The struggle of the Jews in the various European countries for civil
rights and for equality before the law was long drawn out, and was
marked by varying fortunes dependent upon the political conditions of
these countries. More than seventy years of the century had passed
before this struggle had been fought out. Though it is true that a
beginning was made in Germany and Austria (1750 and 1781), to France
belongs the honor of having been the first to really do away with
the mass of anti-Jewish legislation which the centuries preceding
had piled up. On the 27th of September, 1791, the National Assembly
at one stroke removed all the disabilities under which the Jews
had been living—distinctive dress, special Jew’s oath, Jew’s tax,
forced residence in certain localities, etc. From France, and under
the influence which that country then exercised, the emancipation of
the Jews spread to Belgium and Holland, and to some of the states
of Germany; but the rest of Europe was not yet ready for this
emancipation. The reaction which marks the period between 1814 and
1848 made itself felt upon the Jews, restoring, in many places, the
disabilities under which they had formerly lived. The “Judengassen”
became once more inhabited, and the principles of freedom and
liberty for all members of the state seemed to have been wellnigh
forgotten. The Revolution of 1830 stayed the downward course in some
of the German states; but it was not until 1848 that the second great
period in Jewish emancipation came about. In the breaking down of old
institutions it was natural that the exceptional laws against the Jews
should go also. The German Parliament of 1848, at Frankfort, forcefully
proclaimed the doctrine of religious liberty; and of this parliament
a Jew, Gabriel Riesser, was vice-president. But it was not until the
formation of the German Empire, in 1871, that the emancipation of the
Jews, which had gradually made its way in the various states, was
carried through for the whole of that empire. In 1867, a decree was
issued in Austria by virtue of which all citizens were declared equal
before the law, and in 1870 the walls of the Ghetto fell in Rome. In
1874, Jews were admitted to the rank of citizens in Switzerland. In
1878, the Congress of Berlin, the leading spirit of which (Disraeli)
was of the Jewish race, demanded equal rights for the Jews living in
the Balkan Peninsula. These rights were accorded by the various states
there, with the exception of Roumania; which, in spite of the treaty
and in spite of the promises made at the time, still continues to
refuse to allow the Jews living within its borders to become citizens
or to treat them as an integral part of the population. In Turkey the
laws which put certain restrictions upon non-Mohammedan citizens were
sensibly changed in 1839; so that the Jews living in the dominions of
the Sultan suffer from no exceptional legislation.
The cause of Jewish emancipation in England suffered no such sudden
changes as it did on the continent. It proceeded by regular stages
through the abrogation of the Act of Test in 1828, the admission
of Jews as citizens of London in 1830, as sheriffs in 1835, as
magistrates in 1845, and in 1858 as members of Parliament by the
removal of the words “upon the faith of a Christian” in the oath taken
by the members. There can be no doubt that the emancipation in England,
though long drawn out and fiercely contested, was more effective than
anywhere else, owing to the fact that it was progressive in character
and based upon the idea of rights demanded and not upon that of favors
granted. Nothing was asked of the Jews in England other than that they
be good citizens of the state; while the whole continental legislation
regarding them, from the time of Napoleon on, had on the part of the
legislators only one object in view—to break up the cohesion of
the Jews as a body and to pave the way for their disappearance as a
distinctive group. The idea that emancipation was a favor and not a
right brought it about that the Jews themselves aided in their own
disintegration. They believed that it was their duty to show themselves
more patriotic than were the other citizens of the state in which they
lived, as they were receiving greater favors. And so, even though Jews
have sat in the parliaments of various continental states, they have
with few exceptions steadfastly refused to acknowledge themselves to
be in any way representatives of their brethren, and in some cases
(notably in France) during the last few years have either remained
supinely indifferent when Jewish questions were before their several
parliaments, or have even aided those whose agitation was directed
against their fellow-Jews. In England, on the contrary, the Jewish
members of Parliament have never forgotten that, in addition to
their interests as citizens of England, they have a duty to perform
to the Jews, whom they also represent, and they have therefore been
able, while giving their best services to the state, to be also
useful to their co-religionists. It may be due to this cause that the
emancipation of Jews on the continent has in no way been able to stem
the recrudescence of anti-Semitism; while it has undoubtedly done this
in England. The opposite effect is most clearly seen in Algiers, where
the wholesale emancipation of the Jews in 1870, through the efforts
of Crémieux, that bold champion of his people, has in a large measure
contributed to make the riots possible which have in late years been
witnessed in that French colony. Neither the population of Algeria nor
the Jews there were at that time ready for such a measure; it did not
therefore come as the result of a development among the people, but as
something imposed upon them by the government.
In addition to Roumania, Russia is practically the only country which
has refused to enter the European concert, and which by means of laws
and ordinances represents still the dark period of the Middle Ages.
It has turned the provinces on its western borders into a tremendous
Ghetto, and driven the Jews to exile by making life within that pale
practically impossible. Even Portugal in 1821, and Spain in 1868 (the
two countries from which the Jews had been banished for a great number
of years), opened their doors to them once more; though few Jews have
ventured to return to the Peninsula, despite the fact that in 1886 a
committee was formed in Madrid for the promotion of Jewish immigration
into Spain.