"Not only must the Jews again be enclosed in a Ghetto, and be placed under continual police supervision; not only should they be compelled to wear a patch of noticeable color upon their coat sleeves, but in order to prevent their increase, the second male child of each Jew should be castrated."
Protestant theology and German philosophy proposed regulations against the Jews unrivaled by the canonical decrees of Popes Innocent III and Paul IV.
In Breslau appeared similar libels which inflamed the hatred of the populace against the Jews. Even the well-meaning writings composed in their defense by Christians, such as Kosmann and Ramson—"A Word to the Impartial"—admitted the low character of the Jews, and seemed to imply that in every way it would be better for Christians if there were no Jews among them; but seeing that the evil existed, it must be endured. The honor of the Germans was partly redeemed by a man who belonged to the olden time, Freiherr von Diebitsch, once a major in the Russian service, to whom love of mankind was no empty phrase. He warmly defended the Jews against the venomous attacks of Grattenauer and his malicious allies (1803 and 1804), and thereby laid himself open to the charge of having been bribed. In view of the general prejudice against the Jewish race, he was prepared to see himself "caricatured, and represented as riding upon a sow or an ass." His kindly but pedantic pamphlets in defense of the Jews were not sufficient to close the mouths of their opponents.
Equally inadequate and fruitless were the attempts at vindication made by Jewish writers outside of Berlin, who found it necessary to lift their voice in opposition to the general outcry against their people.
Two Jews, one from Königsberg, the other from Hamburg, hit upon an excellent plan. Both recognized that the Jew hatred of the Germans could not be refuted by solid and weighty arguments, but might be silenced by ridicule. They were the forerunners of Börne and Heine, one being an unknown physician, the other writing anonymously (Lefrank). The former, in a satirical pamphlet written under the name of Dominicus Haman Epiphanes, expressed the opinion that unless all Jews were speedily massacred, and all Jewesses sold as slaves, the world, Christianity, and all states, must necessarily perish. Mankind would benefit enormously by the sale of the Jews: all immorality would thereby at once diminish, and the immortal Grattenauer, who had originated the glorious idea and had disseminated his noble abhorrence of the Jews, would everywhere be acknowledged a benefactor of mankind, and be deservedly commemorated by temples and monuments.
The other satirist, Lefrank, called his work "Bellerophon," (or the defeated Grattenauer). He wished to kill the chimerical monster "Jew hatred" in Grattenauer by mounting Pegasus. He addressed the Jew-baiter with the scornful "thou."
"Thou who hast grafted with so much success jurisprudence upon theology, thou who didst lick salt in Halle—not indeed Attic salt—thou who hast studied ignorance and stupidity under the great Semler, if thou art so proud of thy Christianity, that with contempt thou dost look down upon Jews, then pray let me ask thee why thy prisons are crammed with criminals condemned upon charges of high treason, murder, poisoning, robbery, and adultery? First remove from thy midst the scaffold, the gallows, the rack, the scourge, and all the ghastly instruments of torture and death, not one of which was invented by Jews. Divest thyself of the demon, and then wilt thou pity a people condemned to engage in traffic against its will, and accused because it does traffic. Deceit is said to be a widespread vice among Jews. Thy Christian tailor robs thee, thy bootmaker gives thee bad leather, thy grocer false measure and weight, thy baker despite prosperous harvests undersized loaves. Thy wine is adulterated, thy man-servant and thy maid-servant combine to cheat thee. Thou thyself—in the innocence of thy heart—offerest for sale wretched lies and spiteful malice written upon blotting-paper, for six farthings, which are not worth six pins, and thou darest assert that fraud is peculiar to Jews. See whether among all the bankruptcies now occurring in London and Paris there is a single Jewish failure." "Thou dost foolishly repeat the silly prattle of the great Fichte, when thou dost remark that the Jews constitute a state within the state. Thou canst not forgive the Jews the crime of speaking correct German, of dressing more respectably, and often judging more justly than thou. They no longer wear beards, which thou canst pull; they no longer speak gibberish, which thou mightest mimic.... The Jew for over twenty years has striven to approach the Christian, but how has he been received? How many alterations has he made in his canonical laws to be able to join you; but from pure humanity ye turn your backs upon him.... Yet thy pamphlet appears to me to be a good omen. The average man believes that winter can be parted from summer only by terrible thunder and hail-storms. Thus is it with thee. Persecution, fanaticism, and superstition are at their last gasp, and by mighty raging make their final effort through thee, before their spirit becomes entirely quenched."
The self-confidence manifested by Lefrank was the surest sign of the ultimate victory of the Jews.
Under existing conditions, in view of the fact that the Jews were apt to underrate and despise their own power, the hope of emancipation was deceptive. In Protestant as well as in Catholic countries, in Prussia as well as in Austria, the people were even more blindly opposed to them than their princes. That an Austrian voice might not be wanting in the chorus of Jew-baiters, a German-Austrian official, named Joseph Rohrer (1804), wrote against the "Jew people." He drew a dreadful picture, especially of the Jews of Galicia, without hinting that the Galician peasants were in a still lower state, and that the nobility was more degenerate than either class. Paalzow, Grattenauer, Buchholz, Rohrer, and their allies succeeded in their design. The idea of the emancipation of the Jews in Germany could not yet be entertained. With all his zeal, Breidenbach could not effect the abolition of the capitation-tax in all places. It still remained in force, a sad reminder and disgrace, in certain German provinces. Cannon had to be brought into the field to destroy these putrefying, deeply implanted prejudices.
A ray of light from the sun of freedom shining on the Jews of France penetrated even to Russia. The heart of Emperor Alexander I was filled with mercy towards the numberless Jews dwelling in his kingdom. He appointed a commission to consider a proposal for improving their condition. But a Russian commission takes time over its work, and after two years' careful consideration of the interests of Christians, and of the most effectual way of benefiting the Israelites, an ukase was at length published in 1804. By this law, farmers, manufacturers, artisans, those who had acquired a university education, or who had visited the upper or lower schools, were exempt from the exceptional laws against Jews. To wean them from using the jargon, special privileges were granted to those who would learn one of three languages—Russian, Polish, or German. The culture of the Jews within his kingdom was desired by Alexander, who hoped that another Mendelssohn would spring from their midst. Attendance at schools was not enforced; it therefore depended on the Jewish community to support boys' schools (Chedarim) as best they could. Nor could it be otherwise amongst the millions of serfs in Russia, not one of whom was permitted to visit a school.