The history of the Jews

by Gotthard Deutsch

INTELLECTUAL AND LITERARY LIFE

The Reformation was promoted by the Renaissance, essentially a critical examination of traditional views. While this movement had not a very deep influence on the Jews, it did not pass entirely unnoticed. Elijah Mizrahi, Chief Rabbi of Constantinople (1455-1525), took notice of the Copernican system, and in his supercommentary on Rashi, tried to harmonize this modern conception of the cosmos with Rabbinic statements. He also wrote a text-book of arithmetic, a commentary on Euclid’s elements, an astronomical book, besides various Talmudic works.

More evident is the influence on Elijah Levita, born in Neustadt-an-der-Aisch, Bavaria, 1468, died in Venice, 1549. Elijah Levita was a teacher of many prominent Christian theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, then very much interested in the study of Hebrew. He wrote various works on Hebrew grammar, among them “Bahur” (1518), a glossary of Rabbinic words, “Tishbi” (1541), and a book on the Massorah, “Massoret ha-Massoret” (1548), in which he laid down the bold and since that time generally-accepted theory that the vowel points and accents were not invented until the eighth century. He was also a writer of popular works, translated the Psalms into Judæo-German and published the Bobo book, a translation of an Italian romance based on the English story of “Sir Bevis of Hampton,” underlying Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (1540).

Another exponent of the Renaissance was Azariah dei Rossi of Ferrara (1511-1578), who in his work, “Meor Enayim,” a collection of critical essays, defended the theory that the Talmudic writings are not authoritative on matters of history and science, but merely on Rabbinic law. Joseph Solomo del Medigo, born in Crete, 1591, died at Prague, 1655, was an ambiguous character and adventurer, a wanderer during most of his life. In his work, “Elim” (1629), he had the courage to criticize Rabbinic theology, and especially the Kabbala. Leon Modena of Venice (1571-1648), who was a very prolific author, went still further, attacking the Rabbinic law as in many instances incongruous with the Bible, and recommending a change of the religious practices. In the works which he published he merely indicated his liberal ideas; he clearly stated them in works that remained unpublished for two centuries.

In Italy, where secular education was not held in such abhorrence as was the case in Northern Europe, in the seventeenth century two women wrote Italian poetry and made translations from Hebrew. These are Deborah Ascarelli and Sarah Copia Sullam. An attempt to rationalize Talmudic passages was made as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century. Jacob ibn Habib, who was among the exiles from Spain, settled in Constantinople, and collected the Haggadic passages of the Talmud, with the intention of publishing them with an apologetic commentary. He died in 1516 after having finished only part of his work; it was edited after his death by his son. It is even now, as “En Jacob,” a very popular book for the study of Talmudic ethics.

While on one side there was a liberal tendency noticeable in Rabbinic Judaism, on the other a consolidation of the Rabbinic legalism and a progress of mysticism were noticeable. Joseph Caro (1488-1575), a native of Spain who toward the end of his life lived in Safed, Palestine, compiled a brief compendium of the Rabbinic law, “Shulhan Aruk.” It was printed during the author’s lifetime in Venice in 1564, and often reprinted afterwards. The author followed the arrangement of Jacob ben Asher, but otherwise is quite independent. It was his object to give the whole Rabbinic law in one volume, without showing its development and without regard to different opinions. He prepared himself for his work by writing exhaustive commentaries on the codes of Maimonides and Jacob ben Asher. During his lifetime the book was annotated by Moses Isserls of Cracow (1520-1572), who called his notes “Mappah” (tablecloth). It was his object to lay down the practice of the German Jews, neglected by Joseph Caro as a rule. This codification was strongly attacked by some of the more liberal rabbis of the time. Solomon Luria (1500-1573), rabbi of Lublin, but of German descent, took a more critical view of the old sources, although apart from legal decisions he proclaimed his absolute faith in traditions and condemned the liberal tendencies of Abraham ibn Esra and Maimonides.

A strong opponent of Azariah Dei Rossi was Loewe Ben Bezalel (1530-1609), rabbi of Posen and Prague and the hero of many legends. He maintained the absolute belief in Rabbinic authority in every respect. In spite of occasional opposition the “Shulhan Aruk” soon attained general popularity and was considered an authoritative book, to which many prominent rabbis, as Abraham Gombiner, Sabbatai Cohen and David Halevi added their glosses. These were in the later editions added to the “Shulhan Aruk,” the authority of which is indicated by the fact that the glossaries are called “Aharonim” (epigones).

The sufferings which Jews had to endure during the fifteenth century and of which the expulsion from Spain and Portugal was the culmination, were the cause of a strengthening of mysticism. Particularly in Palestine, to which quite a number of Spanish Jews were drawn by Messianic hopes, such a center was formed. In Safed, where Joseph Caro wrote his “Shulhan Aruk,” a number of disciples gathered around Isaac Luria, who preached a religion based on the belief in the mysterious. He did not write, but numerous disciples put his ideas in writing. Among them were Hayyim Vital, who was considered a worker of miracles, and Elijah de Vidas, whose work, “The Beginning of Wisdom,” became a favorite book for edification. Another Kabbalistic author of the same circle was Solomon Halevi Alkabez, best known by his popular Sabbath hymn, “Lekah Dodi,” which also has a Kabbalistic tendency.

German Jews came to Palestine to join the circle of mystics. One was Isaiah Horowitz (1550-1630), who had been rabbi of Frankfort-on-the-Main and Prague. Of his works a large Kabbalistic compendium, “The Two Tablets of the Covenant” (Shelah), became very popular. Abstracts of it were made and translated into Judæo-German. Even in Italy, where secular culture was far more general among Jews than in any other country in Europe, Kabbala had a strong hold on the people. A great enthusiast for the doctrine of mysticism was Moses Hayyim Luzzatto (1707-1747), who wrote allegorical dramas in Hebrew, one of which, “Praise to the Righteous,” is a masterpiece of modern Hebrew literature. His ethical treatise, “The Path of the Righteous,” is also deservedly popular. He went to Palestine hoping to receive prophetic inspiration there, and died at the age of forty of the plague.

Talmudic literature monopolized the activities of the German and Polish Jews, the latter being considered the leaders in this line and filling most of the Rabbinic positions in Western Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among the most prominent dialecticians may be mentioned Jacob Joshua of Lemberg (1680-1756), rabbi of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Aryeh Loeb of Minsk, rabbi of Metz (1700-1786), Ezekiel Landau (1713-1793), rabbi of Prague, and Jonathan Eybeschuetz (1690-1764), rabbi of Metz and Altona, whose works show the highest development in this branch. Already in the eighteenth century a sounder development of Rabbinic studies, showing the beginnings of criticism and an interest in historical and archæological questions, began.

Among those who led to the scientific presentation of Rabbinic literature in modern times are to be mentioned Jair Hayyim Bacharach (1634-1702), rabbi of Worms, of whose works very little has been preserved but who was interested in the scientific presentation of Rabbinic theology as the theory of oral tradition, and Jacob Emden (1696-1776), the bitter opponent of Jonathan Eybeschuetz, who gathered historical material on Sabbatai Zebi, and the mystics who followed him and had the boldness, although a believer in Kabbala, to state that the Zohar, as we possess it, is not the work of Simeon ben Johai. An emancipation from the strict Rabbinic dialectics by better attention to correct Rabbinic texts and to the study of philological and archæological questions is found in the works of Joseph Steinhart (1706-1776), rabbi of Fuerth, Isaiah Pick (1720-1799), and Elijah of Wilna (1720-1797).

The sufferings of the Jews in Spain stimulated interest in historical literature and various authors, chiefly prompted by a desire to keep up the courage of the Jews in the midst of persecutions, wrote historical works. Among them may be mentioned Gedaliah ibn Yahya, an Italian who wrote the “Chain of Tradition,” Solomon ibn Verga, a Spaniard who emigrated to Turkey and wrote “Shebet Jehudah,” Joseph Cohen of Avignon, who wrote “The Valley of Weeping,” and Samuel Usque, who wrote a work in Portuguese called “Consolations in Tribulation,” all of the sixteenth century. Somewhat later David Gans (died at Prague in 1617) wrote a dry compilation of events in Jewish and general history under the title “Zemah David.”

To the seventeenth century belongs the Oriental, David Conforte, his “Kore Hadorot” being chiefly valued for its accounts of Rabbinic literature in the Orient. Jehiel Heilprin of Minsk, eighteenth century, wrote a history in the style of a chronicle, beginning with Creation. It shows a naive belief in the historicity of the Midrash but is very valuable by reason of its collection of historic passages from Rabbinic literature. Secular education was slowly beginning to find its way among the Jews. Quite a number of German Jews studied medicine in Italy, chiefly from a practical point of view. Tobias Cohen of Metz (1652-1729) studied in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, being supported by the Elector of Brandenburg. In his later years he lived in the Orient, where he wrote a compilation on various scientific subjects, “Maaseh Tobiyah.” In this he shows sound knowledge of medicine.

CHAPTER VIII
THE PERIOD OF EMANCIPATION FROM 1791.

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.