42. _The Later Empire._--With the failure in 135 of the attempt led by
Barcochebas to free Judaea from Roman domination a new era begins in the
history of the Jews. The direct consequence of the failure was the
annihilation of political nationality. Large numbers fell in the actual
fighting. Dio Cassius puts the total at the incredible figure of
580,000, besides the incalculable number who succumbed to famine,
disease and fire (Dio-Xiphilin lxix. 11-15). Jerusalem was rebuilt by
Hadrian, orders to this effect being given during the emperor's first
journey through Syria in 130, the date of his foundations at Gaza,
Tiberias and Petra (Reinach, _Textes relatifs au Judaïsme_, p. 198). The
new city was named Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of
Jehovah there arose another temple dedicated to Jupiter. To Eusebius the
erection of a temple of Venus over the sepulchre of Christ was an act of
mockery against the Christian religion. Rome had been roused to unwonted
fury, and the truculence of the rebels was matched by the cruelty of
their masters. The holy city was barred against the Jews; they were
excluded, under pain of death, from approaching within view of the
walls. Hadrian's policy in this respect was matched later on by the
edict of the caliph Omar (c. 638), who, like his Roman prototype,
prevented the Jews from settling in the capital of their ancient
country. The death of Hadrian and the accession of Antoninus Pius (138),
however, gave the dispersed people of Palestine a breathing-space. Roman
law was by no means intolerant to the Jews. Under the constitution of
Caracalla (198-217) all inhabitants of the Roman empire enjoyed the
civil rights of the _Cives Romani_ (Scherer, _Die Rechtsverhältnisse der
Juden_, p. 10).
Moreover, a spiritual revival mitigated the crushing effects of material
ruin. The synagogue had become a firmly established institution, and the
personal and social life of the masses had come under the control of
communal law. The dialectic of the school proved stronger to preserve
than the edge of the sword to destroy. Pharisaic Judaism, put to the
severest test to which a religious system has ever been subject, showed
itself able to control and idealize life in all its phases. Whatever
question may be possible as to the force or character of Pharisaism in
the time of Christ, there can be no doubt that it became both
all-pervading and ennobling among the successors of Aqiba (q.v.),
himself one of the martyrs to Hadrian's severity. Little more than half
a century after the overthrow of the Jewish nationality, the Mishnah was
practically completed, and by this code of rabbinic law--and law is here
a term which includes the social, moral and religious as well as the
ritual and legal phases of human activity--the Jewish people were
organized into a community, living more or less autonomously under the
Sanhedrin or Synedrium (q.v.) and its officials.
Judah the prince, the patriarch or _nasi_ who edited the Mishnah, died
early in the 3rd century. With him the importance of the Palestinian
patriarchate attained its zenith. Gamaliel II. of Jamnia (Jabne Yebneh)
had been raised to this dignity a century before, and, as members of the
house of Hillel and thus descendants of David, the patriarchs enjoyed
almost royal authority. Their functions were political rather than
religious, though their influence was by no means purely secular. They
were often on terms of intimate friendship with the emperors, who
scarcely interfered with their jurisdiction. As late as Theodosius I.
(379-395) the internal affairs of the Jews were formally committed to
the patriarchs, and Honorius (404) authorized the collection of the
patriarch's tax (_aurum coronarium_), by which a revenue was raised from
the Jews of the diaspora. Under Theodosius II. (408-450) the
patriarchate was finally abolished after a régime of three centuries and
a half (Graetz, _History of the Jews_, Eng. trans. vol. ii. ch. xxii.),
though ironically enough the last holder of the office had been for a
time elevated by the emperor to the rank of prefect. The real
turning-point had been reached earlier, when Christianity became the
state religion under Constantine I. in 312.
Religion under the Christian emperors became a significant source of
discrimination in legal status, and non-conformity might reach so far
as to produce complete loss of rights. The laws concerning the Jews
had a repressive and preventive object: the repression of Judaism and
the prevention of inroads of Jewish influences into the state
religion. The Jews were thrust into a position of isolation, and the
Code of Theodosius and other authorities characterize the Jews as a
lower order of depraved beings (_inferiores_ and _perversi_), their
community as a godless, dangerous sect (_secta nefaria, feralis_),
their religion a superstition, their assemblies for religious worship
a blasphemy (_sacrilegi coetus_) and a contagion (Scherer, _op. cit._
pp. 11-12). Yet Judaism under Roman Christian law was a lawful
religion (_religio licita_), Valentinian I. (364-375) forbade the
quartering of soldiers in the synagogues, Theodosius I. prohibited
interference with the synagogue worship ("Judaeorum sectam nulla lege
prohibitam satis constat"), and in 412 a special edict of protection
was issued. But the admission of Christians into the Jewish fold was
punished by confiscation of goods (357), the erection of new
synagogues was arrested by Theodosius II. (439) under penalty of a
heavy fine, Jews were forbidden to hold Christian slaves under pain of
death (423). A similar penalty attached to intermarriage between Jews
and Christians, and an attempt was made to nullify all Jewish
marriages which were not celebrated in accordance with Roman law. But
Justinian (527-565) was the first to interfere directly in the
religious institutions of the Jewish people. In 553 he interdicted the
use of the Talmud (which had then not long been completed), and the
Byzantine emperors of the 8th and 9th centuries passed even more
intolerant regulations. As regards civil law, Jews were at first
allowed to settle disputes between Jew and Jew before their own
courts, but Justinian denied to them and to heretics the right to
appear as witnesses in the public courts against orthodox Christians.
To Constantine V. (911-959) goes back the Jewish form of oath which in
its later development required the Jew to gird himself with thorns;
stand in water; and, holding the scroll of the Torah in his hand,
invoke upon his person the leprosy of Naaman, the curse of Eli and the
fate of Korah's sons should he perjure himself. This was the original
of all the medieval forms of oath _more judaico_, which still
prevailed in many European lands till the 19th century, and are even
now maintained by some of the Rumanian courts. Jews were by the law of
Honorius excluded from the army, from public offices and dignities
(418), from acting as advocates (425); only the curial offices were
open to them. Justinian gave the finishing touch by proclaiming in 537
the Jews absolutely ineligible for any honour whatsoever ("honore
fruantur nullo").
43. _Judaism in Babylonia._--The Jews themselves were during this period
engaged in building up a system of isolation on their own side, but they
treated Roman law with greater hospitality than it meted out to them.
The Talmud shows the influence of that law in many points, and may
justly be compared to it as a monument of codification based on great
principles. The Palestinian Talmud was completed in the 4th century, but
the better known and more influential version was compiled in Babylonia
about 500. The land which, a millennium before, had been a prison for
the Jewish exiles was now their asylum of refuge. For a long time it
formed their second fatherland. Here, far more than on Palestinian soil,
was built the enduring edifice of rabbinism. The population of the
southern part of Mesopotamia--the strip of land enclosed between the
Tigris and the Euphrates--was, according to Graetz, mainly Jewish; while
the district extending for about 70 m. on the east of the Euphrates,
from Nehardea in the north to Sura in the south, became a new Palestine
with Nehardea for its Jerusalem. The Babylonian Jews were practically
independent, and the exilarch (_resh-galutha_) or prince of the
captivity was an official who ruled the community as a vassal of the
Persian throne. The exilarch claimed, like the Palestinian patriarch,
descent from the royal house of David, and exercised most of the
functions of government. Babylonia had risen into supreme importance
for Jewish life at about the time when the Mishnah was completed. The
great rabbinic academies at Sura and Nehardea, the former of which
retained something of its dominant rôle till the 11th century, had been
founded, Sura by Abba Arika (q.v.) (c. 219), but Nehardea, the more
ancient seat of the two, famous in the 3rd century for its association
with Abba Arika's renowned contemporary Samuel, lost its Jewish
importance in the age of Mahomet.
To Samuel of Nehardea (q.v.) belongs the honour of formulating the
principle which made it possible for Jews to live under alien laws.
Jeremiah had admonished his exiled brothers: "Seek ye the peace of the
city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray
unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace"
(Jer. xxix. 7). It was now necessary to go farther, and the rabbis
proclaimed a principle which was as influential with the synagogue as
"Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" became with the Church. "The
law of the government is law" (_Baba Qama_ 113 b.), said Samuel, and
ever since it has been a religious duty for the Jews to obey and
accommodate themselves as far as possible to the laws of the country in
which they are settled or reside. In 259 Odenathus, the Palmyrene
adventurer whose memory has been eclipsed by that of his wife Zenobia,
laid Nehardea waste for the time being, and in its neighbourhood arose
the academy of Pumbedita (Pombeditha) which became a new focus for the
intellectual life of Israel in Babylonia. These academies were organized
on both scholastic and popular lines; their constitution was democratic.
An outstanding feature was the _Kallah_ assemblage twice a year (in Elul
at the close of the summer, and in Adar at the end of the winter), when
there were gathered together vast numbers of outside students of the
most heterogeneous character as regards both age and attainments.
Questions received from various quarters were discussed and the final
decision of the _Kallah_ was signed by the _Resh-Kallah_ or president of
the general assembly, who was only second in rank to the _Resh-Metibta_,
or president of the scholastic sessions. Thus the Babylonian academies
combined the functions of specialist law-schools, universities and
popular parliaments. They were a unique product of rabbinism; and the
authors of the system were also the compilers of its literary
expression, the Talmud.
44. _Judaism in Islam._--Another force now appears on the scene. The new
religion inaugurated by Mahomet differed in its theory from the Roman
Catholic Church. The Church, it is true, in council after council,
passed decisions unfriendly to the Jews. From the synod at Elvira in the
4th century this process began, and it was continued in the West-Gothic
Church legislation, in the Lateran councils (especially the fourth in
1215), and in the council of Trent (1563). The anti-social tendency of
these councils expressed itself in the infliction of the badge, in the
compulsory domicile of Jews within ghettos, and in the erection of
formidable barriers against all intercourse between church and
synagogue. The protective instinct was responsible for much of this
interference with the natural impulse of men of various creeds towards
mutual esteem and forbearance. The church, it was conceived, needed
defence against the synagogue at all hazards, and the fear that the
latter would influence and dominate the former was never absent from the
minds of medieval ecclesiastics. But though this defensive zeal led to
active persecution, still in theory Judaism was a tolerated religion
wherever the Church had sway, and many papal bulls of a friendly
character were issued throughout the middle ages (Scherer, p. 32 seq.).
Islam, on the other hand, had no theoretic place in its scheme for
tolerated religions; its principle was fundamentally intolerant. Where
the mosque was erected, there was no room for church or synagogue. The
caliph Omar initiated in the 7th century a code which required
Christians and Jews to wear peculiar dress, denied them the right to
hold state offices or to possess land, inflicted a poll-tax on them, and
while forbidding them to enter mosques, refused them the permission to
build new places of worship for themselves. Again and again these
ordinances were repeated in subsequent ages, and intolerance for
infidels is still a distinct feature of Mahommedan law. But Islam has
often shown itself milder in fact than in theory, for its laws were made
to be broken. The medieval Jews on the whole lived, under the crescent,
a fuller and freer life than was possible to them under the cross.
Mahommedan Babylonia (Persia) was the home of the gaonate (see GAON),
the central authority of religious Judaism, whose power transcended that
of the secular exilarchate, for it influenced the synagogue far and
wide, while the exilarchate was local. The gaonate enjoyed a practical
tolerance remarkable when contrasted with the letter of Islamic law. And
as the Bagdad caliphate tended to become more and more supreme in Islam,
so the gaonate too shared in this increased influence. Not even the
Qaraite schism was able to break the power of the geonim. But the
dispersion of the Jews was proceeding in directions which carried masses
from the Asiatic inland to the Mediterranean coasts and to Europe.
45. _In Medieval Europe: Spain._--This dispersion of the Jews had begun
in the Hellenistic period, but it was after the Barcochebas war that it
assumed great dimensions in Europe. There were Jews in the Byzantine
empire, in Rome, in France and Spain at very early periods, but it is
with the Arab conquest of Spain that the Jews of Europe began to rival
in culture and importance their brethren of the Persian gaonate. Before
this date the Jews had been learning the rôle they afterwards filled,
that of the chief promoters of international commerce. Already under
Charlemagne this development is noticeable; in his generous treatment of
the Jews this Christian emperor stood in marked contrast to his
contemporary the caliph Harun al-Rashid, who persecuted Jews and
Christians with equal vigour. But by the 10th century Judaism had
received from Islam something more than persecution. It caught the
contagion of poetry, philosophy and science.[64] The schismatic Qaraites
initiated or rather necessitated a new Hebrew philology, which later on
produced Qimhi, the gaon Saadiah founded a Jewish philosophy, the
statesman Hasdai introduced a new Jewish culture--and all this under
Mahommedan rule. It is in Spain that above all the new spirit manifested
itself. The distinctive feature of the Spanish-Jewish culture was its
comprehensiveness. Literature and affairs, science and statecraft,
poetry and medicine, these various expressions of human nature and
activity were so harmoniously balanced that they might be found in the
possession of one and the same individual. The Jews of Spain attained to
high places in the service of the state from the time of the Moorish
conquest in 711. From Hasdai ibn Shaprut in the 10th century and Samuel
the nagid in the 11th the line of Jewish scholar-statesmen continued
till we reach Isaac Abrabanel in 1492, the date of the expulsion of the
Jews from Spain. This last-named event synchronized with the discovery
of America; Columbus being accompanied by at least one Jewish navigator.
While the Spanish period of Jewish history was thus brilliant from the
point of view of public service, it was equally notable on the literary
side. Hebrew religious poetry was revived for synagogue hymnology, and,
partly in imitation of Arabian models, a secular Hebrew poetry was
developed in metre and rhyme. The new Hebrew _Piyut_ found its first
important exponent in Kalir, who was not a Spaniard. But it is to Spain
that we must look for the best of the medieval poets of the synagogue,
greatest among them being Ibn Gabirol and Halevi. So, too, the greatest
Jew of the middle ages, Maimonides, was a Spaniard. In him culminates
the Jewish expression of the Spanish-Moorish culture; his writings had
an influence on European scholasticism and contributed significant
elements to the philosophy of Spinoza. But the reconquest of Andalusia
by the Christians associated towards the end of the 15th century with
the establishment of the Inquisition, introduced a spirit of intolerance
which led to the expulsion of the Jews and Moors. The consequences of
this blow were momentous; it may be said to inaugurate the ghetto
period. In Spain Jewish life had participated in the general life, but
the expulsion--while it dispersed the Spanish Jews in Poland, Turkey,
Italy and France, and thus in the end contributed to the Jewish
emancipation at the French Revolution--for the time drove the Jews
within their own confines and barred them from the outside world.[65]
46. _In France, Germany, England, Italy._--In the meantime Jewish life
had been elsewhere subjected to other influences which produced a result
at once narrower and deeper. Under Charlemagne, the Jews, who had begun
to settle in Gaul in the time of Caesar, were more than tolerated. They
were allowed to hold land and were encouraged to become--what their
ubiquity qualified them to be--the merchant princes of Europe. The reign
of Louis the Pious (814-840) was, as Graetz puts it, "a golden era for
the Jews of his kingdom, such as they had never enjoyed, and were
destined never again to enjoy in Europe"--prior, that is, to the age of
Mendelssohn. In Germany at the same period the feudal system debarred
the Jews from holding land, and though there was as yet no material
persecution they suffered moral injury by being driven exclusively into
finance and trade. Nor was there any widening of the general horizon
such as was witnessed in Spain. The Jewries of France and Germany were
thus thrown upon their own cultural resources. They rose to the
occasion. In Mainz there settled in the 10th century Gershom, the "light
of the exile," who, about 1000, published his ordinance forbidding
polygamy in Jewish law as it had long been forbidden in Jewish practice.
This ordinance may be regarded as the beginning of the Synodal
government of Judaism, which was a marked feature of medieval life in
the synagogues of northern and central Europe from the 12th century.
Soon after Gershom's death, Rashi (1040-1106) founded at Troyes a new
school of learning. If Maimonides represented Judaism on its rational
side, Rashi was the expression of its traditions.
French Judaism was thus in a sense more human if less humane than the
Spanish variety; the latter produced thinkers, statesmen, poets and
scientists; the former, men with whom the Talmud was a passion, men of
robuster because of more naïve and concentrated piety. In Spain and North
Africa persecution created that strange and significant phenomenon
Maranism or crypto-Judaism, a public acceptance of Islam or Christianity
combined with a private fidelity to the rites of Judaism. But in England,
France and Germany persecution altogether failed to shake the courage of
the Jews, and martyrdom was borne in preference to ostensible apostasy.
The crusades subjected the Jews to this ordeal. The evil was wrought, not
by the regular armies of the cross who were inspired by noble ideals, but
by the undisciplined mobs which, for the sake of plunder, associated
themselves with the genuine enthusiasts. In 1096 massacres of Jews
occurred in many cities of the Rhineland. During the second crusade
(1145-1147) Bernard of Clairvaux heroically protested against similar
inhumanities. The third crusade, famous for the participation of Richard
I., was the occasion for bloody riots in England, especially in York,
where 150 Jews immolated themselves to escape baptism. Economically and
socially the crusades had disastrous effects upon the Jews (see J.
Jacobs, _Jewish Encyclopedia_, iv. 379). Socially they suffered by the
outburst of religious animosity. One of the worst forms taken by this
ill-will was the oft-revived myth of ritual murder (q.v.), and later on
when the Black Death devastated Europe (1348-1349) the Jews were the
victims of an odious charge of well-poisoning. Economically the results
were also injurious. "Before the crusades the Jews had practically a
monopoly of trade in Eastern products, but the closer connexion between
Europe and the East brought about by the crusades raised up a class of
merchant traders among the Christians, and from this time onwards
restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent" (_op. cit._).
After the second crusade the German Jews fell into the class of _servi
camerae_, which at first only implied that they enjoyed the immunity of
imperial servants, but afterwards made of them slaves and pariahs. At the
personal whim of rulers, whether royal or of lower rank, the Jews were
expelled from states and principalities and were reduced to a condition
of precarious uncertainty as to what the morrow might bring forth. Pope
Innocent III. gave strong impetus to the repression of the Jews,
especially by ordaining the wearing of a badge. Popular animosity was
kindled by the enforced participation of the Jews in public disputations.
In 1306 Philip IV. expelled the Jews from France, nine years later Louis
X. recalled them for a period of twelve years. Such vicissitudes were the
ordinary lot of the Jews for several centuries, and it was their own
inner life--the pure life of the home, the idealism of the synagogue, and
the belief in ultimate Messianic redemption--that saved them from utter
demoralization and despair. Curiously enough in Italy--and particularly
in Rome--the external conditions were better. The popes themselves,
within their own immediate jurisdiction, were often far more tolerant
than their bulls issued for foreign communities, and Torquemada was less
an expression than a distortion of the papal policy. In the early 14th
century, the age of Dante, the new spirit of the Renaissance made Italian
rulers the patrons of art and literature, and the Jews to some extent
shared in this gracious change. Robert of Aragon--vicar-general of the
papal states--in particular encouraged the Jews and supported them in
their literary and scientific ambitions. Small coteries of Jewish minor
poets and philosophers were formed, and men like Kalonymos and
Immanuel--Dante's friend--shared the versatility and culture of Italy.
But in Germany there was no echo of this brighter note. Persecution was
elevated into a system, a poll-tax was exacted, and the rabble was
allowed (notably in 1336-1337) to give full vent to its fury. Following
on this came the Black Death with its terrible consequences in Germany;
even in Poland, where the Jews had previously enjoyed considerable
rights, extensive massacres took place.
In effect the Jews became outlaws, but their presence being often
financially necessary, certain officials were permitted to "hold Jews,"
who were liable to all forms of arbitrary treatment, on the side of
their "owners." The Jews had been among the first to appreciate the
commercial advantages of permitting the loan of money on interest, but
it was the policy of the Church that drove the Jews into money-lending
as a characteristic trade. Restrictions on their occupations were
everywhere common, and as the Church forbade Christians to engage in
usury, this was the only trade open to the Jews. The excessive demands
made upon the Jews forbade a fair rate of interest. "The Jews were
unwilling sponges by means of which a large part of the subjects' wealth
found its way into the royal exchequer" (Abrahams, _Jewish Life in the
Middle Ages_, ch. xii.). Hence, though this procedure made the Jews
intensely obnoxious to the peoples, they became all the more necessary
to the rulers. A favourite form of tolerance was to grant a permit to
the Jews to remain in the state for a limited term of years; their
continuance beyond the specified time was illegal and they were
therefore subject to sudden banishment. Thus a second expulsion of the
Jews of France occurred in 1394. Early in the 15th century John
Hus--under the inspiration of Wycliffe--initiated at Prague the revolt
against the Roman Catholic Church. The Jews suffered in the persecution
that followed, and in 1420 all the Austrian Jews were thrown into
prison. Martin V. published a favourable bull, but it was ineffectual.
The darkest days were nigh. Pope Eugenius (1442) issued a fiercely
intolerant missive; the Franciscan John of Capistrano moved the masses
to activity by his eloquent denunciations; even Casimir IV. revoked the
privileges of the Jews in Poland, when the Turkish capture of
Constantinople (1453) offered a new asylum for the hunted Jews of
Europe. But in Europe itself the catastrophe was not arrested. The
Inquisition in Spain led to the expulsion of the Jews (1492), and this
event involved not only the latter but the whole of the Jewish people.
"The Jews everywhere felt as if the temple had again been destroyed"
(Graetz). Nevertheless, the result was not all evil. If fugitives are
for the next half-century to be met with in all parts of Europe, yet,
especially in the Levant, there grew up thriving Jewish communities
often founded by Spanish refugees. Such incidents as the rise of Joseph
Nasi (q.v.) to high position under the Turkish government as duke of
Naxos mark the coming change. The reformation as such had no favourable
influence on Jewish fortunes in Christian Europe, though the
championship of the cause of toleration by Reuchlin had considerable
value. But the age of the ghetto (q.v.) had set in too firmly for
immediate amelioration to be possible. It is to Holland and to the 17th
century that we must turn for the first real steps towards Jewish
emancipation.
47. _Period of Emancipation._--The ghetto, which had prevailed more or
less rigorously for a long period, was not formally prescribed by the
papacy until the beginning of the 16th century. The same century was not
ended before the prospect of liberty dawned on the Jews. Holland from
the moment that it joined the union of Utrecht (1579) deliberately set
its face against religious persecution (_Jewish Encyclopedia_, i. 537).
Maranos, fleeing to the Netherlands, were welcomed; the immigrants were
wealthy, enterprising and cultured. Many Jews, who had been compelled to
conceal their faith, now came into the open. By the middle of the 17th
century the Jews of Holland had become of such importance that Charles
II. of England (then in exile) entered into negotiations with the
Amsterdam Jews (1656). In that same year the Amsterdam community was
faced by a serious problem in connexion with Spinoza. They brought
themselves into notoriety by excommunicating the philosopher--an act of
weak self-defence on the part of men who had themselves but recently
been admitted to the country, and were timorous of the suspicion that
they shared Spinoza's then execrated views. It is more than a mere
coincidence that this step was taken during the absence in England of
one of the ablest and most notable of the Amsterdam rabbis. At the time,
Menasseh ben Israel (q.v.) was in London, on a mission to Cromwell. The
Jews had been expelled from England by Edward I., after a sojourn in the
country of rather more than two centuries, during which they had been
the licensed and oppressed money-lenders of the realm, and had--through
the special exchequer of the Jews--been used by the sovereign as a means
of extorting a revenue from his subjects. In the 17th century a
considerable number of Jews had made a home in the English colonies,
where from the first they enjoyed practically equal rights with the
Christian settlers. Cromwell, upon the inconclusive termination of the
conference summoned in 1655 at Whitehall to consider the Jewish
question, tacitly assented to the return of the Jews to this country,
and at the restoration his action was confirmed. The English Jews
"gradually substituted for the personal protection of the crown, the
sympathy and confidence of the nation" (L. Wolf, _Menasseh ben Israel's
Mission to Cromwell_, p. lxxv.). The city of London was the first to be
converted to the new attitude. "The wealth they brought into the
country, and their fruitful commercial activity, especially in the
colonial trade, soon revealed them as an indispensable element of the
prosperity of the city. As early as 1668, Sir Josiah Child, the
millionaire governor of the East India company, pleaded for their
naturalization on the score of their commercial utility. For the same
reason the city found itself compelled at first to connive at their
illegal representation on 'Change, and then to violate its own rules by
permitting them to act as brokers without previously taking up the
freedom. At this period they controlled more of the foreign and colonial
trade than all the other alien merchants in London put together. The
momentum of their commercial enterprise and stalwart patriotism proved
irresistible. From the exchange to the city council chamber, thence to
the aldermanic court, and eventually to the mayoralty itself, were
inevitable stages of an emancipation to which their large interests in
the city and their high character entitled them. Finally the city of
London--not only as the converted champion of religious liberty but as
the convinced apologist of the Jews--sent Baron Lionel de Rothschild to
knock at the door of the unconverted House of Commons as parliamentary
representative of the first city in the world" (Wolf, loc. cit.).
The pioneers of this emancipation in Holland and England were Sephardic
(or Spanish) Jews--descendants of the Spanish exiles. In the meantime
the Ashkenazic (or German) Jews had been working out their own
salvation. The chief effects of the change were not felt till the 18th
century. In England emancipation was of democratic origin and concerned
itself with practical questions. On the Continent, the movement was more
aristocratic and theoretical; it was part of the intellectual
renaissance which found its most striking expression in the principles
of the French Revolution. Throughout Europe the 18th century was less an
era of stagnation than of transition. The condition of the European Jews
seems, on a superficial examination, abject enough. But, excluded though
they were from most trades and occupations, confined to special quarters
of the city, disabled from sharing most of the amenities of life, the
Jews nevertheless were gradually making their escape from the ghetto and
from the moral degeneration which it had caused. Some ghettos (as in
Moravia) were actually not founded till the 18th century, but the
careful observer can perceive clearly that at that period the ghetto was
a doomed institution. In the "dark ages" Jews enjoyed neither rights nor
privileges; in the 18th century they were still without rights but they
had privileges. A grotesque feature of the time in Germany and Austria
was the class of court Jews, such as the Oppenheims, the personal
favourites of rulers and mostly their victims when their usefulness had
ended. These men often rendered great services to their fellow-Jews, and
one of the results was the growth in Jewish society of an aristocracy of
wealth, where previously there had been an aristocracy of learning. Even
more important was another privileged class--that of the _Schutz-Jude_
(protected Jew). Where there were no rights, privileges had to be
bought. While the court Jews were the favourites of kings, the protected
Jews were the protégés of town councils. Corruption is the frequent
concomitant of privilege, and thus the town councils often connived for
a price at the presence in their midst of Jews whose admission was
illegal. Many Jews found it possible to evade laws of domicile by
residing in one place and trading in another. Nor could they be
effectually excluded from the fairs, the great markets of the 18th
century. The Sephardic Jews in all these respects occupied a superior
position, and they merited the partiality shown to them. Their personal
dignity and the vast range of their colonial enterprises were in
striking contrast to the retail traffic of the Ashkenazim and their
degenerate bearing and speech. Peddling had been forced on the latter by
the action of the gilds which were still powerful in the 18th century on
the Continent. Another cause may be sought in the Cossack assaults on
the Jews at an earlier period. Crowds of wanderers were to be met on
every road; Germany, Holland and Italy were full of Jews who, pack on
shoulder, were seeking a precarious livelihood at a time when peddling
was neither lucrative nor safe.
But underneath all this were signs of a great change. The 18th century
has a goodly tale of Jewish artists in metal-work, makers of pottery,
and (wherever the gilds permitted it) artisans and wholesale
manufacturers of many important commodities. The last attempts at
exclusion were irritating enough; but they differed from the earlier
persecution. Such strange enactments as the _Familianten-Gesetz_, which
prohibited more than one member of a family from marrying, broke up
families by forcing the men to emigrate. In 1781 Dohm pointed to the
fact that a Jewish father could seldom hope to enjoy the happiness of
living with his children. In that very year, however, Joseph II.
initiated in Austria a new era for the Jews. This Austrian reformation
was so typical of other changes elsewhere, and so expressive of the
previous disabilities of the Jews, that, even in this rapid summary,
space must be spared for some of the details supplied by Graetz. "By
this new departure (19th of October 1781) the Jews were permitted to
learn handicrafts, arts and sciences, and with certain restrictions to
devote themselves to agriculture. The doors of the universities and
academies, hitherto closed to them, were thrown open.... An ordinance of
November 2 enjoined that the Jews were everywhere considered fellow-men,
and all excesses against them were to be avoided. The Leibzoll
(body-tax) was also abolished, in addition to the special law-taxes, the
passport duty, the night-duty and all similar imposts which had stamped
the Jews as outcast, for they were now (Dec. 19) to have equal rights
with the Christian inhabitants." The Jews were not, indeed, granted
complete citizenship, and their residence and public worship in Vienna
and other Austrian cities were circumscribed and even penalized. "But
Joseph II. annulled a number of vexatious, restrictive regulations, such
as the compulsory wearing of beards, the prohibition against going out
in the forenoon on Sundays or holidays, or frequenting public pleasure
resorts. The emperor even permitted Jewish wholesale merchants, notables
and their sons, to wear swords (January 2, 1782), and especially
insisted that Christians should behave in a friendly manner towards
Jews."
48. _The Mendelssohn Movement._--This notable beginning to the removal
of "the ignominy of a thousand years" was causally connected with the
career of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786; q.v.). He found on both sides an
unreadiness for approximation: the Jews had sunk into apathy and
degeneration, the Christians were still moved by hereditary antipathy.
The failure of the hopes entertained of Sabbatai Zebi (q.v.) had plunged
the Jewries of the world into despair. This Smyrnan pretender not only
proclaimed himself Messiah (c. 1650) but he was accepted in that rôle by
vast numbers of his brethren. At the moment when Spinoza was publishing
a system which is still a dominating note of modern philosophy, this
other son of Israel was capturing the very heart of Jewry. His miracles
were reported and eagerly believed everywhere; "from Poland, Hamburg and
Amsterdam treasures poured into his court; in the Levant young men and
maidens prophesied before him; the Persian Jews refused to till the
fields. 'We shall pay no more taxes,' they said, 'our Messiah is come.'"
The expectation that he would lead Israel in triumph to the Holy Land
was doomed to end in disappointment. Sabbatai lacked one quality without
which enthusiasm is ineffective; he failed to believe in himself. At the
critical moment he embraced Islam to escape death, and though he was
still believed in by many--it was not Sabbatai himself but a phantom
resemblance that had assumed the turban!--his meteoric career did but
colour the sky of the Jews with deeper blackness. Despite all this, one
must not fall into the easy error of exaggerating the degeneration into
which the Jewries of the world fell from the middle of the 17th till the
middle of the 18th century. For Judaism had organized itself; the
_Shulhan aruch_ of Joseph Qaro (q.v.), printed in 1564 within a decade
of its completion, though not accepted without demur, was nevertheless
widely admitted as the code of Jewish life. If in more recent times
progress in Judaism has implied more or less of revolt against the
rigors and fetters of Qaro's code, yet for 250 years it was a powerful
safeguard against demoralization and stagnation. No community living in
full accordance with that code could fail to reach a high moral and
intellectual level.
It is truer to say that on the whole the Jews began at this period to
abandon as hopeless the attempt to find a place for themselves in the
general life of their country. Perhaps they even ceased to desire it.
Their children were taught without any regard to outside conditions,
they spoke and wrote a jargon, and their whole training, both by what it
included and by what it excluded, tended to produce isolation from their
neighbours. Moses Mendelssohn, both by his career and by his propaganda,
for ever put an end to these conditions; he more than any other man.
Born in the ghetto of Dessau, he was not of the ghetto. At the age of
fourteen he found his way to Berlin, where Frederick the Great, inspired
by the spirit of Voltaire, held the maxim that "to oppress the Jews
never brought prosperity to any government." Mendelssohn became a warm
friend of Lessing, the hero of whose drama _Nathan the Wise_ was drawn
from the Dessau Jew. Mendelssohn's _Phaedo_, on the immortality of the
soul, brought the author into immediate fame, and the simple home of the
"Jewish Plato" was sought by many of the leaders of Gentile society in
Berlin. Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch into German with a
new commentary by himself and others introduced the Jews to more modern
ways of thinking. Two results emanated from Mendelssohn's work. A new
school of scientific study of Judaism emerged, to be dignified by the
names of Leopold Zunz (q.v.), H. Graetz (q.v.) and many others. On the
other hand Mendelssohn by his pragmatic conception of religion
(specially in his _Jerusalem_) weakened the belief of certain minds in
the absolute truth of Judaism, and thus his own grandchildren (including
the famous musician Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) as well as later Heine,
Börne, Gans and Neander, embraced Christianity. Within Judaism itself
two parties were formed, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and as time
went on these tendencies definitely organized themselves. Holdheim
(q.v.) and Geiger (q.v.) led the reform movement in Germany and at the
present day the effects of the movement are widely felt in America on
the Liberal side and on the opposite side in the work of the
neo-orthodox school founded by S. R. Hirsch (q.v.). Modern seminaries
were established first in Breslau by Zacharias Fränkel (q.v.) and later
in other cities. Brilliant results accrued from all this participation
in the general life of Germany. Jews, engaged in all the professions and
pursuits of the age, came to the front in many branches of public life,
claiming such names as Riesser (d. 1863) and Lasker in politics,
Auerbach in literature, Rubinstein and Joachim in music, Traube in
medicine, and Lazarus in psychology. Especially famous have been the
Jewish linguists, pre-eminent among them Theodor Benfey (1809-1881), the
pioneer of modern comparative philology; and the Greek scholar and
critic Jakob Bernays (1824-1881).
49. _Effect of the French Revolution._--In close relation to the German
progress in Mendelssohn's age, events had been progressing in France,
where the Revolution did much to improve the Jewish condition, thanks
largely to the influence of Mirabeau. In 1807 Napoleon convoked a Jewish
assembly in Paris. Though the decisions of this body had no binding
force on the Jews generally, yet in some important particulars its
decrees represent principles widely adopted by the Jewish community.
They proclaim the acceptance of the spirit of Mendelssohn's
reconciliation of the Jews to modern life. They assert the citizenship
and patriotism of Jews, their determination to accommodate themselves to
the present as far as they could while retaining loyalty to the past.
They declare their readiness to adapt the law of the synagogue to the
law of the land, as for instance in the question of marriage and
divorce. No Jew, they decided, may perform the ceremony of marriage
unless civil formalities have been fulfilled; and divorce is allowed to
the Jews only if and so far as it is confirmatory of a legal divorce
pronounced by the civil law of the land. The French assembly did not
succeed in obtaining formal assent to these decisions (except from
Frankfort and Holland), but they gained the practical adhesion of the
majority of Western and American Jews. Napoleon, after the report of the
assembly, established the consistorial system which remained in force,
with its central consistory in the capital, until the recent separation
of church and state. Many French Jews acquired fame, among them the
ministers Crémieux (1796-1879), Fould, Gondchaux and Raynal; the
archaeologists and philologians Oppert, Halévy, Munk, the Derenbourgs,
Darmesteters and Reinachs; the musicians Halévy, Waldteufel and
Meyerbeer; the authors and dramatists Catulle Mendès and A. d'Ennery,
and many others, among them several distinguished occupants of civil and
military offices.
50. _Modern Italy._--Similar developments occurred in other countries,
though it becomes impossible to treat the history of the Jews, from this
time onwards, in general outline. We must direct our attention to the
most important countries in such detail as space permits. And first as
to Italy, where the Jews in a special degree have identified themselves
with the national life. The revolutions of 1848, which greatly affected
the position of the Jews in several parts of Europe, brought
considerable gain to the Jews of Italy. During the war against Austria
in the year named, Isaac Pesaro Marogonato was finance minister in
Venice. Previously to this date the Jews were still confined to the
ghetto, but in 1859, in the Italy united under Victor Emanuel II., the
Jews obtained complete rights, a privilege which was extended also to
Rome itself in 1870. The Italian Jews devoted themselves with ardour to
the service of the state. Isaac Artom was Cavour's secretary, L' Olper a
counsellor of Mazzini. "The names of the Jewish soldiers who died in the
cause of Italian liberty were placed along with those of their Christian
fellow soldiers on the monuments erected in their honour" (_Jewish
Encyclopedia_, vii. 10). More recently men like Wollemberg, Ottolenghi
and Luzzatti rose to high positions as ministers of state. Most noted of
recent Jewish scholars in Italy was S. D. Luzzatto (q.v.).
51. _Austria._--From Italy we may turn to the country which so much
influenced Italian politics, Austria, which had founded the system of
"Court Jews" in 1518, had expelled the Jews from Vienna as late as 1670,
when the synagogue of that city was converted into a church. But
economic laws are often too strong for civil vagaries or sectarian
fanaticism, and as the commerce of Austria suffered by the absence of
the Jews, it was impossible to exclude the latter from the fairs in the
provinces or from the markets of the capital. As has been pointed out
above, certain protected Jews were permitted to reside in places where
the expulsion of the Jews had been decreed. But Maria Theresa
(1740-1780) was distinguished for her enmity to the Jews, and in 1744
made a futile attempt to secure their expulsion from Bohemia. "In 1760
she issued an order that all unbearded Jews should wear a yellow badge
on their left arm" (_Jewish Encyclopedia_, ii. 330). The most petty
limitations of Jewish commercial activity continued; thus at about this
period the community of Prague, in a petition, "complain that they are
not permitted to buy victuals in the market before a certain hour,
vegetables not before 9 and cattle not before 11 o'clock; to buy fish is
sometimes altogether prohibited; Jewish druggists are not permitted to
buy victuals at the same time with Christians" (_op. cit._). So, too,
with taxation. It was exorbitant and vexatious. To pay for rendering
inoperative the banishment edict of 1744, the Jews were taxed 3,000,000
florins annually for ten years. In the same year it was decreed that the
Jews should pay "a special tax of 40,000 florins for the right to import
their citrons for the feast of booths." Nevertheless, Joseph II.
(1780-1790) inaugurated a new era for the Jews of his empire. Soon after
his accession he abolished the distinctive Jewish dress, abrogated the
poll-tax, admitted the Jews to military service and their children to
the public schools, and in general opened the era of emancipation by the
_Toleranzpatent_ of 1782. This enlightened policy was not continued by
the successors of Joseph II. Under Francis II. (1792-1835) economic and
social restrictions were numerous. Agriculture was again barred; indeed
the Vienna congress of 1815 practically restored the old discriminations
against the Jews. As time went on, a more progressive policy intervened,
the special form of Jewish oath was abolished in 1846, and in 1848, as a
result of the revolutionary movement in which Jews played an active
part, legislation took a more liberal turn. Francis Joseph I. ascended
the throne in that year, and though the constitution of 1849 recognized
the principle of religious liberty, an era of reaction supervened,
especially when "the concordat of 1855 delivered Austria altogether into
the hands of the clericals." But the day of medieval intolerance had
passed, and in 1867 the new constitution "abolished all disabilities on
the ground of religious differences," though anti-Semitic manipulation
of the law by administrative authority has led to many instances of
intolerance. Many Jews have been members of the Reichsrath, some have
risen to the rank of general in the army, and Austrian Jews have
contributed their quota to learning, the arts and literature. Löw,
Jellinek, Kaufmann, as scholars in the Jewish field; as poets and
novelists, Kompert, Franzos, L. A. Frankl; the pianist Moscheles, the
dramatist Mosenthal, and the actor Sonnenthal, the mathematician Spitzer
and the chess-player Steinitz are some of the most prominent names. The
law of 1890 makes it "compulsory for every Jew to be a member of the
congregation of the district in which he resides, and so gives to every
congregation the right to tax the individual members" (_op. cit._). A
similar obligation prevails in parts of Germany. A Jew can avoid the
communal tax only by formally declaring himself as outside the Jewish
community. The Jews of Hungary shared with their brethren in Austria the
same alternations of expulsion and recall. By the law "De Judaeis"
passed by the Diet in 1791 the Jews were accorded protection, but half a
century passed before their tolerated condition was regularized. The
"toleration-tax" was abolished in 1846. During the revolutionary
outbreak of 1848, the Jews suffered severely in Hungary, but as many as
20,000 Jews are said to have joined the army. Kossuth succeeded in
granting them temporary emancipation, but the suppression of the War of
Independence led to an era of royal autocracy which, while it advanced
Jewish culture by enforcing the establishment of modern schools,
retarded the obtaining of civic and political rights. As in Austria, so
in Hungary, these rights were granted by the constitution of 1867. But
one step remained. The Hungarian Jews did not consider themselves fully
emancipated until the Synagogue was "duly recognized as one of the
legally acknowledged religions of the country." This recognition was
granted by the law of 1895-1896. In the words of Büchler (_Jewish
Encyclopedia_, vi. 503): "Since their emancipation the Jews have taken
an active part in the political, industrial, scientific and artistic
life of Hungary. In all these fields they have achieved prominence. They
have also founded great religious institutions. Their progress has not
been arrested even by anti-Semitism, which first developed in 1883 at
the time of the Tisza-Eslar accusation of ritual murder."
52. _Other European Countries._--According to M. Caimi the present
Jewish communities of Greece are divisible into five groups: (1) Arta
(Epirus); (2) Chalcis (Euboea); (3) Athens (Attica); (4) Volo, Larissa
and Trikala (Thessaly); and (5) Corfu and Zante (Ionian Islands). The
Greek constitution admits no religious disabilities, but anti-Semitic
riots in Corfu and Zante in 1891 caused much distress and emigration. In
Spain there has been of late a more liberal attitude towards the Jews,
and there is a small congregation (without a public synagogue) in
Madrid. In 1858 the edict of expulsion was repealed. Portugal, on the
other hand, having abolished the Inquisition in 1821, has since 1826
allowed Jews freedom of religion, and there are synagogues in Lisbon and
Faro. In Holland the Jews were admitted to political liberty in 1796. At
present more than half of the Dutch Jews are concentrated in Amsterdam,
being largely engaged in the diamond and tobacco trades. Among famous
names of recent times foremost stands that of the artist Josef Israels.
In 1675 was consecrated in Amsterdam the synagogue which is still the
most noted Jewish edifice in Europe. Belgium granted full freedom to the
Jews in 1815, and the community has since 1808 been organized on the
state consistorial system, which till recently also prevailed in France.
It was not till 1874 that full religious equality was granted to the
Jews of Switzerland. But there has been considerable interference
(ostensibly on humanitarian grounds) with the Jewish method of
slaughtering animals for food (_Shehitah_) and the method was prohibited
by a referendum in 1893. In the same year a similar enactment was passed
in Saxony, and the subject is a favourite one with anti-Semites, who
have enlisted on their side some scientific authorities, though the bulk
of expert opinion is in favor of _Shehitah_ (see Dembo, _Das
Schlachten_, 1894). In Sweden the Jews have all the rights which are
open to non-Lutherans; they cannot become members of the council of
state. In Norway there is a small Jewish settlement (especially in
Christiania) who are engaged in industrial pursuits and enjoy complete
liberty. Denmark has for long been distinguished for its liberal policy
towards the Jews. Since 1814 the latter have been eligible as
magistrates, and in 1849 full equality was formally ratified. Many
Copenhagen Jews achieved distinction as manufacturers, merchants and
bankers, and among famous Jewish men of letters may be specially named
Georg Brandes.
The story of the Jews in Russia and Rumania remains a black spot on the
European record. In Russia the Jews are more numerous and more harshly
treated than in any other part of the world. In the remotest past Jews
were settled in much of the territory now included in Russia, but they
are still treated as aliens. They are restricted to the pale of
settlement which was first established in 1791. The pale now includes
fifteen governments, and under the May laws of 1892 the congestion of
the Jewish population, the denial of free movement, and the exclusion
from the general rights of citizens were rendered more oppressive than
ever before. The right to leave the pale is indeed granted to merchants
of the first gild, to those possessed of certain educational diplomas,
to veteran soldiers and to certain classes of skilled artisans. But
these concessions are unfavourably interpreted and much extortion
results. Despite a huge emigration of Jews from Russia, the congestion
within the pale is the cause of terrible destitution and misery. Fierce
massacres occurred in Nizhniy-Novgorod in 1882, and in Kishinev in 1903.
Many other pogroms have occurred, and the condition of the Jews has been
reduced to one of abject poverty and despair. Much was hoped from the
duma, but this body has proved bitterly opposed to the Jewish claim for
liberty. Yet in spite of these disabilities there are amongst the
Russian Jews many enterprising contractors, skilful doctors, and
successful lawyers and scientists. In Rumania, despite the Berlin
Treaty, the Jews are treated as aliens, and but a small number have been
naturalized. They are excluded from most of the professions and are
hampered in every direction.
53. _Oriental Countries._--In the Orient the condition of the Jews has
been much improved by the activity of Western organizations, of which
something is said in a later paragraph. Modern schools have been set up
in many places, and Palestine has been the scene of a notable
educational and agricultural revival, while technical schools--such as
the agricultural college near Jaffa and the schools of the alliance and
the more recent Bezalel in Jerusalem--have been established. Turkey has
always on the whole tolerated the Jews, and much is hoped from the new
régime. In Morocco the Jews, who until late in the 19th century were
often persecuted, are still confined to a _mellah_ (separate quarter),
but at the coast-towns there are prosperous Jewish communities mostly
engaged in commerce. In other parts of the same continent, in Egypt and
in South Africa, many Jews have settled, participating in all industrial
and financial pursuits. Recently a mission has been sent to the Falashas
of Abyssinia, and much interest has been felt in such outlying branches
of the Jewish people as the Black Jews of Cochin and the Bene Israel
community of Bombay. In Persia Jews are often the victims of popular
outbursts as well as of official extortion, but there are fairly
prosperous communities at Bushire, Isfahan, Teheran and Kashan (in
Shiraz they are in low estate). The recent advent of constitutional
government may improve the condition of the Jews.
54. _The United Kingdom._--The general course of Jewish history in
England has been indicated above. The Jews came to England at least as
early as the Norman Conquest; they were expelled from Bury St Edmunds in
1190, after the massacres at the coronation of Richard I.; they were
required to wear badges in 1218. At the end of the 12th century was
established the "exchequer of the Jews," which chiefly dealt with suits
concerning money-lending, and arranged a "continual flow of money from
the Jews to the royal treasury," and a so-called "parliament of the
Jews" was summoned in 1241; in 1275 was enacted the statute _de
Judaismo_ which, among other things, permitted the Jews to hold land.
But this concession was illusory, and as the statute prevented Jews from
engaging in finance--the only occupation which had been open to them--it
was a prelude to their expulsion in 1290. There were few Jews in England
from that date till the Commonwealth, but Jews settled in the American
colonies earlier in the 17th century, and rendered considerable services
in the advancement of English commerce. The Whitehall conference of 1655
marks a change in the status of the Jews in England itself, for though
no definite results emerged it was clearly defined by the judges that
there was no legal obstacle to the return of the Jews. Charles II. in
1664 continued Cromwell's tolerant policy. No serious attempt towards
the emancipation of the Jews was made till the Naturalization Act of
1753, which was, however, immediately repealed. Jews no longer attached
to the Synagogue, such as the Herschels and Disraelis, attained to fame.
In 1830 the first Jewish emancipation bill was brought in by Robert
Grant, but it was not till the legislation of 1858-1860 that Jews
obtained full parliamentary rights. In other directions progress was
more rapid. The office of sheriff was thrown open to Jews in 1835 (Moses
Montefiore, sheriff of London was knighted in 1837); Sir I. L. Goldsmid
was made a baronet in 1841, Baron Lionel de Rothschild was elected to
Parliament in 1847 (though he was unable to take his seat), Alderman
(Sir David) Salomons became lord mayor of London in 1855 and Francis
Goldsmid was made a Q.C. in 1858. In 1873 Sir George Jessel was made a
judge, and Lord Rothschild took his seat in the House of Lords as the
first Jewish peer in 1886. A fair proportion of Jews have been elected
to the House of Commons, and Mr Herbert Samuel rose to cabinet rank in
1909. Sir Matthew Nathan has been governor of Hong-Kong and Natal, and
among Jewish statesmen in the colonies Sir Julius Vogel and V. L.
Solomon have been prime ministers (HYAMSON: _A History of the Jews in
England_, p. 342). It is unnecessary to remark that in the British
colonies the Jews everywhere enjoy full citizenship. In fact, the
colonies emancipated the Jews earlier than did the mother country. Jews
were settled in Canada from the time of Wolfe, and a congregation was
founded at Montreal in 1768, and since 1832 Jews have been entitled to
sit in the Canadian parliament. There are some thriving Jewish
agricultural colonies in the same dominion. In Australia the Jews from
the first were welcomed on perfectly equal terms. The oldest
congregation is that of Sydney (1817); the Melbourne community dates
from 1844. Reverting to incidents in England itself, in 1870 the
abolition of university tests removed all restrictions on Jews at Oxford
and Cambridge, and both universities have since elected Jews to
professorships and other posts of honour. The communal organization of
English Jewry is somewhat inchoate. In 1841 an independent reform
congregation was founded, and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews have
always maintained their separate existence with a Haham as the
ecclesiastical head. In 1870 was founded the United Synagogue, which is
a metropolitan organization, and the same remark applies to the more
recent Federation of Synagogues. The chief rabbi, who is the
ecclesiastical head of the United Synagogue, has also a certain amount
of authority over the provincial and colonial Jewries, but this is
nominal rather than real. The provincial Jewries, however, participate
in the election of the chief rabbi. At the end of 1909 was held the
first conference of Jewish ministers in London, and from this is
expected some more systematic organization of scattered communities.
Anglo-Jewry is rich, however, in charitable, educational and literary
institutions; chief among these respectively may be named the Jewish
board of guardians (1859), the Jews' college (1855), and the Jewish
historical society (1893). Besides the distinctions already noted,
English Jews have risen to note in theology (C. G. Montefiore), in
literature (Israel Zangwill and Alfred Sutro), in art (S. Hart, R.A.,
and S. J. Solomon, R.A.) in music (Julius Benedict and Frederick Hymen
Cowen). More than 1000 English and colonial Jews participated as active
combatants in the South African War. The immigration of Jews from Russia
was mainly responsible for the ineffective yet oppressive Aliens Act of
1905. (Full accounts of Anglo-Jewish institutions are given in the
_Jewish Year-Book_ published annually since 1895.)
55. _The American Continent._--Closely parallel with the progress of the
Jews in England has been their steady advancement in America. Jews made
their way to America early in the 16th century, settling in Brazil prior
to the Dutch occupation. Under Dutch rule they enjoyed full civil
rights. In Mexico and Peru they fell under the ban of the Inquisition.
In Surinam the Jews were treated as British subjects; in Barbadoes,
Jamaica and New York they are found as early as the first half of the
17th century. During the War of Independence the Jews of America took a
prominent part on both sides, for under the British rule many had risen
to wealth and high social position. After the Declaration of
Independence, Jews are found all over America, where they have long
enjoyed complete emancipation, and have enormously increased in numbers,
owing particularly to immigration from Russia. The American Jews bore
their share in the Civil War (7038 Jews were in the two armies), and
have always identified themselves closely with national movements such
as the emancipation of Cuba. They have attained to high rank in all
branches of the public service, and have shown most splendid instances
of far-sighted and generous philanthropy. Within the Synagogue the
reform movement began in 1825, and soon won many successes, the central
conference of American rabbis and Union College (1875) at Cincinnati
being the instruments of this progress. At the present time orthodox
Judaism is also again acquiring its due position and the Jewish
theological seminary of America was founded for this purpose. In 1908 an
organization, inclusive of various religious sections, was founded under
the description "the Jewish community of New York." There have been four
Jewish members of the United States senate, and about 30 of the national
House of Representatives. Besides filling many diplomatic offices, a Jew
(O. S. Straus) has been a member of the cabinet. Many Jews have filled
professorial chairs at the universities, others have been judges, and in
art, literature (there is a notable Jewish publication society),
industry and commerce have rendered considerable services to national
culture and prosperity. American universities have owed much to Jewish
generosity, a foremost benefactor of these (as of many other American
institutions) being Jacob Schiff. Such institutions as the Gratz and
Dropsie colleges are further indications of the splendid activity of
American Jews in the educational field. The Jews of America have also
taken a foremost place in the succour of their oppressed brethren in
Russia and other parts of the world. (Full accounts of American Jewish
institutions are given in the _American Jewish Year-Book_, published
annually since 1899.)
56. _Anti-Semitism._--It is saddening to be compelled to close this
record with the statement that the progress of the European Jews
received a serious check by the rise of modern anti-Semitism in the last
quarter of the 19th century. While in Russia this took the form of
actual massacre, in Germany and Austria it assumed the shape of social
and civic ostracism. In Germany Jews are still rarely admitted to the
rank of officers in the army, university posts are very difficult of
access, Judaism and its doctrines are denounced in medieval language,
and a tone of hostility prevails in many public utterances. In Austria,
as in Germany, anti-Semitism is a factor in the parliamentary elections.
The legend of ritual murder (q.v.) has been revived, and every obstacle
is placed in the way of the free intercourse of Jews with their
Christian fellow-citizens. In France Edouard Adolphe Drumont led the way
to a similar animosity, and the popular fury was fanned by the Dreyfus
case. It is generally felt, however, that this recrudescence of
anti-Semitism is a passing phase in the history of culture (see
ANTI-SEMITISM).
57. _The Zionist Movement._--The Zionist movement (see ZIONISM), founded
in 1895 by Theodor Herzl (q.v.) was in a sense the outcome of
anti-Semitism. Its object was the foundation of a Jewish state in
Palestine, but though it aroused much interest it failed to attract the
majority of the emancipated Jews, and the movement has of late been
transforming itself into a mere effort at colonization. Most Jews not
only confidently believe that their own future lies in progressive
development _within_ the various nationalities of the world, but they
also hope that a similar consummation is in store for the as yet
unemancipated branches of Israel. Hence the Jews are in no sense
internationally organized. The influence of the happier communities has
been exercised on behalf of those in a worse position by individuals
such as Sir Moses Montefiore (q.v.) rather than by societies or leagues.
From time to time incidents arise which appeal to the Jewish sympathies
everywhere and joint action ensues. Such incidents were the Damascus
charge of ritual murder (1840), the forcible baptism of the Italian
child Mortara (1858), and the Russian pogroms at various dates. But all
attempts at an international union of Jews, even in view of such
emergencies as these, have failed. Each country has its own local
organization for dealing with Jewish questions. In France the Alliance
Israélite (founded in 1860), in England the Anglo-Jewish Association
(founded in 1871), in Germany the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, and
in Austria the Israelitische Allianz zu Wien (founded 1872), in America
the American Jewish Committee (founded 1906), and similar organizations
in other countries deal only incidentally with political affairs. They
are concerned mainly with the education of Jews in the Orient, and the
establishment of colonies and technical institutions. Baron Hirsch
(q.v.) founded the Jewish colonial association, which has undertaken
vast colonizing and educational enterprises, especially in Argentina,
and more recently the Jewish territorial organization has been started
to found a home for the oppressed Jews of Russia. All these institutions
are performing a great regenerative work, and the tribulations and
disappointments of the last decades of the 19th century were not all
loss. The gain consisted in the rousing of the Jewish consciousness to
more virile efforts towards a double end, to succour the persecuted and
ennoble the ideals of the emancipated.
58. _Statistics._--Owing to the absence of a religious census in
several important countries, the Jewish population of the world can
only be given by inferential estimate. The following approximate
figures are taken from the _American Jewish Year-Book_ for 1909-1910
and are based on similar estimates in the English _Jewish Year-Book_,
the _Jewish Encyclopedia_, Nossig's _Jüdische Statistik_ and the
_Reports_ of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. According to these
estimates the total Jewish population of the world in the year named
was approximately 11,500,000. Of this total there were in the British
Empire about 380,000 Jews (British Isles 240,000, London accounts for
150,000 of these; Canada and British Columbia 60,000; India 18,000;
South Africa 40,000). The largest Jewish populations were those of
Russia (5,215,000), Austria-Hungary (2,084,000), United States of
America (1,777,000), Germany (607,000, of whom 409,000 were in
Prussia), Turkey (463,000, of whom some 78,000 resided in Palestine),
Rumania (250,000), Morocco (109,000) and Holland (106,000). Others of
the more important totals are: France 95,000 (besides Algeria 63,000
and Tunis 62,000); Italy 52,000; Persia 49,000; Egypt 39,000; Bulgaria
36,000; Argentine Republic 30,000; Tripoli 19,000; Turkestan and
Afghanistan 14,000; Switzerland and Belgium each 12,000; Mexico 9000;
Greece 8000; Servia 6000; Sweden and Cuba each 4000; Denmark 3500;
Brazil and Abyssinia (Falashas) each 3000; Spain and Portugal 2500;
China and Japan 2000. There are also Jews in Curaçoa, Surinam,
Luxemburg, Norway, Peru, Crete and Venezuela; but in none of these
does the Jewish population much exceed 1000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--H. GRAETZ, _Geschichte der Juden_ (11 vols., 1853-1875;
several subsequent editions of separate volumes; Eng. trans. 5 vols.,
1891-1892); the works of L. Zunz; _Jewish Encyclopedia passim_;
publications of Jewish societies, such as _Études Juives_, Jewish
historical societies of England and America, German historical
commission, Julius Barasch society (Rumania), Societas Litteraria
Hungarico-Judaica, the Viennese communal publications, and many others
to which may be added the 20 vols. of the _Jewish Quarterly Review_;
Scherer, _Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden_ (1901); M. Güdemann
_Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der Juden_ (1880,
&c.); A. Leroy-Beaulieu, _Israel among the Nations_ (1895); I.
Abrahams, _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_ (1896); G. F. Abbott,
_Israel in Europe_ (1905); G. Caro, _Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden_
(1908); M. Philippson, _Neueste Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes_
(1907, &c.); Nossig, _Jüdische Statistik_ (1903); and such special
works as H. Gross, _Gallia Judaica_ (1897), &c. (I. A.)