Haskala

& Eastern Jewry in the 18th and 19th C.

Haskala - Enlightment• The last quarter of the 18th up to the 1880´s• Sceptical about hassidic mysticism and dismissal of the belief in

messianic liberation• Aim: integration of the Jews • Maskilim • Raising nationalism – every nation has a right on fatherland• Feudal system in Europe collapses

– Napoleon – Poles saw him as a potential liberator• Ended following the pogroms in 1881-2 when it became evident

that enlightment alone was unable to provide the desired emancipation : new movements emereged from its ruins: Hibbath Zion, Zionism, Jewish socialist movement.

Moses Mendelsohn• Berlin, son of a poor scribe• Philosophical treatises : "the world

results from a creative act through which the divine will seeks to realize the highest good."

• After 1750 won a Berlin Academy Prize for an essay on the application of mathematical proofs to methaphysics (Kant among the competitors – became friends)

• After 1760 granted a priviledge of Protected Jew by the king

• Challenged by a theology student to publicly defend his Judaism or to convert to Christianity Mendelsohn proclaimed his Jewishness

Moses Mendelsohn• Next year translated Tanakh into

German with a Hebrew commentary: Bi´ur, 1783

• Jerusalem: the state has no right to interfere with the religion of its citizens

• Plurality of truths – various nations need different constitutions – so individuals may need different religions– Lessing, Nathan the Wise (=

Mendelsohn) – spokesman for love and humanity; classic on religious tolerance

Mendelsohn

• accepted the existence of miracles and revelation as long as belief in God did not depend on them

• revelation can not contradict reason• reason can discover the reality of God,

divine providence and immortality of the soul

• The first to speak out against the use of excommunication as a religious threat.

• Wanted to take the Jews out of a ghetto lifestyle and into secular society.

• Systematic demonstration of the compatibility of traditional Judaism with the precepts of the Enlightment

Moses

Haskala• Importance of education

– New Jewish schools (text on traditional rural cheder by Shalom Aleichem, Shtetl, p.98)

– The study of non-religious disciplines should be a part of the education of Jewish children

– Jews should have perfect knowledge of the language of the country (somewhere led to disappearance of yiddish)

– The study of hebrew should be encouraged – rebirth of national consciousness• New rationalistic interpretation of traditional religious values often

conflicts with ortodox Jews– Traditional pilpul succesful lawyers– Secular learning (cities, universities – law, medicine) sharply refused in the rural

traditionalist shtetleks • Reform of Judaism

Eastern Jewry in the 18th and 19th C.

• Partitions of Poland 1772-1794 : lasted untill 1918– 900 000 Jews in Poland – 10% of the total population

(a relatively large number due to early marriage and lower infant mortality)

– Prussia, Russia, Austria – Jews became subject to the laws of three different powers – more complex and unhappy phase

– In Prussia and Austria Jews recquired to accept Germanic surnames

1772- 1794

Eastern Jewry in the 18th and 19th C.

– Austria: Galicia, Cracow– Russia: Lithuania, Belarussia, Ukraine - 60% of the

Polish territory and 45% of its population; 700 000 Jews

– Prussia – the lowest number of Jews, the poorest Jews expelled from the country („protected“ x „tolerated“ Jews – untill 1848)

– Tension between hassidim, mitnagdim and maskilim

Pale of Settlement• Catherine the Great, Russia

– Influenced by antisemitism of the philosophers of enlightment– Ortodox church – deeply antisemitic– Her predecessor expelled Jews from Russia– New Russia = provinces N from the Black Sea authorised Jews to settle

there• 1782- Jews shall live in the cities protests of Russian merchants

against the mass arrival of Jews in the cities (merchant´s class)– Catherine granted Jews priviledges and treated them as potentionally

useful citizens - made efforts to treat them as a religious minority but at the end failed due to the opposition of Poles and Russian merchants

– Merchants (middle class) had not right to move from one city to another- same for Jews

Pale of Settlement• 1791 – Pale of Settlement

– Severe restrictions of Jewish rights of residence and movement – Jews can´t settle in central Russia, they have to live in Poland and in the annexed territories (Lithuania, Belorussia, Ukraine...)

– 700 000 Jews since 1795– Jews had to pay a double tax, later could settle in villages as the

only merchants and had a very profitable lease to sell alcohol– Could move to Moscow but only by bribing the police (several

thousands)• 1804 Alexander I – Statutes improving the situation of Jews

– right to study. Liberty of commerce, right to work on land

Pale of Settlement

• 1822 Jews forced to live in ghettos– commerce of grain receded (decline of Jewish merchnats in

this field), nobles saw Jews as competitors– Far few jobs for the population in ghettos, increasing

pauperization– Small number of Jewish millionaires collaborating with the

state• 1827 – Nicolas I – dark chapter, painful restrictions

– Cantonist edict: military service of Jews (read Shtetl p. 115-117) – valid until 1859

• Untill 1917

Pale of Settlement• Alexandr II – golden age; murdered in 1881

– abolished the cantonist system, „useful“ Jews can reside outside the Pale of Settlement

– Jewish intellectual life in Moscow and St Petersbourg• Alexander III - expulsions and persecutions of Jews

– Permanent pogroms : Odessa and many other places• a plight forced Jews to emigrate – 1881- 1914 about 2,5 milion

Jews left Eastern Europe esp. to the USA (2 mio), Palestine and W Europe– Generally not welcome, uneasy conditions, high criminality, mafia– 1920´s immigration to the USA strictly limited – untill the end of WWII

(fear of Jewish socialists, jealousy against Jewish capitalists)

Pale of Settlement

• 19th c. – industrialisation – Lodz: textile industry– Typically Jews worked in small workshops– Banking

– Poles see Jews more and more as collaborators with the Russian occupier; anti-capitalism

– Maskilim chose assimilation – big cities– Emancipation of women in traditional families

Prussia

• „Protected“ Jews (Schutzjuden) – Wealthy– German-speaking– Cities, encouraged to

assimilate

• Tolerated Jews

• equal rights only in 1848

Habsburg Empire

Bohemia and Moravia

• Prague, 17th c.: European cultural center of Jewish life (10 000 Jews; 4 000 in Berlin; 3 000 in Vienna)

• 1726 Family Laws – Charles VI • 1744 Expulsion of Jews - Maria Theresa

Bohemia and Moravia

Joseph II, Edict of Tolerance and the following edicts• Jews became almost equal and were allowed to study

at public schools• Banned from using hebrew and „Jewish language“ in

their public and commercial records• Germanization: names to be chosen from a

government-prepared list• Jews are liable for military service• Abolished rabbinical juridical autonomy• Did not gain the right of citizenship

Bohemia and Moravia

• 1849 – Jews can leave the Prague ghetto– Family laws abolished

• Jewish high bourgeoisie (industrialization) – German oriented x Jewish middle class – Czech oriented

• Czechs gradually identify Jews with the German ruler

• Many conversions• Zionism

Galicia and Bukovina

• Joseph II – better situation than in Russia, difficult economic situation

• Higher taxes• Military service• Predominantly Hassidic Jews• Before WWI 1 mio Jews in Galicia and 100

thousand in Bukovina

Hungary

• 1849 – short-lived emancipation – came in effect only in 1867

• Antisemitic party in the Parliament• 1877 University of Jewish studies opened in Budapest• 5% of the population in 1910 = 900 000 pax– 23% Jewish population in Budapest, 44% in Munkacs

(Mukachevo), 31% in Ungvár (Uzhorod)• Antagonism between assimilated urban Jews and

Orthodox immigrants from Russia, Galicia and Romania

Romania• 1829 Treaty of Adrianople Russian occupation of Wallachia and

Moldavia; free foreign trade– Immigration of Jews from Russia and Galicia– Jews don´t have civic rights – despite that they gain a good social

position (inn-keepers, estate leaseholders, finance)– Jewish children accepted to schools if they wore the same clothing as

others• Cuza

– the first leader of Wallachia and Moldavia, 1859– Wanted to grant universal suffrage and wanted to emancipate the

peasants from forced labor– Expected financial support from Jews and Armenians – Jews hesitated

to pay universal suffrage exclusively for Christians

Romania• Carol I of Romania, 1866

– Bucharest synagogue desecrated and demolished– Anti/semitism among Romanian intellectuals – argued that Jewish

immigration had prevented the rise of an ethnic Romanian middle class• 1890´s – laws excluding Jewish children from public education• No assimilation – Jewish quarters, yiddish• Mass emigration to Hungary• Romanian Peasants´ Revolt – partly antisemitic (Jewish presence

among estate leaseholders) left-wing antisemitism in 1920´s (claim the peasants were being systematically exploited by Jews)

Serbia and Bulgaria

• 1878 – independence of Romania and Serbia, autonomy of Bulgaria following the Russo- Turkish war – equal rights for Jews– The only countries that had not emancipated the

Jews were Russia and Romania– Bulgaria – mostly Sephardic Jews– Antisemitism limited – the Turk was hereditary

enemy, no need for a scapegoat