JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

emancipation
*Rothschild; and by the statesman Adolphe *Crémieux, who
in 1870 issued in the name of the French government the law
which conferred French citizenship on the Jews of *Algeria.
Jewish society fought for its emancipation not only through
general institutions (the *Board of Deputies of British Jews,
the Central *Consistory of Paris, individual communities),
but also through organizations specifically devoted to this
aim. The *Alliance Israélite Universelle worked energetically
for its declared goal “of striving universally for the freedom
of the Jews.”
The third period (1878–1933) witnessed a reaction to Jewish
emancipation, and in Europe was marked with the prevalence
of rabid *antisemitism. Intense opposition brought many
Jews to realize that the state’s legal recognition of Jewish civic
and political equality does not automatically bring social recognition
of this equality. The controversy over Jewish emancipation
intensified and became embittered in almost every
European country. Racism and nationalism were the bases for
anti-emancipation agitation. Opponents claimed that emancipation
was granted under the false pretenses that Judaism is
only a religion, and that emancipated Jews would give up all
Jewish national identity and assimilate into the host nations.
The “price of admittance” had not been paid by most Jews,
who continued to form a separate national group. Even in the
view of many liberals, the claim of Jews for participation in the
government of the nation in which they were not an organic
part was unjustified. Racists added that Jews should not be
granted civil rights or become assimilated because their racial
inferiority could only harm the “superior race.” Throughout
its difficult and complex history, Jewish emancipation was a
touchstone of freedom and social openness in European culture.
Support came from those who cherished liberalism in
life, thought, and politics, while bitter opposition came mostly
from the reactionary camp. In Jewish life the fight for emancipation
at first went hand in hand with a readiness to assimilate,
and then, in the late 19th century, became associated with
national Jewish loyalty and *autonomy.
Emancipation in Various Countries
UNITED STATES. The first country to emancipate the Jews
was the United States. Jewish political inferiority during the
colonial period before 1776, however, was not the result of a
peculiar legal status. It derived rather from the Jews’ belonging
to the non-Protestant portion of the population, or in some
colonies their nonmembership in one privileged Protestant
denomination. Before the period of the American Revolution,
Jews living in the colonies were generally ineligible for public
office, owing to a Protestant form of oath which operated
to exclude Catholics as well. There are instances where Jews
entered public life nevertheless, perhaps by disregarding such
forms. Jews were not limited in the rights of domicile, economic
activity, or the practice of Judaism. Their full enjoyment
of civil rights, together with the newness, foreignness, and minuscule
numbers of colonial Jews, probably did not encourage
them to seek the full political rights which they lacked.
The American Revolution and the Federal Constitution
brought emancipation in the political realm to Jews and other
disadvantaged white minorities. Most of the newly enacted
state constitutions abolished Christian oath formularies and
separated church and state. The Virginia Statute of Religious
Liberty, long promoted by Thomas Jefferson and enacted in
1786, not only guaranteed freedom of worship and prohibited
public support of religious institutions, but provided that
“religious opinions and beliefs shall in no wise diminish, enlarge,
or affect civil capacities.” This law influenced the Federal
Constitution of 1787. The latter’s clause that “no religious
test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or
public trust under the United States” is the closest the United
States ever came to a definitive act of religious emancipation,
including Jews. The First Amendment, enacted in 1791 within
the Bill of Rights, completed the process by disestablishing all
religions. Such Federal constitutional law did not, however,
supersede the rights of individual states, although virtually
all of them emulated the Federal model. The right of Jews to
hold public office was actually sharply debated in Maryland
between 1816 and the abolition of the Christian oath requirement
in 1824. Vestigial oath clauses remained on the statute
books of North Carolina until 1868 and New Hampshire until
1877, but they were generally disregarded. Both states had
only a handful of Jews.
For emancipation in Latin America see *Latin America.
ENGLAND. Jewish emancipation in England came through
the gradual change in the climate of social opinion rather than
through revolution, although the ideas of the American and
French revolutions, and the emancipation of English Catholics
in 1829, were influential in changing English attitudes. Jews
had participated with Catholic leaders in planning the strategy
for achieving Catholic emancipation. Jewish emancipation in
England was accomplished by laws specifically relating to the
Jews. These laws were passed only after some social equality
had become an accomplished fact and the state was required
to give it legal expression. Literature, as well as law, did much
to shape and reflect public opinion. Byron, for example, expressed
sympathy for the suffering Jew; Richard *Cumberland
in The Jew (1794) created a complimentary portrait of the Jew
as a man. In addition, there were English translations of the
literature written in defense of the Jews by such men as *Lessing,
Mendelssohn, and Grégoire; publication of books and
essays by various English authors calling for emancipation of
Jews; and the defense of the rights of Jews in other countries
by English diplomacy (e.g., at the Congresses of Vienna and
Aix-la-Chapelle; support of Moses *Montefiore’s interventions
in the *Damascus Affair; Morocco; Russia). The change
in public attitude toward Jews was largely due to their civic
and economic progress. In practice, neither the right of the
Jews to reside in England, nor their choice of profession or
commercial opportunity were restricted after their return in
the 17th century, the Jews being gradually allowed to improve
376 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6