* It deserves to be noted that the ceremony of confirmation
among the Jews took its origin in the schools of Seesen,
Frankfort-on-the-Main, etc. Indeed, the first Reformed
congregations were formed by natural accretion about these
schools. The influence of schools in giving character and
stability to new religious movements is a subject of
sufficient importance to deserve separate treatment.
The propriety of exacting a formal confession of faith, however, has been hotly disputed both by the orthodox and the more advanced liberals. It is urged that Judaism is a practical, rather than a dogmatical religion. Even the existence of a God is rather presupposed as a fact than asserted as a matter of belief. Apart from this it is claimed that a child at thirteen can hardly be prepared to comprehend the fundamental questions of religion, much less to express convictions on problems so grave and difficult. The age of reflection and consequently of doubt is yet to come, nor can any child on the day of its confirmation answer for its convictions ten years thereafter.
The progress of the Reform movement was thus of a character to awaken distrust and fierce contention at every step. The conservative party were enraged at what they considered unwarrantable encroachments upon the traditions of an immemorial past. The radicals were dissatisfied with the lack of substance and vitality in the teachings of the Reformers, the shallow moralizing tone of their preachers, the superficial views of Judaism which they scattered among the multitude.
It may indeed be asked how could better things have been expected at that time. The great facts of Jewish history were not yet clearly known, the philosophy of Judaism was proportionately vague and uncertain. No Jewish author had ever undertaken to write out the annals of his people; chaotic confusion reigned in their chronicles. To know what Judaism might be it seemed necessary to ascertain in the first instance what it had been; the past would prove the index of the future. Untoward events that happened at this period gave a powerful impulse to historical research, and led to fruitful investigations in the domain of Judaism.
"HEP-HEP."
The great battles of 1813 and 1815, in which the German people regained their independence, effected a marvellous change in the spirits and sentiments of the nation.
Accustomed for a long time to endure in silence the insults and arrogance of a foreign despot, they had learned to despair of themselves; a deadly lethargy held their energies in bondage and in the fairy visions of poetry and the daring dreams of metaphysical speculation they sought consolation for the pains and burdens of reality. The victories of Leipsic and Waterloo completely altered the tone of their feelings. It is a not uncommon fact that individuals usually the reverse of self-asserting exhibit, on occasions, an overweening self-consciousness, which is all the more pointed and aggressive because of their secret and habitual self-distrust. We note with curious interest the recurrence of the same obnoxious trait in the life of a great nation. The novel sense of power intoxicated them, the German mind for the moment lost its poise; Romanticism flourished, the violence of the Middle Ages was mistaken for manhood, and held up to the emulation of the present generation. Whatever was German was therefore esteemed good; whatever was foreign was therefore despised, or at best ignored.
The Jews were made to feel the sharp sting of this feverish vanity; their Asiatic origin was cast up against them, though it might have been supposed that a residence of fifteen centuries had given them some claim to dwell at peace with the children of the soil. In the year 1819 the assassination of Kotzebue added fresh fuel to the fervor of Teutonic passion. In August of that year a professor of Wurzburg, who had written in defence of the Jews, was publicly insulted by the students. A tumult ensued, the cry "Hep-Hep"* arose on every side, and "Death to the Jews" was the watchword. On the next day the magistrate ordered them to leave Wurzburg, and four hundred in number they were driven beyond the city's limits. Similar excesses occurred in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Meiningen, Carlsruhe, and elsewhere. Inflammatory pamphlets contributed to increase the excitement.
* "Hep-Hep" has been explained as an abbreviation of the
words "Hierosolyma est perdita" (Jerusalem is perished).
Probably it is no more than one of those meaningless
exclamations which are not infrequent in college jargon.