The Progress of the Century

by Unknown

EMANCIPATION OF THE JEWS

The struggle of the Jews in the various European countries for civil rights and for equality before the law was long drawn out, and was marked by varying fortunes dependent upon the political conditions of these countries. More than seventy years of the century had passed before this struggle had been fought out. Though it is true that a beginning was made in Germany and Austria (1750 and 1781), to France belongs the honor of having been the first to really do away with the mass of anti-Jewish legislation which the centuries preceding had piled up. On the 27th of September, 1791, the National Assembly at one stroke removed all the disabilities under which the Jews had been living—distinctive dress, special Jew’s oath, Jew’s tax, forced residence in certain localities, etc. From France, and under the influence which that country then exercised, the emancipation of the Jews spread to Belgium and Holland, and to some of the states of Germany; but the rest of Europe was not yet ready for this emancipation. The reaction which marks the period between 1814 and 1848 made itself felt upon the Jews, restoring, in many places, the disabilities under which they had formerly lived. The “Judengassen” became once more inhabited, and the principles of freedom and liberty for all members of the state seemed to have been wellnigh forgotten. The Revolution of 1830 stayed the downward course in some of the German states; but it was not until 1848 that the second great period in Jewish emancipation came about. In the breaking down of old institutions it was natural that the exceptional laws against the Jews should go also. The German Parliament of 1848, at Frankfort, forcefully proclaimed the doctrine of religious liberty; and of this parliament a Jew, Gabriel Riesser, was vice-president. But it was not until the formation of the German Empire, in 1871, that the emancipation of the Jews, which had gradually made its way in the various states, was carried through for the whole of that empire. In 1867, a decree was issued in Austria by virtue of which all citizens were declared equal before the law, and in 1870 the walls of the Ghetto fell in Rome. In 1874, Jews were admitted to the rank of citizens in Switzerland. In 1878, the Congress of Berlin, the leading spirit of which (Disraeli) was of the Jewish race, demanded equal rights for the Jews living in the Balkan Peninsula. These rights were accorded by the various states there, with the exception of Roumania; which, in spite of the treaty and in spite of the promises made at the time, still continues to refuse to allow the Jews living within its borders to become citizens or to treat them as an integral part of the population. In Turkey the laws which put certain restrictions upon non-Mohammedan citizens were sensibly changed in 1839; so that the Jews living in the dominions of the Sultan suffer from no exceptional legislation.

The cause of Jewish emancipation in England suffered no such sudden changes as it did on the continent. It proceeded by regular stages through the abrogation of the Act of Test in 1828, the admission of Jews as citizens of London in 1830, as sheriffs in 1835, as magistrates in 1845, and in 1858 as members of Parliament by the removal of the words “upon the faith of a Christian” in the oath taken by the members. There can be no doubt that the emancipation in England, though long drawn out and fiercely contested, was more effective than anywhere else, owing to the fact that it was progressive in character and based upon the idea of rights demanded and not upon that of favors granted. Nothing was asked of the Jews in England other than that they be good citizens of the state; while the whole continental legislation regarding them, from the time of Napoleon on, had on the part of the legislators only one object in view—to break up the cohesion of the Jews as a body and to pave the way for their disappearance as a distinctive group. The idea that emancipation was a favor and not a right brought it about that the Jews themselves aided in their own disintegration. They believed that it was their duty to show themselves more patriotic than were the other citizens of the state in which they lived, as they were receiving greater favors. And so, even though Jews have sat in the parliaments of various continental states, they have with few exceptions steadfastly refused to acknowledge themselves to be in any way representatives of their brethren, and in some cases (notably in France) during the last few years have either remained supinely indifferent when Jewish questions were before their several parliaments, or have even aided those whose agitation was directed against their fellow-Jews. In England, on the contrary, the Jewish members of Parliament have never forgotten that, in addition to their interests as citizens of England, they have a duty to perform to the Jews, whom they also represent, and they have therefore been able, while giving their best services to the state, to be also useful to their co-religionists. It may be due to this cause that the emancipation of Jews on the continent has in no way been able to stem the recrudescence of anti-Semitism; while it has undoubtedly done this in England. The opposite effect is most clearly seen in Algiers, where the wholesale emancipation of the Jews in 1870, through the efforts of Crémieux, that bold champion of his people, has in a large measure contributed to make the riots possible which have in late years been witnessed in that French colony. Neither the population of Algeria nor the Jews there were at that time ready for such a measure; it did not therefore come as the result of a development among the people, but as something imposed upon them by the government.

In addition to Roumania, Russia is practically the only country which has refused to enter the European concert, and which by means of laws and ordinances represents still the dark period of the Middle Ages. It has turned the provinces on its western borders into a tremendous Ghetto, and driven the Jews to exile by making life within that pale practically impossible. Even Portugal in 1821, and Spain in 1868 (the two countries from which the Jews had been banished for a great number of years), opened their doors to them once more; though few Jews have ventured to return to the Peninsula, despite the fact that in 1886 a committee was formed in Madrid for the promotion of Jewish immigration into Spain.