German-Jewish History in Modern Times. VOLUME 1. Tradition and Enlightenment 1600-1780 0231074727

Citation preview

GERMAN-] EWIS H HISTORY IN MODERN TIMES Volume l Tradition and Enlightenment: 1600-1780

Edited hy Michael A. Meyer Michael Brenner, Assistant Editor

I

n the collective four-volume project Cerman-Jewish History in Modern Times a team of leading scholars offers a vivid

portrait of Jewish history in German-speak¬ ing lands over nearly four centuries. Tradition and Enlightenment, l6oo~iy8o, the first volume, focuses on the Jewish world in Central Europe from the dawn of the seventeenth century, the beginning of the early modern period, to 1780, the advent of a prolonged struggle for Jewish emancipation. By the end of the Middle Ages Central Europe (Ashkenaz in Hebrew) had become a significant and influential center of the Jewish Diaspora through a combination of unique communal organization, distinctive traditions and customs, and a heroic legacy of martyrdom. Mordechai Breuer's prologue provides essential background on these medieval roots, from the first documented settlements of merchants along the Rhine and Danube rivers, through the ravages of the Crusades, and on to the resurgence of Jewish communities in the sixteenth century. In part 1 Breuer explores the early modern period, shedding light on subjects including the position of Jews in the Thirty Years War, the development of a social network of court Jews with influence in political and economic circles, the internal politics of Jewish communities, and literary and reli¬ gious writings of the Ashkenazi Jews. Michael Graetz continues in part 2 with an analysis of the Jewish Enlightenment and its central intellectual figure, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Assessing the spirit of openness and the movement toward secular learning that characterized the age, Graetz offers an in-depth look at how the broad currents of Enlightenment thought inter¬ sected with Jewish tradition. (continued on back flap)

-

German-Jewish History in Modern Times

VOLUME 1

Tradition and Enlightenment i6oo-iy8o

German-Jewish History in Modern Times

VOLUME

1

Tradition and Enlightenment 1600-1780 volume 2 Emancipation and Acculturation 1780-1871 volume 3 Integration in Dispute 1871-1918 volume 4

Renewal and Destruction 1918-1945

Advisory Committee Jacob Katz, Jurgen Kocka, Werner E. Mosse, Jehuda Reinharz, Reinhard Riirup, Ismar Schorsch, Fritz Stern, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi Coordinator Fred Grubel

German-Jewish History in Modern Times Edited by Michael A. Meyer MICHAEL BRENNER, ASSISTANT EDITOR

VOLUME 1

Tradition and Enlightenment 1600-1780

MORDECHAI BREUER

•

MICHAEL GRAETZ

Translated by William Templer

A Project of the Leo Baeck Institute

Columbia University Press NEW YORK

Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York

Chichester, West Sussex

Copyright ©

1996

Leo Baeck Institute

All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Deutsch-jiidische Geschichte in der Neuzeit. English. German-Jewish history in modern times / edited by Michael A. Meyer and Michael Brenner, assistant editor, p.

cm.

"A project of the Leo Baeck Institute." Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: v. 1. Tradition and enlightenment: 1600 -1780 / Mordechai Breuer, Michael Graetz; translated by William Templer. ISBN 0-231-07472-7 1. Jews—Germany—History. 2. Judaism—Germany—History. 3. Haskalah—Germany—History. 4. Germany—Ethnic relations. 5. Germany—Ethnic relations. I. Meyer, Michael A. II. Brenner, Michael. III. Breuer, Mordechai, 1918-

. IV. Graetz, Michael.

V. Title. DS135.G32B48

1996

943' .004924—dc20

96-13900

© Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America c

10 987654321

p

10 987654321

CIP

Contents

Preface to the Series Michael A. Meyer Introduction Mordechai Breuer

prologue:

ix 1

the Jewish middle ages

Mordechai Breuer

7

1. The Beginnings of Jewish Settlement

8

2. Church, State, and Economy

9

3. Early Ashkenazi Culture and Community

16

4. The First Crusade and Subsequent Developments

21

5. Flowering of Ashkenazi Intellectual and Communal Life

34

6. Deterioration of the Legal Situation, Persecutions, and Expulsions

41

7. Internal Jewish Life in the Late Middle Ages

53

8. Humanism and Reformation

57

9. The Jewish Community in the Sixteenth Century 10. End of an Era and New Beginnings

70 75

Contents

VI

PART 1

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

Mordechai Breuer Chapter 1 The Dawn of Early Modern Times

79 81

1. The Situation at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century

82

2. Events in Frankfurt am Main

87

3. The Jews in the Thirty Years War

94

4. The Impact of 1648

97

5. Admission of the Jews into Brandenburg-Prussia

Chapter 2 The Court jews

102 104

1. Court Jews in the Economy and Politics

105

2. Court Jews and the Jewish Community

117

3. The Historical Significance of the Court Jews

122

Chapter 3 The Jews in the Age of Mercantilism and Early Absolutism

127

1. Branches and Centers of Jewish Trade

127

2. The Regulation of Jewish Existence

134

Chapter 4 The Jewish Minority in the Enlightened Absolutist State

144

1. Jewry Policy in the Eighteenth Century

144

2. Relations Between Jews and Christians

155

Chapter 5 Community, Society, and Domestic Life

165

1. Community Administration and the Rabbinate

165

2. Institutions and Associations

172

3. Community and Family Life

176

4. Education

184

5. Tensions and Conflicts

187

6. The Jews in the Countryside

191

Contents

vii

Chapter 6 The Landjudenschaften

194

1. The Organization of the Landjudenschaften

195

2. The Territorial Rabbinates

203

3. Later Developments

206

Chapter

Intellectual and Religious Life

209

1. The Traditional Jewish Centers of Learning

209

2. Rabbinic Writings

215

3. Literature in Western Yiddish

219

4. Hebrew Printing

222

5. The Mystical Current

226

7

Chapter 8 Toward a New Era

229

1. The Sabbatian Movement

229

2. Scientific Attitudes Among the Rabbis

234

3. Venturing Into the Outside World

239

4. Social Problems Within and at the Periphery of the Communities

244

5. The Gradual Decline in Jewish Communal Autonomy

251

6. Internal Weakening of Rabbinical and Communal Authority

PART 2

255

THE JEWISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Michael Graetz Chapter 9 Beginnings of the Haskalah

261 263

1. The Setting

263

2. A New Sociability

271

3. Enlightenment Philosophy and Jewish Religion

283

Chapter 10 The Haskalah as a Sociocultural Phenomenon 1. The Circle Around Mendelssohn

294 294

Contents

viii

2. Mendelssohn's Bible Project

304

3. Secularization of the Hebrew Language

3x2

4. Autobiography: On the Self-Understanding of the Maskilim

324

Chapter 11 Confrontation as a Transformative Force

333

1. Acceptance and Rejection

333

2. The Turn Toward Radical Solutions

344

Chapter 12 Jewish Enlightenment and Education

355

1. Pedagogic Thinking

355

2. The New Schools

367

Conclusion Michael Graetz

375

List of Abbreviations

381

Notes

383

Bibliographical Essay

393

Chronology

403

Sources of Illustrations

407

fniex

409

Preface to the Series

Shortly after the Leo Baeck Institute was established forty years ago, the second chairman of the board, Dr. Siegfried Moses, declared its "final aim" to be the production of a comprehensive history of German Jewry. Optimistically, he anticipated that such a history might be entrusted to a group of historians within four or five years. In fact, it has taken more than a generation to attain his goal, and still these volumes make no claim to finality. The institute, through its centers in Jerusalem, London, and New York and its Working Committee in Germany, continues its schol¬ arly enterprise, even as historians of German Jewry, ever more widely represented in universities and research institutions, unearth new sources and gain fresh insights. Yet it has become increasingly apparent that the rapidly growing scholarly literature in the field requires an encompass¬ ing, synthetic work that reflects the current state of research and, at the same time, seeks to integrate it into an easily readable narrative. As early as 1972 Professor Jacob Toury of Tel Aviv University attempted to launch a "Collective History of the Jews in Germany" that would draw upon the research of the preceding two decades and aim at "a new view of the development of forms of Jewish life in Germany." His ambitious project, which was to include the entire span of Jewish history in Germany, foresaw nine volumes and more than thirty contributors. However, it could not be carried out at that time. Fourteen years later, at a meeting of the board of directors of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, the late Professor Lucy Dawidowicz proposed the composition of a simi-

Preface to the Series

X

lar collective work, and the process was set in motion that led to the cur¬ rent set of four volumes focusing more broadly upon Jews in German¬ speaking Central Europe and concentrating on the period since 1600. Three meetings among advisers and contributors, held in Jerusalem, New York, and Berlin, were devoted to discussing the issues arising from the project. The often lively deliberations gradually arrived at a concep¬ tual framework for these volumes, which were intended from the start to be a cooperative venture. On certain issues we readily agreed. Despite the overwhelming reality of the Holocaust, which brought the history we relate here to a tragic close, we were intent on not viewing that history through its lens. We did not want hindsight to prejudice our analysis of earlier hopes. Yet we also decided not to minimize the role that antisemitism has played through¬ out the history of Jewish life in German lands. We had to recognize that a leitmotif of our narrative would be the trajectory from emancipation to exclusion and destruction. We were also in agreement that German-Jewish history constitutes a phase both in the history of the Jews and in the history of the Germans. We have therefore tried to portray it from both of these perspectives. The bonds of German Jewry to Jews elsewhere, although weakened at times and overlaid with ambivalence, were never entirely severed and experi¬ enced periods of reinforcement. The ties of German Jews to Germany grew more firm for much of the period discussed here as emancipation and acculturation went forward, only to come apart at its end. In the beginning of our narrative Jews stand clearly separate from their nonJewish environment: their cultural history is mostly contained within their own tradition. Then, beginning markedly in the eighteenth century, their history becomes one of integration into the German milieu, both culturally and politically. Much of their history becomes an account of their relations with the world around them. We have differed somewhat on the extent to which our narrative should emphasize the inner Jewish life persisting in religious and cultural forms that were adapted in various ways to modern circumstances. Should our focus be on the Jewish community—its religious, ideological, and cultural expressions—or rather on individual Jews who became important for their roles in German history, although they were often far removed from identifying themselves as Jews? We have concluded that both require attention. The inner history of German Jewry deserves to be brought to greater awareness, yet the extraordinary role that Jews played

Preface to the Series

XI

in German culture needs elaboration and explanation as well. So we have sought to strike a balance between the two. Among Jews who achieved prominence, we have especially turned attention to the nature of their Jewish identity noting its residue even among those who left Judaism but continued to be widely regarded as Jews. In our deliberations we agreed on eight subject areas that would require treatment in each volume: demography political and legal status, socioeconomic structure, relations between Jews and non-Jews, family life, the Jewish community, Jewish religion and culture, and Jewish par¬ ticipation in the general society. In some form each of the volumes addresses these areas. We have also sought to give due attention to topics hitherto neglected, especially to the role of Jewish women and to the rural Jews, who, for most of our period, made up the great majority of German Jewry. Geography and periodization proved to be difficult problems. Whereas at the beginning of our narrative German-speaking Jews are contained within the Holy Roman Empire, during the nineteenth century their his¬ tory becomes more differentiable according to the states in which they live. We were thus, for a time, uncertain whether to limit our account, at least following 1871, to the boundaries of the Second Reich. In the end, we decided to formulate our task broadly. We have consistently included the German-speaking portions of the Habsburg Empire, especially for those developments that cut across political borders: movements like anti¬ semitism and Zionism and the participation of Jews in German culture. Although arguments can be made for beginning our account with the end of the Thiry Years War in 1648 or with the settlement of fifty Jewish families, expelled from Vienna, in the Margravate Brandenburg in 1671, our principal narrative starts at the dawn of the seventeenth century. It was at this time that significant demographic and political processes that would gradually reshape Jewish life from medieval to modern were ini¬ tially set in motion. A substantial prologue provides the background for these developments. Volume 1 ends with the year 1780, the eve of the lengthy process of Jewish emancipation, which plays a central role in vol¬ ume 2. It should be noted, however, that the chronological boundaries between volumes are not absolute. The Jewish Enlightenment, which began around the middle of the eighteenth century, did not end in 1780. We have therefore included its later stages, as well, in volume 1 and begun the cultural history of German Jewry in the next volume with the devel¬ opments that followed in the wake of that Enlightenment but were no

Preface to the Series

XII

longer an integral part of it. Similarly, in other volumes we have not held strictly to chronological boundaries where the logic of the presentation demanded making connections across them. We have imagined a broad readership, composed of educators and gen¬ eral readers as well as fellow historians of Germany and of the Jews. We have kept notes to a minimum, using them mainly to identify primary sources used in the text. The bibliographical essay in each volume is intended to offer the reader an annotated survey of significant secondary literature, mostly of recent vintage, that readers may want to consult in further pursuing a particular topic. We have not attempted to produce a comprehensive bibliography. Finally, in our meetings we decided that, although ours was a coopera¬ tive venture, each author should be able to speak in his or her own voice without any attempt by the editor to create a uniform tone. The result has been a degree of variation both in approach and in style, but, we hope, a harmonic presentation. Despite all our analytic awareness, we have sought to tell a coherent story that holds the reader's attention.

As general editor, I wish to thank those who have assisted in the concep¬ tualization and execution of this project. Due to the mediation of Ernst Cramer, I was able at an early stage to meet with Wolfram Mitte of the Propylaen Verlag in Berlin, who gave me valuable advice. Professor Henry Feingold, who edited the five-volume Jewish People in America, also let me profit from his experience. The members of the advisory com¬ mittee for the project, whose names are listed in the front matter, have all been of assistance, providing counsel and reading individual chapters. Among them I would like to single out for special appreciation Professors Jacob Katz and Reinhard Riirup. Not only have they each read and com¬ mented upon many manuscript pages, they have participated actively in the entire course of the project and have been a great source of strength to me in my editorial work. I am also pleased to express appreciation, in the name of the authors, to the following individuals who, in addition to fellow contributors and advisers, have each read at least one chapter of one of the volumes, and in some cases considerably more: Aryeh Segall, Amos Funkenstein, Jacob Toury, Jeffrey Sammons, Erik Lindner, Werner T. Angress, Marion Kaplan, Guy Stern, Yehoyakim Cochavi, Michael Brocke, and Joseph Walk. Thanks go also to Ann Millin, who conscien¬ tiously performed a variety of editorial and technical tasks. We have been fortunate that our project received encouragement from

Preface to the Series

XIII

prominent personalities and institutions in Germany. Due in large mea¬ sure to the efforts of our coordinator, Dr. Fred Grubel, who has guided the project from the beginning, we were able to obtain funding, first in the form of a seed grant from the Deutsche Bank, where our cause was cham¬ pioned enthusiastically by the late Hermann J. Abs, then more substan¬ tially from the Stiftung Volkswagenwerk and the Bundesministerium fiir Forschung und Technologie of the German government. A small supple¬ mentary grant was also received from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and Gerald Meyer generously donated his legal counsel. I owe the profoundest debt of gratitude to Dr. Michael Brenner, who since 1993 has served as my coworker for virtually every element of the project. In addition, he undertook primary responsibility for assembling the illustrations, arranging for the maps (drawn by John Hollingsworth of Indiana University), and compiling the chronologies. Our editors at Columbia University Press, Kate Wittenberg and Susan Pensak, have made this project their special concern, giving it an extraordinary mea¬ sure of their attention.

In introducing one of his major scholarly works in 1845, the founder of the scholarly study of Jews and Judaism, Leopold Zunz, wrote that he wished his work would have "not just reference readers but reading read¬ ers." So too we who have produced this history hope for readers who will immerse themselves in these volumes and succeed in drawing from them a richly variegated and enduring image of German-Jewish history in modern times. Michael A. Meyer The First Day of the Hebrew Month of Av July

5755

28,1995

Tradition and Enlightenment 1600-1780

Introduction

Historiography and historical analysis are meaningful only within the framework of some form of historical periodization. Yet it remains diffi¬ cult, if not impossible, to pinpoint an era's termini by reference to a spe¬ cific generation, let alone decade. The division of history into centuries is an artificial operation, a construct not suggested by the contours of his¬ tory itself but meant to achieve a better, clearer understanding of the course of events. In the realm of Jewish history in Central Europe (Hebr. Ashkenaz), the earliest mention of Jews and of documents with a Jewish content marks the beginning of the Jewish Middle Ages. A more complex question is how to determine their endpoint. Many scholars have grappled with the specific character and temporal delimitation of the Jewish medieval period. They have also questioned the value of conventional categories of periodization: just how valid and useful are the concepts of Middle Ages, early modern period, and modern times customarily employed in general historiogra¬ phy when applied to Jewish history? The nineteenth-century Jewish his¬ torian Heinrich Graetz commented that Jewish history had no Middle Ages in the more pejorative sense, that is, no "dark ages" intervening between antiquity and the modern period. Later research has repeatedly addressed the question, though without arriving at a consensus.1 In contrast with Spanish Jewry, the Jews in Germany generally avoided engaging in the general scientific disciplines of the age—appar¬ ently because they felt repelled by the Christian theological character of

Introduction

2

many contemporary fields of learning—yet there is no justification to the contention that the Ashkenazi Middle Ages were characterized by cul¬ tural retrogression. The study of Torah flourished, and Jewish scholarship today still refers to the masterworks produced by the sages of that era. In other respects as well, the Ashkenazi Middle Ages were a time of growth and upsurge. Within an astonishingly short span, Ashkenazi Jewry—which up to the beginning of the eleventh century was an insignificant peripheral part of the Jewish world—became an important and influential Jewish center. It developed a special character, manifested in three principal spheres. First and foremost was its particular communal organization, the corporate kehilla: these structures evolved at an early point, in a form and to a degree previously unparalleled. This develop¬ ment was probably rooted in the specific interplay between Jewish settle¬ ment and the Christian town. Closely associated with the emergence of the community was the evolution of a corpus of Ashkenazi traditions and customs that stamped this Jewry with a distinctive religious-cultural character. Third, there was the heroism of kiddush hashem (the sanctifi¬ cation of God by martyrdom in religious persecutions); it imbued the Jewry of Ashkenaz with the consciousness of occupying a certain pre¬ eminent position within the Diaspora. In the present analysis the seventeenth century marks the beginning of the early modern period in the Jewish communities of the German¬ speaking cultural orbit, although no rigid periodization is intended. At the close of the sixteenth century numerous signs pointed to the dawn of a new era, particularly in political and demographic terms. As we approach the seventeenth century, a debate similar to the controversy among major scholars on the "lachrymose conception" of medieval Jewish history loses its relevancy, if only because Jewish suffering had diminished and was no longer as central a factor in Jewish existence as in the past, despite the abiding animosity toward Jews that remained endemic in Christian society.2 Positive developments in Jewish political and economic life and in the structure of Jewish settlements justify pos¬ tulating a turning point, a historiographic caesura. At a somewhat later juncture, though long before the beginning of the movement for eman¬ cipation, various changes also took place in Jewish internal affairs. Although the seventeenth century witnessed a number of expulsions, that is of no greater significance than the fact that even in the age of lib¬ eralism there were setbacks, reactions, and reversals—the general trend is unmistakable.

Introduction

3

The source materials on internal Jewish history in German-speaking Europe are meager: strictly speaking, Ashkenazi medieval historiography was limited to martyrology. Aside from legendary reports on the immi¬ gration of Jewish families from Italy to Germany, virtually the only authentic historical accounts available are the chronicles of the tragic events at the time of the Crusades. Ashkenazi Jews internalized the long succession of sanguinary experiences in various ways, but were little dis¬ posed to creating a historical record. Nonetheless, their agony is given eloquent expression in the religious poetry of the time, a body of hun¬ dreds of individual poems. The rich literature on minhagim (traditions and customs) is also justifiably regarded as a text genre in the service of collective Jewish remembrance.3 The large number of halachic (religiouslegal) decisions, the rabbinic responsa (she'elot u-teshuvot) by numerous medieval and several early modern scholars contain historically signifi¬ cant data and commentary. To be sure, utilizing such legal source materials to gain historical knowledge is problematic. In particular, researchers are often confronted with the question of generalization, namely the extent to which it is war¬ ranted to derive more general conclusions on the basis of the unique, one-time situation that was the occasion for the specific legal decision. It is not even always clear how the events presented to the rabbi for a halachic decision should be interpreted or what their historical signifi¬ cance is. Non-Jewish materials are far more abundant than Jewish historical sources. That is due principally to the fact that a large proportion of the medieval and early modern texts and documents written by Jews in the German-speaking lands were destroyed during persecutions. By contrast, thousands of official documents with references to Jewish matters have been preserved in the relevant archives. The closer we come to the age of Enlightenment, the more ample is the documentary source material. By its nature, such official documentation consists principally of laws and ordinances for regulating Jewish affairs and concerns enacted by the empire, the princes, and the cities. Examining these sources, one is often struck by the differences among official directives and by various contra¬ dictions, especially between the formal ordinances and their practical implementation. At one and the same time, Jews were both persecuted and tolerated within German-speaking Europe: they were encouraged to set¬ tle in one place and expelled from another; they were accepted as traders but also driven from their homes and communities; their scriptures were

Introduction

4

deemed holy, but their Talmud was vilified. All this led again and again to contradictory declarations and actions with regard to the Jews. With the rise of the absolutist principalities from the early seven¬ teenth century on, this inconsistency in the state's approach to dealing with the Jews became especially patent. There can be no doubt that the ascendancy of the absolutist princes and their petty states provided impe¬ tus for a number of positive changes in Jewish existence in the modern period as contrasted with the late medieval era. Phenomena such as the emergence of the court Jews (Hofjuden)—an elite often able, by virtue of their special status and functions, to benefit the lot of their brethren—and the Landjudenschaften, regional corporate autonomous bodies in which Jews scattered over hundreds of small towns and villages banded together in an officially recognized framework, warrant detailed examination. Against the background of such changes for the better, it seems all the more conspicuous that the authorities obstinately continued to pursue practices designed to hound and harass Jews collectively as a minority. A contradiction of a different sort was evident in Jewish intellectual life in this era. Under the impact of the changes alluded to, among which the influx of numerous scholars fleeing from Poland-Lithuania was of paramount importance, intellectual life was reinvigorated and flourished anew. This was reflected not only in the many yeshivot (Talmud acade¬ mies, sing, yeshiva) and printing presses established at the time but also in the mounting interest in the general secular disciplines. A new intel¬ lectual open-mindedness was perceptible, both in the content of what was studied and the writing of books. However, as absolutism evolved as a form of political rule, sovereigns interfered more and more in Jewish internal life, especially in the work of the rabbinical courts. The restriction of their jurisdiction limited the application of Jewish law, removing sig¬ nificant areas of public life and the economy from its authority. The result was that certain sections of Jewish law were no longer actively applied. This process had already commenced in medieval times but became far more pronounced in the age of absolutism and later on in the era of eman¬ cipation. It is important to bear in mind that the shift to the Enlightenment and to modernity among Jews in the German-speaking lands was not as sud¬ den a phenomenon as is sometimes supposed. Diverse paths already taken in economic and literary activity in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century converged in that century's last quarter, pointing toward a nascent change in consciousness. This shift in perspective and outlook

Introduction

5

increasingly transformed Jewish self-understanding: from a form of exis¬ tence rooted in Judaism, oriented to its values, developing from within its traditional mold, to one centered on cosmopolitan European civilization and later focused on Deutschtum, the world of German culture and mores. Yet down to the end of the eighteenth century the circle of those who were conscious of this shift and fervently espoused it was minuscule. And, even well into the nineteenth century, they constituted only a frac¬ tion of German-speaking Jewry. During the entire period examined in this first volume the preponderant majority of Jews were still guided by Jewish tradition and religious law.

Prologue The Jewish Middle Ages

With the exception of Italy, Jews had resided longer in the German-speak¬ ing lands than in any other areas of Europe. In Germany, as well as Spain and elsewhere, there were reports about the great antiquity of Jewish set¬ tlements; purportedly, these had already been in existence at the time of the Second Temple. However, such accounts were solely the product of a tendency to legitimate the presence of Jews in these parts. The earliest Jewish settlements in Germany are attested for late antiquity (321 and 331 c.E. in Cologne, possibly also in Trier). Although sources from the subsequent centuries of the Germanic migrations and the early medieval period make no mention of these settlements, continuity cannot be ruled out. Clear documentary evidence for continuous Jewish settlement in Germany exists from the early days of the Carolingian Empire (800) to the destruction of German Jewry in the twentieth century, though Jews were often compelled to move from place to place. This settlement pro¬ vided the basis for the development in Central Europe of a Jewish tradi¬ tion and culture marked by a distinctive character. From approximately the end of the eleventh century on, the term Ashkenaz was in common currency to designate the Jewish communities located specifically in northwestern and central Europe. In the early modern period, as a result of the expulsion of the Jews from many German towns and territories, the term was extended to encompass a number of northern Italian settle¬ ments and all communities in Eastern Europe.

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

8

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Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

51

to levy this sum on the Jews as well. Not until 1480, when the impover¬ ished community finally succeeded in paying off these levies, were the imprisoned Jews let go. Thus the situation of the Jews in the fifteenth century was precarious: they lived in constant insecurity, and the necessity for sudden flight was persistently on their minds. One of the greatest rabbinic authorities of the time. Rabbi Jacob b. Moses Halevi Moellin (Maharil, 1360-1427), ruled that in times of danger it was permissible to carry coins on the Sabbath, an act otherwise prohibited.19 His confrere Rabbi Israel Isserlin wrote, "Nowadays we are unsettled, constantly on the move, and hardly have fixed places of residence."20 The onerous burden of taxation prompted many Jews to flee Germany. Initially, they migrated in the main to northern Italy; in the course of the fifteenth century the stream of emigrants to Lithuania and Poland swelled, later on increasing to the Ottoman Empire as well. Yet the most important change within German Jewry was due to internal migration. The lower middle class and guilds had become a political force in the cities and were in fierce economic competition with the Jews. Thus pressure mounted in the towns to expel the Jews. However, lengthy and tedious negotiations with the emperor and the territorial rulers were required on any such drastic move. To justify their position, the cities mustered vari¬ ous arguments—religious, economic, social, political, and the issue of internal security. Finally, almost all larger cities and many of the largest territories proceeded to expel their Jewish inhabitants. Yet these expul¬ sions differed from town to town and were not radically executed every¬ where. Due to the territorial disunity of the Reich, it was impossible to launch a unified operation against the Jews similar to the measures imple¬ mented in England, France, and Spain. There was no uniform legislation for Jews valid throughout the entire empire, and each territory had its special features. The expelled Jews often took refuge in minor territories belonging to counts or knights of the empire situated in the suburbs (of towns) or in the nearest village. They also were granted limited permits to visit cities located nearby. This opened the door for Jews to establish themselves in trade between the city and the countryside. Thus the Judenregal claimed by the cities forfeited its relevance almost every¬ where, and the Jews returned to the jurisdiction of the respective territo¬ rial rulers. The only urban Jewish communities that did not suffer the upheaval

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

52

of expulsion in the fifteenth century were in Frankfurt am Main, Worms, and Friedberg. There and elsewhere the Jews were forced into a cramped and more or less closed quarter, a ghetto in an unfavorable loca¬ tion or on the outskirts of the town. The first Jews ordered into such a separate quarter were the community in Frankfurt am Main in 1462; the city granted them a form of collective protection, the so-called Judenstattigkeit. Developments in the towns were overshadowed by the dis¬ placement of the Jews into the countryside and their dispersion throughout hundreds of villages. In such rural localities there was gen¬ erally only a very small number of Jews living together. Without the protection of the city, but also free from the fear of violence by urban

*

15

Illustration showing the exodus of the Jews from Egypt against the background of a medieval German city, which may allude to a contemporary expulsion

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

53

mobs, these Landjuden were dependent on the goodwill of major or minor potentates. For centuries to come rural Jews would form the core of German Jewry and determine its character. Without constant contact with the intellectual and social dynamism of the cities, German Jews in the countryside clung for many generations to their distinctive tradi¬ tions and character.

7. Internal Jewish Life in the Late Middle Ages Deepening poverty among the Jews also made itself felt in the internal affairs of the communities. Data on Jewish intellectual life in the four¬ teenth century is more sparse than in the preceding and subsequent cen¬ turies, due in all probability to the terrible fires and devastation of the plague period, which destroyed large numbers of manuscripts and docu¬ ments. Doubtless, Torah study was on the decline as a consequence of the incessant persecutions; as in intellectual life in Christian Europe, this deterioration was made more acute by the ravages of the Black Death. Nonetheless, rabbinic literature can boast outstanding figures, even from this period, such as Rabbi Moses of Zurich, author of the Zurich Semak (glosses on the collection of precepts by Isaac of Corbeil, the Sefer mitsvot katan [Small Book of Precepts], acronymed SEMAK), and Rabbi Alexander Siisslin Hakohen. The latter was active in Erfurt and Frankfurt am Main, and authored the collection of glosses Agudah on various tractates of the Talmud. A number of Jewish scholars from Ashkenaz spent several years studying and teaching in the Holy Land in the second half of the four¬ teenth century, some choosing to remain there. Toward the close of that century the Talmud academies in Germany, Austria, and Bohemia began to thrive once again. A large number of scholars were active in the com¬ munities there, including personalities such as the Maharil in Mainz, Rabbi Jacob b. Judah Weil (d. before 1456) in Augsburg and Erfurt, and Rabbi Israel Isserlein (c. 1390-c. 1460), active in Maribor (Marburg in southern Styria) and Wiener Neustadt. These and several other rabbis earned renown by their collections of responsa. The recording of Ashkenazi customs was initiated at a time when the codification of everyday life and custom was a widespread practice in the Christian cities as well. The literature of minhagim, which imbued Jewish religious culture of the fifteenth century in Germany with its special intellectual character, was a major factor in stabilizing Ashkenazi tradi¬ tion and played a central role even later in the general codification of

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

54

Halacha in the sixteenth century. Maharil had a significant part in this. In his eyes custom had paramount importance in everyday life, in the com¬ munity, and in ritual law; he reputedly was the rabbi who established Ashkenazi synagogue song and provided it with a permanent niche in liturgy. Maharil was a leading rabbi in his community but never placed the stringent demands on it that he exacted from himself. As a teacher, he had a paternal concern for the many pupils of his Mainz yeshiva. These were virtues that also distinguished the younger Rabbi Israel Isserlein. Maharil's common touch and warmth enshrined him in the memory of succeeding generations. At the periphery of this main current of intellectual life—which, despite certain novel features, did not differ much in essence from the tra¬ ditions previously typical of Ashkenazi Jewry—a new philosophical school arose into prominence. Along with Talmud study, it grappled for the first time with the basic questions of religion and faith. Its most important representative was Rabbi Yomtov Lipmann Miihlhausen (Thuringia, later Prague, d. 1421). His major work, Sefer ha-nitsahon (Book of Disputation, or of Triumph), in which he examines the chal¬ lenges posed by Christianity and philosophy, was later to attract the interest of a whole series of Christian humanists and Hebraists. In addi¬ tion, a kabbalistic current also emerged; among these scholars the works of Rabbi Seligmann Bing (from Bingen and Oppenheim) are especially outstanding. Thus, a certain intellectual open-mindedness began to make itself felt in the fifteenth century, a receptivity that would later bear more abundant fruit. At this time, the Western Yiddish ("Judeo-German") vernacular acquired a new importance as well. This was undoubtedly bound up with the decline in the knowledge of Hebrew and Hebrew literature. Halachic rules, such as those dealing with ritual slaughter, appeared in Western Yiddish, and rabbinical court proceedings were increasingly conducted and recorded in this language. Simultaneously, a Western Yiddish litera¬ ture developed, consisting of paraphrasings of sections of the Bible, such as the Book of Esther, and pious tales. Segments of the liturgy also appeared in Western Yiddish translation; songs were composed in the idiom, and, set to popular German folk melodies, were sung at festive cel¬ ebrations. Much more common than before was the use of Western Yiddish first names, such as Meisterlein, Seligmann, and Siisslein. There were substantial changes in community life as well. Even earlier, communities had chosen a rabbi to be responsible for all religious affairs

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

55

and questions; now this tendency toward the formation of a professional rabbinate became perceptibly stronger. It was promoted by a new practice among heads of Talmud academies to bestow a formal, certified ordina¬ tion on their advanced students, the semikhah. It may well be that the destruction of virtually an entire generation of scholars had made the cre¬ ation of an official rabbinate a necessity, but other causal factors were also involved. The impoverishment in the Jewish population no longer per¬ mitted the luxury of part-time rabbis—that is, persons active in other professions who discharged rabbinical functions on the side and in an honorary capacity. The young scholars were dependent on the office of rabbi for their livelihood, either by the receipt of a fixed salary or from remuneration for religious services. This development did little to enhance the status of the rabbinical calling. One consequence of the insti¬ tutionalized rabbinate was that the personal skills and ability of the rabbi

16

Learned discussion among German Jews ca. 1460

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

56

now carried less weight. "The ordained are many," complained Israel Isserlein, "the knowledgeable but few."21 A key factor underlying the formation of the professional rabbinate was also the inclination on the part of the territorial rulers, increasingly manifest since the end of the fourteenth century, to interfere in rabbini¬ cal

affairs and, more generally, in community

self-governance.

Increasingly, they attempted to restrict community autonomy. Rabbis, community elders, and non-Jewish Judenrichter (judges presiding over a mixed Jewish-Christian court) were appointed more and more frequently by the state authorities. Aside from the general drift toward depriving Jews of their rights and the mounting aspirations on the part of the ter¬ ritorial rulers for enhanced power, this development was largely moti¬ vated by the desire for lucre: to exploit the Jews financially, now more ruthlessly than before. Only the rabbis had the power of imposing a ban; by this means rulers were able to coerce the payment of taxes and fines. That, in turn, was one of the causes underlying the fact that complaints were voiced more frequently in the fifteenth century than before about rabbis who had placed community members under a ban and imposed fines on them. This phenomenon was closely linked with the manifold and diverse social crises buffeting the communities. Analogous to the situation in Christian society, new circles of laity appeared and attempted to seize con¬ trol of the reins of communal leadership. Even earlier, there had been lay leaders, parnasim, who, although not rabbis, occasionally appropriated the title "Jews' bishop." But now a stratum of community leaders emerged in many localities—men who, because of the circumstances of the time, had learned but little Torah. Lay law courts, which heard civil cases, were formed. As the gap between rabbis and laymen widened, tensions were also generated that at times led to noisy clashes and even defamations and physical violence. Likewise, among the rabbis themselves, there were disputes over spheres of competency and intense rivalries. Such controversy weakened the standing and respect they enjoyed, sometimes leading to confronta¬ tions in the yeshivot, where students opposed their mentors. This was compounded by disagreements over novel and excessively pointed meth¬ ods of Talmud exegesis (pilpul, hiluk), named in part after the communi¬ ties

in

whose

yeshivot

they

were

cultivated

("Regensburger,"

"Niirnberger," etc.). Along with the intellectual polarization between scholars and laymen,

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

57

there arose a new, previously unknown socioeconomic polarization between rich and poor—an emerging divide in an Ashkenazi society that had been largely homogeneous until then. While the majority of com¬ munity members found it ever more difficult to earn a living, a thin stra¬ tum grew increasingly wealthy. This new affluent class cultivated good connections with the authorities and influential burghers and exploited these to its advantage, often to the detriment of the wider community. In addition, the rising frequency of divorce reflected a certain loosening of family bonds. Some rabbis, such as Seligmann Bing, tried to restore disci¬ pline in the communities by a uniform and authoritative interpretation of the old takanot, thus strengthening religious practice more generally. But these efforts ran up against stiff opposition from rabbis and community leaders and ultimately proved abortive. Rabbi Moses Mintz, a disciple of Isserlein, characterized his contemporaries as "a generation that judges its judges," yet even he rejected Rabbi Seligmann's plan.22 Nonetheless, despite all the perils and oppression from without and the disharmony within, everyday Jewish life often continued to reflect a positive outlook and a healthy interest in mundane affairs. The minhagim of Maharil indicate a sense of enjoyment of life's pleasures, a worldly fondness for pomp and ceremony, such as at weddings. Music was an essential component of marriage celebrations and other festivi¬ ties. Jews exchanged their views on news and "politics" from the wider world outside. Often, at festive occasions and entertainments, there was also contact with Christians. In contemporary responsa, for example, there are references to Jews among the crowds of spectators at horse races. Thus, even in an age fraught with tense relations, Jews and Gentiles were not totally separate.23

8. Humanism and Reformation The dawn of a new era, a time when many turned away quite con¬ sciously from the medieval world, initially did not produce any essen¬ tial change in attitudes toward the Jews. For the humanists the words of Erasmus of Rotterdam summed up the prevailing stance: "If it is Chris¬ tian to hate the Jews, then are we not all Christians to excess?"24 And in this attitude Erasmus led the way for his associates. The prince-bishop of Trent, for example, who had helped stage the indictment of the Jews of his city for ritual murder, boasted an excellent humanistic education and was on friendly terms with many leading humanists. As a member

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17 The seder evening of the Passover festival in a Latin Haggadah from the year 1512

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

59

of the Nuremberg magistrate, the celebrated humanist Willibald Pirckheimer shared responsibility for the expulsion of the Jews from his city. And in 1497 a traveler from France reported that in Germany the most staid burghers soon became agitated if talk turned to the Jews and their usury. It is remarkable that these very same humanists were intrigued by the great antiquity of the Jewish settlements in Germany and Austria and the numerous legends that had been spun around them. Under the impact of Erasmus's rallying cry, ad fontes ("[back] to the sources") and the newly awakened interest in Greek and Latin, they also delved into the cultural traditions of Judaism. Thus, the Basel Council in 1434 passed a resolution calling for the introduction of Hebrew lan¬ guage instruction at the universities—though this move was based less on a serious academic interest in the Jews than on the linguistic needs of anti-Jewish polemics. There were only a few Christian Hebraists who came out in support of more humane treatment for the Jews; preeminent among these was Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522). Reuchlin was no friend of the Jews either, but in his capacity as a legal scholar, and out of a deep commitment to law and justice, he was to a certain extent an advocate of their inter¬ ests. In his writings he berated the Jews in the traditional manner, casti¬ gating them for their blindness and obstinacy. But he had appreciative words for his Hebrew teacher, Jacob b. Yehiel Loans from Mantua, the court physician of Frederick III and the first Jew to be knighted by an emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In Rome Reuchlin studied Hebrew with the eminent biblical exegete Obadiah Sforno. Pico della Mirandola instructed him in Kabbala, implanting in him the conviction that the Kabbala furnished proof of the divinity of Christian teachings. His Hebraism had deep religious roots, since he believed he could hear the very voice of God reverberating in the sounds of the Hebrew language.25 Reuchlin regretted the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and their per¬ secution in Germany—though principally because of his scholarly con¬ cern for the preservation of the Hebrew language and the furtherance of biblical research. Reuchlin spoke out publicly in his condemnation of the confiscation of all the Hebrew books belonging to the Jewish communities in Frankfurt am Main, Worms, and several other cities. This operation had been initi¬ ated by the converted Jew Johannes Pfefferkorn (1469-1522/23), who ventilated his hatred against his former coreligionists by publishing

6o

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

denunciatory pamphlets in Cologne from 1507 to 1509 with the aid of his Dominican brother monks. In these diatribes his principal target was rab¬ binic literature, and he asserted that the Jews would convert—when their books were taken away from them. As a direct consequence Emperor Maximilian I (1493-1519) ordered all books belonging to Jews confis¬ cated. The elector of Mainz protested against this action. With the agree¬ ment of the emperor, he gathered expert opinions on the matter from sev¬ eral universities and scholars, including Reuchlin, who was the only one to condemn Pfefferkorn's actions. Reuchlin championed the claim of the Jews to basic civil rights involving protection of property, protection from bodily harm, and freedom of religion. Consequently, he protested against the arbitrary confiscation of their books, recommending the burning of only those books that contained demonstrable blasphemies. The Dominicans disagreed, and the two parties expressed their clash¬ ing views in a series of leaflets. Reuchlin was denounced as a friend of the Jews and suspicions of heresy were raised against him. In 1513-1514 he was indicted in Mainz and Rome. The controversy dragged on until 1520, when Pope Leo X finally condemned Reuchlin's pamphlet against Pfefferkorn together with Luther's writings. The so-called Reuchlin affair was not a conflict pitching humanists against scholastics, as Ulrich von Hutten had contended in his Epistolae obscurorum virorum (Letters of Obscure Men, 1515-1517), since there were also humanists among Reuchlin's enemies. Even Erasmus believed it was better to destroy the Old Testament than to allow the peace of the world to be disturbed because of the books of the Jews. The danger Reuchlin exposed himself to by his position makes it understandable that other outstanding Hebraists, such as his pupil Sebastian Munster (1489-1552), wished, by demonstra¬ tive hatred for the Jews, to dispel doubts about any judaizing tendencies. Another pupil of Reuchlin, the Nuremberg reformer Andreas Osiander (1498-1552), was one of the very few scholars who defended the Jews against unjustified accusations. Sometime after 1529 he published a refu¬ tation, albeit anonymous, of the charge of ritual murder. Despite these isolated tractates in defense of the Jews, the anti-Jewish mood was now more fierce and virulent than ever. The art of printing facil¬ itated the broad dissemination of hate literature in the form of leaflets and pamphlets. Between 1492 and 1519 the Jews were expelled from Mecklen¬ burg, Brandenburg, Wiirttemberg, Carinthia, Styria, and Salzburg as well as the cities of Magdeburg, Halle, Nuremberg, Colmar, Oberehnheim,

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

61

Regensburg, and Rothenburg on the Tauber. In the years 1515 and 1516 there was a serious effort to banish them throughout the Rhine-Main area and even to dislodge the Jews in toto from the entire Holy Roman Empire. However, these designs foundered on the rocks of the conflicting interests of the emperor, the local rulers, and the estates. In 1510 in Berlin thirty-six Jewish martyrs from the Margravate Brandenburg were burned at the stake because of alleged desecration of the Host, although the bishop had been informed in time that the allegations were baseless. A similar incident occurred in 1529 in Posing near Pressburg (Bratislava). In the meantime the Peasants' War (1525) erupted in all its fury, engulfing southwestern Germany; its impact on the Jews was devastating. They were blamed for the distress of the peasants and craftsmen, yet that did not prevent Erasmus from accusing the Jews of complicity in the peasants' revolt, because of their supposed bitter hatred for Christianity. In this charged situation two personalities now came to the aid of Jews in the German-speaking lands, protecting them from worse: Rabbi Joseph b. Gershon of Rosheim in Alsace (also called Joselman or Josel of Rosheim, c. 1478-1554) and Charles V, holy Roman emperor from 1519 to 1558. Joselman was a scholar who also served as a judge at the Jewish court. He championed Jewish causes in Alsace early on; in 1510 he was elected one of the lay leaders of the Jews in his district. From this junc¬ ture there was hardly an expulsion or persecution in the area between the Rhine, Main, and Danube in which Josel of Rosheim was not actively involved in trying to save his coreligionists. His ceaseless activity on behalf of the Jewish communities is amply attested by official docu¬ ments and his own records. He was able to obtain letters of protection and charters of rights in a number of audiences with Charles V that usu¬ ally took place on the occasion of the emperor's presence at sessions of the Reichstag (imperial diet). In the Peasants' War, by means of astute negotiations with the rebels, Josel was successful in representing both Jewish interests and those of the cities as well. In 1551 he negotiated with the dukes of Bavaria and Wiirttemberg to permit the transit of expelled Jews through their territories. It was the first and, for a long period, the only time that all Jewish communities in Germany were rep¬ resented at negotiations with imperial and territorial princes by a single unified leadership. Over this entire period the policies of the empire and the territories were dominated by the schism generated in the wake of Martin Luther's

62

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

teachings and his call for Church reformation. With political sagac¬ ity and diplomacy, Josel was able to exploit this situation to help ease the burdens on the Jews. Politically, he remained loyal to the emperor and his agenda to preserve a Catholic unity of faith in the empire— if only because Jews had to clear themselves of the suspicion that they bore complicity in the spread of the Reformation. His shrewd understanding of realpolitik became evident at the Reichstag in

18 Josel of Rosheim. From a contemporary anti-Jewish leaflet

Prologue: The Jewish Middle Ages

63

Regensburg in 1532, when he received the news that Solomon Molcho was on his way to the city. Molcho, a Marrano (descendant of forcibly baptized Sephardi Jews) who had returned to Judaism, was the charis¬ matic founder of a self-styled messianic movement. Josel left Regensburg immediately in order to avoid creating the impression that he was in some way involved in Molcho's subversive mission. Josel would soon experience personally just how much caution he had to exercise as a Jewish statesman. In 1535 he was fined by the Imperial Supreme Court because he had referred to himself in a petition to that court as "Regierer der gemeinen Jiidischheit" ("ruler of common Jew¬ ry"). However, the title was nothing more than a German rendering of the Hebrew appellation customarily given by the communities to him and other lay leaders: parnas u-manhig. In the case of Josel, it had a spe¬ cial justification, since he was active as a leader and adviser in communi¬ ties throughout the empire, as in Prague, for example, where he arbitrated a serious controversy between local factions. At the Reichstag in Augs¬ burg in 1530, he presented takanot that had been passed at a meeting of the heads of communities he had chaired; these regulations were aimed in particular at putting an end to abuses in commerce and other dealings with the Christian population. Inter alia, they contained restrictions on moneylending and pawnbroking as well as the obligation on the part of the community elders to assist Christian plaintiffs in gaining their rights in cases brought against Jews. Joselman also requested in his petitions that Jews be freed from the "heavy yoke" of moneylending. Though Josel was not a "humanist," he borrowed certain elements from the humanists of his time. His petitions repeatedly underscored the intrinsic value of the human being and the equality of all, Jews and nonJews. His free and confident demeanor also reflected something of the Zeitgeist. Josel's writings attest to his political acumen and profound reli¬ giosity. He was the ideal embodiment of the shtadlan, the advocate and intermediary for Jewish interests, and this to an extent probably not attained by anyone else. Joselman was also preeminent as a debater in religious disputations. At the 1530 Augsburg Reichstag, upon the order of the emperor and in his presence, he engaged in a disputation with the apostate Antonius Margarita. Margarita, who came from a prominent rabbinical family, had published a defamatory tract against the Jews enti¬ tled Der gantz Jiidisch glaub (The Jewish Faith in Its Entirety). Joselman emerged victorious from the disputation, and Margarita was expelled

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Toward a New Era

25 3

Governments even intervened in purely religious matters, especially when differences arose within a community—such as who should blow the shofar in the synagogue on the New Year or whether the rabbi was allowed to introduce a small change in religious services. Such interfer¬ ence was more common in the larger states in northern and eastern Germany; in the ecclesiastical territories in the southwest, and especially in tiny principalities and areas administered by imperial knights of the lower nobility, the Jewish communities and Landjudenschaften retained a greater degree of self-government and autonomy. With the onset of the early modern period instances of state interfer¬ ence in the appointment of local rabbis multiplied everywhere, while the size of individual rabbinate districts was increasingly reduced. The authorities also meddled in the elections for community board members. During a fierce dispute that rocked the Frankfurt community in the period from 1615 to 1628 regarding the composition of the lay board, the magistrate, on its own initiative, constituted the board anew, even appointing some of its members. After one of the parties to the alterca¬ tion appealed to the Council of the Four Lands, it issued a strongly worded protest stating that such interference in the right of self-deter¬ mination for Jews was unprecedented. In 1722 in Konigsberg King Frederick William I directly appointed the rabbi and the four parnasim. In 1729, when a vacancy arose in the Berlin rabbinate, the elders received a royal directive, unexpectedly and without evident reason, to elect a young man from Leipnik as community rabbi. Protest by the elders proved of no avail. Only on rare occasions in the Middle Ages had there been interference with the autonomy of the rabbinical court. In the early modern period the power of the judiciary had been preserved for the simple reason that the state authorities did not wish to be bothered by the internal squabbles of the Jews. Despite this, litigation by Jews against one another before secu¬ lar courts became ever more common, even in questions of religious law and custom. That factor contributed to the weakening of rabbinical authority within the communities. But the decisive element in hastening the decline of rabbinical jurisdiction, and thus the power of the rabbis, was the restriction of the competency and effective domain of the Jewish judi¬ ciary imposed by the absolutist state. Even if relevant legislation in the numerous German territories was anything but uniform, the tendency to curtail the powers of the Jewish courts was common to all, aside from a few exceptions, such as Fiirth.

254

The Early Modern Period

The new Jewry regulation in Hamburg in 1710 made Jewish divorce dependent on a decision in the Christian courts; it prescribed Christian guardians for Jewish orphans along with the Jewish guardians appointed by the rabbis, and restricted Jewish jurisdiction in cases involving mar¬ riage and inheritance. The authority of the rabbinical court, previously binding on all community members, was increasingly reduced to that of a court of arbitration whose authority rested upon the assent of both par¬ ties. The privileges and ordinances issued by the Prussian crown in these matters were, for a time, neither consistent nor uniform. When Rabbi David Frankel was appointed to the rabbinate of Berlin in 1743, he received express confirmation of his rabbinical jurisdiction and as chief rabbi of the Kurmark Landjudenschaft he was granted the right in 1751 to punish recalcitrants. The Breslau chief territorial rabbi Jonas Joseph Frankel, whom the king had granted a general charter with rights equiv¬ alent to those of Christian merchants because of his extensive trade con¬ nections abroad, was given jurisdiction in connection with small cases. However, the Prussian General Jewry Code of 1730 in most instances permitted the rabbi to engage in only the amicable arbitration of dis¬ putes. Finally, the General Code of 175o eliminated the jurisdiction of rabbis "in civil cases . .. since the rabbi and elders are not entitled to any genuine jurisdiction" and accorded their judgments merely the character of legal opinions.17 Already at the beginning of the eighteenth century the experienced and worldly wise chief rabbi of Schaumburg-Lippe was well aware of the decline of the Jewish court: "It is widely known that we dwell in the midst of the nations and are not authorized to pass judgment in accordance with the laws of our religion. This is especially true in the small towns and vil¬ lages, where our brethren are scattered."18 Even where the jurisdictional powers of rabbinical courts had been retained, the parties to the action could appeal against their verdicts to the general secular courts. Often, Jewish courts lacked the power to carry out their judgments, even where rabbinical administration of justice had con¬ tinued in force. In order to enable Christian judges to adjudicate in cases between Jews in accordance with Jewish law, the Prussian government in 1778 ordered the chief rabbi Hirschel Lewin to prepare a German com¬ pendium of Jewish laws pertaining to inheritance, wills, guardianship, and marriage insofar as they concerned rights of ownership. The book, writ¬ ten with the assistance of Moses Mendelssohn, bore the misleading title Die Ritualgesetze der Juden (Jewish Ritual Laws).

Toward a New Era

255

There is no doubt that this development was directed against the rab¬ bis and had indeed already been discernible in the early history of court Jewry. To a certain extent, the court Jew (often also himself serving as rabbi) replaced the imperial or territorial rabbi in the eyes of the sover¬ eign. The fact that the monarch gave preference to the court Jew for the position of chief rabbi or head parnas was undoubtedly due to the special position he enjoyed as the most prominent Jewish personality but was in all likelihood equally influenced by the general secularization of state governance and efforts to negate and eliminate the purported "domina¬ tion by the rabbis." In Christian eyes the rabbis epitomized much that was despicable about the Jews. This was probably one of the reasons why, according to a Prussian law of 1712, Jews with the title of rabbi were pro¬ hibited from entering the state along with beggar Jews and schoolmasters. The attitude is further illustrated by the fact that rabbis were not excused from the ancient and humiliating practice of the Jewry Oath, which was exacted, for example, from the Berlin chief rabbi Hirschel Lewin when he assumed office in 1773. The rabbis' prerogative to impose a ban with the approval of the com¬ munity board had been the quintessence of their power since time immemorial. It was thus to be expected that the absolutist state would endeavor to bring about its elimination. Rabbis now retained the right to issue a herem solely in connection with disputes in the synagogue, and, even then, they could only exercise it together with the elders, contingent on permission from the authorities. The Prussian Jewry Code of 1730 still contains the regulation that a Jew, with the knowledge of the authorities, could be excommunicated without any restriction. However, the Code of 1750 prohibits even the so-called secret ban against Jews whose behavior is "not in keeping with the views and wishes" of the rabbi and the elders—that is, punishment for religious transgressions.

6. Internal Weakening of Rabbinical and Community Authority The restriction and ultimate elimination of rabbinical supervision over the community and of rabbinical legal jurisdiction was a postulate of the modern state. It far preceded the modern currents within Judaism that swept away the traditional community power structure. However, it is evident that even the internal standing of the community leadership was already in question here and there in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-

2 56

The Early Modern Period

tury and had begun to totter. The oligarchical composition of the com¬ munity boards and their autocratic regimes provoked repeated opposition and unrest among community members. The struggles over elections to the lay board led in some cases to virtual anarchy. With the ever heavier burden of taxes, squabbles erupted between individuals and the commu¬ nity or Landjudenschaft. The slandering and persecution of the Prague rabbi, Yomtov Lipmann Heller, was initiated by community members who felt their interests had been damaged by his allocation of taxes. The preference of many sovereigns to entrust the leadership of the communi¬ ties to their court Jews, who then often acted high-handedly on their own, marked a further weakening of community self-determination and the authority of elected community organs. One consequence was that com¬ munity members now pursued their religious, social, and intellectual needs in semiprivate associations. The dependence of the rabbis on the community board played into the hands of the antirabbinical tendency among the authorities. Even in the exercise of their religious office rabbis were not independent, and their rights of jurisdiction were also challenged by elements in the Jewish community. It occurred, for example, that a rabbi announced in the synagogue the threat of a possible penalty if certain religious rules were not observed. The board thereupon pointed out to him that he had no right to issue any instructions without its consent, and took the occa¬ sion to further inform him that he was not entitled on his own to appoint a scribe for ritual purposes or to extend the contract with the rit¬ ual slaughterer. If influential factions or persons in the community so desired, rabbis were harassed and removed from office. To be sure, some rabbis enjoyed exceptional status—those who were great scholars and widely admired personalities—but even they were not safe from provo¬ cations. At times tensions arose surrounding the rabbi if he had come from Poland and was unfamiliar with local custom or had scant regard for established minhagim. An even more critical attitude prevailed in some partially acculturated circles toward the many heder teachers who had come from Poland. Not only was their Eastern Yiddish dialect diffi¬ cult for the children to understand, but they were not always greatly pious or learned. The Zeitgeist, decisively stamped by mercantilist and physiocratic ideas, viewed churchmen and the clergy as politically and economically useless figures. That anticlerical spirit also penetrated into Jewish circles and contributed to diminishing the standing of the rabbinate as an insti-

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38 Jonathan Eybeschiitz (Eybschiizer) rabbi of Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbek

258

The Early Modern Period

tution and of the individual rabbis. Another compounding factor was that rabbis, even the most respected, had faults that would come to light and evoke disapprobation among community members. Thus people spoke disparagingly about the nepotism and venality that had become common practice in the filling of vacant rabbinical posts. They talked for hours, and not very respectfully, about the latest reports from the scene of bitter con¬ troversies that raged between and about various rabbis. Among these controversies the so-called amulet dispute between jacob Emden and Jonathan Eybeschiitz that erupted around the middle of the eighteenth century took on a special importance. Far more than in the case of earlier disputes, it was waged with the active participation of the entire rabbinate in Europe and thus provoked an unprecedented impas¬ sioned echo in the communities. When Eybeschiitz became chief rabbi of the triple community Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbek in 1750, both he and Jacob Emden, who lived in Altona, had eminent reputations in the Jewish world. Soon after Eybeschiitz took up his new post, Emden accused him of Sabbatian leanings. The evidence consisted of amulets that had been written by Eybeschiitz. Many rabbis gave women amulets upon request to protect them against childbed fever—a common malady to which many mothers still succumbed at that time. There was thus nothing sus¬ picious in preparing such amulets. But the accusation against Eybeschiitz was that his amulets contained hidden allusions to Shabbetai Tsevi and his alleged magical healing power. Emden's father, Tsevi Ashkenazi (Hakham Tsevi), had been a staunch opponent of Sabbatianism and its adherents, and his son continued the struggle. His press printed no less than twenty-four polemical tracts against Eybeschiitz and the Sabba¬ tian heresy. Both the community leaders and the Hamburg senate disapproved of Emden's high-handed actions against the chief rabbi, regarding them as interference in their area of competence. The King of Denmark, under whose protection Jewish jurisdiction was exercised and to whom Eybeschiitz appealed for help, also offered him his support. Emden was, as a result, forced to leave Altona for a time. Rabbis of large communities abroad, including Lublin and Nikolsburg, placed a herem on opponents of Eybeschiitz. The Council of the Four Lands in Poland dealt with the case and, in the autumn of 1753, after some initial hesitation, acquitted Eybeschiitz of all charges by a majority decision and ordered all polemi¬ cal pamphlets published against him to be burned. In Frankfurt am Main the dispute poured oil on the flames of the partisan struggle, discussed

Toward a New Era

259

earlier, that had split the community into two hostile camps. The chief rabbi there, Jacob Joshua Falk, was one of the leading personalities con¬ vinced of Eybeschiitz's guilt and called on him to repent. This call, which was made public without Falk's knowledge, antagonized the many sup¬ porters of Eybeschiitz in the community and Falk had to leave the city. The controversy about whether or not Eybeschiitz was a Sabbatian re¬ flected the deep dismay engendered by the suspicion that a universally respected rabbi, despite his attachment to the Torah, should nonetheless have allowed himself to be led astray into such heretical beliefs. Although there are few contemporary sources documenting the amulet dispute's major role in weakening rabbinical authority, there can be no doubt that the splits it engendered within community boards and in the rabbinate caused lasting damage to these institutions. A major factor was the unprecedented manner in which Emden had personally insulted the Hamburg chief rabbi, attempting to vilify Eybeschiitz and degrade him in the eyes of his many admirers and readers of his works. The fre¬ quent use of the rabbinical power of the ban against men who were sus¬ pected of sympathizing with Sabbatianism—not just in the amulet con¬ troversy but in a host of other cases as well—diminished the effect of this means for preserving rabbinical authority. A rabbinate divided against itself and rent by internal quarrels and hostilities was hardly in a position to forcefully confront the challenges of Enlightenment. In the controversy surrounding the "Cleves get" in 1766-1767, rabbis and rabbinical courts from various communities likewise fought against each other with fierce antagonism. The matter in dispute was the validity of a divorce letter (get) from the hand of a man who had not been of sound mind at the time of the divorce. The rabbi in Cleves maintained that the divorce was valid—contrary to the opinion expressed by others, especially the rabbis in Frankfurt, who were absolutely convinced that their position was the correct one. In addition, the Frankfurt rabbis insisted they had the sole judicial competence to deal with the matter. Both affairs, the Hamburg amulet controversy and the Cleves divorce, undoubtedly had a detrimental effect on the standing of the rabbinate. Moreover, the amulet controversy strengthened the already mentioned tendency of German Jews to turn away from mysticism and heightened their readiness to par¬ ticipate in the Enlightenment. In conclusion, it should be emphasized that the Jews, a number of whom had attained high levels of culture and education during the period treated here, were still remote from the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlight-

z6o

The Early Modern Period

enment) understood as a historical concept. The Haskalah signified more than an open-minded cultural attitude and growing social contact with Christian circles. Above all, it marked a change in self-understanding regarding the primacy of Jewish tradition, which had previously been unquestioned. In the period before Mendelssohn, that shift had not yet occurred. To be sure, there were already certain tendencies toward con¬ vergence with Christian society and assimilation on two social planes: within the high-placed circles of the court Jews and, far below, in the shady demimonde of Jewish beggars and bandits. Biting critique of vari¬ ous phenomena in Jewish society had appeared, seeming to herald the transition to a new era. Yet most Jewish scholars, as well as the vast major¬ ity of community members outside learned circles, did not deviate from traditional Jewish norms and ideals. Their self-conception continued to be that of a group religiously and nationally set apart, whose allegiance was to the observance of religious law.

Part Two The Jewish Enlightenment

9

Beginnings of the Haskalah

i. The Setting Not until the second half of the eighteenth century, when Europe and Germany already stood under the full impact of the late Enlightenment, did a nucleus of adherents of Aufkldrung, known as maskilim, emerge within Jewish society. Inspired by the European Enlightenment, they ini¬ tiated a parallel Jewish movement, the Haskalah (from Hebr. le-haskil, "enlighten, clarify with the aid of the intellect"), a term that illuminates the common ground shared by both currents. Berlin was its point of ori¬ gin. It was there that the leading figure of the Jewish Enlightenment, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), lived and worked from 1743 until his death. His creativity and activity stand at the very heart of this intellectual movement. As described at the end of part 1, the seeds of enlightenment were already discernible before Mendelssohn, but they did not fuse into a sociocultural movement powerful enough to effect a major shift in con¬ sciousness until the middle of the eighteenth century. Prerequisite was the creation of a social domain where, beyond the pale of the coercive power of normative Judaism, Jews could meet on a secular plane to engage in critical thought and work. The result proved to be more than a fleeting flare-up of ideas supported by a few isolated individuals. The coming together of Jewish intellectuals not identical with the rabbinical elite, men who scrutinized the Jewish religion, its laws and way of life, on the basis

264

The Jewish Enlightenment

of Enlightenment ideas, catalyzed a necessary process of ferment. The stage was set for a confrontation between innovators and their opponents, and forces were set free that pushed unceasingly in the direction of a restructuring of Jewish society. The initiators of this turn were children of the old Jewish community; without exception, they had all had a highly traditional education. Mendelssohn, born in Dessau, capital of the tiny principality of Anhalt and home to only a few dozen Jewish families around 1729, was brought up by his father in the traditional manner. The latter belonged to the ranks of the impoverished in the small community, eking out a meager living for the support of his family as a Schulklopfer (synagogue door knocker), who made early morning rounds to rouse the faithful to prayer, as a teacher of young children, and as a Torah scribe. Despite the family's straitened circumstances, he taught his son the rudiments of Hebrew and the Bible. When Moses was six, his father sent him to Rabbi David Frankel, who initiated him into the study of the Talmud and its commen¬ taries. Impressed by the boy's keen intellect, Frankel also introduced him to texts by the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides. A close bond arose between the teacher and his pupil, and after Frankel had accepted an appointment as chief rabbi of Berlin and moved there, only a few months passed until the boy bade his parents farewell and departed on foot for the Prussian capital. Having been granted entry into the city at the Rosenthal Gate, the entrance in the town wall reserved for the Jews, he was able to continue his Talmud studies there with Rabbi Frankel. The arrival of the fourteen-year-old Mendelssohn in the Prussian metropolis signaled the origins of a historical development that was to turn Prussia into the cradle of the Haskalah. Significantly, a Jewish Enlightenment did not germinate in England or the Netherlands, even though the Jews there enjoyed greater freedoms under a constitutional regime and thus appeared to be more open to their environment and receptive to its modernizing influences. There is indeed a kernel of para¬ dox in the fact that the "rays of Enlightenment" began to penetrate ever deeper into the ghetto specifically under the regime of Frederick II (17401786). Frederick saw himself as a "philosopher king" who wished to dem¬ onstrate his openness to the ideas of a new era and felt honored by the presence in Berlin of thinkers like Voltaire and Maupertuis. In his state each subject was to find salvation in his own way. He repudiated the reli¬ gious fanaticism "that decimates the nations" and, in his "Political Testament" of 1752, stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence

Beginnings of the Haskalah

265

among Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed Christians, Jews, and other sects. Yet this enlightened conception of a state not bound to an official state religion stood in marked contradiction with his mistrustful policy of strict supervision and control of the Jews, attested by his Revised General Code, the Jewry Reglement of 1750. This was a harsh code contrary to all notions of humane precepts and tolerance. In accordance with utilitarian principles, it institutionalized a hierarchical structuring of Jewish society, turning the Jews into a pariah collectivity whose members were forced to bear collective responsibility to a centralized regime for the transgres¬ sions of individuals and simultaneously to suffer heightened internal ten-

39

Moses Mendelssohn at the "Berlin" Gate in Potsdam 1771. Copper engraving by M. S. Lowe based on a drawing by Daniel Chodowiecki

266

The Jewish Enlightenment

sions within their communities. The rigid governmental regulation accel¬ erated the disintegration of Jewish society and the decline in the author¬ ity of rabbis and lay leaders, plunging the communities into a crisis of leadership. However, this very process of disintegration generated space for the emergence of a new intellectual elite. That nascent elite was ben¬ efited by a concomitant economic development: the mercantilist policies of Frederick II, inspired by the cameralists, had facilitated the rise of a solid, albeit small group of Jewish entrepreneurs in Prussia. Though it numbered no more than fifteen families, this new stratum was to provide the material support for a group of Jewish intellectuals who almost all stemmed from impoverished backgrounds. For the future achievements of Mendelssohn, too, the existence of this entrepreneurial group consti¬ tuted a necessary precondition. When the young Moses arrived in Berlin during the third year of Frederick the Great's reign, he did not belong to those categories of Jews tolerated in the Prussian state according to the prevailing material or occupational criteria. Only thanks to the intervention of his mentor, Rabbi Frankel—who had persuaded a wealthy protected Jew (Schutzjude) to take the penniless Talmud student into his house-—-was Mendelssohn granted a residence permit thanks to the protected status of his rich bene¬ factor. In 1750, Isaac Bernhard, a prosperous silk manufacturer in Berlin, invited Mendelssohn to become a private tutor for his children, later made him bookkeeper in his business, and finally took him into his silk factory as a partner. Once he was financially on a secure footing, Mendelssohn became free to devote himself to his enlightenment activi¬ ties. After initial success with his early publications, he requested in a let¬ ter to Frederick II to be granted the status of a protected Jew: From my childhood, I have been continually resident in Your Majesty's states and wish to be able to settle here permanently. But since I was born abroad and do not possess the requisite assets as required by the [Jewry] Regulation, let me be so bold as to make a most humble request: that Your Majesty grant to me and my descendants Your most gracious protection, along with the free¬ doms which Your subjects enjoy, bearing in mind that I compensate my lack of wealth by my labors in the sciences, which have the good fortune of enjoying Your Majesty's protection.1 In 1763 Frederick granted Mendelssohn the status of an "unprivileged protected Jew" (ausserordentlicher Schutzjude)—not that of a "privi-

Beginnings of the Haskalah

267

leged" one (ordentlicher Schutzjude), a classification that would have also assured his descendants the right of residence. Israel Samoscz (1700—1772)—who, as his name suggests, stemmed from the small Jewish community of Samoscz in Poland—arrived in the Prussian capital in 1742. ln Berlin, he too owed his financial security to a privileged member of the Jewish upper class, the banker Daniel Itzig (1723~1799f Itzig had welcomed Samoscz into his home, and it was there that he met with the young Mendelssohn and his friend Aaron Gumpertz (1723~17^9)- Samoscz took advantage of these conversations in the house of Daniel Itzig in order to instruct Mendelssohn and Gumpertz in philos¬ ophy, mathematics, and literature from the sources of Spanish Jewry. These encounters proved a crucial stimulus for Mendelssohn's intellec¬ tual development in the 1740s and fifties—an experience that helped pave his path to Aufklarung. Samoscz, an outstanding student of the Talmud, preferred science and scholarship to a rabbinical profession. In his Netsah Yisrael (The Eternal One of Israel, 1741) he combined knowledge of the Talmud with mathematics and astronomy and he also authored several commentaries on works of medieval Jewish philosophy. The Jewish economic elite under Frederick II not only offered the maskilim a basis for economic security, but also created a favorable cli¬ mate for the reception of their ideas. Their entrepreneurial activities brought them into close contact with Prussian officialdom, administra¬ tors whose outlook was turning increasingly cameralistic. These officials believed it was the aim of the state to care for the common welfare of the people and to bring the happiness of the individual into harmony with that of the whole community. The Jewish entrepreneurs quickly embraced these principles. Their discourse with the officials, centered principally on obtaining concessions under the best possible terms, was shaped by cameralist concepts and the premises of economic rationality. This entrepreneurial elite tended to be open to the outside world, and that receptivity effected a major change in mentality and customs. It was manifested in their language, their dress, frequent attendance at the the¬ ater and visits to coffee houses, as well as in their attitudes toward secu¬ lar education. Economic relations with non-Jews in the mercantilist era were no longer exclusively instrumental and were accompanied now by a process of internalizing the values and norms of non-Jewish society. Jewish and Gentile society no longer existed as spheres largely separate and closed, isolated one from the other. They were coming closer together, and this

268

The Jewish Enlightenment

bridging led to an incipient process of acculturation under the reign of Frederick II, carried forward by Jewish merchants. That transformation can be confirmed by a glance into the interior of the house of one of their outstanding representatives, provided us by Friedrich Nicolai (17331811) in his description of Berlin: Mr. Daniel Itzig (in the Burgstrasse) possesses a choice collection of paintings; among these . .. Moses Striking the Rock, by Beschey; a large prospect with many figures, by Canaletto; . . . Ganymede, by Rubens; Hercules and Omphale, from the school of Rubens; Eli and

Elkana, Bringing His Son Samuel, by Gerbrand von den Ekhout; a family portrait by Peter Hals. There were also paintings depicting St. Jerome in the desert and Mary Magdalene, by an unknown artist.2 The Itzig collection was a sign of gradual change in mentality and atti¬ tude. In earlier centuries it would have been virtually inconceivable in a Jewish home, and most certainly not a varied assortment of paintings intermixing figures and motifs from Jewish and Christian religious his¬ tory. Yet it would be mistaken to assume that Itzig had abandoned tradi¬ tional Judaism. In his beautiful building, writes Nicolai, there was a "wellbuilt synagogue" and a hall whose ceiling could be opened up, converting the room into a roofless sukkah (booth erected for the Feast of Sukkot). Magnificence and luxury, together with a "rich collection of good paint¬ ings," also typified other homes of the Jewish economic elite. When it came to externals of refinement and artistic taste, they did not wish to seem less cultivated than the Christian upper class, the high-ranking offi¬ cials, war councillors, diplomatic officers, chamberlains, and state minis¬ ters. The disposition of a rising property-owning bourgeoisie was also manifest in the new esteem for books on secular subjects. Nicolai noted that the merchant "Aaron Meyer, who lives on Spandauer Strasse, pos¬ sesses an impressive library, especially rich in works on recent history and literature, in particular a large number of French translations of classical authors, and the best German, Italian, English, and French writers." The personal library thus became one parameter of the enhanced value accorded secular education and culture in well-to-do Jewish families, such as that of Aaron Gumpertz. In his father's library stood the Bible, Talmud, and volumes of rabbinic literature, flanked by works in diverse languages and fields; these had exercised a fascination on Mendelssohn's friend al-

Beginnings of the Haskalah

269

ready at a young age, inducing him to supplement traditional Jewish learning with a secular education. No matter how critically the maskilim viewed the affluent and privi¬ leged class of Jewish entrepreneurs, the upsurge of the Berlin Haskalah was inextricably linked with the emergence of this parvenu social stratum. Both Mendelssohn and his disciples were critical of businessmen who had grown rich in the Seven Years War and whose turn toward Enlightenment was expressed only in external lifestyle, not outlook and inner attitude. That "superficial" adaptation in externals, without any simultaneous intellectual effort, aroused the ire of the maskilim. Mendelssohn even went so far as to denounce as dishonorable the way the privileged accom¬ modated unreflectively to the non-Jewish environment and claimed it was often possible to find "more virtue" among the poor Jews, still rooted in tradition and not yet touched by the new enlightened ideas, than in the Jewish upper class. Nonetheless, the Berlin Haskalah remained indebted in manifold ways to the elite of "generally privileged Jews" (Generalprivi-

ligierte). They were, after all, a genuine locus of power in Jewish society— men who could be of valuable assistance in translating enlightened theory into practice, introducing educational reforms and assisting with the pub¬ lication of enlightened books and periodicals. These affluent merchants had ushered in that process of opening up to the outside environment that prepared them, or at least their children, to be receptive to the ideas of the maskilim. Among the factors surrounding the Haskalah in its formative years was, of course, the rise of Berlin as the residential city of the Prussian monarchy, the hub of a state rapidly restructuring itself as a centralized absolutism. Within a half-century Berlin's population doubled, soaring from some fifty thousand to one hundred thousand inhabitants by 1755. The capital began to eclipse all other German cities. Construction flour¬ ished; there was a boom in manufacturing and commerce. Efforts to cen¬ tralize the state administration favored the formation of a class of offi¬ cials, the bureaucratic buttress of cameralism, from whose ranks adher¬ ents of Aufklarung were recruited. When Frederick the Great assumed the throne in 1740, the sciences experienced a phase of rejuvenation. The old Association for the Sciences became the Royal Academy of Sciences, and Maupertuis its president. Its spectrum ranged widely over the humanities and natural sciences, including physics, mathematics, specula¬ tive philosophy, and philology. Thanks to the enlightened policies of

2/0

The Jewish Enlightenment

Frederick II, Berlin, with its academy and other accoutrements, had become a magnet for the intellectual elite of Germany and Europe. The city gradually attracted a number of the celebrated figures of the day in the sciences and arts: philosophers, theologians, poets, and natural scientists. These then formed the basis for a new "sociability" in which the maskilim also participated. In the person of Friedrich Nicolai, pub¬ lishing found an enterprising figure who combined the spirit of Enlightenment with an astute sense of entrepreneurship. Around him a circle interested in science and literature crystallized, counting Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) and Mendelssohn among its members. Nicolai promoted the publication of books and periodicals whose enlight¬ ened spirit had an impact that reverberated far beyond the residential city. The fact that Lessing came to Berlin in 1748, for example, was associated with his work on just such a periodical. He remained in Berlin until 1755 and then returned at intervals, spending the years 1758-1760 and 17651767 in the city. Berlin was now a thriving hub of the fine arts, science, and education; for several decades its cultural aura vied with European cities like London and Paris. The encounter there with the ideas of the Enlightenment spawned new forms of sociability, providing the fertile soil conducive to the germination of the Haskalah in its first phase. Yet there were legal impediments standing in the way of these favorable prerequisites for free thought and untrammeled creativity. Between 1750 and 1800 legislation relating to the status of Jewry in Prussia and other German states stag¬ nated. Even though Joseph II had abolished the rigid policies of abso¬ lutism toward the Jews in Austria, that could not induce the Prussian monarch to grant the Jews in his state more liberties. His policies remained rigid, shaped by his bigoted view that his subjects had to be pro¬ tected from the "harmful" influence of the Jews. Guided by reason and respect for science, the scholars exercised tolerance—while the Prussian king disregarded it in practice. This gaping discrepancy between his atti¬ tude and the views of the "republic of intellectuals" was pivotal for the genesis phase of the Jewish Enlightenment. While Mendelssohn and the maskilim felt at a distinct disadvantage under the heel of official state pol¬ icy, the scholarly arena offered the prospect of social integration; at the same time, new intellectual horizons opened up before them. Even before political equality had become a reality for the Jews, they were able to par¬ ticipate in an evolving bourgeois public sphere. This sphere had inter¬ posed itself between the corporate bodies of the state, still structured in

Beginnings of the Haskalah

271

terms of the old estates, and formed the soil for hopes of a comprehensive renewal of Jewish and non-Jewish society. The bourgeois public had an intellectual rather than a political focus and had not yet raised political demands as in England, France, and the Netherlands. Yet, in contrast to those countries, here was a public sphere in which Jewish intellectuals could actively take part. To the west, in London, Paris, and Amsterdam, the Jews enjoyed greater civil equality, but in Germany a novum evolved in the second half of the eighteenth century: an interdenominational sociability, that is, a new social openness vis-a-vis individual Jews within a limited range of Gentile society. Its power to shape new realities became amply manifest in the circle of Jewish enlighteners around Mendelssohn.

2. A New Sociability Already, during his first two decades in Berlin, the Jewish community was for Mendelssohn no longer his sole frame of reference. He contin¬ ued to participate in its life and never broke with the community; yet, at the same time, he shifted his sights toward the outside world, to a circle of like-minded friends not subject to the community's powers of sanc¬ tion. It was this social sphere, imbued with a spirit of openness, that motivated Mendelssohn in the 1740s and 1750s to acquire secular edu¬ cation. Thus he added modern and classical European languages to his command of Hebrew and Judeo-German and, after a short time, was able to read the works of the most important philosophers in the original German, French, English, Latin, and Greek. In the free hours that remained to him when he was not engaged in Talmud studies or his duties as a private tutor, he immersed himself in the writings of Locke, Spinoza, Voltaire, Rousseau, Leibniz, and Christian Wolff. By unceasing application, both through self-study and with the aid of like-minded Jewish associates, Mendelssohn penetrated the philosophical world of Enlightenment ideas. Among his circle of friends and acquaintances, along with Israel Samoscz, there were also two young Jewish physicians, Abraham Kisch (1725-1803) from Prague and Aaron Gumpertz, son of a family of court Jews. In a letter to Fromet Gugenheim, his fiancee and future bride, Mendelssohn commented on Gumpertz: "You have the good fortune to have the doctor in your home for a bit longer. He is your friend and a man who, as I know from experience, is never remiss in his instruction. Everything I have profited from in the sciences I owe to him, and him alone."3

MOSE& MKNI5ELS SOHN. \m: c firtm/fc,- ZPfci't.aZru'Jr '~rjPi///i Zm II. Van-dr.r

40

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Liineburg, 159 German language: eighteenth century

28-30, 41-51, 56, 60-63, 65, 66, 68, 69-70; Landjudenschaften and,

and, 240; Jewish Enlightenment

196,198,199, 200, 201, 202, 206-7,

and, 273, 277, 378; regulations on

208; rabbis and, 103, 253-55, 256;

learning, 242-43

in seventeenth century, 81-82,

Gershom b. Judah, Rabbenu, 14, 19—20, 20

87~91' 93-94' 95-96' 98-99,100-3, 130-31; in sixteenth century, 75,

Gezerot tatnu, 23

76-77; territorial rabbis and,

Giessen, 130

203-4; see a^so Court factors;

Girls, education for, 185-86

Court Jews; Emancipation;

Glogau, 83, 87, 225, 332 Gliickel of Hameln, 129,133,141,164, 176,183,186, 221-22, 230, 325 Gliickstadt (Holstein), 85

Toleration Graetz, Heinrich, 1 Greeks, 13 Gregory I, pope, 11

Index

419

Gregory IX, pope, 28

Jewish sentiment in, 163,164;

Gregory VII, pope, 24

Ashkenazi Jews in, 85; cemetery

Gugenheim, Fromet, 271

dispute with Altona, 251; commu¬

Guilds: burial fraternities and, 174;

nity administration, 166; court

court Jew versus, 110; in eigh¬

Jews and, 112; economic life in, 85,

teenth century, 127-28,130,132,

110; education in, 184,185,186;

145,146,152,154; Fettmilch revolt

expulsion of Jews from Prague

and, 91-94; in Jewish Middle Ages,

and, 154; family morals and, 182;

51; in Prague, 132; in seventeenth

Jewish gangs in, 249; poor Jews

century, 100

and, 246-47; Portuguese Jews in,

Guldener Opferpfennig, 43, 46, 99

84-85,110,164,189-91, 230, 231,

Gumpertz, Aaron, 267, 268-69, 27U

243-44; rabbinate in, 215; rabbin-

273, 274, 283, 325-26, 336 Giinzburg, Aryeh Leib, Rabbi, 203, 213 Giinzburg (town), 87, 88

cal court and, 254; refugees from Poland in, 98; Sabbatianism and, 232; synagogue of, 173; women's role in, 186 Hamburg Bank, 84

Hadarshan, Shimon, Rabbi, 37

Hamburg Reform Temple, 371

Haggadah, in Latin, 58

Ha-Me'asef (The Collector), 300, 312,

Hagiz, Moses, Rabbi, 163 Hahn, Joseph Juspa, 125,162, 215-16 Hakohen, Alexander Siisslin, Rabbi,

53

3I3, 3I4-19, 323' 324, 344/ 347/ 348, 351, 362, 363, 364, 373, 374 Hamm, 88 Hanau, 83-84, 90, 93, 223, 227

Ha-Kohen, Meir, Rabbi, 39-40

Hanau, Solomon, 295

Halacha, 3, 39, 54, 211, 216-17, 230,

Hanover, 84,106,160,162,189, 204,

237, 238, 379 Halberstadt: absolutism and, 142-43;

205; Duke of, 98,108,109; syna¬ gogue of, 121

anti-Jewish sentiment in, 100,163;

Harburg (Ries), 101

court Jews and, 118,120,121; eco¬

Hasidism, 38, 215, 216, 228, 322

nomic life in, 128-29,130,142;

Haskalah, see Jewish Enlightenment

expulsion of Jews from, 86; Jewish

Hayim b. Bezalel, 74

population in, 151; Jewish settle¬

Hay on, Nehemiah, 232

ment in, 84,102; poor Jews in, 245;

Health care, see Medical care

protection fees in, 137; synagogue

Hebraists, see Christian Hebraists

of, 118,158; taxes and, 145; Thirty

Hebrew book publishing, 222-26, 224;

Years War and, 94, 98,100; yeshiva in, 212, 214 Halle, 60, 61,160,161, 223, 240; University of, 240 Hamburg, 374; absolutism and, 141;

scientific writings and, 234-36 Hebrew books, confiscation of, 59-60, 160 Hebrew language, 219; humanism and, 59; Jewish Enlightenment and,

Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbek and,

273/ 277/ 2gl/ 302' 308-9, 312-24,

179,189-91, 257, 257, 258; anti-

344, 378

Index

420

Hebrew printing: in seventeenth

Homiletic literature, 218

century, 4; in sixteenth century,

Horovitz, Abraham, 73

72-73, 74; see also Hebrew book

Horovitz, Pinchas, Rabbi, 307

publishing

Horowitz, Isaiah, Rabbi, 214, 220, 227

Heidelberg, 98,106,157, 222 Heilbronn, 41, 98 Heller, Yomtov Lipmann, Rabbi, 74, 97, 211, 234, 256 Hennings, August, 309 Henry II, emperor, 14 Henry IV, emperor, 15-16, 23, 24, 28

Horse trade, in eighteenth century, 130 Hospitals (hekdesh), in communities, 166,175-76 Host desecration, as charge against Jews in Middle Ages, 26, 26, 27, 27, 47, 61

Henry VII, emperor, 42

Hotzenplotz, 181

Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 300,

Huguenots, 103,155

310,312 Herem ha-yishuv, 17

Humanism, 57-61, 63, 72, 74, 226, 234, 235

Herford, 98

Hume, David, 330

Hergershausen, 221

Hungary, 30,101,118, 344

Herz, Henriette, 347

Hussites, wars against, 47, 48

Herz, Marcus, 303-4, 314, 328, 340,

Hutten, Ulrich von, 60

347,348,348, 352 Hesse, 30, 68,130, 204, 206 Hesse-Darmstadt, 95,120,159, 204, 206, 207, 208, 242 Hesse-Kassel, 105,137,146,198, 203

Illegitimate children, eighteenth century and, 182 Imperial Supreme Court, 63, 66, 87, 140

Hevrah, see Fraternal societies

Innocent III, Pope, 28

Hildesheim, 84, 87,167; bishop of, 75

Institutum Judaicum, 161

Hinrichsen, Ruben Michael, 120

Intellectual life: court Jews and,

Hirsch, Tsevi, 214

121-22; in eighteenth century,

Hohenlohe, 223

209-44; in Jewish Middle Ages, 12,

Holland, 102,154, 241, 311, 314; war

16-21, 34-41, 53-57,55, 70-75; in

against, 109

sixteenth century, 70-75; see also

Holy Land, trade with, 13

Culture; Education; Jewish

Homberg, Herz, 295, 297, 297, 302,

Enlightenment; Torah study

304, 344, 357 Homburg, Bliimle, 187

Interest, heter iska and, 133; see also Moneylending; Pawnbroking

Homburg, Issachar, 187

Interregnum, 41

Home ownership: in eighteenth

Investiture crises, 15

century, 136,137,145,146;

Isaac b. Moses of Vienna, Rabbi, 39

regulations on, 148,168; see also

Isaac of Corbeil, 53

Land ownership

Isny, 72, 222

Home production, as Jewish business, 132

Isserlein, Israel, Rabbi, 51, 53, 54, 56,

57

421

Index Istria, 72

tual elite and, 266, 269; Itzig and,

Italy, 154; Ashkenazi culture influ¬

267, 268; Judaism and, 283-93, 344,

enced by, 16, 21; Berlin Haskalah and, 364-65; Jewish migration in Middle Ages and, 8, 51; mysticism and, 37

348-54, 376, 378; Lessing and, 270, 273“74, 275, 282, 290, 291, 292, 308, 333, 334-36, 349; nineteenth century and, 375-78, 379, 380; physicians and, 303-4; private

Itzig, Daniel, 123,148, 267, 268

tutors and, 298-303; radicalization

Itzig, Isaac Daniel, 355

and, 344-54; Sabbatianism and, 233-34; Samoscz and, 267, 271;

Jacob b. Hayim, Rabbi, 75

setting of genesis of, 263-271; see

Jacobson, Israel, 369-70

also Mendelssohn, Moses

Jacobson-Schuls, see Religions- und Industrieschule Jaffe, Mordechai, Rabbi, 73-74

Jewish Free School, see Judische Freischule Jewish law: under absolutism, 4;

Jaroslav, Aaron, 304

Ascher on, 349; Gershom b. Judah

Jeitteles, Baruch, 314, 365

and, 19; in Jewish Middle Ages, 13,

Jeitteles, Ignatius, 365

18-19; Land of Israel and, 16; rab¬

Jeitteles, Jonas, 242, 303, 365,366

binic writings on, 218; rabbis and,

Jeitteles, Judah, 314, 365 Jessnitz, 223, 235-36, 238, 242

169; see also Rabbinical courts Jewish Middle Ages, 7-77; Christian-

Jesuits, 69

Jewish relations in, 9,11-12,

Jewelry tax, 145

14-15, 21-28, 33, 41-42, 46-50,

Jewish Enlightenment, 4-5, 233, 234,

59-60, 61, 69, 71, 77; economic life

259-60, 263-80; autobiography

in, 8, 9,12,13-14,17-18,19, 21,

and, 298, 324-32; Berlin and, 263,

24, 30-31, 33, 37, 46, 51, 59, 63, 65;

264-71; Bible translation and, 274,

government-Jewish relations in,

278, 280, 283, 291, 295, 302,

12-13,15-16,17,18, 23-24, 28-30,

304-12, 357, 360, 370, 372;

41-51, 56, 60-63, 65, 67, 68, 69-70,

Christian society and, 333-47; cir¬

75, 76-77; historical records on,

cle of thinkers working with

3-4; humanism and, 57-61, 72, 74;

Mendelssohn on, 294-305; eco¬

intellectual and cultural life in, 12,

nomic life and, 267-69, 298, 320;

16-21, 34-41, 53-57, 55, 70-75;

education and, 280, 281, 296, 296,

Jewish population in, 9, 55, 75;

297, 298-303, 311, 343-44, 355-74,'

Jewish settlements in Germany in,

European Enlightenment and, 263,

8, 8-9,10, 30; land ownership in,

264, 265, 266-67, 269, 271-93, 294,

12-13,14; Reformation and, 62-63,

295, 297, 298, 299, 301, 302, 303,

67-70, 71-72; residence patterns

304-12, 323, 333; Hebrew book

in, 8-9,14,17-19, 30, 45-46, 48'

publishing and, 226; Hebrew lan¬

51-53, 60-61, 75-76, 82; sixteenth

guage and, 273, 276, 277, 281, 302,

century and, 70-77, 81-82; women

308-9, 312-24, 344, 378; intellec¬

in, 19, 21

Index

422

Jewish provincial assembly [Judenlandtag), Landjudenschaften and, 200 Jewish religion, see Judaism; Religious practice Jewry Commission

Judeninsel (Jews' Island), 101 Judenordnungen, see Jewry regulations Juden-Porzellan, 149 Judenregal, 28, 30, 51 Judenreglement, 145-46

(Judenkommissionen), 145,146,

Judenrichter, 56

149-50,168, 252

Judensau (Jewish sow), on Wittenberg

Jewry Oath (Judeneid), 12-13,140, 255

Town Church, 47, 48

Jewry regulations (Judenordnungen):

Judenschlager (Jew bashers), 42

in eighteenth century, 135-43;

Judenschutz, see Protected Jews

Jewish Middle Ages, 66, 68; in

Judenstadt: Prague and, 74; Vienna

seventeenth century, 159 Jew's hat, Fourth Lateran Council mandating, 28 Jews' tickets, 139

and, 85-86 Judenstdttigkeit (right of residence): Frankfurt am Main and, 52, 94, 168; residence tax and, 138

Jews' tribute [Judenzins), 138

Judensteige (Jews' stairs), 9

Jews' villages [Judendorfer), 191; see

Jiidische Freischule (Jewish Free

also Rural Jews Joachim II of Brandenburg, 76 Johann of Speyer, Bishop, 22 John Frederick of Saxony, 68 John of Capistrano, 48 Josel of Rosheim, 61-63, 62, 65, 71, 74, 90, 99,119,198, 227 Joseph II, emperor, 141, 208, 270, 337, 338,341-42, 344,353, 355, 360, 367

School, Berlin), 301, 328, 357,358, 364, 367, 369 Jiidische Haupt- und Freischule (Dessau), 367, 368-69, 371-72 Jiidische Philanthropin (Frankfurt am Main), 36j, 368, 370 Jiilich-Berg, 206 Justice system: in eighteenth century, 140,141-43,148,164; Imperial

Josephinian Enlightenment, 208

Supreme Court and, 63, 66, 87,

Joseph Samson of Stadthagen, Rabbi,

140; secular courts, 253, 254; see

162 Josephus Flavius, 28

also Laws and legislation; Rabbinical courts

Judah b. Bezalel, Rabbi, see Maharal Judah b. Samuel he-Hasid, "the Pious" of Regensburg, 37—38

Kabbala: eighteenth century and, 159, 174-75, 379; in Jewish Middle

Judah the Pious of Lithuania, 232

Ages, 54, 59, 73, 74; Kabbala

Judaism, Jewish Enlightenment and,

Denudata and, 223; Lurianic, 175,

283-93, 344, 348-54, 376, 378; see

216, 226—28, 233, 239; Satanow

also Religious practice

and, 323; sixteenth century and,

Judenacker (Jews' field), 9 Judengassen (Jews'Alleys), 86,131, 181 Judenhalde (Jews' slope), 9

72 Kalonymos family, 8,16 Kammerknechtschaft, see Chamber serfdom

Index

423

Kann, Isaac, 188

Kulp family, 188

Kann, Moses, 188, 225

Kurmark, 254

Kann, Moses Lob Isaac, 106 Kann, Moses, Rabbi, 120, 225

Landau, Ezekiel, Rabbi, 211, 217-18,

Kann family, 188

242, 297, 307-8, 360-62, 361,361,

Kann-Bing, Lob, 120

367, 379-80

Kann-Bing, Moses, 154

Landjuden, see Rural Jews

Kant, Immanuel, 300, 301, 303-4, 328,

Landjudenschaften, 4, 81,120,189,

33°' 349/ 352-53/ 376 Karlowitz, Peace of, 107

191,194-208, 295, 212, 219, 253, 254/ 256

Karlsruhe, 214

Land of Israel, 16

Kaulla, Madame, 187

Land ownership: absolutism and, 104;

Kaulla family, 124,187

in eighteenth century, 137; in

Kehilla(ot), 2,17,120,136,165,173,

Jewish Middle Ages, 12-13,14; see

191, 211; see also Community life

also Home ownership

Kiddush hashem, 2

Land Peace (Landfriede), 23, 30

Kipper und Wipper devaluations, 110

Landsberg, 98

Kirchhan, Elhanan Henle, 220-21

Landsofer, Jonah, 235

Kirchner, Paul Christian, 172,172,

Language(s): Mendelssohn and, 273,

180,180-81

276-77, 308-9; teaching of foreign

Kisch, Abraham, 271

in eighteenth century, 185,186,

Klausen, see Study rooms

240; see also German language;

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 312

Hebrew language; Western Yiddish

Knightly Jews, 142

Lavater, Johann Caspar, Lavater dis¬

Koblenz, 156, 214

pute and, 280, 282, 291, 335,

Kohelet Musar (The Moralist),

336-37/360

275“76' 277-78, 281, 283, 308, 314,

357 Kohen, Raphael, Rabbi, 307 Konigliche Wilhelmsschule (Breslau),

367/ 369 Konigsberg, 119, 253, 282, 302, 314, 352; synagogue in, 158; University of, 301 Konstanz, 222 Koran, 328 Kossmann, Joseph Juspa, 133

Laws and legislation, see Government-Jewish relations; Jewish law; Justice system; Rabbinical courts; specific laws Lehmann, Behrend, 108,111,114, 118,119,121-22,123,125, 212, 225

Lehmann family, 106,120 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 271, 273, 275, 283, 284, 285, 286, 292,

293, 295, 3°3, 33°

Kothen, 223

Leipnik, 253

Koydanover, Hirsh, 178

Leipzig, trade fair in, 82,133-34,139,

Krochmal, Menahem Mendel, Rabbi, 217

Kulp, Judah, 188

186, 226, 370 Lemberg, 212, 236 Lemmlein, Asher, 72

Index

424

Lengnau, 101, 282 Leo VII, pope, 14 Leo X, pope, 60

Locke, John, 271, 275, 283, 330, 356,

359'363 Lombards, 32

Leopold I, emperor, 100-101,111, 222

London, 113, 271, 303

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 270,

Lorraine, 185,198

273-74, 275, 279, 282, 290, 291,

Louis XIV, of France, 101,106-7

292, 300, 308, 309, 316, 333,

Louis the Bavarian, 43, 44

334-36, 349

Louis the Pious, 13

Leuthen, 282

Lowe, Joel Brill, 348

Levi, Berend, 117,120, 206-7

Lowe, M. S., 265

Levies, in eighteenth century, 138-39,

Lower Alsace, 198

145,147,148,151; see also Taxes

Lower Austria, 191,193, 337, 341-42

Levita, Elijah, 72

Lower Saxony, 114

Lewin, Elirschel, Rabbi, 236, 254, 255,

Lower Silesia, 87, 223, 225

351-52

Lowth, Robert, 310

Liebmann, Abraham, 120

Liibeck, 98

Liebmann, Esther, 120,126

Lublin, 220, 258

Liebmann, Jost, 111,120,121,126

Lunschitz, Solomon Ephraim, Rabbi,

Liechtenstein, prince, 96,115 Lippe, 204 Lippold, mint master, 76, 76,105,115 Lissa, 118, 362 Literature: autobiography, 298,

182, 211 Luria, Isaac, Rabbi, 175, 216, 226-28,

233, 239 Luther, Martin, 60, 61-62, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71-72,157, 304

324-32; court Jews in, 118—19; on

Lutheranism, 99,102,158,159

ethics, 277, 278; German books as,

Luzzatto, Simone, 311

239; in Hebrew language, 312-24; Hebrew presses and, 222—26;

Ma'arufyah, 17-18

homiletic, 218; rabbinic writing,

Magdeburg, 8, 60,119,129

211, 213, 215-18, 234-36;

Maharal, 73, 74, 77,169, 211, 214, 218,

responsa, 216-18; with Sabbatian

234

tendencies, 232; Western Yiddish,

Maharil, 53, 54, 57, 216

54, 72-73, 219-22; see also

Mahzor Lipsiae, 34

Intellectual life; Jewish

Maimon, Solomon, 298-99, 301, 314,

Enlightenment; Poetry Lithuania, 184,197, 212, 213;

315, 325, 326, 329-32, 348, 352 Maimonides, 352; Benavid and, 327;

migration of Jews in Middle Ages

critics of, 73, 238; Gumpertz and,

to, 51; scholars from, 211; Swedish-

326; Maimon and, 330-31;

Polish War and, 97-98

Mendelssohn and, 283, 285, 286,

Liturgy, in Western Yiddish, 54

310, 319, 337; writings, 39, 235,

Loans, Jacob b. Yehiel, 59

236, 285, 302, 303, 330-31, 371,

Loanz, Elijah, Rabbi, 227 Lobkowitz family, 95

373 Mainz, 70; archbishop of, 154; court

Index

425

factors and, 106,187; Eisenmenger

tions on, 142,158, 200; trade in,

and, 157; elector of, 60, 88; fire of

130

1084,15; First Crusade and, 21-23;

Me'asef, see Ha-Me'asef

Frankfurt assembly (1603) and, 88;

Mecklenburg, 60, 87,120

Gershom b. Judah of, 14,19-20;

Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 281-82

Jewish settlement in, 8, 75;

Medical care, in communities, 166,

Landjudenschaft of, 195, 207; mes¬

175-76

sianic movement in, 230; protec¬

Medicine, see Physicians

tion fee in, 137; rabbinate in, 170,

Mehler, Yehudah, Rabbi, 213

203, 204; as shum community, 70;

Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg, Rabbi,

Torah study in, 36, 53, 54; yeshiva of, 54

37' 39' 4i

Meisel, Mordechai, 76,105,115

Manasseh ben Israel, 340

Melanchthon, Philip, 68-69

Mannheim, 98,156,197, 232

Mendelssohn, Joseph, 273, 291, 302,

Manufactories: court Jews and, 109; in

347' 357 Mendelssohn, Moses, 218, 260, 272,

eighteenth century, 128,145,148, 151,244 Marburg, 53

289, 352, 375, 376; Bible translation and, 272, 278, 280, 283,

Margarita, Antonius, 63-65, 64

291, 295, 302, 304-12, 357, 360,

Margravate Brandenburg, 61,102

370, 372; circle of thinkers work¬

Maria Theresa, Empress, 153,154

ing with, 294-305; civil equality

Maribor, 53

and, 340-41, 353; Dohm and, 338;

Mark, 102,151

education and, 356, 357, 359, 360,

Marranos, 63, 84-85,112, 316

364, 365, 373; Enlightenment

Marriage: court Jews and, 111-12,

philosophy and, 283-93; European

120; dowry, 175,182, 246; in eigh¬

Enlightenment and, 263, 264, 265,

teenth century, 136,149,153,173,

266-67, 269' 27I_93' 294' 295'

175,181-83, 254' Jewish criminals

297, 298, 299, 301, 302, 303,

and, 249; Jewish Enlightenment

304-12, 323, 333; family back¬

and, 320-21; in Jewish Middle

ground, 264; Frankel and, 236, 299;

Ages, 19, 57; levies imposed on,

Friedlander and, 344; grave of, 348;

145; occupational life beginning at,

intellectual elite of Berlin and,

185; payment of taxes and, 172; see

266, 269; involvement with

also Weddings

outside world, 271-81; Jewish

Marx, Assur, 223

community and, 281-83; language

Maskilim, 233; see also Jewish

and, 273, 276-77, 308-9; Lavater

Enlightenment

dispute and, 280, 282, 291, 335,

Matthias, Emperor, 82, 91, 93, 94,105

336-37,36°' marriage association

Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de,

established by, 175; Michaelis and,

264, 269, 284, 308

335-36; moral weekly (Kohelet

Maximilian I, emperor, 60

Musar) and, 275-76, 277-78, 281,

Meat: internal taxes on, 171; regula¬

283, 308, 314, 357; Nicolai and,

Index

426

270; tax obligations of, 171; as

109-10,113,148; Frankfurt riots

"unprivileged protected Jew/'

and, 91; Lippold, 76,105,115

266-67; writings of, 254, 273, 275,

Mintz, Moses, Rabbi, 57

276, 279, 280, 281, 284, 285-91,

Mirandola, Pico della, 59

294, 310, 335, 340-41, 349, 351,

Mishnah, 16, 74, 211, 218, 234

371; see also Jewish

Mittwochgesellschaft (Wednesday

Enlightenment Mercantilism, 127-34; court Jews and,

Society), 279—80 Mitzvot, within community, 171-72

104-26,128,131; Jewish

Model, Mordechai, 225

Enlightenment and, 266, 267-69;

Moellin, Jacob b. Moses Halevi, 51

rabbis and, 256

Moisling, 98

Merchants: almanacs and, 243; competition among, 189; in

Molcho, Solomon, 63 Moneylending, 163; Christianity and,

eighteenth century, 240; German

30-31,33, 46,104; in eighteenth

language and, 243; Jewish

century, 128,131,137-38,152;

Enlightenment and, 267-69, 298,

heter iska and, 133; in Jewish

320; in Jewish Middle Ages, 12,

Middle Ages, 14, 30-31,31, 33, 37,

17-18,19; rules of behavior for,

48, 59, 63, 65; in seventeenth

125; see also Trade

century, 104

Merian the Elder, M., 92

Monopolies, court Jews and, 109

Merseburg, 8

Montagklub (Monday Club), 279

Messianic movement, 72, 229-32, 233

Montesquieu, Baron de, 316

Metz: Cohn Harofe from, 241-42;

Morality: in eighteenth century,

community administration, 167; dress in, 178; Jewish settlement in, 8, 75-76; rabbinate in, 206, 213; Torah study in, 121, 211—12, 213 Meyer, Aaron, 268 Michaelis, Johann David, 308, 334-35, 336, 339-40, 341

Middle Ages, see Jewish Middle Ages Middle class, in eighteenth century, 150, 244

181—82; Western Yiddish literature on, 220-22 Morality plays, in Jewish Middle Ages, 48 Moral weeklies, 308; Kohelet Musar, 275-76, 277-78, 281, 283, 308, 314, 357

Moravia, 164; anti-Jewish sentiment in, 98; clothing trade in, 132; communal organizations in,

Midrashim, 16

196-97,199; economic life in, 130,

Mikveh, see Ritual bath

132; edict of toleration (Joseph II)

Minden, 84, 98,102

and, 344; expulsion of Jews from,

Minhagim, 53-54, 215; historical

69,153-54; familiants legislation

records from, 3

in, 250; Jewish population in, 151,

Minsk, 121

153, 250; Jews from Vienna

Minstrels, in eighteenth century,

migrating to, 101; Luther and, 66;

180-81 Minters, Jews as (Miinzjuden),

peddling in, 130; rabbinate in, 205, 206, 208; residence patterns in,

Index

427

152-53,181; Sabbatianism in, 232;

Netherlands, 107

territorial rabbi of, 205; Thirty

Neumark, 120

Years War and, 94, 98; yeshivot in,

Nicholas V, Pope, 48

185,212

Nicholas of Cusa, Cardinal, 48

Mordechai b. Hillel, Rabbi, 39 Moritz, Karl Philip, 329 Moritz von Nassau, prince, 114 Morpurgo, Elijah, 364-65

Nicolai, Friedrich, 268, 270, 273-74,

^79/ 309/ 357 Nikolsburg (Mikulev), 111,122,151, 205, 212, 258

Moscato, Judah, Rabbi, 236

Normans, 13

Moses, Philip, 370

Nuremberg, 41, 61, 83,180, 230;

Moses b. Kalonymos, Rabbi, 8

Burggraf of, 43

Moses of Zurich, Rabbi, 53 Mosessohn, Aaron, Rabbi, 282

Oberehnheim, 60

Miichler, Johann Georg, 273, 274

Occupations, see Economic life

Miihlhausen, Yomtov Lipmann,

Offenbach, 93,180, 233

Rabbi, 54 Muller, J. C., 272

Oppenheim, David, Rabbi, 111,160, 163,168, 208, 211, 217

Muller, Ludwig, 299

Oppenheimer, Emmanuel, 123

Munster, Sebastian, 60,106,112,117,

Oppenheimer, Samuel, 106-7,107'

213 Munzjuden, see Minters, Jews as Music, 54; community regulations on, 178; in eighteenth century, 179-81; in Jewish Middle Ages, 57;

111,113,115,118,119,122,123, 157,191, 211 Oppenheimer family, 106 Ordinance on Better Education and Enlightenment, 337, 338-40, 344

in synagogue, 54,179-80; table

Orphans, 246, 254

songs, 183

Osiander, Andreas, 60

Muslims, 11,13, 99

Osnabriick, 112

Mysticism: amulet controversy and,

Ottingen (Ries), 83, 99

259; in eighteenth century, 159,

Ottoman Empire, 82; expulsion of

218; German-Jewish, 37-38; in

Jews from Prague and, 153,154;

Jewish Middle Ages, 16, 215;

expulsion of Jews from Vienna

Sabbatian movment and, 229-34;

and, 100; Jews from, 243; migration

Satanow and, 323; Zohar and, 223

of Jews in Middle Ages to, 51; w'ars with, 106,107

Names: in eighteenth century, 239; Romance, 16; in Western Yiddish,

Paderborn, 120,139

54

Palestinian Talmud, 236

Nathan of Gaza, 229

Paris, 113, 271, 344

National Assembly (France), civil

Parnas(im), 17, 56, 253; court Jews as,

equality to Jews granted by, 344

120

Naumburg, 133

Passarowitz, Peace of, 243

Neckar, 8

Passau, host desecration in, 26

Index

428

Passion plays, in Jewish Middle Ages, 48 Paul IV, pope, 69 Pawnbroking: in eighteenth century, 128,137; in Jewish Middle Ages, 24, 30, 32, 46, 63; in seventeenth century, 82 Peasants, Jews versus, 143

Plato, 285, 319 Pletten, 246 Poetry: Gershom b. Judah and, 19; in Jewish Middle Ages, 3,16,19, 21; piyyutim, 19, 21; selihot, 19 Pogroms, Chmielnicki uprisings (1648/49) and, 82, 97-98,155,189, 211, 212, 223, 247

Peasants' War, 61

"Polacks," 189

Pedagogic thinking, Jewish

Poland: August II, 108,114,118; bills of

Enlightenment and, 355-67

exchange in, 133; charter of rights

Peddling, 209; criminal activity and,

in, 30; communal organizations in,

247-48; in eighteenth century, 129-

196-97; Council of the Four Lands,

30,145,150; rural Jews and, 191,

77,196, 251, 253, 258; Cracow, 98,

193; in seventeenth century, 82, 97

101,165; economic life in, 133;

Pentateuch, see Bible

Jewish Middle Ages and, 8,30, 51,

Perl, Joseph, 311

70; Jews expelled from Prague to,

Persecutions, see Antisemitism

154; Jews from Vienna to, 101;

Personal law, in Germanic polities, 12

Lehmann and, 108,114,118;

Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, 363, 373

maskilim from, 322—23; rabbis

Petahyah, 36

from, 256; refugees from, 97-98,

Pfefferkorn, Johannes, 59-60

151,153,165,182, 211, 212, 225,

Philanthropin: in Dessau, 356; in

247; scholars from, 4, 211, 212,

Frankfurt, 367, 370

214—15; Swedish-Polish War and,

Philanthropinism, 356-57, 359, 363

82, 87, 97-98; tutors from, 184,

Philippson, Ludwig, 371, 372

301-2, 327; yeshivot in, 77,121,

Philippson, Moses, 370-71, 373

185, 212, 213, 214

Philippson, Phoebus, 371

Poll tax (Geleit), 138

Philip "the Magnanimous" of Hesse,

Poorhouses, 166, 246

68

Poor Jews: communities and, 176,187,

Philomathic Society, 328

245-47; Landjudenschaften and,

Philosophy, Jewish Enlightenment

200; poorhouses and, 166, 246;

and, 283-93 Physicians: Jewish Enlightenment

schools for, 166, 367-69; tutors as, 299-300; see a^so beggar Jews

and, 303; Jews as medical students

Pope, Alexander, 275

and, 240, 241-42, 303; regulations

Population: in eighteenth century,

on, 138 Pietism, 160-61, 220, 221, 228, 240-41

151-52,176; in Jewish Middle Ages, 9, 55; Jewish regulations

Pilpul, 56, 74, 214, 216, 218

curbing, 182; in Prague, 86; of rural

Pirckheimer, Willibald, 59

Jews, 191; in seventeenth century,

Piyyutim, in Jewish Middle Ages, 19,

86; in sixteenth century, 75; Thirty

21

Years War and, 95, 97

Index Portuguese Jews: in Hamburg, 84-85, 110,112,164,189-91, 230, 231,

429 by, 60; see also Book publishing; Hebrew printing

243-44; influence of, 174; land

Property tax, 139

ownership and, 104

Protected Jews (Schutzjuden): in eigh¬

Posen, 122; rabbi of, 73

teenth century, 135-43,145> *46,

Posing, 61

147,149; Landjudenschaften and,

Potsdam Edict, 103

196, 200; in Middle Ages, 12, 30,

Prague: censorship of Hebrew books

32; unprotected Jews and, 136,145,

in, 160; chief rabbi of, 361; community administration, 75,

146,149,151 Protection fees (Schutzgelder), 137,

165,167,175-76,187,199, 256;

138,145,148,149,150;

court Jews and, 105,111; crafts¬

Landjudenschaften and, 202

men in, 131-32; economic life in,

Protestantism, 103,153,158;

13, 82,131-32; expulsions of Jews

Reformation, 62-63, 66, 67-70,

from, 69,132,153-55; Frankists

71-72, 81, 226

in, 233; guilds in, 132; Hebrew book publishing in, 72, 222, 226; Jewish Enlightenment in, 303, 365-67; Jewish population in, 86,

Provincial assemblies (judenlandtage), 159, 207 Prussia, 106,124,130,139,145, 146-47,148,151,154,158, 201,

151; Jewish settlements in, 8,14,

206-7, 244' 247> 255i General

36; Jewish town hall in, 377; Josel

Jewry Code of 1730 and, 146-47,

of Rosheim and, 63; Kabbala and,

254' 255

227; Maharal in, 73, 234; Meisel

Prussian Academy, 308

Synagogue in, 179; merchants

Pseudomessianic movement, 232-33

and, 13; messianic movement in,

Publishing, see Book publishing

230; musicians in, 180; peddling in, 82; rabbinate in, 168,169,187, 256; rabbinical court in, 170;

Rabbinate and rabbis, 166; amulet dis¬ pute and, 258-59; Bible translation

teachers in, 184; Thirty Years War

of Mendelssohn and, 307-8, 309,

and, 94, 95-96; Torah study in, 36,

311; Brandenburg-Prussia and,

73-74,121, 211; Rabbi Weil in,

103; "Cleves get" and, 259; com¬

213-14

munity administration versus,

"Prague Purim," 96

255-60; dress codes and, 177; in

Prayer books: for daily use, 183;

eighteenth century, 149,168-71,

publication of, 226; in Western Yiddish, 219

187, 211, 215-18, 255-60; Frankfurt synod of 1603 and, 88;

Prayer rooms, 138,158,172,173

government and, 253-55, 256, 266;

Prayers, in Jewish Middle Ages, 16

imperial, 75; institutionalization of,

Precious metals: court Jews and, 109,

54-56; Jewish Enlightenment and,

110,112; trade in, 129

259-60; in Jewish Middle Ages, 17,

Pressburg (Bratislava), 61

19, 54-56; Landjudenschaften and,

Printing presses, hate literature spread

200; Mendelssohn and, 278;

Index

430

messianic movement and, 231-32,

177-78; in eighteenth century,

233; powers of, 168-71; rural Jews and, 191; Sabbatian movment and,

157-59/172-73/ 179-8o, 183-84; in family life, 183; government

229-34; scientific attitudes among,

and, 253; Jewish Enlightenment

234-39; territorial, 200, 201, 203-6,

and, 281; of Jewish gangs, 249; in

208, 252, 255; writings of, 211, 213,

Jewish Middle Ages, 16—17,19' 34'

215-18, 234—36; see also

34-41; Kabbala and, 228; rural Jews

Rabbinical courts

and, 191,193; territorial rabbis

Rabbinical courts, 204; under abso¬ lutism, 4; court factors and, 119;

and, 204-5; women and, 40; see also Judaism; Synagogues

decline of, 203, 254, 378-79; in

Renaissance, 135

eighteenth century, 169,170-71;

Residence patterns: under absolutism,

government and, 253-54; in Jewish

135; community regulations on,

Middle Ages, 18-19, 35; secular

189; court Jews and, 119; in

courts versus, 183-84; in

eighteenth century, 146,148-49,

seventeenth century, 88, 89, 90,

153; home ownership and, 136,

203; in sixteenth century, 74, 75;

137,145,146,148; in Jewish

conducted in Western Yiddish, 54

Middle Ages, 8-9,14,17-19, 30,

Rabbonusbrief, 205

45-46, 51-53, 60-61, 75-76, 82;

Ram's horn (shofar), regulations on,

Jewish regulations on, 167-68;

158

Landjudenschaften and, 199-200;

Randegg, 191

in seventeenth century, 82-87, 94'

Rapoport, Baruch, Rabbi, 204

99; in sixteenth century, 75-76;

Rashi, 19,306

Thirty Years War and, 97; see also

Rashi script, 219

Cities; Expulsions; Home

Ravensberg, 102

ownership; Rural Jews; Towns

Real estate, see Land ownership

Responsa literature, 216-18

Redemption, Jewish Enlightenment

Retail shops, in eighteenth century,

and, 353 Reformation, 62-63, 66, 67-70, 71-72, 81,226 Regensburg, 8, 36, 44-45, 49, 51, 62, 63; synagogue of, 40

131,146, 209 Reuchlin, Johannes, 59-60, 69 Rhineland, 8,14,16,19, 22, 23,30, 61, 196 Rintfleisch, 42

Reichsrabbiner (imperial rabbis), 75

Ritual bath (mikveh), 40,166

Reischer, Jacob, Rabbi, 217

Ritual murder, charges of against Jews

Religions- und Industrieschule (Seesen), 367, 369-70 Religious law, see Jewish law; Rabbinical courts

in Middle Ages, 27 Robber bands, in eighteenth century, 248-50 Rosales, Jacob, 112

Religious Peace of Augsburg, 69

Rosenroth, Knorr von, 223

Religious practice: community

Rossbach, 282

regulations on, 179; dress and,

Rothenburg on the Tauber, 41, 61

Index

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 271, 297, 308, 328,329,356,359,363,373 Royal Academy of Sciences (Berlin), 269

43*

Schnaittach, 88, 204, 212, 246 Scholars, 166; court Jews and, 121-22; in eighteenth century, 209, 211, 212, 213—15; in Jewish Middle

Royal Prussian Academy, 301

Ages, 18-21, 22-23, 53, 55;

Rudiger, Bishop, 15

rabbinical court and, 170; rabbis

Rudolf I, Emperor, 41

versus, 169,170; see also Torah

Rudolf II, Emperor, 69, 74, 76, 77

study

Rupert of the Palatinate, 46

Scholastics, 60

Rural Jews, 191,193; in Jewish Middle

Scholem, Gershom, 233

Ages, 52-53; Landjudenschaften

Schools: Gymnasien, 367; Jewish

and, 198; Thirty Years War and, 97,

Enlightenment and, 296, 357,

199

367-74; in Jewish Middle Ages, 35-36; from Poland, 4, 211, 212,

Sabbath cord (eruv), regulations on, 158,183 Sabbatian movement, 229-34; amulet dispute and, 258-59

214-15; for poor Jews, 166, 367-69;

see also Education; Universities; Yeshiva(ot) Schotten, Samuel, Rabbi, 206, 235

Sachsen-Anhalt, prince of, 113

Schudt, Johann Jakob, 162,252

Sachsenspiegel, 28; Wolfenbuttel, 29

Schulklopfer (synagogue door

Safed, 174, 227 Salesman, see Village traveling salesman

knocker), 35

Schutzjuden, see Protected Jews Schwabach, 212

Salomon, Gotthold, 371, 373

Schwabenspiegel, 28-29

Salomon, Gumpert, 117

Schwarz (Nigri), Peter, 49

Salon society, 347

Schweinfurt, 98

Salt, trade in, 109,129

Science: Mendelssohn and, 273;

Salzburg, 60; archbishop of, 153

rabbinical attitudes toward, 234-39

Samoscz, Israel, 267, 271, 325-26

Scribe, 166

Samson, Jacob, 371

Secondhand goods: in eighteenth

Samson'sche Freischule (Wolfenbuttel), 367

century, 137,150; Prague market

(Tandelmarkt) and, 132

Sasportas, Jacob, Rabbi, 231

Second Turkish War, 107

Satanow, Isaac, 322-23

Secular courts, rabbinical courts and,

Saxony, 105,106,108,112,119,154

253'254

Sayings of the Fathers, 184, 360

Seesen, 367, 369

Schammes, Joseph (Juspa), Rabbi, 216

Sefer Hasidim (The Book of the

Schaumburg-Lippe, 154,162

Pious) (Judah the Pious), 38-39,

Schiff, Meir, Rabbi, 2x8

215

Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 345-47

Segal, Issachar Bermann, 108

Schnaber, Mordechai Gumpel, 303,

Selihot, 19

314

semak, see Sefer mitsvot Katan

Index

43 ^ Semikhah, 55

century, 239-44, 270-83, 379-80;

Sephardi Jewry, 11, 174; court Jews

in Jewish Enlightenment, 267-68,

and, 112; Marranos, 63; Portuguese

270—83, 320—21; in Jewish Middle

Jews, 84-85,104,110,112,164,

Ages, 26-28, 32, 34, 44-45, 57, 59;

174,189-91, 230, 231, 243-44;

in mercantilist era, 267-68; see also

science and, 234; secularization of,

Christian-Jewish relations;

243-44; see also Conversion to

Expulsions; Government-Jewish

Christianity

relations

Serfs, Jews versus, 143; see also Chamber serfdom

Socrates, 285-86, 319 Solomon b. Isaac, 19

Servants, 247; regulations on, 137,149

Solomon b. Simon, 22

Seven Years War, 148, 269, 282

Songs, 222; Kabbala and, 228; table,

Sexual morality, in eighteenth century, 181-82 Sforno, Obadiah, 59

183, 228; see also Music Spain, 174; expulsion from, 59; Jewish culture in, 37

Shabbos goy, regulations on, 158

Spalding, Johann Joachim, 279, 286

Shaftesbury, 3d earl of, 273, 275, 276

Spandau, 207

Shalom of Wiener Neustadt, Rabbi, 37

Spener, Philip Jacob, 160-61, 241

Shammash, in Jewish Middle Ages, 17

Speyer, 8,15, 36, 70, 70; charter of

Shtadlan, 63,166

Shulhan Arukh (Caro), 218, 223, 236, 364 shum,

36, 70; see also Mainz; Speyer;

Worms Sicily, 30 Silesia, 30, 83, 87, 98,120,153, 225,

337 Silk trade, 109,128 Silver spoons, to pastor of local church, 164 Silver trade, in eighteenth century, 129 Simeon bar Isaac (the "Great"), Rabbi, 21

privileges, 65 Speyer, Michael, Rabbi, 370 Spinoza, Baruch, 271, 283, 291-93, 306, 330 Standard of living, in eighteenth century, 176—79

Stdttigkeit laws, see ]udenstattigkeit Stettin, 299 Study rooms (Klausen), 121,166,185, 206, 209, 212, 232; court Jews and, 121-22 Styria, 42, 53, 60 Subsidies, court Jews and, 109 Suicide, by Jews in Middle Ages, 22,

45

Simon, Rabbi, 15

Sulamith, 362, 373-74

Simon of Trent, 49

Sulzbach, 223, 225, 226

Slavery, Jews and, 13,14

Sulzer, Johann Georg, 308

Slovakia, 118

Siisskind of Trimberg, 33, 34

Social life, in eighteenth century,

Suss Oppenheimer, Joseph ("Jud"),

178-79, 244-51; see also Class structure Society-Jewish relations: in eighteenth

115-17,116,123,156,163 Svarez, Karl Gottlieb, 279 Swabia, 203, 247

Index

433

Swedes: Swedish-Polish War, 82, 87, 97-98; Thirty Years War and, 95 Switzerland, Jews in, 101

Teomim, Joseph, Rabbi, 212 Territorial rabbis, 200, 201, 203-6, 208, 252, 255

Synagoga, ecclesia versus, 25, 26

Teutsch-Humesch, 220

Synagogues, 166,181; community

Tewele, David, Rabbi, 362

regulations on, 179; in eighteenth

Texeira, Diego, 112

century, 138,157-58,172-73,

Textile industry, 132

179-80; in Jewish Middle Ages,

Thiengen, 222

34—36,40; Kabbala and, 228; music

Thieves, in eighteenth century,

in, 54,179-80; "off-the-street," 158; Schammes and, 216; Sephardi

248-50 Thirty Years War, 82, 94-97,100,105,

Jews and, 244; women and, 40, 40;

110,125,127,128,152,199, 212,

see also Religious practice

217, 223 Titus, 28

Table songs, 183, 228

Tobacco, trade in, 109,129

Talmud, 19; Babylonian, 16—17, 214,

Toleration, Edict of, 337, 341-42, 344,

225, 236; Basel edition of, 72, 226; Christian attitude toward, 41;

353'367 Torah study: court Jews and, 121; in

confiscation of, 160; Diaspora and,

eighteenth century, 184-85,193,

9,11; Enlightenment and, 4;

209-15, 379-80; in Jewish Middle

Frankfurt edition of, 225-26;

Ages, 35-37, 53, 56; pilpul and, 56,

Gemara, 16; Gershom b. Judah and,

74, 214, 216, 218; rabbinic

19; Lehmann edition of, 122;

interpretations on, 218; in

Mishnah, 16; Palestinian, 236;

sixteenth century, 73-74; see also

Reformation and, 68; see also

Talmud academies; Yeshiva(ot) Tosafists, Torah study and, 36-37

Torah study Talmud academies: in Jewish Middle Ages, 53, 55; in sixteenth century, 73; see also Torah study Taxes: communities and, 171-72,187,

Towns, in Jewish Middle Ages, 30, 45-46, 50, 51; see also Cities Trade: court Jews and, 109; in eighteenth century, 127-34,236,

256; court Jews and, 113,117-18;

137-38,145-46,150-51, 244; in

in eighteenth century, 134,138-40,

fur, 134; in horses, 130; in Jewish

144-45,147'

i51' 171_72, 342^

Middle Ages, 8, 9,13-14, 24, 30,

345; in Jewish Middle Ages, 17, 29,

51; in meat, 130; in nonprecious

31, 41, 43, 45, 46, 51-53, 56, 82;

metals, 129; in precious metals,

Landjudenschaften and, 198,199,

129; in salt, 109,129; in

200, 202; in seventeenth century,

seventeenth century, 97; in silk,

99

109,128; in silver, 129; in slaves,

Teachers: in eighteenth century, 184; private tutors, 184, 247, 298-303 Teller, Wilhelm Abraham, 279, 345,

347

13,14; in tobacco, 109,129; see also Merchants Trade fairs, 186, 226,370; in eighteenth century, 133-34,135,

Index

434 139; in Frankfurt am Main, 87,

94; Judenstadt of, 85-86; Kabbala

133,134; in Leipzig, 82,133-34,

and, 227; messianic movement in,

139,186, 226, 370; in sixteenth

230; Polish Jews migrating to, 98;

century, 75

rabbinate in, 97; Sephardi Jews in,

Traveling salesman, see Village traveling salesman Trent, 48-49; prince-bishop of, 57 Treves, Naphtali Herz, Rabbi, 72 Trier, 8, 206

243; status of Jews under Joseph II and, 337, 341-42; Thirty Years War and, 94, 97; Torah study in, 212 Village traveling salesman

(Dorfganger), 130,189

Trieste, 344

Vinzlied (Song of Vincent), 222

Tsenno-renno, 220

Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet de,

Tsevi, Shabbetai, 229, 230, 231-32, 233'258 Turkish wars, 107,118 Turks, 69

147, 264, 271, 284, 287, 316, 328 Voluntary associations, see Fraternal societies Vouchers (Pletten), for poor Jews, 246

Tutors, private, 184, 247, 298-303, 327

Tuve ha-ir, 17

Wagenseil, Johann Christoph, 162-63 Waldensians, 103

Universities, 36; Jewish

Wallenstein, General, 96,115

Enlightenment and, 300—1; Jews

Wallerstein (Ries), 74, 88

and, 164, 240-42; Jews as medical

Wandering Jew: legend of the, 77,156;

students in, 240, 241-42, 303 Unprotected Jews (unvergleitet), 136, 145,146,149,151 Upper Alsace, 198 Upper Hesse, 98,135,198, 208 Upper Silesia, 87

tutors as, 299-300 Wandsbek, 84-85,179; AltonaHamburg-Wandsbek, 179,189—91, 257, 257, 258 War of the Austrian Succession, 153, 154

Urban II, Pope, 21, 22

War of the Spanish Succession, 107

Usury, Church and, 31, 32; see also

Warsaw, 114, 282, 311

Moneylending Utrecht, Peace of, 107

Weddings, 180; dancing at, 182; in Jewish Middle Ages, 40, 57; music at, 180-81; see also Marriage

Va'ad arba ha-aratsot, see Council of the Four Lands

Weil, Jacob b. Judah, 53 Weil, Jonah, Rabbi, 203

Vespasian, 28

Weil, Nathaniel, Rabbi, 213-14

Vienna, 188; anti-Jewish sentiment in,

Welfare, for poor Jews, 246

47; court Jews and, 105,106,112;

Welsers, 105,123

education in, 344; expulsion of

Wenceslas, King, 46

Jews from, 100; gezerah, 47;

Wertheimer, Samson, 111,114,119,

Hebrew book publishing in, 226;

121,157,188, 205, 225

Jewish communities in, 36, 75,

Wertheimer, Wolf, 154

85-86, 97; Jewish population in, 85,

Wertheimer family, 106

Index

435

Wessely, Naphtali Herz, 294-95, 302,

and, 23; France and, 101; Jewish

304, 311, 312, 314, 341, 342-44,

books confiscated in, 59; Jewish

343' 357' 359-6i' 364, 3^5' 37°

population in, 86,151; Jewish

Western Yiddish, 54, 72-73,161, 239,

settlement in, 8; Jews bearing arms

242,314; Metz newspaper in, 211;

in, 29; Jews expelled from, 93-94,

prayer books in, 183

101; Kabbala and, 227; mahzor, 41;

Westphalia, 84,117; Peace of, 81-82,

97' 98' 99'1Q2' to3

messianic movement in, 230; rab¬ binate in, 203, 206; rabbinical court

Wetzlar, Isaac, 186, 221

in, 88; residence patterns in, 52, 87,

White Mountain, Battle of the, 96

181; riots (1612) in, 91; synagogue

Wieland, Christoph Martin, 316

of, 40; Thirty Years War and,

Wiener Neustadt, 37, 53

94-95; Torah study in, 19, 36, 211,

Wilhermsdorf, 223

214; yeshivot in, 19, 211

Wissenschaft des Judentums, 376

Worms, Asher (Anselm), 242

Wittenberg Town Church, Judensau

Wulff, Moses Benjamin, 223, 370

on, 47, 48 Witzenhausen, 203 Witzenhausen, Joseph, 220 Wolf, Joseph, 371, 373

Wulff family, 370 Wiirttemberg, 60,115-17,187; duke of, 61 Wurzburg, 36, 41,105,106

Wolff, Christian, 163, 271, 275, 276, 283, 284, 292, 295, 328, 330 Wolfssohn, Aaron, 311,314, 316, 318-21, 322, 347, 348, 350, 352 Women: divorce and, 19; dress of, 177;

Yeshiva(ot): under absolutism, 4; boys attending, 185; in eighteenth century, 209-15,210, 379; in Jewish Middle Ages, 36, 56; Land-

in Jewish Middle Ages, 19, 21;

judenschaften and, 203; of Poland,

occupational life of, 186-87;

77; in seventeenth century, 211

polygamy and, 19; religious

Yiddish, see Western Yiddish

practice by, 40,40; rural Jews and,

Yishmael, Rabbi, 215

193; sexual morality and, 181-82;

Young, Edward, 277

as teachers, 184; Western Yiddish literature for, 219-22 Worms, 156; charter of rights to Jews

Zedlitz, Baron von, 303

Zohar, 223, 238

in, 15, 28; customs of Jews in, 216;

Ziilz, 87, 225

dress of Jews of, 70; First Crusade

Zurich, 282

(iron tinuei from front flap)

Topics include Mendelssohn's monumental translation of the Hebrew Bible, the secular¬ ization of the Hebrew language, and the establishment of free schools giving Jewish children from impoverished families a secular as well as a Jewish education. Presenting the best general survey of this vital thread of European history, GermanJewish History in Modern Times is an indispens¬ able resource for any reader interested in the Jewish past.

MORDECHAI breuer

is Professor Emeritus

of Medieval and Modern Jewish History at Bar Ilan University.

Michael

history

teaches modern Jewish

graetz

at

the

Hebrew

University

in

Jerusalem and at the Hochschule fur Judische Studien in Heidelberg.

MICHAEL

A.

MEYER

is Adolph S. Ochs

Professor of Jewish History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and International President of the Leo Baeck Institute.

MICHAEL BRENNER

is Assistant Professor of

Modern

History

Jewish

at

Brandeis

University and Assistant Director of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry.

Jacket illustration:

Traditional dress of the Jews of Worms in the six¬ teenth century. Courtesy of the Hessischc Landesund Hochschuibibliothek in Darmstadt. PRINTED IN U.S.A.

A comprehensive historical survey of the Jewish presence in Central Europe from the seventeenth century to the Holocaust, German-Jewish History in Modern Times explores the full fabric of this fascinating past. The four-volume series is a pro¬ ject of the Leo Baeck Institute, established in 1955 in Jerusalem, London, and New York for the purpose of advancing scholarship on the Jews in German-speaking lands.

Eminent scholars consider a broad range of topics: religious and cultural life, demographics, political, legal, and socioeconomic status, relations between Jews and non-Jews, and Jewish participation in the larger context of European history. Following a comprehensive prologue on the Middle Ages, this first volume, Tradition and Enlightenment, covers the beginning of the modern era from 1600 to 1780. Volume 2 chronicles the century of emancipation and acculturation through 1871. A third volume focuses on the disputed integration of Jews in the Second Reich from 1871 to 1918. In the final volume the authors look at an era of cultural renew¬ al in the Weimar Republic and the ultimate destruction of German-Jewish society by National Socialism.

Each volume includes a bibliographical essay referring readers to the most important secondary literature, a chronology covering the major events discussed, and a series of maps and illustrations. Encompassing the most up-to-date research on the topic, German-Jewish History in Modern Times is an achievement to be valued by historians, educators, and any reader seeking to understand the singular heritage of the Jewish people in Central Europe.

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