Encyclopaedia Judaica - Vol.06 (Dr-Feu) - WiccanGeek's Reading ...

their economic and social status to a great extent. Jewish civic
and political inequality was bound up with the formula of
the oath of loyalty, “according to the usages of the Anglican
Church,” to be taken in order to hold any office. In the deliberations
on the emancipation of the Catholics (1828), one of
the bishops proposed the new formula, “on the true faith of a
Christian,” which would then only discriminate against Jews.
Thereafter, Jews and their public sympathizers and parliamentary
supporters demanded the abolition of this formula
for Jews. An attempt in 1830 by a Liberal member, Sir Robert
Grant, to change the oath, was carried at first by a majority
of 18, but was defeated in second reading. In 1833 after the reform
of the British Parliament, Grant proposed “that it is expedient
to remove all civil disabilities at present affecting His
Majesty’s subjects of the Jewish religion, with the like exceptions
as are provided with reference to His Majesty’s subjects
professing the Roman Catholic religion.” During the discussion
following this motion, speeches were made which have
become classics in the polemics of Jewish emancipation, including
one by the English historian Macaulay (see *Apologetics).
The motion was finally carried by a great majority in all
three readings. The House of Lords, however, rejected it, as it
was to do again in 1834. During this time, nevertheless, Jews
were being elected to various honorary positions. After David
Salomons, a banker and communal worker, was elected sheriff
in 1835, the government passed a law in Parliament which
enabled Jews to hold this position. Similarly, after Salomons
was elected to the court of aldermen in 1841 and again in 1844,
a law was passed in 1845 enabling a Jew elected to municipal
office to substitute an oath which was acceptable to his conscience
for the prejudicial declaration ordinarily demanded.
In 1835 a law was enacted which exempted voters from taking
any oath. The Jews were enabled in 1837 to receive degrees
from the University of London (a secular university), and in
1841, the Jew Isaac Lyon *Goldsmid was knighted. Admission
of Jews to Parliament and university was gradual, changes
coming through compromises occasioned by the election of
two Jews, Lionel Nathan Rothschild and David Salomons, to
Parliament and their struggle to take their seats from 1841 to
1858; a compromise law of 1858; the deletion by law in 1866 of
the Christological portion of the oath; and a further abolition
of limitations for Jews in 1871.
BRITISH COMMONWEALTH. The later development of the
major countries of the British Commonwealth and their colonization
by the English (and to a far lesser extent by Europeans)
created a situation in which the problems of political
emancipation did not present themselves either at all or to any
great degree. This development became effective only toward
the middle of the 19th century or later, and by this time the
climate of opinion and political thinking was characterized by
liberal concepts averse to legal discrimination for reasons of
religion. Originally administered as colonies direct from London
through a local representative of the central government,
they achieved or were granted self-government when these
emancipation
liberal concepts were dominant. The social stratification of
the settlers also had an influence in the same direction. These
were frontier societies engaged in promoting and establishing
themselves, in which there was no room for religious discrimination.
And in that frontier society, Jews themselves occupied
a prominent position and played an important role as entrepreneurs
of various kinds. The generally superior educational
attainment of Jews also helped. A further element was the very
small percentage of the total European population that Jews
constituted, in New Zealand never more than about a quarter
percent and in Australia one-half percent. The problem confronting
the Jews in these Commonwealth countries was not
“legalized” religious discrimination and restrictions but the
absence thereof and the prevalence of measures of social freedom
which brought quite different problems manifested in a
trend to intermarriage and complete assimilation.
SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES. Emancipation was not an acute
problem in the Scandinavian countries in which Jewish settlements
were comparatively recent (17th and 18th centuries)
and few in number. There Jewish emancipation came as the
legal expression of the quiet victory of a sociopolitical principle
natural to civilized states, developing in a conservative
mode. On March 29, 1814, the king of Denmark authorized
all “the believers in the Mosaic faith” born in Denmark, or living
there legally, to engage in all professions, obliged them to
keep their books in Danish or in German, and narrowed community
autonomy. In 1837 Jews became eligible for municipal
election, and in 1843, the special Jewish *oath was abrogated.
In the constitution of June 5, 1849, article 84 was tantamount to
a grant of emancipation in refusing to recognize the inequality
of “any person on the basis of religious grounds.” In Sweden
the government abolished discrimination against Jews by an
administrative decree on June 30, 1838, but was compelled to
rescind it under pressure of public opinion. Some disabilities
were abolished by general laws on freedom in the choice of
profession. In 1860 Jews were permitted to acquire real estate.
Marriage between Jews and Christians was legalized in 1863,
and in 1873 it was also permitted to give a Jewish education
to children born of such marriages. In 1865 Jews were granted
the active right to vote and in 1870, the passive right. In Norway,
the 1814 prohibition against the entrance of Jews was abrogated
in 1851, after several unsuccessful previous attempts
in 1842, 1845, and 1848. It was only in 1891 that the Jews were
authorized to enter government service.
FRANCE. The emancipation of the Jews of France was linked
to the French Revolution and its principles. Jewish equality
was implied in the Declaration of the Rights of Man (Aug. 27,
1789), where it states that no man ought to be molested because
of his opinions, including his religious opinions. Equality
was gradually implemented through various national laws
amid a continual, and sometimes fierce, discussion of the applicability
of full equality to Jews, but full emancipation was
granted on Sept. 27, 1791. Various features in the composition
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 377