Haskalah Jewish Enlightenment

1
Emancipation and Enlightenment French and German
pattern of Emancipation political
acknowledgement contra ideological concept of
re-education
2
Emancipation in France

• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
  Citizen (Aug. 1789)
• Jews national or religious community?
• Sephardim and Ashkenazim
• Emancipation of Jews Jan. 1790 and Sept. 1791

• The Jews should be denied everything as a
  nation, but granted everything as individuals.
  (...) there cannot be one nation within another
  nation.
• Count Stanislas of Clermont-Tonnerre, 23 Dec.
  1789, from his speech in the National Assambly

3
German pattern of Emancipation(esp. Prussia and
Austria)

• Enlightenment
• - criticism of church and dogma
• - emphasis on reason
• - equality of human beings
• ideological background of emancipation -
• Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, Concerning the
  Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews
  (Berlin, 1781)
• first political implementation
• Joseph II Edict of Tolerance (Vienna, 1782)
• - enlightened absolutist ruler

4
Dohm Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der
Juden, 1781

• main ideas of the book
• all men are equal the differences in character
  are caused by external circumstances
• (Jewish character harmed by Christian
  discrimination)
• process of re-education needed, regulated by the
  state
• change of occupational patterns (agriculture)
• access to education (sciences, ratio)
• no access to high state's services

5
Criticism on Dohms idea

• the premise corrupted character of Jews
• goal assimilation of Jews
• Who should judge, whether Jews are already
  prepared for emancipation?
• (Theodor Fritsch Lexicon of the Jewish
  question1933 Today the fifth generation lives
  since the emancipation. Where is the change? -
  racist Antisemitism)

6
Edict of Tolerance Joseph II, 1782

• As it is our goal to make the Jewish nation
  useful and serviceable to the State, mainly
  through better education and enlightenment of its
  youth as well as by directing them to the
  sciences, the arts and the crafts, We hereby
  grant and order

orders in the Edict - German-Jewish schools,
access to higher education - craft, trade,
commerce open to Jews - prohibition of Hebrew
and Yiddish in book-keeping - abolishment of
head toll, special fees - abolishment of special
badges, possibility to wear a sword -
submission to the judicial laws of the
country restrictions which remained - familiant
number of tolerated Jews - ghettos,
restrictions to mobility - no access to land and
agriculture
7
French contra German model

• emancipation of Jews in France
• - political decision about the citizenship of
  Jews
• - precondition of emancipation - adherence to
  French nation (Jewishness only religious
  affiliation, which was understood as a private
  issue)
• single legal act
• emancipation of Jews in Prussia and Austria
• - ideological concept which included moral,
  cultural and social aspects
• - precondition of emancipation re-education
  (assimilation)
• process of giving additional rights (lasted
  mostly over a half of century)