The condition of the Jews in Germany, Prussia, and Austria, at the outset of the eighteenth century, was, if we may believe the historians of the time, an unusually wretched one. The accounts given by the eminent German Jew, J. M. Jost, of the sufferings of his countrymen at that period, cannot fail to move the reader’s compassion.[201] ‘They were,’ to use his own phrase, ‘a heap of suffering.’ Insult and wrong had, indeed, for many an age, been their portion—a fact to which every history of them that has been written bears melancholy witness. In many countries of Europe, however, the period succeeding the Reformation had brought some amelioration of their condition. But in the countries which we have now under consideration, the Jews had sunk, if it was possible, to a lower position than they had occupied before. Their miseries had, in truth, endured so long, that they had become almost insensible to them. The favourite German proverb, which was current for many centuries, may by itself serve to show the light in which they were regarded. ‘Happy is that town,’ was the saying, ‘in which there is neither a Jew, a tyrant, nor a leper.’
To begin with Prussia. We have seen how, in 1670, the Jews had been driven by Leopold I. out of Vienna, and had found a refuge in Prussia; which the humanity of Frederick William, who, on account of his wisdom and piety, obtained the popular title of ‘the Great Elector,’ had accorded them. His son, Frederick I., lay under obligations to Gompertz and Elias, two Jews who had been of great service to him in providing him with resources in carrying on the war in which he was engaged. When the Jews had been driven out of Austria, they employed these two men to plead their cause; and the result was, that a certain number of Jewish families were allowed to establish themselves in Berlin, Potsdam, and other cities of the Electoral State. From this permission the whole history of the Prussian Jews may be said to date. The action of the Elector produced considerable discontent among his subjects; but the Elector was firm, and a few years afterwards a special body of rules for the Jews of the electorate was drawn up and put in force. It was, on the whole, extremely favourable to them, though they were still excluded from all public offices, and freedom to worship according to their own creed was not allowed them. But soon afterwards, some Jews, who were the court jewellers, obtained permission to hold religious services in their own private houses. This was a step towards allowing a synagogue to be built, in which public worship was offered; but the ritual, we are told, underwent the strictest examination, to make sure that it did not contain anything insulting to Christianity. In 1712, the king prohibited, under severe penalties, the influx of wandering Jews into the country—a measure which, though it might seem to be unfriendly to the Jewish people, was in reality of the greatest benefit to the respectable portion of them. During Frederick William’s reign also, a splendid synagogue—the finest, it was said, in that day in all Germany—was built and opened under the royal sanction, notwithstanding the outcry that the concession provoked.
In 1717, King Frederick died, and was succeeded by Frederick William, the father and predecessor of Frederick the Great. He was a sovereign of the most despotic character, though neither cruel nor unjust. His characteristic qualities were displayed in his dealings with the Jews. He continued the privileges granted to them by his father—indeed, added some others. But, on the other hand, he imposed upon them some rather arbitrary burdens, which, however, savour more of eccentricity than harshness. Thus, if the king at his hunting parties killed more wild boars or stags than he could consume at his own table, the Jews were obliged to purchase what remained. It is said that the Jews, unable to eat up the venison themselves, made a present of it to the public hospitals. Again, on the occasion of any event of importance in a family, such as succession to an inheritance, the birth of an heir, the marriage of a son, etc., every Jew was obliged to make purchases to the amount of three hundred thalers at the royal porcelain factory. Towards the end of the century, during the reign of Frederick William II., they were released from this obligation on paying down the lump sum of four thousand thalers.
In 1740, Frederick William died, and his son, who bears in history the name of ‘the Great,’ succeeded to the throne. His dealings with the Jews were very peculiar. He had no predilection for them; indeed, whatever personal feeling he entertained for them was of an opposite character. The friend and pupil of Voltaire, he shared that philosopher’s prejudice against them. They were no friends of Christianity, to be sure; but they were the religious ancestors of the Christians, the strongest witnesses of the truth of the Gospel, and as such odious in his eyes. On the other hand, there was a grim sense of justice discernible even in his strange legislation respecting them; and, independently of this, he was shrewd enough to see that persecution of them was by no means a profitable policy. ‘No one ever got any good by injuring that nation,’ was his observation on one occasion. Indeed, his legislation seems to have been designed more for the purpose of preventing the increase of their numbers, than for exacting severe imposts or restricting their civil privileges. Thus, in 1750, the edict he issued for the regulation of the Jews in his dominions draws a strict distinction between the Jews that are tolerated by inheritance and those that are personally tolerated—where the toleration, that is to say, does not descend to the children of the person to whom it is granted. To the latter class belonged all those who were not directly engaged in trade, or did not hold any post or office in a synagogue. Among those who were tolerated by inheritance, the privilege of domicile descended to one child only. Subsequently, in consideration of the payment of seventy thousand thalers, the privilege was extended to a second child, though he could only enjoy it on producing evidence that he was in possession of a property of one thousand thalers. A foreign Jew could not settle in Prussia, unless he paid an exorbitant price for his admission. If the widow of a protected Jew married one who was not so protected, she was obliged to leave the country. Besides these burdens, and of course the ordinary taxes paid by all the king’s subjects, there were several imposts. There was a patent of protection whenever a child was born, a tax upon every marriage, and upon the election of every elder of a synagogue. The Jew was also excluded from all civil offices, from agriculture, from keeping an inn, a brewery, or a distillery, from setting up a manufactory of any kind, or from practising the profession of a physician or a surgeon. All Jewish servants who wished to marry were obliged to leave the country. Finally, the Jews were interdicted from acquiring house property, unless they had the express permission of the king. In no case could a Jew possess more than forty houses.
In 1786, Frederick William II., the nephew of Frederick the Great, succeeded to his uncle’s throne. He was a wise and merciful sovereign, and he endeavoured to ameliorate the condition of the Jews, partly by mitigating the rigour of existing laws, partly by enacting new ones. Since his time, the state of things has gradually but surely improved. But the legislation of those times, as an intelligent writer has remarked, ‘bears the stamp of the fearfully degraded state of the Jewish population, and of the oppressive, exclusive, and repressive measures which were thought needful to the interests of that portion of the community.’[202]
The position of the Jews in the Austrian dominions, in the early part of the eighteenth century, was no better than in Prussia. The Emperor Charles VII. entertained a dislike to them, which induced him to listen readily to any enemy who traduced them. The same was the case to perhaps a greater extent with the Empress Maria Theresa, his daughter. A few years after her accession she decreed the banishment of all the Jews in her dominions, amounting, it is believed, to two hundred thousand persons. A considerable number did take their departure; and the rest would have had to follow, if the intercession of the English and Dutch Governments had not induced her to forego her purpose. Subsequently she relaxed the severity of her dealings with them. She not only permitted their residence, but allowed them to follow certain trades, as, for example, dealing in jewels, or opening shops as money-changers or manufacturers. They were permitted to carry on their services in their synagogues, though they were strictly confined to their houses on Sundays, especially during the hours when Christian worship was going on.
When Joseph II. came into full possession of the imperial power, by the death of his mother in 1780, one of his first acts was to publish an edict of toleration, by which the status of the Jews was greatly improved. All the old prohibitive regulations were annulled. The Jews were at liberty to take up their abode in any town throughout the Austrian dominions, and in the country also—though, in that case, they were required to seek the Emperor’s permission. He also opened to them the schools and universities throughout the empire, allowing them to take degrees as doctors in medicine, civil law, and moral philosophy; but he obliged them to open elementary schools of their own for the preparation of their children to enter those belonging to the State. He allowed them to follow any trade they fancied, with the single exception of the manufacture of gunpowder. They were free also to attend the public markets and fairs throughout the country, to wear what apparel they pleased, to occupy any house in any quarter of the towns, and use the public promenades as freely as the other inhabitants. They might also enter the army—indeed, after a while, they became liable to the conscription—and might be made non-commissioned officers; but as, according to the military code of Austria, none can hold commissions who are not of noble blood, they could rise no higher. Lastly, their children were protected against proselytism, it being unlawful to attempt inducing them to change their religion until they had passed their fourteenth year. This edict may be regarded as marking a new era in Jewish history; and whatever amelioration may have taken place in European legislation, so far as they are concerned, in reality dates from it.
In 1781 Councillor Dohm published his famous treatise ‘on the amendment of the political position of the Jews.’ This writer upholds the principle of bestowing liberty and equality of rights on the Jews, of their free admission to schools and colleges belonging to the State, of their unfettered practice of trades and professions, and even of their participation in public offices of trust. But he contends that the authority of the Rabbins over their congregations, their infliction of discipline, and, under some circumstances, of excommunication, must be upheld by the State. The publication of the work excited a good deal of angry feeling among the German Jews. The renowned Moses Mendelssohn, of whom we shall speak in the next chapter, published a letter respecting it, in which he denounced the spiritual tyranny of the Rabbins in indignant language, which had a very wide and important effect on his countrymen.
In Russia, during this century, the position of the Jews was fully as miserable as in any European country. It has been already pointed out, that by the strict law of the land their presence was not permitted at all. And in Muscovy proper the exclusion was enforced with stern inflexibility. Under Peter the Great a few Jews were admitted into other portions of his dominions, the Czar having declared—so at least popular rumour affirms—that ‘he did not fear the presence of any Jews, for his Russians were a match for the craftiest among them.’ But during the reign of Elizabeth (A.D. 1545) their residence in Russia was again proscribed. They had contrived to secure the property of certain Siberian exiles, and invested it in foreign countries. Later in the century the policy of the emperors towards the Jews seems to have been to drive them out of the towns into the rural districts, with the idea, so often entertained by one theorist or another, of inducing them to discard commerce for agriculture. In the Ukraine, and there only, apparently, they have adopted that mode of life.[203]
Of the Jews in Poland, which for many ages has been the country in all Europe where the Hebrew race has found the most secure home and the most hospitable treatment, we have not yet spoken. Their history, during the eighteenth century, is mainly the history of religious adventurers and rival sects. It will be better to consider these in a separate chapter.