Derek J. Penslar
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691138879
- eISBN:
- 9781400848577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691138879.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter illustrates the context in which western and central European armies took form and how Jews were included in them. The issue of military service played a major role in eighteenth- and ...
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This chapter illustrates the context in which western and central European armies took form and how Jews were included in them. The issue of military service played a major role in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century debates about the emancipation of Jews. In the early 1700s, Protestant Hebraists and Enlightenment thinkers reconceived the position of Jews in European society by presenting Jews as capable of martial valor and so deserving of civil rights. In the late eighteenth century, new conceptions of the meliorability of humanity led to the introduction of conscription for all men, including Jews. Proponents of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) paid considerable attention to the issue of military service, especially after the introduction of mass conscription in France during the revolutionary wars. In the German lands, early nineteenth-century advocates of Jewish emancipation urged Jewish youth to volunteer to fight against Napoleonic France.Less
This chapter illustrates the context in which western and central European armies took form and how Jews were included in them. The issue of military service played a major role in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century debates about the emancipation of Jews. In the early 1700s, Protestant Hebraists and Enlightenment thinkers reconceived the position of Jews in European society by presenting Jews as capable of martial valor and so deserving of civil rights. In the late eighteenth century, new conceptions of the meliorability of humanity led to the introduction of conscription for all men, including Jews. Proponents of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) paid considerable attention to the issue of military service, especially after the introduction of mass conscription in France during the revolutionary wars. In the German lands, early nineteenth-century advocates of Jewish emancipation urged Jewish youth to volunteer to fight against Napoleonic France.
David Sorkin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691164946
- eISBN:
- 9780691189673
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691164946.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This introductory chapter provides a background of the Jews' “emancipation and civil rights.” The very term “emancipation” came to be widely applied to Jews after “Catholic emancipation” in England ...
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This introductory chapter provides a background of the Jews' “emancipation and civil rights.” The very term “emancipation” came to be widely applied to Jews after “Catholic emancipation” in England (1829). Thus, “Jewish emancipation” concerns first and foremost the Jews' inclusion, elevation, or equalization as a distinct religious group. Only in the twentieth century did emancipation come to designate alterations in the Jews' status as a “nation” or a “race.” The book analyzes the complex and multidirectional process whereby Jews acquired civil and political rights and came to exercise citizenship's prerogatives. Once one realizes that emancipation is an interminable process that is an integral aspect of Jews' contemporary experience, one is forced to acknowledge that there are in fact no settled answers to the most pressing political and indeed existential issues of Jewish life. Neither the establishment of the State of Israel nor the flourishing of American Jewry let alone the rebuilding of Jewish life in Europe has definitively answered emancipation's challenges. The larger struggle for political equality and the full exercise of citizenship, for Jews, by Jews, and for other groups, remains pressing. The only thing one can confidently assert is that this struggle is inherently protean: it will be populated by ever new issues and causes, by proponents and opponents whose appearance and actions one cannot predict.Less
This introductory chapter provides a background of the Jews' “emancipation and civil rights.” The very term “emancipation” came to be widely applied to Jews after “Catholic emancipation” in England (1829). Thus, “Jewish emancipation” concerns first and foremost the Jews' inclusion, elevation, or equalization as a distinct religious group. Only in the twentieth century did emancipation come to designate alterations in the Jews' status as a “nation” or a “race.” The book analyzes the complex and multidirectional process whereby Jews acquired civil and political rights and came to exercise citizenship's prerogatives. Once one realizes that emancipation is an interminable process that is an integral aspect of Jews' contemporary experience, one is forced to acknowledge that there are in fact no settled answers to the most pressing political and indeed existential issues of Jewish life. Neither the establishment of the State of Israel nor the flourishing of American Jewry let alone the rebuilding of Jewish life in Europe has definitively answered emancipation's challenges. The larger struggle for political equality and the full exercise of citizenship, for Jews, by Jews, and for other groups, remains pressing. The only thing one can confidently assert is that this struggle is inherently protean: it will be populated by ever new issues and causes, by proponents and opponents whose appearance and actions one cannot predict.
Ritchie Robertson
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199248889
- eISBN:
- 9780191697784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248889.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter examines the link between Jewish emancipation and the Enlightenment, exploring the difficulties of adapting Judaism to the secular world without sacrificing its distinctive character. ...
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This chapter examines the link between Jewish emancipation and the Enlightenment, exploring the difficulties of adapting Judaism to the secular world without sacrificing its distinctive character. Many educated Jews believed that contact with secular thought, far from harming Judaism, could provide much-needed renewal. From the 1760s onwards there was an increasing number of Jews, known as maskilim, who wanted to enlarge the scope of education by promoting the study of Hebrew and wider interest in science, philosophy, and mathematics. On the one hand, the intellectual leaders of the German Jewry were seeking to renew Judaism and reconcile it with the Enlightenment. On the other, the social vanguard of German Jewry felt less and less compunction about those customs and practices that had hitherto kept Jews distinct. In any case, while the new generation of educated Jews was anxious to enter the society of the Enlightenment, that society was decidedly lukewarm about welcoming them.Less
This chapter examines the link between Jewish emancipation and the Enlightenment, exploring the difficulties of adapting Judaism to the secular world without sacrificing its distinctive character. Many educated Jews believed that contact with secular thought, far from harming Judaism, could provide much-needed renewal. From the 1760s onwards there was an increasing number of Jews, known as maskilim, who wanted to enlarge the scope of education by promoting the study of Hebrew and wider interest in science, philosophy, and mathematics. On the one hand, the intellectual leaders of the German Jewry were seeking to renew Judaism and reconcile it with the Enlightenment. On the other, the social vanguard of German Jewry felt less and less compunction about those customs and practices that had hitherto kept Jews distinct. In any case, while the new generation of educated Jews was anxious to enter the society of the Enlightenment, that society was decidedly lukewarm about welcoming them.
Stephan E. C. Wendehorst
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199265305
- eISBN:
- 9780191730849
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199265305.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Religion
Following on from the examination of how British Jews related to the Zionist project in the Middle East in Part II and the Zionist transformation of British Jewry in Part III, Part IV probes how the ...
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Following on from the examination of how British Jews related to the Zionist project in the Middle East in Part II and the Zionist transformation of British Jewry in Part III, Part IV probes how the participation of British Jews in Zionist state- and nation-building related to the fabric of British state and society. The impact of Zionism on the modes of Jewish integration into British state and society will be explored in two case studies: the presentation of the Zionist case in British parliamentary politics and the place of Zionism in the English educational landscape. The interaction of Zionism with British state and society is discussed against the background of specific features of the British constitution and of the British-Jewish condition: a nation-state conditioned by premodern features and the presence of Empire, the specific terms of Jewish emancipation in Britain, and Britain’s assumption of the Mandate for Palestine.Less
Following on from the examination of how British Jews related to the Zionist project in the Middle East in Part II and the Zionist transformation of British Jewry in Part III, Part IV probes how the participation of British Jews in Zionist state- and nation-building related to the fabric of British state and society. The impact of Zionism on the modes of Jewish integration into British state and society will be explored in two case studies: the presentation of the Zionist case in British parliamentary politics and the place of Zionism in the English educational landscape. The interaction of Zionism with British state and society is discussed against the background of specific features of the British constitution and of the British-Jewish condition: a nation-state conditioned by premodern features and the presence of Empire, the specific terms of Jewish emancipation in Britain, and Britain’s assumption of the Mandate for Palestine.
Derek J. Penslar
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691138879
- eISBN:
- 9781400848577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691138879.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines the social background of Jewish military officers, the financial implications of a military career upon marriage and the formation of broader social networks, and the interplay ...
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This chapter examines the social background of Jewish military officers, the financial implications of a military career upon marriage and the formation of broader social networks, and the interplay between finance and social capital in a family that could boast of one or more army officers. It also compares the high rates of Jewish military careerism in France, Italy, and Austria-Hungary with much lower rates in the post-Civil War United States and in the United Kingdom. This disparity suggests that Jewish military careerism was linked not only to levels of emancipation but also to the prestige of a military career in each national culture. The chapter then uses the life stories of Jewish soldiers to throw new light on the relationship between Jews, the military, and the broader societies in which they lived.Less
This chapter examines the social background of Jewish military officers, the financial implications of a military career upon marriage and the formation of broader social networks, and the interplay between finance and social capital in a family that could boast of one or more army officers. It also compares the high rates of Jewish military careerism in France, Italy, and Austria-Hungary with much lower rates in the post-Civil War United States and in the United Kingdom. This disparity suggests that Jewish military careerism was linked not only to levels of emancipation but also to the prestige of a military career in each national culture. The chapter then uses the life stories of Jewish soldiers to throw new light on the relationship between Jews, the military, and the broader societies in which they lived.
Rainer Liedtke
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207238
- eISBN:
- 9780191677564
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207238.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter concludes that the comparison between Hamburg and Manchester underlines the importance of structure over culture. It observes that the variety of historical circumstance is far more ...
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This chapter concludes that the comparison between Hamburg and Manchester underlines the importance of structure over culture. It observes that the variety of historical circumstance is far more significant than traditions and customs in the build-up and maintenance of Jewish welfare. It notes that when compared with each other, Jewish social services in Hamburg and Manchester are fairly different, but many similarities become apparent if one juxtaposes the Jewish and non-Jewish provisions of each city. It determines the role welfare played in Jewish life in Hamburg and Manchester and explains the existence of separate Jewish charitable and self-help networks. It also emphasizes the importance of the vital role Jewish welfare plays in the preservation and redefinition of a post-emancipation Jewish identity in Hamburg and Manchester.Less
This chapter concludes that the comparison between Hamburg and Manchester underlines the importance of structure over culture. It observes that the variety of historical circumstance is far more significant than traditions and customs in the build-up and maintenance of Jewish welfare. It notes that when compared with each other, Jewish social services in Hamburg and Manchester are fairly different, but many similarities become apparent if one juxtaposes the Jewish and non-Jewish provisions of each city. It determines the role welfare played in Jewish life in Hamburg and Manchester and explains the existence of separate Jewish charitable and self-help networks. It also emphasizes the importance of the vital role Jewish welfare plays in the preservation and redefinition of a post-emancipation Jewish identity in Hamburg and Manchester.
Guy Miron
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764715
- eISBN:
- 9781800343368
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764715.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter takes a comparative look at the integration of Jews in Poland and Hungary. The low point to which this process came on the eve of the Nazi occupation of both countries does not ...
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This chapter takes a comparative look at the integration of Jews in Poland and Hungary. The low point to which this process came on the eve of the Nazi occupation of both countries does not necessarily invalidate the hopes expressed at its beginning and during its development. However, the complexity and sensitivity of the issue was evident in both Poland and in Hungary from its inception. The chapter then shows that throughout the modern era the attitude of the local nationalist elites to the Jews in both countries was characterized by tension and sometimes even by a vacillating movement between inclusion and exclusion. The prolonged and confrontational process of emancipation of the Jews should be seen as part of the general process of emancipation which also involved other social groups (burghers, peasants, women, other national minorities). In both cases the question of the emancipation of the Jews was part of a broader struggle over the character of society and of the national movement.Less
This chapter takes a comparative look at the integration of Jews in Poland and Hungary. The low point to which this process came on the eve of the Nazi occupation of both countries does not necessarily invalidate the hopes expressed at its beginning and during its development. However, the complexity and sensitivity of the issue was evident in both Poland and in Hungary from its inception. The chapter then shows that throughout the modern era the attitude of the local nationalist elites to the Jews in both countries was characterized by tension and sometimes even by a vacillating movement between inclusion and exclusion. The prolonged and confrontational process of emancipation of the Jews should be seen as part of the general process of emancipation which also involved other social groups (burghers, peasants, women, other national minorities). In both cases the question of the emancipation of the Jews was part of a broader struggle over the character of society and of the national movement.
Benjamin Nathans
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520208308
- eISBN:
- 9780520931299
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520208308.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter places in perspective the problem of Jewish emancipation and integration in late imperial Russia by comparing it to two parallel phenomena: the experience of Jews elsewhere in Europe and ...
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This chapter places in perspective the problem of Jewish emancipation and integration in late imperial Russia by comparing it to two parallel phenomena: the experience of Jews elsewhere in Europe and the experience of other minorities in the Russian Empire. It highlights the stratifying effects on Russian Jewry of half a century of selective integration, and suggests ways in which the Russian-Jewish encounter in the decades before the Revolution of 1917 prepared the ground for the remarkable place of Jews in early Soviet society.Less
This chapter places in perspective the problem of Jewish emancipation and integration in late imperial Russia by comparing it to two parallel phenomena: the experience of Jews elsewhere in Europe and the experience of other minorities in the Russian Empire. It highlights the stratifying effects on Russian Jewry of half a century of selective integration, and suggests ways in which the Russian-Jewish encounter in the decades before the Revolution of 1917 prepared the ground for the remarkable place of Jews in early Soviet society.
Israel Bartal, Rachel Elior, and Chone Shmeruk (eds)
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781874774310
- eISBN:
- 9781800340671
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781874774310.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter looks at 29 book reviews. The first set of books discusses hasidism in Poland; the history of the Jewish population in lower Silesia after the Second World War; the Jewish communities in ...
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This chapter looks at 29 book reviews. The first set of books discusses hasidism in Poland; the history of the Jewish population in lower Silesia after the Second World War; the Jewish communities in eastern Poland and the USSR; Jewish emancipation in Poland; and the memoirs of Holocaust survivors. The second set of books examine the Holocaust experience and its consequences; the ethical challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima; the history of the Jews of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the eleventh to eighteenth centuries; and Russia's first modern Jews. The third set of books assesses the Kishinev pogrom of 1903; the history of feldshers in general and Jewish feldshers in particular; the diplomacy of Lucien Wolf; the Berlin Jewish community; the aspects of Jewish art; magic, mysticism, and hasidism; and the Jewish presence in Polish literature. The fourth set of books explores the depictions of Jews by Polish artists, both Christian and Jewish; the history of co-operation between the Polish government and the New Zionist Organization; and the origins of Zionism.Less
This chapter looks at 29 book reviews. The first set of books discusses hasidism in Poland; the history of the Jewish population in lower Silesia after the Second World War; the Jewish communities in eastern Poland and the USSR; Jewish emancipation in Poland; and the memoirs of Holocaust survivors. The second set of books examine the Holocaust experience and its consequences; the ethical challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima; the history of the Jews of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the eleventh to eighteenth centuries; and Russia's first modern Jews. The third set of books assesses the Kishinev pogrom of 1903; the history of feldshers in general and Jewish feldshers in particular; the diplomacy of Lucien Wolf; the Berlin Jewish community; the aspects of Jewish art; magic, mysticism, and hasidism; and the Jewish presence in Polish literature. The fourth set of books explores the depictions of Jews by Polish artists, both Christian and Jewish; the history of co-operation between the Polish government and the New Zionist Organization; and the origins of Zionism.
Ritchie Robertson
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199248889
- eISBN:
- 9780191697784
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248889.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book is a literary study of the uneasy position of the Jews in Germany and Austria from the first pleas for Jewish emancipation during the Enlightenment to the eve of the Holocaust. Trying to ...
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This book is a literary study of the uneasy position of the Jews in Germany and Austria from the first pleas for Jewish emancipation during the Enlightenment to the eve of the Holocaust. Trying to avoid hindsight and drawing on a wide range of literary texts, this book offers a close examination of attempts to construct a Jewish identity suitable for an increasingly secular world. It examines both literary portrayals of Jews by Gentile writers — whether antisemitic, friendly, or ambivalent — and efforts to reinvent Jewish identities by the Jews themselves, in response to antisemitism culminating in Zionism. The author deals with German-Jewish relations comprehensively and over a long period of literary history.Less
This book is a literary study of the uneasy position of the Jews in Germany and Austria from the first pleas for Jewish emancipation during the Enlightenment to the eve of the Holocaust. Trying to avoid hindsight and drawing on a wide range of literary texts, this book offers a close examination of attempts to construct a Jewish identity suitable for an increasingly secular world. It examines both literary portrayals of Jews by Gentile writers — whether antisemitic, friendly, or ambivalent — and efforts to reinvent Jewish identities by the Jews themselves, in response to antisemitism culminating in Zionism. The author deals with German-Jewish relations comprehensively and over a long period of literary history.
Francesca Trivellato
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691178592
- eISBN:
- 9780691185378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691178592.003.0007
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Finance, Accounting, and Banking
This chapter focuses on two moments: the reworking of the meaning of the legend of the Jewish invention of bills of exchange by Montesquieu in the 1740s and the debates on emancipation that occurred ...
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This chapter focuses on two moments: the reworking of the meaning of the legend of the Jewish invention of bills of exchange by Montesquieu in the 1740s and the debates on emancipation that occurred during the last quarter of the century. The discursive and political contexts in which the legend was evoked account for the vastly different meanings that it acquired at those two moments. Montesquieu praised Jews for forging new credit instruments that benefited everyone because he assumed that Jews inhabited a society of status that kept them in a subordinate position. When equality emerged later in the century as a concrete possibility, Jewish commercial and financial dexterity was once again perceived as a threat rather than a boon to state and society. While Montesquieu drew a sharp line between commercial credit and usury, the two were conflated once again during the emancipation debates, as they had been in Cleirac's commentary.Less
This chapter focuses on two moments: the reworking of the meaning of the legend of the Jewish invention of bills of exchange by Montesquieu in the 1740s and the debates on emancipation that occurred during the last quarter of the century. The discursive and political contexts in which the legend was evoked account for the vastly different meanings that it acquired at those two moments. Montesquieu praised Jews for forging new credit instruments that benefited everyone because he assumed that Jews inhabited a society of status that kept them in a subordinate position. When equality emerged later in the century as a concrete possibility, Jewish commercial and financial dexterity was once again perceived as a threat rather than a boon to state and society. While Montesquieu drew a sharp line between commercial credit and usury, the two were conflated once again during the emancipation debates, as they had been in Cleirac's commentary.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 1985
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198219286
- eISBN:
- 9780191678332
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219286.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, History of Religion
This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book ...
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This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book argues that the rapidly expanding Jewish role in political and economic spheres in much of Europe from the 1570s was the first fundamental emancipation of European Jewry.Less
This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book argues that the rapidly expanding Jewish role in political and economic spheres in much of Europe from the 1570s was the first fundamental emancipation of European Jewry.
David Sorkin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691164946
- eISBN:
- 9780691189673
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691164946.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter addresses how the French Revolution's alteration of the Jews' political status was truly fundamental and ambiguous. The National Assembly's legislation did not have an unalloyed ...
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This chapter addresses how the French Revolution's alteration of the Jews' political status was truly fundamental and ambiguous. The National Assembly's legislation did not have an unalloyed revolutionary pedigree. The ancien régime persisted in the legislation of January of 1790 that granted political rights to the Jews of Bordeaux as an extension of privilege. Rights for the Jews of Alsace were deferred for twenty-one months until September of 1791 when a lame-duck assembly finally resolved the issue as a matter of constitutional integrity. Despite these ambiguities, the Revolution introduced the pattern of unconditional emancipation “out of” estates, which became a potent model for polities aiming to create a civil or bourgeois society. Through conquest and occupation over the next quarter century, France would export that model to the rest of Europe. Ultimately, the Revolution polarized Europe. Full emancipation or equal rights irrevocably became associated with the ideas of 1789. When and where those ideas triumphed, so did Jewish emancipation. When and where opponents triumphed, Jewish emancipation suffered either abridgment or outright abrogation.Less
This chapter addresses how the French Revolution's alteration of the Jews' political status was truly fundamental and ambiguous. The National Assembly's legislation did not have an unalloyed revolutionary pedigree. The ancien régime persisted in the legislation of January of 1790 that granted political rights to the Jews of Bordeaux as an extension of privilege. Rights for the Jews of Alsace were deferred for twenty-one months until September of 1791 when a lame-duck assembly finally resolved the issue as a matter of constitutional integrity. Despite these ambiguities, the Revolution introduced the pattern of unconditional emancipation “out of” estates, which became a potent model for polities aiming to create a civil or bourgeois society. Through conquest and occupation over the next quarter century, France would export that model to the rest of Europe. Ultimately, the Revolution polarized Europe. Full emancipation or equal rights irrevocably became associated with the ideas of 1789. When and where those ideas triumphed, so did Jewish emancipation. When and where opponents triumphed, Jewish emancipation suffered either abridgment or outright abrogation.
Victor Karády
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764715
- eISBN:
- 9781800343368
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764715.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter provides a comparison of the modernization of the Jewish populations within the Polish and Hungarian societies of the long nineteenth century. Before 1919, these two groups formed the ...
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This chapter provides a comparison of the modernization of the Jewish populations within the Polish and Hungarian societies of the long nineteenth century. Before 1919, these two groups formed the two largest Ashkenazi communities in Europe. The geopolitical settings of the two groups within multi-ethnic empires offer obvious parallels, although there were even more marked contrasts, including the special status and semi-autonomous administration of the Hungarian kingdom within the Habsburg empire. After 1867, the Habsburgs began to adopt a federalist and politically liberal policy towards the large Jewish populations in most of its provinces, including those from the former Polish Kingdom of Galicia. Polish Jewry was, in the early modern period, a long-established part of the local population, dwelling both in royal and private towns and on noble estates. Hungarian Jewry, in contrast, derived mostly from relatively recent immigration and was settled, until the period of emancipation, on aristocratic latifundia and, occasionally, royal domains.Less
This chapter provides a comparison of the modernization of the Jewish populations within the Polish and Hungarian societies of the long nineteenth century. Before 1919, these two groups formed the two largest Ashkenazi communities in Europe. The geopolitical settings of the two groups within multi-ethnic empires offer obvious parallels, although there were even more marked contrasts, including the special status and semi-autonomous administration of the Hungarian kingdom within the Habsburg empire. After 1867, the Habsburgs began to adopt a federalist and politically liberal policy towards the large Jewish populations in most of its provinces, including those from the former Polish Kingdom of Galicia. Polish Jewry was, in the early modern period, a long-established part of the local population, dwelling both in royal and private towns and on noble estates. Hungarian Jewry, in contrast, derived mostly from relatively recent immigration and was settled, until the period of emancipation, on aristocratic latifundia and, occasionally, royal domains.
Benjamin Nathans
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520208308
- eISBN:
- 9780520931299
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520208308.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter investigates Russia's regime of legal disabilities specifically aimed at its Jewish population when Jewish emancipation had swept from west to east across nearly the entire European ...
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This chapter investigates Russia's regime of legal disabilities specifically aimed at its Jewish population when Jewish emancipation had swept from west to east across nearly the entire European continent. It observes that the Russian Jews in the decades before 1917, who were themselves victims of official discrimination, emphasized the distinctiveness of tsarist policy toward the Jews as compared to the treatment of the empire's other ethnic and religious groups, citing specifically anti-Jewish motives among ruling elites as the prime cause. It notes that recent studies treat the absence of civil and political rights for Jews within the context of a general absence of legal rights in Russia, and argue that Jewish emancipation as enacted in Europe across the long nineteenth century would have made little sense in a society lacking the principle of equality before the law, without denying the presence in the tsarist government of strongly negative attitudes toward Jews.Less
This chapter investigates Russia's regime of legal disabilities specifically aimed at its Jewish population when Jewish emancipation had swept from west to east across nearly the entire European continent. It observes that the Russian Jews in the decades before 1917, who were themselves victims of official discrimination, emphasized the distinctiveness of tsarist policy toward the Jews as compared to the treatment of the empire's other ethnic and religious groups, citing specifically anti-Jewish motives among ruling elites as the prime cause. It notes that recent studies treat the absence of civil and political rights for Jews within the context of a general absence of legal rights in Russia, and argue that Jewish emancipation as enacted in Europe across the long nineteenth century would have made little sense in a society lacking the principle of equality before the law, without denying the presence in the tsarist government of strongly negative attitudes toward Jews.
Maurice Samuels
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226397054
- eISBN:
- 9780226399324
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226399324.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Chapter One examines debates about giving citizenship to the Jews before, during, and after the French Revolution. It shows how in the years leading up to the Revolution, a regeneration model in ...
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Chapter One examines debates about giving citizenship to the Jews before, during, and after the French Revolution. It shows how in the years leading up to the Revolution, a regeneration model in which Jews were told to change in exchange for emancipation, predominated. Exemplified by the Abbé Grégoire, this assimilationist model called for the elimination of Jewish difference. After the outbreak of the Revolution, however, many of the Jews' leading defenders stopped calling for assimilation. The chapter looks closely at speeches by Clermont-Tonnerre and Robespierre to show that far from calling for assimilation, these thinkers actually valued Jewish difference as a way to prove the reach of their universalism. The origins of French republican discourse thus emerge as far more pluralistic than most scholars have previously assumed.Less
Chapter One examines debates about giving citizenship to the Jews before, during, and after the French Revolution. It shows how in the years leading up to the Revolution, a regeneration model in which Jews were told to change in exchange for emancipation, predominated. Exemplified by the Abbé Grégoire, this assimilationist model called for the elimination of Jewish difference. After the outbreak of the Revolution, however, many of the Jews' leading defenders stopped calling for assimilation. The chapter looks closely at speeches by Clermont-Tonnerre and Robespierre to show that far from calling for assimilation, these thinkers actually valued Jewish difference as a way to prove the reach of their universalism. The origins of French republican discourse thus emerge as far more pluralistic than most scholars have previously assumed.
Katja Garloff
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501704963
- eISBN:
- 9781501706011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501704963.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book reads love stories such as Romeo and Juliet together with political and philosophical texts that invoke the idea of ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book reads love stories such as Romeo and Juliet together with political and philosophical texts that invoke the idea of love in order to rethink the relations between different social groups. It argues that these texts together constitute a discourse of love that accompanied Jewish emancipation and assimilation in the German-speaking countries from the beginning. The focus is on romantic love, which is defined as the powerful attraction between two individuals and the basis of a potentially lifelong relationship. The chapter argues that because romantic love shares a semantic domain with terms such as friendship, family affection, and neighbor-love, literary love stories can proffer a sociopolitical commentary, and political texts can mobilize the rhetoric of love.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book reads love stories such as Romeo and Juliet together with political and philosophical texts that invoke the idea of love in order to rethink the relations between different social groups. It argues that these texts together constitute a discourse of love that accompanied Jewish emancipation and assimilation in the German-speaking countries from the beginning. The focus is on romantic love, which is defined as the powerful attraction between two individuals and the basis of a potentially lifelong relationship. The chapter argues that because romantic love shares a semantic domain with terms such as friendship, family affection, and neighbor-love, literary love stories can proffer a sociopolitical commentary, and political texts can mobilize the rhetoric of love.
Tomasz Gąsowski
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781874774310
- eISBN:
- 9781800340671
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781874774310.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter highlights four review essays. It looks at a debate between Tomasz Gąsowski and the late Artur Eisenbach on the latter's book on Jewish emancipation in Poland. Eisenbach's reply ...
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This chapter highlights four review essays. It looks at a debate between Tomasz Gąsowski and the late Artur Eisenbach on the latter's book on Jewish emancipation in Poland. Eisenbach's reply represents probably his last publication. Meanwhile, Chone Shmeruk reviews two books on Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer's years in Poland up to 1935 remained throughout his life the basis for his work; his departure from Poland took him to a personal diaspora. To the end, he was immersed thematically in the history, day-to-day experience, and way of life of the Jewish community in Poland. Finally, Nechama Tec reviews several books on Auschwitz. As the biggest death factory and a huge labour camp complex, Auschwitz became the centre of human destruction and degradation. From 1940 to 1945, like a powerful spider, Auschwitz relentlessly wove an ever-larger web over German society and German institutions.Less
This chapter highlights four review essays. It looks at a debate between Tomasz Gąsowski and the late Artur Eisenbach on the latter's book on Jewish emancipation in Poland. Eisenbach's reply represents probably his last publication. Meanwhile, Chone Shmeruk reviews two books on Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer's years in Poland up to 1935 remained throughout his life the basis for his work; his departure from Poland took him to a personal diaspora. To the end, he was immersed thematically in the history, day-to-day experience, and way of life of the Jewish community in Poland. Finally, Nechama Tec reviews several books on Auschwitz. As the biggest death factory and a huge labour camp complex, Auschwitz became the centre of human destruction and degradation. From 1940 to 1945, like a powerful spider, Auschwitz relentlessly wove an ever-larger web over German society and German institutions.
Theodore R. Weeks
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764715
- eISBN:
- 9781800343368
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764715.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter investigates how the roughly half-century before the First World War was a period of striking change for the Jews resident in the Polish lands. While even in 1914 the majority of Polish ...
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This chapter investigates how the roughly half-century before the First World War was a period of striking change for the Jews resident in the Polish lands. While even in 1914 the majority of Polish Jews remained Orthodox in religious observation, followed everyday lives quite different from those of their Christian neighbours, and spoke Yiddish as their primary tongue, even a cursory comparison of the situation in 1914 to the situation in 1860 reveals processes of thorough-going transformation that would become even more pronounced by 1939. At the beginning of this period, Jewish emancipation and equal rights were being discussed but had not yet — even in the legal sphere — been realized for most Polish Jews. On the eve of the First World War, in contrast, most Jews in the Polish lands enjoyed some form of legal equality. The only exception was within the Pale of Settlement of the Russian empire where restrictive laws continued in force. In short, Jews were becoming integrated — at least on a legal level — with the rest of society. This process of integration — and challenges to it — characterizes the period discussed here.Less
This chapter investigates how the roughly half-century before the First World War was a period of striking change for the Jews resident in the Polish lands. While even in 1914 the majority of Polish Jews remained Orthodox in religious observation, followed everyday lives quite different from those of their Christian neighbours, and spoke Yiddish as their primary tongue, even a cursory comparison of the situation in 1914 to the situation in 1860 reveals processes of thorough-going transformation that would become even more pronounced by 1939. At the beginning of this period, Jewish emancipation and equal rights were being discussed but had not yet — even in the legal sphere — been realized for most Polish Jews. On the eve of the First World War, in contrast, most Jews in the Polish lands enjoyed some form of legal equality. The only exception was within the Pale of Settlement of the Russian empire where restrictive laws continued in force. In short, Jews were becoming integrated — at least on a legal level — with the rest of society. This process of integration — and challenges to it — characterizes the period discussed here.
Ari Joskowicz
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804787024
- eISBN:
- 9780804788403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804787024.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Between 1800 and 1840, new and competing visions of secularism emerged in Germany and France. In the 1820s, when the first generations of romantics adopted medieval Catholicism as a positive model, ...
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Between 1800 and 1840, new and competing visions of secularism emerged in Germany and France. In the 1820s, when the first generations of romantics adopted medieval Catholicism as a positive model, liberals in Germany and France began to identify Catholicism with the alleged backwardness of their political adversaries. In these conflicts, anticlericalism emerged as an oppositional ideology, associated with the critique of the restoration regimes and anti-Enlightenment movements. This chapter explores how Jewish writers of the early nineteenth century employed this new form of oppositional anticlericalism in order to take on different opponents. Turning to writers such as Heinrich Heine, Joseph Salvador, Léon Halévy, and Saul Ascher, this chapter argues that the Jewish anticlericalism of this era served simultaneously as an intervention into the politics of Jewish emancipation, an aesthetic statement, and a revolutionary program.Less
Between 1800 and 1840, new and competing visions of secularism emerged in Germany and France. In the 1820s, when the first generations of romantics adopted medieval Catholicism as a positive model, liberals in Germany and France began to identify Catholicism with the alleged backwardness of their political adversaries. In these conflicts, anticlericalism emerged as an oppositional ideology, associated with the critique of the restoration regimes and anti-Enlightenment movements. This chapter explores how Jewish writers of the early nineteenth century employed this new form of oppositional anticlericalism in order to take on different opponents. Turning to writers such as Heinrich Heine, Joseph Salvador, Léon Halévy, and Saul Ascher, this chapter argues that the Jewish anticlericalism of this era served simultaneously as an intervention into the politics of Jewish emancipation, an aesthetic statement, and a revolutionary program.