CHAPTER XII.
THE JEWISH-FRENCH SYNHEDRION AND THE JEWISH CONSISTORIES.
Jew-Hatred in Strasburg—Bonald's Accusations—Plots against French Jews—Furtado—David Sinzheim—Assembly of Notables—Italian Deputies—The Twelve Questions—Debate on Mixed Marriages—The Paris Synhedrion—Its Constitution—Napoleon's Enactments—Israel Jacobson—Consistory of Westphalia—Emancipation in Germany—In the Hanse-Towns—Restrictions in Saxony.
1806–1813 C. E.
Since the days of the Romans, the world had not witnessed such sudden changes and catastrophes as in the beginning of this century, when a new Empire was founded with the intention of establishing a universal monarchy. All the powers bent even lower before Napoleon, Emperor of the French, than before the First Consul Bonaparte. The pope, who in his heart cursed him and the whole new order, did not hesitate to anoint him successor to Charlemagne. The German princes were the first to recognize cringingly this innovation, the elevation of an upstart over themselves. As if Napoleon by contact with the Germans during his wars against Austria and Prussia had become infected with their Jew-hatred, his feelings with reference to them from that time underwent a change. Although he had before shown admiration for the venerable antiquity and gigantic struggles of the Jewish race, he now displayed a positive dislike to them. His unfavorable attitude towards the Jews was used by the Germans in Alsace to induce him to deprive the French Jews of their privileges and reduce them to their former state of abasement.
The storms of the Revolution had put an end to the old accusations against the Jews of Alsace.
Jewish creditors, usurers, Christian debtors were alike impoverished by the Reign of Terror; the olden times were swept away. When quiet was restored, many Jews, who through their energy had acquired some property again, went back to their former trades. What else could they do? To commence to learn handicrafts and agriculture could not be expected of men advanced in years. Even young men found it difficult, as bigoted Christian employers in the German-speaking provinces did not care to take Jewish apprentices. A numerous class of the populace of Alsace offered well-to-do Jews a source of income. The peasants and day-laborers, before the Revolution serfs, had been liberated through it, but possessed no means wherewith to purchase land and commence work. Their cattle and even their implements of agriculture were lost during the stormy years; and many of them had fled to escape military service. These peasants, on the return of peace, had addressed themselves to Jews for advances of money, to obtain small parcels of the national land for cultivation.
The Jewish men of substance had responded, and probably demanded high rates of interest. The peasants, however, were not the losers, for, although originally destitute of means, they had greatly improved their condition. In a few years their possessions in landed property amounted to 60 million francs, the sixth part of which they owed to Jews. It was, indeed, hard for the peasants of Alsace to obtain ready money to discharge debts to their Jewish creditors, especially as the wars of Bonaparte called them away from the plough to bear arms, and many lawsuits ensued against the debtors. The Strasburg Trade Court of Justice alone, during the years 1802–4, had to decide upon summonses for debt between Jewish creditors and Christian debtors amounting to 800,000 francs. The defaulting peasants were sentenced to hand over their fields and vineyards to the Jewish creditors, some of whom may have acted harshly in these matters.
These circumstances were made use of by the Jew-haters. They generalized the misdeeds of the Jews, exaggerated the sufferings of the Christian debtors forced to pay, and stamped the Jews as usurers and bloodsuckers, so as to deprive the French Jews living in their provinces of their recently-acquired equalization, or if possible to prepare some worse fate for them. As at all times, the citizens of the German town of Strasburg took the most prominent part in this movement against the Jews. They had made a vain attempt to keep the Jews out of their city and to persecute them during the Reign of Terror. With fierce rage they beheld the number of Jewish immigrants increase. There were no Jewish usurers in their midst; on the contrary, there were wealthy, highly respected, and educated Jews, such as the families of Cerf Berr, Ratisbonne, and Picard, most of whom lived from their estates. Nevertheless the people of Strasburg raised the loudest clamors against the Jews, as if the latter were the cause of their impoverishment. The prefect of Strasburg, a German, aided and abetted the merchants. When Napoleon stayed in Strasburg (January, 1806), after the campaign of a hundred days against Austria, he was besieged by the prefect and a deputation of the people of Alsace with complaints showing how harmful to the state were the Jews; how like a crowd of ravens they ruined the Christian populace, so that whole villages passed into the possession of Jewish usurers, how half the estates of Alsace were mortgaged to Jewish creditors, and other malicious charges. Napoleon thereupon called to mind that during his campaign some Jews near Ulm had bought stolen articles from the soldiers, which had greatly displeased him. The Jew-haters suggested that these may have been Strasburg Jews, who followed in the track of the army in order to enrich themselves by means of the booty; and that all Jews were usurers, hawkers, and ragmen. To incite the emperor still more to acts of hostility, the following grave statement was added—that, in the whole of Alsace, indeed, in all the (German) Departments of the Upper and Lower Rhine, the people were so embittered against the Jews that a general massacre, scenes such as were witnessed in the Middle Ages, might ensue. In taprooms the question of slaughtering the Jews was often discussed. His mind filled with such evil impressions, Napoleon left Strasburg, promising redress of these grievances. That this impression might not fade away, the enemies of the Jews besieged the minister of justice with loud complaints about the baseness and hurtfulness of the Jews. Judges, prefects, all German-speaking officials vied with each other in attempts to deprive the Jews of their civil rights. The minister of justice, carried away by the complaints, was actually on the point of putting an exceptional law into force against the Jews of France, forbidding them for a time to do any business in mortgages.
Mingled with this Jew-hatred, which arose from the petty jealousy of guild members, and from fear of excessive competition, were the bigoted and gloomy views of the reactionary party, who commenced to spin their network of schemes in order to suppress mental freedom, the mother, so to speak, of political liberty. One of the chief representatives of this party, hostile to liberty, and skilled in intrigues, was Louis Gabriel Ambroise Bonald, a man of kindred spirit to Gentz, Adam Müller, and others of like caliber, who, together with the romanticist Chateaubriand, and Fontanes, a past-master of flattery, brought about the most terrible religious and political reaction. Bonald, who, after short-lived enthusiasm for liberty, unfurled the flag of the Bourbon Legitimists, and glorified it with mystical– Catholic inanities, beheld in the liberation of the Jews a diminution of the power of the Church, and employed means to undermine their equalization in France. He wished to lower them to the level of such despicable beings as the Church required for its purposes. In a paper which he issued conjointly with Chateaubriand for the purpose of maintaining the Ultramontane power, he attacked the Jews with sophistical eloquence. He envied the Germans because, more reasonable and prudent than the French, they had remitted only the capitation-tax, and had otherwise kept the Jews in subjection. He blamed the National Assembly for having conceded all rights without considering that when the French Jews were released from the yoke, they might easily act in concert with their co-religionists in other countries to secure all influence and all wealth to themselves and enslave the Christians. Bonald again gave utterance to that venomous slander which a venal, unscrupulous Alsatian had circulated in a pamphlet before the Revolution. His recurring statements were that the Jews were ever in conflict with morality, that they formed a state within a state, and that most of them were vampires and petty traders, among whom the high-minded disappeared. Bonald concluded his list of charges with an opinion which stigmatized the French nation as much as the Jews. "If the latter are ever permitted to enjoy independence and frame laws, then a Jewish Synhedrion would not establish more nonsensical or unworthy laws than the Constituent Assembly of philosophers has established."
It was a fortunate circumstance for the future of the Jews that the enemies of freedom as well as orthodox Christians included Jew-hatred in their programme, because this impelled friends of liberty to defend the cause of the Jews in part as their own. But for the moment, Bonald's Jew-hating attempts greatly harmed them. They were approved by those who strove to retard the advancing spirit of the age, and in a roundabout way were dinned into the ear of Napoleon. The French Jews had no idea of the extent of this agitation, they imagined that it concerned only the Jewish usurers in Alsace, and that it did not affect the honor, position, and existence of all, and therefore they did not sufficiently oppose it.
Matters now assumed a serious complexion. Napoleon laid the Jewish question for discussion before his council, which entrusted it to a young member, a Count Molé, known in later French history as the prototype of ambiguity. To the surprise of all the elder and more influential members of the council, Molé, whose great-grandmother was a Jewess, presented a report decidedly hostile to the Jews, suggesting that all French Jews be placed under exceptional laws, which meant that their legally acknowledged and practically realized equality was to be taken from them. His report was received with deserved derision by the oldest members of the council, who were so imbued with the principle of absolute equality sanctified by the Revolution, that they could not conceive that a creditor suing for payment from his debtor could have a right to inquire into his religious belief. They suspected that Molé was in league with the reactionary politicians Fontanes and Bonald, who were anxious to offer up the Jews as the first sacrifice to their retrograde policy. Molé, however, appears to have sought to curry favor with the emperor, who, as he knew, was not kindly disposed towards the Jews. Although all the councilors were in favor of their unabridged civil rights, the Jewish question was to be brought up at the regular session of the state council under the presidency of Napoleon (April 30, 1806), who attached great importance to the matter.
It was a fateful moment when these questions, settled long ago, again came up for discussion. The weal and woe not alone of the French and Italian Jews, but of those in all Europe, depended upon the issue of this consultation. For if the equalization of the Jews of the former countries was in any way threatened, those of other countries would be doomed to remain in a state of degradation and oppression for a long time to come. The sitting was stormy. It happened unfortunately that a recently elected state councilor named Beugnot, who in the absence of the emperor had spoken with great spirit and address in favor of the Jews, wished to display his eloquence before the emperor. He therefore made use of the following unlucky phrase: "To deprive the Jews of their full civil rights were like a battle lost on the field of justice." Napoleon was annoyed. Both the tone and matter of Beugnot's speech sorely displeased him. It vexed him that his prejudices against the Jews should be regarded as unfounded. Beugnot aroused his passion, he spoke against theorists and propounders of principles, and allowed his anger to outrun his discretion. He spoke of the Jews as Fichte had done, saying that they constituted a state within a state, being the feudal nobles of the time; that they could not be placed in the same category with Catholics and Protestants, because, besides not being citizens of the country, they were a dangerous element. The keys of France, Alsace and Strasburg, should not be allowed to fall into the hands of a nation of spies. It would be prudent to suffer only 50,000 Jews in the districts of the Upper and Lower Rhine, to scatter the remainder throughout France, and prohibit them from engaging in trade, because they corrupted it by usury. He made other accusations which he had learnt from the Jew-haters. In spite of this speech, two councilors of importance, Regnault and Ségur, ventured to speak on behalf of the Jews, or of justice.
They pointed out that the Jews in Bordeaux, Marseilles, and the Italian cities belonging to France, like those in Holland, were held in the highest esteem, and that the offenses charged against the Jews of Alsace should not be imputed to Judaism, but rather to their unhappy condition. They succeeded in mollifying Napoleon's wrath for the moment, and a second session decided the matter.
Meantime some influential persons succeeded in impressing Napoleon with a better opinion of the Jews. They called to his attention how quickly they had become proficient in the arts and sciences, in agriculture and handicrafts. Persons were pointed out to him who had been decorated with the Order of the Legion of Honor, or who had received pensions for courage in war, and that, therefore, it was slander to call all Jews usurers and hawkers. At the second sitting of the state council (May 7, 1806) Napoleon spoke in a milder tone of the Jews. He rejected the proposal made to him to expel Jewish peddlers, and endow the tribunals of justice with unlimited authority over usurers. He desired to do nothing that might be disapproved by posterity, or darken his fame. Nevertheless, he could not free himself from the prejudice that the Jewish people, from the most ancient times, even from the days of Moses, had been usurers and extortioners. He was, however, determined not to permit any persecution or neglect of the Jews. He then conceived the happy thought—or it may have been suggested to him—to bring together a number of Jews from various provinces, who were to tell him whether Judaism demanded of its adherents hatred and oppression of Christians. The Jews themselves, through the medium of their representatives, were to decide their fate.
The decree which announced this resolution (May 30, 1806) was couched in harsh terms. Napoleon himself, it appears, gave it the last touches whilst in an angry mood. The first part of the decree ran as follows: "The claims of Jewish creditors in certain provinces may not be collected within the space of a year." The second part ordered the assembly of Jewish notables. The reason for their meeting was such as to satisfy the Bonalds. Certain Jews in the northern districts having by usury brought misery upon many peasants, the emperor had deprived them of civil equality. But he had also considered it necessary to awaken in all who professed the Jewish religion in France a feeling of civic morality, which, owing to their debasement, had become almost extinct amongst them. For this purpose Jewish notables were to express their wishes and suggest means whereby skilled work and useful occupations would become general among Jews. Thus, for a time at least, a portion of the Jews of France were deprived of their rights of equality. But balm might be expected from the Assembly of Notables for the wounds inflicted by Napoleon. The prefects were required to select prominent persons from among the rabbis and the laity, who, on a fixed day, should present themselves "in the good city of Paris." Not only the congregations of the old French provinces, but also those in the new ones, in the district on the left bank of the Rhine, were to be represented by deputies. The Italian Jews, who applied for permission to take part in this meeting, were likewise admitted.
Although the notables were somewhat arbitrarily chosen by the magistrates, on the whole their selections were fortunate. Among the hundred and more notables of French, German, and Italian speech, the majority were fully aware of the magnitude and importance of their task. They had to defend Judaism before the eyes of all Europe—a difficult but grateful task. Among them were men who had already gained fame, such as Berr Isaac Berr, his promising son, Michael Berr (who had issued the summons to princes and nations, to release the Jews from bondage), and Abraham Furtado, the partisan of the Girondists, who had suffered for his political opinions, and was a man of noble mind and great foresight. His descent is interesting. His parents were Marranos in Portugal, but in spite of the family's outward adherence to the Church during two hundred years, his mother had not forgotten her origin and her attachment to Judaism. When the terrible earthquake made Lisbon a heap of ruins, Furtado's parents were overwhelmed by their falling house—his father killed, but his mother, who was with child, entombed in a living grave. She vowed that if God would save her from this danger, she would, in spite of all difficulties, openly embrace Judaism. A fresh shock opened her tomb. She succeeded in escaping from this place of horror, made her way to London, and there publicly returned to Judaism. Here her son Abraham was born, whom she brought up as a Jew. Abraham Furtado was well acquainted with Jewish literature; he collected materials for a Jewish history, and paid particular attention to the Book of Job; but his Jewish knowledge was mere dilettanteism, without thoroughness. His favorite study was natural science. During the Revolution, Furtado belonged to the commission appointed to make proposals for ameliorating the condition of the French Jews. During the Reign of Terror, and as a supporter of the Girondists, his life was endangered and his property confiscated. By assiduous industry he had enabled himself to purchase an estate in Bordeaux. Next to the elder and younger Berrs, Furtado was the brightest ornament of the assembly; he was an eloquent speaker, and possessed great tact in public affairs.
A happy choice was that of Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim, of Strasburg (born 1745, died 1812). He was a man of almost patriarchal character, of the deepest moral earnestness, and of a most lovable, gentle nature. Well furnished with means, and the brother-in-law of the wealthy Cerf Berr, Sinzheim devoted himself to the study of the Talmud, not from any mercenary purpose, but from inclination. His acquaintance with Talmudical and Rabbinical literature was astounding, but he was lacking in depth. His education prevented his being interested in other branches of science, but at least he had no antipathy to them. During the Reign of Terror, which caused the Jews in Jew-hating Strasburg to suffer severely, he was compelled to flee for safety, and could not return until peace was restored. The number of the Jews in Strasburg increased under the Directory and Napoleon. They formed themselves into a congregation, appointing Sinzheim as their first rabbi. Thence he was summoned to Paris to attend the Assembly of Notables. He was considered the most eminent French Talmudist, and became the leader of the orthodox party. Besides Sinzheim, only one rabbi was prominent, the Portuguese Rabbi Abraham Andrade, from Saint-Esprit; the majority of the members were laymen.
With trembling hearts about a hundred Jewish Notables from the French and German departments assembled. They had no plan, as they did not know precisely what were the emperor's intentions. A summons from the minister, addressed to each member singly (July 23, 1806), enlightened them but little. They learnt that in three days' time, on a Sabbath, they were to hold a meeting in a hall of the Hôtel de Ville set apart for them. There the assembly was to organize, and they were to answer the questions which imperial commissioners would lay before them. The purpose was to make useful citizens of the Jews, bring their religious belief into agreement with their duties as Frenchmen, refute the charges made against them, and remedy the evils which they had occasioned. The selection of Molé as imperial commissioner, together with Portalis and Pasquier, who were to treat officially with the Assembly, was not calculated to quiet their fears. Molé had been the first to serve as a medium for the spread of the anti-Jewish slanders of Bonald and others. On the day before the opening of the Assembly (July 25), there appeared in the official journal, the "Moniteur," an account of the history of the Jews from the return from Babylon till that time. The French nation was thus to be acquainted with the importance of the questions now to be submitted to the Jews themselves. In rapid sequence the following circumstances were depicted:—The independence and the dependence of the Jewish people, their victories and defeats; their persecution during the Middle Ages and the protection they found; their scattered condition and their massacres; the accusations directed against them; their abasement and oppression in different countries inflicted by monarch after monarch, and by fluctuating opinions and policies. Jewish history thus received, so to speak, an official seal. That there were many errors and false statements in this account was not to be wondered at. At the command of the emperor, the Jewish religion, or Judaism, was officially expounded, with even greater display of ignorance. Two points were particularly emphasized, viz., that the religious and moral separation of the Jews from the rest of the world, and the pursuit of usury to the injury of members of other creeds, if not prescribed, was at any rate tolerated by the Jewish law. "How otherwise is the fact to be explained," it was remarked at the conclusion of the official document, "that those Jews who at the present time extort high rates of interest, are most religious and follow the laws of the Talmud most faithfully?" The inference was to the last degree false. "Do we not see that the Portuguese Jews, who do not sully themselves with usury, are less strict in their adherence to the Talmud? Had the distinguished Jews in Germany, such as their famous Mendelssohn, great reverence for the rabbis? Finally, are those men among us who devote themselves to the sciences orthodox Jews?" Thus Talmudical Judaism was once again represented as a stumbling-block in the way of the progress of the Jews, not, indeed, in that spirit of hatred which prevailed in Germany; but it was laid open to attack, and that, too, before a public, so to say a European, tribunal.
On the same day that the Jews formed the topic of conversation in Paris, the deputies assembled to decide upon a question of conscience. The first official meeting was to be held on Saturday, and the first business was the election of a president and of secretaries by means of written votes. It was the first time that representatives of the French, German, and Italian Jews came together, and the contrasts and variations developed during the last half century by the changes in the times, became apparent,—all shades were represented, from the politician Furtado, to the rabbis who had spent all their lives in schools. They were expected to harmonize. At first they could not understand each other, but had to employ German and Italian interpreters. Was the public activity of the Jewish deputies to commence with the desecration of the Sabbath? Or should they strictly adhere to the religious prohibition, and thus give a handle to enemies of the Jews, who asserted that Judaism was incompatible with the exercise of civil functions? These serious questions occupied the minds of the members. The rabbis and the party of Berr Isaac Berr were of opinion that the first sitting should be postponed to another day, or at least that no election should take place. The less critical party, the politicians, urged that they prove to the emperor that Judaism can subordinate itself to the law of the land; and the debate grew very violent.
Thus the first Jewish Parliament in Paris assembled on a Sabbath, in a room of the Hôtel de Ville, decorated with appropriate emblems. The deputies attended in full force, none were absent; some of them intentionally came in carriages. Some of the stricter members again tried to have the first meeting postponed, but in vain. The dread of Napoleon's authority terrified those who as a rule paid scrupulous regard to religious ordinances. Under the chairmanship of Rabbi Solomon Lipmann, the oldest member, the election now proceeded. The orthodox had provided themselves with ballot tickets, but most of the others wrote them out unabashed before the very eyes of the rabbis, whilst a few had theirs written for them. Only two men were qualified for the presidency, Berr Isaac Berr and Furtado. The former was supported by the orthodox party, the latter by the politicians. Furtado obtained the majority of votes. With parliamentary tact he presided over the meeting. The deputies became fully conscious of the grave responsibility resting upon them, and proved themselves equal to their task. All were animated by a strong desire for unanimity.
Even the German rabbis, who hitherto had been buried in the seclusion of the academies amidst the Talmud volumes, quickly adapted themselves to the new circumstances and to parliamentary forms. Certain deputies contributed to impress all present with a feeling of concord. The speech of the deputy Lipmann Cerf Berr had a remarkable effect, especially the following words:—
"Let us forget our origin! Let us no longer speak of Jews of Alsace, of Portugal, or of Germany. Though scattered over the face of the globe, we are still one people worshiping the same God, and as our law commands us, we are to obey the laws of the country where we live."
When the officer of the guard of honor furnished for the meeting approached the newly-elected president to receive his orders, and when at the departure of the deputies, the guard greeted them with military honors and beat of drums, they felt themselves exalted, and their fear was turned to hope.
This joyful expectation revived their courage, and enabled them to oppose the attacks of Jew-hating writers. Meantime the whole body of deputies from the kingdom of Italy arrived, and created a favorable impression by their bearing. Amongst them the spirit of the age manifested itself in difference of religious views and opinions, although not so sharply marked as among the French and German Jews.
The most distinguished among the Jewish-Italian deputies was Abraham Vita di Cologna (born 1755, died in Trieste, 1832). He was well versed both in Rabbinical and scientific learning, of prepossessing appearance, and an elegant speaker. While rabbi of Mantua, he was elected a member of the Parliament of the Italian kingdom. His Talmudical and secular knowledge, however, was neither comprehensive nor deep. Cologna was in favor of the new tendency, which removed Judaism from its isolated position to imbue it with European ideas; but both the means and end were not clearly defined in his mind, and he took no steps to carry out his wishes. An elder member of the Italian notables, Joshua Benzion Segre (born about 1720, died 1809), at once owner of an estate, rabbi, and municipal councilor of Vercelli, was also in favor of scientific studies, and belonged to the advanced party. The follies of the Kabbala still found many supporters among educated Italian Jews, although its first opponents had come from Italy. Benzion Segre was averse to the study, while the Italian deputy Graziadio (Chanannel) Nepi, rabbi and physician in Cinto (born 1760, died 1836), was a firm believer in it. He was exceedingly well read in Jewish literature, and compiled an alphabetical register of the names of Jewish authors of ancient and modern times.
At the second sitting (July 29), the three imperial commissioners solemnly propounded twelve questions, which the Assembly were to answer conscientiously. The chief points were, whether the French Jews regarded France as their country, and Frenchmen as their brothers; whether they considered the laws of the state as binding upon them, and, by way of deduction from these two points, the incisive third question, "Can Jews legally intermarry with Christians," and, lastly, whether usury in the case of non-Jews is permitted or forbidden. The remaining points referred to polygamy, divorce, and the authority of the rabbis, and were of a subordinate nature. Most of the members could not listen to these queries without feeling pain that their love of country and their attachment to France should be called into question, notwithstanding that Jews had attested their patriotism by shedding their blood upon battlefields. From many sides rose a cry at these questions, "Aye, unto death." The address delivered by Molé on submitting these twelve questions was cold and to some extent offensive. Its contents were nearly as follows:—The charges against various Jews had been proved. The emperor was, however, not satisfied to check the evil himself, but desired the assistance of the deputies. They were to state the whole truth in replying to the questions laid before them. The emperor permitted full liberty of discussion, but wished them to bear in mind that they were Frenchmen, and would be relinquishing that honor unless they showed themselves worthy of it. The assembly now knew what was expected. They were brought face to face with the alternative of renouncing their equality or damaging Judaism.
Furtado, in his reply to the speech of the commissioner, very cleverly turned the mistrust of the emperor into a semblance of trust. He said that the Jews welcomed the opportunity of answering these questions, to lay bare all errors and put an end to the prejudices entertained against them. The speech which Berr Isaac Berr delivered at this meeting was more sincere, more manly, and altogether more fervent. Furtado represented the Jews, but not Judaism; he caused it to be understood that the Assembly should consider it a duty and an honor to obey every hint of the emperor. Berr gave dignified expression to the claims of Judaism. The duty of replying to the questions was assigned to a commission, which included, besides the president, the secretary, and the auditors, the four most eminent rabbis, Sinzheim, Andrade, di Cologna, and Segre, and two learned laymen.
This commission handed over the chief part of their work to Rabbi David Sinzheim, the most scholarly and esteemed member of the assembly, who in a very short time completed his task to the satisfaction of his colleagues, of the imperial commissioners, and eventually of the emperor (July 30 till August 3). His report was submitted to the commissioners, who reported it to the emperor before it was brought up for public discussion. Napoleon was so pleased with the behavior of the Assembly that he announced his intention to grant an audience to all the members. In fact, their parliamentary tact, as displayed in the proceedings, filled him with such high regard towards them that he partially overcame his prejudices against the Jews. He had always pictured them as ragmen and usurers, with cringing, bent forms, or as sly, cunning flatterers lying in ambush for th