Napoleon and the Jews: Encyclopedia II - Napoleon and the Jews - Napoleon's Law and the Jews

Napoleon and the Jews - Napoleon's Law and the Jews

The French Revolution abolished the different treatment of people according to religion or origin that existed under the monarchy; the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen guaranteed freedom of religion and free exercise of worship, provided that it did not contradict public order. At that time, most other European countries implemented measures restricting the rights of people from minority religions. The conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte had the effect to spread the modernist ideas of revolutionary France with respect to the equality of citizens and the rule of law.

Napoleon's personal attitude towards the Jews is not always clear, as he made a number of statements both in support and opposition to the Jewish people at various times. Historian Berel Wein in Triumph of Survival states that Napoleon was primarily interested in seeing the Jews assimilate, rather than prosper as a separate community: "Napoleon's outward tolerance and fairness toward Jews was actually based upon his grand plan to have them disappear entirely by means of total assimilation, intermarriage, and conversion." This ambivalence can be found in some of his first definitively recorded utterances on this subject in connection with the question of the treatment of the Alsace Jews and their debtors raised in the Imperial Council on April 30, 1806. He declared it dangerous to allow so large a preponderance of the Jews, who constituted a state within a state, in a part of the French empire bordering upon the territories of its enemies. A week later, however, he had reached a milder view, and in the same assembly declared against any persecution of them.

The net effect of his policies, however, significantly changed the position of the Jews in Europe, and he was widely admired by the Jews as a result. Starting in 1806, Napoleon passed a number of measures supporting the position of the Jews in the French Empire, including assembling a representative group elected by the Jewish community, the Sanhedrin. In conquered countries, he abolished laws restricting Jews to ghettos. In 1807, he made Judaism, along with Roman Catholicism and Lutheran and Calvinist Protestantism, official religions of France. Napoleon rolled back a number of reforms in 1808, declaring all debts with Jews annulled, reduced or postponed, which caused the Jewish community to nearly collapse. Jews were also restricted in where they could live, in hopes of assimilating them into society. These restrictions were eliminated again by 1811.

Though Napoleon's personal attitude towards the Jews is not certain, he was clearly also acting for political reasons. He hoped to use equality as a way of gaining advantage from discriminated groups, like Jews or Catholics. Both aspects of his thinking can be seen in a response to a physician who asked why he pressed for the emancipation of the Jews, after his exile in 1816:

Napoleon and the Jews - Napoleon and a Jewish state in Palestine?

During the siege of Acre in 1799, Napoleon prepared a proclamation declaring a Jewish state in Palestine, though he did not issue it. The siege was lost to the British, however, and the plan was never carried out. Some historians, including Nathan Schur in Napoleon and the Holy Land, believe that the proclamation was intended purely for propaganda purposes, and that Napoleon was not serious about the creation of a Jewish state.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Napoleon's Law and the Jews", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki