The American Jewish world. [volume] (Minneapolis ;) 1915-current, 1921-05-20


French Lorraine, never ceased COM
planning that the Jews whose alleged
obnoxious business practices were
with great difficulty curbed by the
restrictive legislation, dating from
German times, had through their
emancipation become cankerous sore
on the body polite, sure to corrode
the prosperity of the population. Ma
poleon, at the height of his power,
after the battle of Austerlitz, visiting
Strasburg in January, 1906, received
the complaints of the citizens and
promised an investigation. Newspa-
pers and statesmen frankly declared
that the emancipation of the Jews
had been an infatuation of doctrin-
aires. Napoleon evidently shared this
view. This discussion suggested to
Israel Jacobson of Cassel (1768-1828),
a noble, though somewhat melodra-
matte philanthropist, to submit to the
emperor the project of establishing
a central ecclesiastical authority for
the Jews Of France to which in time
all other Jews would submit. This
council, fashioned after the Sanhe-
drin of old, which, according to Mai
monides, might be revived at any time,
would become the instrument of edu-
eating the Jews, depraved by CEN
turtles of persecution, to the standard
of true citizenship.
Napoleon acted upon this suggestion
and convened first an Assembly of
Jewish Notables, selected by the "pre-
fets" from the most representative
citizens of their jurisdictions, which
opened it's sessions in Paris, July 26,
1906. The minister presented to them
IL questions of which three are of i'm
portance. The Jews were to declare
whether they considered themselves
French citizens, because one of the
main charges preferred against them
by the Alsatian people in which the
emperor agreed was that they formed
a state within the state, nation of
their own. The answer was emphatic.
The preamble speaks of the assembly
as French citizens, processing the
religion of Noses" 1t is, to my knowl-
edge, the first time that this circum-
locution was used by Jews.
Another important question was
whether the Jews considered the
moral law as binding them in their
relation with non-Jews, and in par
WuSCIlCI CIC1I IOA1SlOAl e~Ao"Su
them to practice usury in their nego-
tiations with their non-Jewish fellow
citizens. The answer was again very
emphatic and certainly correct from
the point of view Of strictest dogmatic
orthodoxy that the Jewish religion
sanctioned no discrimination in the
moral obligation to fellow men be-
tween Jew and non-Jew.
The most delicate of all questions
was whether the Jewish religion al
lowed marriages between Jews and
non-Jews. Here the assembly clearly
hedged. The fear of the emperor's
wrath and the deep chasm in religious
ideas between the orthodox German
(mostly Alsatian) and Italian rabbis
and the assimilated French Jews who
were thinkers Of Voltairean
type of which already the Palestin
ian rabbi, Azulai, complained when he
visited France in 1778, necessitated a
compromise. The Assembly declared
that, while religious law prohibited
merely the marriage between Jews
and idolaters, among whom "mono-
theists" are not included, it would be
impossible for a ribbi for technical
reasons to solemnize such a marriage