in the same year when the effeminate Schleiermacher, in his romantic delineation of himself, calumniated Judaism by describing it as a mummy, there arose a man, a hero, a giant in comparison with these wretched dwarfs, who issued a summons for the Jews to gather round his standard. He wished to conquer the Holy Land of their fathers for them, and, a second Cyrus, to rebuild their Temple. The freedom which the Berlin Jews desired to attain by the surrender of their peculiarities, and by humiliation before the Church, they now obtained through France, without paying this price and without disgraceful bargaining.
Foreshadowing of the French Revolution—Cerf Berr—Mirabeau on the Jewish Question in France—Berr Isaac Berr—The Jewish Question and the National Assembly—Equalization of Portuguese Jews—Efforts to equalize Paris Jews—Jewish Question deferred—Equalization of French Jews—Reign of Terror—Equalization of Jews of Holland—Adath Jeshurun Congregation—Spread of Emancipation—Bonaparte in Palestine—Fichte's Jew-hatred—The Poll-Tax—Grund's "Petition of Jews of Germany"—Jacobson—Breidenbach—Lefrank—Alexander I of Russia: his Attempts to improve the Condition of the Jews of Russia.
1791–1805 C. E.
He who believes that Providence manifests itself in history, that sins, crimes, and follies on the whole serve to elevate mankind, finds in the French Revolution complete confirmation of this faith. Could this eventful reaction, which the whole of the civilized world gradually experienced, have happened without the long chain of revolting crimes and abominations which the nobility, the monarchy, and the Church committed? The unnatural servitude inflicted by the temporal and spiritual powers produced liberty, but nourished it with poison, so that liberty bit into its own flesh, and wounded itself. The Revolution was a judgment which in one day atoned for the sins of a thousand years, and which hurled into the dust all who, at the expense of justice and religion, had created new grades of society. A new day of the Lord had come "to humiliate all the proud and high, and to raise up the lowly." For the Jews, too, the most abject and despised people in European society, the day of redemption and liberty was to dawn after their long slavery among the nations of Europe. It is noteworthy that England and France, the two European countries which first expelled the Jews, were the first to reinstate them in the rights of humanity. What Mendelssohn had thought possible at some distant time, and what had been the devout wish of Dohm and Diez, those defenders of the Jews, was realized in France with almost magical rapidity.
However, the freedom of the French Jews did not fall into their laps like ripe fruit, in the maturing of which they had taken no trouble. They made vigorous exertions to remove the oppressive yoke from their shoulders; but in France the result of their activity was more favorable and speedy than in Germany. The most zealous energy in behalf of the liberation of the French Jews was displayed by a man, whose forgotten memory deserves to be transmitted to posterity. Herz Medelsheim or Cerf Berr (born about 1730, died 1793) was the first to exert himself by word and deed to remove the prejudices against his co-religionists, under which he himself suffered severely. He was acquainted with the Talmud, in good circumstances, warm-hearted enough to avoid the selfishness bred by prosperity, and sufficiently liberal to understand and spread the new spirit emanating from Mendelssohn. He was intimately acquainted with the Berlin sage, and undertook to disseminate the Pentateuch translation in Alsace. Owing to his position, Cerf Berr was enabled to work for the emancipation of his brethren. He furnished the French army with the necessaries of war, and therefore had to be in Strasburg, where no Jew was allowed to live. At first he was allowed in Strasburg only one winter, but having performed great services to the state, during the war and a famine under Louis XV, the permission to stay was repeatedly prolonged by the minister, and he utilized this favor to take up his permanent residence there. Cerf Berr drew other Jews to Strasburg. Secretly he purchased houses for himself and his family, and owing to his services to the state, he obtained from Louis XVI all the rights and liberties of royal subjects, especially the exceptional privilege of possessing landed property and goods. He also established factories in Strasburg, and tried to have the work done by Jews, so as to withdraw them from petty trading and deprive their accusers of all excuse for their prejudices.
Although Cerf Berr was a useful member of society, and brought profit to the town, the Germans in Strasburg viewed the settlement of Jews within their walls askance, and made every conceivable effort to expel Berr and his friends. This Philistine narrow-mindedness on the one hand, and Dohm's advocacy of the Jews on the other, as well as the partial relief afforded by Emperor Joseph, impelled Berr seriously to consider the emancipation of the Jews, or at least their admission to most of the French towns, and to endeavor to carry the measure at court. To win public opinion, he energetically spread Dohm's Apology in France. The proposals of Cerf Berr were favorably received at court. From other quarters, also, the French government was petitioned to lighten the oppressive measures, which weighed especially on the Jews of Alsace and Lorraine. The good-natured Louis XVI was inclined to remove any abuse as soon as it was placed before him in its true light. The noble Malesherbes, enthusiastic for the well-being of mankind, probably at the instigation of the king, summoned a commission of Jews, which was to make suggestions for the amelioration of the condition of their brethren in France. As a matter of course, Cerf Berr was invited. As representative of the Jews of Lorraine, his ally, Berr Isaac Berr of Nancy, was summoned, who afterwards developed the greatest zeal for the emancipation of his co-religionists. Portuguese Jews from Bordeaux and Bayonne, the two towns where they resided, were also included in the commission. Furtado, who subsequently played a part in the history of the Revolution, Gradis, Isaac Rodrigues of Bordeaux, and Lopes-Dubec, were members of this commission instituted by Malesherbes. These eminent men, all of them animated with zealous sympathy for their languishing brethren, undoubtedly insisted upon the repeal of exceptional laws, but their proposals are not known. Probably in consequence of their efforts, Louis XVI abrogated the poll-tax, which had been particularly degrading to the Jews in the German-speaking provinces of France.
More effectually than Cerf Berr and the Jewish commission, two men worked for the liberation of the Jews who in a measure had been inspired by Mendelssohn and his friends, and were the incarnation of the Revolution. They were Mirabeau and the Abbé Grégoire, no less zealous for liberty than the former. Count Mirabeau (born 1749; died 1791), who was always on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors, was first induced, by his intimacy with Mendelssohn's circle, to raise his voice of thunder on behalf of the Jews.
Filled with admiration for the grand personality of Mendelssohn, and inspired by the thought of accomplishing the deliverance of an enslaved race, Mirabeau wrote his important work "Upon Mendelssohn and the Political Reform of the Jews" (1787). Of the former he drew a brilliant picture. The Jewish sage could not have wished for a warmer, more inspired, more clear-sighted interpreter. The liking he entertained for Mendelssohn Mirabeau transferred to the Jews in general.
"May it not be said that his example, especially the outcome of his exertions for the elevation of his brethren, silences those who, with ignoble bitterness, insist that the Jews are so contemptible that they cannot be transformed into a respectable people?"
This observation was the introduction to Mirabeau's vindication of the Jews, in which he gave a correct exposition of what Dohm had adduced and what he himself had experienced. He surveyed the long, tragic history of the Jews, discovering traits very different from those found by Voltaire. Mirabeau saw the glorious martyrdom of the Jews and the disgrace of their oppressors. Their virtues he extolled freely, and attributed their failings to the ill-treatment they had received.
"If you wish the Jews to become better men and useful citizens, then banish every humiliating distinction, open to them every avenue of gaining a livelihood; instead of forbidding them agriculture, handicrafts, and the mechanical arts, encourage them to devote themselves to these occupations."
With telling wit, Mirabeau refuted the arguments of the German anti-Semites, Michaelis and the Göttingen guild of scholars, against the naturalization of the Jews. It was only necessary to place the different objections side by side to demonstrate their absurdity. On the one hand, it was maintained that, in their rivalry with Christians, the Jews would gain the upper hand, and from another point of view it was demonstrated that they would always remain inferior. "Let their opponents first agree among themselves," he remarked, "at present they refute each other." Mirabeau foresaw, with prophetic clearness, that in a free and happy condition the Jews would soon forget their Messianic king, and that therefore the justification of their permanent exclusion, derived from their belief in the Messiah, was futile.
"There is only one thing to be lamented, that so highly gifted a nation should so long have been kept in a state wherein it was impossible for its powers to develop, and every far-sighted man must rejoice in the acquisition of useful fellow-citizens from among the Jews."
On all occasions Mirabeau seized the opportunity of speaking warmly on behalf of the Jews. He was devoted to them and their biblical literature, and scattered the clouds of prejudice with which Voltaire had enveloped them. When Mirabeau undertook the defense of any matter, the victory was already half won. His suggestions for reform came at the right moment.
Among the thousand matters that occupied public opinion on the eve of the Revolution was also the Jewish question. The Jews, especially in Alsace, complained of their unendurable misery, and the Christian populace, of their intolerable impoverishment through the Jews. In Metz an anti-Jewish pamphlet had appeared, entitled "The Citizen's Cry against the Jews," which inflamed the worst passions of the people against them. The pamphlet was indeed prohibited; but what slanderous assertion, however incredible, has ever been without result? Appearances, in point of fact, were against the Jews. A young Jewish author, the first Alsatian Jew who wrote in French, published a stinging reply (1787), which justified the expectation that the Jews would no longer, as in Voltaire's time, permit such insults to pass unnoticed, but would emerge from their attitude of silent suffering. Isaiah Berr Bing (born 1759; died 1805), well-educated and eloquent, better acquainted with the history of his people than his Jewish contemporaries, including even the Berlin leaders, rebutted every charge with convincing emphasis.
Through these writings for and against the Jews, the Jewish question became prominent in France. The Royal Society of Science and Arts in Metz offered a prize for the best essay in answer to the question, "Are there means to make the Jews happier and more useful in France?" Three replies, all in favor of the Jews, were sent in—by two Christian inquirers, and one Jewish, the Abbé Grégoire, Thiery, the member of Parliament for Nancy, and Salkind Hurwitz the Pole, of Kovno (on the Niemen), who had emigrated to Paris. That of Grégoire, however, had the greatest effect. Grégoire was a simple nature, and in the midst of universal corruption had preserved a pure, childlike mind.
When these apologetic pamphlets appeared, the storm-charged clouds of the Revolution, which were to bring about destruction and reorganization in the world, had already gathered. The fetters of a double slavery, beneath which European nations groaned, that of the State and the Church, were at length, in one country at least, to be broken. As if touched by a magic wand, France turned into a glowing furnace, where all the instruments of serfdom were consumed, and out of the ashes arose the French nation, rejuvenated, destined for great things, the first apostle of the religion of freedom, which it loved with passionate devotion. Was it not natural to expect the hour to strike for the redemption of the most abased people, the Jews? Two of their most ardent defenders sat in that part of the National Assembly which, truly representative of the nation, restored inalienable rights to those so long disinherited by Church and State. These representatives were Mirabeau, one of the fathers of the Revolution, and the Abbé Grégoire, who owed his election to his essay in defense of the Jews.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, there lived in France scarcely 50,000 Jews—almost half of whom (20,000) dwelt in Alsace—under the most oppressive yoke. In Metz, the largest, "the pattern community," only 420 Jewish families were tolerated, and in the whole of Lorraine only 180, and these were not allowed to increase. In Paris, in spite of stringent prohibitions, a congregation of about 500 persons had gathered (since 1740); about as many lived in Bordeaux, the majority of them of new-Christian or Portuguese descent. There were also some communities in the papal districts of Avignon and Carpentras. In Carpentras there dwelt about 700 families (over 2,000 souls) with their own rabbinate. Those in the best condition were the Jews of Bordeaux and the daughter community of Bayonne. Among the Jews of the various provinces there was as little connection as among those in other European countries. Misfortune had separated them. Thus it happened that no concerted action was taken to obtain naturalization from the National Assembly at once, although Grégoire, the Catholic priest, true love for mankind in his heart, exhorted them to seize this favorable opportunity. They indeed boasted men of energy, filled with love for their race, and ready for self-sacrifice, men of tact, such as Cerf Berr, Furtado, Isaac Berr, and David Gradis, but at first no measures were taken. An appeal for united action may possibly have been made, but the pride of the Portuguese probably made it ineffectual. Therefore, in the first stormy months of the Revolution, nothing was undertaken for the emancipation of the Jews. The deputies in the States General or the National Assembly were sufficiently occupied without thinking of the Jews. Besides, they adhered rather closely to the programme enumerating the wishes of their electors, on which the emancipation of the Jews was not mentioned. The deputies of Alsace and Lorraine, in fact, had received instructions to attack the Jews. The assaults made upon the Jews in the German provinces, as a result of the disorders of the Revolution, first moved the victims to bring their complaints before the National Assembly. It was, perhaps, an advantage that the ripe fruit of liberty did not fall into their laps, but that they had to exert themselves energetically to obtain it; for thus liberty became the more precious to them.
The storming of the Bastille had finally torn the scepter from the deluded king, and handed it over to the people. The Revolution had tasted blood, and began to inflict punishment upon the tyrants. In many parts of the land, as if by agreement, castles were burnt down, monasteries destroyed, and the nobility maltreated or slain. The people, brought up in ignorance by the Church, and now released from the chains of slavery, knew not how to distinguish friend from foe, and rushed recklessly upon what lay nearest their stupid gaze. In Alsace the lower classes of the people at the same time made a fierce attack upon the Jews (beginning of August, 1789)—perhaps incited by secret Jew-haters—destroying their houses, plundering their property, and forcing them to flee half-naked. They, who hitherto had been humiliated and enslaved by the nobles and the clergy, were now fellow-sufferers with their tyrants. The Alsatian Jews mostly escaped to Basle, and although no Jew was allowed to live there, the fugitives were sheltered and sympathetically treated. Complaints were made to the National Assembly of the excesses after the first draught of liberty; from that Assembly all expected help, no longer from the monarchy, which had already become a mere shadow. Every deputy received detailed reports of disquieting, sometimes sanguinary, events. The ill-treated Jews of Alsace had turned to Grégoire, and he sketched (August 3) a gloomy picture of the outrages upon the Jews, and added that he, a servant of a religion which regards all men as brothers, requested the interference of the powerful arm of the Assembly on behalf of this despised and unhappy people. He also published a pamphlet, called "Proposals in Favor of the Jews," to influence public opinion. Then followed the memorable night of the Fourth of August, which covered the French nation with eternal fame, when the nobles sacrificed their privileges on the altar of freedom, and acknowledged the equality of all citizens—the birth-hour of a new order of things. In consequence of this agitation, and dreading that they might fall victims to anarchy, the Jews of the various provinces resolved to present petitions for admission into the fraternity of the French people; but again they acted singly, and to some extent preferred contradictory requests. The Jews of Bordeaux had already joined the National Guard, and one was even appointed captain. They had only one desire, that their equalization be sealed by law, and this wish their four deputies, David Gradis, Furtado, Lopes-Dubec, and Rodrigues, publicly expressed. About a hundred Parisian Jews were also enrolled in the National Guard, and rivaled the other citizens in patriotism and revolutionary spirit. They sent eleven deputies to the National Assembly, who prayed for the removal of the ignominy which covered them as Jews, and for equalization by law, saying that the example of the French people would induce all the nations of the earth to acknowledge the Jews as brothers. The community of Metz desired besides that their oppressive taxes be removed, and the debts which they had contracted in consequence of the taxes be made void. The communities of Lorraine sent a delegate to the National Assembly, Berr Isaac Berr (born 1744; died 1828), who, a man of many virtues and merits, and an admirer of Mendelssohn and Wessely, had great influence. He drew up a petition containing the special request that the authority and autonomy of the rabbis in internal affairs be established and recognized by law. The deputies for Lüneville and an adjacent community protested against this. It was a long time, however, before the Jewish question became the distinct order of the day. The National Assembly seemed to shrink from discussing the point, for fear of stirring up public opinion still more passionately in the German provinces with their obstinate prejudices and hatred of Jews.
Religious intolerance manifested itself even in the Assembly. On the 23d of August an exciting sitting was held. The subject of debate was whether the inviolable rights of man, to be placed at the head of the constitution, were to include religious freedom of conscience and freedom of worship. A deputy, De Castellane, had formulated this point plainly: "No man shall be molested on account of his religious opinions, nor disturbed in the practice of his belief." Against this motion a storm arose on the part of the Catholic Clergy and other representatives of Catholicism. They continually spoke of a dominant religion or confession, which, as hitherto, should be supported by the State, whilst other creeds might be tolerated. In vain Mirabeau raised a bold protest against such presumptuousness.
"The unrestricted freedom of belief is so sacred in my eyes, that even the word tolerance sounds despotic to me, because the very existence of an authority empowered to tolerate, injures freedom, in that it tolerates, because it might do the reverse."
But his powerful voice was drowned by the opposing clamor. The clever speech of another deputy, Rabaud Saint Etienne, however, gained the victory for freedom of conscience. He spoke also on behalf of the Jews.
"I demand liberty for the nation of the Jews, always contemned, homeless, wandering over the face of the whole globe, and doomed to humiliation. Banish forever the aristocracy of thought, the feudal system of opinion, which desires to rule others and impose compulsion upon them."
Amidst strong opposition the law was passed, which has since become the basis of the European constitution:
"No one shall be molested on account of his religious opinions, in so far as their outward expression does not disturb public order as established by law."
Therewith one point in the petition of the French Jews was disposed of. But when the Jewish question afterwards came on for treatment (September 3), it was postponed, and handed over to a committee. Three weeks later the Assembly was again obliged to deal with the Jewish question. Persecutions which the Jews underwent in certain places forced it upon them. Those in Nancy were threatened with pillage, because they were reproached with having bought up provisions and raised the prices. The Jewish question became so pressing, that the order of the day (on September 28) was interrupted by it. It was again Grégoire who defended the persecuted. He was supported by Count Clermont-Tonnerre, a sincere friend of liberty. With glowing eloquence he pointed out that Christian society was guilty of the degradation of the Jews, and that it must offer them some atonement. The Assembly thereupon resolved that the president address a circular letter to the various towns, stating that the declaration of the rights of man, which the Assembly had accepted, comprehended all men upon earth, therefore also the Jews, who were no longer to be harassed. The king, with his enfeebled authority, was asked to protect the Jews from further persecutions. This action, however, produced no results for the sufferers. The Jews of Alsace remained exposed to attack, as before. The Jewish representatives of the three bishoprics of Alsace and Lorraine lost patience, seeing that their equalization was being constantly deferred. They therefore strove to obtain a hearing for themselves. Introduced by the deputies of Lorraine to the National Assembly (October 14), Berr, the indefatigable advocate of his co-religionists, delivered a speech, in which he portrayed the sufferings of a thousand years, and implored humane treatment for them. He worthily fulfilled his task. He was obliged to be brief; the Assembly, which had to establish a new edifice upon the ruins of the old kingdom, could not spare time for long speeches. President Preteau replied that the Assembly would feel itself happy to be able to afford rest and happiness to the Jews of France. The meeting applauded his words, permitted the Jewish deputies to be present as guests at the proceedings, and promised to take the equalization of the Jews into consideration at the next sitting. From this time the French Jews confidently hoped that their emancipation would be realized.
Meanwhile, the Revolution had again made a gigantic stride forward: the people had brought the proud French sovereign like a prisoner from Versailles to Paris. The deputies also moved to Paris, and the capital became more and more infected with revolutionary fever. The youthful Parisian Jews, as well as the immigrants, took great interest in all occurrences. Even the middle classes aided the cause of the fatherland by supplying funds. At length the Jewish question was to be settled. A deputy was appointed to report upon it, and a special sitting called. But it was brought into connection with another question, namely, the franchise of executioners, actors, and Protestants, to whom the Catholic population in some towns did not wish to grant permission to vote.
The report was sent in by Clermont-Tonnerre, and spoke most logically in favor of all four classes. All sincere friends of liberty, Robespierre, Duport, Barnave, and, of course, Mirabeau, expressed themselves in favor of the Jews and their fellow-sufferers. The followers of the old school opposed them with determination, chief among them Abbé Maury, Bishop La Fare of Nancy, and the bishop of Clermont. Only one ultra-revolutionist, Reubell, from Alsace, spoke against the Jews, maintaining that it was dangerous forthwith to grant complete rights of citizenship to those resident in Alsace, against whom there was deeply-rooted hatred. Abbé Maury produced utterly false, or partially true statements, as arguments for unfriendly behavior towards the Jews. He even quoted Voltaire's anti-Jewish writings in order to prejudice the Assembly. The Assembly hesitated; it feared to attack the gross prejudice entertained by the populace of the eastern provinces against the Jews. At the representation of one of the deputies, the equalization of the Jews was separated from that of the Protestants, and the resolution ran in this equivocal manner: that the Assembly reserved to itself the right of deciding about the Jews, without determining upon anything new concerning them. This reservation was repeated at the discussion of the laws for the election of municipal officers (January 8, 1790), from which Jews were excluded.
This evasive decision grossly offended the Portuguese Jews of Bordeaux. Hitherto they had tacitly enjoyed all the rights of citizens, and in their turn fulfilled all their duties with self-sacrificing readiness. Now they were to be kept in uncertainty about their civil status, in company with the German Jews, against whom they bore an antipathy not less than that of hostile Christians. They therefore hastily despatched a deputation to Paris to cause this injurious resolution to be rescinded. As the population were on better terms with the Portuguese, their request was easily obtained. The deputy for Bordeaux, De Sèze, spoke warmly on their behalf. Talleyrand, then bishop of Autun, was appointed to report upon the matter, and concisely suggested (February 28), that those Jews who had hitherto enjoyed civil rights as naturalized Frenchmen should continue to enjoy that privilege. The enemies of the Jews, of course, opposed this motion, fearing that it would apply also to German Jews.
Nevertheless, the majority decided that those Jews in France who were called Portuguese, Spaniards, or Avignonese (of Bordeaux and Bayonne) should enjoy full privileges as active citizens, and the king at once approved of this law. It was the first legal recognition of the Jews as citizens, and, though only a partial recognition, it at least would serve as a precedent.
The deputies of the Jews from German districts did not so easily attain success; they had to struggle hard for equality. At the same time they lighted upon a means whereby to bring pressure to bear upon the National Assembly, and induce them to concede them full citizenship. There were five men who worked most perseveringly to remove all obstacles. They won over to their side the fiery, eloquent advocate Godard, to plead their cause with pen and tongue. They knew that power was no longer in the hands of the National Assembly, but had been seized by the parties of the capital, who, with their revolutionary ardor, held complete sway over Paris, the deliberating Assembly, the king, almost the whole country. The Jewish representatives from Paris, Alsace, and Lorraine therefore turned to them for help. They had Godard draw up a petition to the National Assembly, stating that the emancipation of the Jews was not only demanded by the principles of the Constituent Assembly and by justice, but that it was cruelty to withhold it. For, so long as their equality was not legally established, the people would believe that they were indeed the outcasts their enemies had described them to be. But even more efficacious than this petition was a scene which the Parisian Jews arranged with their advocate, before the General Assembly of the Paris Commune; it decided the question. Fifty Jewish members of the National Guards, adorned with cockades, among them Salkind Hurwitz, the Pole, appeared as deputies before the Assembly of the Commune, and petitioned that the city of Paris itself should energetically set about obtaining equality for the Jews. Godard delivered a fiery speech in their support. The president of the General Assembly, Abbé Mulot, replied to this vigorous address with the fervid eloquence peculiar to the orators of the Revolution: "The chasm between their religious conceptions and the truth which we as Christians profess, cannot hinder us as men from approaching each other, and even if we reproach each other with our errors and complain of each other, at least we can love each other." In the name of the meeting he promised to support the petition of the Paris Jews for equalization. Next day (January 29, 1790), the Jews of Paris obtained a certificate, couched in most flattering terms, and testifying to their excellent reputation, from the inhabitants of the district of the Carmelites, where most Jews dwelt at this time.
The six deputies appointed for the district of the Carmelites then went to the City Hall, to support the resolution in favor of the Jews. One of them, Cahier de Gerville, afterwards a minister, delivered an impressive address. "Do not be surprised," said he, "that this district hastens to be the first to make public recognition of the patriotism, the courage, and the nobility of the Jews who dwell in it. No citizen has proved himself more zealous for the gaining of liberty than the Jew, ... none has displayed more sense of order and justice, none shown more benevolence towards the poor, and readiness in voluntarily contributing towards the expenses of the district. Let us attack all prejudices, and attack them with determination. Let not one of the monstrosities of despotism and ignorance survive the new birth of liberty and the consecration of the rights of man.... Take into consideration the just and pressing demands in favor of our new brethren, and join your wishes to their petition, so that thus united they may come before the National Assembly. Do not doubt but that you will obtain, without trouble, for the Jews of Paris that which was not denied the Jews of Portugal, Spain, and Avignon. What reason is there for showing a preference for this class? Do not all Jews hold the same doctrines? Are not our political conditions alike for the one as for the other? If the ancestors of those Jews on whose behalf we plead experienced more bitter suffering and persecution than the Portuguese Jews, then this long, cruel oppression which they have sustained should give them a new claim to national justice. For the rest, look to the origin of these strange and unjust distinctions, and see whether any one to-day dares set up a distinction of rights between two classes of the same people, two branches of the same stem, basing his action upon apocryphal tradition, or rather upon chimeras and fables."
To this speech the President Abbé Mulot replied, bringing into prominence the fact that the report from the district of the Carmelites was to be considered of great weight in favor of the Jews.
The next speech, that of Abbé Bertolio, at length induced the meeting to add its favorable testimony to the Jews of Paris, and to express the wish to the National Assembly that these Jews, most of them of German birth, be put on an equal footing with the Portuguese. Mayor Bailly and his committee on the same day passed the resolution, that as soon as the other districts announced their approval, the whole weight of the influence of the municipality of Paris be exerted on behalf of the equalization of the Jews. In the course of the following month all the city districts, with the exception of that of the Halles, sent in their approval of the decision of the Carmelite district. Accordingly, a deputation of the Commune, together with its president, Abbé Mulot, officially commissioned by the capital (February 25), presented itself at the meeting of the National Assembly, to request, or rather by moral suasion to compel, that body to extend to Jews resident in Paris the decree declaring the Portuguese Jews full citizens.
After some delay, certain deputies demanded (April 15) that the Jewish question be placed on the order of the day. Abbé Maury again opposed the motion, and promised to present a memorial which the Jews should be called upon to answer. In order, however, to protect the Jews of Alsace from the attacks of mobs, the Assembly again decreed that they were under protection of the laws, and that the magistrates and the National Guard were to take precautions for their security. In this way they appeased their consciences. The king forthwith sanctioned (April 18) the law of protection for the Alsatian Jews, after which the question was not broached for three months.
Fortunately the Jewish question did not stand isolated, but was connected with other questions. The Jews of Alsace, especially those of Metz, had to pay high protection-taxes. When the subject of finances came on for discussion, the Assembly had to determine whether this tax should continue or cease. They came to a liberal decision, although the deputies were sorely troubled about the deficit thus created. The secretary of the committee of the crown land, Vismes, first showed how unjust it was that the community of Metz, which Louis XIV, once when in good humor, had given to the Duke of Brancas and the Countess De Fontaine, should pay annually to the house of Brancas 20,000 francs. He therefore proposed that the Jew taxes should be remitted without any indemnification, and that every tribute, under whatever name—protection-money, residence-tax, or tolerance-money—should cease. This proposal was passed into law (July 20) almost without opposition. Louis XVI, who by this act saw another remnant of the Middle Ages vanish, at first showed himself tardy in confirming the law (August 7). Ten years previously the Jews of Alsace had in vain presented a memorial to the state council detailing the misery of their condition; it received no notice. Owing to the sudden revolution of affairs, they now achieved in less than an hour more than they had ever dared hope for.
But the National Assembly would not proceed to deal with the chief demand of the Jews of the Lower Rhine—as these districts were then called—to grant them civil rights. Several had expressed themselves favorably, when the Duc de Broglie intervened with a violent speech. He asserted that the proposed resolution would engender new causes of excitement in Lorraine and Alsace, already in a state of ferment owing to the action of the clergy who refused to take the oath. Strasburg was likewise greatly excited on account of the Jews, who desired to settle there, where hitherto no Jew had been permitted. De Broglie further remarked that the general body of Jews in Alsace was utterly indifferent to citizenship; that the petition presented in their name was an intrigue carried on by four or five Jews; especially one, who had amassed a great fortune at the expense of the state (Cerf Berr), was scattering large sums of money most liberally in Paris, to gain adherents for the scheme of equalization. His motion to adjourn this question till the Constitution was finished was carried.
But the Constitution was definitely fixed and ratified by the king (September, 1791), and the German-speaking Jews of France did not obtain the equality so often promised. Only the paragraph in the "Rights of Man," which said that no one might be molested on account of his religious opinions, benefited them. At last, a few days before the dissolution of the National Assembly, the Jews were remembered by one of the friends of liberty, Duport, a member of the Jacobin Club, formerly a parliamentary councilor. In a speech of a few words he procured the equality they so much desired. He drew the natural conclusion from the above-quoted rights of religious freedom, and said, "I believe that freedom of thought does not permit any distinction in political rights on account of a man's creed. The recognition of this equality is always being postponed. Meanwhile the Turks, Moslems, and men of all sects, are permitted to enjoy political rights in France. I demand that the motion for adjournment be withdrawn, and a decree passed that the Jews in France enjoy the privileges of citizenship (citoyens actifs)." This proposition was accepted amid loud applause. In vain did Reubell strive to oppose the motion, he was interrupted. Another member suggested that every one who spoke against this motion be called to order, because he would be opposing the Constitution itself. Thus the National Assembly adopted (September 27, 1791) Duport's proposal, and next day formulated the law that all exceptional regulations against Jews be abrogated, and that the German Jews be admitted to the oath of citizenship. Two days later the National Assembly was dissolved, to make way for a still more violent revolutionary assembly. A few days later Louis XVI confirmed this full equalization of the French Jews (November 13, 1791). They were not required to swerve one iota from their religion as the price of emancipation; all demanded of them being that they forego certain ancient privileges.
Berr Isaac Berr was justified in rejoicing at this success, in which he had had a large share. He at once despatched a letter of congratulation to his co-religionists, to rouse enthusiasm for their newly-attained freedom, and at the same time incline them to appropriate improvements.
"At length the day has arrived on which the veil is torn asunder which covered us with humiliation! We have at last again obtained the rights of which we have been deprived for eighteen centuries. How deeply at this moment should we recognize the wonderful grace of the God of our forefathers! On the 27th September we were the only inhabitants of this great realm who seemed doomed to eternal humiliation and slavery, and on the very next day, a memorable day which we shall always commemorate, didst Thou inspire these immortal legislators of France to utter one word which caused 60,000 unhappy beings, who had hitherto lamented their hard lot, to be suddenly plunged into the intoxicating joys of the purest delight."
"God chose the noble French nation to reinstate us in our due privileges, and bring us to a new birth, just as in former days He selected Antiochus and Pompey to degrade and oppress us.... This nation asks no thanks, except that we show ourselves worthy citizens."
Berr added certain important, timely remarks, in which he gently pointed out to his French co-religionists faults growing out of their former wretched plight, and admonished them to remove these faults.
He also supplied the French Jews with means to enable them to become thorough Frenchmen and at the same time remain members of the House of Jacob. The Bible was to be rendered into French on the basis of Mendelssohn's German translation, and put into the hands of the young, so that the corrupt German language which they used might be completely banished from their midst. Berr thus attacked a foolish prejudice which regarded the German or Jewish-German dialect as akin in sanctity to the Hebrew, therefore a more worthy organ for Divine Service than the language of Voltaire.
Berr was thoroughly imbued with the conviction that Judaism was in every way compatible with liberty, civilization, and patriotism for the country which had restored to his co-religionists their rights as men. Berr was a better disciple of Mendelssohn than David Friedländer and the Berlin Jews.
With great assiduity and self-sacrifice, most of the French Jews interested themselves in the welfare of the state which had given them a fatherland, liberty, and equality. They destroyed at one blow all the calumniations of their opponents, who had asserted that as Jews they would not be able to fulfill the duties of citizens. They came to the front whenever the state stood in need of help. A large number of Jews in this feverish time calling forth courageous action, threw aside with wonderful rapidity the shy, grovelling manner which had debarred them from intercourse with the world, and had subjected them to general ridicule. When the French legions, inspired by freedom, had put to rout the mercenary troops of Germany, Moses Ensheim, the Hebrew poet of the Mendelssohn school, composed a fiery triumphal hymn, similar to the song of Deborah, which was solemnly chanted in the synagogue. The Jews, however, took no part whatever in the bloody atrocities of the Revolution.
In the frenzy of the Reign of Terror, which like a scourge of God fell upon the innocent and the guilty, some Jews also suffered. The familiarity of the Jews with persecutions, their acuteness, and the dexterity with which they effaced themselves, their obedience to the precept, "Bend thy head a moment, till the storm is passed," protected them against wide-spread massacre. In general, they were not stirred by the ambition to thrust themselves forward, or a desire to take part in affairs; nor did they give offense to the rulers of the hour. Thus the storm of the Revolution rushed over them without serious results.
The attack upon a belief in God, when the two blaspheming deputies, Chaumette and Hebert, succeeded in inducing the convention (November, 1793-May, 1794) to set up the religion of Reason, had likewise no effect upon the Jews. The intense hostility and anger felt to religion and the Divinity were directed only against Catholicism, or Christianity, by whose servants mankind had ever been degraded, who themselves had sacrificed myriads of victims, and during the Revolution had fomented a civil war. The Reign of Terror, the Massacre of September, and the Guillotine, had been conjured up by them almost as a sad, stern necessity, because, together with the feudal aristocracy, they were bitter enemies of freedom. The decree of the Convention ran thus: "The Catholic faith is annulled, and replaced by the worship of Reason." This represented not alone the mood of the most advanced, the Jacobins; it was the inclination of the French people to oppose the Church and its followers fiercely, because of a feeling that they are naturally hostile to liberty. Twenty days after the resolution of the Convention had been passed, more than 2,300 churches were transformed into Temples of Reason. The law included no provisions against Jews and Protestants. Only the magistrates or fanatically inclined members of clubs in the provinces, principally, it appears, in the old German districts, extended the order for the suppression of religion to the Jews also. In Nancy an official demanded of the Jews of the town, in the name of the city council, that they attend on an appointed day at the National Temple, and together with the clergy of other creeds renounce "their superstition," and further surrender all the silver and golden vessels of the synagogue. Brutal and riotous men forced their way into the synagogues, tore the Holy Writings from the Arks and burnt them, or searched the houses for books written in Hebrew in order to destroy them. Prayers in the synagogues of certain congregations were forbidden just as in the churches. By reason of the spy system which the revolutionary clubs supported, to enable them to oppose the imminent counter-revolution, even private meetings for religious purposes were attended with great danger. When the order of the Convention was issued, decreeing that every tenth day be observed as a day of rest, and making Sunday a working day, the Mayors of certain cities, as of Strasburg and Troyes, extended this decree also to the Sabbath. They commanded that Jewish merchants display their wares for sale on the Sabbath. In agricultural districts Jews were compelled, on the Sabbath and on Jewish Holidays, to mow and gather in the crops, and rabbis as well as bishops were molested. David Sinzheim, who lived in Strasburg, and afterwards became president of the great French Synhedrion, was forced to flee from town to town to escape imprisonment or death. In Metz the Jews dared not openly bake their Passover cakes, until a clever Jewish matron had the courage to explain to the officers of the Revolution that this bread had always been a symbol of freedom with the Jews. In Paris Jewish schoolmasters were compelled to conduct their pupils to the Temple of Reason into which the church of Notre Dame had been transformed on the Décadi. However, this persecution passed away without any serious effects. With the victory of the Thermidorians (9 Thermidor—July 27, 1794) over Robespierre, the Reign of Terror began to die out. The populace was anxious to resort to milder means. The equalization of the French Jews, once definitely settled, remained untouched through all changes of government. The new Constitution of the year Three of the Republic, or the Constitution of the Directory (autumn of 1795), recognized the adherents of Judaism, without further difficulty, as on an equal footing with all around them; moreover, it wiped away the last trace of inequality, inasmuch as the Catholic Church was no more than the synagogue acknowledged to be the state church. The law laid down the fundamental proposition, that no one can be compelled to contribute to the expenses of a church establishment, as the Republic subsidized none. Only the community of Metz had to suffer under some baneful effects of the Middle Ages.
Together with the victorious French troops of the Republic, the deliverance of the Jews, of the most oppressed race of the ancient world, advanced from one place to another. It took firm root in Holland, which had been changed into a Batavian Republic (beginning of 1795). Here several energetic Jews, among them Asser (Moses and Carolus), De Lemon, and Bromet, had joined a club, called Felix Libertate, which had taken the motto of the French Republic—Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
These state maxims were on the whole adopted by the assembled States General (March 4, 1795). Although the 50,000 Jews of Holland, who formed the thirty-ninth part of the whole population of the country, and were divided into the Portuguese and German communities, might justly have regarded this land as their Paradise, they had hitherto been laboring under many disadvantages as compared with Christians. They were suffered to exist only as corporate bodies, little commonwealths, as it were, in the midst of larger ones. That they were excluded from public offices did not trouble them. But they were also debarred from several trade-guilds, and this was a matter of great importance to them. They had to contribute to the ruling church establishment and to its schools without deriving any benefit therefrom. Also, there was no lack of vexatious grievances. In Amsterdam, for instance, when a Jewish couple went to register their wedding, they were compelled to wait till Christians had been attended to, and, besides, to pay double fees. On this account the demand for equalization became pressing, more on the part of the German than on that of the Portuguese Jews, the latter, wealthy and of noble birth, being generally treated with distinction by the patricians, whilst the Germans were despised as wretched Poles. In the first excitement of the agitation several disabilities of the Jews of Holland or Batavia were removed, and voices were raised in favor of their admission to full civil rights. But later on, as in France, writings hostile to the Jews roused public opinion against them. Amongst these Van Swieden's work, entitled "Advice to the Representatives of the People," especially produced a great impression.
He asserted that owing to their origin, their character, their history, and their belief in the Messiah, the Jews remained strangers, and could not be absorbed by the state. This statement was in a measure accepted by the official representatives of Judaism as correct. For strangely enough the rabbis and administrators of Jewish affairs, especially the powerful Parnassim in Amsterdam, alike in the Portuguese and German communities, were averse to equalization. They feared that Judaism would suffer from the great freedom of the Jews and from their new duties, such as military service.
In a circular letter they declared that the Jews renounced citizenship, seeing that it was opposed to the commands of Holy Writ. Within a short time this declaration was covered with more than one thousand signatures. Although Jews were invited, but few took part in the election of the first Batavian National Assembly (Nationale Vergadering). Thus it happened that Amsterdam, which contained more than 20,000 Jews, did not return a single Jewish deputy. The Jewish friends of liberty in Holland were in a sorry plight, having to combat enemies within and without. They were driven to exert all their energy to overcome this double difficulty. David Friedrichsfeld, a member of the school of the Measfim, who had settled in Amsterdam, composed an excellent work (about 1795) against the assailants of the Jews, called "Investigation of Van Swieden's Work in Reference to the Civil Rights of the Jews." Beside him, six distinguished and intelligent Jews—most of them of German descent—developed the greatest zeal to accomplish the emancipation of the Jews of Holland. They were: Herz Bromet, who had long lived in Surinam, where he was recognized as a free citizen, and whence he had brought a knowledge of politics and a fortune; Moses Asser, who had been appointed knight of the Belgian Order of the Lion; another Asser, Carolus, and Isaac de Jonghe, all distinguished members of the German community. Only two of the Portuguese community participated in the endeavor to obtain equalization of rights: the highly respected physician Herz de Lemon, and Jacob Sasportas. They presented a petition to the Batavian National Assembly (March 29, 1796), which held its sittings at the Hague, demanding the emancipation of the Batavian Jews as a right; inasmuch as they were citizens of the Batavian Republic, possessing the franchise, and had already exercised civil rights, they prayed the Assembly to declare that they might enjoy this privilege in its entirety. The National Assembly considered the petition, and appointed a commission to advise and decide upon it. When the Jewish question came on for discussion (August, 1796), excitement ran high, and the tension between the parties was great.
Although the emancipation of the Jews in the Batavian Republic had been recognized in principle, and practically acknowledged by the permission to vote at the election, there were still many opponents to contend against, almost more than in France. The conservative Dutch deputies in their hearts believed firmly in the Bible, and they considered as the word of God the writings of the New Testament, in which it was said that the Jews were outcasts, and should remain so. The relatively large number of Jews, their wealth, respectability, and intelligence, gave cause for grave fears that they would make their way into the highest offices of the state, and expel the Christians. Sixty or a hundred thousand Jews, in the great territory of France, were lost like a grain of sand in an immense plain, but fifty thousand among two millions, especially twenty thousand Jews in Amsterdam among two hundred thousand Christians, might make themselves felt, and effect their purpose. One of the deputies, Lublink de Jonghe, dwelt upon this state of affairs with great emphasis. If the friends of the Jews pointed to America, where, as in France, they had recently attained to full civil rights, then he brought into prominence the unequal proportion of numbers; in Holland their great number would soon invest the populace with Jewish characteristics. The noble Portuguese might be admitted to full rights; but as to the German Jews, the majority of whom were outcasts, Lublink de Jonghe quoted Pinto's work against Voltaire, in which he, a Jew himself, had plainly shown the vast difference between the Portuguese and the German Jews. Thus the artificial caste feeling, within the fold of Judaism, brought about its own revenge. The fear was still greater that the number of the Jews in Holland might be considerably increased by immigrants from Germany and Poland, whose goal, for a long time past, had been Amsterdam. Opponents to the scheme of equalization could further adduce the argument that the majority of Jews did not desire emancipation, and that the six petitioners had acted without authority. Noel, the French ambassador, in somewhat imperious fashion, took the first step in favor of the equalization of the Jews. After a long debate, the complete equality of the Batavian Jews was finally decreed (September 2, 1796), with the addition, for those who wished to make use of it. Thereupon all earlier provincial and municipal laws which referred to their disabilities were abolished.
The Jews in Holland did not receive the announcement of this decision with joy, as those in France, when the rights of equality had been granted them. They had not felt the deprivation of liberty enough to go into ecstasies about their new freedom. They had no ambition to obtain state offices, and saw in citizenship only a burden and a danger to religion. They therefore were embittered against those who had procured their equalization, and so had broken asunder the bonds which held the two congregations together as corporate bodies. Thus there arose causes for dispute and internal dissension in Amsterdam.
The liberal-minded, most of whom belonged to the German community, demanded that the regulations which endowed the rabbis, and to a greater extent the Parnassim, or wardens, with powerful authority over the members, should be altered in accordance with the spirit of the age. The leaders of the community not only refused this demand, but even threatened the petitioners with fines. Upon this the advanced left the existing synagogue, established their own congregation, and declared that they constituted the real community (Adath Jeshurun, formed at the end of 1796). The conservative members of the old community thereupon passed a kind of interdict upon the separatists, forbade their own congregants to have any intercourse, or to intermarry with them. The political divergence of opinion at the same time became a religious one; for the supporters of the new congregation, Adath Jeshurun, initiated a sort of reform. They struck out of their ritual the formula of imprecation (v'la-Malshinim), which had originally been directed against the apostate Jewish Christians, but by misinterpretation was afterwards applied to all Christians. They abolished the practice of hastily burying the dead, and erected a new, clean communal bath,—innocent reforms, which, however, were regarded by the strictly orthodox as grave offenses against Judaism. The new congregation succeeded in having the fanatical leaders of the German community, who were more inconsiderate than the Portuguese in their opposition to those who had withdrawn from their midst, removed from their posts, probably through the action of the French ambassador Noel. Among the new council officers, members of the new congregation were elected. Gradually many of the old party became reconciled to the new order of things and to the aspirations of the liberal-minded section. The orthodox were also greatly flattered when two Jews, Bromet and De Lemon, were elected as deputies for Amsterdam. Several attended at the Hague at the opening of the second National Assembly (September 1, 1797), to participate in the honor of the Jewish deputies. They were still more pleased with the idea of equalization when the Jewish deputy, Isaac da Costa Atias, was successively elected a member of the city council, of the National Assembly, and finally to the position of President of the same (1798). The head of the Batavian Republic, the Grand Pensioner Schimmelpenink, was in earnest about the emancipation of the Jews, and without hesitation appointed able Jews to public offices. The first appointment to public posts in Europe was made in Holland.
It was natural that a sense of self-importance and honorable pride should be awakened in the breasts of the liberal members of the new congregation, among whom state offices were distributed. Indignation seized them when they saw that the Jews under the German princes were still treated as outcasts or wild beasts. They therefore laid a proposal before the National Assembly, entreating that the Batavian ambassador to the French Republic be instructed to move at the Peace Congress held at Rastadt, that the Dutch Jews in Germany should no longer be compelled to pay poll-tax, and to threaten that, unless this was granted, all Germans journeying through Holland would be subjected to the same dishonorable treatment. The National Assembly agreed to this proposition.
Righteous judgment soon overtook the German princes and people, who, stubborn as Pharaoh and the Egyptians, refused to loosen the chain of slavery from the Jews. They themselves were soon forced to become the servi cameræ of the French Republic, and to pay a poll-tax. Wherever in Germany and Italy the courageous French obtained firm footing, the Jews were made free. The walls of the Ghetto were burst open, and bent figures stood erect.
The name of the invincible French, who had achieved wonderful victories in Italy, quickly spread abroad, even beyond Europe, and aroused terror and surprise in the most remote countries. A new Alexander, the Corsican Bonaparte, a god of war when scarcely thirty years old, set out with a comparatively small army to subdue Egypt, and hoped to penetrate to India. In less than six months (July-November, 1798) Egypt lay crushed at his feet. But a Turkish army was on its way to meet him, against which Bonaparte advanced into Palestine. Thus, through a marvelous series of historical events, the Holy Land became the scene of a bloody war between the representatives of the old and the new spirit in Europe.
El Arish and Gaza in the south-west of Palestine fell into the hands of the French army, which scarcely numbered 12,000 men (17th and 25th February, 1799). The Jewish community of Gaza had fled. In Jerusalem the news of French victories and cruelty created a panic. It was rumored that Napoleon was about to enter the Holy City. At the command of the sub-pasha, or Motusallim, the inhabitants began to throw up ramparts, the Jews taking part in the work. One of their rabbis, Mordecai Joseph Meyuchas, encouraged and even assisted them in their operations. The Turks had circulated the report that the French treated Jews particularly in a cruel manner. Bonaparte had issued a summons to the Asiatic and African Jews to march under his banners, promising to give them the Holy Land, and restore ancient Jerusalem to its pristine splendor. But the Jews in Jerusalem appear either not to have trusted in these flattering words, or to have been utterly ignorant of the proclamation. Probably it was only a trick on the part of Bonaparte, intended to win over to his side the Jewish minister of the pasha of Acco, Chayim Maalem Farchi (assassinated in 1820), the soul of the defense of the important sea-fortress of Acco. Had Bonaparte succeeded in conquering Syria and carrying the war into the heart of Turkey, he would perhaps have assigned a share in his government to members of the Jewish nation upon whom the French could rely. But the appearance of Bonaparte in Palestine was like that of a terrible meteor, which disappears after causing much devastation. His dream to become Emperor of the East, and restore Jerusalem to the Jews, quickly faded away.
The glowing enthusiasm for France, where his enthralled co-religionists had been freed, had created a Jewish poet in Elia Halevi, while a Jewish youth was aroused to become a spirited orator, whose eloquence was always tinged with poetry. Michael Berr (born 1780, died 1843), a worthy son of Isaac Berr, who had so zealously striven for the emancipation of the Jews of France, in his youth aroused great hopes, by reason of his handsome, noble form, and his manifold talents. In him for the first time Jewish and French spirit met in harmonious combination. He was the first Jewish attorney in France. Animated by the ambition of courageous youth and in the glow of his fiery spirit, this young man conceived a bold idea, at the beginning of the new century, when peace was concluded. A Congress of the princes of Europe was expected to take place. To them and their people Michael Berr addressed a "Summons" in the name of "all the inhabitants of Europe professing the Jewish religion," praying them to free his co-religionists from oppression, and to guarantee to them the justice so long withheld. This youth voiced the hopes of rejuvenated Israel. Berr's summons was especially directed to the Germans, both to princes and nations, who still treated the Jews living in their midst as branded servi cameræ.
Berr, who was inspired with love for his co-religionists, preached to deaf ears, his burning words and convincing arguments finding no response in the hearts of the Eastern European people. In Austria, Prussia, and the numerous smaller German states, the Jews remained in their former abasement. In Berlin itself, the seat of enlightenment, Jewish physicians, however honorable their reputation, were not included in the list of their Christian fellow-practitioners, but were enumerated by themselves, relegated, as it were, to a medical Ghetto. Two men of the first rank, the greatest poet and the greatest thinker of the time, Göthe and Fichte, shared in the prejudices of the Germans against the Jews, and made no secret of it. Göthe, the representative of the aristocratic world, and Fichte, the defender of democratic opinion in Germany, both desired to see the Jews removed like plague patients beyond the pale of Christian society. Both were on bad terms with the Church, both looked upon Christianity with its belief in miracles as a folly, and both were considered atheists. Nevertheless they abhorred the Jews in the name of Jesus. Göthe's intolerance against the Jews cannot be taken as the expression of his personal prejudice; he only showed how the current of opinion flowed in cultured German circles.
Fichte, the one-sided complement of Kant, was still more savage and embittered against the Jews. Like most German metaphysicians, his philosophy was of a visionary nature before the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Apparently Fichte bestowed great honor upon the Jews when he put them on a level with the nobility and the clergy. But he did not wish in any way to honor them, but rather to accuse them before the bar of public opinion. Fichte, the philosophical thinker, cherished the same ill-will against the Jews and Judaism as Göthe, the aristocratic poet, and Schleiermacher, the Gnostic preacher.
Should civil rights be granted to Jews? Fichte opposed it in a most decided fashion; not even in the Christian state, in his view a petty state, contrary to right and reason, should they be emancipated. "The only way I see by which civil rights can be conceded to them (the Jews) is to cut off all their heads in one night, and to set new ones on their shoulders, which should contain not a single Jewish idea. The only means of protecting ourselves against them is to conquer their promised land and send them thither." History judged otherwise: new heads have not been set on the Jews, but on the Germans themselves. His view was that Jews should not be persecuted, that, in fact, the rights of men should be granted them, "because they are men," but that they should be banished altogether. Even the clerical opponents of emancipation in France, Abbé Maury and Bishop La Fare, had not spoken of the Jews in so perverse and hateful a manner. Fichte may be regarded as the father and apostle of national German hatred of the Jews, of a kind unknown before, or rather never before so clearly manifested. Even Herder, although filled with admiration for Israel's antiquity and the people in its biblical splendor,—the first to examine sacred literature from a poetical point of view—felt an aversion to the Jews, which became apparent in his relations with Mendelssohn, whom it cost him an effort to treat in a friendly manner. Herder, it is true, prophesied a better time, when Christian and Jew would work together in concord on the structure of human civilization. But like Balaam of old, he pronounced his blessings upon Israel in a half-hearted way. This growing hostility to the Jews among the Germans was not noticed by educated Jews who dwelt in their midst, at least they did not combat it vigorously. Only one pamphlet from the pen of a Jewish author appeared at this time. Saul Asher wrote his "Eisenmenger the Second, an open letter to Fichte," but hardly any notice was taken of it.
If the Jews met with no favor in the eyes of those who formed public opinion in Germany, who had raised it from antiquated customs to a brilliant height of culture, both in the democratic and in the aristocratic camps, but experienced at their hands only repulse and scorn, how much worse was their relation to the great mass of the populace, still engulfed in the depths of darkest ignorance and crudeness! Two noble-minded Christians addressed to the Congress of Rastadt the soundest arguments that the German Jews should be raised from their ignominious condition. One of them, an unknown philanthropist, hurled the shaft of ridicule at the stupidity and bombastic haughtiness of the German Jew-haters, and the other, Christian Grund, demonstrated with pitiless logic the injustice with which the Jews were treated. Both desired to support the demand of the Dutch Jews to the diplomatic representatives, that the princes of Germany be compelled to respect the Jews, and that influence be brought to bear upon public opinion to that effect. Grund acted as a clever advocate for the Jews; he complimented the Germans in order to win favor with them. "The German Jews," said he, "venture to approach the German nation, capable of great deeds, the creator of its own destinies, not merely an imitator of the actions of other peoples, uniting their voice with that of their brethren, to petition the representatives of the nation at Rastadt most respectfully for the abolition of those distinctions under which they live, and for the acquisition of greater rights." The answer of the German princes and rulers was not very encouraging.
The most disgraceful degradation and humiliation of the Jews consisted in the poll-tax, an impost unknown outside of Germany. Of what advantage was it that Emperor Joseph of Austria and Frederick William II had remitted it? It still existed in all its hideousness in Central and Western Germany, in the districts of the Main and the Rhine, where diminutive states bordered close on other diminutive states of the extent of a square mile, and where turnpike after turnpike at short intervals presented itself. If a Jew took a day's journey, he passed through different territories, and at the borders of each had to pay a poll-tax. A Jewish beggar, accompanied by his young son, once exhibited his poll-tax bills, which amounted to a florin and a half for six days, paid in various places. The way in which the tax was levied was more degrading than the duty of paying it. Very often the tax amounted to a few kreuzers, which only the poor, who were not exempt from it, felt as a burden. But the brutal procedure of the officers, and the ignominious treatment at each frontier-line offended also the rich. As long as the French armies were encamped in German territory, the Jews escaped paying the poll-tax. But no sooner was the peace of Lüneville concluded, and the French troops withdrawn, than the petty German princes re-imposed the tax, not in order to raise the small income derivable from this source, but to humiliate the Jews. They inflicted the insult also upon French Jews who crossed the Rhine for business purposes, defending their action by a literal construction of one of the articles of the peace of Campo Formio, which stated: "All business and intercourse shall for the present continue under the same conditions as before the war." The French Jews, proud of their citizenship, would not submit, severed their business connections with Germany, and complained of the injustice to the French government, by whom the question was not lightly passed over. The government commissioner Jollivet despatched a circular letter (1801) to the agents of the French Republic resident at German courts, instructing them not to permit French citizens of the Israelite faith to be degraded to animals. They were to make earnest representations to the governments concerned, and menace them with retaliation. Several small princes, like those of Solms, gave heed, and forthwith removed the poll-tax; from fear of the French the French Jews were freed from it, but it still weighed heavily upon German travelers. Every step towards the removal of oppressive restrictions in Germany was the result of great exertions.
In consequence of the peace of Lüneville, the Holy Roman Empire was now for the first time dismembered. The representatives of the Empire, assembled in Ratisbon, were driven to seek means of bringing their disunited members into some sort of order, or to decide upon the indemnity for the damage suffered. To this conference of the ambassadors of eight princes, occupied with traffic in territory, and regarded by the short-sighted as representing the German nation, the German Jews presented a petition asking for passive citizenship (November 15, 1802). This entreaty was drawn up "in the name of the Jews of Germany," by state attorney Christopher Grund. Which congregation, or what individuals zealous for emancipation had commissioned him to do this is not exactly known. It appears that the petition originated in Frankfort. It prayed that the representatives of the Empire remove from the German Jews the burdensome distinctions under which they labored; that the narrow confines in which they were forced to reside be thrown open, so that for the sake of health and free enjoyment of life, they might select their own dwelling-place in the cities. Further, that the bonds by which their population, their trade, and their industry were restricted to a fatal degree be loosened, and that, in short, the Jewish community be considered worthy, by the grant of civil rights, to constitute one united people with the German nation. The Jews, or their attorney Grund, cited the fact that they were "classed with dishonorable persons, outlaws, and serfs." The miserable condition of the Frankfort community, which, after the orders promulgated for the regulation of the town in 1616, had been deprived of natural freedom, and crowded together into the narrowest limits, served as a conclusive proof. The example of France and the Batavian Republic in emancipating the Jews was adduced; but the Jews could hardly have deceived themselves with the fond hope that the representatives of the Empire would concede so much to them. They hoped at least to have one restriction removed, viz., that of the poll-tax, and this point was insisted upon with great vigor. "The most degrading of all these disabilities," they said, "is the poll-tax, which removes the name of Jew from the category of rational beings, to place it among wild beasts, and forces him to pay his way when he sets foot upon one soil or another." Contrary to expectation, this petition to the representatives of the Empire was handed in and supported by the most distinguished member among them, the ambassador from the Electorate of Bohemia or Austria. He proposed the motion "that the Jews of Germany be allowed civil rights" (at the end of 1802). Meantime the Indemnification Congress had other affairs to engross its attention, and its members were unable to occupy themselves with the Jewish question. The petition was buried under a pile of state papers.
Nothing was to be expected from the German people, as those who watched the course of affairs readily perceived. The Jews therefore directed their zeal towards inducing the various governments to remit the poll-tax. Two men made their names famous in the struggle to remove this odious impost, viz., Israel Jacobson and Wolff Breidenbach. The former, court agent and finance counselor to the Prince of Brunswick, succeeded in procuring the abolition of the poll-tax in the territories of Brunswick-Lüneburg (April 23, 1803). During a number of years Wolff Breidenbach strove in the same cause, and effected more far-reaching results. Breidenbach was born in a village of that name near Cassel, 1751, and died at Offenbach 1829. He was a man of high culture, noble ideals, and so modest that his name has almost been forgotten in spite of all the sacrifices he made on behalf of the German Jews. He did not, like Jacobson, make provisions to have his name spread far and wide.
Deeply moved by the annoyances, and the contemptuous treatment inflicted on Jewish travelers in places where the tax was imposed, which came daily under the notice of Breidenbach in his business journeys, he determined at least to have the poll-tax remitted, and applied himself with all his energy to this task. Quietly he strove to have the chain loosened, where it weighed most heavily. He perceived that large sums of money would be required to provide presents for the police magistrates and the city clergy under the pretense of giving alms to the poor, and also "to erect beautiful monuments in honor of magnanimous princes" who would allow themselves to be influenced to leave the Jews untaxed and unoppressed. He was not able to meet this enormous expense out of his own means. He therefore issued a summons to German and foreign Jews (September, 1803), asking them to subscribe to a fund, from which the cost of abolishing the poll-tax might be defrayed. It was well known at the time who circulated this appeal, but out of modesty, Breidenbach did not append his name. By these means, and through negotiations with the minor German princes at the Diet in Ratisbon, carried on with the friendly help of the imperial chancellor, Dalberg, and finally by the recommendations of the princes themselves, who learned to esteem him, Breidenbach succeeded in obtaining the right of free passage for the Jews throughout the Rhineland and Bavaria. Even the narrow-minded, Jew-hating, most noble council of Frankfort was moved by Breidenbach's petition to abolish the poll-tax exacted at the gates and bridges.