In the middle of the eighteenth century a slow but marked improvement in the condition of the Jews is noticeable. To some extent this is due to the change in the economic life of the Jews, many of whom were engaged in manufacturing pursuits and in such mercantile enterprises as were of noticeable benefit to the state. Some Jews were farmers of the tobacco monopoly, in many states an important part of the revenue, others engaged in various manufacturing enterprises and thus received privileges which exempted them from the disabilities imposed on other Jews. This was the case in Prussia, where Jewish enterprises created the flourishing textile industry in and near Berlin. One of these manufacturers was Bernhard Isaac, in whose house Moses Mendelssohn lived first as tutor and then as bookkeeper. Frederick the Great gave to some Jews the same rights as Christian merchants, although he was in general not well disposed toward the Jews, and would not allow them to engage in agriculture or ship-building. Aaron Elias Seligmann established a large tobacco manufactory in Laimen, Bavaria, in 1779, which gave occupation to many hands; for his merit in developing industry the King of Bavaria bestowed a baronetcy on him in 1814. Israel Hönig was farmer of the tobacco monopoly in Austria, and was in 1789 knighted by Emperor Joseph II.
The distinctions bestowed on individual Jews, however, did not improve the condition of the masses. The progress of liberal ideas made this question a matter of serious concern for legislators. In England a bill giving the Jews political rights was passed in 1753, but aroused such opposition among the populace that the government found itself compelled to repeal it in the same year. Of more permanent value were the measures of the humane Joseph II of Austria (1780-1790). In various legislative acts, and especially in the so-called “Toleranz-Edict” of January 2, 1782, he laid down the principle that the Jews should be treated like human beings. Although they were still under considerable restrictions, their lot was in many ways improved, and the Emperor laid special stress on their education. As a tangible evidence of the improvement in their condition the abrogation of the poll tax, “Leibzoll,” the Jew badge and Jew taxes may be noted. The abolition of these mediæval discriminations, which were based on the principle that the Jew was a foreign and injurious element of the population, became more and more general by the end of the eighteenth century.
France abolished the poll tax in 1784. As early as 1781 the Academy of Metz offered a prize for the best essay on the improvement of the Jews. The prize was won by Abbé Grégoire, a Catholic priest, who advocated the abrogation of all Jewish disabilities. About the same time Christian F. Dohm, an official in the Prussian war department, wrote an essay on the civil improvement of the Jews, in which he likewise advocated the granting of full equality to the Jews. This principle became for the first time a fact when on September 27, 1791, the French National Assembly passed a bill giving the Jews full civic and political equality with other citizens.
When the French rule spread over adjacent countries this was everywhere adopted. Such was the case in Holland in 1796, and in all parts of Germany which directly or indirectly came under French influence. In Cologne, where for nearly four hundred years no Jew had been permitted to reside, Jews began to settle in 1798. In Mayence the population tore down the gates of the ghetto in 1798, and this was done in Rome when the French ruled there. In Frankfort-on-the-Main, where the Jews labored under cruel discriminations, their condition was considerably improved in 1807 by an edict of the Grand Duke, Baron von Dahlberg, and in 1811 they were given full civil equality. Even reactionary countries like Prussia could not resist the current of the time, and the edict of March 11, 1812, declared the Jews to be citizens, gave them freedom of residence and occupation and the right to professorships in the universities; and although it withheld from them political rights, it promised to grant them such in the future.
Jews have been drafted into the army in Austria since 1787, and in Prussia since 1812; but numerous Jews joined the army as volunteers and distinguished themselves by acts of bravery during the wars of liberation. In 1809 the Austrian Jew, Israel Hönig, was made lieutenant for bravery on the battlefield of Aspern, and a few years afterwards was promoted to the rank of captain. In Prussia several Jews were promoted to the rank of officers during the Napoleonic wars.
Meantime reaction began to set in. Napoleon, who as commander of the army in the Orient in 1798, had called upon the Jews to join his army and conquer Palestine, changed his policy. Moved by complaints against the business methods of the Jews, he called an assembly of Jewish notables in 1806 and laid before them twelve questions, including whether the Jews considered themselves Frenchmen, whether their law permitted them to take usurious interest from non-Jews and whether intermarriage with Christians would be permitted. The answers given by this body of men were satisfactory, and the Emperor in 1807 established a Sanhedrin to ratify these principles and form a supreme ecclesiastic authority for all the Jews of the world. While thus apparently showing favor to the Jews, he issued a law in 1808 which imposed some restrictions on the freedom of trade of the Jews of Alsace. With his downfall, however, a general reaction set in. Some states repealed the laws which had given full freedom to the Jews, while others, among them Prussia, limited the efficacy of these laws by interpretation.
In Rome, where the rule of the Pope was reinstated, all oppressive measures were put in force again. In Hamburg and Luebeck, where, during the French rule, the Jews had enjoyed full equality, the former restrictions were partly reintroduced. From Luebeck the Jews were unconditionally expelled in 1816. In some cities of Bavaria attacks on the Jews were organized by the mob under the cry of “Hep-hep” in 1819, and an article of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, which declared that the Jews should retain all the rights they had acquired during the time of transition, became practically a dead letter.
The July Revolution of 1830 strengthened liberal ideas and brought the Jewish question up for discussion in various Parliaments, particularly in Southern Germany. In Baden and Bavaria the petition for the improvement of the condition of the Jews was regularly met with the demand that the Jews should first show their willingness to assimilate with their environment by a change of their religious beliefs and practices. Legislation made very little progress, and in some instances new reactionary measures were introduced. King Frederick William III of Prussia in 1836 ordered that Jews should not have any Christian names. The decisive change came about after the French Revolution in 1848.
By and by all states of Western Europe recognized in their constitutions the full civil and political equality of the Jews, and in the Parliaments which were elected on this basis, Jews were members. Gabriel Riesser (1806-1864) was one of the vice-presidents of the National Assembly in Frankfort. The first Austrian Parliament had five Jewish members and the Diet of Bavaria two. When the storm passed away, a reactionary spirit again took hold, although the liberties granted to the Jews were not entirely repealed. Some countries like Austria suspended the constitution, while others like Prussia interpreted it in a sense which rendered nugatory some of the rights given to the Jews in theory. This, however, was mostly the case with regard to the right of holding official positions. Civic equality and the right to vote at elections and hold elective offices remained uncontested.
Finally toward the end of the ’sixties even these disabilities were removed. The Austrian constitution of 1867 granted to the Jews unrestricted equality. The law of the North German Federation of July 3, 1869, declared that every state must remove all disabilities imposed upon citizens on the ground of their religious belief. This law was embodied in the constitution of the German Empire in 1871. Sweden, which had admitted the Jews only at the end of the eighteenth century, and in 1838 still restricted their residence to four cities, granted them full equality in 1870. Switzerland, while a republic, had for a long time restricted the Jews to two places in the Canton of Aargau. Not until 1878 were they given full equality with other citizens. Norway had, until 1851, a law on its statute-book which prohibited even the temporary residence of Jews in the country.
England made slow but steady progress. In 1830 the first attempt was made to give the Jews political rights, a year previously the disabilities imposed on Christian dissenters having been removed. In 1833 Francis H. Goldsmid was admitted to the bar, and in 1835 David Salomons was elected sheriff of London and Middlesex, the first municipal office held by a Jew. In 1845 he was elected alderman and in 1855 Lord Mayor of the city of London. The entrance of Jews to Parliament was opposed with great vehemence by the Conservative Party. In 1847 Baron Lionel de Rothschild was elected to Parliament, but could not take his seat because the prescribed oath contained “upon the true faith of a Christian.” Not until 1858 was a bill passed which allowed a Jew to omit these words from the oath. His son, Baron Nathan de Rothschild, was in 1885 admitted as the first Jew to the House of Lords.
Only in the East of Europe restrictions continued. Czar Alexander I in 1804 issued a law which encouraged the Jews to take up agricultural pursuits and acquire secular knowledge. This step was isolated, and in the reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855) the Jews were subjected to terrible persecutions, the worst of which was that children were forcibly taken from the houses of their parents and brought up in barracks as soldiers to serve twenty-five years after they had reached the age required for the army. Under Alexander II (1855-1881) a slow improvement in exceptional cases took place. Jews who engaged in manufacturing or business enterprises, skilled mechanics and those who had received a college education, were exempt from most of the disabilities imposed on the masses, but the condition of the latter was not changed. They were still restricted in their rights of residence and occupation and excluded from all political rights.
With the assassination of Alexander II a new era of persecutions began. This culminated in bloody riots, which spread over a great part of Southern Russia and were periodically repeated afterwards. The bloodiest persecutions were those of Kishineff and Homel in 1903, and of Odessa and a great many other cities in Southern Russia in 1905, and of Bialystok in 1906, when more than a thousand people lost their lives. Even further restrictions were introduced. Thus a law of May 3, 1882, prohibited the residence of Jews in rural districts and the acquisition of rural estates, and while in former times the acquisition of secular knowledge by Jews was encouraged by the government, laws of December 5, 1886, and July 6, 1887, restricted the attendance of Jewish students at high schools and universities to a percentage ranging from three to ten. While the Jews obtained the right to participate in the elections of the Duma, the Imperial Parliament, they have no right to participate in municipal elections and are represented in the municipal boards only by a few members who are appointed by the government. They are also excluded from the county boards, Zemstvo.
Similar conditions prevail in Rumania. When that country gained its autonomy in 1856, it not only denied to the Jews political rights but declared them to be foreigners. Frequent mob attacks and arbitrary treatment on the part of the courts and the officials made them practically outlaws. A hope for improvement seemed to loom up when in 1878 the Congress of Berlin embodied an article in the treaty which compelled the newly founded sovereign and autonomous states of Servia, Bulgaria and Rumania to remove from their statute-books all laws discriminating against citizens on the ground of religious belief. They complied with this requirement, but Rumania availed itself of a ruse by which the law was practically rendered nugatory. By declaring the Jews to be foreigners, and naturalizing some Jews, it apparently complied with the law, while almost all the 250,000 Jews of the country remained in their former state of misery, enhanced by new regulations restricting their economic freedom.
It looked in 1878 as if Europe had guaranteed the fair treatment of the Jews even in countries of oppression; opposition began in popular ranks, and in the same year anti-Semitism arose as a new name for hostility toward the Jews. This first made itself felt in Germany through the foundation of the Christian Socialist party in 1878, started with the avowed object of withdrawing from the Jews their political rights, including that of holding public office and advocating the prohibition of the immigration of Jews.
From Germany the movement spread to Austria, where it first was taken up by the radical German party in 1883, and later on by the clericals. It spread then to Hungary and France, where the publication of Drumont’s “La France Juive” in 1886 marks the beginning of the movement culminating in the Dreyfus case. Captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1894 was charged with high treason in order to stir up anti-Jewish feeling, and this was not abated until his innocence had finally been established in 1906. Another sign of an unfavorable change in the attitude of the masses toward the Jews was the revival of the blood accusation. When in 1840 it made its appearance in Damascus, where Jews were imprisoned and tortured for this cause, it seemed that such a return to mediæval barbarism was confined to the Orient. In 1882, however, it took place in Tisza-Ezlar, Hungary, and other cases followed in Western Europe: at Xanten, Germany, in 1891, at Konitz in 1899, and at Polna, Bohemia, in 1900.
The disappointment caused by the unlooked-for reaction manifested itself also in the attitude of the Jews with regard to their future. Soon after it had become evident that the condition of the Jews in Rumania would not be improved by the Treaty of Berlin, and after the bloody persecutions in Russia had destroyed the hope that Russia would slowly improve the condition of its Jews, a movement for the settlement of the Jews in Palestine began. In 1882 the foundation of a society, “Lovers of Zion,” marked the beginning of a movement looking toward the resettlement of the Jews in Palestine. It assumed more systematic shape by the publication of “Der Judenstaat,” by Theodor Herzl in 1896, which was followed in 1897 by the first Congress of Zionists convened at Basle, which declared in its platform the object to establish “a legally secured home for the Jewish people in Palestine.” At the same time an unprecedented emigration took place from Russia and Rumania to free countries, particularly to the United States, Canada, Australia and South Africa, with a smaller but also considerable stream of emigration to England.
Baron de Hirsch attempted to regulate the emigration by turning it to Argentine, where he acquired large tracts of land in 1890. Indeed, agricultural settlements were founded there, although they did not realize the expectations of those who would have turned large masses of immigrants into that country.
In spite of the retrogressive movement which the history of the Jews seemed to present, Western Europe not only retained the principles enacted by the constitutions promulgated in and after 1848, but individual Jews have risen to prominence in political life. Almost all states of Western Europe have had Jews as members of their Parliaments, and some have obtained prominent positions in the government service. France had several Jews as ministers. Cremieux was minister of justice in 1848, Godchaux and Achille Fould served under Napoleon III, and Raynal under the republic. In Italy, Wollemborg was once and Luzzatti six times minister of finance, and Joseph Ottolenghi was minister of war. In 1910 Luzzatti became premier. Holland had repeatedly Jewish ministers, and England saw in 1909 the first Jew, Herbert Samuel, member of the cabinet. The United States had a Jew in the cabinet in the person of Oscar S. Straus, secretary of commerce and labor (1906-1909). In the Grand Duchy of Baden, Moritz Ellstaetter was minister of finance (1868-1893). Quite a number of Jews have occupied positions as judges, as professors at universities, and in other public activities.
The improvement of the political conditions influenced the intellectual and social life of the Jews to a considerable degree. This is noticeable in their literature, education, religious life and finally in their communal organizations.
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), of Dessau, came as a boy to Berlin. After a youth filled with hardship he found employment in the house of a manufacturer, first as tutor and then as bookkeeper. His main object was to raise Jews from their intellectual isolation. He translated the Pentateuch, the Psalms and some smaller books of the Bible into correct German, and edited this work with a Hebrew commentary. It soon became popular and was the medium for teaching the young people the German language. He also defended Judaism against various attacks and presented its teaching in a German work, “Jerusalem.” In his work on the Bible, he was assisted by various co-workers, among whom the most prominent is Naphtali Herz Wesel, who called himself Hartwig Wessely (1725-1805). The latter’s epic on the life of Moses, patterned on Klopstock’s “Messias,” was written in elegant Hebrew verse, and became an inspiration to many other writers disgusted with the obscure and artificial style of Rabbinic Hebrew, and having a taste for literary beauty. An organ for such endeavors was presented by the publication of the first Hebrew magazine, “Meassef” (1784).
The progress of secular education made Hebrew literature soon disappear in Western Europe, but the influence of Wessely and his disciples made itself very strongly felt in the East of Europe, and particularly in the countries comprising the former kingdom of Poland. Their modern Hebrew writings introduced the young men to the knowledge of history and science, and gave them a taste for secular education and for a western conception of life. Isaac Bär Loewinson (1788-1860) wrote works in defense of Judaism, and advocated secular culture, patriotism, manual trades and the emancipation from mediæval conditions still existing in these countries. Marcus Aaron Guenzburg (1795-1846) worked chiefly as translator of popular works, such as juveniles like Campe’s “Robinson Crusoe.”
A more independent character was given to Hebrew literature by Abraham Mapu (1808-1867) who wrote two novels from Biblical life, “The Love of Zion,” and “The Guilt of Samaria,” and another describing the life of the Jew in his Lithuanian home, “The Hypocrite.” Mapu used Biblical Hebrew with great facility and became the father of a new development in Hebrew and later in Yiddish, giving to Jewish literature a high literary character. He was followed by Judah Loew (Leon) Gordon (1833-1892), whose satirical poems not merely possess a value for the ease with which the author handled the Hebrew language, but have been a great force impressing upon the minds of the Jews in Eastern Europe the defects of their intellectual isolation and the shortcomings of Rabbinic teachings. Among the later poets Chayim Nachman Bialik, born 1873, is the most popular. His elegy on the massacre of Kishineff is one of the gems of modern Hebrew literature.
Yiddish literature from its earliest beginnings in the sixteenth century was mostly used as a vehicle for the religious instruction of women and people of little education or merely adapted and translated some of the popular literature of the countries where its exponents lived. From the middle of the nineteenth century it commenced to assume a more independent character and thus secured a place in the world’s history as is shown by the fact that some of its works were translated into other European languages. Among the novelists may be mentioned Shalom Jacob Abramowitsch (born 1836) who writes under the pseudonym, “Mendele the bookseller,” Shalom Rabinowitsch (born 1859) and, the most popular of all, Isaac Loeb Peretz (born 1851). A poet who presents the tragic as well as the humorous side of the New York ghetto, Morris Rosenfeld, born 1864, is to be mentioned; his works have been translated into various European languages. Of dramatists whose works have occasionally found their way to the German and English stage there are Shalom Asch, and Jacob Gordin (1853-1909), who deals with the life of Russian Jews in America.
The disappearance of the social and intellectual isolation in the life of the Jews created a special literature which is called the ghetto novel. This deals with the life of the Jews in the era of transition from their isolation to modern culture. This literature began in Germany and its best known representatives are Aaron Bernstein (1812-1884), Leopold Kompert (1822-1886), Karl Emil Franzos (1848-1904), and, among Christians who view the life of the Eastern Jews with sympathy, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1835-1895) and Eliza de Orzeska (1842-1910). Sketches from the life of the Alsatian Jews were presented in French by Alexander Weill (1811-1898) and in Danish by Meier Aaron Goldschmidt (1819-1887). In the English language, Israel Zangwill, born 1864, wrote novels dealing with the life of the foreign Jews in England. Among his works “The Children of the Ghetto” has obtained a place in the world’s best literature. The English stories of Martha Wolfenstein (1869-1906) deal with the life of European Jews.
A place in modern Jewish literature belongs to the Jewish press as it has developed in the nineteenth century. The first Jewish periodical that had more than an ephemeral existence was “Meassef,” published in Hebrew with some parts in German. It began to appear in 1784, and with some interruptions was kept up until 1810. The oldest periodical still in existence is the “Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums,” begun by Ludwig Philippson, rabbi in Magdeburg, in 1837. It was followed by the “Archives Israélites” in 1840 in Paris, and by the “Jewish Chronicle” in 1841 in London. Of the numerous periodicals published in the United States, the oldest still existing is the “American Israelite,” founded by Isaac M. Wise in Cincinnati in 1854.
The first Hebrew weekly, which dealt not only with Jewish affairs, was the “Hamaggid,” founded by Lazarus Silbermann in Lyck, East Prussia, in 1858. The first Hebrew daily paper was the “Hazefirah,” published first as a weekly in 1862 and afterwards as a daily from 1886. Quite a number of valuable magazines dealing with Jewish history and literature have been published since the middle of the nineteenth century in Hebrew and in various modern languages. “Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift fuer Juedische Theologie” (1835-1840) and “Juedische Zeitschrift fuer Wissenschaft und Leben” (1862-1875) were both edited by Abraham Geiger; the “Monatsschrift fuer Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums,” begun by Zechariah Frankel in 1854, was discontinued in 1887 and has been republished since 1891. “Revue des Etudes Juives” dates from 1881; “Jewish Quarterly Review” appeared from 1888 to 1908. Of the Hebrew magazines there are “Kerem Hemed,” of which nine volumes were published from 1833 to 1856, Bikure Ha-ittim (1820-1831), and “Haschiloach” since 1896.
Rabbinic literature of the older type, dealing with the law and Talmudic dialecticism, has also a great number of representatives during this period. Among the foremost may be named Moses Schreiber (Sofer), born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1762, died as rabbi of Presburg in 1839, and Akiba Eger (1761-1837). In Western Europe this literature shows a steady decline. Of the authors whose life belongs entirely to the nineteenth century may be mentioned Jacob Ettlinger, rabbi of Altona (1798-1871), and Seligman Bär Bamberger, rabbi of Wuerzburg (1807-1878). Very numerous, however, are the Rabbinic authors of Eastern Europe and the Orient, among whom Isaac Elhanan Spector, rabbi of Kovno (1810-1896), Hayim David Hazan, rabbi of Jerusalem (1790-1868), Hayim Palaggi, rabbi of Smyrna (1784-1868), and Hayim Hezekiah Medini (1834-1904), may be mentioned.
Already before Mendelssohn’s time individual Jews in Germany and Austria distinguished themselves in literature and science. But the education of the masses was almost entirely confined to Bible and Talmud. With the popularization of secular knowledge the necessity for schools arose and the first institution of this kind was founded in Berlin as the “Jewish Free School” in 1778. The efforts of Emperor Joseph II to promote secular culture among the Jews of Austria led to the establishment of a primary school in Prague in 1782. Others followed in different cities: the Wilhelm Schule of Breslau was founded in 1791; the Herzog Franz-Schule in Dessau in 1799. Higher schools were the Jacobson Schule in Seesen in 1801, the Samson Schule in Wolfenbuettel in 1803, and the Philanthropin in Frankfort-on-the-Main in the next year. Even in Eastern Europe, where religious fanaticism was bitterly opposed to secular education, such schools came into existence like the one founded in Tarnopol by Joseph Perls in 1815. The Alliance Israélite Universelle, founded in 1860, made it one of its principal objects to establish schools for secular education in the Orient, and it now has a great number of schools which it maintains in Turkey, Northern Africa and Asia, extending from Palestine and Asia Minor to Persia and Mesopotamia.
With the growing number of schools the need for special training schools for Jewish teachers arose. The first of these was founded in Berlin in 1825. More important was the need for training schools for rabbis. The old method of education by which every young man who devoted himself to study was a Talmudic scholar was discontinued in Western Europe. On the other hand, it became necessary to give the rabbis a more systematic training. The first modern school of this kind was established in Padua, then under Austrian rule, in 1829. Later the Yeshibah of Metz was transformed into a Rabbinic seminary and subsequently transferred to Paris. In 1854 the Rabbinic seminary of Breslau was founded and this was followed by the establishment of similar institutions in European countries. In 1875 the first Rabbinic seminary in America, the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati, was opened. In New York the Jewish Theological Seminary was established in 1886. Various educational institutions devoted to special needs, such as the school for the deaf-mutes opened in Nikolsburg in 1845, and later transferred to Vienna, and the first Jewish institute for the blind established in the latter city in 1872, deserve to be mentioned in this connection.
The removal of the disabilities which kept the Jews from agriculture and mechanical trades, and the desire of the Jews to direct the young generation into such pursuits gave rise to quite a number of institutions all over the world devoted to these purposes. Several of these are located in the Orient and were founded or subventioned by the Alliance Israélite. It established the first agricultural school near Jaffa in Palestine in 1871. The Hebrew Technical Institute of New York, founded in 1884, the agricultural schools at Ahlem, founded 1893, at Woodbine, N. J., 1891, and at Doylestown, Pa., 1896, may be mentioned.
With the emancipation from Rabbinic studies a new development in Jewish learning took place. This showed itself in what is called the “Science of Judaism,” and may be defined as a systematic study of Jewish history and literature. The pioneer in this work was Leopold Zunz (1794-1886) who wrote books on the history of Jewish homiletics, on the synagogal poetry and various minor essays on all phases of Jewish literature. He found numerous followers, not merely in western Europe, but also in the East, and thus contributed largely to the intellectual elevation of the Jews.
In Eastern countries the first who wrote on these topics in Hebrew were Nahman Krochmal (1785-1840) and Solomon Loew Rapoport (1790-1867). The latter, inspired by the works of Zunz, was the author of biographies of prominent mediæval rabbis. In Italy we have Isaac Samuel Reggio (1784-1855) and Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865), who used the excellent collections of old Hebrew prints and manuscripts for the elucidation of the history of Jewish literature. The external side of the literature was presented in erudite form by the great bibliographer Moritz Steinschneider (1816-1907). History in more readable form was written first by Isaac Marcus Jost (1795-1860), and then by Heinrich Graetz (1817-1891), the latter’s work having gone through various editions and been translated into French, English, Hebrew and Yiddish. Numerous authors worked at the elucidation of portions of Jewish history and carefully edited old manuscripts. Thus they shed light on obscure parts of the Jewish past and showed the many-sided activity of the Jews during the long period of their history and their influence on all human activities.
In this connection the participation of the Jews in spiritual activity ought to be mentioned. We find them as authors, artists, inventors and scholars in all lines. Only the most prominent can be named. Ludwig Boerne, formerly Loeb Baruch (1784-1837), is one of the classic essayists of German literature. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) is one of the greatest of lyric poets. Both Heine and Boerne became converted to Christianity. A classic author of village idyls is Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882). Among the greatest tragedians of the world are Eliza Rachel Felix (1821-1858), in her days the foremost actress on the French stage, and Adolf von Sonnenthal (1832-1909) considered the most prominent German actor of his time. Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) is one of the world’s best known composers. Moritz Oppenheimer (1800-1881) was a prominent painter, and his scenes from Jewish life possess, besides their value as works of art, great worth as historic scenes. Marcus Antokolsky (1842-1902) is one of the most famous sculptors, and Joseph Israels (born 1824) and Max Liebermann (born 1849) are among the greatest painters of our age. In the lines of science and scholarly work the names of prominent Jews are too numerous to mention.
The great change in the life of the Jews and their education brought about the necessity of harmonizing their religious practices with their new life. Thus the reform movement began. The forces which promoted it were æsthetic, political and dogmatic. In the first class may be reckoned the efforts of Israel Jacobson (1769-1828). Although not a professional scholar he was a man of considerable Jewish learning, and his object was to make the services of the synagogue more attractive to the younger generation. The synagogue established by him in connection with the school which he founded in Seesen in 1810 was the first that introduced some of the reforms which since have been generally accepted, namely, a sermon in the vernacular and decorum and modern music.
In 1818 the first reform congregation was established in Hamburg. It was followed in 1824 by a similar organization in Charleston, S. C.; this, however, was soon dissolved. These synagogues introduced a ritual different from the one which had up to this time been generally in use. The most important changes were those which eliminated the belief in the return of the Jews to Palestine and consequently also in the restoration of the sacrificial cult. These were followed by an attempt to present systematically the teachings of modern Judaism and to apply the principles of the modern critical school to the whole of Jewish life, particularly the observance of the dietary and marriage laws.
The desire to work in harmony led to the convocation of Rabbinic assemblies, the first of which was held in Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1844. As the exponent of the most radical views Samuel Holdheim (1806-1860) is to be mentioned. It was his idea that Judaism had lost all its former national significance. On this basis the reform congregation of Berlin, whose first rabbi Holdheim was, was established in 1845, introducing for the first time solemn services on Sunday.
The most prominent scientific exponent of the reform idea was Abraham Geiger (1810-1874), one of the most prominent workers in scientific Jewish literature. He stood for a more historic conception of the reform principle, although as a Bible critic his position was advanced. His views were shared by two of the leading rabbis of America, David Einhorn (1809-1879) and Samuel Hirsch (1815-1889). They, together with Samuel Adler (1809-1891), represented the progressive ideas of German theology in America.
In 1842 reform was definitely introduced in the synagogue of Charleston, S. C., following the example set by the foundation of the West London Synagogue of British Jews the year previously. In America, however, reform took strongest hold and soon was accepted by the leading congregations composed of the native and the naturalized element. The most prominent figure in the popularization of this movement in America was Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900).
A more conservative view, usually spoken of as that of historic Judaism, was represented by Zechariah Frankel (1801-1875). He stood for freedom of thought in theoretical matters but advocated conservatism in worship and practice. Another division was formed by those who stood uncompromisingly for the preservation of the traditional Jewish life based on a strict belief in the divine origin of the Bible and the authenticity of Rabbinic interpretation, differing from the old school only in so far as they admitted secular education. The chief exponent of this thought was Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888). In America his views were represented by Isaac Leeser (1806-1868) and Sabato Morais (1823-1897), while a compromising attitude was taken by Benjamin Szold (1829-1902) and Marcus Jastrow (1829-1903). The traditional view of Judaism in the sense in which it had generally existed until the latter half of the eighteenth century, was restricted to the Orient and Eastern Europe and to congregations formed by recent immigrants from these countries in Western Europe and America. As a literary champion of this uncompromising attitude Hillel Lichtenstein (1815-1891) deserves mention.
One of the features of modern Jewish development is the communal organization rendered possible by the freedom of movement in religious, charitable and political activities. The Alliance Israélite Universelle deserves for this the first place. It was founded for the purpose of defending the interests of the Jews in countries of oppression and promoting their economic and moral as well as their intellectual status. This organization was followed by others with similar objects, the Israelitische Allianz of Vienna, started in 1873, the Anglo-Jewish Association, founded in 1871, and the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, in 1901.
Of the many organizations confined to particular countries the Deutsch-Israelitischer Gemeinde-Bund, founded in 1869, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, established in 1873, deserve special mention. Very numerous are the societies created for the promotion of the welfare of the Jews, and aside from the local institutions, like hospitals, homes for the aged, orphan asylums and sanitariums, the societies for the promotion of mechanical trades and agriculture are distinctly a product of the Jewish conditions of the nineteenth century.
Of organizations having a wider scope, the Jewish Colonization Association founded by Baron Moritz de Hirsch in 1891, has the greatest capital. These schemes of colonization, to which the work done by the Zionist organizations and that contemplated by the Jewish Territorial Organization founded in 1905, have to be added, are as yet only in their infancy. In general, however, since the French Revolution there has been a steady progress of Jewish life in all directions.