Study Questions, Week 6
Vital, pp. 29-98
What is the significance of the title of Part I of this book?
In the section introduction, on pp. 29-30, Vital introduces an issue that he describes as central to the history of Europe's Jews from the late 1700s to the 1930s. What was this change? Explain.
Does Vital think that Jews had much active input into the late 1700s discussions of Jewish emancipation?
How does Vital explain the willingness of many European states to consider Jewish rights in the late 1700s? Why did integrating Jews into society seem important to many Enlightened, raison d'etat thinkers, and does Vital see their attitude towards Jews as benevolent?
If, as Vital argues, the raison d'etat approach of late 18th century continental European states tried to fit Jews into "Universalistic" categories, did governments treat Jews as "the same" as other subjects? Explain. What sorts of attitudes towards Jews were common among ruling elites in the late 1700s?
Vital says there were differences between the approach to Jews in Austrian Empress Maria Theresa's 1764 "Judenordnun" and the 1782 "Toleranzpatent" of her son, Emperor Joseph II. What were the differences? And what does Vital mean by terms like the "therapeutic" approach to Jews and the "patronizing idea of improvement"? Did Joseph II actually emancipate Austria's Jews? What was his aim (according to Vital)?
Vital contrasts the approach to Jews in Britain to that on the continent. How does he characterize the English government's way of dealing with the "Jewish problem"? Why did Jews in England "have little to complain of" by the late 1700s, and was this the result of specific reform legislation? Explain.
How does Vital explain the relative absence of popular anti-Semitism in England (compared, say, to Poland)?
What question regarding Jews did the French National Assembly debate in 1789? What were the basic positions taken by both sides in this debate (e.g., by Clermont-Tonnere, by Abbé Maury, and by Bishop Lefarre)?
What were the results of the first two votes on Jewish emancipation in 1789, and when did France finally recognize the full rights as citizens of all French Jews?
According to Vital, where the leaders of the revolution particularly concerned with protecting the rights of Jews? Explain. How did revolutionary legislation define Jews, and in what sense does Vital see this as an attempt to change Jews?
Does Vital think that emancipation in France solved the question of how Jews "fit" into French society? Explain. Did the revolutionary leaders conceive of the French nation in terms of diversity, and what did this infer for Jews?
What three "difficulties" did the Napoleonic regime (1799-1814) face regarding Jews? Explain how these relate to mercantilist and Enlightenment ideas we have discussed in earlier class sessions.
Why did Napoleon convene the Assembly of Jewish Notables in 1806 and the Sanhedrin in 1807, and what were the results?
In 1808 Napoleon issued three decrees regarding Jews; explain the main point of each, and in particular be ready to discuss the significance of the third decree.
It is always a good idea to glance at the footnotes! In footnote 32 on page 59, what does Vital say about the charge that Jews controlled money lending in France during the revolutionary era?
For Vital, what was the "lasting significance" of the 1791 emancipation decree in France?
Where besides France were Jews emancipated during the era of the French Revolution?
Vital has discussed the idea that governments were willing to consider granting civil liberties to "useful Jews" (in German, schutzjuden), and wanted to use the law to "improve" Jews. He fits the "emancipation" of Jews in Prussia into this paradigm. In 1812, Prussian King Frederick William issued a decree granting Jews equal civil rights; what restrictions were lifted as a result? According to Vital, why had Prussia lifted these restrictions, and how did this differ from emancipation in France?
Did Emancipation in Prussia solve the question of how Jews would be integrated into Prussian society? Explain. Did all Prussian elites favor recognizing Jews' rights? And did all Jews endorse the ideal of "improving" themselves so that they could "become German" (by giving up elements of Jewish culture and taking up Prussian values, etc.)? Explain.
Did state treatment of Jews in Poland differ from that in Germany in the mid-1700s, and did that mean that Jews were "safe" in Poland?
What sort of social factors complicated the debates over Jewish rights in the Polish Commonwealth in the 1770s-1790? Why couldn't Jews be "made into" peasants or burgers? And why was it commonly assumed by Polish elites that Jews should pay for their own emancipation?
According to Vital, how did the culture and economy of Jews in Poland differ from that of Jews in Western and Central Europe, and why was that important?
When Poland was partitioned (3 times) between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, what became of Poland's Jews?
Did the Russian government under Catherine II ("The Great") have a clear plan on what "to do" with the 400,000 Jews it "inherited" from Poland? Why was formulating such a policy difficult?
What was a shtetl?
How did the issue of religion shape the Russian government's approach to Jews?
In what ways did the ideas regarding Jews of Russian officials, like I. G. Frizel (governor of Lithuania) resemble those of "reformers" in Austria and Prussia? Explain. What kinds of "improvements" did Frizel want to make in Jewish life?
Did all Russian government officials agree with Frizel? Explain how G. R. Derezhavin wanted to "reform" Jewish life.
What were the main points of the 1803 proposal by Russia's "Committee on the Improvement of the Jews," and what were the main points of the 1804 "Statute on the Jews" finally adopted by Tsar Alexander I? Were the 1804 laws entirely oppressive? Were they fully implemented?
What is Vital's main point regarding Russian state policy towards Jews in the early 1800s?
Documents:
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789 (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof.htm)
Read carefully through this declaration (on of the most important documents in history); what does it suggest about the conditions under which Jews would be granted equal rights? Explain.
Hourwitz, Vindication of the Jews (1789) (From Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights)
How does Hourwitz propose making Jews "happy and useful"?
What sort of changes in Jewish economic life does he advocate?
In what sense does he advocate Jewish "assimilation" into French cultural life?
In what sense is he critical of Jewish communal authority?
Why, at the end, is he critical of the need to even ask how Jews can be made useful and happy?
In what sense does this document reflect the Enlightenment world view, as described by both Israel and Vital?
Petition of the Jews of Paris, 1790 (From Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights)
In this petition, do the authors agree that the National Assembly did not have a clear idea of whether Jews wanted to be citizens? Explain. According to the petitioners, what did Jews want?
According to the petitioners, what prejudices did Jews have to battle against in arguing for rights as citizens? Explain. How do the petitioners respond to these charges?
How, in the final analysis, do the petitioners defend the idea of recognizing Jews as citizens?
LaFare, Opinion on the Admissibility of Jews (1790) (From Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights)
What is the essence of La Fare's argument against granting Jews citizenship?
In what sense is La Fare suggesting that denying Jews citizenship is a means of protecting them? Explain.
The Assembly of Jewish Notables: Answers to Napoleon (http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/363_Transp/Sanhedrin.html)
How would you describe the tone of the Assembly's description of Napoleon in the preface to this document?
Read over the list of questions that Napoleon asked the Assembly--What was Napoleon "getting at" with these questions? Explain.
Read over the Assembly's answers to Napoleon's questions--What was the Assembly "getting at" in the way it answered? Explain. Did the Assembly intend that Jews be treated as "separate" from the French nation? Explain.
Documents on the Status of German Jewry and the Debate over Jewish Emancipation (from Goldstein and Boyer, Nineteenth century Europe)
The first document in this pair is an exchange between author H. Paulus, who in 1831 published a book advocated legal serration of Jews, and the Jewish jurist G. Reisser.
What is Paulus' reasoning in advocating that Jews must not (and do not want to) be citizens with full civil rights?
What is the main point of Reisser's reply?
The second document is a 1820 letter from A. Mendelssohn, son of Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) leader Moses Mendelssohn, to his daughter Fanny (a great composer and musician, and the sister of Felix Mendelssohn).
How does Abraham Mendelssohn explain his decision to raise his daughter as a Lutheran? In what sense does the approach to religion expressed in this letter reflect "universalistic" Enlightenment principles? And to what extend is the "outward" practice of religion discussed here as a matter of public acculturation?