* In the year 1840 it was simultaneously renewed in Rhenish
Prussia, on the Isle of Rhodos, and in the city of Damascus.
In that city the most respected members of the Jewish
community were arrested, with the assistance of the French
Consul, Ratti Menton, and underwent cruel torture. The
intense excitement caused throughout Europe at the time is,
doubtless, still fresh in the memory of many who will read
these pages. The utter falsity of the charge was at last
exposed, thanks to the efforts of the Austrian Consul
Merlato and the energetic action of Lord Palmerston.
** Graetz, Gesch. der Juden, X. p. 78.
The theory propounded by the Church and acted out by the temporal rulers of the Middle Ages is expressed in the words of Innocent III., "Quos propria culpa submisit perpetuae servituti, quum Dominum crucifixerint—pietas Christiana receptet et sus-tineat cohabitationem illorum."*
By the crucifixion of Jesus the Jews had forfeited for themselves and their posterity the right to exist in Christian states. They lived on sufferance merely. In the feudal system there was no room for them. They were aliens, were regarded as the property of the Emperor, and he was free to deal with them as suited his convenience. Hence the name servi camera—servants of the imperial chamber—was applied to them. They could be sold, purchased, given away at pleasure. Charles IV. presented "the persons and property of his Jews" to the city of Worms. In a schedule of toll-dues dating from the year 1398 we read: "a horse pays two shillings, a Jew six shillings, an ox two heller."** They were compelled to wear a badge of shame upon their garments;*** were confined to narrow and filthy quarters,—-ghetto, juderia,—debarred from all honorable employments. The schools and universities were closed against them. The guilds shut them out from the various trades. To gain the means of subsistence nothing remained for them but to engage in the petty traffic of the peddler or the disreputable business of the money-lender. They had absolutely no choice in the matter. The laws of Moses certainly discountenance the lending of money at interest. The authorities of the Talmud severely condemn the practice of usury, and refuse to admit the testimony of usurers in courts of law.****
* Cassel, art. Juden, p. 83, in Ersch und Gruber; vide also
p. 85, "ad perpetuam Judaici sceleris ultionem eisdem
Judaeis induxerit perpetuam servitutem."
** Ibid, p. 91
*** The signum circulate was borrowed from Islam. It has
been ingeniously conjectured that the circular form was
selected in contradistinction to the sign of the crescent.
Ibid, p. 75.
**** Mishna Sanhedrin, III. 3.
But all scruples on the part of the Jews had now to be set aside. Gold they must have, and in abundance. It was the only means of buying their peace. The taxes levied by the imperial chamber were enormous.* The cities, the baronial lords, in whose territory they took refuge, constantly imposed new burdens as the price of toleration. The Jews have often been held up to contempt for their avarice and rapacity. The reproach is unjust. It reminds one of the ancient Philistines, who, having shorn the Hebrew of his strength and blinded him, called him with jeers from his prison-house to exhibit him to the popular gaze and to make sport of his infirmity.
Under these circumstances the conservatism of the Jews in matters of religion can no longer astonish us. Rejected by the world, they lived in a world of their own. They had inherited from their ancestors an extended code of ceremonial observances, dietary laws, and minute and manifold directions for the conduct of life. In these they beheld the bulwark of their religion, the common bond that united the scattered members of their race. The Jew of Persia or Palestine could come among his German brethren, and hear the same prayers expressed in the same language, and recognize the same customs as were current among his co-religionists in the East. The passwords of the faith were everywhere understood. To preserve complete unanimity with respect to religious usage was a measure dictated by the commanding instinct of self-preservation. The Jews of all countries were furthermore united by the common yearnings with which they looked back to the past, and their common hope of ultimate restoration to the heritage of the promised land.**
* A general tax paid in recognition of the Emperor's
protection; the Temple tax claimed by the Holy Roman
Emperor in his capacity as the successor of Vespasian; the
so-called aurum coronarium, or coronation tax, by virtue
of which every new emperor, upon his accession to the
throne, could confiscate the third part of the property of
the Jews. Besides these, extraordinary levies were
frequent.
** On the eve of the 9th of the fifth month it was customary
at Jerusalem to announce the number of years that had
elapsed since the fall of the Temple. Zunz, Die Ritus, p.
84.
However prolonged their abode in the land of the stranger might be, they never regarded it otherwise than in the light of a temporary sojourn, and Palestine remained their true fatherland, "If I forget thee, Jerusalem, wither my right hand," was sung as plaintively on the banks of the Danube and the Rhine as it had resounded of old by Babel's streams. The Jewish people walked through history as in a dream, their eyes fixed on Zion's vanished glories. Empires fell; wars devastated the earth; new manners, new modes of life, arose around them. What was all this toil and turmoil of the nations to them! They were not admitted to the fellowship of mankind, they preserved their iron stability, they alone remained changeless. So long as the world maintained its hostile attitude toward them, there was little likelihood that they would abandon their time-honored traditions. But toward the close of the last century the first tokens of political, social, and spiritual regeneration began to appear among the despondent people of the Hebrews. The spirit of the Reformation, which had slumbered so long, awoke to new vitality. The voice of love rebuked the selfishness of creeds; Philosophy in the person of Kant emphasized the duties of man to man; Poetry sent its warm breath through the German land, and with its sweet strains instilled broad, humanitarian doctrine into the hearts of men. Lessing celebrated the virtues of his friend, Moses Mendelssohn, in "Nathan the Wise," and in the parable of the rings showed how the true religion is to be sought and found. The Royal Academy at Berlin nominated the same Mendelssohn for membership in its body. Jewish scholars were received with distinction in the Austrian and Prussian capitals. Eminent statesmen and writers began to exert themselves to remove the foul blot that had so long stained the conduct of the Christian states in their dealings with the Jews. In France the great Revolution was rapidly sweeping away the accumulated wrongs of centuries. When the emancipation of the Jews came up for discussion in the Convention, the ablest speakers rose in their behalf. The Abbe Gregoire exclaimed: "A new century is about to open. May its portals be wreathed with the palm of humanity!" Mirabeau lent his mighty eloquence to their cause. "I will not speak of tolerance," he said; "the freedom of conscience is a right so sacred that even the name of tolerance involves a species of tyranny."*
*Vide the account of the debates in the official Moniteur.
On the 28th September, 1791, the National Convention decreed the equality of the Israelites of France with their Christian fellow-citizens. The waves of the Revolution, however, overflowed the borders of France, and the agitation they caused was quickly communicated to all Germany. Wherever the armies of the Republic penetrated, the gates of the ghettos were thrown open, and in the name of Fraternity, Liberty and Equality were announced to their inhabitants. When Napoleonic misrule at last exasperated Germany into resistance, the seeds which French influence had sown had already taken firm root in the German soil. On the 11th March, 1812, Frederick William III. issued his famous edict, removing the main disabilities from which the Jews of his dominions had suffered, granting them the rights and imposing upon them the honorable duties of citizenship. They were no longer to be classed as foreigners. The state claimed them as its children, and exacted of them the same sacrifices as all its sons were called upon to bring in the troublous times that soon followed. With what eager alacrity the Jews responded to the king's call the records of the German wars for independence amply testify. On the battlefields of Leipzig and Waterloo they stood side by side with their Christian brethren. Many sons and fathers of Jewish households yielded their lives in the country's defence. In the blood of the fallen the new covenant of equal justice was sealed for all time to come. However prejudice might still dog their footsteps, however shamefully the government might violate its solemn pledges to the Jewish soldiers on their return from the wars, the Jews of Germany had now gained what they could no more lose. They felt that the land for which they had adventured their all, in whose behalf they had lost so much, was indeed their fatherland. For the first time, after many, many centuries, the fugitives had gained a home, a country. They awoke as from a long sleep. They found the world greatly changed around them; vast problems engaging the attention of thinkers, science and philosophy everywhere shedding new light upon the path of mankind. They were eager to approve themselves worthy and loyal citizens, eager to join in the general work of progress. They dwelt no more with anxious preference on the past. The present and the future demanded their exertions, and the motives that had so long compelled their exclusion from the fellowship of the Gentiles were gradually disappearing. As their religion was mainly retrospective in character and exclusive in tendency, great changes were needed to bring it into harmony with the altered condition of affairs. These changes were accordingly attempted, and their history is the history of Jewish Reform.