The Jews, Instructions for Use: Four Eighteenth-Century Projects for the Emancipation of European Jews 9781618110503

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the jews, instructions for use four eighteenth-century projects for the emancipation of european jews

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Perspectives in Jewish Intellectual History Series Editor: Giuseppe Veltri (Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg)

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the jews, instructions for use four eighteenth-century projects for the emancipation of european jews

Paolo L. BERNARDINI Diego LUCCI

Boston 2012 —3—

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: A catalog record for this title is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-936235-74-2 Copyright © 2012 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved On the cover: “Jacob’s Dream,” by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, fresco (Palazzo Patriarcale, Udine), 1726 - 1729 Book design by Adell Medovoy Published by Academic Studies Press in 2012 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

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To Vittore Colorni (1912–2005) z’’tl To Mariangela Ripoli (1956–2004) In memoriam

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I see no way to give the Jews civil rights except to cut off their heads in one night and replace them with heads containing not a single Jewish idea. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Contribution to the Correction of the Public’s Judgment of the French Revolution (1793)

I know that modernity is often spoken of as an epoch, or at least as a set of features characteristic of an epoch; situated on a calendar, it would be preceded by a more or less naive or archaic premodernity, and followed by an enigmatic and troubling “postmodernity.” And then we find ourselves asking whether modernity constitutes the sequel to the Enlightenment and its development, or whether we are to see it as a rupture or a deviation with respect to the basic principles of the eighteenth century. Michel Foucault, What Is Enlightenment? (1978)

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Table of Contents

Preface

9

Acknowledgments

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Introduction • Allo-Semitism and Jewish Emancipation • Four Eighteenth-Century Projects

16 18 31

Chapter 1: From Toleration to Naturalization: John Toland and the Jews • The Jews in England • The “Hebrew Revival” in England: The Cultural Background of Toland’s Reasons • Toleration of the Jews: The Models and Sources of Toland’s Reasons • Toland on Judaism: From Demystification to Re-Mystification • The Contents and Structure of Toland’s Reasons • The Naturalization Process in England

35 38 44 51 57 66 80

Chapter 2: “More Useful and Happier Members of Society”: Christian Wilhelm von Dohm and the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews • The Debate on the Jews in Eighteenth-Century Germany • Dohm’s Treatise on the Jews • The Debate on Dohm’s Project • The 1783 Edition of Dohm’s Treatise • The Legacy of Dohm’s Treatise

89 90 96 119 126 130

Chapter 3: On the Influence of the Ghetto in the State: Count D’Arco and the Jews of Mantua • The Jews in Mantua • D’Arco’s Economic Thought • Jewish Customs and Beliefs in D’Arco’s Work • The Jews’ Economic Activities in D’Arco’s Work • Benedetto Frizzi’s Defense of the Jewish Nation • D’Arco and the Habsburg Policies Concerning the Jews

139 140 142 148 151 155 160

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Chapter 4: Degeneration and Regeneration of the Jews in Henri Grégoire’s Work • An Enlightenment Project: The Structure of the Essai • Jewish History, Feudalism, and Modern Government • From Moral Degeneration to Physical Degeneration, from History to the Present • Unconscious Racism?

165 167 171 174 182

Conclusion • From Emancipation to Racial Anti-Semitism • The Enlightenment Projects and the Implications and Side Effects of Emancipation

191 191

Index

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Preface

This book is about anti-Semitism. The fact that some forms of antiSemitism might be labeled as unaware or unintentional or tempered by the cognate and most recent category of allo-Semitism does not alter its nature and long-term effects. This book actually deals with a sort of antiSemitism that is normally not classified as such in history books. On the contrary, on the basis of their universalistic views, alleged humanitarian goals, and benevolent esprit, the writings examined in this book have mostly been considered, with the exception of D’Arco, as philo-Semitic tracts. There is a long tradition of scholarship on eighteenth-century anti-Semitism. From Léon Poliakov’s classic and Arthur Hertzberg’s fundamental book The French Enlightenment and the Jews (1968) to the studies published by Ronald Schechter, Adam Sutcliffe, Jonathan Karp, and Harvey Mitchell over the last decade, scholars have investigated in depth the relationships between the Jews and surrounding society in both continental Europe and Britain over the very long eighteenth century (1638–1848, to adopt Karp’s termini post and ante quem). The scope of this book is different, however, from the above-mentioned literature, although our research is indebted to the studies of the above-mentioned authors and the strong revival of scholarly interest in early modern Jewish-Gentile relations. Over several years of collaboration, the authors of this book have developed a different view of the allegedly philo-Semitic literature of the eighteenth century. While in the seventeenth century most of the champions of the Jewish cause—or rather, the harbingers of reconciliation between the interests of European states and those of Jewish communities—were normally Jews (from Simone Luzzatto in Venice to Menasseh ben Israel in Britain), during the eighteenth century, most of the “defenders” of the Jews were not Jews. The four writers we deal with in this volume provide perfect examples of this new trend, apparently— but only apparently—to be regarded as a most welcome and positive historical turn. None of them were Jews, none of them knew Hebrew, and none of them (apart from Dohm) had substantial relations with prominent Jew—9—

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ish intellectuals. Their knowledge of Jewish history was vague, at least until they wrote their treatises “in favor of the Jews,” which we analyze in this book. Then they read compulsively and quite hastily a number of traditional works (full of mistakes, too) on Jewish history, from Fleury to Basnage, and in a very short time concocted reform projects that, though never applied on the short term, certainly influenced state policies implemented mainly in the nineteenth century. Not long later, the fate of six million European Jews was sealed off in the way we all know. How responsible were those remote projects, written in the Age of Enlightenment, for the tragedy that eventually struck the Jewish people on an unprecedented scale in world history? Since they were never implemented in toto, those projects can be regarded as instances of eighteenth-century Projectmacherei—namely, the urge the century felt for producing, massively and randomly, reform projects affecting all the areas of individual and social life, from agriculture to taxation, from commerce to urbanism, from religion to architecture. Neutral in their short-term effects and written probably in good faith and with positive intentions, all those four projects, however, betray a potentially lethal attitude. The real object, as well as the only beneficiary of the reforms sketched in those projects, is not the Jew, but the growing, all-encompassing post-Westphalian state. It is not a matter of philo-Semitism: it is rather a matter of philo-Statism. Only inasmuch as the state is still, in a quite eighteenth-century garb, mixed with—and occasionally postponed to—civil society, those projects can be seen as truly benevolent. But when the state’s interests prevailed, projects like those analyzed in this volume run the risk of paving the way for the tragic destiny of the Jews of Europe. The close analysis of four among the most notable eighteenthcentury intellectual efforts to “ameliorate” the destiny of the Jews has enabled us to offer a deep view of the intellectual constituency of the Enlightenment as it related, through minor but not negligible figures, to the Jews and their future. In the essays presented in this book, we use the concept of emancipation in a rather loose way. Technically, “emancipation” means the promotion of an individual, through a legal act, from the status of slave to that of free citizen. Emancipation, a concept born in Roman law, can be applied to the slave who becomes a citizen or to the free individual who reaches full legal age. In this book, we rather refer to “emancipation” as — 10 —

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“betterment” (civil, legal, political, as well as social) of the situations (legally speaking) and conditions (socially speaking) of the Jews as a collective entity as well as individuals. Besides, the political dimension of the concept of emancipation can be fully understood and fully applied in Europe only after the French Revolution. In fact, the libres et égaux revolutionary keyword found its proper application in constitutions and civil codes after 1789, with the abolition of the legal discriminations and disabilities related to the individual’s “status” typical of the ancien régime. This long process, including the very belated abolition of serfdom in Russia, involved continental Europe during the period that the late François Furet called “the long French Revolution,” terminating only with the establishment of the Third Republic and the Paris Commune in the early 1870s. In Britain, the legal concepts of denizen and citizen, and the very idea of citizenship as well, were rather different and much more advanced already when Toland wrote his pamphlet on naturalization in the early eighteenth century. The idea of naturalization, conceived of as an acquisition of certain rights of citizenship, was indeed peculiar to Britain and inapplicable anywhere else in Europe. The essays in this book examine four European contexts, each of them different from the other. In dealing with Britain at the start of Hanoverian rule, Frederick the Great’s Prussia, Mantua under Habsburg rule, and, finally, France on the eve of the Revolution, we tried to highlight a general trend and to discover similarities and affinities between writers otherwise far away from each other linguistically, culturally, ideologically, and often unaware of what had been written on the subject before they approached it. From a certain point of view, this volume is a contribution to the study of the Enlightenment’s République des Lettres, rather than a work on Jewish history (of which there is not much in this book, if one takes for granted that active and not passive history is what defines a national area). More than anything else, however, our work is a contribution to the study of political theory—inasmuch as political theory, when oriented toward the reinforcement of the state at whatever cost, can open the path, with a complete lack of awareness, to the most brutal actions that the state can commit. The road to hell is often paved with the best intentions. In the introduction, we try to approach the problem of the eighteenth-century literature on the Jews by using Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of allo-Semitism, which enables us to defy the often too-narrow — 11 —

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boundaries set by the traditional opposition between philo- and antiSemitism. We then analyze in detail the four projects, and conclude with some remarks about the evolution of the Jewish plight in Europe, the development of nineteenth-century nation-states, and the ideological background of the destruction of the Jews of Europe. We have focused on four projects, while some others could be certainly taken into consideration, especially those written right before and during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. We therefore hope to have opened the way to further investigation, for especially under Napoleon’s rule it became clear that the main objective of proJewish reforms was, first and foremost, the enrichment of the state and, accordingly, the destruction of the Jewish communities, largely conceived of as a sort of “state within the state.” This book is also a caveat against all those “projects” in modern Europe to better integrate, assimilate, and incorporate into the state the minorities that have replaced the Jews on European soil. There is no longer any “Jewish question” in Europe, for most of the European Jews were exterminated during World War II, inter alia. In every and any historical circumstance in which a “question” arose (the “Southern question” in Italy, the “Jewish question” all over the Continent, the “agrarian question,” and so on), the states of modern Europe solved it in the most brutal way, after encouraging scholars, as well as functionaries, to identify, conceptualize, and describe it in full detail. For this reason, the current discourses about a Muslim, Chinese, or Gypsy question in Europe give us the shivers. In fact, questions like these often brought solutions that were meant to be “final” and were almost completely successful in their aims.

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Acknowledgments



Paolo L. Bernardini: I wish to thank the staff and fellows of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, where I had the pleasure and honor to work, during the spring semester of 2011, as one of the inaugural fellows of this remarkable research institution. While my research was devoted mainly to my project on the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, I also used the abundant resources of the University of Notre Dame to complete the present collaborative work. My thanks go to Professor Dr. Vittorio Hösle, director of the NDIAS; Dr. Donald Stelluto, associate director; and Carolyne Sherman, Jo Ann Norris, and Michelle Laux, members of the administrative staff, for their invaluable kindness and their constant care of the fellows’ well-being. My thanks also go, ex imo corde, to my colleagues, with whom I shared a most rewarding personal and professional experience: Annelien de Dijn, Francesco Berto, Philipp Koralus, Andrea Turpin, Mary Hirschfeld, Carsten Dutt, Elah Murphy, Karl Ameriks, and W. Martin Bloomer. They were all helpful and welcoming to me and contributed to making my stay at Notre Dame memorable and pleasant. I am indebted to other members of the vibrant Notre Dame scholarly community as well: Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto made me feel at home, even though he was at the London program of Notre Dame during spring 2011. Professor Marina Calloni, Fulbright professor at Notre Dame and member of the University of Milano-Bicocca faculty, was close to me in this midwestern adventure. The book benefited from the keen advice of Professor Dr. Giuseppe Veltri (University of Halle), as well as from that of our anonymous reviewers. I wish also to thank Professor Irene Kajon (University of Rome La Sapienza), with whom I codirected a PRIN Italian national research team on Jews and Judaism in modern and early modern times. My heartfelt thanks go to my assistants Elisa Bianco and Alessandra Mita Ferraro (University of Insubria), who fulfilled some of my duties in Como while I was on leave at Notre Dame. Last but not least, a thank-you, ex imo corde, to my wife, Laura Orsi (Franklin College Switzerland), who took an interest in this project — 13 —

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since at least 1996, when she translated Toland’s Reasons into Italian (the Italian edition of Reasons was published by the publishing house Giuntina in Florence, in 1998). As I did with my first book on Jewish emancipation, back in 1992, I wish to devote a tender thought to the memory of my grandmother Delia Sdraffa (‫)זיכרונה לברכה‬, who passed away in 1972 but is still present in my heart. Diego Lucci: I am grateful to the scholars who, in the course of my education, significantly helped me develop a strong interest in the history of JewishGentile relations, namely, Professors Giuseppe Lissa, Emilia D’Antuono, and Paolo Amodio of the University of Naples Federico II. My thanks also go to the organizers of the seminars on Jewish culture held at the University of Naples in the context of the 2007–2009 PRIN project, particularly Professor D’Antuono, Professor Irene Kajon (University of Rome La Sapienza), and Dr. Gianluca Attademo (University of Naples Federico II). I wish to thank Professors Riccardo Pozzo (ILIESI-CNR and University of Verona), Wayne Hudson (University of Tasmania), Steven T. Katz (Boston University), James A. Herrick (Hope College), Maurizio Cambi (University of Salerno), Simon Davies (Queen’s University Belfast), Adam Sutcliffe (King’s College London), Stephen Benin (University of Memphis), Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth (Red Deer College), Myriam Silvera (Union of the Italian Jewish Communities and University of Naples Federico II), Raffaele Russo (University of Trento), and Giovanni Tarantino (Ruhr University Bochum) for their constant interest in my research activities on the Age of Enlightenment and Jewish-Gentile relations. I am grateful to my home institution, the American University in Bulgaria, for the grants that allowed me to participate in numerous international conferences and seminars over the last five years, and to the University of Insubria for a PRIN research grant, which helped me complete my research for this book in 2009. My sincere gratitude goes to the faculty members, administrators, and students of the American University in Bulgaria who, on an almost-daily basis in the last five academic years, engaged me in numerous and interesting conversations on European views of other peoples and cultures, the Age of Enlightenment, and issues related to racism and anti-Semitism. Particular thanks go to Dr. Pierangelo Castagneto (American University in Bulgaria) and — 14 —

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Dr. Ariel Hessayon (Goldsmiths, University of London) for their always valuable suggestions and precious friendship. Finally, I wish to thank my beloved parents, Assunta and Gennaro, and my sister, Roberta, for all the beautiful things they have done for me, and my fiancée, Branimira, for making my life much easier, richer, and more meaningful with her patience, support, and love. Although this book has benefited from many insights and external advice, its contents, main arguments, and original idea are the sole responsibility of its authors.

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Introduction

This volume presents four essays on as many projects for the emancipation of the Jews in eighteenth-century Europe, specifically in England at the time of the Hanoverian accession to the throne, in Frederick the Great’s Prussia, in Austrian-ruled Lombardy under Maria Theresa and Joseph II, and in France on the eve of the Revolution.1 The authors of those projects had different personalities and played different roles in the cultural and political life of their time. John Toland, who published in 1714 a pamphlet entitled Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland, was one of the most prominent representatives of English deism. He was a pantheist, a freethinker, a proponent of republicanism, and an intellectual always marginalized by “official” culture in an era when Newtonianism was the predominant scientific and philosophical system. Christian Wilhelm von Dohm was a state official and a friend of Moses Mendelssohn and other representatives of the Haskalah and the Berlin Enlightenment. In the early 1780s, he wrote one of the most celebrated proposals for the emancipation of the Jews in eighteenth-century Europe: Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, 1781). Count Giovanni Battista Gherardo d’Arco, author of Della influenza del ghetto nello Stato (On the Influence of the Ghetto in the State, 1782), was a political economist involved in the administration of the city of Mantua under Habsburg rule. Finally, Henri Grégoire was a churchman who, after publishing his controversial Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs (Essay on the 1

For an overview of the political and commercial evolution of European society and the role played in it by the Jews, see Jonathan Karp, The Politics of Jewish Commerce: Economic Thought and Emancipation in Europe, 1638–1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Karp’s book, from a different and broader angle, covers most of the issues analyzed in this volume. For recent studies on the Enlightenment and the Jews, see Ronald Schechter, Obstinate Hebrews: Representations of Jews in France, 1715–1815 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); id., “The Enlightenment, French Revolution, Napoleon,” in Antisemitism: A History, ed. Albert S. Lindemann and Richard S. Levy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 107–120; Harvey Mitchell, Voltaire’s Jews and Modern Jewish Identity: Rethinking the Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 2008). — 16 —

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Physical, Moral and Political Regeneration of the Jews, 1789), played an active role in French politics during and after the Revolution. Those four projects, written in different socio-political and cultural contexts, focused on various aspects of the “Jewish question.” The republican thinker Toland had an idealized view of the Jews and their political and legal traditions, which he attempted to deprive of the supersessionist approaches typical of Christian interpretations of Judaism and which, on the other hand, he “re-mystified” in new terms. In fact, in works such as Origines Judaicae (1709), Nazarenus (1718), and Hodegus (1720), while applying Spinoza’s demystifying hermeneutics in order to undermine Christian readings of the Jewish past, Toland regarded Moses as a pantheist and a republican legislator. Thus, he presented Moses’s teaching as a source of philosophical truth and political republicanism, and he did so in order to corroborate his own pantheist and republican doctrines. Such a positive view of ancient Judaism, along with his egalitarian ideas, led Toland to a particularly favorable attitude toward contemporary Jews, whom he proposed to naturalize in the same year as the Hanoverian accession to the British throne. And he supported his proposal with mercantilist arguments, which he largely borrowed from the famous Discorso circa il stato de gl’Hebrei (Discourse concerning the Condition of the Jews, 1638) by the Venetian rabbi Simone Luzzatto. As regards Dohm, his treatise on the “amelioration” of the Jews was inspired by humanitarian ideals and the wish to make the Jews “happier.” However, the Prussian intellectual also declared his intention to make the Jews “more useful” members of society, and his emancipative project was strongly conditioned by his utilitarian consideration of the Jews’ actual and potential roles in European society. Count D’Arco’s writing is much less ambiguous: it is indeed characterized by a blatantly negative view of the Jewish people. The Lombard nobleman—who had a good knowledge of mercantilism, cameralism, and the physiocrats’ doctrines—revived and interpreted from the viewpoint of an Enlightenment economist various century-old prejudices on the Jews and their financial and professional activities. As a consequence, his project regarding the Jewish communities aimed, above all, at limiting the negative influence that in his opinion the Jews had on the national economy, and at making them possibly more useful to society and the state. — 17 —

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Finally, Grégoire proposed the theory of a “degeneration” suffered throughout history by the Jews because of both external causes, such as Christian hatred and the perennial impositions and prohibitions forced on them, and factors internal to Jewish culture, such as their “absurd” laws, customs, and traditions. The Jews, thus, needed a “physical, moral and political regeneration” in order to be considered equal to those who had undergone no process of degeneration. And Grégoire’s view of the Jews had a strong impact on the emancipation process in revolutionary France. One might argue about the nature and objectives of the above said projects and highlight Toland’s and Dohm’s essential “philo-Semitism,” while stigmatizing D’Arco’s Judeophobic prejudices and Grégoire’s “assimilationist” aims. One might also point out that those four proposals were written on different occasions and needed to adapt to different situations: there are indeed significant dissimilarities between England after the Glorious Revolution, Prussia under one of the greatest “Enlightened despots,” an Italian province under Habsburg rule, and France on the eve of the Revolution. However, the four projects analyzed in this book have something in common—namely, the idea that the Jews are intrinsically others, radically different from the rest of humankind: an idea that is at the essence of what Zygmunt Bauman has called “alloSemitism” and has characterized the history of Jewish-Gentile relations in “pre-modern, modern and post-modern” times.2 Allo-Semitism and Jewish Emancipation According to Zygmunt Bauman, the concept of allo-Semitism is broader and more exhaustive than the traditional notions of anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism:

2

See Zygmunt Bauman, “Allo-Semitism: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern,” in Modernity, Culture, and “the Jew,” ed. Bryan Cheyette and Laura Marcus (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 143–156. The term “allo-Semitism” was coined by Polish literary critic Artur Sandauer: see Artur Sandauer, O sytuacji pisarza polskiego pochodzenia żydowskiego w XX wieku (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1982). This term was used by Bauman, for the first time, in Zygmunt Bauman, Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Moralities (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 207. On the Jewish question in Bauman’s thought, see also id., Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989). Before Bauman, only literary scholar Bryan Cheyette had used this term in English: see Bryan Cheyette, Constructions of “the Jew” in English Literature and Society: Racial Representations, 1875–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 8. — 18 —

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The area delineated and separated by the notion of anti-Semitism […] is too narrow to account fully for the phenomenon the notion intends to grasp; […] what must be explained first—what indeed must stand in the focus of explanatory effort, is rather the phenomenon of allo-Semitism, of which anti-Semitism (alongside philoSemitism, as it were) is but an offshoot or a variety.3 In Bauman’s words, allosemitism is “the practice of setting the Jews apart as people radically different from all the others, needing separate concepts to describe and comprehend them.”4 Allosemitism is noncommittal and ambivalent: “It does not unambiguously determine either hatred or love of Jews, but contains the seeds of both”5 and “is, perhaps must be, already in place for anti- or philo-Semitism to be conceivable.”6 It is thus the constant and deep-rooted view of the Jews as intrinsically others that generated various forms of hostility, or sympathy, to the Jews in the course of European history, in different contexts, and in accordance with different theoretical perspectives. To Bauman, the consideration and treatment of the Jews as intrinsically others has deeper roots than the “official” religious, political, economic, or racial reasons alleged over the centuries to discriminate against them. Allo-Semitism originates in what the Polish sociologist has called “proteophobia,” that is, the apprehension and vexation related to something or 3

Zygmunt Bauman, “Allo-Semitism,” 143. The terms “anti-Semitism” and “philo-Semitism” were coined in Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century. The term “anti-Semitism” appeared, for the first time, in Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum (The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism, 1879) by the publicist Wilhelm Marr, who introduced the pseudoscientific racial component into the debate on the Jewish question in Germany. The term “philo-Semitism” originally had a derogatory meaning: “Coined in Germany in 1880 as the antonym to another neologism—antisemitism—the word ‘philosemitism’ was invented by avowed antisemites as a sneering term of denunciation of their opponents. Almost all late nineteenth-century opponents of antisemitism strenuously sought to defend themselves from the charge of philosemitism, insisting instead that they regarded the Jews neutrally and were untainted by prejudice either for or against them” (Adam Sutcliffe and Jonathan Karp, “A Brief History of Philosemitism,” in Philosemitism in History, ed. Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011], 1). 4 Zygmunt Bauman, “Allo-Semitism,” 143. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. — 19 —

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someone that does not fit the structure of the orderly world, does not fall easily into any of the established categories, emits therefore contradictory signals as to the proper conduct—and in the result blurs the borderlines which ought to be kept watertight and undermines the reassuringly monotonous, repetitive and predictable nature of the life-world.7 In other words, proteophobia is the fear of what can bring about alternatives in the well-defined and ordered system of ideas, norms, and behaviors asserted as the foundation and guarantee of a society. This fear is a side effect of the need to construct a system of concepts, values, habits, and institutions that can lead to the stabilization, and therefore the survival, of societies that actually lack any genuine foundation for their self-legitimation. In fact, the only source of self-legitimation for a society consists of its members’ belief in, and compliance with, the ideas and norms commonly considered to be at its basis.8 The fear that alternative ways of thinking and living may question the established order is therefore deeper than the various systems of ideas (religious, political, racial, etc.) that claim to be at the basis of human societies. A view of the Jews as essentially, primarily, and inevitably others—a view inspired by proteophobic attitudes—is thus at the origin of the various forms of anti-Jewish hostility in the history of Western society. In fact, the need to find order, homogeneity, and predictability led to numerous attempts to control, or erase, Jewish diversity by assigning a well-defined place to the Jews in the mainstream worldviews of European society. And such a theoretical operation led, in different periods of European history, to the practical management, or elimination, of Jewish diversity by means of subjugation, marginalization, exploitation, assimilation, and, finally, physical destruction. Proteophobic attitudes led to the discrimination and persecution of numerous groups and individuals who did not conform with the reli7 8

Ibid., 144. Bauman’s reflection on proteophobia is indebted to Cornelius Castoriadis’s work, which has strongly influenced Bauman’s thought, as the Polish sociologist has acknowledged in various essays, including Life in Fragments. On the theme of “otherness” in Castoriadis’s philosophy, see especially Cornelius Castoriadis, “Reflections on Racism,” in id., World in Fragments (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 19–31. — 20 —

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gious, political, sexual, cultural, or ethnic standards of European society in different eras. Nevertheless, Jewish diversity was a particularly troublesome issue for a long part of European history. In fact, the Jews were regarded as the others par excellence (i.e., the religious others) within medieval Christian European society. They represented religious difference, the religious error—that is, the worst and biggest mistake in a society that, in its formation process, had fulfilled its need for order by means of a religious, specifically Christian, worldview. Moreover, unlike the Muslims and other infidels, the Jews were at hand in most European countries. One might argue that heretics were also at hand, and they were indeed persecuted and repressed when caught. But the Jews’ mistake was not that they abandoned the true official worldview by proposing an alternative to reform or replace it. The Jews’ error was, conversely, to obstinately persevere in an obsolete faith—one that was at the basis of the Christian religion, but that, on the other hand, Christian revelation had fulfilled and overcome. In Christian eyes, the Jews were thus in an extremely ambiguous position; and for this reason, the Church embarked on defining their peculiar theological, legal, and social statuses. In medieval Latin Europe, the Jews became what historian Kenneth Stow called an “alienated minority,” on account of a theoretical operation aimed at integrating Judaism and the Jewish people into the worldview of the time.9 In Christian “replacement theology,” Judaism was conceived of as merely a forerunner of Christianity, and Christian revelation had fulfilled God’s promises to humankind. The New Covenant with the Christians had fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant. Therefore, Christianity had completed, and essentially replaced, the imperfect, partial, provisional Jewish religion, and Christendom had replaced the Jews as the chosen people in God’s plan of salvation. Accordingly, such was the role assigned to the Jews by Christian theology: The Jews are not designated positively as following certain beliefs, but negatively as the antithesis of Christianity. […] The decisive step was taken by Augustine, who, surprised by the tenacious vitality of a Judaism that 9

See Kenneth R. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). — 21 —

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refused to die out, invented the notion of the Jewish people as witness to its own iniquity: the Jews survived by the will of God only to be the embodiment of sin; thus they became the negative pole of Christian history.10 For this reason, the Jews had to be preserved until the Second Coming of Christ, when they would eventually acknowledge their mistake and accept Christ, thus confirming the truth of Christian revelation. This is how the Jews and their otherness were absorbed into the worldview and social order of medieval Europe. The theoretical reduction of Judaism to a mere antecedent of Christianity led to laws and policies aimed at putting and keeping the Jews in conditions different from those of their Christian neighbors. The Jews’ rejection of Christian revelation excluded them from the new “chosen people,” thus relegating them to a situation of inferiority and submission to Christians. This situation was gradually defined in the papal bulls Sicut Judaeis by Calixtus II (1120) and Constitutio Pro Judaeis (1199) and Etsi Judaeos (1205) both by Innocent III, as well as by the legislation on the Jews issued at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). The status of the Jews in Christian Europe was officially named perpetua servitus in Gregory IX’s Decretals of 1234 (although the term perpetua servitus was originally coined by Innocent III in 1205).11 This state of humiliation and servitude implied the imposition of numerous obligations and prohibitions, along with the permission to practice “degrading” (but useful) professions, such as moneylending, an activity officially forbidden to Christians. Briefly, the Church asserted itself as the only authority entitled to define the conditions for the Jews to live among Christians and passed numerous policies for discriminating against them, limiting their interaction with Christians and, on the other

10

Shaul Bassi, “Resisting Jews: Allosemitism and the Dialectic of Assimilation,” in Resisting Alterities: Wilson Harris and Other Avatars of Otherness, ed. Marco Fazzini (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), 212. 11 On church policies on the Jews in the Middle Ages, see Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIII Century (Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1933); Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times, 2nd ed. (New York: Behrman, 1983), 3–63; Kenneth R. Stow, Alienated Minority, 6–101; id., Popes, Church, and Jews in the Middle Ages: Confrontation and Response (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); Anna Foa, The Jews of Europe after the Black Death (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 23–48. — 22 —

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hand, preserving them until the Second Coming.12 The medieval Church’s attempts to incorporate Judaism and the Jews into a Christian worldview, and to define the status of the Jews in a Christian world, were characterized by the explicit intent to preserve the Jews until the end of time. However, the medieval Church’s consideration and treatment of the Jews had significant long-term effects on Jewish-Gentile relations: The allo-Semitism endemic to Western civilization is to a decisive extent the legacy of Christendom. The Christian Church’s struggle with the inassimilable, yet indispensable modality of the Jews bequeathed to later ages two factors crucial to the emergence and self-perpetuation of allo-Semitism. The first, the casting of Jews as the embodiment of ambivalence, that is of dis-order; once cast in this mould, Jews could serve as a dumping ground for all new varieties of ambivalence which later times were still to produce. And the second—the abstract Jew, the Jew as a concept located in a different discourse from the practical knowledge of “empirical” Jews, and hence located at a secure distance from experience and immune to whatever information may be supplied by that experience and whatever emotions may be aroused by daily intercourse.13 The worldview constructed and sanctioned by the Catholic Church between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages lasted for much longer than the Church’s ideological supremacy over the whole of Western Europe—although such a worldview underwent various modifications and was adapted to different contexts, needs, and interests. Starting at least at the time of the Avignon Captivity and the subsequent crisis in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Church experienced a process of gradual but inexorable weakening, aggravated by the Protestant Reformation and the consequent splintering of West12 According to medieval canon law, forcible conversions were forbidden, and Christians could not harass the Jews, disturb their ceremonies, or violate their cemeteries on pain of excommunication. 13 Zygmunt Bauman, “Allo-Semitism,” 148. — 23 —

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ern Christendom into several confessions in the sixteenth century. The decline of the Church’s power was concomitant with the affirmation and strengthening of state authority, a process culminating in the Age of Religious Wars. In fact, the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which put an end to the Thirty Years’ War and thus to the Wars of Religion in continental Europe, reasserted the principle “cuius regio eius religio”—in other words, “whose realm, his religion,” a principle already stated in the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. With this principle, the ruler’s supremacy in matters of religious allegiance was officially sanctioned. This meant that within the boundaries of each state, the political ruler also became the highest authority in matters of religion. In fact, the rise of the modern state was supported by a concept of sovereignty aimed at asserting the ruler’s autonomy and absoluteness, which is best expressed in the work of Jean Bodin. In his Method for the Easy Comprehension of History (1566) and Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576), Bodin described the sovereign as “not bound” (“absolutus”) by the positive laws promulgated by his predecessors or even by himself. Sovereignty, to Bodin, was limited only by divine and natural law. However, given the absence of any superior earthly authority, the sovereign had the prerogative to grasp, and interpret, divine and natural law. Therefore, Bodin was for political theory what Martin Luther had been for biblical hermeneutics: as Luther had asserted the principle that each Christian could understand God’s word solely on the basis of the biblical text, Bodin (a Catholic critical of papal authority in temporal government) erased the need for any ecclesiastical “intermediary” between the sovereign and God. More importantly, having the absolute right to comprehend and apply divine and natural law, the sovereign authority was not accountable to anyone. Therefore, Bodin’s theories catalyzed the process of justification of absolute sovereignty in early modern political philosophy—a process started with Machiavelli and accomplished in Thomas Hobbes’s interpretation of the Leviathan as a “mortal God.”14 The Jews were caught in the process of practical development, and theoretical justification, of the modern state. Bodin and other supporters of absolute sovereignty viewed the state as homogeneous, uniform, 14 See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: Or, the Matter, Form, and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (London: Crooke, 1651), chapter 17. — 24 —

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and headed by a supreme authority—ruling over a well-defined territory without internal distinctions of division, delegation, or local autonomy. The very survival of the Jewish communities, therefore, came to depend on the will of political authorities, which were obviously discomforted by the presence of alien bodies within the borders of their countries. In the most problematic contexts, most prominently in Spain and Portugal, the rulers preferred to expel the Jews—and then to persecute and discriminate against those of them who had preferred to convert to Christianity—in order to achieve religious, cultural, and also ethnic homogeneity in the population.15 On the other hand, the development and spread of mercantilist theories in early modern Europe led numerous states to admit the Jews in order to exploit their financial activities, particularly trade and moneylending. Therefore, Jewish otherness was integrated into an economic and political system that needed Jewish merchants, moneylenders, and the so-called court Jews in order to improve the national economy and consolidate the state’s active role in economic life. However, in order to be useful to the state, the Jews had to remain Jews—that is, aliens having none of the (few) rights granted to the other subjects. The Jews were thus permitted to reside in many countries by patents arbitrarily issued and renewed by the political authorities. Consequently, they were often forced to pay extraordinary taxes, much higher than those paid by their Christian neighbors, and their life was subject to numerous impositions, aimed at making them more controllable and easier to exploit. 15 What happened in the Iberian Peninsula after the expulsions and forcible conversions of Jews in the 1490s is emblematic of the fact that, in the course of European history, any attempt to integrate the Jews into surrounding society did not put an end to anti-Jewish hostility and instead exacerbated it. In fact, true proteophobia consists of an apprehension related to the possibility of radical and mainly exogenous changes in an orderly world. The most extreme forms of proteophobia are therefore directed against those who have already proved to change and can consequently change again—thus harming the coherent, conventional, and predictable order that societies normally pursue. For this reason, proteophobia does not disappear when the others recant, convert, or assimilate. If conversion or assimilation occurs, proteophobia eventually produces a fixation on “constant or allegedly constant physical (therefore irreversible) traits” (Cornelius Castoriadis, “Reflections on Racism,” 28). In early modern Spain, such a fixation led to the persecution of the so-called New Christians, frequently accused of crypto-Judaizing and therefore tried by the Inquisition and to the “blood purity laws,” which distinguished between pure Old Christians and those who had Jewish or Muslim ancestors. This thesis on the pervasiveness of proteophobia is also proved by the conditions of the Jews in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe, when Jewish emancipation produced, as a side effect, a fixation on physical, biological (and therefore unalterable) traits, thus leading to the spread of racial anti-Semitism, as we will explain in the conclusion of this volume. — 25 —

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It was indeed in this period that, in numerous countries, the Jews were required to bear a distinctive sign and reside within the walls of the ghetto—and such discriminatory policies were also sanctioned by the papal bull Cum nimis absurdum, issued by Paul IV in 1555, in a time when the Counter-Reformation Church was desperately, and vainly, trying to regain its lost supremacy. Briefly, in the early modern era, the Jews’ status of inferiority and submission to Christians was not questioned: instead, it was adopted for the advantage of the established political authority in both Catholic and Protestant countries (in spite of Martin Luther’s frequent calls for the persecution and expulsion of Jews, unless they converted to Christianity). In fact, while Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists had to comply with the principle “cuius regio eius religio” (and therefore convert or migrate) and weaker Protestant groups were banned, persecuted, and suppressed, in the modern states of Western Europe, the Jews were preserved, submitted to the will of Christian rulers, and relegated to a condition of segregation in which they could be easily controlled and exploited, mainly for the advantage of the state, its power, and its prosperity.16 Such were still the conditions of the Jews when the emancipatory values of the Enlightenment started to develop and spread among the cultured elites of Europe. And the Jews had a privileged position in the Enlightenment discourse of emancipation. As Adam Sutcliffe pointed out in Judaism and Enlightenment (2003), The core values of Enlightenment—justice, reason, toleration, self-actualisation, freedom of thought and speech—provide the fundamental grounds on which the entitlements of minorities such as Jews are protected in modern societies.17 On the other hand, Enlightenment views of Judaism presented a 16 On the conditions of the Jews in early modern Europe and the impact of mercantilism on the relationships between the Jewish communities and the political authorities, see Jonathan I. Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Anna Foa, The Jews of Europe, 74–191; Jonathan Karp, The Politics of Jewish Commerce, 67–134; id., “Antisemitism in the Age of Mercantilism,” in Antisemitism: A History, ed. Albert S. Lindemann and Richard S. Levy, 94–106. 17 Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment, 11. — 26 —

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hardly reconcilable dichotomy: The Enlightenment vision of universal tolerance and emancipation stood uneasily alongside the identification of Judaism as so atavistically contrary to all emancipatory values and modes of thought. Judaism was thus profoundly ensnared in the relationship between the Enlightenment and the Christian worldview from and against which it emerged.18 The Jews were still perceived as the others par excellence in a civilization that was experiencing dramatic developments in its fundamental values, lifestyle, and institutions and that, thus, needed to rethink the position and role of those internal strangers. As Ronald Schechter observed in Obstinate Hebrews (2003), the Jews were only a small, marginal, and powerless element of the European population—but an element marginalized, discriminated against, and oppressed for centuries. It was exactly because the Jews had long been kept in a situation of “inferiority and submission” that several Enlightenment thinkers regarded them as “good to think,” when dealing with concepts such as liberty, equality, toleration, national identity, civilization, and modernity. The Jews of Europe were thus viewed through various ideological lenses, which prevented most Enlightenment thinkers, including the supporters of Jewish emancipation, from taking into account the Jews’ actual aspirations, needs, and concerns. For these reasons, the Jews “were far more important to gentiles for what they symbolized than for who they were.”19 The rethinking of Jewish culture and religion was an essential component of the Enlightenment discourse of Jewish emancipation, which was viewed as an essential step in the process of emancipation, and enlightenment, of humankind in general. The need to overcome traditional Christian beliefs, values, and institutions led some seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers, mostly republicans and deists, to reinterpret Mosaic Judaism in new terms, as a source of philosophical truth, a rational system of ethics, or a model of republican politics. As brilliantly 18 Ibid., 6. 19 Ronald Schechter, Obstinate Hebrews, 10. — 27 —

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argued by Adam Sutcliffe in Judaism and Enlightenment, the attempts to provide demystified readings of Judaism often produced new mystifications of Jewish culture, which was eventually reduced to an instance of particular philosophical, moral, or political doctrines. Accordingly, also in Enlightenment “philo-Semitism,” the consideration of Jewish otherness led to the absorption of Jewish religion, history, and culture and thus to the dissolution of Jewish otherness (therefore of Jewish identity) into worldviews that did not have much to do with Judaism. However, most philosophes expressed unsympathetic attitudes toward Jewish culture and stigmatized the foundational role of Judaism in the formation of Christianity—whereas, in replacement theology, the Jews’ rejection of Christian revelation had been the “official” reason for discriminating against them. Judaism was thus attacked by those who, like d’Holbach and Voltaire, aimed at destroying the edifice of Christianity by undermining its Jewish foundations. As a consequence, the Jews were allowed to contribute to the cultural, social, and political advancement of European civilization only if they renounced their ancestral beliefs and practices, which were considered even more obsolete than those of the Christians. Also in this case, Judaism was assigned a new (but this time negative) role in the history of mankind, and the Jews, viewed as different from the new model of mankind that the Enlightenment was constructing, were “invited” to give up their otherness in order to participate in the progress of European society and consequently benefit from a new mentality and lifestyle.20 The attempts to incorporate Judaism into new worldviews were matched by more practical considerations, in the process that eventually led to the civil emancipation of the Jews in Western Europe after the French Revolution.21 The Enlightenment discourse of emancipation aimed at promoting a rationalization of human life, as rationality was considered to be the 20

On anti-Jewish attitudes in Voltaire and other philosophes, see Harvey Mitchell, Voltaire’s Jews and Modern Jewish Identity. 21 The first country to emancipate its Jews was France in 1791, followed by various German states in the Napoleonic era between 1808 and 1812, Prussia in 1812, Piedmont in 1848, then Italy in 1861, England in 1858, the Habsburg Empire in 1867, and Germany after unification in 1871. On Jewish emancipation, its intellectual premises, and its consequences, see Jacob Katz, “The Term ‘Jewish Emancipation’: Its Origins and Historical Impact,” in Studies in Nineteenth-Century Jewish Intellectual History, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 1–25; id., Jewish Emancipation and Self-Emancipation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1986). — 28 —

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core of human nature. Therefore, the political authorities of the growingly centralized and homogeneous states of Enlightenment Europe, with the inspiration and support of their organic intellectuals, mostly pursued the rationalization of human life through the improvement of social, economic, and legal agencies gradually developed and employed since the Age of Religious Wars. Nevertheless, agencies such as schools, hospitals, standing armies, courts, prisons, and the legal, bureaucratic, and fiscal systems had the main function to increment the state’s power by providing the ruling elites with better tools to exercise control over the bulk of the citizens—while claiming to be beneficial to the common good and promote the emancipation of man.22 In fact, numerous advocates of republican institutions (from Rousseau to Robespierre) and most supporters of so-called Enlightened despotism (most prominently Voltaire, the German cameralists, and the French physiocrats) proposed political models that could lead man to overcome his imperfect, limited, empirical self and discover his true self. And the true self’s identity, mentality, and lifestyle were aprioristically defined in accordance with the role assigned to the new emancipated man in the context of a specific worldview and model of society. As Isaiah Berlin pointed out in his seminal essay Two Concepts of Liberty (1958), The real self may be conceived as something wider than the individual (as the term is normally understood), as a social “whole” of which the individual is an element or aspect: a tribe, a race, a Church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn. This entity is then identified as being the “true” self which, by imposing its collective, or “organic,” single will upon its recalcitrant members, achieves its own, and therefore their, “higher” freedom. […] This monstrous impersonation […] is at the heart of all political theories of self-realisation.23

22 For an analysis of the role of state-run agencies and institutions in the development of the modern state, see Zygmunt Bauman, Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987). Bauman draws on Michel Foucault’s studies on the strengthening of social control agencies (i.e., schools, hospitals, courts, jails, asylums, armies, etc.) in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. 23 Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 17–18. — 29 —

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And by “theories of self-realisation,” Berlin meant theories aimed at leading the individual to comply with his true will (i.e., the will of his true self), even though his empirical self prevents him from acknowledging such will as his own. This attitude to absorbing the individual into a homogeneous “superpersonal entity” largely characterized the eighteenth-century debate on the emancipation of man in general and on Jewish emancipation in particular. The Enlightenment projects for the emancipation of man did not allow any difference in the treatment of human beings. But in numerous cases, the differences to be eliminated also involved aspects of individual and social life that supposedly prevented human beings from achieving self-fulfillment. In fact, according to the self-realization theories of the Age of Enlightenment, self-fulfillment could be achieved only if the individual renounced, first of all, the elements of his mentality and lifestyle inconsistent with the collective will imposed in the name of a super-personal entity. And this super-personal entity was a universal, standardized humanity, integrated into a net of civil, social, and economic structures predisposed and controlled by a methodically organized, pervasive, “panoptic” political system. On this point, Ronald Schechter has brilliantly observed the following: The ideologies of Enlightenment and republicanism […] demanded that the Jews relinquish their “particularistic” belief and identity in order to achieve regeneration in the midst of a universal community, whether this was defined as an association of enlightened persons, a nation, or an empire.24 For these reasons, the combination of humanitarian and utilitarian arguments in the most significant Enlightenment projects for Jewish emancipation was not casual, but resulted from the intention to integrate the Jews into political, social, and economic frameworks that were supposed to lead mankind to true self-fulfillment—regardless of the beliefs, habits, needs, and aspirations of “empirical” human beings. In an attempt to question the predominant view of Jewish emanci24 Ronald Schechter, Obstinate Hebrews, 12. — 30 —

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pation, the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn declared in Jerusalem (1783) that if the price the Jews had to pay for emancipation was the rejection of elements of their “revealed legislation,” the Jews would prefer to renounce emancipation. But Mendelssohn’s warning was largely ignored. In fact, when applied to the Jews, the Enlightenment discourse of emancipation led to solutions endorsing their assimilation into dominant culture and society. This attitude was best expressed in the famous speech pronounced by Clermont-Tonnerre at the French National Assembly in 1789, during the debate on the eligibility of Jews for citizenship: The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals. They must be citizens. […] Every one of them must individually become a citizen; if they do not want this, they must inform us and we shall then be compelled to expel them. The existence of a nation within a nation is unacceptable to our country.25 In the end, what was granted to the Jews as individuals and citizens was the “right” to overcome their “empirical self” with its unacceptable defects: this way, they could discover their “true self,” which they had always ignored because of their culture and religion, and could therefore become, in Dohm’s words, “more useful and happier members of society.”26 Nevertheless, assimilation did not put an end to European discomfort with Jewish otherness or prevent the spread of new forms of hostility toward the Jews, following their emancipation in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as we will explain in the conclusion of this volume. Four Eighteenth-Century Projects This volume focuses on one of the “dark sides” of the Enlightenment. Our interpretation of the Enlightenment debates and projects for the 25 “The French National Assembly: Debate on the Eligibility of Jews for Citizenship, December 23, 1789,” in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, ed. Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 115. 26 Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, trans. Helen Lederer (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1957), 60. — 31 —

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emancipation of the Jews, however, is not aimed at presenting the Age of Enlightenment as a wholly “dark” period in the history of Western civilization. As various refutations of old-fashioned interpretations of the Middle Ages have thoroughly demonstrated, there are no completely “dark ages” in the history of a civilization, and there are no completely “bright ages.” This is true especially for such a complex era as the Age of Enlightenment, the impact of whose achievements and contradictions can still be felt in modern Western societies, which emerged from the Enlightenment struggles for equality and freedom. Equality and freedom are nevertheless ambiguous concepts, and can therefore lead to different results. As regards Jewish emancipation, it was not Locke’s theory of toleration or Mendelssohn’s insistence on the respect of Jewish identity that had the strongest influence on the emancipation process—in spite of Toland’s and Dohm’s borrowings from the father of liberalism and in spite of Dohm’s friendship and cooperation with the “Socrates of Berlin.” The major projects for the emancipation of the Jews, as well as the dynamics of emancipation, were conversely affected by allo-Semitic attitudes, which eventually led to the promotion, and actualization, of the assimilation of the Jews into European society and, as a side effect, to the development of new forms of anti-Jewish hostility. As has been said, this volume presents four essays on the major projects for the emancipation of the Jews in eighteenth-century Europe. Three of these projects (i.e., those of Dohm, D’Arco, and Grégoire) were published in the 1780s, in the years immediately preceding the revolutionary turmoil, while the first project (i.e., Toland’s Reasons) appeared in the context of the English philosophical, religious, and political debates in the decades following the Glorious Revolution. The four essays in this volume are the results of research done by the two authors on topics related to Jewish emancipation and Enlightenment views of Judaism. In the past few years, we also presented the results of our research in various monographs, articles, book chapters, and conference papers. Our essays focus on different aspects of those four Enlightenment projects of emancipation, in an attempt to highlight the most interesting and original elements of each of those projects. As regards Toland, his plea for the naturalization of the Jews is analyzed with regard to its structure, arguments, and motivations. Toland combined his liberal political ideas with utilitarian considerations typical of mercantilism, which played a key role in his request to naturalize — 32 —

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the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland. Our essay also describes the conditions of the Jews in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, the “Hebrew revival” in early modern England, and Toland’s unorthodox view of Mosaic Judaism in order to contextualize the Irish freethinker’s project of naturalization. Dohm’s book Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews presented the most famous and debated project for the emancipation of the Jews in the late eighteenth century. In his treatise on emancipation, Dohm openly declared that his goal was to make the Jews “more useful and happier members of society.” Our analysis illustrates the structure of Dohm’s book, his arguments in favor of emancipation, and the policies he proposed for enabling the Jews to enjoy the rights of citizens and be profitable to society and the state without causing excessive difficulties. Our essay also provides an exhaustive account of the debate on the Jews in eighteenth-century Germany, both before and after the publication of Dohm’s treatise, with special focus on the works that most influenced the then young Prussian intellectual and on the reception of his project in his country and the rest of Europe. The barrier of the language has long hindered the study of Count D’Arco’s book On the Influence of the Ghetto in the State outside of Italy. Our essay on this author aims at providing a comprehensive analysis of his considerations on the Jews, their actual and potential economic roles, and the “defects” that they needed to overcome in order to be more useful, or at least harmless, to the state. Our essay also describes the legal and social situations of the Jews in the eighteenth-century Habsburg Empire, with special focus on Lombardy and the city of Mantua, and it also examines the basic principles of D’Arco’s economic thought in order to offer a better understanding of his observations on the Jews. Grégoire’s Essay on the Physical, Moral and Political Regeneration of the Jews is the eighteenth-century project that has most attracted the attention of historians. Recent monographs on Grégoire and the emancipation of the Jews in France, such as The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall (2005) and Obstinate Hebrews by Ronald Schechter (2003), exhaustively examine the background, meaning, and objectives of Grégoire’s proposal and highlight its influence on the emancipation process during the French Revolution. The essay on Grégoire in this volume focuses on a less researched, though fundamental, element of his proposal—namely, his “diagnosis” of a de— 33 —

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generation suffered by the Jews over the centuries due to both external causes (i.e., anti-Jewish hatred and discrimination) and factors internal to Jewish culture (i.e., Jewish laws and traditional customs): a degeneration that made it necessary for the Jews to “regenerate” from their “present state” in order to be involved in, and contribute to, the development of a new model of society. Though concentrating on different aspects of those four projects for Jewish emancipation, our essays in this volume confirm the thesis advanced in this introduction. The eighteenth century was indeed the period when Gentile views of Judaism and the Jews reached the highest degree of ambiguity. And it is exactly this ambiguity that we aim at highlighting in our analysis of those four Enlightenment projects.

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———————— From Toleration to Naturalization: John Toland and the Jews ——————————



Chapter 1 From Toleration to Naturalization: John Toland and the Jews

John Toland (1670–1722) was one of the most prominent representatives of English deism and freethinking. He was “the prototype of the alienated intellectual for his period. Irish, probably bastard, classless, an enthusiast, often penniless,”1 Toland was born Catholic, but, in the course of his education in Scotland, England, and the Netherlands, he was strongly influenced by the anti-Trinitarian doctrines of Socinians and Arminians. In fact, he regarded Christ’s teaching as a rational system of ethics and, drawing on a radicalization of Locke’s way of ideas, he opposed the concept of the supernatural. He thus formulated naturalistic readings of the history of religions, and conceived of all religions, including Judaism and Christianity, as merely social and cultural phenomena, which could be explained in light of historical, anthropological, non-supernatural factors.2 1 2

Robert R. Evans, Pantheisticon: The Career of John Toland (New York: Peter Lang, 1991), 199. On Toland’s life and work, besides Evans’s Pantheisticon, see especially the following volumes: Chiara Giuntini, Panteismo e ideologia repubblicana: John Toland (1670–1722) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979); Robert E. Sullivan, John Toland and the Deist Controversy: A Study in Adaptations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982); Manlio Iofrida, La filosofia di John Toland. Spinozismo, scienza e religione nella cultura europea fra ‘600 e ‘700 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1983); Stephen H. Daniel, John Toland: His Methods, Manners, and Mind (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1984); Genevieve Brykman, ed., “John Toland (1670–1722) et la crise de la conscience européenne,” Revue de synthèse (1995), 116; Justin Champion, Republican Learning: John Toland and the Crisis of Christian Culture, 1696–1722 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); Daniel C. Fouke, Philosophy and Theology in a Burlesque Mode: John Toland and the “Way of Paradox” (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007). On Toland’s bibliography, see Giancarlo Carabelli, Tolandiana. Materiali bibliografici per lo studio dell’opera e della fortuna di John Toland (1670–1722), 2 vols. (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1975–1976). Also, it is worth examining A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Toland (2 vols., London: Peele, 1726), which includes a Life of Mr. John Toland, written by the editor of the collection, Pierre Desmaizeaux. On English deism, see especially Peter Byrne, Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion: The Legacy of Deism (London; New York: Routledge, 1989); Justin Champion, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and Its Enemies, 1660–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Frederick C. Beiser, The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); James A. Herrick, The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680–1750 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997); Diego Lucci, Scripture and Deism: The Biblical Criticism of the Eighteenth-Century British Deists (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008); Wayne Hudson, The — 35 —

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In his major works on the history of religions—namely, Christianity Not Mysterious (1696), Letters to Serena (1704), Origines Judaicae (1709), and Nazarenus (1718)—Toland combined different historical and hermeneutical methodologies. In fact, he approved of the anti-Trinitarian stigmatization of the “pagan” and “philosophical” corruptions of Christian theology. On the other hand, he reiterated Richard Simon’s and Henry Dodwell’s observations on the obscurities and interpolations characterizing the scriptures. Moreover, he borrowed from Spinoza’s hermeneutics in order to separate philosophy, politics, and science from Christian theology, ecclesiology, and biblical exegesis. His main goal was to weaken the scriptural foundations of the de jure divino institutions of church and state and therefore promote the free use of reason and the free search for truth, as well as freedom of conscience and expression.3 However, like many other radicals of his time, Toland did not […] abandon all to intellectual and religious pluralism. […] Civil society needed a didactic institution that could educate individual reason into a perception of true rationality. Reason was enshrined, for the radicals, not simply because it endowed each individual with a potential political and ethical autonomy, but because to be rational was to have achieved the highest state of human existence. True religion and reason became one and the same thing.4 In fact, Toland formulated his own philosophical system, which consisted of a form of monistic pantheism largely based on the philosophy of Spinoza, and opposed Newtonian dualism and its justification of the supernatural. For all these reasons, Toland was an “irregular” thinker in a time when Newtonianism was the predominant philosophical and scientific system, and when England was still a Christian state, for the Toleration

3 4

English Deists: Studies in Early Enlightenment (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2009); id., Enlightenment and Modernity: The English Deists and Reform (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2009); Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England: Theology, Politics, and Newtonian Public Science (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009). On Toland’s biblical hermeneutics, see Diego Lucci, Scripture and Deism, 65–133. Justin Champion, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken, 230. — 36 —

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Act of 1689 granted liberty of worship to only some groups of Protestant nonconformists and did not affect the supremacy of the Anglican Church. Toland’s heterodoxy was blatant also in his political writings. He was a republican and an ardent admirer of Harrington, Milton, and Sidney, and in his political works, especially in Anglia Libera (1701) and State Anatomy (1717), he largely borrowed from Locke’s contractarianism in order to explain the foundations, objectives, and structures of political societies. His philosophical and political rationalism led him to take position on various political and social issues, including the conditions of the Jews in England. In 1714, Toland published a pamphlet entitled Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland on the Same Foot with All Other Nations.5 The Jews had been readmitted to England in 1656, but almost sixty years later, they were still considered aliens, even though some of them were born in England. Moreover, the Toleration Act disregarded all non-Christian confessions, including Judaism. Therefore, the Jews’ legal status was extremely ambiguous, and for this reason, Toland did not appeal for mere toleration of the Jews but asked for their naturalization. Toland’s Reasons was the first Enlightenment project for Jewish 5 

See John Toland, Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland on the Same Foot with All Other Nations (London: Roberts, 1714). This book was published anonymously, but Toland’s authorship was never in doubt. The book was republished in 1939 in Paul Radin, ed., Pamphlets Relating to the Jews in England in the 17th and 18th Centuries (San Francisco: California State Library, 1939), 40–65. Moreover, two facsimile reprints of the 1714 edition were published in Jerusalem in 1964 (Hebrew University Press) and in Stuttgart in 1965 (Kohlhammer: this edition also presents a German translation of the text). The Italian and French translations of Reasons appeared both in 1998: see John Toland, Ragioni per naturalizzare gli ebrei in Gran Bretagna e Irlanda (1714), ed. Paolo Bernardini, trans. Laura Orsi, with an introductory essay by Paolo Bernardini (Florence: Giuntina, 1998); John Toland, Raisons de naturaliser les Juifs en Grande-Bretagne et en Irlande, ed. and trans. Pierre Lurbe, with an introductory essay by Pierre Lurbe (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998) (both editions also include the original English version). On Toland and the Jews, see Max Weiner, “John Toland and Judaism,” in Hebrew Union College Annual 16 (1941): 215–242; Shmuel Ettinger, “Jews and Judaism in the Eyes of the English Deists of the Eighteenth Century,” in Zion 29 (1964): 182–207 (in Hebrew); Pierre Lurbe, “John Toland and the Naturalization of the Jews,” in Eighteenth-Century Ireland 14 (1999): 37–48; Justin Champion, “Toleration and Citizenship in Enlightenment England: John Toland and the Naturalization of the Jews, 1714–1753,” in Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, ed. Ole Grell and Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 133–156; Diego Lucci, “John Toland e la cultura ebraica,” in Atti dell’Accademia di Scienze Morali e Politiche 112 (2001): 157–172; id., “Judaism and the Jews in the British Deists’ Attacks on Revealed Religion,” in Hebraic Political Studies 3, no. 2 (2008): 177–214; Jonathan Karp, “The Mosaic Republic in Augustan Politics: John Toland’s Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews,” in Hebraic Political Studies 1, no. 4 (2006): 462–492. — 37 —

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emancipation. It is an extremely interesting writing not only because it delivered a revolutionary, radical proposal, but also because it combined humanitarian and utilitarian arguments, thus proving that in the Age of Enlightenment the plans for Jewish emancipation often expressed more general conceptions of the relationships between the state and particular groups. This essay revolves around Toland’s proposal, its background, and its meaning. The analysis of Toland’s Reasons gives us an opportunity to examine the context in which the Irish philosopher’s project for Jewish naturalization originated, with special focus on the atmosphere surrounding the resettlement of the Jews in mid-seventeenth-century England, the “Hebrew revival” in early modern Europe and England, Toland’s interpretation of Mosaic Judaism, and the issue of naturalization in Enlightenment England. The Jews in England The first Jews to settle in England, in the year 1070, were Sephardic merchants and moneylenders from Rouen, who followed William I four years after the Norman conquest of the kingdom. Under the Norman and Plantagenet monarchs, medieval Anglo-Jewry acquired a quite prominent role in the financial activities of London, and smaller communities formed in other cities of Southern England. Jewish businessmen were particularly active: they rivaled with other foreign traders and bankers, especially Italians from Lombardy and Tuscany, and supported their community, which, in the two centuries between 1070 and the expulsion of 1290, amounted to an estimated three thousand individuals. Nonetheless, the Jewish community was never integrated into English society, not only because of the numerous prohibitions imposed on the Jews by canon law (particularly after the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215), but also because of the hostility shown to them by large parts of the population. At first, the Jews were perceived as exotic strangers who spoke French and enjoyed the favor and protection of the new rulers. But numerous preachers, especially Franciscan friars, and the religious zeal surrounding the preparations for the Crusades contributed to deepening the divide between the Jews and the rest of the population. As a result, a number of anti-Judaic prejudices spread among the English population and also contributed to exacerbating the relationships be-

— 38 —

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tween Anglo-Jewry and the political authorities.6 The thirteenth century was indeed a time of persecution for the Jews of England. Numerous unfortunate events, including the proclamation of a Statute of the Jewry in 1275, led to the gradual weakening of the Jewish community.7 In the end, the Jewish community, limited in its activities by traditional and new limitations, became a useless burden for England. Thus, after gradually depriving the Jews of their properties, Edward I expelled them in 1290. Officially, the Jews were absent from England for almost four centuries after the expulsion. Nevertheless, in a virtually Judenrein England, anti-Jewish prejudices—especially those related to usury and the blood libel—remained deep-rooted and were echoed in masterpieces of Elizabethan literature such as Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.8 In the Tudor era, England was, however, only nominally Judenrein. In fact, a small community of crypto-Jews, who were officially Catholic subjects of Spain and worked as agents of firms based in Spanish or Portuguese territories, formed in London well before the readmission.9 6

7

8

9

On the history of medieval Anglo-Jewry, see Henry G. Richardson, The English Jewry under Angevin Kings (London: Methuen, 1960); Harold Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982), 15–22. On the friars’ contribution to the spread of anti-Jewish prejudices, see Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982). The blood libel was particularly common in medieval England: the Jews were accused of ritual murder on numerous occasions, and the cases of William of Norwich in 1144 and Hugh of Lincoln in 1255 played a crucial role in the diffusion of this accusation in all Europe. Pogroms were common too, especially when a crusade was called: the most striking incident occurred in York in 1190, when the crusaders and the local population massacred the whole Jewish community. On anti-Semitism in England from the Middle Ages to the modern era, see a recent and comprehensive study: Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) (on medieval England, see 105–147). The Statute of the Jewry, issued by Edward I, forbade the Jews to practice banking and granted them permission to engage in commerce, although the exclusion from the guild merchant significantly limited them in this activity. The statute, therefore, prevented the Jews from earning a living at all, under the conditions of life existing in medieval England. As a result, numerous Jews resorted to illegal activities, and this further worsened the relationships between the Jewish community and the authorities. The Shakespearean figure of Shylock significantly contributed to perpetuating the stereotype of the Jew as a crafty, evil, and bloodthirsty usurer. On representations of the Jews in early modern English literature, see James S. Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora, 148–241. On the Jewish presence, and anti-Jewish stereotypes, in England from 1290 to 1656, see Albert M. Hyamson, The Sephardim of England: A History of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community, 1492–1951 (London: Methuen, 1951); Bernard Glassman, Anti-Semitic Stereotypes without Jews: — 39 —

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The Jews were eventually readmitted to England under Cromwell in 1656. As historian David Katz pointed out in his brilliant book PhiloSemitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England (1982), in the first half of the seventeenth century, a large circulation of millenarian theories in English society led to a new interest in the Jewish people and eventually favored readmission.10 The Second Coming of Christ was believed to be imminent and would lead to a new era of peace and justice in a time when both England and continental Europe were afflicted by seemingly never-ending conflicts fueled by religious divergences. The expectations of the millennium involved, in various ways, contemporary Jews. The dispersion of the Jews in the four corners of the world was largely considered to be the last sign preceding Judgment Day: keeping the Jews out of England would thus be of hindrance to the Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, the readmission of the Jews (matched, in some cases, by their conversion to Christianity) was regarded as a catalyst for the Second Coming.11 The millenarian tendencies of the seventeenth century also prompted a search for original purity, namely, for the innocence of mankind before the banishment from the Garden of Eden. Numerous philologists and intellectuals—including John Donne, John Milton, and the natural philosopher John Wilkins—engaged in a debate around the original language, which lasted from the 1640s to the 1660s. Following the Christian rediscovery of Hebrew, which resulted from a renewed scholarly interest in Jewish law and traditions, Judaism was considered by many to be the language spoken by Adam in the earthly heaven and thus by mankind before the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues.12 Also, the long-lasting debate on the origins of the Native Americans contributed to the readmission of the Jews to England. The discovery Images of the Jews in England, 1290–1700 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975); David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England, 1485–1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 15–106; Eliane Glaser, Judaism without Jews: Philosemitism and Christian Polemic in Early Modern England (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007). 10 See David S. Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603–1655 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). See also Diego Lucci, “Tendenze filosemite nella cultura inglese del Seicento,” in La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 68, no. 2 (2002): 19–41. 11 On philo-Semitic millenarianism in seventeenth-century England, see David S. Katz, PhiloSemitism, 9–43, 89–126; id., Sabbath and Sectarianism in Seventeenth-Century England (Leiden: Brill, 1988); Ariel Hessayon, Gold Tried in the Fire: The Prophet TheaurauJohn Tany and the English Revolution (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 12 See David S. Katz, Philo-Semitism, 43–88. — 40 —

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of the Americas was a traumatic event for Europe, as it entailed the encounter with people whose existence had been unknown to Europeans of that time. Since early modern theories of the origins of mankind were largely inspired by the Bible, it was necessary to find a place in biblical anthropologies for the newly discovered peoples. Therefore, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, a theory spread that the peoples of the New World descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, which had disappeared from the biblical account after the deportation of the Jews to Assyria in 720 BCE and, according to this theory, had later crossed the straits between Asia and North America. This solution allowed for the conversion of the Amerinds to Christianity, and also confirmed the idea that the dispersion of the Jews in the whole world would facilitate the Second Coming.13 The opinion that the Jews needed to be settled in all the corners of the globe in order to make the coming of the Messiah possible led the Dutch rabbi Menasseh ben Israel to propose the readmission of the Jews to the English authorities.14 In 1655, Menasseh traveled to England and submitted to the Lord Protector a proposal entitled Humble Addresses, in which he also took into account the benefits that a readmission of the Jews could bring to the English economy. In an attempt to demonstrate 13 Only a few Hebrew sources mention the lost tribes: an apocryphal writing of the first century CE, the Fourth Book of Ezra, narrates that the lost tribes dispersed in Asia, beyond the Euphrates River, and declares that their rediscovery would be a sign of the Messiah’s coming. In the Talmud, the Mishnah Treatise Sanhedrin mentions the lost tribes, while the ninth-century merchant and travel writer Eldad ha-Dani asserted that during his alleged travels, he met the descendents of the ten tribes in several remote areas of Asia, where they had formed independent states. On the lost tribes and the debate on the origins of the Amerinds, see David S. Katz, Philo-Semitism, 127–157; Anna Foa, “Il popolo nascosto. Il mito delle Tribù perdute d’Israele tra messianismo ebraico ed Apocalissi cristiana (XVI–XVII secolo),” in Itinerari ebraico-cristiani. Società, cultura, mito, ed. Anna Foa and Anna Morisi (Fasano: Schena, 1987), 129–160. 14 On Menasseh ben Israel and his mission to England, see Lucien Wolf, Menasseh ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell (London: Macmillan, 1901); Cecil Roth, A Life of Menasseh ben Israel, Rabbi, Printer, and Diplomat (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America), 1934; David S. Katz, Philo-Semitism, 107–132; Richard H. Popkin, Yosef Kaplan, and Henry Méchoulan, eds., Menasseh ben Israel and His World (Leiden: Brill, 1989); Lionel Ifrah, L’aigle d’Amsterdam: Menasseh ben Israël (1604–1657) (Paris: Champion, 2001). Before moving to England, Menasseh wrote a treatise, Esperança de Israel (1650), in which he presented the theory that the first people who had settled in the Americas were the descendents of the lost tribes of Israel. This writing was also published in English in 1652 and was dedicated to the Parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Council of State of England: see Menasseh ben Israel, The Hope of Israel, in Lucien Wolf, Menasseh ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell, 1–72. This text was republished in the 1980s: see Menasseh ben Israel, The Hope of Israel, ed. Henry Méchoulan and Gérard Nahon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). — 41 —

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that readmitting the Jews would be not only harmless but even convenient for the English people, the Dutch rabbi divided his plea into two sections, respectively entitled “How Profitable the Nation of the Jewes are” and “How Faithfull the Nation of the Jewes Are.”15 On the other hand, he did not conceal his messianic expectations, which were shared by numerous members of the Puritan establishment. In December 1655, Cromwell convened the Whitehall Conference in order to evaluate the possibility to readmit the Jews to England.16 The most prominent merchants, lawyers, and clergymen of the time took part in the conference, and although Cromwell was in favor of readmission, the participants ultimately divided into three main factions: the merchants were against readmission because of their fear of economic competition, and they were backed by various clergymen opposing toleration for non-Christians; Cromwell’s men favored the resettlement of the Jews on the basis of both messianic ideals and the consideration of the benefits that the English economy would have gained from their readmission; and finally, various millenarian leaders supported the readmission project, as they aimed at hastening the Second Coming and, in some cases, at converting the Jews. Menasseh ben Israel’s mission to England and the works of the conference raised such a clamor that a number of anti-Semitic writings were published, leading the public opinion and the financial elites of London to oppose the readmission project. The harshest anti-Semitic pamphlet of the time was A Short Demurrer to the Jewes Long Discontinued Remitter into England (1656) by William Prynne, one of the most radical and intolerant Puritan leaders. Prynne’s pamphlet reiterated some of the most infamous anti-Jewish accusations and prompted Menasseh to write an apologetic essay, Vindiciae Judaeorum, in which the rabbi tried to refute the most widespread and durable prejudices against the Jews.17 In the end, the Whitehall Conference reached no conclusion as to 15 See Menasseh ben Israel, To His Highnesse the Lord Protector of the Common-wealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland: The Humble Addresses of Menasseh ben Israel (1655), in Lucien Wolf, Menasseh ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell, 73–104. 16 On the conference of Whitehall and the subsequent debate, see David S. Katz, Philo-Semitism, 205–224. 17 Vindiciae Judaeorum (1656) was republished in Lucien Wolf, Menasseh ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell, 105–148. This treatise was translated into German by Moses Mendelssohn (Rettung der Juden, Berlin, Welt-Verlag, 1782) and is also available in a French edition (Justice pour les Juifs, ed. Lionel Ifrah, Paris, Cerf, 1995). — 42 —

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whether Jewish readmission should be carried out, but invalidated the Edict of Expulsion of 1290, which was a royal decree, not a parliamentary act. Meanwhile, the debate on Jewish readmission led to the discovery of the small crypto-Jewish community residing in London and consisting, at the time, of thirty to forty families. After being unmasked, this community of Sephardim came to be in a very difficult position. Therefore, under the leadership of the rich and influential merchant Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, the Jews of London presented a petition to Cromwell, who finally assured Carvajal of the right of his coreligionists to remain in England. The Jews were thus “unofficially” readmitted to England. In the following decades, Jews coming from continental Europe settled in London and other cities in Southern England, where they engaged mainly in financial activities. They were mostly brokers, bankers, merchants, and agents of commercial firms based in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Leghorn, Venice, and other cities that officially tolerated the Jews. Their number grew to around eight hundred in 1695 and around two thousand twenty years later. This increase was mainly due to the fact that, from the 1690s on, also Ashkenazi Jews migrated to England.18 The growth of their number led the Jews of England to perfect the organization of their communities and to appoint a renowned Italian rabbi, David Nieto, as the haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community of London in 1700, the same year when a rich Sephardic merchant, Solomon de Medina, was knighted.19 18 A vast bibliography exists on the history of modern Anglo-Jewry: see especially Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Georgian England, 1714–1830 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979); id., The Jews of Britain, 1656 to 2000 (Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 2002); Vivian D. Lipman, A History of the Jews in Britain since 1858 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990); David Cesarani, ed., The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); Geoffrey Alderman, Modern British Jewry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Tony Kushner, ed., The Jewish Heritage in British History: Englishness and Jewishness (London: Cass, 1992); David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England; Raphael Langham, The Jews in Britain: A Chronology (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora, 242–440. 19 Nieto’s leadership strongly contributed to giving new visibility to the young Jewish community of England. A prolific writer and polymath, Nieto was one of the most accomplished Jewish intellectuals of his time and earned the sympathy of rationalist philosophers and Whig politicians for his aversion to any form of religious extremism and fanaticism. In fact, he frequently attacked the Catholic Inquisition and the “Shabbethaian heresy.” On Nieto, see Jakob J. Petuchowski, The Theology of Haham David Nieto: An Eighteenth-Century Defense of the Jewish Tradition (New York: Ktav, 1954); David B. Ruderman, “A Jewish Thinker in Newtonian England: David Nieto and His Defense of the Jewish Faith,” in id., Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 310–331; id., Connecting the Covenants: Judaism and the — 43 —

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Despite the respect earned by various Jewish businessmen and intellectuals of the time, the legal status of Anglo-Jewry in the early eighteenth century was still vague. After the Restoration, the Jews were allowed to stay in England by Charles II, and this decision was confirmed by the king’s approval of three petitions in 1664, 1674, and 1685. However, no official document was ever issued to define the status of the Jews in England—not even after the Glorious Revolution toleration for the Jews was asserted by a legal document. On the contrary, the Toleration Act of 1689 excluded the Jews from toleration, as it only granted freedom of worship, but not civic equality, to a limited number of confessions—namely, to Christian confessions that were both Protestant and Trinitarian. The provisions of the Toleration Act indeed aimed at excluding Catholics and anti-Trinitarians from toleration, while nonChristian religions were not taken into account at all. Briefly, the political authorities preferred to ignore the existence of a Jewish community in England. On the other hand, numerous conservative intellectuals, including such prominent scholars as Humphrey Prideaux and Edward Stillingfleet, frequently labeled Jews and Muslims as enemies of the Christian state in an attempt to point out the similarities between Unitarian or deistic beliefs and some Jewish or Islamic traditions. Moreover, “Jews, Moors, Infidels and Heretics” were still perceived as exotic and dangerous figures by the bulk of the population, and myths of the past, such as the “wandering Jew” and the ritual murder of Christian children, still affected popular imagination and contributed to perpetuating Judeophobic prejudices in England.20 The “Hebrew Revival” in England: the Cultural Background of Toland’s Reasons The seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries also saw the spread of a strong scholarly interest in Judaism, Jewish history, and the Old Testament. It must nevertheless be remembered that in seventeenth-century Search for Christian Identity in Eighteenth-Century England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 11–19. On the Jewish Enlightenment in England, see id., Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry’s Construction of Modern Jewish Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). On Medina, see Oskar K. Rabinowicz, Sir Solomon Medina (London: Jewish Historical Society of Great Britain, 1974). 20 On anti-Jewish stereotypes in England after the readmission, see Frank Felsenstein, Anti-Semitic Stereotypes: A Paradigm of Otherness in English Popular Culture, 1660–1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995). — 44 —

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Europe, a particular interest in Jewish culture did not necessarily imply sympathetic attitudes to “real” Jews. In fact, the scholarly debates involving Jewish sources took place among Christian intellectuals who, for the most part, had never met a Jew and were anything but “philo-Semites.” The study of Jewish law and traditions emerged prominently in England in the three decades preceding the readmission of the Jews. The “Hebrew revival” of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a Pan-European phenomenon, which involved especially, but not only, Protestant scholars in the Netherlands, Northern Germany, and the British Isles. But it was in England that the “Hebrew revival” reached its apex. On this point, Eric Nelson has observed in his brilliant volume The Hebrew Republic (2010): Such eminences as Edward Lively, Henry Ainsworth, John Lightfoot, Edward Pococke, Thomas Coleman, John Spencer, and, of course, John Selden, produced works of Hebraic learning that matched (and sometimes surpassed) the high standards set by their Dutch and German predecessors. The Hebrew revival transformed European literature and criticism, medicine and science, theology and ecclesiology, and philosophy and law.21 In 1647, Selden prompted the parliament to buy a collection of Hebrew books for the library of Cambridge University. In seventeenthcentury England, the Hebrew language and Jewish traditions were taught at both Oxford and Cambridge, and the knowledge of the Old Testament and ancient Jewish history played a fundamental role in the education of English lawyers and theologians: this is also demonstrated by the publication of works such as the Polyglot Bible and Alexander Ross’s Pansebeia, as well as by numerous references to ancient Judaism in the writings of thinkers belonging to different currents of Anglicanism (i.e., latitudinarianism, Cambridge Platonism, Unitarianism, etc.).22 21 Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 16. On the Hebrew revival in early modern Europe, see also Frank E. Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism through Christian Eyes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); Abraham Melamed, “The Revival of Christian Hebraism in Early Modern Europe,” in Philosemitism in History, ed. Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 49–66. 22 See Alexander Ross, Pansebeia, or a View of All Religions in the World (London: Young, 1653); Brian — 45 —

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Moreover, the works of Selden and his colleagues on Jewish philosophy, law, and politics had a significant impact on seventeenth-century English political thought, most prominently on James Harrington’s republicanism and Thomas Hobbes’s view of the political system of the ancient Jews.23 In fact, in The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656), Harrington depicted the “Commonwealth of Israel” as a republican government ruled by rational laws, while the third part of Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) presented the ancient Jewish state as a form of government headed by God and therefore characterized by equality among the subjects.24 The widespread interest in Jewish culture in seventeenth-century England led to the publication of numerous works on Judaism and Jewish history in the early decades of the following century. In 1708, the monumental Histoire des Juifs by the Huguenot writer Jacques Basnage, first published in Rotterdam in 1706, was translated into English and published in London.25 Basnage’s work, covering Jewish history from the Walton, ed., Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, 6 vols. (London: Roycroft, 1655–1657). On latitudinarianism, Cambridge Platonism, and Unitarianism, their borrowings from Jewish culture, and their impact on English religious thought, see Herbert J. McLachlan, Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England (London: Oxford University Press, 1951); Earl M. Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism in Transylvania, England and America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952); Justin Champion, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken; Martin I. J. Griffin, Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England (Leiden: Brill, 1992); William M. Spellman, The Latitudinarians and the Church of England, 1660–1700 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1993); Sarah Hutton, “Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the Cambridge Platonists,” in British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Stuart Brown (London: Routledge, 1996), 20–42; Mario Micheletti, Dai latitudinari a Hume. Saggi sul pensiero religioso britannico dei secoli XVII e XVIII (Perugia: Benucci, 1997); Stephen D. Snobelen, “‘To Us There Is but One God, the Father’: Antitrinitarian Textual Criticism in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England,” in Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England, ed. Ariel Hessayon and Nicholas Keene (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 116–136; Sarah Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 23 On Selden, see Paul Christianson, Discourse on History, Law and Governance in the Public Career of John Selden, 1610–1635 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996); Sergio Caruso, La miglior legge del Regno. Consuetudine, diritto naturale e contratto nel pensiero e nell’epoca di John Selden (1584–1654) (Milan: Giuffré, 2001). 24 On the theme of theocracy in the works of Selden, Harrington, and Hobbes, see Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic, 88–137. For an excellent critical edition of The Commonwealth of Oceana, see James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana and A System of Politics, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). On the theme of the “Hebrew Republic” in seventeenth-century Europe, besides Eric Nelson’s book, see Jonathan Karp, The Politics of Jewish Commerce: Economic Thought and Emancipation in Europe, 1638–1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 43–66; Adam Sutcliffe, “The Philosemitic Moment? Judaism and Republicanism in Seventeenth-Century European Thought,” in Philosemitism in History, ed. Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe, 67–90. 25 See Jacques Basnage, The History of the Jews, ed. Thomas Taylor (London: Beaver and Lintot, — 46 —

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time of Christ to the early modern era, aims at demonstrating the truth of the Christian religion and is therefore characterized by an eschatological interpretation of the history of the Jews, whose sufferings are explained in accordance with a providentialist view of human history. The English editor of Basnage’s work, Thomas Taylor, pointed out that the dispersion and persecutions suffered by the Jews were a clear warning to the deists and other enemies of Christianity to discard their beliefs and convert. However, Basnage’s Histoire des Juifs is also characterized by a spirit of toleration inspired to the original principles of Protestantism and aimed at supporting the Huguenot writer’s anti-Catholic polemic. Basnage considered his work as “a supplement and continuation of the History of Josephus.” An English translation of Flavius Josephus’s work, enriched by the notes of John Willes and John Hudson and numerous maps and illustrations, appeared in 1702.26 The early eighteenth century also saw the publication of various books on Jewish rites, ceremonies, and traditions written by Jewish scholars. Historia de’ riti Hebraici by the Italian rabbi Leon Modena (1637) appeared in English in 1707, along with some writings of Richard Simon on ancient Judaism and the Karaites.27 Moreover, Isaac Abendana, who taught Hebrew at Cambridge and Oxford, published his Discourses on the Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity of the Jews in 1706 and, in a new edition, in 1709.28 While Leon Modena focused especially on religious ceremonies, rites, and traditions, Abendana aimed at providing the English reader with a clear account of Jewish laws and procedures in both civil and religious matters, 1708). On Basnage, see Myriam Yardeni, “New Concepts of Post-Commonwealth Jewish History in the Early Enlightenment: Bayle and Basnage,” in European Studies Review 7 (1977): 245–258; Lester A. Segal, “Jacques Basnage de Beauval’s ‘Histoire des Juifs’: Christian Historiographical Perceptions of Jewry and Judaism on the Eve of the Enlightenment,” in Hebrew Union College Annual 74 (1983): 303–324; Gerald Cerny, Theology, Politics, and Letters at the Crossroads of European Civilization: Jacques Basnage and the Baylean Huguenot Refugees in the Dutch Republic (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987); Myriam Silvera, “L’ebreo in Jacques Basnage: apologia del cristianesimo e difesa della tolleranza,” in Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres 7, no. 1 (1987): 103–115; ead., “Un contributo alla ricognizione delle fonti de ‘L’Histoire des Juifs’ di Jacques Basnage: la lettura de ‘Las excelencias de los Hebreos’ di Ysaac Cardoso,” in Storia della Storiografia 21 (1992): 65–90. 26 See Flavius Josephus, The Works of Flavius Josephus, trans. Roger L’Estrange (London: Sare, 1702). 27 See Leon Modena, The History of the Present Jews, throughout the World (London: Powell, 1707). On Leon Modena, see David Malkiel, ed., The Lion Shall Roar: Leone Modena and His World (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2002). 28 See Isaac Abendana, Discourse on the Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity of the Jews (London: Ballard, 1706). On Abendana, see David S. Katz, “The Abendana Brothers and the Christian Hebraists of Seventeenth-Century England,” in Journal of Ecclesiastical History 40 (1989): 28–52. — 47 —

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and he attempted to show that Jewish law was characterized by rigor, rationality, and discipline. Other important works on Jewish history and traditions appeared in England in the years following the publication of Toland’s Reasons (1714). An English translation of Abraham Jagel’s Lekah Tob (Venice, 1587), entitled The Jews’ Catechism, was published in London in 1721. Moreover, Anglia Judaica by D’Blossiers Tovey, the first impartial work on the history of the Jews in England, appeared in Oxford in 1738. Tovey’s sympathetic interpretation of Jewish history is combined with a doctrine of religious toleration based on Locke’s political thought. In fact, Tovey aimed at proving that the scriptures and other Jewish religious texts clearly demonstrate that Judaism does not harm the civil peace and can therefore be permitted.29 The years following the publication of Reasons were indeed characterized by long-lasting and often harsh debates on the scriptures and the history of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The attempts of deists and freethinkers such as Toland and Anthony Collins to formulate demystified interpretations of the biblical text prompted numerous Anglican writers to defend the traditional, eschatological, supersessionist reading of the scriptures and thus to reassert the consistency between the two testaments. The most famous defense of the Bible from the deists’ attacks was Humphrey Prideaux’s The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations (1716–1718). In this two-volume work, Prideaux tried to connect the two testaments by narrating the history, and decline, of the Jewish people until the coming of Christ, who, in Prideaux’s opinion, had delivered his message to people deprived of political power and weakened in their faith. Another author who attacked the Jews’ alleged “impiety” and aversion to Christianity was the Newtonian scholar William Whiston. In An Essay towards Restoring the True Text of the Old Testament (1722), Newton’s disciple maintained that, in an attempt to contradict the New Testament, some Jewish scholars had deliberately corrupted the Old Testament passages concerning the Messiah in the traditional Masoretic Hebrew text of the Bible. The freethinker Anthony Collins rejoined Whiston in A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Reli29 Tovey’s treatise was republished in 1990: see D’Blossiers Tovey, Anglia Judaica, or, A History of the Jews in England, ed. Elizabeth Pearl (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990). — 48 —

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gion (1724). Collins maintained that the authors of the New Testament did not refer to Old Testament prophecies “in their true literal sense,” but “in an allegorical sense.” However, Collins pointed out that the allegorical method had spread among the Jews long after the writing of the Old Testament books. Therefore, the New Testament was essentially unrelated to Old Testament prophecies, which were not intended by their authors, but were read into the text by those who lived in New Testament times. Collins ultimately tried to prove that neither literal nor allegorical interpretations can find a coherent agreement between the two parts of scripture.30 The Whiston-Collins debate, which involved numerous scholars and continued well beyond Collins’s death in 1729, was only an episode in the so-called deist controversy, which mostly revolved around the deists’ views of the scriptures and the Judeo-Christian tradition. While one of the most successful deistic books of the eighteenth century—namely, The Religion of Nature Delineated (1722) by the Hebraist William Wollaston—presented Judaism as the positive religion most consistent with the law of nature, the so-called Christian deists Matthew Tindal, Thomas Chubb, Thomas Morgan, and Peter Annet focused especially on the moral character of Christ’s teachings. These authors combined Herbert of Cherbury’s doctrine of natural religion as a set of ethical principles with the Unitarians’ rejection of Christ’s divinity. The Christian deists, thus, interpreted Christ’s message as a mere reaffirmation of the law of nature, which every human being can comprehend, independent of any revelation. As a result, in the works of Tindal and his epigones, original Christianity is viewed as a form of natural religion, and the Christian revelation is presented as secondary, and thus superfluous, if compared with the universal and sufficient religion of nature. But while Tindal portrayed Judaism and other ancient religions as originally characterized by the essentials of natural religion, Morgan and Annet held Judaism in contempt and disconnected the Old Testament from the New.31 30 On the Whiston-Collins controversy, see Henning G. Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World (London: SCM Press, 1984), 362–369; Stephen D. Snobelen, “The Argument over Prophecy: An Eighteenth-Century Debate between William Whiston and Anthony Collins,” in Lumen 15 (1996): 195–213; David B. Ruderman, Connecting the Covenants, 51–76; Diego Lucci, Scripture and Deism, 148–169; id., “Judaism and the Jews,” 198–200. 31 On Wollaston and Jewish culture, see Alexander Altmann, “William Wollaston (1659–1724), English Deist and Rabbinic Scholar,” in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 16 (1951): 185–211; Diego Lucci, “Judaism and Natural Religion in the Philosophy of William Wol— 49 —

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Biblical criticism was thus “imported” to England by heterodox and deist thinkers who aimed at debunking the scriptural foundations of the de jure divino institutions of the church and the Christian state but eventually also helped the development of Bible interpretation in the Anglican milieus: Collation of existing manuscripts, comparisons of translations, weighing of alternate readings: all of these were the Renaissance and Roman Catholic tools of textual analysis which were beginning to be applied on the Continent to the sacred text and with great result. But in England, such studies seemed to strike at the heart of the Protestant religion itself, and it was not until the 1750s, when Benjamin Kennicott began to collate medieval manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament, that biblical criticism can be said to have become almost respectable in England.32 Briefly, as Justin Champion has observed, the development of biblical criticism in England resulted from an ideological and cultural battle: “Criticism” was the product of a battle over rival processes of cultural authentification. “Criticism” was not a discourse used solely by the heterodox against the status quo, but a resource constructed and competed for by different interests.33 laston,” in British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 30, no. 3 (2007): 363–387. On Tindal’s and his epigones’ attitudes to Judaism, see id., “Judaism and the Jews,” 200–212. As regards Tindal and his influence on the following generations of deists, see Stephen Lalor, Matthew Tindal, Freethinker: An Eighteenth-Century Assault on Religion (London: Continuum, 2006); Diego Lucci, Scripture and Deism, 135–214. 32 David S. Katz, “Isaac Vossius and the English Biblical Critics,” in Scepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Richard H. Popkin and Arjo Vanderjagt (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 170–171. On biblical criticism in Enlightenment England, see especially Mario Sina, L’avvento della ragione: “reason” e “above reason” dal razionalismo teologico inglese al deismo (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1976); Henning G. Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World; Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 27–53, 241–258; Ariel Hessayon and Nicholas Keene, eds., Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England; David B. Ruderman, Connecting the Covenants; Diego Lucci, Scripture and Deism. 33 Justin Champion, “Introduction” to John Toland, Nazarenus, ed. Justin Champion (Oxford: Vol— 50 —

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And that “cultural battle” led to the progress of biblical hermeneutics in England and favored the publication of very accurate writings on the scriptures and Jewish traditions. In fact, Augustin Calmet’s famous Dictionnaire Historique de la Bible (1722), mainly dealing with the customs of the ancient Jews, was translated into English in 1732. However, the most original contribution to the advancement of biblical and Judaic studies in eighteenth-century England was given by the works of the Hebraist and philologist Benjamin Kennicott, who emphasized the necessity of a proper competence in philology and the need for historical references in interpreting the biblical text. On the other hand, Kennicott still approved a prejudice deep-rooted in the English academic milieus— that is, the theory that the Jews misinterpreted the scriptures and thus rejected Christ’s message because some medieval Jews had intentionally corrupted the biblical text in order to disprove the New Testament.34 In conclusion, Kennicott’s view of “real” Jews, which echoed Prideaux’s and Whiston’s contemptuous opinion of the Jewish religion and the Jewish people as well, further proves that some of the leading figures of the “Hebrew revival” in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England were all but “philo-Semites.” Nevertheless, various interesting writings on toleration of the Jews appeared in early modern England. Toleration of the Jews: The Models and Sources of Toland’s Reasons Toland’s view of the relationships between political authorities and Jewish communities was influenced not only by the “Hebrew revival,” but also by some of the best-known seventeenth-century writings on religious toleration, focusing especially on the Jews. In Reasons, Toland makes reference to the Discorso circa il stato de gl’Hebrei (Discourse concerning the Condition of the Jews, 1638) by the Venetian rabbi Simone Luzzatto. Nevertheless, in spite of the significant role played by Luzzatto’s work in shaping Toland’s view of contemporary Jews, other influences on Reasons need to be taken into account. In fact, Toland had good knowledge of Sir Josiah Child’s mercantilist taire Foundation, 1999), 49. 34 See Benjamin Kennicott, Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum variis lectionibus, 2 vols. (Oxford: Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1776–1780). — 51 —

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doctrines, John Locke’s theory of toleration, and James Harrington’s republican utopianism, and he was probably acquainted with the work of Menasseh ben Israel, whose writings were well-known in England. Although these authors belonged to different intellectual and cultural traditions, Toland managed to harmonize their views on toleration in his plea for the naturalization of the Jews. Child’s mercantilism, Locke’s liberal thought, and Harrington’s egalitarianism are indeed the bases of many of Toland’s arguments in favor of naturalization, while various motifs of Jewish apologetics, present in the works of Simone Luzzatto and Menasseh ben Israel, are echoed in Toland’s pamphlet. Sir Josiah Child served as the governor of the East India Company in the 1680s and was one of the most respected economists of late-seventeenth-century England. His reputation as an economist rests on his New Discourse of Trade, published in 1693 but drafted before 1669. Although he tried to restrict competition to the trade of the East India Company in Asia, Child regarded the free market as beneficial to the national economy when practiced within the borders of England. For this reason, he aimed at refuting the theory that allowing foreigners, especially Jews, to practice trade in England would weaken the country and gradually deprive the English people of their wealth. A whole chapter of Child’s New Discourse of Trade is devoted to the issue of the naturalization of the Jews and the refutation of anti-Jewish prejudices.35 Child pointed out that the merchants and bankers of the City used to accuse the Jews of being cunning, astute, and able to engage in any sort of trade: for this reason, the English merchants particularly feared Jewish competition. Moreover, according to many English traders, Jewish competition was extremely dangerous because the Jews, whose moderate lifestyle was well-known, did not aim at gaining huge profits from their trades. Finally, most English merchants used to assert that the Jews would not contribute to the national economy because they would bring their riches with them when moving to other countries. To these objections, Child answered that enriching the nation was more important than defending a small portion of the English people (namely, the merchants) from Jewish competition. The Jews and their trades could indeed contribute to expanding and improving the national economy and could therefore bring significant ben35 See Josiah Child, A New Discourse of Trade (London: Everingham, 1693), 122–127. On Child’s “philo-Semitic” arguments, see David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England, 175–177. — 52 —

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efits to the English people as a whole. Moreover, Child invited his fellow countrymen to follow the Jews’ example and therefore moderate their lifestyle. Finally, Child maintained that numerous Jewish businessmen had settled in England with their families and meant to spend the rest of their lives there. And if England offered them the freedom and security that their coreligionists could enjoy in the Netherlands and some Italian states, those Jews would do even more to enrich themselves and consequently their host country. To Child, the law of nature teaches that all men are equal and therefore must have the same rights in spite of religious differences. Naturalization was thus the solution to various problems entailed by the presence of different religious groups in a country. Conversely, “bare connivance” in matters of religion, which placed the tolerated minorities at a disadvantage in almost all civil capacities, led those minorities to live in the continual fear of persecution or expulsion, therefore making them unable to properly contribute to the wealth of a country and making them disloyal to the political authorities and potentially dangerous to society. In his book, Child mentioned numerous countries where the Jews lived a safe and fruitful life: he particularly praised various German states, the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, Venice, and other Italian states. However, he did not clarify the differences between a proper naturalization, implying the conferring of all civil and political rights, and the toleration policies applied in those countries, where the Jews were still a discriminated, though not persecuted, minority. Also, Locke’s writings on toleration could be properly used to request the naturalization of the Jews and other religious minorities. In A Letter concerning Toleration (1689), Locke maintains that the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate reaches only to the civil rights (i.e., life, property, and freedom); and as regards religious matters, he infers the following conclusion from his concept of political power: All Civil Power, Right and Dominion, is bounded and confined to the only care of promoting these things; and […] it neither can nor ought in any manner to be extended to the Salvation of Souls.36

36 John Locke, A Letter concerning Toleration, ed. James H. Tully (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), 26. — 53 —

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On the other hand, Locke tries to defend the political society from ecclesiastical interference in state affairs: The end of a religious society […] is the public worship of God and, by means thereof, the acquisition of eternal life. All discipline ought, therefore, to tend to that end, and all ecclesiastical laws to be thereunto confined. Nothing ought nor can be transacted in this society relating to the possession of civil and worldly goods.37 Locke’s theory of toleration, focusing on the separation between state and church, implied religious freedom for all the individuals and groups whose practices did not violate the civil law. However, naturalization was a more complex issue than mere toleration, for it entailed not only the granting of freedom of worship to religious minorities, but also the conferring of civil rights to aliens. Toland, thus, employed a Lockean approach to the issue of religious toleration in order to support his plea for naturalization—that is, for the integration of people who had not only a different religion but also different ethnic origins into English economic, political and social life. Naturalization would indeed allow the Jews to practice not only their traditional activities (i.e., trade and banking), but also agriculture, which, according to a widespread prejudice, the Jews traditionally refrained from. On this point, Toland drew on Harrington’s observations on the ancient Jews. To Harrington, the ancient Jews were not only governed by a rational, republican, and egalitarian political system, but were also engaged in numerous occupations, including agriculture. Therefore, if they were relieved from all the obligations and prohibitions traditionally imposed upon them, they would certainly restart to practice agriculture and other activities that they had been forced to abandon. Conversely, as both Harrington and Toland pointed out, an accentuation of the Jews’ mercantile “vocation,” excluding agriculture and other professions linked to the land, would also inspire suspicion in the rulers about the Jews’ attachment to the host country.38 37 Ibid., 30. On Locke’s view of the Jews, see Nibil I. Matar, “John Locke and the Jews,” in Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993): 45–62; Raffaele Russo, “Locke and the Jews: From Toleration to the Destruction of the Temple,” in Locke Studies 2 (2002): 199–223. 38 Toland published an edition of Harrington’s works: see James Harrington, The Oceana of J. Harrington, and His other Works, with an Account of His Life Prefix’d, ed. John Toland (London: Darby, 1700). — 54 —

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Toland was certainly acquainted with the process that led to Jewish readmission in the 1650s, which he mentions in the fifteenth chapter of Reasons. Most probably, he knew the works written by Menasseh ben Israel to support the readmission of his coreligionists to England, particularly the apologetic essay Vindiciae Judaeorum, in which the Dutch rabbi retorted to the anti-Jewish accusations advanced by the financial and religious elites of Puritan England. Menasseh aimed at refuting the blood libel and other calumnies, especially regarding Jewish proselytism, blasphemy, and aversion to Christians. However, while Toland utilized mainly mercantilist arguments in his claim for the naturalization of the Jews, Menasseh’s approach to the issue of toleration was characterized by a large use of theological concepts. In fact, the Dutch rabbi frequently made reference to the biblical prohibitions of stealing, deceiving, and consuming blood. Moreover, Menasseh believed that the Jewish people, though scattered all over the world, was still characterized by essential unity and had to retain its specificity among the other nations, while Toland’s project of naturalization ultimately tended to integrating, or rather “assimilating,” the Jews into surrounding society. An original account of the role played by the Jews in the economic and social life of their host countries is offered by Simone Luzzatto in his Discorso circa il stato de gl’Hebrei (1638).39 Toland devotes the last four chapters of Reasons to this treatise, which was almost totally unknown in England. Nevertheless, the Irish deist could read Luzzatto’s writing as he had good knowledge of the Italian language. Luzzatto wrote his Discorso in a time when the Venetian authorities were evaluating the opportunity to renew the toleration patent for the Jews, and some factions of the economic and political elite of the Serenissima republic were opposing the retention of the Jews in the Italian city. The Discorso consists of two parts, both of which influenced Toland’s view of Judaism and the Jewish people: the first part presents a defense of the Jews’ important role in the economy of Venice and is 39 See Simone Luzzatto, Discorso circa il stato de gl’Hebrei et in particolar dimoranti nell’inclita Città di Venetia (Venice: Calleoni, 1638). On this writing, see especially Benjamin Ravid, Economics and Toleration in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Background and Context of the “Discorso” of Simone Luzzatto (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1978). For a comparison between Luzzatto’s and Menasseh’s pleas, see id., “‘How Profitable the Nation of the Jews Are’: The ‘Humble Addresses’ of Menasseh ben Israel and the ‘Discorso’ of Simone Luzzatto,” in Mystics, Philosophers, and Politicians: Essays in Jewish Intellectual History in Honor of Alexander Altmann, ed. Jehuda Reinharz and Daniel Swetschinski (Durham: Duke University Press, 1982), 159–180. — 55 —

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characterized by an “organicist” (and quite idealized) theory of society; the second section is an explicit defense of Judaism, focused on a refutation of the charges alleged by Tacitus against the Jews in the fifth book of his Histories. To Luzzatto, “the Jews acquired different customs from the nations among whom they lived,”40 and their financial activities were definitely beneficial to the countries where they resided. In fact, the Jews did not have a motherland where they could bring the riches earned in their country of residence. Moreover, numerous Jews practiced trade, which Luzzatto regarded as an important factor in promoting international peace and building new linkages between peoples. In fact, “in the places where the Jews have resided, trade and exchanges have flourished, as demonstrated by the examples of Leghorn and the City of Venice.”41 In Luzzatto’s view of human societies, the Jewish merchants, with their Christian colleagues and the artisans, were the “blood” of the city, for they could provide the rest of the population with numerous goods and services, while the rulers and the state officials taking care of the public order, the administration of justice, and tax collection represented, respectively, the “spirit” and the “soul” of the city. However, Luzzatto pointed out that the Jews’ propensity to trade was not innate, but was due to the prohibition to own land, to join the corporations, and therefore to practice a number of professions. Although Toland largely borrowed from Luzzatto’s organicist theory of society, it was the second part of the Discorso that strongly influenced the Irish deist’s heterodox view of Judaism. In their essays on Luzzatto’s Socrate (1651), a philosophical work far less famous than his Discorso, David Ruderman and Ariel Viterbo have demonstrated that Luzzatto was basically a skeptical thinker who preferred to avoid any reference to revelation in his examination of intellectual discourse.42 As Justin Champion has pointed out, also in the second part of the Discorso, “Luzzatto contrived a very unorthodox description of the nature of religion and its relationship with the state.”43 In fact, in 40 Simone Luzzatto, Discorso, 40r. 41 Ibid., 18v. 42 See David B. Ruderman, “Science and Skepticism: Simone Luzzatto on Perceiving the Natural World,” in id., Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery, 153–184; Ariel Viterbo, “Socrate nel ghetto: lo scetticismo mascherato di Simone Luzzatto,” in Studi Veneziani, n.s. 38 (1999): 79–128. 43 Justin Champion, “Toleration and Citizenship,” 147. — 56 —

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his refutation of Tacitus’s view of the Jews as superstitious and politically dangerous, Luzzatto interpreted the Jewish religion as consistent with reason of state: [The Mosaic Law] was calculated to promote a religion that was importantly both rational, and therefore antisuperstitious, and also politically convenient. […] Judaism as conceived by Moses was a powerful civic theology effective at protecting the interests of nation and state.44 In the Discorso, Moses is presented as a rational legislator concerned with reason of state. In fact, Luzzatto asserts that when Moses gave the Jews a system of law and belief, as well as religious rites and ceremonies, he took into account, above all, political issues such as the need to inspire patriotism and discipline in his people. Briefly, Luzzatto’s interpretation of Moses’s religion is not dissimilar from other seventeenth-century theories of the “Hebrew Republic.” Moreover, as Bernard Septimus, Abraham Melamed, and Benjamin Ravid have pointed out, Luzzatto’s view of ancient Israel had a strong influence on both Harrington’s Commonwealth of Oceana and Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which had a significant impact on Toland’s consideration of the Jewish religion and the history of the ancient Hebrews.45 Toland on Judaism: From Demystification to Re-Mystification In his works on Jewish history, Toland attempted to “deprivilege the Jewish past, by providing a purely secular, historicist reading of the Old Testament.”46 44 Ibid., 148. 45 See Bernard Septimus, “Biblical Religion and Political Rationality in Simone Luzzatto, Maimonides and Spinoza,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 399–434; Abraham Melamed, “Simone Luzzatto on Tacitus: Apologetica and ragione di stato,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature II, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 143–170; Benjamin Ravid, “Biblical Exegesis à la Mercantilism and Raison D’état in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The ‘Discorso’ of Simone Luzzatto,” in Bringing the Hidden to Light: The Process of Interpretation: Studies in Honor of Stephen A. Geller, ed. Kathryn F. Kravitz and Diane M. Sharon (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 169–182. 46 Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and the Enlightenment, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 198. — 57 —

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In Letters to Serena (1704), Toland presented a naturalistic interpretation of the history of religions in order to corroborate his pantheistic, monistic doctrines, which opposed Newton’s dualistic physico-theology. Toland proposed the leitmotif of the sapientia veterum when explaining the origins of religious biases, belief in the immortality of the soul, and idolatry: The most antient [sic] Egyptians, Persians, and Romans, the first Patriarchs of the Hebrews, with several other Nations and Sects, had no sacred Images or Statues, no peculiar Places or costly Fashions of Worship; the plain Easiness of their Religion being most agreeable to the Simplicity of the Divine Nature, as indifference of Place or Time were the best Expressions of infinite Power and Omnipresence.47 To Toland, it was not only priestly frauds, but also a number of cultural and historical dynamics—inherent to the development of human societies—that led to the corruption of the original “wisdom of the ancients.” Moreover, Toland believed that all “the most antient” peoples shared sapientia: for this reason, he rejected the thesis of the cultural primacy of the ancient Jews, which supported eschatological interpretations of human history. In fact, seventeenth-century authors such as Samuel Bochart, Gerard Vossius, and especially the French bishop Pierre-Daniel Huet considered the religion of the ancient Jews as an example for the other peoples of antiquity, who, according to Huet, shaped their deities on the model of Moses and developed their beliefs, rites, and traditions on the basis of those of the Jews. Huet and his colleagues aimed at highlighting the crucial role played by the Judeo-Christian tradition in the history of religions. Conversely, Toland maintained that it was “manifest from the Pentateuch and the Series of other History, that many Nations had their several Religions and Governments long before the Law was deliver’d to the Israelites.”48 To Toland, the Egyptians and other Middle Eastern peoples did not inherit their beliefs and customs from the Jews,

47 John Toland, Letters to Serena (London: Lintot, 1704), 71. 48 Ibid., 20. — 58 —

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who “were of all Eastern People the most illiterate.”49 Furthermore, it was impossible that Moses was educated in the Jewish tradition: It is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles for the Honor of Moses, not that he follow’d the Doctrins [sic] of Abraham, but that he was educated and had excell’d in all the Learning of the Egyptians. The Pentateuch it self [sic] makes mention of their Religion and Sciences long before the Law was deliver’d to Moses, which is an indisputable Testimony of their Antiquity before any Nation in the World.50 Briefly, to Toland, Judaism had no primacy among ancient religions, and the history of the ancient Jews was characterized by no supernatural feature. In Hodegus, an essay written between 1708 and 1709 but published only in 1720, Toland examined the passages of Exodus dealing with the pillars of fire that had led the Jews through the desert. He denied that such pillars were miraculous: in fact, numerous peoples of antiquity used to lead their armies past carts laden with burning stacks when crossing large plains or deserts.51 Borrowing from Spinoza, Toland maintained that those pillars were commonly considered miraculous because the lack of details in the biblical text could easily lead to wrong interpretations.52 The authors of the scriptures frequently omitted some important information necessary to understand the biblical text in modern times but considered superfluous in antiquity.53 Therefore, to Toland, modern readers use to misinterpret many passages of the Bible and regard numerous events as miraculous.54 In Origines Judaicae (1709), which Justin Champion has defined as “a full-blown assault upon orthodox Christian understandings of Moses as the vir archetypus,”55 Toland attempted to refute Huet’s view of Judaism 49 Ibid., 39. 50 Ibid., 39–40. As regards the theory of the primacy of Egyptian culture, Toland drew on two seventeenth-century English Orientalists: see John Marsham, Chronicus Canon Aegyptiacus, Hebraicus, Graecus (London: Roycroft, 1672); John Spencer, De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus et earum rationibus libri tres (Cambridge: Hayes, 1685). 51 See John Toland, “Hodegus,” in id., Tetradymus (London: Brotherton, 1720), 6–7. 52 See ibid., 24–27. 53 See ibid., 25. 54 See ibid., 5. 55 Justin Champion, Republican Learning, 174. — 59 —

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as the source of all ancient religions and maintained that Jewish culture was greatly indebted to Egypt: Since Moses, one of the Egyptian priests who also governed a part of the country, could no longer stand the local institutions, he emigrated, and many people who worshipped the divinity that he preached followed him. In fact, he maintained and taught that the Egyptians were wrong because they regarded snakes and cows as gods; Africans and Greeks were wrong too, because they represented their gods in human shape.56 In this passage, Toland’s ambiguity toward Judaism is blatant. In fact, the Irish deist was influenced, on the one hand, by Spinoza’s hermeneutics and, on the other, “by the Christian tradition of the idealization of the Mosaic Republic, which James Harrington had emphatically placed at the core of English republican thought.”57 Origines Judaicae presents Moses as a “pantheist” thinker and a wise legislator who clearly distinguished between religious power and political authority.58 When Moses repudiated Egyptian idolatry, he acknowledged a unique God, but to Toland, Moses’s “unique God is what includes us all, and the earth, and the sea, and what we call sky, and the world, and nature.”59 Toland used numerous Latin sources, most prominently the works of Cicero and Tacitus, in order to strengthen his thesis. In fact, he attributed the following thesis to Tacitus: The Jews […] infer God by means of mere reason and blame those who represent God in human shape through mortal materials: they regard the Supreme God eternal and immutable.60

56 John Toland “Origines Judaicae, sive Strabonis de Moyse et Religione Judaica Historia, breviter illustrata,” in id., Adeisidaemon, sive Titus Livius a Superstitione vindicatus, (The Hague: Johnson, 1709), 121–123. 57 Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment, 199. 58 See John Toland, “Origines Judaicae,” 148–153. 59 Ibid., 123. 60 Ibid., 155. — 60 —

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Moreover, Toland believed that, in the Pentateuch, the terms that mean God “suit both atheism and theism, since one can truly assert them when he means a pretended eternity of the universe.”61 He thus clarified his view of Moses as a pantheist: Many people believe that Moses had the same opinions as the pantheists had, because of certain phrases that have not been fully understood, and because he never dealt either with the immortality of the soul or with rewards and punishments in the hereafter. Hence, they deduce that the name Jehovah simply stands for the necessary being, that is to say, what […] exists in itself, in the same manner as the Greek words to on mean the incorruptible, eternal, infinite world.62 By regarding Moses as a pantheist and a wise legislator, Toland aimed at supporting not only his pantheistic philosophy but also his republican political ideas: Toland’s work on Moses was not simply impious but […] laid the foundation for practical suggestions in reforming the confessionalism of political culture. […] The republican reading of Moses as a “legislator” laid the foundations for establishing a tolerant state. His intentions were twofold, both making a point about the historical nature of Scripture and providing a prescriptive model for the relationship between religion and the state.63 Toland’s esteem for Moses was sincere. In fact, Origines Judaicae points out that it was not his teaching, but the blending of politics and religion that corrupted the ancient Jews: [The successors of Moses] preserved his institutions for some time. Later, when they took over religious 61 Ibid., 155. 62 Ibid., 156–157. 63 Justin Champion, Republican Learning, 185. — 61 —

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power, they became first superstitious, then tyrannical. Superstition caused the ban on eating certain food, from which the Jews still abstain, and it also produced circumcisions, mutilations, and the like: arrogance and robberies derived from tyranny.64 In any case, to Toland, the corruption of Mosaic Judaism did not cancel its rational foundations, as demonstrated by another work written in 1709–10 and published in 1718—namely, Nazarenus: Or, Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity. Nazarenus presents a description of an apocryphal writing, the Gospel of Barnabas, which Toland discovered in Amsterdam and which, in his opinion, was anciently worshipped by the Muslims.65 This alleged gospel gave the Irish deist an opportunity to formulate an original strategy to defend religious toleration. In Nazarenus, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are considered as the three phases, or manifestations, of the same monotheistic tradition. Following the example of the most influential English Unitarians of the 1690s (i.e., Stephen Nye, William Freke, Arthur Bury, and Daniel Williams), Toland regarded the dogma of the Trinity as the main difference between Christianity and the other forms 64 John Toland, “Origines Judaicae,” 127–129. 65 The diplomat Johann Cramer recommended Toland reading this text, contained in a fifteenthcentury Italian manuscript. Upon reading the alleged gospel, Toland wrote a manuscript in French, Christianisme Judaique et Mahometan, which he donated to Prince Eugene of Savoy and the Baron de Hohendorf. He did not publish this essay but later explained his thesis on the Gospel of Barnabas in Nazarenus. The authenticity of the Italian manuscript that Toland read in Amsterdam is still subject for discussion: on this manuscript and Toland’s essays on its contents and nature, see The Gospel of Barnabas, ed. Lonsdale Ragg and Laura Ragg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907); Luigi Cirillo, “Un nuovo vangelo apocrifo: il vangelo di Barnaba,” in Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 2 (1975): 391–412; Luigi Cirillo and Michel Fremaux, Evangile de Barnabe: recherches sur la composition et l’origine (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977); David Sox, The Gospel of Barnabas (London: Allen and Unwin, 1984). On Christianisme Judaique et Mahometan and Nazarenus, see Chiara Giuntini, Panteismo e ideologia repubblicana, 399–414; Justin Champion, “Introduction” to John Toland, Nazarenus, 1–106; Chiara Giuntini, “Introduzione” to John Toland, Opere (Turin: UTET, 2002), 56–63; Diego Lucci, “Cristianesimo e islam secondo John Toland. Cristianesimo originale, concezioni islamiche e tolleranza religiosa nel Nazarenus (1718),” in Atti dell’Accademia di Scienze Morali e Politiche 116 (2005): 349–370; id., Scripture and Deism, 112–133. On Toland’s view of early Christianity, see also his essay on The Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church, published by Pierre Desmaizeaux in the Collection of 1726 and republished in 2003 by Laurent Jaffro: see John Toland, La Constitution primitive de l’Eglise chrétienne—The Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church, ed. Laurent Jaffro (Paris: Champion, 2003). See also Laurent Jaffro, “Toland: la constitution primitive de l’Église philosophique,” in Figures du théologico-politique, ed. Emmanuel Cattin, Laurent Jaffro, and Alain Petit (Paris: Vrin, 1999), 149–174. — 62 —

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of monotheism.66 The denial of this dogma (a dogma that, to Toland, resulted from the corruption and “paganization” of Christianity in ancient times) could conversely lead to acknowledge the continuity and consistency between the three monotheistic religions. In fact, to Toland, “the Mahometans may not improperly be reckon’d and call’d a sort or sect of Christians, as Christianity was at first esteem’d a branch of Judaism.” 67 Moreover, Toland maintained: Jesus did not, as tis universally believ’d, abolish the Law of Moses, neither in whole nor in part, nor in the letter no more than in the spirit: with other uncommon particulars, concerning the true and original Christianity.68 To Toland, the early Christians were Jews who followed Christ’s teaching, lived in poverty and shared all their goods but did not give up the Law. In fact, they considered Jesus to be “a mere man,” who had revived the precepts of Jewish ethics. Thus, “they enjoin’d the observation of the Legal ceremonies, as strictly as the others.”69 Later, also numerous Gentiles joined the early Christian community but were not required to observe Jewish traditions and ceremonies.70 The Jews indeed considered their Law to be no less national and political than religious and sacred: that is to say, expressive of the history of their peculiar nation, essential to the being of their Theocracy or Republic, and aptly commemorating whatever befell their ancestors or their state; which, not regarding other 66 The English Unitarians believed that the Athanasian Creed was the main difference between Christianity and other forms of monotheism, mainly Islam. See Arthur Bury, The Naked Gospel (London, s.n., 1690); William Freke, A Vindication of the Unitarians (London, s.n., 1690); Stephen Nye, A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity (London, s.n., 1691); Daniel Williams, Gospel-Truth Stated and Vindicated (London: John Dunton, 1692). On the Islamic material in Nazarenus, see Justin Champion, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken, 99–132; Diego Lucci, “Cristianesimo e islam secondo John Toland”; id., Scripture and Deism, 116–118. 67 See John Toland, Nazarenus, 135. 68 Ibid. 69 See ibid., 151–153. In analyzing early Christianity, Toland borrowed from the Fathers of the Church and modern scholars such as John Selden, Stephen Nye, and Johann Albert Fabricius, author of Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti (Hamburg: Schiller, 1703). 70 John Toland, Nazarenus, 117. — 63 —

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people, they did not think them bound by the same, however indispensably subject to the Law of Nature.71 Also, various elements of Jewish culture were “no part of the ceremonial Law of the Jews, but a Noachic precept, equally binding all the world upon a moral account.”72 However, to Toland, the Jews “generally mistook the means for the end,”73 because they were led by the sacerdotal sect that had corrupted their religion. As a consequence, most Jews could neither understand nor accept Christ’s message.74 On the other hand, numerous “gentile Christians” introduced “into Christianity their former polytheism and deifying of dead men.”75 In conclusion, Toland declares: The true Christianity of the Jews was over born and destroy’d by the more numerous Gentiles, who, not enduring the reasonableness and simplicity of the same, brought into it by degrees the peculiar expressions and mysteries of Heathenism, the abstruse doctrines and distinctions of their Philosophers, an insupportable pontifical Hierarchy, and even the altars, offerings, the sacred rites and ceremonies of their Priests, tho they wou’d not so much as tolerate those of the Jews, and yet owning them to be divinely instituted.76 According to Toland, the “paganization” process of Christianity was started by Saint Paul, who is portrayed in Nazarenus in the following terms: An intruder on the genuin [sic] Christianity, and, tho a stranger to the person of Christ, yet substituting his own pretended Revelations to the doctrines of those with whom Christ had convers’d, and to whom he actually communicated his will.77 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Ibid., 160. Ibid., 165. Ibid., 118. See ibid., 181–182. Ibid., 187. Ibid., 186–187. Ibid., 153. — 64 —

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To Toland, Saint Paul was guilty of changing Christianity into a theological system, while the sacred texts of the early Christians need to be considered not as material for authorising a “system” of theological doctrine, but as an historical record of religious practice. […] The construction of “systems of divinity” and the imposition of these as uniform true belief were no part of primitive practice, but the corrupt establishment of priestcraft.78 Toland considered also the Old Testament as a mere historical record of the history and traditions of the ancient Jews. He was strongly influenced by the theories of the “Hebrew Republic” formulated by seventeenth-century political thinkers such as Cunaeus and Harrington. In De Republica Hebraeorum (1617), Cunaeus described the state of the ancient Jews as a model of republican government, in which religious toleration and social justice were practiced and defended by law.79 As mentioned above, Harrington also regarded the “Commonwealth of the Jews” as a political society ruled by justice and reason. Drawing on these authors, Toland highlighted the rationality of Jewish law in a short essay appended to Nazarenus and entitled Two Problems, Historical, Political, and Theological concerning the Jewish Nation and Religion. In this essay, Toland compared the political system of the Jews with those of Sparta, Rome, and Venice and with utopian states such as Plato’s Atlantis and Thomas More’s Utopia. To the Irish thinker, the Commonwealth of Moses ought to be regarded as more effective than other ancient or utopian governments, not only because it existed in antiquity, but also because the Jews of his time, although they were scattered all over the world, still observed the Law of Moses. However, Toland denied that the durability of Jewish law was due to God’s intervention in human history. Conversely, he considered the rational nature of Mosaic Judaism as the main reason for the persistence of 78 Justin Champion, “Introduction,” 75. 79 For a recent edition of this work, see Petrus Cunaeus, The Hebrew Republic, ed. Arthur Eyffinger and Peter Wyetzner (Jerusalem: Shalem Press, 2006). — 65 —

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Jewish traditions over the centuries.80 Briefly, Toland’s view of Judaism is essentially split, as Adam Sutcliffe has observed: Although Toland sets out […] to secularise Jewish history, Judaism persistently eludes a fixed rational analysis, and remains in his texts powerfully charged with mythic significance. While he demystifies Judaism in order to undermine the historical authority of Christianity, he simultaneously remystifies it in new terms, as an originary source of natural religion and as a model of utopian politics.81 Toland attempted to rescue Judaism from Christian interpretations of history. However, in his work, Jewish traditions and beliefs were ultimately absorbed into his own worldview. Therefore, Toland essentially ignored the specificity of Judaism and carried out a sort of secular mystification of Jewish history. And such an attitude also characterized his plea for naturalization, which presents an idealized view of the Jews and a utilitarian consideration of the role they could play in English society. The Contents and Structure of Toland’s Reasons Toland’s pamphlet on the naturalization of the Jews was published anonymously at the end of 1714, the same year of the accession of the first monarch of the house of Hanover, George I, to the throne of England. Toland had praised the court of Hanover in an essay of 1705, republished in 1714, and obviously had great expectations from the new reigning dynasty.82 Moreover, English political life was in a phase of transition, as the Tories’ hegemony was gradually declining, while the Anglican Church was experiencing numerous difficulties because of numerous divergences between the bishops and the low clergy. It is unknown whether members of Anglo-Jewry—for instance, rich Sephardic merchants—or representatives of the Whig party encouraged Toland to write this book. Justin Champion has suggested that 80 See John Toland, Nazarenus, 235–240. 81 Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment, 204. 82 See John Toland, An Account on the Courts of Prussia and Hanover (London: Darby, 1705) (second edition London: Roberts, 1714). — 66 —

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Toland’s intimacy with Jewish friends, besides his admiration for Moses and Jewish thinkers such as Spinoza and Luzzatto, might have played a role in leading the Irish philosopher to ask for the naturalization of the Jews.83 Moreover, as regards Toland’s closeness to the Whig political and cultural milieus, an important issue needs to be taken into account: The issue of naturalization was also an important political and ideological concern in the early eighteenth century, in essence an extension of the Whig/Tory divide over the nature of the relationships between the established Church and civil liberties.84 What is sure is that Toland received ten guineas from the publisher and was promised a further sum when the first print run of two thousand copies would be sold off.85 Toland dedicated his writing to the bishops of England in an attempt to gain their favor and urge them to oppose the low clergy’s traditional hostility toward the Jews.86 In fact, the bishops’ Judeophobic discourses revolved, almost exclusively, around theological issues, as demonstrated by Richard Kidder’s attacks on Jewish messianism.87 On the other hand, the high clergy was traditionally tolerant toward contemporary Jews, who could still be converted to Christianity. Moreover, Toland largely used an argument that was later utilized by other Whig pamphleteers, including William Arnall in The Complaint of the Children of Israel (1736): the Christian religion and the Anglican Church were essentially based on the ancient Jewish “Church.”88 The Christians borrowed from the Jews not only their scriptures but also numerous customs, beliefs, and ceremonies. For all these reasons, Toland invited the English bishops to use “your power in the Church, your authority in the Senate, and your 83 See Justin Champion, Toleration and Citizenship, 141. 84 Ibid. 85 See ibid., 139; Paolo Bernardini, “Introduzione” to John Toland, Ragioni, 91. 86 See John Toland, Reasons, dedication. 87 See Richard Kidder, A Demonstration of the Messias, In Which the Truth of the Christian Religion Is Proved, against All the Enemies Thereof; but Especially against the Jews, 3 vols. (London: vol. 1, Aylmer, 1684; vols. 2 and 3, Rogers and Wotton, 1699 and 1700). Richard Kidder (1633–1703) was bishop of Bath and Wells from 1691 to his death. 88 See Solomon Abrabanel [William Arnall], The Complaint of the Children of Israel (London: Webb, 1736). Arnall died short after publishing his book, which received eight editions in 1736. — 67 —

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influence upon all the people” and to be “friends and protectors [of the Jews] in the Brittish [sic] Parliament.”89 Toland’s plea consists of twenty-three chapters and is rich in quotes from the Bible, ancient sources, as well as modern works. In the first chapter, Toland praises human sociability with words that demonstrate his fascination with Locke’s political doctrines and the natural law tradition: Man being longer a rearing than any other creature, and absolutely incapable to subsist afterwards without the company of other Men, contracts from the very beginning, not only the relations of father, mother, brothers, sisters, and other degrees of kindred, as those to whom he’s first, and most, and longest indebted for his preservation or pleasure; but he likewise in process of time forms the notions of acquaintance, neighbourhood, friendship, affinity, association, confederacy, subjection, and superiority, as never being able, during his whole life, to subsist in any tolerable degree of security or delight, without the help of such. Tis [sic] therefore the duty of every Man to contribute as much as he can, whether by his advice or by his industry, to the welfare of his whole species, and particularly of his family; but in a special manner to the safe and flourishing condition of that country or society to which he immediately belongs, as in whose happiness his own is so necessarily involved.90 Eudaemonistic and utilitarian motives intertwine in this passage, which acts as a premise for Toland’s discourse on naturalization in chapters 2 to 4. Toland calls for a “general naturalization” that would “include all those who wou’d not only be good subjects, but who wou’d also be as useful and advantageous to the public Weal [sic], as any of those Protestant Churches, to which it [i.e., naturalization] was then restrain’d.”91 The 89 See John Toland, Reasons, dedication. 90 Ibid., 2–3. 91 Ibid., 5. — 68 —

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Jews would also need to benefit from an act of general naturalization: The common reasons for a General Naturalization, are as strong in behalf of the Jews, as of any other people whatsoever. They increase the number of hands for labor and defence [sic], of bellies and backs for consumtion [sic] of food and raiment, and of brains for invention and contrivance, no less than any other nation.92 Toland’s populationist thesis is supported by a leitmotif of mercantilist literature—namely, the contrast between Spain, a country impoverished by its intolerant political and ecclesiastical authorities, and the tolerant and flourishing Netherlands: Being continually drain’d of her inhabitants by the Colonies in America, and all the other Nations being in a manner kept out by the rigor of the Inquisition, [Spain] is grown so prodigiously weak and poor: wheras [sic], tho Holland has comparatively but few Inhabitants, and sends great numbers yearly to the East-Indies; yet allowing an unlimited Liberty of Conscience, and receiving all nations to the right of citizens, the country is ever well stockt [sic] with people, and consequently both rich and powerful to an eminent degree.93 The naturalization of the Jews and other newcomers could hence help increase and improve “all sorts of arts and manufactures,” cultivate the lands that were still unused, and provide the East India Company and numerous overseas plantations with more men. Briefly, the Jews could definitely be useful to the English economy. Chapters 5 to 9 present a defense of the Jews from many of the prejudices that hindered their naturalization in England. Also in this case, Toland uses various mercantilist arguments, for it was mainly economic reasons that, at the time, contributed to spreading anti-Jewish sentiment. First of all, Toland maintains that “no body [sic] needs to be 92 Ibid., 6. 93 Ibid. — 69 —

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afraid that any religious Party in the nation will thereby be weaken’d or enforc’d.”94 Toland’s argument on the fact that the Jews would keep a position of neutrality, in relation to English religious and political life, is extremely clear: The Protestant Dissenters have no reason to be jealous, that they [i.e., the Jews] shou’d join with the National Church to oppress them, since they have an equal Interest to preserve Liberty of Conscience […]. There’s as little danger they shou’d ever join with any particular Body of Dissenters against the National Church, since they can expect no more favor from the one, than from the other; and that it is always their interest to preserve the legal Establishment, on which their own Security is grounded. For this reason likewise, they’ll never join with any Party in civil Affairs, but that which patronizes Liberty of Conscience and the Naturalization, which will ever be the side of Liberty and the Constitution.95 In chapter 6, Toland attacks the widespread stereotype of Jewish statelessness. He admits that the Jews have “no Country of their own, to which they might retire, after having got Estates here.”96 However, following the examples of Josiah Child, Simone Luzzatto, and Menasseh ben Israel, he maintains that the Jews, upon being granted citizenship, would consider England as their homeland and that their economic and financial activities, once relieved of the burden of alien duties, would be beneficial to the economy of the country. In chapter 7, Toland takes into account the common anti-Jewish prejudices related to moneylending, a financial activity that was largely (and wrongly) perceived as bringing only a few, if any, effective benefits to the national economy. Toland tries to reassure his fellow countrymen that the Jews are perfectly able to engage in other activities: It is neither by any National Institution or Inclination 94 Ibid., 11. 95 Ibid., 11–12. 96 Ibid., 13. — 70 —

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(as many ignorantly believe) that they do now almost entirely betake themselves to business of Exchange, Insurances, and improving of money upon Security; but they are driven to this way of Livelihood by mere Necessity: for being excluded every where [sic] in Europe, from publick [sic] Employments in the State, as they are from following Handycraft-trades [sic] in most places, and in almost all, from purchasing immovable Inheritances, this does no less naturally, than necessarily, force ’em to Trade and Usury, since otherwise they cou’d not possibly live.97 But once the Jews are “put upon an equal foot with others,” they would certainly “betake themselves to Building, Farming, and all sorts of improvement like other people.”98 After all, Harrington, Cunaeus, Selden, and other seventeenth-century Hebraists and political thinkers, whose works Toland knew well, demonstrated that the Jews anciently practiced agriculture, herding, and handicraft before being dispersed and persecuted all over the world. The dispersion of the Jews was indeed a crucial event in their history: Since their dispersion, they have no common or peculiar inclination distinguishing ’em from others: but visibly partake of the Nature of those nations among which they live, and where they were bred.99 These observations are part of Toland’s refutation of “the prevailing notion of a certain genius, or bent of mind, reigning in a certain Family or Nation.”100 He maintains that it is not “Nature,” but “the different methods of Government and Education” that determine the “inclinations” of different peoples.101 Therefore, if the Jews were granted naturalization, they would easily integrate into English society and adopt English customs and beliefs within a few generations. In fact, Toland maintains: 97 98 99 100 101

Ibid., 14–15. Ibid., 15. Ibid., 19. Ibid., 18. See ibid. — 71 —

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The ordinary sentiments of the Portuguese or Italian Jews, differ not from those of the other Portuguese or Italians. The Germans differ from Polish Jews, as much as Poles do from Germans.102 Briefly, in his plea for Jewish naturalization, Toland praised the assimilation process (though he could not use the term “assimilation,” which started to be commonly utilized only in later historiography) much before the dynamics of Jewish emancipation started to foster the actual assimilation of the Jews into surrounding society. Chapter 9 finally presents a refutation of some widespread stereotypes regarding Jewish crime. In this respect, Toland maintains, There are among the Jews, to be sure, sordid wretches, sharpers, extortioners, villains of all sorts and degrees: and where is that happy nation, where is that religious profession, of which the same may not be as truely [sic] affirm’d?103 He therefore recommends “not to impute the faults of a few to the whole numbers,”104 and concludes that “the Jews […] are both in their origine [sic] and progress, not otherwise to be regarded, than under the common circumstances of human nature.”105 Chapters 10 to 15 present a short historical narrative of the persecutions suffered by the Jews from ancient times to the modern era. Like many other philo-Semitic writers of the time—including Jacques Basnage, whose Histoire des Juifs Toland knew and mentioned in Reasons—Toland depicts Jewish history as a tearful succession of tragic events. On the other hand, he does not use “the providentialist arguments embedded in his source [i.e., Basnage’s work] to explain Jewish sufferings.”106 Instead, Toland points out that the Jews were always persecuted simply because their traditions and beliefs were completely 102 Ibid., 19. 103 Ibid., 20. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid. 106 Justin Champion, “Toleration and Citizenship,” 144. — 72 —

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different from those of all their neighbors: For their religious customs differing in the whole from all other nations, and being in the parts directly contrary to those of several, they had all nations therefore for their enemies; who agreed to plague and persecute them incessantly, however they might disagree in other things among themselves.107 Toland highlights some of the accusations frequently alleged against the Jews in the Middle Ages (e.g., “poysoning [sic] the waters in hatred to the Christians” and “intelligence with the Saracens and Moors”)108 and focuses on the massacres of Jews committed by the Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land: What need we go so farr [sic] abroad (said they) to fight the Mahometan enemies of the cross, when we may on much cheaper Terms merit heaven, by destroying the cursed Jews at home?109 Toland especially stigmatizes the role of religious propaganda in the persecution of the Jews: Their most inveterate Enemies were the Priests, who devoutly offer’d up those human Sacrifices, not only to share their Goods with the rapacious Prince, but also to acquire the reputation of zeal and sanctity among the credulous vulgar. Every thing [sic], in short, tho ever so false or impossible, serv’d for a handle good enough to rifle, or expel, or slaughter the Jews.110 Priestly frauds and superstitions often led the vulgar “to plunder and massacre the Jews, to burn their houses and their synagogues,” and made the life of the Jews under Christian princes far worse “than that of their 107 108 109 110

John Toland, Reasons, 22. See ibid., 23. Ibid., 24. Ibid., 25. — 73 —

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forefathers under Pharao.” It is nevertheless to be remembered that Toland attacks only the low clergy. In fact, he points out that numerous abbots, bishops, and even popes, such as Gregory IX and Innocent IV, “undertook their defence [sic]” and acquitted them of heinous accusations, including that of slaughtering Christian children and drinking their blood.111 As in his dedication to the archbishops and bishops of England, also in this section of his treatise, Toland tries to gain the favor of the high clergy and lead the English bishops to prevent their subordinates from exciting the people against the Jews. Chapters 12, 13, and 14 present a short though detailed reconstruction of the history of medieval Anglo-Jewry, from the time of William the Conqueror to the expulsion of 1290. Toland draws on authors such as the thirteenth-century Benedictine monk Matthew Paris and the seventeenth-century Puritan polemicist and anti-Jewish writer William Prynne. He reports some interesting information regarding the relationships between the Jews and the political authorities: for instance, he talks of the existence of a particular “Exchequer of the Jews” and of judges for the Jews. And, of course, he stigmatizes the massacres of Jews, especially at York, on occasion of the Third Crusade, besides the frequency of the accusation of ritual murder in medieval England. Toland finally deals with the events of 1290, when, “after inhumanities not to be mention’d without horror,” Edward I expelled the Jews from his kingdom.112 In chapter 15, Toland maintains that, following the expulsion decree, numerous Jews preferred to convert: [They] chose rather to turn Christians, than to leave their sweet native Country to starve in a foren [sic] land; besides that the King took away from them and detain’d all their children under six years of age, which must have given rise to abundance of Families.113 He also asserts that “a great number of them fled to Scotland.”114 These comments on the Jewish origins of part of the population of England and Scotland were aimed at supporting Toland’s refutation of 111 See ibid., 25–26. 112 See ibid., 28–36. 113 Ibid., 37. 114 Ibid. — 74 —

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the stereotype of Jewish separateness. Moreover, his reasoning implied an obvious conclusion: given that some British citizens were of Jewish extraction, why couldn’t other descendents of the Jews receive citizenship? His observations must have shocked many of his fellow countrymen who used to consider the Jews as inexorably different people. Chapter 15 also explains that the Jews were readmitted to England under Cromwell and were tolerated by Charles II and his successors. However, the Jews were not officially authorized to reside in England by any “Charter or Act of Parliament,” and their legal status was still undefined at the time when Toland wrote his plea for naturalization.115 In chapters 16 to 19, Toland restates his mercantilist arguments in favor of the naturalization of the Jews. He asserts that a general naturalization of the Jews and other foreigners would be particularly beneficial to the national economy: We deny not that there will thus be more taylors [sic] and shoomakers [sic]; but there will be also more suits and shooes [sic] made than before. If there be more weavers, watchmakers, and other arteficers [sic], we can for this reason export more cloth, watches, and more of all other commodities than formerly: and not only have ’em better made by the emulation of so many workmen, of such different Nations; but likewise have ’em quicker sold off, for being cheaper wrought than those of others, who come to the same market. This one Rule of More, and Better, and Cheaper, will ever carry the market against all expedients and devices.116 Moreover, given that rich Jews “do always take care of their own poor, wherever they are,” the Jews cannot be said “to eat the bread out of the mouths of others.”117 To Toland, the usefulness of the Jews to the national economy is showed by numerous historical examples, most prominently by the comparison between the countries that had banished the Jews and the 115 See ibid., 36–38. 116 Ibid., 39–40. 117 Ibid., 40. — 75 —

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states that, conversely, welcomed them: “What a paltry fisher town was Leghorn,” Toland asks, “before the admission of the Jews? What a loser is Lisbon, since they have been lost to it?”118 But the conditions of the Jews in many of the countries where they were tolerated were not as good as in Leghorn or the Netherlands (a country that Toland cites as an admirable example of “free government”). The Irish thinker points out that in Prague and many other cities of Central Europe the Jews were confined to the ghetto or to neighborhoods outside of the city walls. In other places, such as Rome and Venice, they not only had to live in the ghetto but were also required to wear a distinctive sign. And even in countries such as Turkey, where they could “enjoy immoveable property,” and Poland, where their communities were granted a certain degree of administrative autonomy, they were yet “treated little better than Dogs” and “often expos’d […] to unspeakable Calamities.”119 For all these reasons, numerous Jews would easily be led to “the peaceable arms of Britannia”120 if the English government granted a general naturalization to all the foreigners wishing to reside in Britain. But a proper naturalization also implied the full enjoyment of civil and political rights, since “a General Naturalization, and a Total Incapacity from Offices, are perfect inconsistencies.”121 On this point, Toland makes reference to offices “which may indifferently be held by men of all religions, as many in the Exchequer, Customs, and Excise,” and sees no reason “why the Jews may not be employ’d in several Affairs in the city, as to be Directors of the Bank, of the East India Company, or the like.”122 Briefly, the Jews ought “to be incapacitated in nothing, but where they incapacitate themselves.”123 The last four chapters of Reasons explain the main points of Simone Luzzatto’s Discorso, which Toland planned to translate into English, as he declared in Reasons (but he did not keep to his word). Toland observes that the Venetian rabbi endeavored to defend his people against three sorts of enemies, which they never fail’d 118 119 120 121 122 123

Ibid., 42. Ibid., 43. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 45. Ibid., 44. Ibid., 45. — 76 —

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to have in all countries. These are first the Zealots, under whom may be listed Priests and Hypocrites; secondly Politicians, comprehending corrupt States-men, and drivers of private Interests; and thirdly the vulgar, who, under colour of religion or the public good, are acted, animated, and deluded by the other two, the better to serve their own sinister purposes.124 Toland observes that in an attempt to defend the Jews from the calumnies often alleged against them, Luzzatto proved that none of their customs inspired in them hostility toward other human beings: They were at no time oblig’d to propagate their Religion by force of arms; nor were ever discharg’d from the ties of humanity and reciprocal friendship, towards other nations on a religious account.125 On this point, the deist writer underscores the difference between the Christians, “who damn without exception all that receive not the Old Testament or the New,” as well as “all other Christians, but those of their own Communion,”126 and the Jews, whose beliefs and policies in matters of toleration were much less harsh: Luzzatto expresly [sic] maintains, that as their religion, consider’d as it is Jewish, or distinct from the Law of Nature, was solely calculated for their own Nation and Republic; so they were never commanded to instruct others in their peculiar rites and ceremonies, tho they are every where [sic] enjoin’d to magnify to all the world the divine goodness, wisdom, and power, with those duties of men, and other attributes of God, which constitute Natural Religion.127 In his attempt to reassure his countrymen that the Jews “wou’d not 124 125 126 127

Ibid., 49. Ibid., 50. Ibid., 52–53. Ibid., 50–51. — 77 —

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endeavor to convert all the world to their Theocracy”128 and that their naturalization would therefore imply no “danger of Judaizing,”129 Toland eventually presented Judaism as a form of natural religion, as he had done in works such as Origines Judaicae and Nazarenus. Toland’s considerations on Luzzatto’s Discorso abruptly conclude his short treatise, which, although presenting almost no original argument, is nevertheless worth being taken into consideration for various reasons. Toland borrowed most of his arguments in favor of the naturalization of the Jews from liberal authors such as Locke and Child, historians such as Paris and Basnage, and Jewish apologists such as Luzzatto and Menasseh ben Israel. He thus managed to harmonize arguments typical of different traditions such as mercantilism, Locke’s political thought, Jewish apologetics, heterodox interpretations of Judaism as essentially a version of natural religion and a source of political rationalism, and, last but not least, the rising humanitarianism of the early Enlightenment. Moreover, in his defense of the Jews, Toland developed what historian Frank Manuel has defined as “the most psychologically acute analysis of Judeophobia in the eighteenth century.”130 In fact, he focused on the political, cultural, and psychological reasons that had always led the Christians to discriminate against the Jews. And his analysis led him to conclude that there was no rational reason to exclude the Jews from the enjoyment of civil and political rights. Therefore, the true enemies of the state were those who opposed the naturalization of the Jews and, in general, of all the foreigners who wished to move to England, because they ultimately opposed the improvement and betterment of the national economy. In fact, as Toland maintains in his discourse on human sociability in the first chapter of Reasons, every man has a duty to contribute to the welfare of his country—and naturalization projects actually aimed at promoting the common good. According to Jacob Katz, Toland’s Reasons is at the intellectual origins of the Enlightenment discourses on Jewish emancipation: [Toland] applied a central principle of European rationalism—the essential oneness of all human nature—to 128 Ibid., 54. 129 Ibid., 56. 130 Frank E. Manuel, The Broken Staff, 187. — 78 —

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the case of the Jews. This principle later became the cornerstone in the ideology of Jewish integration.131 We might add that the same principle led to ambiguous results if one thinks of the dynamics of Jewish assimilation into surrounding “humanity”—namely, the dynamics that characterized the process of Jewish emancipation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. At that time, humanity was often regarded as “one,” or at least as potentially “one,” with regard not only to civil rights and duties but also to the lifestyle and mentality: in fact, particular lifestyles and mentalities determined, in many respects, the rights and duties to be asserted and defended. The Enlightenment plans of emancipating the Jews from a condition of minority imposed upon them by numerous civil disabilities, were part of larger projects of emancipation of mankind from the social order of the ancien régime. For this reason, most projects for Jewish emancipation were characterized by the preeminence of a new model of mankind inspired by various political ideologies and economic doctrines. In the case of Reasons, Justin Champion has observed that Toland’s defense of toleration is wholly based “upon his understanding of the relationship between the individual (qua human) and civil society.”132 In fact, Toland’s treatise on naturalization is devoid of “theological” considerations of Judaism: Toland’s appreciation was founded upon a profoundly political understanding, not just of Judaism, but of all religion. This is not to propose that Reasons ought to be considered as an instrument contrived for a different agenda of corroding Christian confessionalism, but that it was an attempt to provoke a change in social policy premised upon a genuinely non-theological understanding of the nature of community and religion.133

131 Jacob Katz, “The Term ‘Jewish Emancipation’: Its Origins and Historical Impact,” in Studies in Nineteenth-Century Jewish Intellectual History, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 8–9. 132 Justin Champion, “Toleration and Citizenship,” 145. 133 Ibid., 151. — 79 —

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Reasons is, therefore, not an isolated text in the development of Toland’s thought and attitudes toward Judaism and the Jews. The origins and goals of Toland’s treatise on naturalization can indeed be properly understood in light of both his “heterodox” view of Mosaic Judaism and his liberal political doctrines. In fact, in Anglia Libera (1701), Toland combined Locke’s arguments on the origins and goals of the civil government with the republican theses of authors such as Harrington and Sidney and called for a free constitutional government, able to promote the arts and economy, defend freedom of conscience, and welcome all the foreigners who, thanks to their activities, could bring significant benefits to the country. It was thus within the framework of his idealized view of Judaism, on the one hand, and of the state, on the other, that Toland developed his discourse on the advantages that not only the Jews but, above all, the national economy and therefore civil society as a whole could gain from a general naturalization. Thus, it is no accident that the arguments on the Jews’ usefulness to the economic life of the host country are numerically (and not only numerically) prevalent in Reasons. The Naturalization Process in England Unlike other writings by Toland, which provoked harsh and long debates, the publication of Reasons was followed by only one refutation, published anonymously in 1715 and entitled Confutation of the Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews, Containing the Crimes, Frauds, and Insolences, for Which They Were Convicted and Punished in Former Reigns.134 This unoriginal writing was largely based on William Prynne’s Demurrer and an anonymous anti-Jewish treatise of 1703. In a short though detailed outline of the history of medieval Anglo-Jewry, the Confutation reiterated the most infamous charges traditionally laid by the Christians against the Jews in the Middle Ages, including the blood libel and the accusations of blasphemy and dishonesty. The author of the Confutation also tried to refute Toland’s mercantilist arguments, and blamed the Irish freethinker for proposing to give the Jews “many Opportunities to drain all Christian Countries of their Coin.” Also, in this case, the attempt to disprove Toland’s observations on the usefulness of the Jews to the national economy is based on old prejudices, such as the idea that 134 The Confutation was republished in the 1998 Italian edition of Reasons. See John Toland, Ragioni, 208–225. — 80 —

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the Jews would lead numerous Englishmen to indebtedness, outdo the local traders, and, finally, after having deprived England of her riches, leave for other countries. Toland’s Reasons did not attract the attention of the authorities, which did not deal with the issue of Jewish naturalization until 1753. Neither the Jewish community endorsed Toland’s proposal with petitions or other manifestations of interest in a general naturalization. After the Glorious Revolution, the Jews were indeed tolerated de facto— in spite of the misnamed Toleration Act of 1689—but their legal status was that of aliens, even though some of them were born in England. This meant that not only did they not have political rights and could not have access to civil offices and various professions, but also that, like all other aliens, they could not trade with the colonies (as implied by the Navigation Act of 1660), could not join the corporations, and could not own houses, land plots, or ships. Above all, the status of alien implied the payment of “alien duties” on the import and export of goods. Aliens could apply individually for naturalization, but the procedures for naturalization were complex and entailed the payment of a significant fee. Moreover, those who wanted to be naturalized had to convert to Anglicanism—and this clause actually excluded the Jews, at least those who did not want to give up their religion and embrace Christianity. The Jews could nevertheless apply for endenization. In this case, the endenized person had only to take an oath of loyalty to the monarch, but he did not have to convert to Anglicanism. The status of denizen granted the right to own real estate but did not imply exemption from the alien duties—and this was not a minor limitation for the Jews who were involved in trade and other financial activities. For this reason, only 203 Jews (out of a total of 507 endenized individuals) obtained endenization between 1704 and 1800. This is not a significant number if one considers that, in the mid-eighteenth century, around eight thousand Jews resided in England. The Jews were around 0.01 percent of the British population, and both Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities existed in England. As has been said, a Sephardic community had existed in London since before the readmission of 1656, and it continued to grow over the century following the readmission, while an ever-growing number of Ashkenazi Jews moved to England from the early eighteenth century onward. The Sephardim maintained the economic leadership of Anglo-Jewry for most of the eighteenth century, but the arrival of im— 81 —

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portant families of bankers and merchants, including the Rothschilds, from Germany and Eastern Europe led the Ashkenazim to become more and more influential over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.135 In spite of the constant flux of Jews from the continent into England, in the two decades following the publication of Toland’s Reasons, no debate on the naturalization of the Jews took place in the British parliament. Naturalization was indeed a complex issue, and the naturalization of particular minorities could also have a significant impact on a political party’s fortune. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the issue of naturalization was discussed mostly with reference to European Protestants expelled from Catholic states.136 This was the case with the Huguenots: in 1667, 1672, and 1680, the English parliament passed laws for the naturalization of the French Protestants, who had started to emigrate from their native country in the 1660s. However, the situation worsened after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, when thousands of Huguenots started wandering into Europe in search of refuge in Protestant countries. From 1693 to 1694, the parliament discussed the opportunity to welcome and naturalize those displaced and dispossessed people, but the fear that non-Anglican Protestants could join the Dissenters and pose a threat to civil peace, and to the supremacy of the Church of England as well, prevailed. In the end, no naturalization act in favor of the Huguenots was issued after 1685. The issue of naturalization was debated in the parliament again in 1709. At that time, during the War of the Spanish Succession, thousands of German Protestants of the Palatinate region had to leave their homeland, because the French armies recurrently invaded and dev135 On endenization and naturalization of Jews in eighteenth-century England, see J. M. Ross, “Naturalisation of Jews in England,” in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 24 (1973): 59–72. A list of Jews endenized or naturalized in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England is available in Wilfred S. Samuel, “A List of Jewish Persons Endenized and Naturalised 1609–1799,” in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 22 (1969): 111–144. On the Ashkenazi migration to England, see Michael Berkowitz, “Embarrassing Relations: Myths and Realities of the Ashkenazi Influx, 1650–1750 and Beyond,” in From Strangers to Citizens: The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial America, 1550–1750, ed. Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton (Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2001), 247–253. 136 On these early attempts of naturalization, see Thomas W. Perry, Public Opinion, Propaganda, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study of the Jew Bill of 1753 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 31–35; Daniel Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen: The Controversy over Immigration and Population, 1660–1760 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1995); Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton, eds., From Strangers to Citizens. — 82 —

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astated Western Germany. On that occasion, the English parliament, controlled by the Whig party, enacted the Act for the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants, but the consequences of this decision did not bring much benefits to England in general and the Whigs in particular. In less than six months, between May and November 1709, around thirteen thousand people (including over two thousand crypto-Catholics) poured into England. The “Poor Palatines,” unlike the French Huguenots, were not middle-class, skilled, and well-educated exiles: most of them were unskilled and uneducated wanderers and rural laborers. For this reason, the parliament decided to resettle them in various rural areas in England and Ireland, but the majority of them returned to London within a few months. In the end, a large number of Palatines left for the American colonies, but most of them went (or were sent) back to Germany after the failure of the plans to resettle them in the New World. In 1710, the Tories won the elections and, after retaking control of the parliament, managed to abrogate the Act for the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants in 1712.137 It was certainly the memory of the unsuccessful attempt to naturalize and resettle the German Palatines that prevented the parliament from planning a new naturalization of foreigners in the following years. And it was for the same reason that Toland’s proposal did not raise a public debate. On this point, Pierre Lurbe has observed the following: If even the naturalization of foreign co-religionists could rouse such passion, there was precious little chance that the naturalization of the Jews—who at the time formed a tiny, exotic minority—would find favour with the general public.138 Only much later, in 1740, the parliament approved the naturalization of the foreigners who had served on British ships for at least two years, and in 1749, naturalization was offered to foreigners willing to serve on whaling ships. Moreover, the Plantation Act of 1741 stated that the foreigners who had resided in the British colonies for at least 137 On the German Palatines and their migration to England, see Harry T. Dickinson, “Poor Palatines and the Parties,” in The English Historical Review 82 (1967): 464–485; Daniel Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen, 122–130. 138 Pierre Lurbe, “John Toland and the Naturalization of the Jews,” 37. — 83 —

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seven years were qualified for naturalization. In all those cases, naturalization was nevertheless limited to small and non-homogeneous groups of foreigners and was specifically aimed at helping particular sectors of the national economy. As regards the Jews, in the period between 1714 and the Jew Bill of 1753, only another book in favor of naturalization was published, The Complaint of the Children of Israel (London, 1736), authored by William Arnall (1700–1736), a Whig intellectual and a supporter of Walpole, who signed his writing on the Jews with the pseudonym of Solomon Abrabanel. In a time when no parliamentarian debate on naturalization was taking place, Arnall called for putting an end to policies discriminating against the Jews and excluding them from public offices, university education, and various professions. He deemed it unfair to consider conversion to Anglicanism as a prerequisite for naturalization, and pointed out that the Jews were far less dangerous than the Catholics and numerous groups of Protestant Dissenters. In fact, the naturalization of an individual implied an oath of allegiance to the Anglican Church, which meant conversion to Anglicanism. It was only in 1753 that the parliament passed an act that allowed the Jews to obtain naturalization without converting to Anglicanism.139 This act was probably a reward for the Jews of England, who had shown particular loyalty to the government during the Jacobite Rising of 1745. Leading Whig figures such as Henry Pelham, Lord Halifax, the Duke of Newcastle, and the Earl of Hardwicke all played an important role in bringing in the Jew Bill, which received royal assent and thus became an act in July 1753, despite the Tories’ opposition in the House of Commons. The Jewish Naturalization Act did not entail a general naturalization of the Jews in England, but only removed some obstacles to the procedure of naturalization of individuals of Jewish faith. Nevertheless, the Tories mounted a campaign against the act: a large number of broadsheets, pamphlets, petitions, sermons, and newspapers presented the Jewish Naturalization Act as a threat on Christianity in general and on the rights of the Church of England in particular. The act was generally 139 On the Jew Bill controversy, see Thomas W. Perry, Public Opinion, Propaganda, and Politics; David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England, 240–253; Frank Felsenstein, Anti-Semitic Stereotypes, 187–214; Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora, 251–255. — 84 —

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presented as the result of a Whiggish, Jewish, and deistic conspiracy. Various anti-Semitic stereotypes were revived by the numerous pamphlets and broadsheets published during the controversy surrounding the approval of the act, and the labels “Jew” and “Whig” became interchangeable. Historian Thomas Perry has pointed out that the real objective of the attacks on the Naturalization Act were not the Jews residing in England, but the Whigs, who had the majority in the parliament: Perry has stated that “the ‘anti-Jewish’ clamour of 1753 was meant, even at its ugliest, to prepare the ground not for a pogrom, but for a general election.”140 In fact, the Whigs, who had obviously underestimated the potential effects of a law regarding an issue that they wrongly considered uncontroversial, eventually accepted to repeal the act in November 1753. The debate on the Jewish Naturalization Act was indeed an important episode in the gradual decline of the Whigs’ hegemony in English politics, a hegemony that eventually came to an end in the early 1760s. However, Justin Champion has argued that while the crisis caused by the Jewish Naturalization Act was certainly indicative of the significance of the so-called politics of religion in the period, one cannot disregard the violence of agitation and political discourse and the anti-Jewish language articulated during that controversy. In fact, several factors contributed to harshening the debate—factors such as the persistence of prejudices inspired by Christian anti-Judaism, the hostility of the Church of England toward non-Anglicans in general, the fear that the Jews could outclass the local traders and bankers if exempted from the alien duties, and, last but not least, the growing tendency to constructing a new nation of “Britons” after the absorption of the political institutions of Scotland and Ireland.141 In the end, the meaning and goals of the Jew Bill were largely misinterpreted and distorted: An essentially civil proposal was reconceived as a form of religious subversion. The fury of the Tory reaction 140 Thomas W. Perry, Public Opinion, Propaganda, and Politics, 75. 141 On the construction of the “British nation” in the eighteenth century, see Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). — 85 —

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against the Act is significant in two respects. First, it indicates the limits of social tolerance in mid-eighteenthcentury “Enlightenment” England. Second, it could alert the historian to the import of arguments about naturalization as perhaps a more radical (in eighteenth-century terms at least) alternative to more mainstream discussions about toleration. The radicalism of the “Jew Bill” was that, in some sense, it intended to treat the Jews as subjects of the civil state rather than the signifiers of religious meaning.142 In a time when numerous Jews were already contributing significantly to the English economy, their religion, culture, and ethnicity were still perceived as alien elements in English society, although most of them were born in England and some of them descended from families who had resided in Britain for more than a century. The Jews had largely proved themselves to be “useful” to society and loyal to the state, but this was still not enough to consider them as citizens like all the others. De facto toleration of the Jewish community in general, as well as the endenization of the few individuals who could afford the procedural expenses to become denizens, were widely regarded as the largest (and most convenient) concessions that could be made to the Jews of England: after all, they could still be useful to the national economy and could be well controlled by the political authorities if they remained aliens.143 It was only in the 1850s that the Jews eventually acquired full civil and political rights, after a long process of gradual abolition of discriminatory measures and following the election of a Jewish banker to the House of Commons. Lionel de Rothschild was elected to the Commons in 1847, but at that time, the members of the parliament were required to swear a Christian oath. Prime Minister Lord John Russell proposed a Jewish 142 Justin Champion, “Toleration and Citizenship,” 139. 143 After the failure of the Jew Bill, the Jewish community of England organized a committee, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which played a significant role in coordinating the life of AngloJewry before and after the emancipation of 1858 and is still the main representative body of Anglo-Jewry: see Aubrey Newman, The Board of Deputies of British Jews 1760–1985: A Brief Survey (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1987); Raphael Langham, 250 Years of Convention and Contention: A History of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, 1760–2010 (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2010). — 86 —

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Disabilities Bill to remove the problem with the oath, but his proposal encountered the opposition of the House of Lords in 1848 and, after Rothschild was elected twice again to the Commons, in 1851 and 1853. Only in 1858, after making an agreement with the Lords, the House of Commons allowed Rothschild to omit the words “upon the true faith of a Christian” from the oath he had to take. From then on, the Jews were admitted to all public offices. However, the process of gradual removal of the civil disabilities for the Jews of England was difficult and slow. In the century between the Jew Bill controversy and the admission of Lionel de Rothschild to the House of Commons, no public debate on Jewish naturalization took place in England, and no writing comparable to Toland’s treatise in favor of naturalization appeared. The British political elites ultimately tried to manage the issue of naturalization in the least hurtful way possible.144 In conclusion, Toland’s Reasons remains the most significant writing in favor of the Jews and of a regularization of their legal status in eighteenth-century England. Its importance relies in three main aspects, which we have analyzed in this essay: first of all, the deist thinker advanced a very original and innovative proposal (Toland’s Reasons indeed presented the first project for a naturalization of the Jews in the eighteenth century); second, in his proposal, Toland combined arguments and motifs typical of different traditions, mainly early liberalism, mercantilism, and Jewish apologetics; finally, Toland’s plea for the naturalization of the Jews presented an original theory of the relationship between the individual and the political society. Nevertheless, also in Toland’s approach to the question of freeing the Jews from prohibitions 144 On the process of Jewish emancipation in England, see Abraham Gilam, The Emancipation of the Jews in England, 1830–1860 (New York: Garland, 1982); David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England, 382–389. On the contribution of Jews to English politics and the issue of the admission of Jewish politicians to parliament, see Martin C. N. Salbstein, The Emancipation of the Jews in Britain: An Essay on the Preconditions (London: Associated University Presses, 1977); Geoffrey Alderman, The Jewish Community in British Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983); David Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and Political Culture, 1840–1914 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); id., “Jews and the State in Britain, 1830–1930,” in Two Nations: British and German Jews in Comparative Perspective, ed. Michael Brenner, Rainer Liedtke, and David Rechter (Tübingen: Mohr, 1999), 141–161; Greville Janner and Derek Taylor, Jewish Parliamentarians (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008); Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora, 255–259. Todd Endelman has argued that the emancipation of the English Jews entailed their “radical assimilation,” mainly due to the slowness of the emancipation process and the persistence of widespread anti-Jewish prejudices even after Jewish naturalization: see Todd M. Endelman, Radical Assimilation in English Jewish History, 1656–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990). — 87 —

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and obligations imposed on them by the institutions of the Christian state, the Jews’ actual needs and aspirations were not taken into due consideration. In fact, while the conservative milieus of eighteenthcentury England still regarded the Jews as unavoidably others, Toland prophesized the elimination of Jewish difference through a process of gradual assimilation into surrounding society. In any and every case, Jewish otherness was still the issue.

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Chapter 2 “More Useful and Happier Members of Society”: Christian Wilhelm von Dohm and the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews

The book Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews), written in 1781 by the Prussian state official, freemason, and political thinker Christian Wilhelm von Dohm (1751–1820), was one of the most important contributions to the debate on the emancipation of the Jews in the eighteenth century in Germany as well as the rest of Europe (although the term emanzipation never appears in this book).1 Dohm’s treatise enjoyed large success in the circles of the Aufklärung (i.e., the German Enlightenment) and raised the attention of some of the most respected intellectuals of the time, including the biblical scholar Johann David Michaelis and the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, whose Jerusalem appeared in 1783, two years after the publication of Dohm’s book.2 1

2

The first edition of Dohm’s treatise on the Jews is Christian W. Dohm, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (Berlin: Nicolai, 1781). A French translation by Jean Bernoulli appeared in 1782: Christian W. Dohm, De la Réforme politique des Juifs (Dessau: Librairie des Auteurs et des Artistes, 1782). An Italian translation was published in 1807: Christian W. Dohm, Riforma politica degli Ebrei (Mantua: Tipografia Virgiliana, 1807). An English translation was published in the 1950s: Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, trans. Helen Lederer (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1957). In the present essay, we make reference to the 1957 English translation of Dohm’s book and also give, between parentheses, the location of quotes in the original German edition of 1781. In 1783, Dohm published the second part of his treatise: Christian W. Dohm, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden. II (Berlin; Szczecin: Nicolai, 1783) (a facsimile reprint of this edition was published in the 1970s: ed. Franz Reuss, Hildesheim: Olms, 1973). On Dohm and his book on the Jews, see Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770–1780 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 57–71; Horst Möller, “Aufklärung, Judenemanzipation, und Staat: Ursprung und Wirkung von Dohms Schrift ‘Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden,’” in Deutsche Aufklärung und Judenemanzipation, ed. Walter Grab (Tel Aviv: Universität Tel Aviv, 1980), 29–85; Robert Liberles, “Dohm’s Treatise on the Jews: A Defense of the Enlightenment,” in The Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 3, no. 1 (1988): 29–42; id., “From Toleration to ‘Verbesserung’: German and English Debates on the Jews in the Eighteenth Century,” in Central European History 22, no. 1 (1989): 3–32; Paolo Bernardini, Aufklärung e Beamtentum. Metodo storiografico e teoria dell’economia in C. W. Dohm (Turin: Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, 1989); id., La questione ebraica nel tardo illuminismo tedesco. Studi intorno allo “Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden” di C. W. Dohm (1781) (Florence: Giuntina, 1992); id., “Pensiero politico e teoria costituzionale in C. W. Dohm dopo il 1789,” in Diritto e Stato nella filosofia della Rivoluzione Francese, ed. Mario A. Cattaneo (Milan: Giuffré, 1992), 393–426; Steven M. Lowenstein, The Berlin — 89 —

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The key concepts underlying Dohm’s project had a strong influence on the European debate on Jewish emancipation. Dohm was favorable to extending civil and political rights to the Jews and provided a number of interesting arguments in support of his proposal. He focused on specific political, social, and economic issues related to the granting of civil rights and duties to the Jews. On the other hand, his proposal originated not only from humanitarian ideals, but also from the need to extend and strengthen the power of the Prussian state over minorities that, though discriminated against by law, were still in a situation of exception in the sense that they still enjoyed particular autonomy in several key areas, including education and the administration of justice. Therefore, Dohm’s project belonged to the juridical and political tradition that supported the Enlightenment efforts to reorganize and rationalize the administration of the state by achieving, first of all, uniformity in the laws, the administration of justice and education policies, and state intervention in the national economy.3 In fact, Dohm openly declared that it is a duty of the state to make the Jews “more useful and happier members of society.”4 This essay examines the motives and arguments of Dohm’s project for the “amelioration of the civil status of the Jews.” Dohm’s proposal is placed within the context of the debate on the Jews and their emancipation in eighteenth-century Germany, especially in Prussia. Particular emphasis is put on the discussions that Dohm’s book provoked, and that led the Prussian intellectual to further clarify his intentions and plans in the second edition of his treatise, published in 1783. The Debate on the Jews in Eighteenth-Century Germany Dohm’s book was published in a time when around seventy thousand Jews lived in Germany.5 As regards their legal status, in no German state

3 4 5

Jewish Community: Enlightenment, Family and Crisis, 1770–1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 75–89; Regina Risse, Christian Wilhelm Dohm (1751–1820) und sein Beitrag zur Politisierung der Aufklärung in Deutschland (PhD dissertation, Universität zu Köln, 1996); Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 119–127; Daniel Sosna, Christian Wilhelm Dohm und die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (Munich: Grin, 2005); id., Christian Wilhelm Dohm—ein Antijudaist? (Munich: Grin, 2007). On this intellectual tradition, see especially Zygmunt Bauman, Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987). Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, 60 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 111). See Jacob Toury, “Der Eintritt der Juden ins deutsche Bürgertum,” in Das Judentum in der — 90 —

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did the Jews enjoy the same rights as the other citizens. In most German states, they were still “servi camerae regis” (“servants of the royal chamber,” in German Kammerknechtschaft) and were required to pay often-heavy taxes to reside in a territory. However, their specific situation varied from state to state: the details of their legal status were indeed defined by both the common law (“ius commune”) and local traditions and were clarified in patents periodically issued by the authorities.6 Also, their social conditions, the degree of their integration, and the relevance of their economic activities to the local economy varied from state to state. Social stratification occurred also among the Jews, and there were wealthy, middling, and poor Jews in all the regions of Germany. Moreover, a constantly growing number of Jews adopted the ways of living and thinking of the world around them, studied at universities, and practiced respected professions.7 However, the view of the Jew as poor,

6

7

deutschen Umwelt, ed. Hans Liebeschütz and Arnold Paucker (Tübingen: Mohr, 1977), 139–242, especially 139–152. On the legal status of the Jews in the German states, see Jacob Toury, “Toleranz und Judenrecht in der öffentlichen Meinung vor 1783,” in Judentum im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, ed. Günter Schulz (Bremen: Jacobi Verlag, 1977), 55–74; Georg F. Böhn, ed., Zur rechtlichen Situation der Juden im 18. Jahrhundert (Koblenz: Selbstverlag der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, 1982). On the history of the legal status of the Jews in Europe, see especially Vittore Colorni, Legge ebraica e leggi locali. Ricerche sull’ambito di applicazione del diritto ebraico in Italia dall’epoca romana al secolo XIX (Milan: Giuffré, 1945). On the conditions of the Jews in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany, see especially Hans G. Adler, Die Juden in Deutschland von der Aufklärung bis zum Nationalsozialismus (Munich: Kösel, 1960); Michael A. Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967); Jacob Allerhand, Das Judentum in der Aufklärung (Stuttgart; Bad Cannstatt: Fromman-Holzboog, 1980); Jehuda Reinharz and Walter Schatzberg, eds., The Jewish Response to German Culture: From the Enlightenment to the Second World War (Hanover NH: University Press of New England, 1985). See also the numerous writings published by the late George L. Mosse on German Judaism: though focusing mainly on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mosse’s essays also take into account the period studied in this essay. See especially George L. Mosse, Germans and Jews: The Right, the Left, and the Search for a “Third Force” in Pre-Nazi Germany (New York: Fertig, 1970); id., Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism (New York: Fertig, 1978); id., German Jews beyond Judaism (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1997). On the Jews in Prussia, see Selma Stern, Der Preussische Staat und die Juden, 4 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1962–1975); Albert A. Bruer, Geschichte der Juden in Preussen, 1750–1820 (Frankfurt: Campus, 1991); Steven M. Lowenstein, The Berlin Jewish Community; Iwan M. D’Aprile, “The Role of Religious Minorities in European Nation Building Processes around 1800: The Discussion concerning Citizenship for the Jews in Prussia,” in Religion, Ritual and Mythology: Aspects of Identity Formation in Europe, ed. Joaquim Carvalho (Pisa: PLUS–Pisa University Press, 2006), 199–209 (D’Aprile focuses specifically on the debate on Jewish emancipation in Prussia and Dohm’s role in the debate); Deborah S. Hertz, Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); ead., How Jews Became Germans: The History of Assimilation and Conversion in Berlin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). On the social and cultural background of Jewish emancipation in Germany, see Jacob — 91 —

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dishonest, greedy, uneducated, dirty, often wandering, and potentially dangerous was widespread in Germany—and not only among the low classes. Such a negative view was counterbalanced by representations of the “educated Jew” among the cultured elites, especially in Berlin, where the Haskalah (i.e., the so-called Jewish Enlightenment) and its representatives, most prominently Moses Mendelssohn, played a fundamental role in the relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals. However, the success of literary works such as Lessing’s plays Die Juden (The Jews, 1749) and Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise, 1779), which provided a very positive view of the Jews and thus promoted toleration, was countervailed by the fortune of a large number of comedies that portrayed the Jews as corrupt, ridiculous, filthy, or concentrated on “absurd” rabbinic texts.8 The debate on the conditions of the Jews in Germany started much after the beginning of the controversy on religious toleration. Until the mid-eighteenth century, the German disputes on toleration mainly focused on the issue of the coexistence between Catholics, Lutherans,

8

Katz, Out of the Ghetto; David Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780–1840 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Barbara Fischer, “From the Emancipation of the Jews to the Emancipation from the Jews: On the Rhetoric, Power and Violence of German-Jewish ‘Dialogue,’” in Contemplating Violence: Critical Studies in Modern German Culture, ed. Stefani Engelstein and Carl Niekerk (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011), 165–182. On the term “Jewish emancipation,” see Jacob Katz, “The Term ‘Jewish Emancipation’: Its Origins and Historical Impact,” in Studies in Nineteenth-Century Jewish Intellectual History, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 1–25; id., Jewish Emancipation and Self-Emancipation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1986). On the representations of Jews in German society and literature, see Helmut Jenzsch, Jüdische Figuren in der deutschen Bühnentexten des 18. Jahrhunderts (PhD dissertation, Universität Hamburg, 1974); Monika Richarz, Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland: Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte, 1780–1871 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1976); Peter R. Erspamer, The Elusiveness of Tolerance: The “Jewish Question” from Lessing to the Napoleonic Wars (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Ritchie Robertson, The “Jewish Question” in German Literature, 1749–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). On the “educated Jew,” see Siegmund Kaznelson, ed., Juden im deutschen Kulturbereich (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1959); Monika Richarz, Der Eintritt der Juden in die akademischen Berufe: Jüdischen Studenten und Akademiker in Deutschland, 1678–1848 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1974); Joseph Carlebach, “Deutsche Juden und der Säkularisierungsprozess in der Erziehung,” in Das Judentum in der deutschen Umwelt, ed. Hans Liebeschütz and Arnold Paucker, 55–94 (on Dohm, see 55–56, 66, 72). On Mendelssohn and his contribution to the debate on the emancipation of the Jews in Germany, see Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973); id., “Moses Mendelssohn as the Archetypal German Jew,” in The Jewish Response to German Culture, ed. Jehuda Reinharz and Walter Schatzberg, 17–31; Steven M. Lowenstein, The Berlin Jewish Community, 23–68; David Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); id., The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 165–213; Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment. — 92 —

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and Calvinists in a country still marked by the consequences of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century wars of religion. The Jews were mostly considered “heretics” and hence excluded a priori from toleration, and Luther’s contemptuous opinion of the Jewish people strengthened such a negative view not only among the Protestants. However, various factors contributed to the rise of the debate on the Jews in the second half of the eighteenth century. First of all, at that time, religious conflicts seemed less likely to occur than before, mainly thanks to the process of gradual subjection of religious organizations to political power—a process pursued by a number of “Enlightened despots” who aimed at rationalizing the administration of the state. Moreover, the rise of Prussia on the international political scenario and the development of bourgeoisie in the German states made Germany more integrated into the European political and economic system. Finally, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the second generation of the Aufklärung was actively engaged in the promotion of civil and political rights and in the struggle for the emancipation of man. However, before the publication of Dohm’s book, the debate on the Jews in Germany did not produce many texts dealing specifically with toleration of the Jews. Moreover, the few writings that openly supported toleration were characterized by significant limits. For instance, an anonymous article published in 1757 in the journal of the Policey-Amt of Göttingen presents the common theory that the Jews must be pushed to practice productive activities, different from trade, and moderate their lifestyle in order to integrate into surrounding society and become useful to the state.9 Also, Levi Israel, pseudonym of the Berlin physician Aaron Solomon Gumpertz, availed himself of utilitarian theories in a pamphlet published in 1753, after the issuing of the Jew Bill in England. He maintained that the government should grant the Jews the same rights as the other citizens in order to promote their economic activities and thus make them useful to society and the state.10 Furthermore, Germany’s foremost physiocrat, Johann August Schlettwein, offered 9

See Anon., “Ob die Juden einem land nützlich sind,” in Göttingische Policey-Amts Nachrichten, n. 16 (February 25, 1757): 61–63. 10 See Levi Israel [Aaron Solomon Gumpertz], Schreiben eines Juden an einen Philosophen nebst der Antwort. Mit Anmerkungen (Berlin, s.n., 1753). On this writing, see Gad Freudenthal, “Aaron Solomon Gumpertz, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and the First Call for an Improvement of the Civil Rights of Jews in Germany (1753),” in AJS Review 29 (2005): 299–353. — 93 —

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both humanitarian and utilitarian arguments in support of toleration for the Jews. In a 1776 article published in the prestigious Ephemeriden der Menschheit, he wrote that it is “inhuman” to expel the Jews because they are “men, our brothers.” On the other hand, he asserted that the Jews must be persuaded to leave the job of intermediary (which the physiocrats considered unproductive and parasitic) and to engage in other activities in order to be beneficial to the national economy.11 The most significant contributions to the debate on the Jews in Germany came from scholars of religious history and Jewish traditions. In fact, Hermann Samuel Reimarus’s innovative researches on the “historical Jesus” underscored the continuity between Judaism and Christianity—although Reimarus, who was one of the most prominent representatives of deism in Germany, accused the scriptural foundations of both Judaism and Christianity of contradicting human reason and morality and causing fanaticism, enthusiasm, and conscious fraud. Furthermore, Johann David Michaelis’s Mosaïsches Recht (Mosaic Law, 1770–1771) provided a detailed analysis of the juridical traditions of the Jews—although Michaelis was anything but a “philo-Semite.” Finally, the researches of August Ludwig von Schlözer, Anton Friedrich Büsching, and other scholars of the history of religions—most of whom worked at Göttingen—contributed to making the Jews more acceptable in the eyes of the educated people who were still influenced by antiJudaic stereotypes—although most of those scholars were not devoid of prejudices against the Jews.12 Moreover, Michaelis and Büsching openly criticized Johann Andreas Eisenmenger for the improper use he had made of rabbinical thought in Entdecktes Judenthum (Judaism Unmasked, 1700), a treatise that was for long an ideological arsenal for the 11 See Johann A. Schlettwein, “Bitte an die Grossen wegen der Juden zu Verhütung trauriger Folgen in den Staaten,” in Ephemeriden der Menschheit 10 (1776): 47–54. 12 On these authors’ contributions to the debate on Judaism and the Jews in eighteenth-century Germany, see Paolo Bernardini, La questione ebraica nel tardo illuminismo tedesco, 36–46. On the importance of Michaelis’s Mosaïsches Recht for the debate, see Edoardo Tortarolo, “Ebraismo e Illuminismo tedesco,” in La Questione ebraica dall’Illuminismo all’Impero (1700–1815), ed. Paolo Alatri and Silvia Grassi (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1994), 125–139. Tortarolo has also authored an interesting volume on the Berlin Enlightenment: see id., La ragione sulla Sprea. Coscienza storica e cultura politica nell’Illuminismo berlinese (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989) (on Dohm, see 171–186). As regards the historians based at Göttingen, Schlözer studied in depth Jewish traditions and planned to write a history of the Jews, which, nevertheless, he never completed. On the other hand, Büsching published a volume that became quite popular at the time: Anton F. Büsching, Geschichte der jüdischen Religion, oder des Gesetzes: Ein Grundriss (Berlin: Eisfeld, 1779). — 94 —

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detractors of Talmudic literature and influenced numerous anti-Jewish writers in the Age of Enlightenment.13 The fact that, in the eighteenth century, the Jews in Germany became more numerous, and their role in the German economy grew more important, favored their interaction with the Gentiles and the latter’s interest in the Jews and their culture—still largely unknown and perceived through the filter of deep-rooted prejudices. In this sense, the work of Gottfried Selig, a Jew from Leipzig who had converted to Christianity, is noteworthy. In fact, from 1768 to 1772, Selig published a weekly journal, Der Jude, to explain the beliefs and customs of contemporary Jews, and between 1781 and 1787, he published a three-volume work, which bore the same title as the journal and aimed at providing a systematic account of Jewish traditions.14 Finally, one cannot disregard the role that several representatives of the Aufklärung, especially Lessing and Herder, played in the development of the debate on the Jews in Germany. As mentioned above, between the late 1740s and the 1770s, Lessing’s works provided positive representations of the Jews, whom he chose as a medium to express his humanitarian ideals and highlight the similarities between all religions in matters of morality and worship of God. Almost one generation later, Herder emphasized the qualities of Jewish poetry and considered Jewish culture as a meaningful part of the “philosophical history of humanity.”15 However, the Jews depicted by the Aufklärer were somehow idealized. As a matter of fact, the general tendency of both anti- and philoSemitic literature in the Age of Enlightenment was to consider the Jews “in the abstract,” without necessarily being acquainted with actual Jews and the real life of the Jewish communities. Moreover, the knowledge 13 The role played by Eisenmenger’s Entdecktes Judenthum (1700) in the development and diffusion of anti-Jewish attitudes in eighteenth-century Europe is explained in Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700–1933 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 13–22. 14 See Gottfried Selig, Der Jude, oder Altes und Neues Judenthum, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Gedruckt mit Rumpfischen Schriften, 1781–1787). 15 On the influence of literature, especially Lessing’s work, on the debate, see Peter R. Erspamer, The Elusiveness of Tolerance; Ritchie Robertson, The “Jewish Question” in German Literature; id., “The Limits of Toleration in Enlightenment Germany: Lessing, Goethe and the Jews,” in Philosemitism, Antisemitism and “the Jews”: Perspectives from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, ed. Tony Kushner and Nadia Valman (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 194–214; Willi Goetschel, “Lessing and the Jews,” in A Companion to the Works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, ed. Barbara Fischer and Thomas C. Fox (Rochester: Camden, 2005), 185–208; Barbara Fischer, “From the Emancipation of the Jews to the Emancipation from the Jews.” — 95 —

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that most eighteenth-century intellectuals had of the Bible often conditioned their views of the Jews and led them to apply abstract or obsolete interpretive schemes to the situation of contemporary Jews. Another factor ought to be taken into account when examining Enlightenment views of the Jews: in Germany and in most of Western Europe, most philo-Semitic intellectuals were concerned, first of all, with the emancipation of man (not only of the Jew) and the assertion of his civil and political rights. Moreover, most of the German supporters of Jewish emancipation (including Dohm, who wrote under the influence of the cameralist tradition and used utilitarian and populationist arguments, typical of late mercantilism) combined the promotion of human rights with projects aimed at rationalizing and strengthening the political, economic, and social structures controlled by the state in order to make man not only happy but, above all, useful to society and the state. Briefly, in Germany, as in the rest of Western Europe, the Jews were viewed through various ideological lenses—which often obscured the ability to perceive their actual needs, concerns, and expectations—and “were far more important to gentiles for what they symbolized than for what they were.”16 Because of their situation of marginalization, the Jews were indeed considered “good to think” when dealing with such concepts as toleration, liberty, equality, justice, and the emancipation of man. Actually, most “philo-Semitic” intellectuals advanced the theory that even an oppressed and marginal element of society such as the Jew could become a good citizen if he was granted rights and duties that allowed him to be happy and useful to the state. This theory, if put into effect, could prove the validity of their ideals of equality and facilitate the general emancipation of mankind. Dohm’s Treatise on the Jews What has been said about Enlightenment views of the Jews can be aptly applied to Dohm. The conception of the Jews that emerges from his book is indeed characterized by the above-explained defects, since Dohm had almost no direct experience of Jewish culture and actual Jews before he decided to write his plea for emancipation. Before he started cooperating with Mendelssohn at the end of the 1770s, Dohm was actually unin16 Ronald Schechter, Obstinate Hebrews: Representations of Jews in France, 1715–1815 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 10. — 96 —

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terested in the Jews and their culture.17 Only in an article on “the most illustrious peoples of Asia,” published in Lippische Intelligenzblätter in 1774, did the twenty-three-year-old Dohm attempt to describe the Jews and their character. That article presented a superficial consideration of the Jewish people and revealed that Dohm was influenced by widespread stereotypes about the Jews, whom he regarded as inclined to sophistries and abstruse debates, attached to particulars and thus unable to carry out general surveys, and obsessed with the observance of strict rules and traditional rituals. On the other hand, he pointed out that the Jews had always been dispersed and oppressed by other nations, which had forced them to practice only trade and usury: to Dohm, this was the main reason the Jews had become greedy, cunning, and unreliable (an argument that he also used in his book on emancipation).18 He also mentioned the Jews in a short essay on toleration entitled Mémoire sur les constitutions des anciens (Dissertation on the Constitutions of the Ancients) and published by the Société des Antiquités of Kassel in 1779. However, in this essay, Dohm’s reference to the Jews, mainly to ancient Hebrews, is very vague and superficial, and he considers them a relatively obscure people, who could not be compared to the other nations of antiquity.19 It was Dohm’s friendship with Mendelssohn that led the Prussian intellectual to examine the conditions of contemporary Jews. In 1779, Mendelssohn was contacted by Herz Cerfbeer, a prominent member of the Jewish community of Alsace, which had been attacked in Observations d’un Alsatien sur l’affaire presente des Juifs d’Alsace (Observations of an Alsatian on the Present State of the Jews of Alsace, 1779), a virulent pamphlet by the anti-Semitic writer François Hell.20 In his pamphlet, which soon became the “manifesto” of French Judeophobia in the late eighteenth century, Hell asked for the expulsion of the Jews from Alsace. Like most of France, Alsace was experiencing a period of economic 17 Dohm was probably also led by personal ambition to write his plea for the Jews. The fact that he was a determined Karrierist, at least at the beginning of his professional life, is pointed out in Joseph Karniel, Die Toleranzpolitik Kaiser Josephs II (Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1986), 345. 18 See Christian W. Dohm, “Probe einer kurzen Charakteristik einiger der berühmtesten Völker Asiens. 1) Der Hebrär. 2). Der Türke. 3) Der Indianer,” in Die Lippischen Intelligenzblätter, 41–42 (1774), 649–656, and 665–670, now in id., Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. Heinrich Detering (Lemgo: Wagener, 1988), 31–36. 19 See Christian W. Dohm, “Mémoire sur les constitutions des anciens,” in Mémoires de la Société pour l’Antiquité de Cassel (1779): 319–326. 20 See [François Hell], Observations d’un Alsatien sur l’affaire prèsente des Juifs d’Alsace (Frankfurt, s.n., 1779). — 97 —

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crisis, and Hell stigmatized, and overstated, the role played by the Jews’ economic activities in fostering the crisis. Moreover, the forty thousand Jews who lived in Alsace were perceived as a legacy of the German rule, for France had taken possession of Strasbourg only in 1681. They were allowed to reside in Alsace in spite of a 1615 decree by Louis XIII, who prohibited the Jews to live in France, with the exception of a few and well-rooted communities. On the other hand, they were not supported by the Sephardim of Bordeaux and Bayonne, traditionally hostile to the Ashkenazim, and most of them lived in conditions of poverty.21 Mendelssohn, Dohm, and Cerfbeer, hence, composed a Mémoire sur l’état des Juifs en Alsace (Dissertation on the State of the Jews in Alsace).22 Probably, Cerfbeer provided most of the sources regarding the history and situation of the Jews of Alsace, while Mendelssohn decided to ask Dohm for assistance because the Prussian state official had good knowledge of legal documents and texts that could support the Alsatian Jews’ attempt to avoid expulsion. Moreover, Dohm had visited Strasbourg in 1777, and on that occasion he had probably become acquainted with the conditions of the local Jewish community. Although the Mémoire was published shortly before Dohm’s book on the “civil amelioration” of the Jews, it has been largely neglected by historiography. However, it is worth taking into account, as it presents positions that can help better understand Dohm’s masterpiece. A natural law approach characterizes the Mémoire, since its authors justified their claims on the basis of “nature, humanity and the laws.” 21

On the history of the Jewish community in Alsace and Lorraine, see Zosa Szajkowski, “The Jewish Problem in Alsace, Metz, and Lorraine on the Eve of the French Revolution of 1789,” in The Jewish Quarterly Review 44, no. 3 (1954): 205–243; Arthur Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 314–368; Arnold Ages, The Image of Jews and Judaism in the Prelude of the French Enlightenment (Sherbrooke: Haaman, 1986); Pierre-André Meyer, Table du registre d’etat civil de la Communauté juive de Metz, 1717–1792 (Paris: Meyer, 1987); id., La Communauté juive de Metz au XVIIIe siècle: histoire et démographie (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1993); Vicki Caron, Between France and Germany: The Jews of Alsace-Lorraine, 1871– 1919 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); Paula E. Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace: Acculturation and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Simon Schwarzfuchs, “Alsace and Southern Germany: The Creation of a Border,” in Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered, ed. Michael Brenner, Vicki Caron, and Uri R. Kaufmann (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 5–25; Jay R. Berkovitz, Rites and Passages: The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Culture in France, 1650–1860 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 69–85. 22 On this text, which was also published in the 1781 edition of Dohm’s Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, and on the cooperation between Cerfbeer, Mendelssohn, and Dohm, see Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, 449–461; Iwan M. D’Aprile, “The Role of Religious Minorities,” 203–205. — 98 —

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Moreover, the authors of the Mémoire combined utilitarian and natural law arguments in defending the Jews’ right to reside, work, and buy estates in Alsace. In fact, Mendelssohn and his associates maintained that governments have the duty to defend the citizens’ right to a free and productive life, and hence to make them useful to the national economy. Finally, they asserted that Hell had attacked the Jews not for the good of the Alsatian people, but for his personal interest. Hell had indeed tried to take advantage of a situation in which the Jews were the easiest target to hit. The Mémoire eventually favored the promulgation of Louis XVI’s Lettres Patentes of July 1784, which confirmed the permission for the Jews to reside in Alsace but did not change their legal status and thus did not help improve their social condition. As demonstrated by Dohm’s correspondence, Mendelssohn and the influential writer and publisher Friedrich Nicolai played a determining role in leading the young Prussian intellectual to write on Jewish emancipation.23 In fact, in a letter dated May 11, 1781, to Nicolai, Dohm revealed that he was afraid the Prussian censorship would reject his book. Thus, he had secured the support of his influential friend, the rationalist theologian and Hofrat (“aulic councilor”) Wilhelm Abraham Teller.24 Moreover, Dohm was afraid to publish his book in Berlin, as it dealt with a very delicate issue, relevant to both theology and politics. He nevertheless sent his manuscript to Mendelssohn on August 24, 1781, and told him that, as recommended by Nicolai, the book would not be published anonymously. However, Dohm’s concerns were well-grounded: in fact, without Nicolai’s decisive intervention, the book would not have been published in Prussia. The preface is dated August 3, 1781. It took around four months to write the book. The first part of Dohm’s treatise shows his utilitarian and mercantilist tendencies. In fact, in his book, Dohm makes large 23 See Alexander Altmann, “Letters from Dohm to Mendelssohn,” in Salo Wittmayer Baron: Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, ed. Saul Lieberman, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1974), vol. 1, 39–62. 24 See Horst Möller, “Aufklärung, Judenemanzipation, und Staat,” 120. On the figure and work of Nicolai, who was the publisher of both editions of Dohm’s book, see id., Aufklärung in Preussen: Der Verleger, Publizist und Geschichtsschreiber Friedrich Nicolai (Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1974); Bernhard Fabian, ed., Friedrich Nicolai (Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1983); Sigrid Habersaat, Verteidigung der Aufklärung: Friedrich Nicolai in religiösen und politischen Debatten, 2 vols. (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2001); Rainer Falk and Alexander Kosenina, eds., Friedrich Nicolai und die Berliner Aufklärung (Hanover: Wehrhahn, 2008). — 99 —

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use of populationist theories, which at the time, though criticized by Adam Smith’s followers, were still widespread in Europe, especially in Germany and Austria, thanks to authors such as Justi, Sonnenfels, and Süssmilch. To Dohm, the state has to promote demographic growth in order to fully use the resources of the country. Dohm rejects the hypothesis of an indiscriminate increase of population. He is rather favorable to a controlled and, if possible, planned demographic growth. Thus, he believes that in autonomous cities and other small political entities, it is wise to pass laws that prevent immigration, but larger states may make the most of their resources only by promoting demographic growth. For this reason, Dohm deems it convenient for a state to retain its subjects and attract foreigners by offering privileges and fiscal facilitations. Also, the state needs to defend “the liberty of action and opinion of the subjects” in order to increase the wealth of society on condition that its subjects’ actions and opinions “are not contrary to the good of the state.”25 All these arguments result from Dohm’s expertise in political economy, which was much deeper than his knowledge of Jewish culture. Moreover, Dohm was well acquainted with the project to establish Jewish colonies in Prussia in the first half of the eighteenth century, and he knew the populationist policies that had inspired that project. Though opposing the physiocrats’ doctrines on many points, Dohm points out that a rational cultivation of the land is the main source of wealth for a country and its people. He observes that, among the rights denied to the Jew, “the most important of all occupations, agriculture, is everywhere forbidden to him, and almost nowhere is he allowed to own land in his own name.”26 This passage is to be understood as an anticipation of Dohm’s considerations on trade and other activities. In fact, according to the Prussian intellectual, the Jews were not naturally led to trade but had been forced, under many limitations and difficulties, to develop a special talent for this activity and for lending money on interest, since they were forbidden to practice many other professions. Nevertheless, at that time, most people regarded the fruits of the Jews’ trades and financial activities as “dishonest.” To Dohm, the legal limita25 26

See Christian W. Dohm, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 5–7 (the preface is not included in the English translation published in 1957). Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, 2 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 10). — 100 —

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tions imposed on the Jews are to be considered as an exception from the laws of an otherwise enlightened policy according to which all citizens should be incited by uniform justice, support of trade and the greatest possible freedom of action so as to contribute to the general welfare.27 For Dohm, a mutual agreement between the state and the citizen is necessary to achieve the common good: the more liberal the former, the happier the latter in accomplishing his tasks. On this point, Dohm seems to draw on Adam Smith’s doctrines. However, his theories are still under the influence of German cameralism and the Pufendorfian tradition of natural law, which, unlike Smith, consider the state as the primary political entity, not merely as the guarantor of individual liberties. After dealing with economic and political issues, Dohm attempts to defend Judaism from a number of widespread and deep-rooted prejudices. He even justifies the Jews’ claim to be the best of men: The Jews naturally still regard their Law as the first and most perfect one and love it the better because it still exists despite so many persecutions. They must even now regard themselves as the best of men because regardless of the hatred of all other nations they still exist, a miracle which is almost greater than those of their ancient history.28 Dohm also maintains that in spite of the others’ hatred against them, “the present faith of the Jews contains no commandment to hate and offend the adherents of other religions.”29 Moreover, Dohm acknowledges the value of the Mosaic Law as the fundamental code of law also for the Christians, who look upon it “with reverence” and ascribe it “to divine revelation.” The Mosaic Law was indeed a crucial issue in the theo27 Ibid., 5 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 15–16). 28  Ibid., 9 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 20). 29  Ibid., 10 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 22). — 101 —

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logical debates on Judaism since the Age of Reformation. But in Dohm’s book—perhaps for the first time in the debate on the status of the Jews in the early modern era—an emphasis on the historical significance of the Mosaic Law implies the necessity to consider and treat those who live exclusively in compliance with that law (i.e., the Jews) in a way no different than the Christians, who also respect the New Testament. In fact, an argument contrary to Dohm’s reasoning may often be found in anti-Jewish literature inspired by Christian “replacement theology.” The argument sounds like this: the Jewish religion is imperfect and partial, as it is only a forerunner of Christianity; therefore, it is right to keep the Jews in a condition of inferiority and submission to Christians; if some of them want to be considered and treated like their Christian neighbors, it is necessary for them to convert to Christianity and thus discard their wrong beliefs, which separate them from those who believe in the Christian truth (namely, the only possible truth). Dohm, like Lessing and many other supporters of Jewish emancipation, was inclined to deism and critical of positive religions. Dohm’s criticism of positive religions is part of his political discourse on religious toleration (an issue mainly related to the above-mentioned economicpolitical questions).30 To Dohm, every positive religion is in opposition to all the others, considers its adepts as the only repositories of truth, and therefore spreads hatred toward the followers of other cults: If therefore every religion severs the bond between man and man and makes men withhold affection and justice from those who are not of the same faith, if this is a natural consequence of the boasted superiority of every faith; then this phenomenon cannot be a valid reason for withholding the rights of citizenship from the adherents of any one faith. Otherwise the state could tolerate religion or else only one single religion. Neither is feasible, given the present situation. Either would be against the true welfare of the state and would interfere with the 30

See Heinrich Detering, “C. W. Dohm und die Idee der Toleranz,” in Lessing und die Toleranz, ed. Peter Freimark, Franklin Kopitzsch, and Helga Slessarev (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986), 174–185. Another German deist who supported Jewish emancipation was the writer August Cranz, who was a good friend of Mendelssohn (see Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment, 119– 120). — 102 —

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natural rights of man which keeps also as a citizen, an integral part of which is the freedom to seek the bliss of a future life after death in the way which is, according to his opinion, the safest, and to worship the Supreme Being in the manner he considers the best and most dignified.31 Dohm belongs to the intellectual tradition that, following Locke’s example, considers allegiance to a religious organization to be not detrimental to the relationships between the citizen and the state. On the other hand, he regards the “separateness” produced by positive religions as one of the many causes of the birth and diffusion of “private societies,” or social groups with distinctive characteristics, often opposed to one another. Dohm’s notion of a “social group” (in German, Trennung) is extremely interesting: The great and noble business of the Government is to mitigate the mutually exclusive principles of all these varied groups so that they will not harm the greater union which comprises all of them, so that the separateness will incite only greater activity and competition, not antipathy and withdrawal, so that all the single notes are dissolved in the great harmony of the state.32 This passage was of great importance in the debate on the Jews in Germany after the publication of Dohm’s book. In fact, Dohm’s thesis has significant implications regarding the legal status of the Jews and, above all, their possible reaction to the threat of a loss of their religious, cultural, and juridical-administrative prerogatives, which could eventually result in a loss of identity. In clarifying his view of the relationship between the state and particular societies, Dohm is particularly explicit regarding the individual’s primary duty:

31 Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, 11 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 24–25). The influence that Locke’s doctrine of toleration had on Dohm is manifest in this passage. 32 Ibid., 12 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 26). — 103 —

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The Government should allow each of the special groups its pride, and even its harmful prejudices, but should endeavor to instill in each member a greater love of the state. This great goal is achieved, if the nobleman, the peasant, the scholar, the artisan, the Christian and the Jew consider their separateness as secondary, and their role as citizen, primary.33 Dohm’s viewpoint is emblematic of a widespread perspective in late Enlightenment culture: virtually in all the late-eighteenth-century projects for the emancipation of the Jews—and generally of mankind—man’s qualities related to religion, ethnicity, social background, financial situation, education, profession, and the like, were regarded as secondary when compared to the general, supreme, “neutral” category of citizen, or subject, to which all human beings needed to belong, first and above all. After explaining his view of the state, civil society, and religious toleration, Dohm gives a general account of the history of Jewish-Gentile relations, from the Roman era to the eighteenth century: in fact, as we will see, in his treatise, Dohm uses several historical examples to strengthen his proposal to grant the Jews civil rights. He then praises the sober lifestyle typical of the family man (the German Hausvater). On this point, Dohm considers individual happiness and well-being as resulting from constant industriousness and traditional economic activities. Therefore, he deplores financial speculations and other rash economic enterprises, furthered by both an excessive love of luxury and lack of temperance. The following section of the book presents Dohm’s legislative proposal, which is the very core of his project and the most innovative element of his treatise: in fact, the other sections aim at supporting this proposal and providing it with a historical-theoretical basis. Dohm also presents, and answers to, potential objections to his project. In this respect, he elaborates some interesting reflections on the crucial points of the debate, including the possibility for the Jews to serve in the military. We will thus examine in detail Dohm’s nine-point proposal, as well as the historical and theoretical foundations of Dohm’s arguments. 33 Ibid., 12–13 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 26–27). — 104 —

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First of all, Dohm clarifies one of the key principles of his project: With the elimination of the unjust and unpolitical treatment of the Jews will also disappear the consequences of it; and when we cease to limit them to one kind of occupation, then the detrimental influence of that occupation will no longer be so noticeable.34 After this premise, Dohm reasserts the purpose of his project—that is, to make the Jews “happier and better members of civil societies”35— and starts to explain the nine points of his proposal. The first point deals with the essential means to make the Jews “happier and better members of civil societies.” Dohm explains as follows: To make them such it is first necessary to give them equal rights with all other subjects, since they are able to fulfill the duties, they should be allowed to claim the equal impartial love and care of the state.36 The first point is of crucial importance. It presents the very foundation of the concept of emancipation (although, as has been said, Dohm never uses this term in his book) from a juridical viewpoint—that is, the exit from a condition of marginality, exclusion, and discrimination, followed by the admission to the enjoyment of the same rights, and the acceptance of the same duties, as those of the other citizens. In accordance with this principle, all the laws promulgated to regulate the life of the Jews, and inspired by mere “compassion,” must be invalidated. Likewise, laws based on the above principle of justice may certainly allow the Jews to freely pursue their happiness and therefore to be more useful to society and the state. Other passages in Dohm’s book clearly support this point. For instance, Dohm strengthens his thesis with the deep-rooted (and mistaken) belief that the Jews enjoyed liberty and prosperity under Rome before the Christianization of the Empire. The legal status of the Jews 34 Ibid., 59 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 109). 35 Ibid. (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 109). 36 Ibid., 60 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 110). — 105 —

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under the Roman Empire was indeed one of the most debated topics in eighteenth-century German jurisprudence. Numerous jurists believed that the Jews could not be denied the title of “Roman citizens,” that is, citizens of the Holy Roman Empire, in light of their civil status under the Roman rule in antiquity. Therefore, the Jews were entitled to all the rights granted to the citizens of the Empire and had to be considered equal to them. Briefly, according to this theory, the emancipation of the Jews was not to be regarded as an acquisition of new rights, but as the restitution of old rights, anciently granted to the Jews by the Roman law. However, before the publication of Dohm’s treatise, this theory never led to explicit pleas for Jewish emancipation, most probably because most jurists did not want to shift from a juridical to a political discourse, which would directly question the legal status of the Jews in Germany. In most German states, the Jews were indeed considered servi camerae or Schutzjuden (i.e., Jews protected by the political authorities), entirely subject to the rulers’ will and often forced to pay heavy taxes in change of protection. Nevertheless, Dohm did not hesitate to use the thesis of the legal status of the Jews under the Roman Empire in order to strengthen his proposal.37 When covering the history of the Jews, Dohm focuses on their situation under the Roman rule and maintains that their conditions became worse and worse over the centuries because of the influence of Christian theology on the Roman law. Moreover, in the Middle Ages, the relationships between political power and religious authorities impeded human liberties, as well as moral and political autonomy. According to Dohm, the Middle Ages, characterized by intolerance and persecutions, briefly put an end to what had been a “golden age” for the Jews—that is, the Age of the Roman Empire. However, Dohm observes that the conditions of the Roman era were revived in eighteenth-century Europe by several monarchs and especially by the Dutch and English governments, which a number of German progressive intellectuals regarded as the best examples of free government: “There [i.e., in the Netherlands] and 37 Dohm studied in depth a number of juridical texts regarding the legal status of the Jews: see Johann C. Wagenseil, Benachrichtigung wegen einiger die Judenschaft angehenden wittigen Sachen (Altdorf: Schonnerstaedt, 1707); Heinrich C. F. von Senckenberg, Commentatio de juribus ac privilegis dotium illatorumque in concursu creditorum, in specie quoad mulieres Judaeas (Göttingen: Stanno Vulpiano, 1729); Johann F. Fischer, Commentatio de statu et jurisdictione Judaeorum per Leges Romanas, Germanicas, Alsaticas (Argentorati [Strasbourg]: Bauer, 1763). On the Jews and military service, see Johann D. Gruber, De Judaeo milite (Halle: Krottendorff, 1723). — 106 —

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in England the Jews enjoy all human and civil rights and have proved themselves very useful members of the State.”38 Furthermore, Dohm praises Charles III of Bourbon, who issued a decree in favor of the Jews of Naples in 1740. Charles III’s decree is a document of extraordinary importance for the history of law. In fact, the Bourbon king’s decree put into effect many principles asserted, four decades later, also by Dohm’s treatise, and was even more advanced than Dohm’s proposal. The second edition of Dohm’s book, published in 1783, presents a summary of this decree, which also appeared in Mercure in March 1740: I. The Jews will fully enjoy the same rights as the other citizens and subjects do. II. The Jews will be allowed to practice any trade, business and occupation. III. The Jews will not pay higher taxes than the other citizens. IV. Forty Jewish families in Naples, Palermo and Messina, and twenty in the other cities of the Kingdom, will establish a Council, which will elect their Superiors and Judges. […] V. The Jews will be allowed to purchase houses and own lands, with the exception of the feudal estates. VI. The Jews will also be allowed to own Turkish and Moorish slaves, but not Christian slaves, and if their slaves convert to the Christian religion, they will enjoy their freedom only on condition that they pay a certain amount of money to their master.39 Dohm could not establish whether this decree was successfully implemented (in fact, it was not). However, the law issued by Charles III was very advanced for its time. In mid-eighteenth-century Western Europe, the authorities treated the Jews with benevolence only in a few places, such as the Netherlands and the city of Leghorn, which was commonly considered a “paradise” for the Jews. In most European states, the Jews had been expelled and then readmitted after controversial debates, 38

Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, 40 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 74). In fact, in England, the Jews achieved complete emancipation, after a long and gradual process, only in 1858, when Lionel de Rothschild was admitted to the House of Commons (see the essay on John Toland in this volume). 39 Christian W. Dohm, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden. II, 116–118. — 107 —

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and their legal status was still very complex and characterized by many limits, prohibitions, and impositions. Moreover, at that time, the Jews were still forbidden to reside in various countries such as the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden (though the latter readmitted them in 1782), the Duchy of Württemberg, and the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück. Of course, this does not mean that the Jews did not actually live in those countries, but one may easily understand that the Jews who lived there had to cope with numerous difficulties. Dohm’s opinion on the principles of legal discrimination against the Jews is extremely bitter: These principles, contrary to humanity and political expediency, which bear so clearly the stamp of the dark centuries in which they came into existence, are unworthy of our enlightened times and should long ago have been abolished. In our firmly established state any citizen must be welcome who observes the laws and adds through his industry to the wealth of the state.40 However, the following points of Dohm’s proposal are less liberal (and less abstract) than the first, which they somehow counterbalance. One actually needs to take into account the complex legal issues that Dohm had to deal with. In fact, he had to take into consideration the socio-political situation of the time. In the second part of his project, Dohm stigmatizes the harmful effects of commerce on the life of the Jewish communities: Since it is primarily the limitation of the Jews to commerce which has had a detrimental influence on their moral and political character, a perfect freedom in the choice of a livelihood would serve justice, as well as representing a humanitarian policy which would make the Jews more useful and happier members of society.41

40 Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, 44–45 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 86). 41 Ibid., 60 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 111). — 108 —

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Dohm agrees with, and maybe borrows from, Michaelis on a fundamental point—that is, the theory that the Mosaic Law was contrary to trade and that the Israelites were originally peasants. They became used to practicing trade from necessity, because many other activities were forbidden to them. Therefore, Dohm believes that the state has to guarantee the freedom to practice any profession. Moreover, he asserts that the political authorities need to dissuade the Jews from practicing trade by offering them new opportunities, not by imposing new obligations and prohibitions on them. This proposal has some interesting economic and political implications, especially in two respects. First, to Dohm, the Jews must be encouraged to engage in craftsmanship, an activity that numerous Jews already practiced, though several legal regulations limited their choice to a few craftsman jobs, such as goldsmith. Dohm thinks that the state must grant some fiscal privileges and confer honorific titles to the Jews who are willing to practice craftsmanship or encourage their children to become craftsmen. Second, although the Jews cannot join the corporations, they must nevertheless enjoy all the rights of the members of these organizations and accept their fiscal burden as well. On this point, Dohm attacks the very existence of guilds and corporations.42 His position regarding the guilds is inspired by the Pufendorfian tradition and is similar to that of the physiocrats, whom he nevertheless criticizes on many other points. To Dohm, an economic system based on the corporations is indeed contrary to natural law and to the right of man to practice any job in order to make his living and be useful to society. Moreover, this system damages the state, as it forces skilled artisans to be inactive or leave the country. Given the failure of Turgot’s attempt to suppress the guilds in France in 1776, Dohm knew how difficult it was to eradicate this system, although he lived in a time when the corporations were gradually losing their power. However, he deemed it possible to neutralize their predominance by allowing everyone to practice any profession, though not belonging to any corporation. On this point, Dohm’s discourse is relevant not only to the Jews, but to man in general:

42 In this essay, we use the term “corporation” to mean “guild.” In fact, until the Le Chapelier Law of 1791, which banned guilds in revolutionary France, the term “corporation” was not used commonly. — 109 —

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Perhaps that would be the mildest and most certain means of rendering less advantageous for the state the monopolies of the guilds which undoubtedly no longer fit into the present political setup. The guilds would be allowed to enjoy all their old rights, dignities and customs, while on the other hand, every skilled and industrious citizen would be entitled to earn his living by his skills, even without being a member of a guild.43 In the third point, the Prussian intellectual declares that “the Jews should not be excluded from agriculture.”44 Dohm engaged in a harsh polemic with the physiocrats about agriculture, an occupation that he considered to be “too similar to commerce: it nourishes the spirit of speculation and profit-seeking.”45 However, in his book, Dohm does not oppose the possibility for the Jews to buy landed estates, given that they were originally peasants. On the other hand, he is contrary to establishing rural colonies for the Jews: such a project would further restrict their ability to consort with Christians, and “the Jews, left entirely to themselves, would be strengthened in their prejudices against Christians, and vice versa.”46 Dohm also opposes the existence of ghettos, which he conceived of as “remnants of the old harsh principles.”47 Moreover, to Dohm, there is also a hygienic reason to put an end to the ghetto: In many places […] the evil consequence is that the Jews are forced to build their houses many stories high and live under very crowded conditions resulting in uncleanliness, diseases, and bad policing, and great danger of fire.48 In this respect, it is worth mentioning that issues related to public 43 44 45 46

Ibid., 62 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 114). Ibid. (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 114). Ibid., 63 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 115). Ibid., 63 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 116). Considerations like these were typical of the late-eighteenth-century celebrations of sociability (Geselligkeit), which were eventually integrated into idealist philosophy and were at the core of Fichte’s moral system. 47 Ibid. (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 116). 48 Ibid., 63–64 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 116). — 110 —

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hygiene, such as the need to clean the roads, were widely debated in the 1770s. The fourth point focuses on one of the few “privileges” enjoyed by the Jews in some European countries at the time: No kind of commerce should be closed to the Jews, but none should be left to them exclusively and they should not be encouraged by privileges.49 Dohm is favorable to free trade, but in his opinion the state must avoid encouraging particular groups to engage in specific trades. Moreover, to Dohm, very firm policies need to be implemented with regard to commerce. For instance, account books must be written in the language of the land, not Hebrew or Yiddish, in order to avoid frauds and promote the interaction between Jewish and Christian merchants. As regards trade related crimes, Dohm maintains: Fraud and crooked dealings in commerce should be represented to the Jews as the most heinous crime against the state which now embraces them with equal affection, and these crimes should be subjected to the harshest penalties—perhaps exclusion from the newly granted freedoms for a period of time or permanently.50 The fifth point deals with education, which plays a crucial role in Dohm’s project: Every art, every science should be open to the Jew as to every other free man. He, too, should educate his mind as far as he is able; he, too, must be able to rise to promotion, honor, and rewards by developing his talents. The scientific institutions of the state should be for his use, too, and he should be as free as other citizens to utilize his talents in this way.51 49 Ibid., 64 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 116). 50 Ibid., 64 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 117). 51 Ibid., 64–65 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 118). — 111 —

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The state must guarantee the education of all citizens, including the Jews. People must be rewarded for their accomplishments, not for their social status. However, also in this case, Dohm makes some distinctions. On the basis of his experience as a state official, Dohm connects the question of education with the issue of admission to public offices. On this point, he is openly against the admission of Jews to public offices. Perhaps, this right could be conceded to the following generations of Jews, but not to those who lived in Dohm’s era and whom he considered to be very corrupt (no matter if they were corrupt by nature or because of historical and social reasons). To Dohm, the Jews needed to be collectively re-educated to work hard before enjoying all the fruits of emancipation: The too mercantile spirit of most Jews will probably be broken more easily by heavy physical labor than by the sedentary work of the public service; and for the state as well as for himself it will be better in most cases if the Jew works in the shops and behind the plow than in the state chancelleries.52 Dohm clarifies his intentions in another passage of this chapter: Just impartiality would demand that if a Jewish and a Christian applicant show equal capability, the latter deserves preference. This seems to me to be an obvious right of the majority in the nation—at least until the Jews by wiser treatment are changed into entirely equal citizens and all differences polished off.53 Briefly, Dohm believed that legal equality could not immediately produce actual equality with regard to social relations, individual abilities, and the psychological attitudes of the Jews toward the Christians and vice versa. Therefore, the lawmakers had to consider this very important problem and still enforce some forms of discrimination against the Jews 52 Ibid., 65 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 119). 53 Ibid., 65–66 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 119). — 112 —

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when they came to compete with Christians. Dohm’s concerns with the future generations of Jews characterize also the sixth point of his proposal, dealing with primary and secondary education—an issue that Dohm considers of primary importance: It should be a special endeavor of a wise government to care for the moral education and enlightenment of the Jews, in order to make at least the coming generations more receptive to a milder treatment and the enjoyment of all advantages of our society.54 First of all, the Jews must be prevented from developing “antisocial opinions against men of other persuasions.”55 In other words, the government has to teach the Jews the fundamental principle of toleration in order to defend the others from the intolerance that may result from certain rigid interpretations of some Jewish dogmas. Therefore, Jewish schools must be shaped on the model of Christian schools, and the department of education must have authority over them. Moreover, the government needs to supervise the education of Jewish children in Jewish schools and synagogues: No doubt it would be useful for the education of the moral and civil character of the Jews if the government would arrange that in the synagogues, besides the religious instruction which is not to be interfered with, instruction be given sometimes in the pure and holy truths of reason, and especially on the relationship of all citizens to the state and their duties to it.56 This point of Dohm’s proposal can be better understood if one considers his knowledge of Lessing’s and Mendelssohn’s works and, above all, the fact that he was well acquainted with the system adopted by the Protestant Church of Prussia. In Dohm’s country, the Protestant Church was indeed autonomous, but in its assemblies no precept contrary to 54 Ibid., 66 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 120). 55 Ibid. (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 120). 56 Ibid., 67 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 122). — 113 —

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the common good and the state could be preached. Moreover, the Protestant ministers had to teach political and legal concepts relevant to civil duties and had to provide a social as well as theological justification of the state’s laws and institutions.57 This way, the state and the church allied in order to promote the civil and moral education of the citizens. Thus, Dohm believed that the synagogues could also ally with the government for the same reason. Dohm’s attention to education resulted mainly from his interest in the theories of Johann Bernhard Basedow. In fact, Basedow’s principles of education, strongly influenced by Rousseau’s Emile, entail an explicit defense of toleration, and Basedow was commonly regarded as one of the foremost theorists and supporters of toleration. Also, the seventh point of Dohm’s proposal deals with the need to educate the Jews in order to free them of their (supposed) anti-Christian attitudes. On the other hand, Dohm maintains: With the moral improvement of the Jews there should go hand in hand efforts of the Christians to get rid of their prejudices and uncharitable opinions. In early childhood they should be taught to regard the Jews as their brothers and fellow men who seek to find favor with God in a different way; a way they think erroneously to be the right one, yet which, if they follow in sincerity of heart, God looks at with favor.58 In the eighth point of his project, Dohm continues to deal with issues related to education and religion. He asserts: “An important part of civil rights would be the right for Jews in all places of free worship, to build synagogues and employ teachers at their own expenses.”59 Dohm did not aim at putting strong limits to the juridical authority of the rabbis in matters of religion, which he deemed justified by the primary source of the Jewish religion—that is, the Pentateuch. In 57 On the organization of the Protestant Church in Prussia and its relationships with the state, see Klaus Schlaich, Kollegialtheorie. Kirche, Recht und Staat in der Aufklärung (Munich: Claudius Verlag, 1969). 58 Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, 67 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 122). 59 Ibid., 68 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 123). — 114 —

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fact, Dohm’s analysis of the right of banishment (Bannrecht) led him to a controversy with Mendelssohn, who, unlike the Prussian writer, wanted to abolish it. On the one hand, in his treatise, Dohm expresses his antipathy toward the rabbis, whose “sophisms” he frequently attacks. Dohm’s opinion of the rabbis results from his idea that Judaism was originally a good religion but then deteriorated because of both external factors, such as the oppression and persecutions suffered by the Jews over the centuries, and internal causes, such as the development of an intellectual elite unable to preserve and transmit the original positive principles of Judaism. On the other hand, Dohm defends the rabbis’ right to excommunicate and banish an individual from the community. However, this is a very controversial question. The issue of the civil effects of excommunication was crucial in eighteenth-century debates on the relationships between state and Christian churches, with special regard to the fundamental question of the jurisdiction on the person. Dohm compared the synagogue to Christian churches, and for this reason he acknowledged that, in matters of excommunication, the rabbis could be granted the same authority as the Christian ministers—on condition that exclusion from the Jewish community had an effect only on the religious sphere, not on the civil rights of the excommunicated person. This is a decisive point, which involves ecclesiastical and civil law. In explaining his position, Dohm proposed a secular view of the relationships between the state and religious organizations: The Jewish community, just as any other organized religious society, should have the right to excommunicate for a period of time or permanently, and in case of resistance the judgment of the rabbis should be supported by the authorities. Regarding the execution of this ban, the state should interfere less when it does not go beyond a religious society and has no effect on the political society, for the excommunicated member of any church can be a very useful and respected citizen. This is a principle of general church jurisprudence which should no longer be doubtful in our times.60 60 Ibid., 68–69 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 124). — 115 —

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Both Mendelssohn and another prominent Jewish intellectual, Naphtali Hirz Wessely, considered Dohm’s solution ineffective and asked for the abolition of the right of banishment tout court. Mendelssohn recommended that Dohm modify his position. Therefore, Dohm included in the 1782 French translation of his treatise a clarification on the right of banishment, which also appeared in the second German edition of the book, published in 1783. In his addendum, Dohm maintained that the government should never allow a rabbi to issue, against a member of his community, an anathema aimed at isolating him from civil society, worsening his reputation and harming his business. Nevertheless, Mendelssohn considered Dohm’s clarification insufficient: the Jewish philosopher believed that in Jewish society, where the rabbis’ authority in matters of religion had significant social implications, excommunication would provoke, in any case, social exclusion.61 As a matter of fact, Mendelssohn aimed at depriving all religious organizations of the right of banishment and similar powers. On the other hand, more conservative Jews could consider the abolition of the excommunication right as an attack on Jewish autonomy—an attack that could also trigger a loss of Jewish identity. The ninth and last point deals with legal issues unrelated to the authority of the rabbis, but pertaining to the “lay” courts of the Jewish communities. Dohm believes that the juridical autonomy of the Jewish communities ought to be preserved—of course, with a significant exception already stated in the previous point: nobody must be deprived of his civil rights because of a religious anathema. The juridical autonomy of the Jewish communities must thus be similar to that enjoyed by other components of civil society, such as the guilds (although, as has been said, Dohm opposed the corporations system and, in general, the excessive power of particular “social groups” within civil society). 61

On Mendelssohn’s observations on excommunication and his reaction to Dohm’s proposal on this issue, see Alexander Altmann, “Moses Mendelssohn on Excommunication: The Ecclesiastical Law Background,” in id., Die trostvolle Aufklärung: Studien zur Metaphisik und politischen Theorie Moses Mendelssohns (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1982), 229–231. Wessely clarified his viewpoint in JCU [Naphtali H. Wessely], Anmerkungen zu der Schrift des Herrn Dohms, über der bürgerliche Verfassung der Juden (Altona, s.n., 1782) (JCU were the initials of Johann Christoph Unzer, a scientist and a friend of Wessely, who authorized him to use such initials as a pseudonym). On Wessely and his role in the Haskalah, see Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment, 87–104, 139– 162, 177–184. — 116 —

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Dohm’s argument in favor of partial juridical autonomy for the Jews was supported by the common law of the Empire, whose legitimacy was widely accepted among German jurists. However, in this section of his project, Dohm also asserts that the Jews should be allowed “to start court proceedings at the court of the regular Christian judges.”62 And the Christian judges “have to decide according to Jewish laws.”63 To Dohm, this norm would safeguard both the rights of the Jews and justice: If they [i.e., the judges] would decide according to the common law great confusion would be unavoidable, and besides the litigant would have the unfair advantage that he could file his claim with the judge whose decision he would expect to be favorable to him.64 On this point, perhaps because he had almost no direct experience of Jewish communities, Dohm superficially disregarded that this norm could lead to many difficulties in case of a lawsuit between a Jew and a Christian. However, he proposed a non-radical solution, rather than encouraging the state to take over full jurisdiction on the Jewish communities, because such an extreme measure would have seriously endangered the communities and therefore hindered the gradual emancipation of the Jews, making them unable to be re-educated and eventually become “happier and more useful.” With the ninth point, Dohm concludes his proposal. In the last section of his book, the German intellectual briefly discusses some potential objections to his project, especially those regarding the possibility for a Jew to serve in the army—a theme that Dohm also examined in an article published in the same year as his book.65 Numerous objections were actually raised after the publication of Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden in 1781, and Dohm answered in detail to the most common objections to his project in the second edition of his treatise, as we will see in the next section of this essay. 62 Christian W. Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews, 69 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 126). 63 Ibid. (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 126). 64 Ibid., 69–70 (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 126). 65 See Christian W. Dohm, “Untersuchung der Frage: ob den Juden durch ihr Religionsgesetz der Kriegsdienst untersagt werde,” in Olla Potrida 4 (1781): 133–134. — 117 —

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As regards the 1781 edition of Dohm’s book, it is worth mentioning, in conclusion, that two interesting aspects of Dohm’s work have often been neglected by historiography. First, Dohm considered the Jews as a “Trennung,” a “social group.” In his treatise, like in most of the writings of the time, the word “minority” (Minderheit) is not used, as this term became common in Europe in the nineteenth century, when the new social and political situation— characterized by the rise and diffusion of political assemblies and parties—made it possible to set this notion against the concept of majority. Briefly, both “minority” and “majority” are two post-revolutionary notions, at least regarding the use of these terms with reference to social and political issues. Dohm applies the concept of Trennung to guilds and religious or ethnic minorities. As regards the latter, to Dohm, they may remain “Trennungen” on condition that they become effectively integrated into the national economy and therefore useful to the state, rather than weighing on it. To Dohm, no social group is intrinsically negative, but every “Trennung” has its own potential. In eighteenthcentury Germany, the Mennonites and their activities provided the best example of a social group beneficial to society and the state, as Dohm observed in an article on the economic conditions of the Palatinate, published in the journal Deutsches Museum in 1778. On the other hand, in that article Dohm blamed the Gypsies for not contributing to the national economy66 (he probably ignored that the Gypsies were a relatively productive minority in some European countries, such as the Banat of Temeswar and the Kingdom of Hungary).67 Another interesting aspect of Dohm’s book that has been largely 66 See Christian W. Dohm, “Einige Nachrichten von der Kurpfalz,” in Deutsches Museum 2 (1778): 97–125. 67 See Anon., “Etwas von den Zigeunern überhaupt, und insbesondre von den Zigeunern in dem Temeswarer Bannat,” in Neueste Mannigfältigkeiten 4 (1781): 17–25. Although no project for the emancipation of the Gypsies was published at the time, several writings on the Roma people appeared in Germany between the 1770s and the 1790s: see Anon., “Von den Zigeuner,” in Hannoversches Magazin 17 (1779): 1,135–1,152; Johann C. C. Rüdiger, “Von der Sprache und Herkunft der Zigeuner aus Indien,” in Neuester Zuwachs der teutschen, fremden und allgemeinen Sprach-kunde in eigenen Aufsätzen 1 (1782): 37–84; Heinrich M. G. Grellmann, Die Zigeuner: ein historischer Versuch über die Lebensart und Verfassung Sitten und Schicksahle dieses Volks in Europa, nebst ihrem Ursprunge (Dessau: Kosten der Verlags-Kasse, 1783); id., “Ursprung der Zigeuner,” in Staats-Anzeiger 4 (1783): 444–450; Johann E. Biester, “Über die Zigeuner, besonders in Königreich Preussen,” in Berlinische Monatsschrift 21 (1793): 108–165. Grellmann’s book on the Gypsies, Die Zigeuner (1783), was very successful and was also translated into French and English. — 118 —

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disregarded is the typology of the sources he used. Dohm’s treatise is actually in clear opposition to Eisenmenger’s Entdecktes Judenthum, a book that, as mentioned above, strongly influenced eighteenth-century Judeophobic literature and one that Dohm certainly knew. Moreover, in his treatise, Dohm proves to have good knowledge of German historiography of Judaism, especially of Büsching’s and Michaelis’s works, and he makes reference to a number of non-German “philo-Semitic” authors, including Basnage and Guénée.68 Finally, as has been said, Dohm was well acquainted with a number of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies on civil law, especially regarding the issue of Roman citizenship and the Jews under the Roman Empire. The Debate on Dohm’s Project Dohm’s book attracted attention, in Germany, not only among the cultured elites. Dohm received numerous correspondences regarding his project for the “amelioration of the civil status of the Jews.” Furthermore, a number of reviews of his treatise appeared in gazettes and academic journals, including the Göttingische Gelehrten Anzeigen, the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, and the Ephemeriden des Menschheit, and the debate on his proposal favored the publication of several books and pamphlets.69 Dohm was sure that his book would provoke harsh criticism. One of the most widespread objections to his proposal was that the Jews could not become good citizens and stop hating the others unless they gave 68 See Jacques Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, 5 vols. (Rotterdam: Reinier Leers, 1706) (second edition: 15 vols., La Haye: Henri Schuerleer, 1716); Anon. [Antoine Guénée], Lettres de quelques Juifs portugais et allemand à M. de Voltaire (Paris: Laurent Prault, 1769). On Basnage and the historical importance of his work, see Myriam Yardeni, “New Concepts of Post-Commonwealth Jewish History in the Early Enlightenment: Bayle and Basnage,” in European Studies Review 7 (1977): 245–258; Lester A. Segal, “Jacques Basnage de Beauval’s ‘Histoire des Juifs’: Christian Historiographical Perceptions of Jewry and Judaism on the Eve of the Enlightenment,” in Hebrew Union College Annual 74 (1983): 303–324; Gerald Cerny, Theology, Politics, and Letters at the Crossroads of European Civilization: Jacques Basnage and the Baylean Huguenot Refugees in the Dutch Republic (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987); Myriam Silvera, “L’ebreo in Jacques Basnage: apologia del cristianesimo e difesa della tolleranza,” in Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres 7, no. 1 (1987): 103–115; ead., “Un contributo alla ricognizione delle fonti de ‘L’Histoire des Juifs’ di Jacques Basnage: la lettura de ‘Las excelencias de los Hebreos’ di Ysaac Cardoso,” in Storia della Storiografia 21 (1992): 65–90. 69 For more details of the reviews of Dohm’s book between 1781 and 1792, see Paolo Bernardini, La questione ebraica nel tardo illuminismo tedesco, 73–96. Dohm makes reference to the numerous letters he received after the publication of his book in the second part of his treatise: see Christian W. Dohm, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden. II, 112–150. However, he omits the names of the authors of most of these letters. — 119 —

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up their religion. This position was expressed in a review that Michael Hissmann, professor of philosophy at the University of Göttingen, published anonymously in the Göttingische Gelehrten Anzeigen in 1781.70 To Hissmann, the Jewish religion entails antisocial precepts, and the main reason for the Jews’ hatred of other peoples lies in their laws and traditions and in their rabbis’ sophistries. Moreover, the Jews were always discriminated against and persecuted not because of the persecutors’ wickedness, but because the Jewish religion made them unable to coexist with other human groups. Therefore, to Hissmann, it was not enough to undertake egalitarian measures in order to prevent the Jews from hating their neighbors. Other opponents of Dohm’s project focused especially on his utilitarian theories. For instance, an anonymous Christian trader from Berlin, in a review published in Schlözer’s Briefwechsel in 1782, opposed the proposal to allow the Jews to buy houses and landed estates in order to promote the national economy. He underscored that the Jews were not required to serve in the military—but he blatantly disregarded Dohm’s opinion on this point. Therefore, they already enjoyed a privileged situation as they did not have to fulfill this heavy duty and could become richer and richer while thousands of young Christians died on the battlefields of Europe. And if the Jews were also allowed to buy houses and plots of land, they would become even richer at the Christians’ expense.71 The trader’s objection presents a leitmotif of anti-Jewish literature but ought to be taken into serious consideration, for it provides an example of the Judeophobic prejudices and fears widespread among the German middle class. Dohm rejoined the trader’s objections in a short article, “Über die Judentoleranz,” published in the following issue of the Briefwechsel.72 In this article, he clarified that his “goal was not to write an apology of the Jews of our time, but of the rights of humanity, which are violated

70 See Michael Hissmann, “Anmerkungen über Dohms bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, aus den göttingischen gelehrten Anzeigen,” in Göttingische Gelehrten Anzeigen (1781), 753–763. This review was republished one year later as a volume in Vienna. 71 See Briefwechsel, meist historischen und politischen Inhalts 10, no. 58 (1781): 250–255. There is no reason to believe that Schlözer was the author of this review. 72 See Christian W. Dohm, “Über die Judentoleranz,” in Briefwechsel, meist historischen und politischen Inhalts 10, no. 59 (1781): 279–283. — 120 —

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with regard to the Jews.”73 Dohm pointed out that most of his critics had not realized that, with his theory on the relationships between state and citizens, he aimed at defending the “Rechte der Menschheit” (“human rights”), not only the rights of the Jews. Furthermore, Dohm explained that his proposal for an improvement of the legal status and thus of the social conditions of the Jews was relevant to all the Jews, not only to the few of them who actually enjoyed a situation of privilege. Briefly, Dohm was harshly criticized by both scholars who focused on the supposed defects of the Jewish religion and middle-class men who were afraid of the impact of Jewish emancipation on the national economy. On the other hand, Dohm’s book was considered favorably in the cultural milieus of the German Enlightenment, which proposed to apply the political principles of equality and justice to the Jews. Several writers advanced even more radical proposals than Dohm’s. For instance, the jurist and diplomat Heinrich Friedrich von Diez maintained that “civilized peoples” should never think of enforcing any limitation in the Jews’ enjoyment of civil rights and liberties, since reason would never justify any such limitation. On the other hand, Diez conceived of the Jewish religion as an obstacle for the Jews to become good citizens and peacefully coexist with the others.74 Also, the Lutheran pastor Johann Moritz Schwager maintained that the persistence of Jewish traditions was detrimental to the relationships between Jews and Christians, for it favored the diffusion of anti-Judaic stereotypes among the Christian low classes. Thus, in his opinion, the Jews had to modify their behaviors and be more flexible with regard to their traditions if they wanted to enjoy the same rights as the Christians did. On the other hand, Schwager invited his coreligionists to respect the Jews in the name of the Christian doctrine of brotherly love. He maintained that the Jews’ ancestors had crucified Jesus Christ, but he asserted that contemporary Jews were not guilty for their fathers’ deeds. Finally, although he was a man of faith, Schwager believed that the term “Christian state” contradicted the very “nature of political society,” which is supposed to encompass different religious groups, to subordinate them 73 Ibid., 279. 74 On Diez’s views of Judaism and the Jews, see Heinrich F. von Diez, Über Juden (Dessau: Buchhandlung der Gelehrten, 1783); id., Kann die von jüdischen Vätern verbotne Glaubensänderung ihrer Kinder den angedrohten Verlust des Erbtheils nach sie ziehn? (Dessau: Buchhandlung der Gelehrten, 1783). — 121 —

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to the common good, and to make them coexist in peace.75 The most famous scholar who commented on Dohm’s book was Johann David Michaelis, professor of Semitic languages at Göttingen and author of Mosaïsches Recht, one of the main sources consulted by Dohm.76 Although Michaelis defined Dohm’s treatise “an important and well written book,” in the incipit of his review, he also declared that he disagreed with Dohm on many points. In fact, Michaelis, like his colleague Hissmann, believed that the corrupt nature of the Jews originated not in social or political circumstances, but in the very foundations of their religion and morality. He regarded the Jews’ national pride as a hindrance to their naturalization, because the myth of the Promised Land led them to keep themselves isolated in order to reunite and conquer Palestine one day in the future and so prevented them from integrating into surrounding society.77 For this reason, Michaelis doubted that the Jews would ever accept serving in the armies of their host countries. Michaelis considered the growth of the Jewish population in some European states as detrimental to Christians, who indeed served in the military. Moreover, he pointed out that a complete “amelioration” of the Jews could be fulfilled within no less than three of four generations, but in the meantime, numerous practical problems would still affect the relationships between the Jews and their Christian neighbors. On this point, he asked a provocative question: “Should a prince allow these people to coexist with his good subjects, in the hope that they will become better within three or four generations?”78 On the other hand, Michaelis agreed with Dohm about the need to avoid unfair taxes and grant the Jews fiscal equality with the Christian citizens. Unfair taxation could indeed favor tax evasion and harm the national economy. Moreover, he deemed it appropriate to allow the Jews to solve their legal problems in compliance with their legal traditions and asserted that this was already the norm “in many countries.”79 75 Schwager was a good friend of Dohm and a reviewer for the Jahrbuch der Menschheit. His contribution to the debate is reported in Christian W. Dohm, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden. II, 89–111. 76 Michaelis’s review first appeared in Orientalische Bibliothek in 1782 and was then published also in Christian W. Dohm, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden. II, 37–77. 77 See ibid., 40–44. 78 Ibid., 55. 79 See ibid., 62–64. On the anti-Jewish elements of Michaelis’s thought, see Jonathan M. Hess, “Johann David Michaelis and the Colonial Imaginary: Orientalism and the Emergence of Racial — 122 —

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Of course, Moses Mendelssohn did not ignore Dohm’s proposal and the subsequent debate. In March 1782, Mendelssohn published, with his friend and pupil Marcus Herz, a German edition of Vindiciae Judaeorum (1656), an apologetic treatise by the Dutch rabbi Menasseh ben Israel.80 This text was composed in the context of the debate on the readmission of the Jews to England in the mid-seventeenth century, when Menasseh ben Israel traveled to London in order to persuade Cromwell and the English ruling class to allow the Jews to reside in Britain.81 In the German edition of the Dutch rabbi’s treatise, Mendelssohn’s introduction (Vorrede) is actually an autonomous writing in which the Jewish intellectual defends the rights of the Jews in view of the debate on emancipation in his time. Mendelssohn essentially approved Dohm’s proposal, but he expressed even more radical ideas. In fact, he blamed Dohm for focusing on the issue of the “usefulness” of citizens or of a group of citizens, such as the Jews, to the state. To Mendelssohn, no state has the right to welcome or reject a man because of his usefulness, or uselessness, to the national economy. For this reason, Mendelssohn attacked also the physiocrats, especially Schlettwein, who was favorable to tolerating the Jews on condition that they abandoned their “sterile” activities and became artisans and peasants. Mendelssohn also questioned the idea that the Jews could not contribute to the wealth of nations because they did not produce anything but were only engaged in trading and banking. On this point, he acknowledged that the Jews, and especially the richest among them, were mainly consumers, but he pointed out that consumers significantly contributed to the national economy because they encouraged the production of goods. Moreover, trade was necessary in order to freely define the value and price of any good in the context of Anti-Semitism in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” in Jewish Social Studies 6, no. 2 (2000): 56– 101; Dominique Bourel, “La judéophobie savante dans l’Allemagne des Lumières: Johann David Michaelis,” in L’Antisémitisme éclairé. Inclusion et exclusion depuis l’époque des Lumières jusqu’à l’affaire Dreyfus, ed. Ilana Y. Zinguer and Sam W. Bloom (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 125–138. 80 See Menasseh ben Israel, Rettung der Juden, als Anhang an Dohms Schrift Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (Berlin: Welt-Verlag, 1782). On Menasseh ben Israel (1604–1657), see Lucien Wolf, Menasseh ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell (London: Macmillan, 1901); Richard H. Popkin, Yosef Kaplan, and Henry Méchoulan, eds., Menasseh ben Israel and His World (Leiden: Brill, 1989); Lionel Ifrah, L’aigle d’Amsterdam: Menasseh ben Israel (1604–1657) (Paris: Champion, 2001). See also the essay on John Toland in this volume. 81 On the readmission of the Jews to England and the history of Anglo-Jewry in the early modern era, see the essay on Toland in this volume. — 123 —

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free market and hence free competition.82 Mendelssohn also focused on a delicate issue: the jurisdictional autonomy of Jewish communities. He disagreed with Dohm and all those who distinguished between Christian and Jewish courts and maintained that in a state where all citizens have the same rights, independent of their religious beliefs, the judges who have the authority to solve legal controversies ought to take into consideration only one criterion—that is, justice.83 On this point, Mendelssohn’s reflections can be considered almost “utopian,” because he disregarded the significant differences between the Gentile and Jewish juridical traditions. Conversely, he proposed a universalistic, humanitarian, abstract concept of justice based on the notion of the separation between the state and religious organizations—a notion later clarified in his masterpiece, Jerusalem (1783). Mendelssohn actually regarded religion as a personal issue. For this reason, he disagreed with Dohm about the excommunication right and maintained that, on this point, Dohm had just described things as they were instead of proposing a fair and feasible alternative.84 Michaelis also reviewed Rettung der Juden in Orientalische Bibliothek in 1782. In his review, he especially focused on Mendelssohn’s Vorrede and regarded Mendelssohn’s theory of the separation between the state and religious associations as unviable, particularly when dealing with Jewish communities. He asserted that, to the Jews, it was impossible to distinguish between political society and religious community. In fact, a Jew who committed a crime was also guilty of an offense against the Jewish community and its laws and had to be banished. Michaelis was hence favorable to excommunication, although he believed that the state should define the criteria and modalities for the exercise of the right to excommunicate. An opponent of both Dohm and Mendelssohn was the anti-Semitic writer Friedrich Traugott Hartmann. In a 1783 book on Dohm’s project, Hartmann revived some of the objections already raised by other authors against the young Prussian intellectual: he regarded the Jewish people as a nation “separate and distinct from society and the state,” a nation whose “way of thinking was inconsistent with the common good,” a na82 See Moses Mendelssohn, “Vorrede” to Menasseh ben Israel, Rettung der Juden, xxii–xxxiv. 83 See ibid., xxxiv–xxxvi. 84 See ibid., xlii–xliii. — 124 —

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tion that hated all Christians because of its own corrupt nature.85 And if the Jews had always been discriminated against and persecuted, this was due to their wicked, dishonest, and parasitic nature.86 In his book, Hartmann also advanced some original (and shocking) arguments, which can now be regarded as interesting anticipations of the anti-Semitic theories that enjoyed large success in the following century, when Judeophobic stereotypes combined with nationalist doctrines. First, he thought that blood ties play an essential role in the making of a nation, and the Jews were evidently an “alien” element in the body of the German nation.87 Moreover, he maintained that “all the principles of their religion incline to democracy.”88 He, thus, perceived the Jews as potentially dangerous, subversive, and harmful to the German political order, based on the coexistence of small political entities ruled by absolute monarchs. Finally, he regarded the Jews as unable to serve the German nation by working as bureaucrats and state officials, in a time when public administration was undergoing significant improvements: to Hartmann, the Jews were actually concerned not with the common good, but only with their own welfare and the well-being of their communities.89 Briefly, Hartmann’s arguments were well ahead of time, given that similar ideas became more and more popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and strongly contributed to the spread of political as well as racial anti-Semitism. Finally, it is also worth mentioning two ambiguous reviews that appeared in two prestigious journals, the Ephemeriden der Menschheit and the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek. In the review published in the Ephemeriden der Menschheit, and probably written by Isaak Iselin a few months before his death, Dohm’s book is praised, but the Jews are still considered a “sterile class.” Therefore, according to this review, the Jews should not be accepted in countries where they had not already settled and should continue to be separate from Christians since their beliefs did not allow them to live among other people. Such limitations actually made Dohm’s project ineffective and also demonstrated that authors 85 See Friedrich T. Hartmann, Untersuchung, ob die bürgerliche Freiheit der Juden zu gestatten sei (Berlin: Hesse, 1783), 16, 24, 28. 86 See ibid., 33. 87 See ibid., 183–184. 88 Ibid., 194. 89 See ibid., 207. — 125 —

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who seemed to be concerned with human rights could neglect some of these rights when considering the Jews.90 The review published in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek was probably written by Johann Christian Maier, coauthor of De Judaeorum tolerantia, a book in which Dohm’s thesis was favorably received. Also in this review, Dohm is praised, but the reviewer doubts the feasibility of Dohm’s project. In fact, most Christian artisans could hardly discard their prejudices and accept to hire Jewish apprentices and teach them their job. Moreover, how could the Jews restart practicing agriculture, an activity that they had been forced to neglect for centuries? Finally, the reviewer points out that, in his treatise, Dohm does not take into due consideration a serious social problem—that is, the large number of Jewish beggars who wandered on the road did not belong to any community and therefore were not assisted by their coreligionists.91 The 1783 Edition of Dohm’s Treatise In 1783, Dohm published a second edition of his treatise, containing a slightly revised version of his project and a second part, which presented a collection of the reviews and the epistolary comments that he considered most interesting besides his refutation of the most common objections to his proposal. Moreover, in the 1783 edition of his book, Dohm clarified that his main goal was to raise the attention of the public, to provoke the reaction of “intelligent men,” and to put an end to several prejudices. He declared that intellectuals have a duty to propose general reforms, which the rulers may then be willing to enact in local contexts.92 Although the second edition of Dohm’s essay did not have the same impact as the first, it is worth analyzing Dohm’s refutation of the objections raised against his proposal. Dohm explains his counter-arguments in six points. The first objection is that the Jews have always been, and will always 90 See Ephemeriden der Menschheit 16 (1782): 404–425. 91 See Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek 50, no. 1 (1782): 301–311. Johann Christian Maier was one of the jurists who utilized Dohm’s thesis on the rights of the Jews: see Johann C. Maier and Johann W. Starck, De Judaeorum tolerantia legum series temporum ordine digesta (Tübingen: Frank, 1782). Other jurists approved Dohm’s theories: see Carl G. von Zangen, Etwas über die bürgerliche Verfassung und Verbesserung der Juden (Marburg, s.n., 1788); Christian L. Paalzow, Über das Bürgerrecht der Juden (Leipzig, s.n., 1804); id., Helm und Schild: Gespräche zwischen einem Juden und einem Christen über das Bürgerrecht der Juden, 2nd ed. (Berlin, s.n., 1821). 92 See Christian W. Dohm, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden. II, 3–7. — 126 —

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be, foreigners. Therefore, they may enjoy protection, but not civil rights. If they were emancipated, they would become more and more numerous and, as a consequence, dangerous to the original inhabitants of the country. Dohm’s response to this objection clarifies his conception of the state, which he considered different from old-fashioned feudal political institutions. The latter were indeed based on the primacy of the “original inhabitants of the country”—that is, the landowning aristocrats, who enjoyed a number of fiscal and legal privileges. On the other hand, the modern state results from a contract between the people and the sovereign, and the modern concept of sovereignty implies equality of all subjects. Legal equality is a specific trait of the modern state, and for this reason, the Jews are entitled to all the civil rights granted to the citizens of a country, including the right to buy landed estates.93 Another criticism is that the Jews cannot be accepted and considered members of the political society if they continue to observe a law (i.e., the Mosaic Law) that makes them a nation separate from all the others. Dohm admits that this is the major objection to his proposal to emancipate the Jews and therefore formulates several counter-arguments. He does not deny that the national character of the Jews, their religion, and their social system distinguish them from other nations. On the other hand, he points out that the persecutions suffered by the Jews have strengthened their prejudices and reinforced their separation from their Christian neighbors. Therefore, wiser laws would contribute to putting an end to prejudice and lead the Jews to have a friendly attitude toward Christians. Dohm’s humanitarianism and his belief in the improvement of man are here manifest: he was confident that a just society could change people for the better, regardless of religious allegiance. In fact, to Dohm, no religion is against reason. However, according to the Prussian intellectual, the religion that derives most directly from pure reason—namely, deism—should be promoted, as it is the most useful to society and politics. In fact, deism entails toleration, as it encompasses the theory that all faiths comply with the few simple, essential principles of natural religion, and all those who respect these principles can be saved, independent of the particular dogmas and cer-

93 See ibid., 156. — 127 —

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emonies of the churches to which they belong.94 To Dohm, if Judaism was “purified” and became similar to natural religion, there would be no more hindrance for the Jews to tolerate the other nations. But the Prussian thinker also invites the Christians to rediscover the spirit of toleration that originally characterized their religion and was then lost over the centuries. In fact, the Catholic Church gradually developed a strong aversion to all differences of opinion, and such aversion eventually produced a spirit of intolerance and persecution. Later, such a negative spirit was transmitted to Lutheranism and Calvinism, as the theologian Johann Augustus Eberhard pointed out in his successful book Neue Apologie des Socrates (New Apology of Socrates), published in two volumes in 1772 and 1778.95 To Dohm, the spirit of intolerance of Christianity became more and more rooted in European societies because political power and religious authority often combined. This led many political institutions to enforce several obligations and prohibitions on those who did not follow the state religion. But this situation was detrimental to both the state and religion because religious organizations were allowed to influence the temporal power, and sometimes use it as a means for their goals, while the meaning of religion was ultimately perverted into mere intolerance and persecution. Dohm, thus, proposed to submit “the religious system” to “the political interest” in order to prevent the church from influencing the state. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, published in 1783 (the same year as the second edition of Dohm’s treatise), Mendelssohn advocated for a radical separation between state and church, politics and religion. Finally, as regards the Jews’ expectation of their Messiah, their millenarian beliefs, and their dream to resettle in the Promised Land, Dohm thought that these “religious chimeras” could not endanger the state and, as Mendelssohn also pointed out in Jerusalem, did not affect the social and political life of the modern Jews. After all, millenarian ideas also characterized primitive Christianity, but, in Dohm’s opinion, they did not cause any serious trouble to the Roman Empire.96 The last of the most significant objections to Dohm’s project in gen94 See ibid., 177–186. 95 See ibid., 187–196. 96 See ibid., 212–218. — 128 —

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eral is that the Jews could not serve in the military because of their law. Even though they accepted the theory (formulated by some rabbis) that it is possible to fight on Saturdays, but only for self-defense, not to attack, they would still be very bad soldiers. This objection echoes the eighteenth-century debate on the necessity to have permanent standing armies consisting of conscripts, not mercenaries. Dohm was favorable to the idea of standing armies and realized the social implications of this innovation. In fact, he believed that the “first and main goal of any political society” is to defend the common safety of the country against foreign attacks. Therefore, the Jews, if granted all the civil rights, had to fulfill all the duties expected from all citizens, including military service. Moreover, drawing mainly on ancient Greek and Roman historians, Dohm maintained that a number of historical examples showed that there was no reason to consider the Jews as bad soldiers.97 The remaining objections deal with particular points of Dohm’s project. Some believe that the Jews are not inclined to agriculture and that there is not enough uncultivated land for them in Europe. On this point, Dohm reasserts his opinion: not only the Jews were good farmers and peasants in ancient times, but the possibility for them to buy landed estates would neither harm the Christians nor imply a situation of privilege for the Jewish landowners. Moreover, borrowing from Galiani and Dupont de Nemours, Dohm points out that in France one-third of the cultivable land was still free, and the situation was probably similar in the rest of Europe. Therefore, it was much better to allow the Jews to buy land instead of leaving it uncultivated.98 Another argument against Dohm’s proposal is that the Jews are not able to learn and practice manual professions, and the difficulties of this issue seem insurmountable. Dohm reasserts that it was because of the corporations that the Jews could not learn and practice a number of manual jobs. Dohm blames the corporations for limiting the right to work; but he, unlike the physiocratic thinker Schlettwein, does not suggest abolishing these social bodies: in fact, Turgot’s failed attempt to abolish the French guilds, in 1776, caused a sensation throughout 97 See ibid., 223–232. 98 See ibid., 248–255. — 129 —

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Europe. Thus, Dohm proposes to also admit the Jews to the corporations. This way, they would pay the duties imposed on the members of the corporations but also enjoy all the privileges granted to these organizations. And if the corporations refused to admit the Jews, the latter should nevertheless enjoy all the rights of the members of those organizations and pay their dues as well.99 Finally, it was a common belief that the Jews would not respect oaths sworn to Christians. This is one of Eisenmenger’s main accusations against the Jews, and Michaelis, who disagreed with Eisenmenger on many other points, also supported this opinion. Dohm realized that this prejudice could jeopardize the relationships between Christians and Jews, as it prevented numerous Christians from trusting their Jewish neighbors. He thus referred to several examples from the works of both Christian and Jewish jurists in order to disprove this dangerous stereotype, which he compared to the blood libel and the accusation of wellpoisoning.100 Moreover, Dohm explained that if some rabbis allowed their coreligionists not to respect some oaths, they did so with regard to oaths sworn under certain circumstances—for instance, under the conditioning of “mental reservations.”101 The Legacy of Dohm’s Treatise Dohm’s treatise was published in a time when the Jewish communities of Germany were starting to consider positively Gentile power, previously regarded with suspicion or aversion. A more favorable attitude toward the state and its institutions can be noticed in the works of some of the main representatives of the Haskalah, including Wessely and Mendelssohn. The latter was indeed the point of reference of this movement commonly known as “the Jewish Enlightenment.” But Mendelssohn was a most ambiguous figure, especially with regard to the dialectic between Enlightenment and Judaism, religious and political thought, tradition and innovation in the culture and destiny of his people. Whereas Dohm’s book presented a practical discourse, a concrete project for the emancipation of the Jews, and a particular focus on the actual political context of his time, Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem was characterized by an 99 See ibid., 270–274, 287. 100 See ibid., 300–346. 101 Ibid., 341. — 130 —

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idealized concept of the secular state very different from Dohm’s pragmatic approach. Jerusalem can actually be considered essentially as a philosophical-theological essay, dealing with issues relevant to political philosophy and, in many respects, philosophy of history. In fact, Mendelssohn regards equality with the other citizens not as a concession of political power to the Jews, but as a natural right of the Jews, which needs to be restored in the modern states of Europe. Moreover, to Mendelssohn, Judaism can perfectly coexist with the new secular state. In fact, he highlights the possible coexistence of the Mosaic Law and civil law and calls for a form of Jewish emancipation that allows the Jews to respect their traditions. One of the most famous passages of Jerusalem deals with Mendelssohn’s refusal of emancipatory measures that require the Jews to discard the essential elements of their culture and religion: If a civil unification is only available on the condition that we differ from the Law which we are already considering as binding, then we have to announce—with deep regret—that we do better to abstain from the civil unification. […] We cannot differ from the Law with a clear conscience. And what will be your use of citizens without conscience?102 These basic assumptions of Mendelssohn’s discourse demonstrate that, in Jerusalem, the Jewish philosopher talks not of the political situation of his time, but of a future, desirable secular state, in which Judaism is regarded as merely a religion and does not produce necessarily a particular social body. Therefore, the influence of Jerusalem was stronger on the following generations’ views of religion than on the political decisions of the princes and governments of Mendelssohn’s time. Like Jerusalem, Dohm’s proposal also had no immediate impact on the legal and social conditions of the Jews—although many of the measures undertaken by Joseph II to improve the situation of the Jews in several areas of the Habsburg Empire were inspired by the same spirit that led 102 Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem: oder, Über religiöse Macht und Judentum (Berlin: Friedrich Maurer, 1783), 131–133. On Mendelssohn, Jerusalem and the Haskalah, see David Sorkin, Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment, 41–78; id., The Religious Enlightenment, 165–213. — 131 —

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Dohm to write his treatise.103 As Alexander Altmann pointed out in his book on Mendelssohn, in his old age, Dohm declared that he had drawn inspiration from Joseph II’s “patents of toleration.” On the other hand, when the emperor died in 1790, the Prussian intellectual wrote in his diary that he had expected much more from him.104 However, Dohm’s project strongly influenced the views of Mendelssohn’s favorite disciple, David Friedländer, who played an important role in the debate on Jewish emancipation.105 After the deaths of Mendelssohn and Frederick II, and after Frederick William II’s accession to the throne of Prussia, Friedländer started to work on a new legislation for the Jews. When Frederick William established a committee to examine the legal status of the Jews in 1786, Friedländer was appointed chair of a general deputation of the Jews of Prussia, which had to advise the committee. Friedländer largely drew on Dohm’s project: in the proceedings of the deputation that he chaired, the idea of a “sittlich” and “politische Verbesserung” (“moral” and “political amelioration”) of the Jews is endorsed.106 Moreover, Friedländer proposed to make the Jews more useful to society. Thus, he did not make reference to natural law theories, but, like Dohm, he utilized notions typical of cameralism and political economy—although his arguments were quite vaguer than Dohm’s. On the other hand, Friedländer expressed a paternalistic conception of the state, which entailed the idea that the monarch was the only authority entitled to protect the Jews.107 103 On Joseph II and toleration, see Joseph Karniel, Die Toleranzpolitik Kaiser Josephs II. 104 See Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, 452. Dohm was not the only supporter of Jewish emancipation who admired Joseph II: Wessely also praised the Habsburg emperor for his toleration policies (see Naphtali H. Wessely and David Friedländer, Worte der Wahrheit und des Friedens an die gesammte jüdische Nation. Vorzüglich an diejenigen, so unter dem Schulze des glorreichen und grossmächtigsten Kaisers Joseph II. wohnen. Aus dem Hebräischen, Wien, s.n., 1782). 105 Friedländer was born to a rich Jewish family of Königsberg. He was well integrated into German society and was the first Prussian Jew to have a political office (he was appointed member of the city council of Königsberg in 1809). He conceived of himself and the other Jews of Prussia as substantially different from their coreligionists who lived in Poland or Bohemia, whom he considered bound to traditional rituals and the rabbis’ authority. He committed himself to reforming the Jewish rituals. In fact, he proposed the adoption of prayers in German, not Hebrew or Yiddish, and opposed old-fashioned theological doctrines, including some of those relevant to the expectation of the Messiah. On Friedländer, see Michael A. Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew, 57–83; Steven M. Lowenstein, The Jewishness of David Friedländer and the Crisis of Berlin Jewry (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1994). 106 See David Friedländer, Akten-Stücke, die Reform der jüdischen Kolonien in den Preussischen Staaten betreffend (Berlin: Voss, 1793), 55, 85. 107 See ibid., 12, 55, 182. Besides Mendelssohn and Friedländer, it is worth remembering another — 132 —

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Thus, Friedländer’s emphasis on toleration and the respect of humanity was very different from Dohm’s and Mendelssohn’s “radical” arguments. The offer made by the committee, which was far from proposing emancipation, was nevertheless considered unsatisfactory by the Jewish deputation; and no improvement in the legal status of the Jews was therefore enacted at that time. In 1788, two years after calling the committee on the status of the Jews, Frederick William II issued the Wöllner Edict, named after the pastor and clerk Johann Christoph von Wöllner, who was the actual author of the document. According to the edict, the three Christian confessions (i.e., Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism) were legally recognized, and freedom of private worship received legal sanction. The edict thus acknowledged also the freedom to practice Judaism, although in private. On the other hand, the Wöllner Edict imposed several limitations on religious groups such as “Jews, Herrnhuters, Mennonites and Bohemian Brothers,” who were still perceived as potentially harmful to the state. Not long after the publication of the Wöllner Edict, the French Revolution provoked a significant change in the Prussian government’s attitudes toward Jewish emancipation and, in general, toward any issue relevant to human rights. The most prominent advocate of Jewish emancipation in France was Honoré Gabriel Victor de Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, who was the speaker of the Third Estate and played an important role in the writing and implementation of the constitution. Mirabeau visited Berlin several times in 1786 and 1787. There, he took part in the debates of the Berlin Enlightenment, became a good friend of Dohm, and wrote an essay on Mendelssohn and Jewish emancipation.108 Mirabeau’s essay, which contained an adaptation of Dohm’s treatise, initiated an intense debate on Jewish emancipation in France. This debate led the Royal Academy of Sciences in Metz to advertise, in 1787, a contest on the topic “EstJewish intellectual who struggled for the emancipation of the Jews in Prussia: Wolf Davidson (1772–1800), a Berliner physician who published, in 1798, a book bearing the same title as Dohm’s treatise (see Wolf Davidson, Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, Berlin, s.n., 1798). In his book, dedicated to Frederick William III, Davidson praised Dohm’s proposal and, like Friedländer, expressed a paternalistic conception of the state. 108 See Honoré Gabriel Victor de Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, Sur Moses Mendelssohn, sur la réforme politique des juifs: Et en particulier sur la révolution tentée en leur faveur en 1753 dans la Grande Bretagne (London, s.n., 1787). — 133 —

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il un moyen de rendre les Juifs plus utile et plus heureux en France?” (“Are there means for making the Jews more useful and happier in France?”), which gave Henri Grégoire an opportunity to propose his theory of the “regeneration” of the Jews.109 After the beginning of the Revolution in 1789, the issue of Jewish emancipation was brought to the attention of the National Assembly, and after a two-year debate in the assembly and the public opinion as well, the Jews of France were finally emancipated on September 29, 1791. The French debate also attracted attention among the Jewish intellectuals of Berlin: Lazarus Bendavid, David Friedländer, and Moses Hirschel published detailed accounts of the conditions of the Jews and the emancipation debate in France.110 The turmoil caused by the emancipation of the French Jews eventually led the Prussian authorities to outlaw public discussions on the topic and, in general, on issues related to human rights. On May 7, 1792, the reform of civil laws regarding the status of the Jews was officially suspended. However, in 1794, the Prussian government ordered the writing of a document, the Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preussischen Staaten (General State Laws for the Prussian States), which also covered the issue of religious toleration. The main author of the Allgemeines Landrecht was the famous jurist Carl Gottlieb Svarez, whose ideas on religious toleration are best expressed in his masterpiece, Vorträge über Recht und Staat (A Dissertation on Law and State, 1788–1792):

109 On the contest advertised by the Royal Academy in Metz and Henri Grégoire’s work, see the essay on Grégoire in this volume. 110 See Lazarus Bendavid, Sammlung der Schriften an die Nationalversammlung, die Juden und ihre bürgerliche Verbesserung betreffend. Aus dem Französischen (Berlin: Petit und Schone, 1789); David Friedländer, “Antwort der Juden in der Provinz Lothringen auf die der Nationalversammlung von der sämmtlichen Stadtgemeinde zu Straßburg überreichte Bittschrift,” in Berlinischen Monatsschrift (October 1791): 365–392; Moses Hirschel, Apologie der Menschenrechte: Oder philosophisch kritische Beleuchtung der Schrift: Ueber die physische und moralische Verfassung der heutigen Juden (Zurich: Orell-Gessner-Füssli, 1793). On the reciprocal influences of the debates on Jewish emancipation in France and Prussia, see Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto, 57–79; Jonathan I. Helfand, “The Symbiotic Relationship between French and German Jewry in the Age of Emancipation,” in The Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 29, no. 1 (1984): 331–350; Frances Malino, “Jewish Enlightenment in Berlin and Paris,” in Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered, ed. Michael Brenner, Vicki Caron, and Uri R. Kaufmann, 27–38; Uri R. Kaufmann, “The Jewish Fight for Emancipation in France and Germany,” in Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered, ed. Michael Brenner, Vicki Caron, and Uri R. Kaufmann, 79–92; Iwan M. D’Aprile, “The Role of Religious Minorities,” 204–205. — 134 —

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1. The State must tolerate all the religious groups whose moral doctrines contain nothing contrary to peace and public safety. 2. The State must allow these religious groups to celebrate their cult in accordance with their doctrines, on condition that peace and public order are not disrupted. 3. Every citizen of the State must be allowed to join the religious group that he prefers. 4. Nobody can be excluded from the enjoyment of the rights and privileges of civil society because of his religious beliefs. 5. The State cannot permit that a religious group disturbs, oppresses or persecutes another group.111 If properly applied, the fourth principle would actually make emancipation effective, thus making various provisions set in Dohm’s project superfluous. However, the Allgemeines Landrecht did not contain this very same principle, for it only stated the prohibition to imprison, insult, or persecute a man because of his religion. Therefore, freedom of worship remained separate from civil emancipation. In fact, when composing the Allgemeines Landrecht, Svarez willingly put some limitations to his project of religious toleration because of problems related to its applicability. First of all, according to the Allgemeines Landrecht, the political authorities had the right to define the limits of public worship and consequently to decide whether a sect should be granted the right to worship in private or in public. Moreover, if the cult was conditioned by Verträge or Verfassungen (“contracts” or “treaties”), as it was in the case of the Jews, the government could decide not to concede the right to worship. Finally, if the principles of a religious group, though not harmful to the state, hindered the discharge of certain duties, the members of this group should not enjoy all civil rights. On this point, the document mentioned the Mennonites, who refused to serve in the military and, for this reason, were not allowed to buy landed estates. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, Friedländer made another attempt to change the legal status of the Jews of Prussia. He thought that conversion to Christianity would be the best means for the Jews to integrate into German society and would actually imply 111 Carl G. Svarez, Vorträge über Recht und Staat, ed. Hermann Conrad and Gerd Kleinheyer (Cologne: Westdt. Verlag, 1960), 5. — 135 —

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emancipation. Thus, in 1799 he published an open letter to the Lutheran theologian Wilhelm Abraham Teller, who—as has been mentioned—had helped Dohm with the publication of his book. In his letter, Friedländer maintained that Christianity and Judaism share the same moral values. Therefore, the Jews could discard their obsolete ceremonies and traditions and join the Lutheran Church on condition that they were not required to believe in the divinity of Jesus and could evade some Christian rites and dogmas. He aimed at creating a sort of confederated church-synagogue. However, Jewish reaction to Friedländer’s proposal was overwhelmingly hostile, and his project was soon left aside.112 In the Napoleonic era, the rise of the national movement of German Romanticism entailed a wave of anti-Semitism, which led the Prussian government to forbid publications regarding the Jews in 1803, after the publication of a polemical essay by Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Grattenauer entitled Wider die Juden (Against the Jews).113 The debate on the conditions of the Jews in Prussia was revived after the Napoleonic invasion of 1806 and the subsequent Treaties of Tilsit (1807), which stripped Prussia of about half its territory and forced Frederick William III to ally with France. The emancipation of the Jews of Prussia was eventually achieved on March 11, 1812, when the Edict of Emancipation granted them the same rights as the other citizens. Nonetheless, at the time, there were still significant differences between the conservative faction, led by the influential politician Leopold von Schrötter and supported by the clergy, and the group of liberal intellectuals, headed by the philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt, a pupil and friend of Dohm. Therefore, a number of restrictions were still enforced, 112 See David Friedländer, Sendschreiben an Seine Hochwürden Herrn Oberconsistorialrath und Probst Teller zu Berlin, von einigen Hausvätern Jüdischer Religion (Berlin: Mylius, 1799). On the debate on Friedländer’s “dry baptism” initiative, which involved also Friedrich Schleiermacher, see David Friedländer, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Wilhelm A. Teller, A Debate on Jewish Emancipation and Christian Theology in Old Berlin, ed. Richard Crouter and Julie Klassen (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004). On the conversion and assimilation of Jews in Germany, see especially Hannah Arendt, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess (London: Leo Baeck Institute, 1957); George L. Mosse, German Jews beyond Judaism; Rainer Liedtke and David Rechter, eds., Towards Normality? Acculturation and Modern German Jewry (Tübingen: Mohr, 2003); Steven M. Lowenstein, The Berlin Jewish Community, 69–181. 113 See Carl W. F. Grattenauer, Wider die Juden: Ein Wort der Warnung an alle unsere christlichen Mitbürger (Berlin: Schmidt, 1803).

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regarding especially the access to public offices and careers, and were repealed only in the time of the Weimar Republic—that is, almost a century and a half after the publication of Dohm’s book. In conclusion, the historical importance of Dohm’s project relies on the fact that although it did not lead to any concrete result in the short run, it was published in a period when the emancipation of the Jews was an issue for the German intelligentsia, which was also challenged by the work and activities of Jewish intellectuals such as Mendelssohn and Wessely. Moreover, at that time, the German-speaking world came to be particularly interested in the Jews and their conditions because of the “patents of toleration” issued by Joseph II. In the 1780s, more and more intellectuals came to deal with the Jewish question, in Germany as well as the rest of Europe—especially in France, where a translation of Dohm’s book appeared in 1782 and where Mirabeau, the foremost advocate of Jewish emancipation, was strongly influenced by Dohm’s ideas. In most cases, both humanitarian ideals and utilitarian arguments typical of physiocracy, cameralism, and early liberalism played an important role in the Enlightenment efforts for Jewish emancipation. And Jewish emancipation was generally regarded as both a phase of the process of the emancipation of man and a necessary step in the construction of the new, secular, modern state, to which all the qualities of man relevant to religion, ethnicity, and profession are secondary when compared to the essential quality of “citizen.” Nevertheless, the fact that the German Jews became gradually used to consider themselves, first of all, as “citizens,” and only secondarily as “Jews,” did not help them avoid their tragic destiny. The fact that the Jews were granted civil rights, and accepted to assimilate into surrounding society, indeed led, as a side effect, to the emergence and spread in civil society of new criteria to draw new boundaries between the Jews and the German nation. Those criteria consisted of overtly racialist concepts, which focused on allegedly inferior and invariable biological traits and, as a consequence, separated the Jews from their neighbors irrevocably. Due to their supposed racial inferiority, the Jews were deprived of the right to become “happier,” but could still be “more useful” to the state. In fact, when the German state eventually appropriated, refined, and asserted the racialist doctrine by law, the Jews of Germany were used in the most horrible ways in the concentration and extermination camps of the Nazi regime, before and even after being eliminated—since — 137 —

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even their remains were utilized for experiments or the production of commodities. In the end, after the enactment of emancipation, the humanitarian ideals of the Enlightenment projects of emancipation were gradually forgotten. But the idea that the Jews were essentially different, along with the intention to make them “more useful” and easier for the state to control and manage, persisted and developed to an extent that the eighteenth-century intellectuals debating the Jews’ position in European society could never imagine.

— 138 —

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Chapter 3 On the Influence of the Ghetto in the State: Count D’Arco and the Jews of Mantua

In the second half of the eighteenth century, Austrian-ruled Lombardy was one of the major centers of the Enlightenment. The Lombard Enlightenment—the most prominent representatives of which were Cesare Beccaria, Pietro Verri, and Alessandro Verri—developed in an era characterized by innovative political ideas and social reforms. Under Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II, the Habsburg Empire became more and more centralized and efficient. In fact, the Habsburg rulers availed themselves of theories and proposals formulated by intellectuals who aimed at improving the administration of the state, and thus the national economy and civil society, by means of gradual reforms rather than revolutionary action. Most of the Lombard philosophers, lawyers, economists, and political thinkers who committed themselves to defining a better system of law, reorganizing state bureaucracy and solving the problems of an economy still based on agriculture, though more and more engaged in trade and other financial activities, were state officials, bureaucrats, and diplomats directly involved in the administration of the region. The contributions of intellectuals who had a direct experience of the bureaucracy and political life was most appreciated by the Habsburg monarchs and their ministers, who were eager to examine the reports, accounts, and projects of their Lombard subordinates.1 One of the Lombard intellectuals and state officials who tried to contribute to improving the state administration was Count Giovanni Battista Gherardo D’Arco (1739–1791), a Mantuan economist who wrote one of the most interesting and controversial texts of the eighteenth century on the relationships between the state and Jewish communities: Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato (On the Influence of the Ghetto in the State). This essay focuses particularly on D’Arco’s theory that the Jews’ economic activities were dangerous to the state and society and 1

On the Lombard Enlightenment, see especially Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore, vol. 1 (Turin: Einaudi, 1987). — 139 —

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on his proposal to make the Jews more useful, or at least harmless, to the national economy by severely limiting or forbidding some of their traditional activities. The essay also takes into account the history of the Jews of Mantua and their conditions in the eighteenth century. Moreover, D’Arco’s experience as a bureaucrat and his work as an economist are taken into consideration, and the outcomes of his proposal are examined in light of the historical events that involved Mantua, Lombardy, and the Habsburg Empire after the publication of his book. The Jews in Mantua The Jewish community of Mantua was one of the most active and important in the Habsburg dominions in Northern Italy.2 The Jewish presence in Mantua dated back to the twelfth century, and increased in the thirteenth century, when migration fluxes from Rome, Germany, and France led a number of Jewish families to settle in the town. In the late fifteenth century, the Gonzaga family, who ruled over Mantua from 1328 to 1707, welcomed both Ashkenazim, who had left Trentino and Bavaria because of the clamor caused by the alleged ritual murder of Simon of Trent in 1475, and Sephardim expelled from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497. In the early modern era, the Jewish community played an important role in the social and economic life of Mantua. In fact, the Gonzagas tried to attract Jewish traders and moneylenders to their territories in order to stimulate the economy of their duchy. Nevertheless, occasional anti-Jewish episodes occurred in Mantua under the Gonzagas. For instance, in 1484 the Franciscan preacher Bernardine of Feltre persuaded the rulers of the town to establish a monte di pietà (“mount of piety”) in order to discourage Jewish usuries, and in 1612, the Jews were forced to live in a ghetto in accordance with the bull Cum nimis absurdum, issued by Pope Paul IV in 1555. When the Gonzagas lost Mantua in favor of the Empire in the early eighteenth century, the Jewish community of Mantua was one of the most numerous and dynamic in Northern Italy.3 In Mantua and the other 2

3

On the history of the Jewish community of Mantua, see Paolo Bernardini, La sfida dell’uguaglianza. Gli ebrei a Mantova nell’età della Rivoluzione Francese (Rome: Bulzoni, 1996). On the history of the Jews in Lombardy, see Shlomo Simonsohn, ed., The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 4 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1982–1986). In the second half of the eighteenth century, around thirty thousand Jews lived in Italy. At the time, the peninsula was divided into a number of regional states, which were subject to the strong influence of foreign powers when not ruled directly by a foreign state. The most numerous Jewish — 140 —

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Italian lands that came under Habsburg rule in the eighteenth century, the relationships between the Jews and the political authorities underwent substantial change. Under the Gonzagas, the Jewish community of Mantua had been subject to the arbitrary will of a local prince in change of protection. Conversely, under Habsburg rule, the supreme political power was in a distant European capital. The Jews, like all the other subjects of the Empire, were thus under the rule of local institutions, which, however, were part of a growingly centralized state machine.4 It was in the context of the process of centralization of the modern state, and in particular of the Empire, that Empress Maria Theresa granted the Jews of Mantua two toleration patents in 1756 and 1779. In virtue of those patents, which largely drew on preceding canon legislation, the Jews residing in the Lombard city were excluded from public offices and military service, could not be awarded honorific titles, had to bear a distinctive sign, had to live in the ghetto, the doors of which were locked at night, could not possess real estates, and were forbidden to marry Christians and have sexual intercourse with them. Moreover, several new limitations not inspired by traditional canon law were imposed on the Jews: for instance, Jewish physicians could not have Christian patients, and while a Jewish moneylender could receive an estate as payment from a Christian debtor, he had to let it to a Christian and sell it within five years. On the other hand, the Jews were allowed to freely practice their religion, loan money at interest, practice trade and manufacturing without having to be members of any corporation, and have their own cemetery. The Jews also had the right of perpetual tenancy (in Hebrew, gazaghà) of the houses they rented in the ghetto. Furthermore, the Jews were granted juridical autonomy: a controversy could hence be solved within the community, but the sentence had to be executed by the secular authorities. As regards religious issues, the rabbis were allowed to excommunicate those who did not comply with the dogmas and customs of the community, although the rabbis’ decision had no consequence on the life and properties of the excommunicated

4

communities, those of Rome and Leghorn, consisted of five thousand to six thousand Jews each. More than two thousand Jews lived in Mantua (a town of around twenty-five thousand people). See Paolo Bernardini, La sfida dell’uguaglianza, 195; Carlo M. Belfanti, “Popolazione ed economia a Mantova nella seconda metà del Settecento,” in La demografia storica delle città italiane (Bologna: CLUEB, 1982), 227–244. On the Jews of Mantua from 1707 to the issuing of Maria Theresa’s second patent of toleration in 1779, see Paolo Bernardini, La sfida dell’uguaglianza, 1–38. — 141 —

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person. The Jewish community was also exempt from collective responsibility in case of crimes committed by individual Jews. Finally, Jewish moneylenders were allowed to sue insolvent debtors, and the Jews were essentially placed in a position of fiscal equality with Christians. After the death of Maria Theresa in 1780, Joseph II’s policies on toleration, largely inspired by utilitarian principles, involved only marginally the Jews of Mantua, whose conditions were already better than those of most of their coreligionists living in the Empire. In many respects, the patents issued by Maria Theresa for the Jewish community of Mantua were particularly advanced compared with the legislation in effect in other regions of the Empire. In fact, when dealing with the situation of the Jewish community of Mantua, Maria Theresa and her ministers— especially Anton Kaunitz and the governor of Lombardy, Count Carlo di Firmian—took into account the traditionally favorable attitudes of the Gonzagas, and of Emperor Charles VI, toward the Jews. For this reason, while granting specific patents to the Jews of Vienna and Prague in 1781–1782, and later to those of Bohemia, Galicia, and Moravia, Joseph II limited himself to making only a few changes to the patents issued by his mother for the community of Mantua. Those changes were nevertheless very significant. Joseph II indeed decided to abolish the distinctive sign for the Jews—and this decision was of extreme symbolic importance. Moreover, he allowed Jewish students to attend state schools and Jewish physicians to cure Christian patients. On the other hand, the Jews were required to write all their documents in the official language of the region where they lived on pain of nullification. All these policies were clearly part of the process of centralization of the state administration and aimed at strengthening the central state authority. In fact, Joseph II, like his mother, attempted to make the government structures of the Empire more and more homogeneous and to make his subject more and more uniform, controllable, and useful.5 D’Arco’s Economic Thought The fact that the Austrian authorities paid particular attention to the conditions of the Jews of Mantua in the late 1770s and early 1780s is 5

On Maria Theresa’s patents for the Jews of Mantua and the changes that Joseph II made to those patents, see ibid., 39–57. On Joseph II’s policies on religious toleration, see Joseph Karniel, Die Toleranzpolitik Kaiser Josephs II (Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1985). — 142 —

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proved not only by the legislative measures passed by Maria Theresa and Joseph II, but also by the publication of D’Arco’s book and his dispute with the Jewish Enlightenment thinker Benedetto Frizzi (1756–1844). Count D’Arco was one of the most prominent figures of the cultural scene in eighteenth-century Mantua. He was an acquaintance of Condillac and a good friend of the Corsican intellectual and political leader Pasquale Paoli. Although D’Arco did not share Paoli’s revolutionary spirit and never manifested any support for the Corsican Revolution, he had continuous correspondence with the Corsican leader, whose letters from London, during his exile in England, provided the Mantuan nobleman with many important details of English society and politics. D’Arco was indeed an admirer of Montesquieu, whose political writings strongly contributed to the development of Enlightenment Anglophilia, and his reformist (though not revolutionary) attitudes led him to appreciate the moderate government of England.6 D’Arco also had two important positions of responsibility in his later years. He was president of the Accademia di Lettere e Arti of Mantua (which Napoleon later renamed Accademia Virgiliana) from 1786 to his death in 1791 and was superintendent of Mantua from 1787 to 1791. His main field of research was political economy. Thus, his interest in the conditions of the Jews can be better understood if we take into consideration his studies on economy and society.7 6

7

On Anglophilia (also called Anglomania) in eighteenth-century France and Italy, see Arturo Graf, L’anglomania e l’influsso inglese in Italia nel secolo XVIII (Turin: Loescher, 1911); Josephine Grieder, Anglomania in France, 1740–1789: Fact, Fiction, and Political Discourse (Geneva: Droz, 1985); Cristina Abbona, Il mito di Albione nell’Italia dei Lumi. Immagini dell’Inghilterra e sottotesti inglesi nella letteratura italiana (1700–1789) (PhD dissertation, Brown University, 1994); Ian Buruma, Voltaire’s Coconuts: Or Anglomania in Europe (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999); Paolo Bernardini and Diego Lucci, “Introduzione” to Luigi Castiglioni, Lettere dalla Francia (1784), Viaggio in Inghilterra (1784–85), ed. Paolo Bernardini and Diego Lucci (Novi Ligure: Città del Silenzio, 2009), 15–64. On D’Arco and his work, see Giovanni Arrivabene, ed., Memorie di Giambattista Gherardo Conte D’Arco (Parma: Stamperia reale, 1792); Riccardo Bachi, “L’attività economica degli Ebrei in Italia alla fine del sec. XVIII,” in Studi in onore di Gino Luzzatto (Milan: Giuffré, 1950), 266–277; Corrado Vivanti, “Giovanni Battista Gherardo d’Arco,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 3 (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1961), 789–793; Dacirio Ghizzi Ghidorzi, “Aspetti del pensiero economico di Giovanni Gherardo D’Arco,” in Civiltà mantovana 10 (1975): 177–205; Marialuisa Baldi, Filosofia e cultura a Mantova nella seconda metà del Settecento. I manoscritti filosofici dell’accademia virgiliana (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1979); Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore, vol. 1, 640–661. D’Arco wrote an autobiography, which is now in the possession of the Archivio D’Arco Chieppi Ardizzone (b. 14) in Mantua and was partially published in the 1950s: see Giovanni B. G. D’Arco, “Memoria sull’intendenza politica provinciale in Mantova,” ed. Aldo Enzi, in Bollettino storico mantovano 3 (1958): 270–296. On D’Arco’s work on the Jews and his dispute — 143 —

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In his first published essay, Dell’armonia politica-economica tra la città e il suo territorio (On the Political-Economic Harmony between the City and Its Territory, 1771), he showed his propensity to infer general conclusions from the analysis of particular situations.8 In this writing, he refrained from delineating the ideal features of a province where wealth and population are harmonically distributed. Conversely, he focused on the problems that were afflicting the economy of Mantua and its territory at the time. A disproportionate distribution of wealth and population was indeed causing deep poorness in certain areas, which were becoming more and more isolated from the rest of the province, and this phenomenon was detrimental to the regional economy as a whole. In his 1771 essay, D’Arco, unlike the physiocrats, does not consider agriculture as the main source of wealth for a country: instead, he deems this theory applicable only to so-called “primitive” societies, which, on the other hand, necessarily need to develop other economic activities in order to overcome their backwardness. To D’Arco, the “mournful opposition” between “civil order” and “natural order” can be solved not by reinstating the latter, but by promoting diversified economic activities. Also in this respect, D’Arco disagrees with the physiocrats—although in his essay he never mentions any of the most prominent physiocratic thinkers such as Mirabeau, François Quesnay, or Mercier de La Rivière. Moreover, D’Arco is favorable to state intervention in the national economy, although he considers the state as merely a promoter, not the main agent, of economic processes.9 As regards D’Arco’s interest in the Jews, in Dell’armonia he never mentions the Jewish question, but some of the economic and political concepts stated in this essay are consistent with the ideas on the relationships between the Jews and the state that he explained in his book on Jewish communities. First of all, when attacking economic

8

9

with Frizzi, see Paolo Bernardini, La sfida dell’uguaglianza, 59–80; Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, Il prezzo dell’eguaglianza. Il dibattito sull’emancipazione degli ebrei in Italia (1781–1848) (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1998), 40–48; Maurizio Bertolotti, “La disputa D’Arco-Frizzi e gli ebrei del Mantovano occidentale,” in Benedetto Frizzi. Un illuminista ebreo nell’età dell’emancipazione, ed. Marida Brignani and Maurizio Bertolotti (Florence: Giuntina, 2009), 67–80. This text was republished in 1788 (see Giovanni B. G. D’Arco, Delle opere del Conte G. B. Gherardo D’Arco, 4 vols., Cremona: Lorenzo Manini, 1788, vol. 1) and in 1804: see Pietro Custodi, ed., Scrittori classici italiani di economia politica, 50 vols. (Milan: Destefanis, 1803–1815, vol. 30, 1804). See ibid., 14. — 144 —

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systems based on large landed estates, the Mantuan nobleman opposes any form of monopoly: he asserts that when the wealth of a nation is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, it necessarily becomes corrupted.10 Moreover, D’Arco—like the Neapolitan economist Antonio Genovesi, whom he regarded as a master—strongly disliked luxury: like Montesquieu and Mandeville, he openly attacks the “spirit of luxury” and blames those who aim to become equal to the upper class through acquiring expensive things and living a refined life.11 And in his opinion, as explained in his book on Jewish communities, the Jews were the foremost providers of luxury goods. D’Arco also disliked city life and deplored the phenomenon of gradual urbanization that was occurring in his time and was causing urban poverty to rise (in fact, Mantua experienced a serious economic and social crisis in 1782 and 1783, and D’Arco contributed to solving that crisis by making numerous gifts to the poor). Moreover, in Dell’armonia the Mantuan economist gives alarming figures of mortality in the major cities of Europe: in this respect, he makes reference to Süssmilch, an authority in the field in question, although not an Enlightenment intellectual. To D’Arco, the reasons for the high mortality rates of the time may be found in a steamy atmosphere, the “weaker constitution” of people living in the cities, “the use of wet nurses,” debauched and corrupt habits which caused numerous diseases, “continual tricks,” and an extravagant “ease of seducing and being seduced in the inns”—and most of these habits characterized, at least in the eyes of outsiders, the conditions of life in the ghettos of Europe. Also, D’Arco combines his criticism of city life with an attack on usury, “a friend of greed and sloth,” which “disrupted the Roman Republic” and nowadays “corrodes and slowly destroys the states by fostering idleness.” Finally, although he does not mention explicitly the Jews and their communities in his 1771 treatise, D’Arco condemns the existence of particular social groups and attacks the presence of “a state within a state,” of “a nation within a nation,” of “a society within a society.” In D’Arco’s opinion, the proliferation of particular societies is produced by a continual “affluence of population in the city,” which eventually allows some groups of

10 See ibid., 15. 11 See ibid., 51. — 145 —

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citizens to become like “vampires” to the others.12 As regards the solutions that D’Arco advances to achieve a “double balance” in the distribution of both wealth and population, the role of state intervention is crucial: D’Arco indeed proposes to “provide the spirit of the legislation with such an expansive power that, from the center to the peripheral areas of a country, it may increase population and trade.”13 Moreover, he believes that the state should “secure the best possible distribution of property through the multiplication of landowners.”14 On the other hand, he regards the rent of plots for cultivation as harmful to agriculture because those who rent a plot tend to overexploit and eventually abandon it. Although he came from a family of big landowners, D’Arco detested the principle of inalienable property because it could make properties unproductive: in Dell’armonia he asserts that “no property can be considered inalienable in its nature, or exempt from bargaining.”15 Drawing inspiration from Aristotle, D’Arco expresses his preference for a society based on a “convenient mediocrity of fortunes.”16 Moreover, although he believes that the state should promote demographic growth, as well as economic development, he is critical of populationist theories tout court, widely considered as obsolete already in the 1770s. In fact, in commenting on the populationist assumption that there is necessarily a direct proportion between the population and the distribution of wealth, he paraphrases the book of Isaiah (chapter 9, verse 2): “Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy.”17 D’Arco’s second treatise, entitled Dell’annona (On the Distribution of Grain, 1775), was inspired by the theories of the Neapolitan economist Ferdinando Galiani and focused on a very specific issue. In fact, in this book, the Mantuan writer aimed at questioning government fixation 12 13 14 15 16 17

See ibid., 64–65, 80–81, 104–105. Ibid., 136. Ibid., 144–145. Ibid., 156. Ibid., 191. See ibid., 177. D’Arco’s use of biblical passages is typical of a tendency, widespread in eighteenthcentury Europe, to distinguish the Mosaic Law from rabbinical interpretations, particularly from the Talmud: he defined the former as the “first and invariable code of the nations” (ibid., 28) and also appreciated its importance in his book on the Jews, whereas he harshly attacked the Talmud. Moreover, in Dell’armonia, he made reference to the distribution of population reported in the “sacred pages” of the Old Testament, and he quoted from Deuteronomy in his attack on luxury (see ibid., 78). — 146 —

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of grain price, which he considered as a form of monopoly, comparable to theft committed against the people and acceptable only in case of famine.18 In 1777, D’Arco presented his third writing, Dell’influenza del commercio sopra i talenti e i costumi (On the Influence of Trade on Talents and Customs) to the Academy of Marseille, which had advertised a contest on this subject. D’Arco was not awarded the prize of the academy but decided to publish his essay in 1782.19 At the beginning of his treatise, D’Arco maintains that trade makes people industrious, hardworking, and productive, and also fosters the development of “the spirit of analysis, deduction and rationality.”20 He regards trade as the “origin of civilization” and the basis of “toleration in matters of religion.”21 On the other hand, while trade may “transmit habits typical of the merchants to a whole nation,”22 its influence on the customs of a nation can be extremely negative “if national trade is concentrated and limited to one class of persons.”23 On this point, D’Arco makes explicit reference, for the first time, to the Jews, who are viewed as a “class of persons” who not only try continually to establish trade monopolies, but also engage frequently in “corruption and prevarication.” Moreover, D’Arco expresses his fear that the Jews might give a bad example to other traders: in fact, according to the Mantuan economist, they used to sell their merchandise at a price up to “twice as much as the real value.”24 D’Arco wrote specifically on the relationships between state and Jewish communities for the first time in 1778, when he sent a short essay to the aulic councilor Joseph von Sperges.25 In this essay, he defines the 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25

This writing was also republished in Pietro Custodi, ed., Scrittori classici italiani di economia politica, vol. 30. See Giovanni B. G. D’Arco, Dell’influenza del commercio sopra i talenti e i costumi (Cremona: Lorenzo Manini, 1782). This essay was republished in Pietro Custodi, ed., Scrittori classici italiani di economia politica, vol. 31. See ibid., 21–23. See ibid., 32, 37. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 58–59. See ibid., 60–61. This short essay is in the possession of the Archivio D’Arco Chieppi Ardizzone (b. 11), which also owns Sperges’s answer to D’Arco (b. 7). D’Arco’s writing was republished in the 1990s: see Giovanni B. G. D’Arco, “Ragionamento sull’influenza d’un Ghetto nelle politiche e morali costituzioni d’uno Stato,” ed. Paolo Bernardini, in Civiltà mantovana 32 (1997): 7–16. In his answer to D’Arco, Sperges justified toleration of the Jews, which he, nevertheless, defined a “disgrace” and a “necessary evil.” — 147 —

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Jewish communities as “excrescences” that, though potentially dangerous to the state, cannot be extirpated without harm to the national economy. Moreover, he maintains that “the credits, the debts, and the other numerous relationships that the Ghetto has with all the Orders and Classes of the State are an evil, but a necessary evil.”26 He thus rejects the hypothesis to expel the Jews from the Empire. In fact, as demonstrated by the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and the banishment of the Huguenots from France after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the loss of economically active groups is extremely harmful to the economy and international prestige of a country. Thus, he deems it better to make the Jews more useful, or at least harmless, to the state instead of expelling them. This thesis is confirmed also in his 1782 treatise on the Jews. Jewish Customs and Beliefs in D’Arco’s Work D’Arco wrote Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato (1782) in a time when Joseph II was confirming the toleration patents issued by Maria Theresa and applying new toleration policies regarding the Jews of the Empire. In Della influenza, D’Arco further developed the economic theories explained in his earlier writings. In this case, he focused on a particular social group (i.e., the Jews) taking part in the economic and social life of a country.27 D’Arco approved of Joseph II’s policies on the Jews of Mantua, which we have described above. The third and last section of Della influenza is indeed wholly devoted to the emperor’s attempts to increase state control over the Jewish communities. D’Arco’s most original observations are, however, those related to the actual conditions of the Jewish communities of the time, especially regarding their relationships with civil society and the political authorities. On this point, he focuses on two thematic areas—that is, economic-political issues in the first part of his writing and ideological-religious subjects in the second part. We will first analyze the latter section: an analysis of the ideological elements of D’Arco’s discourse on the Jews will indeed help us better understand his economic-political theories concerning the Jewish communities. 26 In his work, D’Arco uses the term “ghetto” as a synonym for Jewish community. 27 See Giovanni B. G. D’Arco, Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato (Venice: Gaspare Storti, 1782), facsimile reprint Bologna: Forni, 1981 (this facsimile reprint also includes the second part of D’Arco’s treatise, published in Venice in 1785). — 148 —

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The Mantuan nobleman accepted most of the anti-Jewish prejudices of the time. D’Arco’s view of the Jews may be comprehended by examining his answer to a fundamental question, which he openly asks in his treatise: are the Jews harmful to the state because of the “dishonesty and greed of some individuals of this nation (not dissimilar from those who, unfortunately, ruin other nations)” or because of the “particular spirit of the Jews, that is, the dispositions, sentiments and principles that, by virtue of their union, their religion, and their education, shape the true characteristics of their nation?”28 D’Arco opts for an intermediate solution. In fact, he rejects both the thesis that only some Jews are dishonest and unsociable and the theory that the Jews’ hostility to Christians is inherent to their nature. D’Arco also disagrees with those who believe that the Mosaic Law stirs up hatred against other nations. Conversely, he is of the same opinion as several “philo-Semitic” writers who disliked the rabbis’ authority—writers such as Christian Wilhelm von Dohm (whose important book on the Jews, published in 1781, D’Arco did not know) and two famous French historians of Judaism, Claude Fleury and Jacques Basnage (and D’Arco actually ignored these authors too, although in his book he mentioned Condillac, who largely drew on their works). Briefly, in D’Arco’s opinion, the Jews’ aversion to the other nations originated in “an adulteration of the sacred text, deriving from various additions to it made by the rabbis.”29 And in his stark criticism of rabbinic literature, D’Arco censures the work of Maimonides and the whole Talmud.30 In his attack on the Talmud, D’Arco makes reference to very controversial writers, such as Giuseppe Sessa, whose Judeophobic Tractatus de Judaeis (Turin, 1717) was very influential, especially in Italy, at least until the mid-nineteenth century, and the famous Tuscan convert Paolo Sebastiano Medici, author of Riti e costumi degli ebrei confutati (Rites and Customs of the Jews Refuted, Florence, 1736). On the other hand, he also pays attention to more accredited scholars, such as the French Benedictine Dom Calmet (1672–1757) and the English Orientalist Humphrey Prideaux (1648–1724). Both Calmet and Prideaux affirmed the preeminence of the Mishnah over the Pentateuch—that is, the pri28 See ibid., 51. 29 Ibid., 57. 30 See ibid., 58–60. — 149 —

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macy of interpretation over the text. Consequently, they pointed out that a violation of the Law of Moses would be less serious than a contravention to the law of the rabbis. On this point, D’Arco reports that, to Prideaux, the Talmud presents the essence of “the religion of the Jews as it is believed and practiced in the present time.”31 However, D’Arco had only a superficial and inaccurate knowledge of the works of those famous Hebraists. He actually used, and distorted, their observations on the importance of the Talmud in order to support his thesis of the Jews’ hostility to Christians: In fact, since in virtue of his Religion a Jew is not a Jew anymore if he renounces the norm of hating, robbing and deceiving the Christians in any possible way, in direct opposition to the precepts of the latter’s Religion, which teach that a Christian is not a Christian anymore if he wants to renounce the law of reciprocal, brotherly charity; and since robbery is not forbidden to the Jews, but is prescribed to them, and is considered not repugnant but praiseworthy, not dangerous, but, when unpunished, is regarded as a result of various refined skills; who, among the inhabitants of the Ghetto, will not allow his interest to lead him to any sort of injustice, fraud, theft?32 To D’Arco, the Jews’ enmity to Christians originated mainly in their religious traditions. It was thus the Jews’ hostility that caused the “separation of the Ghetto [i.e., the Jewish community] from the State.” However, he acknowledges that Jewish hostility to Christians was increased over the centuries by the “laws and conditions under which the Jews have been allowed to live among the other nations.” D’Arco uses several historical examples in order to excuse the Gentiles’ “legitimate” hatred toward the Jews, which usually led to “justifiable,” though often terrible, persecutions and episodes of intolerance. D’Arco borrows from Flavius Josephus when explaining the conditions of the Jews in ancient times, and highlights their problematic relationships with the Roman rulers. On the other hand, he makes reference to one of the most interesting 31 Ibid., 60–61. 32 Ibid., 64–65. — 150 —

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historical works of the time, the Scottish Universal History, in order to underscore the large number of “extremely harsh and strict Edicts” on the Jews, the “hatred and diffidence” often expressed to them, and the Christians’ hostility against them.33 To D’Arco, a condition of “bitter toleration” often forced the Jews to be nothing but “beasts for burden”: for this reason, they strengthened their “spirit of unsociability” and fostered “the division of the ghetto from the State.”34 The myth of the sectarian spirit of the ghetto, a spirit that Chancellor Kaunitz called “the Jewish brotherhood,”35 was deep-rooted among the Austrian and Northern Italian state officials and intellectuals of the time, and D’Arco was one of those who most significantly contributed to its diffusion.36 This further reveals D’Arco’s insufficient knowledge not only of the literature on the Jews, but also of the conditions of life within the walls of the ghettos of modern Europe. However, D’Arco’s book also presents a more original theory, symptomatic of new developments in anti-Judaic arguments (developments that eventually proved to be decisive in nineteenth-century anti-Semitism): the theory of a Jewish “conspiracy” against the state. To D’Arco, the Jews indeed have no “love of country” because they have no country, and hence they stand “in direct opposition […] to the good of the State.”37 However, to the Mantuan writer, Jewish conspiracies do not lead to complex political intrigues but consist of the continual frauds, usuries, and robberies committed by the Jews against the Christians. In his attempt to discredit the Jews, D’Arco was not wily enough to predict other, and more dangerous, forms of Jewish conspiracy aimed at achieving world domination. The Jews of Europe had to wait for one more century to be accused also of political, not only financial, conspiracies… The Jews’ Economic Activities in D’Arco’s Work While the central section of D’Arco’s book deals with historical-religious issues and the conclusion contains a praise of Joseph II’s policies to promote the integration of the Jews in several areas of the Empire— 33 See ibid., 68–69. 34 Ibid., 72. 35 Kaunitz used this term in a letter to the council of government of Mantua on March 9, 1780, now in the possession of the State Archives of Milan (b. 2162, f. 5). 36 See Giovanni B. G. D’Arco, Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato, especially 20 and 83. 37 See ibid., 72. — 151 —

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although D’Arco does not acknowledge that most of the measures undertaken, for instance, in Vienna and Bohemia were already sanctioned in Maria Theresa’s patents for the Jews of Mantua—the first part deals with economic and political issues. In spite of its numerous and significant limits, the first part is the most original in D’Arco’s Della influenza. This section of the treatise examines a specific situation (i.e., that of Mantua), analyzes a variety of economic dynamics that were new for the time (e.g., the rising importance of finance, trade, and industry), and focuses particularly on the causes and consequences of those dynamics, which D’Arco regarded as absolutely negative. But those new dynamics were inevitable in the slow and difficult, though unavoidable, passage from an agricultural and feudal society to a modern capitalist system based on trade and finance—that is, the activities in which Jewish businessmen were traditionally engaged. In a small provincial town like Mantua, the passage to capitalism was even slower and more difficult than in other regions of Western Europe, including the more developed area of Milan. However, significant transformations were also taking place in the economy of Mantua, and the Jewish bankers and traders of the town were among those who were most actively contributing to those changes. With his analysis of the economic activities of the Jews, based on his observation of the Jewish community of Mantua, D’Arco inaugurated the literature on the Jews as economic operators. This genre became very successful and produced its most significant results in the nineteenth century—first of all in Italy with Carlo Cattaneo’s Interdizioni israelitiche (Jewish Interdictions, 1836). Moreover, in Germany, where the Jewish financiers became more and more instrumental in the formation of capitalism from the 1830s onward, this field found its most cogent expressions in Karl Marx’s Zur Judenfrage (On the Jewish Question, 1843) and Werner Sombart’s Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (The Jews and Modern Capitalism, 1911). Marx and Sombart indeed dealt with themes quite similar to those examined by D’Arco, although both German authors studied a mature form of capitalism, and their analyses tended to underestimate the religious connotations of the problem. As regards the role that the Jews played in the economy of a country, the Mantuan economist made a distinction between maritime and commercial states on the one hand and agricultural countries on the other. As to countries whose economies were based on trade, he did not deny — 152 —

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the positive influence of the Jews and their financial activities on the national economy. And as regards agricultural countries, he differentiated between poor and wealthy Jews and maintained that the former had played an important role in agricultural economies, because poor Jews used to buy, fix, and resell furniture, utensils, and clothes: therefore, they helped enhance the national economy by providing the needy with a number of basic goods and minimized the exit of money from the country.38 However, D’Arco blamed the mercantile and financial Jewish elites for their parasitic role in agricultural regions. According to D’Arco, there were indeed six branches of the Jewish economy that harmed the public good and therefore needed to be strictly regulated and limited, if not forbidden: I. The buying and selling of things that cannot be modified. II. The rent of plots for cultivation. III. The loan of money on interest. IV. The reselling of goods bought from local artisans. V. Money-changing. VI. The import and sale of goods from abroad.39 Given the importance of these economic activities for a capitalist system, one can conclude that D’Arco attacked not only the Jews, but the capitalist free market economy as a whole. As regards the first point, D’Arco considered the Jews as a group interposed between producers and consumers, a group “that uses to fraud, is often well protected, and is connected to the consumers through many relations of friendship, credits, and trades.”40 Although D’Arco identified the Jewish merchants with the Jewish community as a whole, and did not appreciate the competitiveness typical of modern market societies, he accepted the physiocrats’ position—also approved of by late cameralism—against intermediaries, whom he regarded as superfluous and parasitic. And his position was certainly old-fashioned in an important phase of the development of a market economy. Moreover, D’Arco stigmatized the Jews’ ability to gather goods in several markets, thanks to their connections with their coreligionists in 38 See ibid., 18–19. 39 See ibid., 19. 40 See ibid., 21. — 153 —

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various regions of Europe. He pointed out that the Jews were often willing to buy goods at higher prices because, in the end, they could decide retail prices after stockpiling and consequently destroying competition. At that time, this practice was probably common, albeit in a declining phase. D’Arco indeed accused the Jews of Mantua of contributing to the impoverishment of the local ruling class, which consisted mainly of landowners,41 but he was definitely wrong: in fact, it was not the Jewish merchants but the sluggishness of the big landowners that led to the decline of the agrarian economy in the province of Mantua.42 As to the second issue (i.e., the rent of plots for cultivation), it is difficult to understand which Jews D’Arco refers to—perhaps those who lived in Bohemia or Poland, although he had an insufficient and erroneous knowledge of their conditions. In fact, in eighteenth-century Mantua, only a few rich Jews could rent big plots of ground. Most Jews, when exempt from some regulations stated in the toleration patents, could only rent a small plot for cultivation. However, D’Arco accused the Jews of overexploiting the land in order to pay the high rates imposed on them by the landowners, and he deemed them unable to cultivate the soil properly, as they were used to a sedentary life.43 The third point deals with a more concrete and pressing issue, namely moneylending. D’Arco condemned high and “barely legal” interest rates. On the other hand, he likened loans of “huge amounts” to “huge winnings” and maintained that most of those who borrowed money at interest were idle and lavish people. He obviously ignored that the availability of huge amounts of money could also promote investments and economic growth. D’Arco himself questioned the fourth point: is the reselling of goods bought from local artisans actually dangerous to the national economy? A positive answer to this question would imply the rejection of retail trade as a whole. However, D’Arco drew attention to the continual frauds of the Jews and gave the example of Poland, whose economy, in his opinion, was prostrated by the Jews engaging in retail trade.44 As regards the fifth point, to D’Arco, money-changing would be a respectable profession, if the Jews did not introduce “cheap metal or 41 42 43 44

See ibid., 24. See Corrado Vivanti, Le campagne del mantovano nell’età delle riforme (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1959). See Giovanni B. G. D’Arco, Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato, 28–29. See ibid., 39–44. — 154 —

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eroded coins” on the market.45 In this respect as well, it is hard to understand which Jews D’Arco talks about, since no Jew in eighteenthcentury Mantua was tried for “money clipping,” which was considered a very serious crime, punished with death in most modern states. For this reason, D’Arco’s accusation is particularly heinous. The sixth and last point deals with the import and sale of goods from abroad. In dealing with this issue, D’Arco again presented his arguments against luxury, since he believed that it was mainly Jewish merchants that imported luxury goods. Moreover, he asserted that the Jews used to reinvest the profits from that business in other contemptible economic activities. Finally, drawing on German cameralism and mercantilism, D’Arco considered the Jews’ tendency to be “citizens of the world” (and not of their host countries) as intrinsically dangerous to the national economy, as it led them to export capitals abroad and therefore to deprive the host country of precious financial resources.46 Benedetto Frizzi’s Defense of the Jewish Nation D’Arco’s treatise was received with favor in Italy. In 1782–1783, it was reviewed in three of the most important Italian journals of the time— namely, Estratti della letteratura d’Europa, Effemeridi letterarie di Roma, and Novelle letterarie. All the three reviews were positive, and their authors accepted and reasserted D’Arco’s Judeophobic arguments. However, Della influenza was completely ignored abroad. The Jewish intellectual Benedetto Frizzi decided to refute D’Arco’s anti-Judaic arguments. Frizzi, who was then a student of medicine at the University of Pavia, wrote and published, in 1784, a refutation entitled Difesa contro gli attacchi fatti alla nazione ebrea nel libro intitolato “Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato” (Defense from the Attacks Made on the Jewish Nation in the Book Entitled “On the Influence of the Ghetto in the State”).47 45 See ibid., 44–46. 46 See ibid., 47–48. 47 See Benedetto Frizzi, Difesa contro gli attacchi fatti alla nazione ebrea nel libro intitolato “Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato” (Pavia: Stamperia del Monastero di San Salvatore, 1784), facsimile reprint Bologna: Forni, 1977. Benedetto Frizzi (1756–1844), born in Ostiano, a small town between Mantua and Cremona, studied engineering, medicine, and philosophy at the University of Pavia. He wrote essays on logic, rhetoric, and grammar, besides biblical and Talmudic commentaries on issues related to public hygiene, marriage, pregnancy, and the education of children. On Frizzi and his work, see Ben Zion Dinur (Dinaburg), “Benzion Rafael HaCohen Frizzi — 155 —

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In his attempt to disprove D’Arco’s remarks on the economic activities of the Jews, Frizzi demonstrated himself to be well acquainted with the Jews’ actual role in national economies. He observed that D’Arco had not attached enough importance to some activities essential to the economy of every state, such as the profession of commercial middleman, which was widespread among the Jews.48 Moreover, D’Arco had overlooked the fact that a number of Jewish businessmen were still engaged in public contracts, even in countries where tax collection contracts had been abolished.49 Frizzi also underscored the importance of Jewish manufactories in the province of Mantua. Silk factories belonging to Jews indeed employed large numbers of local Christian laborers. Moreover, the most innovative silk work techniques were introduced from Piedmont to Mantua thanks to Jewish experts from Monferrato, who were in friendly relations with the Jewish community of Mantua.50 In his book, Frizzi shows his profound knowledge of political economy in defending the stockpiling of grain, which not only does not impoverish the landowners, since it helps them to dispose of their supplies, but also makes it possible to provide the population with food in case of famine or shortage—as actually happened in Mantua in 1782 and 1783. Moreover, Frizzi points out that big cities such as Florence and Rome often had to make use of extraordinary provisions, and the government of Venice frequently bought grain from an important Jewish family of Mantua, the Vivanti, one of whose members had deserved a “most honorable diploma awarded by that excellent Senate.”51 Moreover, stockpiling was useful to the state since it prevented the exit of money from the country in case of famine.52 Frizzi, like D’Arco, overrated the extent of a phenomenon that the Mantuan nobleman had particularly deplored—that is, the fact that the

48 49 50 51 52

VeSifro Petach Einaim,” in Tarbiz 20 (1949): 241–264 (in Hebrew); Daniele Nissim, “Modernità di vedute in un nostro illuminista: Benedetto Frizzi e le sue opere,” in Rassegna Mensile di Israel 34 (1968): 279–291. See also the above-mentioned volume published in 2009: Marida Brignani and Maurizio Bertolotti, eds., Benedetto Frizzi, which presents various interesting essays on Frizzi’s life and scholarly activities. See Benedetto Frizzi, Difesa, 111–112. See ibid., 113. See ibid., 117–119. Ibid., 128. See ibid., 120–126. — 156 —

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Jews were allowed to rent plots for cultivation. Most Jewish tenants actually rented small plots of ground, while only a few very rich Jewish families, such as the Finzi di Rivarolo, could rent big plots for cultivation and also employ Christian peasants. However, Frizzi opposed D’Arco’s opinion about the supposed damages caused by Jewish landowners to the state. Indeed, he pointed out that in the province of Mantua, the most prominent Jewish landowners had reclaimed lands that apparently could not be put to agricultural use anymore, and this was certainly advantageous to both the territory and the economy of the state. Also in this respect, Frizzi mentioned the Finzi, who had planted twenty-four thousand mulberries for silkworms.53 The long chapter that Frizzi devotes to the usefulness of Jewish moneylending presents numerous arguments on trade and finance and demonstrates that the Jewish intellectual was aware of the essential function of banking in a protocapitalist market economy—despite the limits presented by the provincial context of Mantua. Borrowing from Montesquieu, Frizzi highlighted the difference between the interest rates in flourishing mercantile states and those in agricultural countries, depending upon the potential risks and the circulation of wealth. On this point, he stressed that Jewish moneylenders were not different from their Christian colleagues—although the patents of toleration usually authorized the Jews to apply higher interest rates, regardless of the actual economic situation.54 Frizzi also emphasized the usefulness of the buying and selling of local manufactured products. Since Jewish traders often bought big stocks of goods, they helped the local manufactories avoid excessive storage of products. Moreover, a modern economic system cannot work without the retail sale of goods, and Jewish traders, thanks to their networks of commercial relationships, had a good knowledge of international markets and thus knew the most convenient markets where to sell their merchandise. Briefly, Frizzi showed that D’Arco had made reference to a quite abstract economic model and had not taken into account the evolution of real economy, which, in spite of the physiocrats’ prejudices, actually needed intermediaries. In this respect, Frizzi also pointed out that Western economy was in a phase of decline because of natural con53 See ibid., 129–135. 54 See ibid., 136–146. — 157 —

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tingencies and not because of the diffusion of intermediaries.55 In the conclusive sections of his book, Frizzi highlights the usefulness of the Jews engaged in money-changing and in the import of goods from abroad. Frizzi studied in depth the delicate issue of the relationship between ideal currency and real currency. This section of his Difesa demonstrates that he had a good knowledge of Ferdinando Galiani’s theories (though Galiani is never mentioned in the book) and of the eighteenth-century debate on the value, use, and exchange of real and ideal currencies. In fact, Frizzi drew attention to “the relative value of currencies,” deriving from “the comparison with the currencies of other countries.” And this “relative value,” which depended on several factors mainly related to trade and the circulation of money, eventually determined the exchange rate of each currency. Other factors, such as the metals used in coins and their weights, governmental policies, and the princes’ arbitrary decisions, had no significant influence on the value of currencies.56 Briefly, in capitalist economy, money-changers are necessary, and in Mantua, like in many other areas of Europe, the moneychangers were mostly Jews. As regards the import of goods from abroad, Frizzi, unlike D’Arco, believed that luxury could promote the circulation of money and the increase of wealth. Especially in agricultural countries, the purchase of luxury goods was one of the few ways the rich landowners had to circulate their money. Without luxury, huge amounts of money would remain unused, and the cultivation of the land would eventually be useless.57 On this point, Frizzi seems to be inspired by Adam Smith and the Scottish school of political economy. In his Difesa, Frizzi also dealt with another important issue, on which D’Arco had particularly focused—the supposed anti-Christian nature of the Talmud. In his defense of the Talmud, Frizzi made reference to the undisputed authority of the English Hebraist John Selden (1584–1654), who, in De iure naturali et gentium juxta disciplinam Ebraeorum libri septem (1640), had judged most Talmudic sentences to be consistent with the law of nature. Moreover, Frizzi availed himself of the rabbinical encyclopedia Pachad Yitzchak by Rabbi Isaac Lampronti of 55 See ibid., 147–150. 56 See ibid., 153. 57 See ibid., 156. — 158 —

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Ferrara (1679–1756). In fact, both Selden and Lampronti pointed out that the conception of the Talmud as an anti-Christian text originated in misinterpretations of the Mishnaic passages in which the goim are harshly blamed. However, both Selden and Lampronti explained that the goim cannot be identified with the Christians, since the Hebrew term “goi” means “idolatrous.” Therefore, it was not the Christians but the idolatrous pagans that could be suspected of horrible crimes and hence ought to be avoided at any cost.58 Moreover, Frizzi agreed with the English divine Humphrey Prideaux (an author mentioned by D’Arco too) that the Talmud is in fact at the basis of the religion practiced by the Jews, but he rejected the conclusions drawn by the English scholar, who regarded the Talmud as largely inconsistent with the Mosaic Law. D’Arco had also quoted, besides Prideaux, the French theologian Dom Calmet, who had reported the famous rabbinic sentence that whoever opposes the law of the rabbis deserves death. And on this point, Frizzi clarifies that in rabbinic literature the term “death” often means a spiritual death, not a real one.59 In any case, Frizzi limited himself to reporting the interpretations of other scholars in order to refute D’Arco’s contemptuous opinion of the Talmud. Frizzi is actually a minor figure in the long-lasting disputes on the Talmud, which raised the attention of numerous accredited Hebraists in early modern Europe, including the Italian scholar Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi, professor of Oriental languages at the University of Parma and author of numerous writings on Jewish traditions.60 However, it is worth pointing out that the arguments against the Talmud— which were common in Christian sermons, given that uneducated people could also easily understand and accept them—were at the core of many eighteenth-century Judeophobic theories. Moreover, harsh attacks on the Talmud still characterized the debate on the Jews and Judaism in 58 See ibid., 58–59. 59 See ibid., 53. 60 On De Rossi, see Gianfranco Bonola, “Con dolcezza e con riguardo. Il semitista parmense G. B. De Rossi e la conversione degli ebrei nel Settecento,” in Cristianesimo nella storia 4, no. 2 (1983): 367–436; Fausto Parente, “Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 39 (1991). De Rossi was one of many Christian Hebraists of the early modern era who, though having a deep interest in Jewish culture, were anything but “philo-Semites,” as proved by a famous book in which he criticized the Jews’ “vain expectation of their king Messiah”: see Giovanni B. De Rossi, Della vana aspettazione degli ebrei del loro re Messia dal compimento di tutte le epoche (Parma: Stamperia reale, 1773). — 159 —

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the second half of the eighteenth century, as proved by a dispute in the 1770s between the rabbi of Mantua, Jacob Raphael Saraval, and a lawyer and anti-Jewish polemicist from Ferrara, Giovanni Battista Benedetti.61 D’Arco and the Habsburg Policies Concerning the Jews D’Arco replied to Frizzi in the second volume of Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato, published in 1785, but his response was weak and ineffective. Instead of proposing new arguments in support of his theories, he limited himself to giving the example of the repeal of the Jew Bill in England (1753) in order to strengthen his point: since the English government was commonly considered to be the freest in the world, D’Arco believed that any of its policies ought to be regarded as an example for the other states of Europe.62 After publishing his refutation of D’Arco’s book, Frizzi continued to study at the University of Pavia, where he received his degree in medicine in 1787. He then worked at the hospitals of Parma, Bologna, and Florence, and in 1789, he moved to Trieste, where he worked as a physician for more than four decades. In 1831, he moved back to his place of origin, Ostiano, a small town between Mantua and Cremona, where he died in 1844, respected and mourned by numerous patients, both Jews and Christians.63 D’Arco became more and more involved in political life and was the superintendent of Mantua from 1786 to 1791, a crucial period for the local Jewish community.64 However, the Jews of Mantua had an opportunity to welcome Joseph II before D’Arco was appointed superintendent. In 1784, during the emperor’s trip to the Habsburg dominions in Italy, the Jews of Mantua presented a plea to him: they asked for the same rights as the Christians, including the possibility to purchase real estates, 61

On Saraval and his dispute with Benedetti, see Paolo Bernardini, La sfida dell’uguaglianza, 88–104. Benedetto Frizzi wrote a paper on Saraval: see Benedetto Frizzi, Elogio dei rabbini Simone Calimani e Giacobbe Saravale, letto in un’Accademia Letteraria in casa del Signor Abram Camondo (Trieste: Giovanni Speraindio, 1791). 62 See Giovanni B. G. D’Arco, Della influenza del Ghetto nello Stato, parte seconda (Venice: Tommaso Bettinelli, 1785), facsimile reprint Bologna: Forni, 1981 (as has been said, this facsimile reprint also includes the first part of D’Arco’s treatise, published in Venice in 1782). On the Jew Bill controversy, see the essay on John Toland in this volume. 63 On Frizzi’s life in Ostiano, see Marida Brignani, “Ostiano e Benedetto Frizzi,” in Benedetto Frizzi, ed. Marida Brignani and Maurizio Bertolotti, 47–66. 64 On D’Arco’s proposals and policies on the Jews in the time when he served as the superintendent of Mantua, see Paolo Bernardini, La sfida dell’uguaglianza, 193–207. — 160 —

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receive titles of nobility, and serve in public offices. On the other hand, they wanted to retain the particular status of their community, along with the guarantees traditionally granted to them. Chancellor Kaunitz forwarded the plea to the president of the city council of Mantua, Odoardo Zenetti, who eventually rejected all the requests of the Jews. As a matter of fact, the ruling class of the Habsburg Empire had the opinion, expressed also by D’Arco in his book on the Jews, that particular groups perceived as separate from the rest of society should not enjoy special “privileges”: such groups were indeed considered to be basically hostile and in competition with the state and most of its subjects. D’Arco retained this opinion while serving as the superintendent of Mantua. In 1787, he issued an edict that forbade the Jewish shopkeepers to open their shops on Christian holidays, but the local council of justice revoked his edict upon the request of the Jewish community. Moreover, in 1789, he attacked the idea that the Jews should have juridical autonomy, which, in his opinion, aimed at allowing “private persons” to make use of the “coercive force” of the state in order to punish those who did not respect the laws of their community. He regarded the “right” to juridical autonomy as “harmful” to both “private civil liberty” and “public authority,” and this opinion was shared by most of his contemporaries. In fact, the Austrian government, in an attempt to reorganize the justice system, had already abolished most of the particular courts in the Empire, including those of the Jewish communities, in 1786. The only significant success of D’Arco in matters regarding the Jewish community was the establishment of a state primary school for Jewish children. He wanted to follow the example of Joseph II, who realized the role of public education in a modern, efficient, well-organized state. The school actually started its activities in 1789, but in the following years, only a few Jewish children enrolled in it. It was nevertheless in 1790 that D’Arco had his best opportunity to put into practice his ideas on the Jews. In fact, the 1779 patent for the Jewish community of Mantua was expected to expire at the end of that year. Therefore, D’Arco wrote a Consulta (Advice) to the council of government in Milan. As in his treatise on the Jews, in the Consulta, D’Arco expressed his opposition to perpetual toleration of the Jews. Instead, he was favorable to the concept of tolerantia gratiosa, according to which the “existence” of Jewish communities is “constantly dependent upon the supreme will — 161 —

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of the Prince.” He feared, above all, the possibility that the Jews could be released from prohibitions regarding their economic activities. He believed that “an immediate passage from slavery to freedom is unnatural, given that one usually steps from slavery into dissolution.” To D’Arco, the Jews mostly refrained from working as artisans or peasants and preferred to have undemanding jobs, which allowed them to earn their living without excessive efforts. Furthermore, he considered the Jewish people to be an “enemy to the Christians.” Therefore, the Christians should not provide the Jews with the means to destroy the Christian state and society. For the same reason, he blamed the Lombard authorities for admitting, in 1786, two representatives of the Jews to the governing body of the chamber of commerce. D’Arco’s advice went unheard. In fact, in 1791, the same year of the Mantuan aristocrat’s death, Emperor Leopold II, who had succeeded his brother Joseph II in 1790, granted the Jews of Mantua a patent that abolished most of the limitations and prohibitions previously imposed on them. Before becoming emperor at the death of his brother, Leopold II had been Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. Thus, he had been, for a long time, in a position to appreciate the activities of the Jews of Leghorn. Throughout the early modern era, the Jewish community of the Tuscan port city provided a good example of how the Jews could be “useful” to the national economy and was praised in numerous writings in favor of toleration: the contrast between the flourishing city of Tuscany, which hosted a large number of Sephardic merchants, and the miserable conditions of Spain and Portugal after the expulsions of the Jews was indeed a leitmotif of philo-Semitic literature in early modern Europe.65 Moreover, Leopold II considered a benevolent attitude toward traditionally oppressed minorities an example of good government. It was certainly for these reasons that, in 1790, the Jews of Mantua decided to bypass the hierarchical line and, instead of consulting with the local authorities, sent two representatives of the community to Vienna, where they met the new emperor and expressed their hopes to him. Leopold II’s patent was characterized by some significant innova65 Both the Venetian rabbi Simone Luzzatto and the Irish deist John Toland made reference to the contribution of the Jews of Leghorn to the Tuscan economy: see the essay on Toland in this volume. — 162 —

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tions: first of all, no expiration date was established for this patent, and the norms it stated had to be considered universal and “eternal.” This way, the patent contained the final legislation regarding the Jews of Mantua, and no successor of Leopold could arbitrarily modify its provisions. In fact, the Jews reminded Emperor Francis I of this document in 1815, when the Austrian authorities were considering to apply both old and new restrictions on the Jewish community of Mantua. Moreover, Leopold II abolished century-old limitations, such as the prohibition to buy buildings and plots of ground, within and without the ghetto. The patent also reasserted that excommunication from the Jewish community could have no consequence on the civil rights and properties of the excommunicated person. On the other hand, the patent did not mention issues such as mixed marriages, the access to public offices, and service in the military. Furthermore, the patent did neither abolish the ghetto as an institution nor repeal the legal norms that traditionally regulated life in it.66 The gates of the ghetto of Mantua were torn down only in 1797, when Napoleon’s armies invaded Northern Italy.67 But in the lands occupied by the French troops, the Jewish communities had to lose any aspiration to retain their particular status and identity, since no “state within a state” could be accepted by the ideology of the French Revolution. However, the Jews of most European countries could not enjoy civil equality for a long time: in fact, after the end of the Napoleonic era, the Restoration led to the annulment of the rights obtained by the Jews under the revolutionary regimes and Napoleon. Also, the Jews of Mantua, under the reign of Francis I, were deprived of most of the rights that they had been granted under Leopold II and Napoleon. Moreover, new prohibitions were imposed on them: Jews and foreigners were indeed excluded from the grain trade, the number of Jewish intermediaries was reduced, and the Jews could get married only upon permission of the authorities.68 The emancipation of the Jews in the Austrian Empire was eventually accomplished in 1867—that is, one year after Mantua was incorporated into united Italy. The constitution of the Kingdom of Italy—namely, the Albertine Statute (issued in 1848, much before the unification of 66 On Leopold II and the Jews of Mantua, see Paolo Bernardini, La sfida dell’uguaglianza, 207–219. 67 On Mantua and its Jewish community under French rule, see ibid., 223–326. 68 See ibid., 327–350. — 163 —

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the peninsula, by King Charles Albert of Sardinia)—offered extensive religious freedom and hence considered the Jews as equal to the other subjects of the kingdom. Moreover, in 1871, after the Italian conquest of Rome, the parliament reasserted and perfected the principles of the Albertine Statute regarding freedom of religion and thus confirmed the naturalization of the Jews of Italy.69 In the context of the intellectual discourses and sociopolitical dynamics that led to Jewish emancipation, D’Arco’s treatise had a peculiar position. In fact, D’Arco’s book presented an explicit proposal to increase state control over the Jewish communities in order to make the Jews more useful, or at least harmless, to the national economy. Moreover, the Lombard nobleman did not bother to conceal his aims and his contemptuous opinion of the Jews, their culture, and their financial activities. His proposal was thus less ambiguous and complex than those formulated by his contemporaries—that is, Dohm and Grégoire, who aimed at making the Jews “happier” and “more useful” by fully, albeit gradually, integrating them, and their economic activities, into surrounding society. On the other hand, D’Arco’s work is emblematic of the atmosphere of tension and suspicion that still characterized Jewish-Gentile relations in the late eighteenth century. Gentile hostility toward the Jews was not mitigated, and was rather clearly expressed, in various attempts, theoretical as well as practical, to find a place for the Jews in the social, economic, and political structures developed by a new model of state—all-encompassing, rationally organized, and ruling over a more and more homogeneous population. For these reasons, D’Arco’s project, though encompassing the enactment of various significant limitations to the Jews’ activities, can be properly regarded as one of the most interesting attempts to collocate the Jews in the new social system that was being shaped in the Age of Enlightenment, particularly in the context of so-called Enlightened despotism.

69 On the debate on Jewish emancipation in Italy, see Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, Il prezzo dell’eguaglianza. — 164 —

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Chapter 4 Degeneration and Regeneration of the Jews in Henri Grégoire’s Work

After the end of the long-lasting celebrations of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, which entailed the publication of a number of revolutionary, pararevolutionary, and pseudo-revolutionary texts over the past two decades or so, it is necessary to re-examine the essay on the regeneration of the Jews by Henri Grégoire (1750–1831) in order to fully appreciate its meaning and historical significance.1 Grégoire’s Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs (Essay on the Physical, Moral and Political Regeneration of the Jews, 1789) is ambiguous, extremely complex, filled with erudite quotations, and hard to read. This text had a difficult editorial history, connected to particularly intense periods in European history: in fact, an English translation was published in 1791,2 a new French edition in 1968 and another in 1988,3 and a Hebrew edition appeared in 1989.4 Since the 1980s, both in France and in the Anglo-American academic world, historiography on 1

2 3

4

The first version of the present paper appeared in 2006 as an article in Italian by Paolo Bernardini entitled “Degenerazione e rigenerazione. Note per una rilettura dell’‘Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs’ di Baptiste-Henri Grégoire” in the Web site of Il Domenicale. Settimanale di Cultura. The online journal Il Domenicale is published by the Istituto Bruno Leoni, a political, economic, and social research institute based in Turin. This revised English version has benefited from Diego Lucci’s contribution, especially with regard to recent historiography on Enlightenment views of Judaism and the history of racism and racialism in early modern and modern Europe. See Henri Grégoire, An Essay on the Physical, Moral, and Political Reformation of the Jews, trans. (London: Forster, 1791). The 1988 edition (see Henri Grégoire, Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs, preface by Rita Hermon-Belot, Paris: Flammarion, 1988) is accurate and contains a good bibliography but is devoid of Grégoire’s unreliable demographic tables, in which he tried to demonstrate that the Jews were multiplying excessively. The 1968 edition (Paris, Éditions d’histoire sociale) is a facsimile reprint of the 1789 edition (Metz, Imprimerie de Claude Lamort). For reasons related to terminology, the present study makes reference to the 1988 French edition when not noted otherwise. The editors of the Hebrew translation (Jerusalem: Merkaz Dinur, 1989) are Lea Zagagi and Yerachmiel Cohen. In this edition, the word régénération is translated with tehiyah, which does not imply the biological as well as theological meaning of the original term but indicates the concept of resurrection or rebirth used in a number of writings in Hebrew on the emancipation of the Jews (e.g., in the work of the seventeenth-century Dutch rabbi Menasseh ben Israel) with regard to both spiritual and material issues. — 165 —

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Grégoire has produced a large number of contributions that, nevertheless, consider his book on the Jewish question only in part. Most studies on Grégoire have instead focused on his interest in black literature and the emancipation of the blacks, which made him a central figure in the ideology of the Haitian Revolution.5 However, historiography has mostly neglected the conceptual core of Grégoire’s essay on the Jews, consisting in the combination of two antithetical principles—namely, dégénération and régénération—although the concept of regeneration was crucial in the French Revolution debate on the “new man.”6 In an adequate analysis of Grégoire’s Essai, the recurring question “Was Grégoire philo-Semitic or anti-Semitic, Judeophobic or Judeo-phile?” should be left aside, for it cannot lead to any significant result: it actually tends to reduce any answer to categories unrelated to the time of Grégoire and his spirit. This paper rather aims at investigating the biological connotation of the terms “degeneration” and “regeneration” with regard to the historiographical and theoretical frameworks of Grégoire’s work and with a focus on the scientific developments of the time, particularly in the work of Buffon, an author whom Grégoire and the French cultured elites in general knew very well. Issues such as the reception, literary fortune, and later interpretations of Grégoire’s Essai are not considered in this paper, while the most recent and interesting studies on the French writer, including Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall’s important monograph on this author (published in 2005), are taken into account.7 The present study focuses particularly on the first eight chapters 5 6

7

Grégoire’s writings on the blacks are collected in Henri Grégoire, Ecrits sur les noirs, 2 vols. (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009). On the use of the term régénération in the Age of the French Revolution, see Mona Ozouf, “Regeneration,” in A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, ed. François Furet and Mona Ozouf (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1989), 781–791. See Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) (on the Essai, see especially 56–77). See also ead., “Eliminating Race, Eliminating Difference: Blacks, Jews, and the Abbé Grégoire,” in The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France, ed. Sue Peabody and Tyler Stovall (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 2–41; ead., “Strategic Friendships: Jewish Intellectuals, the Abbé Grégoire, and the French Revolution,” in Renewing the Past, Reconfiguring Jewish Culture: From alAndalus to the Haskalah, ed. Ross Brann and Adam Sutcliffe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 189–211; ead., “A Friend of the Jews? The Abbé Grégoire and Philosemitism in Revolutionary France,” in Philosemitism in History, ed. Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 111–127. Two interesting and relatively recent volumes on Grégoire are Jeremy D. Popkin and Richard H. Popkin, eds., The Abbé Grégoire and His World (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000); Rita Hermon-Belot, L’Abbé Grégoire: la politique et la vérité (Paris: Seuil, 2000). — 166 —

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(out of twenty-seven) of the Essai, as the biological aspects of Grégoire’s thought are manifest in those chapters. The legislative instruments envisaged by Grégoire to “regenerate” the Jews are indeed a direct (and often absurd) derivation from the biological foundations of his Essai, which are the most original contributions offered by Grégoire to the literature on emancipation in the eighteenth century. In fact, to the French writer, complete “emancipation,” viewed as equality in rights and duties with the other citizens, cannot but be a consequence of complete regeneration: therefore, it can be fully accomplished only after several generations in the distant future. An Enlightenment Project: The Structure of the Essai Written in 1788 and published the following year, Grégoire’s Essai manifests the French Enlightenment’s ambiguous and complex attitude to Judaism—an attitude that characterized Enlightenment claims to equality for the Jews and, later, the process of emancipation of the Jews in France and the rest of Europe. In fact, scholars such as Arthur Hertzberg and, in recent years, Ronald Schechter and Adam Sutcliffe have included Grégoire’s work on the Jews in the tradition of the French Enlightenment.8 In considering the theme of Jewish degeneration and regeneration, one should thus keep in mind the essential, and paradigmatic, Enlightenment elements of Grégoire’s work, also apart from his view of Judaism. Grégoire submitted his Essai to a contest, advertised in 1787 by the Royal Academy of Metz, on the topic “Est-il un moyen de rendre les Juifs plus utile et plus heureux en France?” (“Are there means for making the Jews more useful and happier in France?”). Although the evaluation committee was not fully satisfied with any of the seven writings submitted to the contest, the Royal Academy decided to award the prize to Grégoire and two more participants—that is, Adolphe Thiéry (a Protestant lawyer from Nancy, who had written a Dissertation sur cette question: Est-il des moyens de rendre les Juifs plus utile et plus heureux en France? [Dissertation on This Question: Are There Means for Making the Jews More Useful and Happier in France?]), and the Polish-Jewish immigrant Zalkind Hourwitz (who had

8

See Arthur Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 120, 287, 296–298, 332–338; Ronald Schechter, Obstinate Hebrews: Representations of Jews in France, 1715–1815 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 87–95; Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 250–251. — 167 —

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submitted a paper entitled Apologie des Juifs [Apology of the Jews]).9 As Jacob Katz has pointed out, “the three, as well as the other four whose work remained unpublished, agreed on the basic principle that Jews were capable of moral regeneration and civic betterment.”10 Briefly, the Jews could become good citizens, just like the others were, on condition that they achieved a sort of moral regeneration. Moreover, as remarked by Katz, “the concession that Jews were, after all, ‘human beings’ indicates that the inclusion of Jews in the family of man was a kind of novelty.”11 An analysis of the structure of the Essai may help us better understand Grégoire’s objectives. The original version of the Essai is lost, whereas an intermediate version is available, perhaps identical to the original and recently examined by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall in her book on Grégoire.12 This still-unpublished version is shorter than that published in 1789 and presents fewer references to the essentially biological concept of regeneration. The structure of the published version, 9

See Adolphe Thiéry, Dissertation sur cette question: Est-il des moyens de rendre les Juifs plus utile et plus heureux en France (Paris: Knapen, 1788) (facsimile reprint Paris: Éditions d’histoire sociale, 1968); Zalkind Hourwitz, Apologie des Juifs (Paris: Gattey, 1789) (facsimile reprint Paris: Éditions d’histoire sociale, 1968). On the contest advertised by the Royal Academy of Metz and its importance for the successive emancipation of the Jews in France in 1791, see Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770–1780 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 71–79; Jay R. Berkovitz, Rites and Passages: The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Culture in France, 1650–1860 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 89–115. On the process that led to Jewish emancipation in France, besides Katz’s and Berkovitz’s books, see Paula Hyman, The Jews of Modern France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 17–36; Rita HermonBelot, L’émancipation des Juifs en France (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1999); Frederic C. Jaher, The Jews and the Nation: Revolution, Emancipation, State Formation, and the Liberal Paradigm in America and France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 59–102. Metz was in a region with a large Jewish population. On the Jewish community of Alsace and Lorraine, see Zosa Szajkowski, “The Jewish Problem in Alsace, Metz, and Lorraine on the Eve of the French Revolution of 1789,” in The Jewish Quarterly Review 44, no. 3 (1954): 205–243; Arthur Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews, 314–368; Arnold Ages, The Image of Jews and Judaism in the Prelude of the French Enlightenment (Sherbrooke: Haaman, 1986); Pierre-André Meyer, Table du registre d’etat civil de la Communauté juive de Metz, 1717–1792 (Paris: Meyer, 1987); id., La Communauté juive de Metz au XVIIIe siècle: histoire et démographie (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1993); Vicki Caron, Between France and Germany: The Jews of Alsace-Lorraine, 1871–1919 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); Paula E. Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace: Acculturation and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Simon Schwarzfuchs, “Alsace and Southern Germany: The Creation of a Border,” in Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered, ed. Michael Brenner, Vicki Caron, and Uri R. Kaufmann (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 5–25; Jay R. Berkovitz, Rites and Passages, 69–85. 10 Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto, 72. 11 Ibid. 12 The intermediate version of the Essai is in the possession of the Lorraine Museum in Nancy. See Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution, 311. — 168 —

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consisting of twenty-seven chapters, is as follows:13 1. General considerations on the state of the Jews, since their dispersion to the present time. 2. Reflections on the dispersion of the Jews. 3. Refutation of several calumnies which were thrown out against the Jews in the Middle Ages. 4. Cause of the reciprocal hatred between the Jews and other nations. 5. Constant uniformity of opinions and customs among the Jews. Modification of their character. 6. Reflections on the moral character of the Jews. The greater part of their vices arise from the oppression under which they have laboured. 7. Reflections on the physical constitution of the Jews. 8. Excessive population of the Jews. The causes of it. 9. The danger of tolerating the Jews in their present state, on account of their population. 10. The danger of tolerating the Jews in their present state, on account of their aversion to other people, and their relaxed morals. 11. Danger of tolerating the Jews in their present state, on account of their commerce and usurious practices. 12. In what manner the Jews became a commercial people, and usurers. 13. Means hitherto employed to suppress the usurious practices of the Jews. Insufficiency of these means. 14. New means proposed to suppress the usuries of the Jews. 15. Possibility of reforming the Jews. This reformation may be reconciled with their manners, their prejudices, and their religious principles. 16. The same subject continued. 17. Is it possible to train up the Jews to the arts and trades, and to agriculture? 18. It is possible to form the Jews to the military art. Review of 13 In this case, the English translation of the titles of the chapters of the Essai is from the 1791 English edition. — 169 —

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this chapter, and the two preceding. 19. The proposed reformation is agreeable to the views of Christianity; on the contrary, it may be reconciled with the political and civil laws of the nations, and with their interests. 20. What effects the laws lately made in favor of the Jews by neighboring nations have produced; and what may be inferred from them. What influence a reformation of the Jews will have over national commerce; and the question examined, whether this reformation will change what is most commendable in their moral constitution. 21. Considerations on the commerce of the Jews, and the bounds which ought to be set to it. 22. It is very impolitic to assign separate quarters for the Jews, as they ought to be dispersed among the Christians. 23. Whether the Jews ought to be suffered to live according to their own laws, or to be deprived of that privilege. 24. On the admission of the Jews to civil offices, to nobility, and into academies. Of their education, and the acquisition of landed property. 25. Considerations on the nature and causes of the prejudices of the Jews. In what manner they are to be remedied. 26. Must the Jews be compelled to adopt the means proposed to reform them? The necessity of preparing both the Jews and the Christians for this event. The time that will be required to bring it about. 27. Review of the whole. Conclusion. Such is the structure of the book. Before explaining the methods to regenerate the Jews, Grégoire—like other supporters of Jewish emancipation, including Toland and Dohm—deals extensively with Jewish history. The regeneration project begins at half of the Essai, in the thirteenth chapter, and is developed in the rest of the book. In accordance with the style of the time, footnotes are synthetic and not numerous and have not undergone a philological analysis yet. The term régénération never appears in the titles of the chapters. Instead, Grégoire, borrowing from Dohm, utilizes the word réforme, which was used in the 1782 French translation of Dohm’s work and gave the “neutral” term Verbesserung a political con-

— 170 —

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notation. On the other hand, Grégoire, unlike Dohm,14 makes frequent use of the term révolution in order to underscore the radical nature of the reform he proposes (radical in its results rather than in its premises). The concepts of reform and revolution are nevertheless devoid of the biological connotations that, conversely, the term “regeneration” presents. Jewish History, Feudalism, and Modern Government The premises of Grégoire’s discourse can be noticed in the first chapter of his book, which is one of the longest (the chapters of the Essai have different length, and the book, therefore, almost looks like a collection of independent writings). Grégoire, drawing mainly on Jacques Basnage’s Histoire des Juifs (1706), follows the tradition of the “tearful” history of the Jews, predominant in both Jewish and non-Jewish historiography, especially after the expulsions from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1497).15 The main theme in this tradition, and in Grégoire’s analysis too, is the loss of identity (particularly of territorial and state identity) that the Jews suffered after the fall of the Second Temple—that is, after the end of the Jews’ “political body” (corps politique).16 The figures provided by Grégoire (i.e., four million dead Jews under Emperor Hadrian) are unrealistic but were not questioned at the time. The Jews’ loss of their corps politique was followed, in the Diaspora, by the loss of their homeland (patrie). From then on, in Grégoire’s opinion, Jewish history had mostly been a terrible history of misery and destruction—the history of the “corpse” of a nation deprived of its territory. Of course, Grégoire defends the Church’s policies and attitude toward the Jewish people. He, like Basnage, highlights the “constant benevolence of the popes towards the Jews,” often requited, in Grégoire’s opinion, with ingratitude. Furthermore, in the first chapter, Grégoire refers not only to various medieval chroniclers and modern historians, but also to one of the Enlightenment authors who most influenced him: François-Jean de 14

Dohm’s work presents no reference to biology. Therefore, the use of the concept of regeneration in relation to Dohm’s project is inappropriate—though the term “regeneration” appears in a recent essay on Dohm: see Jonathan Hess, “Rome, Jerusalem and the Imperial Imagination: Christian Wilhelm Dohm and the Regeneration of the Jews,” in Monstrous Dreams of Reason: Body, Self, and Other in the Enlightenment, ed. Laura Rosenthal and Mita Choudhury (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2002), 132–148. 15 A good example of this tradition in Jewish historiography is Emek ha-bakhah (Valley of Tears) by Joseph Ha-Kohen (1496–1578). 16 See Henri Grégoire, Essai, 43. — 171 —

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Chastellux.17 In fact, Grégoire largely drew on Chastellux’s masterpiece, De la Felicité publique (On Public Happiness, 1772), which soon became a famous political manifesto in the late eighteenth century, though it was characterized by a large number of erudite references and an often-superficial historical casuistry. The main reason for the success of Chastellux’s book was that he, borrowing mainly from Hume, explicitly attacked the feudal system. Grégoire quotes the following comments of Chastellux on the Jews: Under the feudal government, the Jews paid enormous capitations: when one of them wanted to convert to Christianity, he was allowed to do so, but he had to compensate his lord: a soul was indeed taken away from the hell, but a body had to be reimbursed to the world. The spirit of the time was so rigid that a conversion was regarded as a bankruptcy, and even the Heaven had no right to asylum.18 Grégoire, a fierce enemy of the feudal world, uses Chastellux’s thesis in attacking, above all, the feudal fiscal system, to which he obviously prefers the centralistic structure of the modern state, systemic and “neutral” in relation to the ethnic and religious identities of the taxpayers. In fact, Grégoire regards the whole feudal system as “an absurd and barbarous political system.”19 The conclusion of the first chapter, which implicitly announces Grégoire’s ultimate goal, is an amazing piece of persuasive strategy. Grégoire hoped that his book would be read and appreciated, first of all, by the Jews: therefore, in this chapter of the Essai, he approves of the interpretation of Jewish history as a series of tragedies and disasters (briefly, in the 17 Chastellux (1734–1788) was a very interesting figure in eighteenth-century culture. He was a good friend of George Washington and fought in the American War of Independence. His Voyage dans l’Amérique septentrionale (1785) is among the most famous French travel accounts of North America, along with the works of La Harpe, Volney, and Tocqueville. In the Essai, Grégoire mentions Chastellux’s masterpiece, De la Felicité publique (Amsterdam: Rey, 1772; 2nd ed. Bouillon: Société typographique, 1776; critical ed., ed. Roger Basoni, Paris: Sorbonne, 1989). On Chastellux, see Fanny Varnum, Un Philosophe cosmopolite du XVIIIe siècle. Le Marquis de Chastellux (Paris: Rodstein, 1936). 18 Henri Grégoire, Essai, 47. 19 Ibid., 48. — 172 —

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words of the sixteenth-century historian Joseph Ha-Kohen, “a valley of tears”), whereas he harshly criticizes rabbinic traditions in other sections of his book. On the other hand, he praises “the gentleness of the present governments” in order to lead the Jews “with no hesitation to gratitude.” And the “gentleness of the present governments” is most commendable, to Grégoire, when one considers that “until the sixteenth century”—that is, until the Age of the Wars of Religion and the construction of modern France on the model of Bodin’s theory of sovereignty—“the whole world furiously attacked the remains of this [i.e., the Jewish] nation.”20 Briefly, Grégoire aims at gaining the Jews’ favor and inspiring in them loyalty and gratitude to the governments of the time. The Essai is indeed characterized by remarkable attempts to legitimize European governments, and particularly the French state in the early modern era, while “the dark centuries of the Middle Ages” (“les siècles ténébreux du Moyen Âge”)21 are repeatedly criticized. However, although the first chapter seems favorable to the Jews as a people, the Essai does not contain an unconditional defense of the Jewish people. In the second chapter, which presents a continuation of his historical analysis, Grégoire, after acknowledging the uniqueness of the Jews’ historical destiny, does not hesitate to present Christ’s murder as the reason for the dispersion of Israel: “The blood of Jesus Christ fell upon the Jews, as they wished; since the bloody day of the Calvary, they have been a spectacle to the whole earth, which they wander.”22 To Grégoire, the Jews’ unique condition is due to their killing of Jesus Christ, and perhaps for this reason God’s Providence has spared them: most probably, God wants to allow their conversion en masse to Christianity, thus fulfilling his evangelical promises, or he just wishes to offer an example of the power of his anger. On this point, Grégoire emphatically gives a negative characterization of the Jews, as if they were not anymore the interlocutors sympathetically addressed in the first chapter: instead, they are described as people living among all the nations, without resembling any of them or identifying themselves with them. In the second chapter, the concept of race appears for the first time in the Essai: Grégoire indeed talks of the “race of Abraham,” which “subsists 20 Ibid., 50. 21 Ibid., 53. 22 Ibid., 51–52. — 173 —

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without mixing” (“subsiste sans mélange”). Moreover, in this part of his book, Grégoire formulates his first biological metaphor, which has a long tradition in Judeophobic literature, but in Grégoire’s book has a particular connotation: the metaphor of the uprooted tree. In fact, he compares the Jews to “a tree devoid of its trunk, whose scattered bows are still vigorously alive.”23 In this section of the Essai, Grégoire also advances the theory that the Jews’ wickedness was fostered by the numerous evils committed against them over the centuries. On this point, he asserts that the Jews are “cruel towards other men” and that their malicious behavior is mostly caused by our attitude (“en grande partie notre ouvrage”)—mostly, but not wholly. From Moral Degeneration to Physical Degeneration, from History to the Present In the first four chapters of the Essai, Grégoire shortly describes the history of the Jewish people and also makes some reference to his era, while in the fifth and sixth chapters he focuses particularly on the conditions of the Jews in his times. The seventh chapter is a crucial one, for it covers the “physical constitution” of the Jews and—like the following chapter, dealing with the Jews’ “excessive population”—sets the stage for the central part of the book. In fact, chapters 9 to 13 deal with the risks inherent in tolerating the Jews “in their present state” and with the insufficient means employed, up to Grégoire’s era, to make them better human beings. At the beginning of the fifth chapter, Grégoire blames a writer and traveler who knew well the conditions of the Jews in several regions outside of France, Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, author of various writings on the topic of Oriental despotism.24 However, Grégoire also attacks Voltaire, who certainly could not be suspected of being favorable to the Jews.25 Gré23 Ibid., 52. In the Essai, Grégoire uses another common biological metaphor to identify the Jews: the metaphor of the “parasitic plants.” In an attempt to strengthen his thesis on the diffusion of the Jews, Grégoire asserts that the Jews were numerous in the English colonies of North America, whereas only a few Jews had settled there in the colonial era. On this point, Grégoire quotes one of the classics of English travel literature on the American colonies: Andrew Burnaby, Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America, in the Years 1759 and 1760 (Dublin: Marchbank, 1775). Grégoire read a French translation of Burnaby’s book: Andrew Burnaby, Voyages dans les colonies du milieu de l’Amerique Septentrionale, faits en 1759 et 1760 (Lausanne: Société tipographique, 1778). 24 On Boulanger and his work, see John Hampton, Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger et la science de son temps (Geneva: Droz, 1955); Paul Sadrin, Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, 1722–1759, ou Avant nous le déluge (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1986). 25 On Voltaire and the Jews, see especially Harvey Mitchell, Voltaire’s Jews and Modern Jewish Iden— 174 —

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goire criticized Boulanger and Voltaire because both authors believed that the Jews could actually discard their customs (usages) and “adopt those of strangers.” Thus, the Jews, dispersed among other nations, had eventually taken their character (caractère): on this point, Voltaire probably drew on Boulanger. Grégoire acknowledged that some modifications had occurred in the Jews’ habits, but he claimed the existence of a “constant uniformity of opinions and customs,” which had not been changed by the intercourse between the Jews and other nations. The dispersion of the Jews had rather strengthened their “caractère” and “traits natifs.”26 On this point, Grégoire employed another important concept in the ideological arsenal of the anthropology of the Enlightenment: the concept of génie, which had quite controversial implications. In the nineteenth century, from the publication of Chateaubriand’s Génie du Christianisme (The Genius of Christianity, 1802) to Anatole France, the term génie mostly assumed spiritual and cultural connotations.27 But that concept was quite ambiguous, because the culture and “peculiarity” (génie) of a people were commonly supposed to originate in its ethnic, precultural, pre-political identity. Undoubtedly, the “cultural” aspects of the concept of génie were already widespread in the late eighteenth century. At that time, the Jesuit missionary PierreMartial Cibot, following a tradition that dates back at least to the late seventeenth century,28 used the term génie de la langue with regard to the Chinese language.29 In a similar manner, the French architect Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières entitled one of his books Le génie de l’architecture (The Genius of Architecture, 1780). However, in some works, the term génie, which tends to be confused with “esprit,” is explicitly applied to the deepest, and apparently unchangeable, features of nations, as demonstrated by the Essai sur le génie et le caractère des nations by François-Ignace d’Espiard de la Borde (Essay on the Genius and Character of the Nations, 1743).30 tity: Rethinking the Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 2008). 26 Henri Grégoire, Essai, 61. 27 Ernest Renan used the term génie hébreu. However, also in this author’s work, the concept of génie has only spiritual and cultural connotations. In fact, Renan’s view of the génie hébreu is to be interpreted in light of his idea of nation as a community based not on blood ties, but on negotiations that can be revised periodically. See Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1882). 28 See especially François d’Aisy, Le Génie de la langue françoise (Paris: Laurent d’Houry, 1685). 29 See Pierre-Martial Cibot, Lettre de Pekin, sur le génie de la langue chinoise (Brussels: Boubers, 1773). 30 Espiard de la Borde’s Essai sur le génie et le caractére des nations, anonymously published in The Hague in 1743, is emblematic of eighteenth-century racism but has seldom attracted the atten— 175 —

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Grégoire’s perspective on this issue is ambiguous. Of course, he does not approve the theories aimed at promoting the assimilation of the Jews into surrounding society—except those that he proposes in his own book.31 In the portion of the Essai analyzed in this study, the Jews are portrayed as keeping themselves separate from other nations. On this point, Grégoire disagrees with most of his contemporaries (who preferred to keep the Jews separate) in order to corroborate his theory of a massive regeneration, one that ought to be promoted by the state’s active and coercive role. In fact, he openly declares that “there is more resemblance between the Jews of Ethiopia and those of England than between the inhabitants of Picardie and those of Provence.”32 To Grégoire, if the Jews ever changed during their Diaspora, they changed for the worse: they became morbidly attached to their laws and superstitions and, because of trade and usury, developed a “spirit of cupidity,” which made them hated worldwide. They consoled themselves for the misery they had to endure with the dream of returning to Palestine or the expectation of the Messiah. In chapters 6 and 7, Grégoire deals respectively with the Jews’ “moral character” and their “physical constitution.” However, the two topics often intertwine, especially with respect to biological characteristics such as sexuality and desire, related to both physical features and moral qualities. When explaining the Jews’ “excessive” libido, Grégoire makes reference to no source but his direct experience: I have pointed out that Jewish children are very precocious in matters regarding the development of puberty: some fathers have assured me that a certain solitary vice tion of historians (an exception is David A. Bell, who has focused on this author in his excellent studies on the origins of French nationalism: see especially David A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800 [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001]). In its edition of 1752, Espiard de la Borde’s Essai was subtitled L’Esprit des Nations. It is worth noticing that the subtitle containing the term esprit was added by the publishers after the publication, in 1748, of a much more famous book, Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois. Espiard de la Borde combined the concepts of génie, caractère, and esprit. These three concepts actually cover very indistinct semantic areas. In Grégoire’s work, génie and caractère are interchangeable concepts, whereas esprit is always related to certain tendencies of the Jews (e.g., “l’esprit de cupidité.” See Henri Grégoire, Essai, 61). 31 At that time, the term “assimilation” was not used, explicitly and commonly, with regard to the Jewish question but is one of the key concepts in historiography on Jewish-Gentile relations. Nevertheless, as proved by the essays in this volume, most projects for the emancipation and integration of the Jews actually aimed at assimilating them into surrounding society. 32 Henri Grégoire, Essai, 61. — 176 —

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is extremely common among them, and I presume that also the Jewesses would be subject to nymphomania if they were in a state of celibacy for a long time.33 It is unclear whence this notion comes—most probably from Grégoire’s misogyny, which led him to exclude women from the revolutionary concept of homme. In fact, he regarded women as a burden to the general will and unworthy of emancipation.34 As has been said above, the seventh chapter is fundamental to understand Grégoire’s view of the Jews. In this chapter, the issue of the physical constitution of the Jews is covered for the first time in so-called philo-Semitic literature. Both expressed and unexpressed thoughts, especially Grégoire’s references to other authors, are significant. In fact, he draws on two authors who were anything but “philo-Semites”—namely, Johann David Michaelis, who opposed Dohm’s project for Jewish emancipation, and Johann Kaspar Lavater, the most prominent physiognomist of the eighteenth century and, in many respects, a forerunner of Cesare Lombroso.35 Grégoire first considers the supposed “beauty” or “ugliness” of the Jews. On this point, after mentioning only one author—Nicolas Clénard,36 who praised the beauty of the Jewish women in Morocco—Grégoire, on 33 Ibid., 65. 34 See Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution, 101–102, 122, 161. 35 On the anti-Jewish elements of Michaelis’s thought, see Jonathan M. Hess, “Johann David Michaelis and the Colonial Imaginary: Orientalism and the Emergence of Racial Anti-Semitism in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” in Jewish Social Studies 6, no. 2 (2000): 56–101; Dominique Bourel, “La judéophobie savante dans l’Allemagne des Lumières: Johann David Michaelis,” in L’Antisémitisme éclairé. Inclusion et exclusion depuis l’époque des Lumières jusqu’à l’affaire Dreyfus, ed. Ilana Y. Zinguer and Sam W. Bloom (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 125–138. On this author, see also the essay on Dohm in this volume. As regards Lavater and his influence on European culture, see John Graham, Lavater’s Essay on Physiognomy: A Study in the History of Ideas (Bern: Peter Lang, 1979); Melissa Percival and Graeme Tytler, eds., Physiognomy in Profile: Lavater’s Impact on European Culture (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005). On the political and racist use of physiognomy, see Richard T. Gray, About Face: German Physiognomic Thought from Lavater to Auschwitz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004). On Lombroso’s criminal anthropology, see Daniele Velo Dalbrenta, La scienza inquieta. Saggio sull’antropologia criminale di Cesare Lombroso (Padua: CEDAM, 2004). On the reception of Lombroso’s thought in Germany and his influence on anti-Semitic propaganda in the Wilhelmine era, see Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio, Die Rezeption der kriminalanthropologischen Theorien von Cesare Lombroso in Deutschland von 1880–1914 (Husum: Matthiesen, 1994). 36 Clénard (or Cleynaerts, 1495–1542) was a Flemish humanist and traveler who knew both Hebrew and Greek. His Peregrinationum ac de rebus machometicis epistolae elegantissimae (Leuven: Phalesium, 1550) is one of the earliest classics in European travel literature. — 177 —

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the basis of Michaelis’s authority and of what his eyes could actually see, concludes the following: Most Jewish physiognomies are seldom adorned with the colors of health and the traits of beauty. They can be distinguished from others because of some differentiating features, very marked and inexplicable.37 Inexplicable? As a matter of fact, Grégoire provides an explanation, based on Lavater’s thesis of the consistency between physical features and moral character: The philosopher Lavater, whom we may consider as a legislator in matters of physiognomies, has told me that he has observed that, in general, they [i.e., the Jews] have pale faces, eagle noses, deep eyes, prominent chins, and the constrictor muscles of their mouths are very pronounced. I am glad to see that the moral consequences that he points out concur with those that I have described in the previous chapter.38 After analyzing the Jews’ physical appearance in relation to merely aesthetic qualities, Grégoire examines the impact of physical appearance on physiology and morality; and in so doing, he extensively borrows from Lavater. For instance, he asserts that “almost all” the male Jews “have a scarce beard, which is the usual mark of an effeminate temperament.”39 He also considers various pathologies to be typical of the Jews: The Jews are full of bad humors and very subject to diseases indicating a corruption of the blood, such as leprosy in the past, and nowadays scurvy, which has many affinities with the former and with scrofula, fluxes of blood, and the like.40

37 Henri Grégoire, Essai, 72. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. — 178 —

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In the early modern era, the hemorrhoids stereotype led several authors to the obviously wrong conclusion that male Jews also undergo menstruation.41 On this point, Grégoire quotes Cardoso’s refutation of this opinion.42 Grégoire also addresses the issue of the Jewish odor, another completely new topic in the context of non-Judeophobic literature (at least, not openly Judeophobic): It is believed also that the Jews constantly emanate an unpleasant odor. This opinion is not new: one may find it frequently in ancient authors; and the same accusation, repeated in all ages, has perpetuated the same prejudice. Ramazzini has included a chapter on the diseases of the Jews in his treatise on the Diseases of Workers. He has no doubt that they had a very good odor when they lived in the splendor of Jerusalem, and assures that the cause of their supposed stench, and of their actual paleness, is attributable to their occupations, such as the trade of used goods, and their poverty, quia sint illis angustae domus et res angusta domi. Others attribute those effects to the frequent use of vegetables having a penetrating odor, such as onions and garlic; others to mutton; finally, others assume that goose meat, which they like very much, makes them atrabilious and livid, because that food is full of gross and viscous juices.43 With excellent rhetoric, Grégoire, probably afraid of supporting such a terrible accusation in an age of refinement and care of the body, regards that belief as a “prejudice.” However, he does not bother to refute that prejudice. Instead, he makes reference to such a respected physician as Bernardino Ramazzini (1633–1714) and his theory that the (supposed) Jewish odor derives from habits, poorness, and the absence of political freedom. In fact, Grégoire points out that Ramazzini, a professor at the University of Padua and the father of occupational 41 On this theme, see Gianna Pomata, “Uomini mestruanti: somiglianze e differenze fra i sessi in Europa in età moderna,” in Quaderni storici 79 (1992): 51–103. 42 On Cardoso’s life and work, see Yosef H. Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971). 43 Henri Grégoire, Essai, 73–74. — 179 —

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medicine, maintained that in the “splendor of Jerusalem,” the Jews probably had a good smell—once, but no more.44 After all, Grégoire could simply disprove that belief, if he really regarded it as a prejudice, by simply declaring that it was denied by his direct experience, which he often presented as a reliable source of certainty (e.g., when evaluating the Jews’ physical appearance). But he did not do so—although he had not only eyes to see, but also a nose to smell. On the contrary, the French writer tried to explain the reasons for the condition of “degradation” that had debased (abâtardir) the Jews.45 To Grégoire, that condition of “degradation” was due to the combination of several causes. None of those causes had a biological nature, but they all depended upon historical circumstances (i.e., the oppression suffered by the Jews), freely chosen habits (e.g., the biblical dogma and various interpretations of the scriptures), and environmental influences. Grégoire enumerates five main causes for the degradation of the Jews: I. Dirt, which is often permitted in time of mourning, and is a constant cause of skin diseases, so common among the Jews. […] II. Their nutrition, more suitable to the climate of Palestine than ours. […] III. The use of ill-chosen and ill-prepared food. […] IV. The lack of crossbreeding [“croisement dans l’espèce”], which corrupts the races and debases the beauty of the individuals. […] V. The fifth cause is the general custom to get married when young.46 44 Ramazzini’s De morbis artificum diatriba (Padua: Capponi, 1700) was received with favor throughout Europe. When talking of the Jews, Ramazzini made reference especially to those who lived in the ghetto of Padua. The French edition that Grégoire refers to is Bernardino Ramazzini, Essai sur les maladies des artisans, ed. Antoine-François de Fourcroy (Paris: Moutard, 1777). The last edition of Ramazzini’s masterpiece is Bernardino Ramazzini, Le malattie dei lavoratori, ed. Francesco Carnevale (Florence: Chiari, 2000). Most probably, the reason Ramazzini abstained from maintaining that the Jews invariably had a bad odor is that he published his book in a period characterized by frequent attacks on the Jews of Venice and Padua, accused of allying with the Turks, who had besieged Vienna in 1683. However, Grégoire clearly manipulates a one-off observation by the Italian scientist in order to strengthen his theory: in fact, to Grégoire, when the Jews had a state and were “subjects” or “citizens,” they had a good smell—like all the people of Paris after the storming of the Bastille and especially after the beheading of Louis XVI. 45 See Henri Grégoire, Essai, 74. 46 See ibid., 75. — 180 —

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In explaining the third cause (i.e., the bad choice and preparation of food), Grégoire makes reference for the first time to Buffon, whom he regards as an “authority.” Furthermore, he uses for the first time the verb dégénérer in this section of his book: “Experience shows that this cause [i.e., ill-chosen and ill-prepared food] promptly degenerates the human species.”47 Briefly, to Grégoire, the Jews’ traits of degeneration originate in various Jewish customs and habits. In explaining the fifth cause, which is at the basis of his theory of the indiscriminate multiplication of the Jews and the danger of their numerical prevalence on the long run, Grégoire maintains: But, one might ask, given that fecundity precedes nubility, how can nature be justified? Why would it provide man with a faculty that may become its tyrant before he may use it? We do not insult nature, or rather its Author, when we impute our misdeeds to it; the seal of His hand is still printed on His most beautiful work: but our social conventions have altered its traits. […] It seems obvious that, in the order established by the Creator, these two ages must coincide and never precede the full development of the complexion of the organs, and of reason as well, because […] nature cares about the species only after forming the individual. But we will never tire to repeat that this order is now inverted, because man distorts [“dénature”] everything, and even if puberty occurs prematurely, we cannot cause the deterioration of the human race through early marriages.48 Grégoire’s discourse in this section of the Essai continues with an anticipation of the eighth chapter, which covers the Jews’ “distorted” and “precocious” sexuality and focuses on the danger of an excessive proliferation of the Jewish population. On this point, Grégoire’s position was consistent with Malthus’s population theory, which was published a decade 47 Ibid. In the same section of the Essai, Grégoire also uses the expression dégénérer les races. 48 Ibid., 76–77. — 181 —

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later and was nevertheless anticipated, in France, by authors who—like Mercier in his “dystopic” novel L’An 2440 (The Year 2440, 1771)—warned against a disproportionate demographic growth.49 In fact, between 1750 and 1800, Europe experienced an unprecedented demographic boom, above all in Central Europe, Germany, and France—a demographic boom also involving the Jewish communities. Unconscious Racism? Reading the remaining chapters of Grégoire’s Essai can help clarify the political and legislative measures that he deemed effective to bring the Jews “back to humanity” and also to make them excellent “citizens” within a few generations. However, given the topic and objectives of the present study, it is appropriate to conclude this analysis at the eighth chapter—that is, at the end of the first third of the Essai: this study indeed aims at offering a thorough understanding of Grégoire’s diagnosis, instead of his prognosis, on the degenerate condition of the Jews. The seventh chapter especially helps the reader comprehend the scientific as well as ideological influences and implications of Grégoire’s Essai, which manifests a racist attitude consistent with a basically racialist ideology. On this point, it is worth clarifying that, as Tzvetan Todorov has brilliantly argued, racism is older, more widespread, and more pervasive than racialist ideology and is often at the basis of racialist doctrines. In fact, Todorov has properly distinguished between racism as “an ancient form of behavior that is probably found worldwide” and racialism as “a movement of ideas born in Western Europe whose period of influence extends from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth.”50 In Grégoire’s times, racialism was in its germinal phase. In fact, in the eighteenth century, there was no idea of a differentiation of human races based on intrinsic and inalterable “genetic” factors. This idea became common in the nineteenth century, when it was strengthened by several misinterpretations of Darwin’s thought and became a deadly weapon of the ideological arsenal of anti-Semitism, which eventually led to the tragedy of Nazism. Grégoire’s work is devoid of this idea, typical 49

See ibid., 82. As to Mercier, see Louis-Sébastien Mercier, L’An 2440: Rêve s’il en fût jamais (London, s.n., 1771). Mercier anonymously published his novel, which caused a sensation in all of Europe and was translated into several languages. 50 See Tzvetan Todorov, On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism and Exoticism in French Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 90–91. — 182 —

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of later racialist ideology, because of several reasons. First of all, Grégoire complied with the Christian dogma of creationism. Therefore, he firmly believed in the creation of a single man, who gave origin to all human “races”—and race, at the time, was still a very vague concept.51 The theory of the creation of a single man was matched by the idea of a “homogeneous” mankind—“free” and, above all, “equal” (namely, “indistinct”). Such an idea was at the basis of Jacobin egalitarianism and also attracted Grégoire and a large number of Christian revolutionaries—not only in the Calvinist milieus, as Dale Van Kley has proved in The Religious Origins of the French Revolution (1996).52 Briefly, a “regeneration” of man was possible, and the concept of regeneration had both spiritual and biological implications: on this point, as Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall has demonstrated in her book on Grégoire, the Essai combined all the possible meanings that the concept of regeneration had at the time—a concept that, as Mona Ozouf has pointed out, became a keyword in the early revolutionary era.53 “Regenerated” men were indeed supposed to regain Adam’s (but not Eve’s) original purity, granted not by the happy condition of anarchy in the earthly paradise, but by a new form of political society, by a state able to lead mankind toward self-emancipation—the 51 On the concept of race in the eighteenth century, see Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 187–233. Hannaford has pointed out that French scientists, such as Buffon and Bernier, and German thinkers, such as Blumenbach, “introduced and legitimized the idea that some variable formative force, moved by degenerative and regenerative processes of maturation and mixture, mutilation and milieus, accounted for observable differences between brute and man, Caucasian and negro” (ibid., 232). On the other hand, Michel Wievorka in Le Racisme: une introduction (Paris: La Découverte-Poche, 1998) has observed that in eighteenth-century France, the term “race” could also have positive connotations, as in the case of Boulainvilliers, who put particular emphasis on his “Gallic race.” Also, famous scholars such as Léon Poliakov, Giuliano Gliozzi, George L. Mosse, Jacob Katz, and Tzvetan Todorov trace the origins of modern racism (or “racialism,” in the words of Todorov) to the early modern time, especially to the eighteenth century: see Léon Poliakov, The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe (New York: Basic Books, 1974); Giuliano Gliozzi, Adamo e il Nuovo Mondo: la nascita dell’antropologia come ideologia coloniale, dalle genealogie bibliche alle teorie razziali (1500–1700) (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1977); George L. Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism (New York: Fertig, 1978); Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700–1933 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980); Tzvetan Todorov, On Human Diversity. 52 See Dale K. Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). See also Van Kley’s essay devoted specifically to this aspect of Grégoire’s thought: id., “The Abbé Grégoire and the Quest for a Catholic Republic,” in The Abbé Grégoire and His World, ed. Jeremy D. Popkin and Richard H. Popkin, 71–108. 53 See Mona Ozouf, Regeneration. — 183 —

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state that Grégoire, with many others, was preparing. Additionally, the idea of a differentiation of human races based on exclusively genetic factors does not appear in Grégoire’s work because the natural scientists of the time, including Buffon, had not yet theorized it clearly (however, this does not mean that the natural sciences of the time were not going into that direction). As demonstrated by many passages quoted in this study of the “biological” section of Grégoire’s book, to the French abbé, degeneration was mainly due to historical factors—partly external, such as anti-Jewish hatred and oppression, and for the most part internal to Jewish culture, such as religious practices, customs, ritual precepts, nutrition, and habits.54 Thus, to Grégoire, degeneration is induced and is no part of the “genetic patrimony” (a concept that can hardly be applied to the eighteenth century). Degeneration is, accordingly, a reversible process. As a matter of fact, Grégoire was favorable to exogamy—that is, mixed marriages—viewed as a means to change the Jews for the better. Conversely, the Nazis preferred eugenic policies, because in their era racialist ideology was so radical that no race could be “regenerated.” Of course, had degeneration been imputed to genetic, intrinsic, and unchangeable factors in Grégoire’s time too, the defenders of the Jews would have faced many difficulties, especially in countries where a more or less imaginary ethnic identity of the nation was traditionally important. As regards scientific observations, Grégoire’s position was similar to that of Jean-Baptiste de Monet de Lamarck (1744–1829), even though Lamarck’s masterpieces appeared after the publication of Grégoire’s Essai, between the 1800s and the 1820s. Lamarck was indeed the most prominent proponent of the theory of the fundamental influence of the environment on all animal species, whose evolution he regarded as conditioned exclusively by environmental pressures and circumstances. Thus, to Lamarck, animal species continually evolve, continually change. And Lamarck, like Buffon, criticized Linnaeus’s theory of the fixity of species and attached great importance to external influences.55 54 The concept of degenerate race was used already in 1775 by Pierre-Louis de Lacretelle, a jurist from Metz and an acquaintance of Grégoire. However, Lacretelle considered the Jews as “hommes” and believed that their condition of separation and degeneration was due to the unjust laws imposed on them. Therefore, he limited himself to proposing a refinement of those laws. See Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution, 62–69. 55 Lamarck’s main opponent, Georges Cuvier, considered the importance that Lamarck attached to environmental influences excessive. In fact, Cuvier partly revived the theory of the fixity of the — 184 —

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Briefly, Grégoire’s work was devoid of conscious racialism—that is, of a well-defined and unambiguous racialist doctrine (and it could not be otherwise, given the “state of the art” in natural sciences at his time). On the other hand, Grégoire lived in an era when most scientists were paving the way to mature racialism—namely, to the movement of ideas eventually sanctioned by “official” science in the following century. In fact, one cannot disregard the fact that to most of the above-mentioned scientists, and to Grégoire as well, degeneration actually occurred—although it occurred not by virtue of intrinsic genetic characters, but by reason of environmental pressures, as a result of the climate, as an effect of “backward” practices and customs, or as a consequence of the respect of religious dogmas, either animistic or monotheistic. Therefore, the Jews—like the blacks and all the people of the world who were different from the white European man—were commonly viewed as characterized by “degenerative” traits. In fact, hierarchies of human races—though not characterized by unavoidable fixity—emerged at the time of Grégoire and were strengthened by the theory that, as both Grégoire and Lamarck maintained, nature— including human nature—can be changed, either for the worse or for the better. And of course, the highest rank in those hierarchies was always occupied by the white European man, whom Linnaeus called “Europaeus albus” and distinguished from the “Americanus rubescens” (“red American”), the “Asiaticus luridus” (“yellow Asian”), and the “Afer niger” (“black African”). For all the above reasons, one may certainly place Grégoire’s work on the Jews in the context of Enlightenment racism, consisting of the attitude to regard other peoples as not only different, but also inferior, degenerate, and, according to numerous Enlightenment thinkers, in need of regeneration. Two main theories of the origins of human races developed and spread in the Age of Enlightenment. Several eighteenth-century French scientists, including Maupertuis and Buffon, advanced the theory that after the gradual shaping of individual men having the same origin, human beings had joined groups that can be called “races”: this is the so-called monogenist position. Other eighteenth-century authors, like Voltaire, animal species, as he maintained that significant modifications could occur only on the very long run. Thus, he unconsciously enabled some factions of mature racialism to legitimize the idea of the fixity of human races. — 185 —

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maintained that the various human “races” had completely different origins—and this is the “polygenist” position. Both monogenists and polygenists proposed not only classifications, but also hierarchies of human races. However, in the name of Enlightenment universalism (or rather, ethnocentrism), the races that occupied the lower ranks of the hierarchy were mostly (though not always) invited to regenerate, and thus emancipate, themselves by adopting the mentality and lifestyle of the white European man.56 In his theory of degeneration, Grégoire differed from most scientists of his time in that he did not question creationism. However, the abbé’s discourse combines biological elements and cultural factors in explaining the “degenerated” character (caractère) of the Jewish “race.” On this point, the thesis of Grégoire’s unconscious racism is subject to obvious objections. One may indeed maintain that if a human group is oppressed for centuries, this group is ultimately made odious and evil. Moreover, one can point out that the nutrition prescribed by the Old Testament and strange rabbinic precepts may have made the Jews’ “character” even worse. Such considerations are related merely to social and cultural dynamics. However, how can one justify the fact that Grégoire included tendencies to onanism and nymphomania in the traits typical of the Jews? Are Grégoire’s references to those tendencies part of a merely historical, anthropological, cultural discourse focusing on environmental influences? Are those tendencies unrelated to biology? Grégoire is ambiguous on this and many other issues at the crossroads of culture and biology. In any case, Grégoire’s view of the Jews “in the present state” (i.e., a state of “degeneration”) is not much positive, although mostly excused by historians—with a few remarkable exceptions.57 56 On monogenism and polygenism, see Léon Poliakov, The Aryan Myth, 155–182. On the concept of race and its political implications in the French Enlightenment, see also Jean de Viguerie, Histoire et dictionnaire du temps des Lumières: 1715–1789 (Paris: Laffont, 1995). Viguerie does not put enough emphasis on the combination of cultural and biological aspects in Grégoire’s discourse. On the other hand, Viguerie’s book has the merit to properly highlight one of the “dark sides” of the Enlightenment, which very often, in the name of revolutionary “universalism,” conformist historians prefer to disregard. It is worth reflecting on the fact that several authors mentioned by Grégoire in chapter 7, especially Vandermonde, advanced the proposal to “perfect the human species” as a whole. See Charles-Augustin Vandermonde, Essai sur la manière de perfectionner l’espèce humaine, 2 vols. (Paris: Vincent, 1756). Vandermonde’s voluminous book, published in the same period as the volume on anthropology of Buffon’s Histoire naturelle (i.e., vol. 5), presented numerous precepts in matters of nutrition, the care of children, and personal hygiene. 57 See Sergio Luzzatto, “Il bacio di Grégoire. La ‘rigenerazione’ degli ebrei in Francia nel 1789,” in Studi settecenteschi 17 (1997): 265–286. Luzzatto has correctly observed that the concept of re— 186 —

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In fact, “mainstream” historiography of the Age of Revolution, especially in France, has traditionally expressed words of praise for Grégoire’s work. However, if one considers the parabiological premises of Grégoire’s discourse, the Socialist historian Robert Badinter’s analysis of his work is quite perplexing: he praises the Essai as a milestone in the defense of human rights, in the “refusal of injustice,” in “generosity of heart,” and in the support of the wretched (opprimés). Furthermore, the comments of Albert Soboul (another Marxist authority in historiography on the French Revolution) on Grégoire’s work are disconcerting: in his preface to the 1977 edition of Grégoire’s Œuvres, he portrays the abbé as “one of the greatest and most admirable figures of the French Revolution” (no doubt, Grégoire was one of the most emblematic figures of the French Revolution).58 Moreover, besides the above-mentioned leftist scholars, generation could be applied, through the extreme example of the Jews, to all the French people before the Revolution but considers Grégoire’s project as an “old-fashioned model of future society.” On this theme, see also Ronald Schechter, “Translating the Marseillaise: Biblical Republicanism and the Emancipation of Jews in Revolutionary France,” in Past and Present 143, no. 1 (1994): 123–145. Other historians have underscored the dangerous outcomes of Grégoire’s universalism: see especially Lawrence S. Lerner, “Beyond Grégoire: A Third Discourse on Jews and the French,” in Modern Judaism 21, no. 3 (2001): 199–215. Lerner has pointed out that “it has become more difficult to disregard the imperialistic application of universalist ideals, or the desire of the most prominent emancipator to see the Jews converted.” On the concepts of emancipation and regeneration in Grégoire’s work, see also Pierre Pluchon, Négres et Juifs au XVIIIe siècle. Le racisme au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Tallandier, 1984); Pierre Birnbaum, “Sur l’étatisation révolutionnaire. L’abbé Grégoire et le destin de l’identité juive,” in Le Débat 53 (1989): 157–173; Hans Jürgen Lüsebrink, “Grégoire and the Anthropology of Emancipation,” in The Abbé Grégoire and His World, ed. Jeremy D. Popkin and Richard H. Popkin, 1–12; Rita Hermon-Belot, “The Abbé Grégoire’s Program for the Jews: Social Reform and Spiritual Project,” in The Abbé Grégoire and His World, ed. Jeremy D. Popkin and Richard H. Popkin, 13–26. On recent historiography on the Essai, see Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution, 217–237. 58 See Albert Soboul, “Avant-propos” to Henri Grégoire, Œuvres (Nendeln: KTO Press, 1977), vol. I, IX. In her book on Grégoire, often mentioned in this essay, Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall has irrefutably demonstrated that the abbé was an opportunist, an enemy of any form of localism, a misogynous, and an admirer of the guillotine, who nevertheless, after escaping the terror, bitterly blamed its methods when it became convenient to criticize that regime. He was the first priest to take the oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790), which led to the death of many churchmen but allowed him to be elected bishop. Historian James McMillan has focused on the ideological reasons that led Grégoire to support the Revolution: “Grégoire believed in the possibilities of a humanity regenerated through the application of reason to human affairs. But, if all human activity was rightly subject to the scrutiny of reason, this in no way implied the sovereignty of human reason, for reason had to be informed by religion and the law of God. Come the Revolution, for Grégoire, there would be no contradiction between his religious belief and his commitment to radical reform of both state and church” (James McMillan, “Reason, Revolution and Religion: Grégoire and the Search for Reconciliation,” in Enlightenment and Revolution: Essays in Honour of Norman Hampson, ed. Malcolm Crook, William Doyle, and Alan Forrest, [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004], 138. On this issue, see also Rita Hermon-Belot, L’Abbé Grégoire, 94–130). However, despite such — 187 —

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also a Catholic historian, Bernard Plongeron, was surprisingly “seduced” by Grégoire’s work.59 The Essai clearly reveals the essentially totalitarian (in the wide sense of the term) ideology of the French Revolution, radicalized in Grégoire’s work by its alliance with, and absorption of, Christian egalitarianism.60 If one considers the racist, ethnocentric aspects of the revolutionary struggle for human emancipation (or rather, “regeneration”), one can easily see that the gradual evolution of the confused racism of the Enlightenment into the racialist doctrines of the following eras confirms Carl Schmitt’s thesis of the primacy of the political. In fact, from the French Revolution to the Age of Imperialism and the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, by means of “political decision” and through the forcible absorption and use of scientific and humanistic (and therefore nonpolitical) knowledge, politics accepted, and significantly contributed to, the development of vague racist ideas into well-defined racialist ideologies. Perhaps, without any political support and practical application, the confused concepts of eighteenth-century racism would have led to different outcomes or would have died out because of the lack of scientific relevance. But those concepts were evidently useful to the state’s efforts to strengthen its power and control over any aspect of human existence. In conclusion, Grégoire’s Essai stands out in the history of Enlightenment racism not because of its confused and unoriginal racist elements, but because of its political implications. In fact, he theorized a state that had to make the Jews “citizens” through a process of forced “regeneration,” which was to be applied to all those who were perceived as others (others than what? The category of “others” is continually redefined, in accordance with the state’s need to exploit and manipulate the bulk of ideological claims, Grégoire did not hesitate to support Napoleon’s imperial and colonial ideology. He eventually also repudiated Napoleon and consequently welcomed the Restoration. 59 See Bernard Plongeron, L’Abbé Grégoire (1750–1831) ou l’Arche de la Fraternité (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1989); id., L’Abbé Grégoire et la Republique des Savants (Paris: CTHS, 2001). The latter volume includes Grégoire’s Essai sur la solidarité litteraire entre les savants des tous les Pays and Plan d’association general entre les savants, gens de lettres et artistes. In these emblematic texts, Grégoire endorses state control and the use of intellectuals. On the role of intellectuals in the modern state, see Zygmunt Bauman, Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987). 60 Although Grégoire was a churchman, in the Essai, he mentioned the idea of a conversion of the Jews to Christianity only en passant. Most probably, he did not consider conversion a good means to regenerate the Jews, since it could put an end only to some of their defects (certainly not their odor…). Moreover, since conversion to Christianity was not supposed to be administered directly by the state, it would not make the Jews more useful and better subjected to the state’s power. — 188 —

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the population as well as so-called minorities). Therefore, to Grégoire, the state had to compel the Jews to make a change for that which was supposed to be the better—that is, for that which the state, namely, the ruling elites considered to be “the better.” This aspect of Grégoire’s thought has been underscored by historian James McMillan: His universalism […] made him a proponent of cultural assimilation rather than cultural diversity, as was apparent in his advocacy of rights for Jews and black people and in his hostility to regional languages in France, which he wanted to replace with standard French. Nor was Grégoire an advocate of gender equality. Like most men of the Enlightenment, Grégoire conceived of virtue as an essentially male quality and he did not accept that the rights of man implied equal rights for women.61 Grégoire’s project for regeneration, based on his theory of a “degeneration” of the Jews, reveals the intention to eliminate any difference in order to create perfect, conformist, expendable “citizens,” which the state could exploit and even sacrifice. To Grégoire, who can be considered the “Lamarck of the Jews,” it was still possible to make the Jews good citizens since (almost) every difference resulted from environmental influences. Perhaps, Voltaire would not agree with him, and certainly Fichte would disagree, as he proposed to “behead all of them.” In any case, Grégoire’s project entailed violence. The proposal submitted to the Academy of Metz by the procurator of the local parliament was much less “anti-Semitic” than Grégoire’s Essai, for it presented the project to deport the Jews to Guyana.62 In this case, 61 James McMillan, “Reason, Revolution and Religion,” 138. On Grégoire’s hostility to regional languages, see David A. Bell, “Tearing Down the Tower of Babel: Grégoire and French Multilingualism,” in The Abbé Grégoire and His World, ed. Jeremy D. Popkin and Richard H. Popkin, 109–128. As regards Grégoire’s universalism, David Sorkin’s magisterial synthesis of the religious Enlightenment provides a more positive and optimistic interpretation of the abbé’s work than that offered in this present study: see David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 272–274. However, we would argue that the presence of “natural law” and the idea of “toleration” are vague in the French writer’s work. On the other hand, Grégoire was certainly a champion of the secularization of Catholic conversion and other theological ideas in a social planning effort that would have attracted several “social Catholic” thinkers, including Moreau and Lamennais, in the following century. 62 See Sergio Luzzatto, “Il bacio di Grégoire,” 271. — 189 —

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the Jews would at least be allowed to be as they were and as they wanted to be (though not where they wanted to be). If all the French Jews were deported to Guyana in 1789, perhaps ninety thousand of their descendants would not have died during World War II in Nazi-occupied France and the State of Vichy. In fact, in an age when differences could not be cancelled anymore by the systematic work of the state and when genetics had eventually replaced the confused biological thought of the eighteenth century, what did the nation-state do? The state preserved the “nation” that had established and still legitimated it, or that illusorily believed to legitimate it, often at the expense of so-called minorities. In an age when differences could not be eliminated anymore—because no “regeneration” was deemed possible or wished for—the solution, the “final solution,” was eventually found in the gas chambers: these were, of course, not the only means employed by the nation-state to eliminate differences, though they were definitely the most extreme.63 Perhaps Grégoire, as a Christian and a churchman, would have been horrified by that solution. But was he horrified by the massacres committed by Napoleon in the French colonies in America, or, before the Napoleonic era, by the revolutionary regime in the Vendée?64 The evolution of some of the premises and perspectives of Grégoire’s work, analyzed in the present study, eventually led—through more or less tortuous paths—to the gates of Auschwitz.

63 A brilliant discussion of the construction of the modern nation-state is in Jürgen Habermas, “On the Relation between the Nation, the Rule of Law, and Democracy,” in id., The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 129–153. 64 On the analogy between the destruction of the European Jews and the massacres in the Vendée, see Reynald Secher, Juifs et Vendéens. D’un genocide à l’autre (Paris: Orban, 1991). — 190 —

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Conclusion

“Emancipation” is nothing but the partial secularization of “conversion.” In fact, at least until the beginning of the early modern era, the Jews, by converting, acquired most or all of the rights and the status of subjects—whatever those rights could be and whatever the status of subject could imply. Thus, conversion and emancipation went hand in hand for a long time. In some contexts, the consistency between religious conversion and civil emancipation was clearly sanctioned by law. For instance, in eighteenth-century England, the naturalization of “aliens” required an oath of allegiance to the Anglican Church, whatever that oath might eventually imply for the new converts’ and citizens’ actual religious practices. The conceptual differences between conversion and emancipation are, however, of immense bearing, as we will see in our conclusion and have already partially seen in the four essays presented in this book. From Emancipation to Racial Anti-Semitism In early modern Europe, by asking the Jews to convert, in accordance with more or less violent and infamous interpretations of the motto “compelle intrare” (i.e., “compel them to enter”), the Catholics, and the Protestants as well, asked the Jews to give up their faith and thus enter the Christian flock. This meant entering a wider community. As a consequence, the social and economic aspects of conversion often overwhelmed those related to faith and conscience. The Christian churches of the early modern era, however, were more interested in the conversion of individuals than in that of entire communities. In fact, in the areas where the political authorities did not impose conversions en masse, the Catholic Church in particular tried to deconstruct the Jewish communities by subtracting from them one member after another. Moreover, the religious authorities usually did not care much about the persistence of the Jewish “states within the state,” for the Jews were still kept in a condition of “inferiority and submission” and therefore did not represent a serious threat to Christianity. Also, in Catholic countries, the Church could consider itself as a particular institution peacefully living within the state, at — 191 —

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least until the French Revolution, as long as the state did not violate the Church’s rights, property, and jurisdiction—as it conversely did massively in the nineteenth century, though with revealing anticipations in prerevolutionary Europe, particularly in Pombal’s Portugal and Joseph II’s Empire. When analyzing conversional strategies in the early modern era, one can see a particular attention from the Church to the will and “rights” of the individual, whose conversion was desired, prepared, and eventually (when it happened) obtained. “Con dolcezza e con riguardo”—that is, “mildly and softly,” as recommended by the Hebraist and biblical scholar Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi in the late eighteenth century: conversions, in order to be effective, had to be performed in this way.1 Conversions to Christianity followed a certain path, a long preparation. On the contrary, a general emancipation often meant producing full or partial equality among Christians and Jews with an abrupt and unreflective act of legislation. Moreover, such an act was imposed upon the subject and was often presented as neither amendable nor reversible. With such violence, the states of modern Europe replaced the Church and, besides secularizing the latter’s wealth, attempted to secularize its practices and ultimately its reservoir of concepts and ideals. This process reached its apex in the nineteenth century—namely, the same century when the Jews of virtually all Europe received emancipation—but was amply prepared in the previous century and even before, beginning at least in the Age of the Wars of Religion. The process of secularization removed from the Church most of its prerogatives, while at the same time adopting most of its strategies. When we consider the secularization process on a global history perspective, we realize that the growing centralistic and monopolistic state of the eighteenth century was reversing the process that had taken place with the origins of Christianity. In fact, the early Christian Church borrowed several ideological tools and organizational practices from the late Roman imperial world, with regard to both religion (the celibacy of priests, for instance) and politics (the figure of the Pontiff, for example). 1

On De Rossi’s ideas on conversion, see Gianfranco Bonola, “Con dolcezza e con riguardo. Il semitista parmense G. B. De Rossi e la conversione degli ebrei nel Settecento,” in Cristianesimo nella storia 4, no. 2 (1983): 367–436. On the history of forcible conversions in the Catholic world, see Marina Caffiero, Battesimi forzati. Storia di ebrei, cristiani e convertiti nella Roma dei Papi (Rome: Viella, 2004). — 192 —

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The secularization of political power that began in England with Henry VIII, in France after 1600 and in continental Europe after 1648 was very much oriented toward a reversal of the process that had taken place more than a millennium earlier. Secularization meant, in most cases, the adaptation of theological concepts (e.g., “regeneration”) to lay areas, with the transformation of such concepts into lay ideals (for example, “Providence” became “progress”). The concept of emancipation is a case in point. Though originally coming from the Roman law, emancipation took all the aspects of a “lay conversion”—and on paper, the transformation of a Jew into a citizen, a denizen of the new state, was easier: it is indeed possible to remain a Jew and become a citizen, whereas one cannot be at the same time a Jew and a Christian (although Crypto-Jews proved that this solution was also feasible, albeit neither simple nor legal). This was the promise the state made to the Jews. By giving up their communal state, their kahal, their tribunals and courts, they could preserve their faith as a “private matter.” Furthermore, emancipation could and indeed did happen by an act of the state itself, through a legal provision from the top down. On the other hand, conversion—even though pressures might be exerted to force this act—was based on the individual’s free will, and only as such was ultimately acceptable. I can refuse to convert, but I cannot refuse emancipation. It is a legal act. As a conversion en masse from the status of legal minority to that of citizen, emancipation only partially fulfilled the expectations put by the Church on the act of religious conversion. Every churchman knew that forceful baptism was ineffective. Conversely, the immense pride of the state aimed at bringing to perfection, with speed and decision, a process that needed years or even decades when performed by the Church: at one step, they would all be converted—all emancipated. The lack of respect for the individual’s actual needs, concerns, and aspirations, and for the right of so-called minorities to a certain amount of self-determination, was partly compensated, and mitigated, by the fact that numerous Jews actually aimed at such a sort of emancipation, without understanding the long-term consequences of their enthusiastic will. Only a few Jewish intellectuals, most prominently Moses Mendelssohn in Jerusalem (1783), tried to clarify the criteria and conditions acceptable to the Jews to become citizens like all the others. But — 193 —

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Mendelssohn’s warning went unheard. As a consequence, to pledge blind alliance to the state turned out to be, over the long term, the Jews’ most self-destructive decision. In fact, Jewish emancipation took place in an age (i.e., the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) when European states gradually grew into nation-states. In that era, political identities came to depend more and more on criteria related to culture, and at the same time, the emergence and spread of racial classifications, starting from the second half of the eighteenth century, led to connecting culture with ethnicity. The contractarian tradition, to which a political society results from the free choice of individuals who associate to preserve their interests and pursue the common welfare, was gradually discarded. In the end, the demos (i.e., the political community) was reduced to the ethnos—namely, to what Jürgen Habermas has called “a pre-political community of shared descent organized around kinship ties.”2 In the social and cultural context following emancipation, the Jews— freed from discriminative policies and segregation, but traditionally landless and “international” and hence inexorably alien to the body of the nation—came to embody “incongruence, artificiality, sham and frailty of the social order and the most earnestly drawn boundaries.”3 Overtly racial theories focusing on allegedly invariable traits and thus separating the Jews from the dominant majority again and forever were therefore demanded “to redeem boundary-drawing and boundary-guarding concerns under new conditions which made boundary-crossing easier than ever before.”4 As a consequence, the emancipated but traditionally landless Jew underwent a new transformation in European mentality: From being the Other of Christianity, the Jew graduated to being the Other of the nation-state. The Jew became the nomad, the wanderer without a land in a time in 2

3 4

See Jürgen Habermas, “On the Relation between the Nation, the Rule of Law, and Democracy,” in id., The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 129–153. On the construction of nations in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe, see especially Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); David A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001). Zygmunt Bauman, “Allo-Semitism: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern,” in Modernity, Culture, and “the Jew,” ed. Bryan Cheyette and Laura Marcus (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 150. Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), 62. — 194 —

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which the connection between blood and soil was being celebrated in Romanticism. The myth of the Jewish race was born.5 In other words, racial anti-Semitism was born.6 In a Europe consisting of nation-states with no sense of balance of power or inter-European solidarity, competition between states led to several imperialist enterprises and wars aimed at spreading a particular political ideology, fulfilling a nation’s civilizing mission, and eventually asserting its supremacy over the others, both within and without the Old Continent. Those enterprises and wars involved the whole nation and therefore significantly reduced the role of the Jewish financiers who had largely replaced the court Jews after emancipation. In that context, as Hannah Arendt pointed out in The Origins of Totalitarianism, “the non-national, inter-European Jewish element became an object of universal hatred because of its useless wealth, and of contempt because of its lack of power.”7 The inter-European, “international” Jew was thus perceived as a threat to national security, since he could employ his “useless wealth” to achieve global domination—as demonstrated by the conspiracy theories that emerged especially at the time of the Dreyfus affair and were fueled by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Once deprived of the protection granted by his peculiar theological and legal status, and by his useful and easily exploitable wealth, the Jew was no more simply an inferior being: he became also an internal enemy, whose hidden aims and ambitions were perceived as different from, or even dangerous to, those of the nation in which he was considered as an alien and harmful element. And, as historian Norman Cohn has thoroughly demonstrated, the widespread fear of the Jews’ allegedly hidden, hostile, and destructive plans eventually led to their genocide.8 In fact, 5

6

7 8

Shaul Bassi, “Resisting Jews: Allosemitism and the Dialectic of Assimilation,” in Resisting Alterities: Wilson Harris and Other Avatars of Otherness, ed. Marco Fazzini (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), 213. The term “anti-Semitism” was coined by the publicist Wilhelm Marr, who introduced the pseudoscientific racial component into the debate on the Jewish question in Germany. The essay in which Marr used this term for the first time is Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum (The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism, 1879). Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1951), 15. See Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1967). — 195 —

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it did not take long to move from the stigmatization of the “Jewish danger” to the “final solution of the Jewish question.” The Enlightenment Projects and the Implications and Side Effects of Emancipation The four projects examined in this book were all written by non-Jews. None of them were familiar with Jewish customs in depth, let alone with Hebrew. Even when they seemed to act in favor of the Jews, they—more or less aware of this (Toland was possibly the only one unaware)—acted in favor of the state. Over the long term, the same state that seemed to be so well inclined toward the Jews—Prussia, which was the core of Germany until 1945— killed millions of them. Anti-Semitism became influential first and foremost in France, and Grégoire paved the way, though pretending the contrary. While “defending” the Jews, he took all the possible occasions to cast infamy upon them. At the same time, his fellow revolutionaries were exterminating fellow Catholics in the Vendée, with the abbé being their well-informed accomplice. Britain kept large anti-Semitic clusters well after World War II.9 Italy, although Count D’Arco was unsympathetic to the Jews, was substantially immune to nationalist anti-Semitism until the Fascist era. In fact, the racial laws of 1938 hit the Italian Jews in an unprecedented way, for they felt themselves first and foremost “Italians” and only residually “Jews.” Italian emancipation was therefore the story of a success, until it lasted. Then a dream turned abruptly, literally overnight, into the worst of nightmares. The four projects analyzed in this volume did not contribute to the real advancement of the Jews. Their authors rather contributed to the advancement of the states that they—willingly or not—served, with more or less degrees of autonomy. The eighteenth-century state was extending its jurisdiction in such a way that all particular associations, guilds, corporations, and local autonomies were bound to be dissolved. The Jews and their communities made no exception. Enticed by the false idea that they could remain faithful to their religion once it was deprived of any political sphere of protection, the Jews became prey of the state, which first exploited them and then, starting in the nineteenth 9

See a recent and comprehensive study: Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of AntiSemitism in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). — 196 —

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century—namely, when the concept of nation-state became the only viable way to keep the states threatened by anarchy, communism, and fragmentation alive—cast infamy upon them, thus laying the ideological foundations of their extermination. Thus, if those four projects can be ascribed, wholly or partly, to the Enlightenment, this is definitely the case of another major failure in the Enlightenment struggle for the emancipation of mankind. The process of secularization of political power—which started at least in the Age of Religious Wars and reached its apex, and completely transformed European society and culture, in the nineteenth century— was fiercely hostile to the Jews and to religious autonomy in general. While certainly Toland, Dohm, and D’Arco wrote in good faith, their faith in the state was bloodily betrayed in the following centuries. As long as, in science and politics, a mechanic paradigm was predominant, the Jews and other minorities could be seen as gears in the great “clock” of the state—namely, in the ideal state dreamt of by monarchs like Frederick II and Joseph II.10 But when an organic paradigm eventually replaced the mechanic one, and culminated with Schelling’s philosophy and Müller’s political theory, even the state and its foundations steered toward “organicism.” This meant the beginning of the end of the Jews, as the essay on Grégoire in this book amply demonstrates. Thus, every time we deal with Enlightenment projects concerning minorities—including those proposing the abolition of guilds and particular courts—we ought to take into consideration the ideological foundations of the modern state. The Jews are nothing but one of the objects of these efforts—all aimed at reinforcing the power of the centralized state. As a non-natural entity based upon the ideological legitimation of the use of force, the state itself, however, needs an ever-renewing and renewable theoretical basis.11 In conclusion, this book reveals nothing but one of the destructive aspects of some sectors of the Enlightenment—namely, the sectors that proposed various theories of self-realization, brilliantly examined 10 On the concept of the state as a machine or “clock,” see Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Der Staat als Maschine: zur politischen Metaphorik des absoluten Fürstenstaats (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1986); ead., Europa im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000). 11 On this point, it is worth observing that the mechanic paradigm was probably already outworn in Britain at the time when Toland wrote his plea for Jewish naturalization. On this issue, see Linda Colley’s brilliant book Britons (1992), already mentioned in this conclusion. — 197 —

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by Isaiah Berlin in an essay already mentioned in the introduction to this volume, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958). This destructive aspect consisted of the cult of a homogeneous, all-encompassing, super-personal entity, in a theoretical celebration of the Westphalian model of the state, which seemed to expand Henry VIII’s pioneering project of secularization into the vast realms of continental Europe. Although occasionally enthusiastic, often intelligent, and rarely caught by any doubt, most Enlightenment thinkers did not envisage the traps, pitfalls, and eventually gross distortions that their projects of emancipation came across. The work of Grégoire, a Catholic priest, is the climax of a process of servility toward the state. In fact, in revolutionary France, the “panoptic,” pervasive state—prepared and praised in many eighteenth-century political experiments—was at its peak. In the end, emancipation did not prove useful, for it could actually be reversed or ignored. When the demos came to be reduced to the ethnos, it became clear that blood could not be changed—blood could never be emancipated. The state, changed into a sheer Leviathan, turned against the traditional ways provided by the Church and even against the salvation that the state itself offered to religious minorities in its Enlightenment élan: no provision could save from Auschwitz. By rereading four eighteenth-century projects the way we have done, we finally invite a reinterpretation of the Age of Enlightenment and its “dark sides.” Those projects belong to a time of optimism—despite Voltaire’s cautions against the overtly optimistic, still largely naive, and unrealistic philosophy of Leibniz and against absolute optimism in general. Also, those projects are certainly state driven and state oriented, but at the core of eighteenth-century political philosophy is “civil society,” rather than the state, at the stake, first and foremost. The idea of making the Jews better members of civil society is in itself praiseworthy, and the same concept of civil society can be seen as antagonistic to that of state. However, the state managed to rule, steer, and eventually absorb civil society instead of being its expression, as most eighteenthcentury political thinkers normally maintained. Over the long term, the dialectic between the state and civil society became destructive, particularly with regard to the Jews and other minorities. Since the Jews were made abruptly “equal” to all other citizens by an act of legislation from the top down, while the modern states of Europe were rapidly taking the shape of nation-states, the differences be— 198 —

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tween the majority and the minorities became even more accentuated. This process caused civil society to act more and more violently against those “equalized” new citizens: anti-Semitism emerged and grew immensely after the elimination of most of the legal disabilities for the Jews all over Europe in the nineteenth century. Eventually, civil society became the fiercest enemy of the Jews, and when those anti-Jewish attitudes entered the realm of the state, with the rise of overtly racist and anti-Semitic political movements, the terrain was fertile enough for the final solution of the Jewish question. When Dohm and Grégoire, in the second part of his Essai, speak about a series of progressive legal steps to equate the Jews with all other citizens—namely, to reach complete emancipation—they are not entirely wrong. In France, where those steps were not taken and emancipation followed revolution quite hastily and resolutely, anti-Semitic attitudes spread faster than in the rest of Western Europe. The risk was that to become “too equal” made the residual (but essential) difference come to the surface as never before. Equality—a legal measure—did not bring about “fraternity,” a social element. Liberty was, by then, a mere flatus vocis. The Jews—once made “equal,” politically and legally speaking, to the rest of the population—became even more others. When they were members of their communities, of their “state within the state,” the external world—including a fortiori that of the Enlightenment—was searching, in them, for elements of similarity with the non-Jews (i.e., the majority of the population) by using abstract notions of mankind, humanity, etc. Conversely, after the Age of Enlightenment, and thanks to the ideological battles of the Enlightenment, the Jews became legally equal and socially “integrated” or “assimilated.” But the external world increasingly looked for elements of otherness in them. The dream of equality turned into the nightmare of mass discrimination. The more the state “emancipated” the Jews, the more nineteenth-century “civil society”—that is, the nation that the state had led to regard itself as the core of the nation-state—became hostile to them. When the most dangerous tendencies of civil society were also eventually absorbed by the state, with the establishment of overtly nationalist and racist regimes, and “liberal” efforts toward minorities were discarded or annihilated, for the Jews the bell tolled. This process, already explained above in this conclusion, can be better understood if one makes reference to Sigmund Freud’s theory of — 199 —

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the “narcissism of minor (or small) differences,” formulated in 1917 and clarified in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930). Freud’s concept can be all too easily applied to German attitudes toward the German Jews, who, by the end of the nineteenth century, were in most cases almost undistinguishable from other Germans, especially among the bourgeoisie. The apparent similarity between the German Jews and other Germans was largely deemed and felt unacceptable to the latter, and anti-Semitism grew at a faster pace, for there were still differences that—far from being “minor,” even though they could appear as such— could not be eliminated: ethnicity was one, and religion, albeit reduced to an absolutely private matter, the other. To paraphrase the rock star Peter Gabriel, “he talks like us, he looks like us, but he’s not one of us.” Grégoire envisaged a long-term path to eliminate differences, not that much in order to equate the Jew to the pure Frenchman, but rather to create the “perfect” citizen, the perfect member of civil society, the perfect subject of the new state—namely, a state that was supposed to lead mankind to self-realization. This ideal eventually led, in its most extreme expressions, to the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century; and its worst consequences were stigmatized in such dystopias as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and George Orwell’s 1984, in which sad puppets—devoid of individual traits, deprived of souls, and turned into less than animals—are at the service of the powers that be. This too was part of the legacy of the controversial Age of Enlightenment—at least of certain sectors of the Enlightenment. As the Italian proverb says, “non è tutto oro quel che luccica.” All that glitters ain’t gold.

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Index

Abbona, Cristina 143n Abendana, Isaac 47 Abraham 59, 173 Adam 40, 183 Adler, Hans G. 91n Ages, Arnold 98n, 168n Ainsworth, Henry 45 Alatri, Paolo 94n Alderman, Geoffrey 43n, 87n Allerhand, Jacob 91n Allo-Semitism 9-12, 18-31 Alsace 97-99, 168n Altmann, Alexander 28n, 49n, 55n, 79n, 92n, 98n, 99n, 116n, 132 America 41, 46n, 69, 82n, 83, 168n, 172n, 174n, 190 Amsterdam 41n, 43, 62, 123n Ancient Egyptian culture 58-60 Anglicanism, Church of England 35n, 37, 45, 48, 50, 66-67, 70, 81-85, 191 Anglo-Jewry 38-44, 74-75, 8088 Anglophilia 143 Annet, Peter 49 Arendt, Hannah 136n, 195 Aristotle 146 Arminianism 35 Arnall, William 67, 84 Arrivabene, Giovanni 143n Asia 41, 52, 97 Assyria 41

Atlantis 65 Augsburg, Peace of 24 Augustine, Saint 21 Auschwitz 177n, 190, 198 Austria 100 Austrian Empire 28n, 163 Avignon 23 Bachi, Riccardo 143n Badinter, Robert 187 Baldi, Marialuisa 143n Baron, Salo W. 99n Basedow, Johann Bernhard 114 Basnage de Beauval, Jacques 10, 46-47, 72, 78, 119, 149, 171 Basoni, Roger 172n Bassi, Shaul 22n, 195n Bath 67 Bauman, Zygmunt 11, 18-20, 23n, 29n, 90n, 188n, 194n Bavaria 140 Bayle, Pierre 47n, 119n Bayonne 98 Beccaria, Cesare 139 Beiser, Frederick C. 35n Belfanti, Carlo M. 141n Bell, David A. 176n, 189n, 194n Bendavid, Lazarus 134 Benedetti, Giovanni Battista 160 Berkovitz, Jay R. 98n, 168n Berkowitz, Michael 82n Berlin 16, 32, 89n, 91n, 92-93, 94n, 99, 120, 132n, 133,

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134n, 136n Berlin, Isaiah 29-30, 198 Bernardine of Feltre 140 Bernardini, Paolo L. 37n, 67n, 89n, 94n, 119n, 140n, 141n, 143n, 144n, 147n, 160n, 163n, 165n Bernier, François 183n Bernoulli, Jean 89n Bertolotti, Maurizio 144n, 156n, 160n Bible 24, 35n, 36, 41, 44-51, 5768, 77, 96, 102, 146n, 149, 180, 186 Biester, Johann E. 118n Birnbaum, Pierre 187n Bloom, Sam W. 123n, 177n Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich 183n Board of Deputies of British Jews 86n Bochart, Samuel 58 Bodin, Jean 24, 173 Bohemia 132n, 142, 152, 154 Bohemian Brothers 133 Böhn, Georg F. 91n Bologna 160 Bonola, Gianfranco 159n, 192n Bordeaux 98 Boulainvilliers, Henri de 183n Boulanger, Nicolas-Antoine 174-175 Bourel, Dominique 123n, 177n Brann, Ross 166n Brenner, Michael 87n, 98n, 134n, 168n Brignani, Marida 144n, 156n, 160n

Britain 9, 11, 16, 33, 37, 43n, 44n, 45, 76, 82n, 86, 87n, 123, 196, 197n Brown, Stuart 46n Bruer, Albert A. 91n Brykman, Genevieve 35n Büsching, Anton Friedrich von 94, 119 Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de 166, 181, 183-186 Burnaby, Andrew 174n Buruma, Ian 143n Bury, Arthur 62, 63n Byrne, Peter 35n Caffiero, Marina 192n Calimani, Simone 160n Calixtus II, Pope 22 Calmet, Dom Augustin 51, 149, 159 Calvin, John 183n Calvinism 26, 93, 128, 133, 183 Cambridge 45, 46n, 47 Cambridge Platonism 45, 46n Cameralism 17, 29, 96, 101, 132, 137, 153, 155 Camondo, Abram 160n Capitalism, free-market economy 52, 75, 124, 152-153, 157-158 Carabelli, Giancarlo 35n Cardoso, Isaac (or Ysaac) 47n, 119n, 179 Carlebach, Joseph 92n Carnevale, Francesco 180n Caron, Vicki 98n, 134n, 168n Caruso, Sergio 46n Carvajal, Antonio Fernandez 43

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Carvalho, Joaquim 91n Castiglioni, Luigi 143n Castoriadis, Cornelius 20n, 25n Catholic Church 20-26, 74, 128, 171, 191-192, 198 Cattaneo, Carlo 152 Cattaneo, Mario A. 89n Cattin, Emmanuel 62n Cerfbeer, Herz 97-98 Cerny, Gerald 47n, 119n Cesarani, David 43n Champion, Justin 35n, 36n, 37n, 46n, 50, 56, 59, 60n, 61n, 63n, 65n, 66, 67n, 72n, 79, 85, 86n Charles Albert, King of Sardinia 164 Charles II, King of England 44, 75 Charles III, King of Spain 107 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor 142 Chastellux, François-Jean de 172 Chateaubriand, François-René de 175 Cheyette, Bryan 18n, 194n Child, Josiah 51-53, 70, 78 Choudhury, Mita 171n Christian Hebraism 44-51, 9495, 149-150, 158-160 Christianity 21-28, 35, 36n, 40-41, 47-49, 62-67, 81, 84, 94-95, 102, 128-129, 136, 170-175, 188, 191-194 Christianson, Paul 46n Chubb, Thomas 49 Cibot, Pierre-Martial 175

Cicero, Marcus Tullius 60 Cirillo, Luigi 62n Clénard, Nicolas 177 Clermont-Tonnerre, Count Stanislas-Marie-Adélaïde 31 Cohen, Jeremy 39n Cohen, Yerachmiel 165n Cohn, Norman 195 Coleman, Thomas 45 Colley, Linda 85n, 194n, 197n Collins, Anthony 48-49 Colorni, Vittore 91n Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de 143, 149 Conrad, Hermann 135n Contractarianism 37, 127, 194 Corsican Revolution 143 Cramer, Johann 62n Cranz, August 102n Cremona 155n, 160 Cromwell, Oliver 40-43, 75, 123 Crook, Malcolm 187n Crouter, Richard 136n Crusades 38, 73-74 Cunaeus, Petrus 65, 71 Custodi, Pietro 144n, 147n Cuvier, Georges 184n d’Aisy, François 175n D’Aprile, Iwan M. 91n, 98n, 134n D’Arco, Count Giovanni Battista Gherardo 9, 16-18, 32-33, 139-164, 196-197 d’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry 28 Daniel, Stephen H. 35n Darwin, Charles 182 Davidson, Wolf 133n De Rossi, Giovanni Bernardo

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159, 192 Deism 16, 27, 35, 36n, 37n, 44, 47-50, 62n, 63n, 84, 94, 102, 127 Desmaizeaux, Pierre 35n, 62n Detering, Heinrich 97n, 102n Dickinson, Harry T. 83n Diez, Heinrich Friedrich von 121 Dinur, Ben Zion 155n Dissenters, Nonconformists 37, 70, 82, 84 Dodwell, Henry 36 Dohm, Christian Wilhelm von 9, 16-18, 31-33, 89-138, 149, 164, 170-171, 177, 197, 199 Donne, John 40 Doyle, William 187n Dreyfus, Alfred 123n, 177n, 195 Dupont de Nemours, Pierre Samuel 129 East India Company 52, 69, 76 East Indies 69, 118n Eberhard, Johann Augustus 128 Edward I, King of England 39, 74 Eisenmenger, Johann Andreas 94, 95n, 119, 130 Eldad ha-Dani 41n Endelman, Todd M. 43n, 87n Engelstein, Stefani 92n England 16, 18, 28n, 33, 35-53, 55, 66-67, 69-70, 74-75, 78, 80-88, 91n, 93, 107, 123, 143, 160, 176, 191, 193, 196n Enzi, Aldo 143n Erspamer, Peter R. 92n, 95n

Espiard de La Borde, FrançoisIgnace d’ 175, 176n Ethiopia 176 Ettinger, Shmuel 37n Eugene of Savoy 62n Euphrates River 41n Europe 9-12, 14, 16n, 21-29, 32-33, 37n, 39-41, 43, 4546, 71, 76, 79, 82, 89, 91n, 95n, 96, 100, 106-107, 111, 118, 120, 129-131, 137, 141, 143n, 145-146, 151-152, 154, 158-160, 162, 165, 167, 180n, 182, 183n, 191-195, 198-199 Evans, Robert R. 35n Eve 183 Eyffinger, Arthur 65n Fabian, Bernhard 99n Fabricius, Johann Albert 63n Falk, Rainer 99n Fazzini, Marco 22n, 195n Feiner, Shmuel 90n, 92n, 102n, 116n Feldman, David 87n Felsenstein, Frank 44n, 84n Feltre 140 Ferrara 159-160 Feudalism 127, 152, 171-172 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 110n, 189 Finzi di Rivarolo family 157 Firmian, Count Carlo di 142 Fischer, Barbara 92n, 95n Fischer, Johann F. 106n Fleury, Claude 10, 149 Florence 149, 156, 160

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Foa, Anna 22n, 26n, 41n Forrest, Alan 187n Foucault, Michel 29n Fouke, Daniel C. 35n Fourcroy, Antoine-François de 180n Fourth Lateran Council 22, 38 Fox, Thomas C. 95n France 11, 16, 18, 28n, 33, 96n, 97-98, 109, 129, 133-134, 136-137, 140, 143n, 148, 165, 166n, 167, 168n, 173174, 176n, 182, 183n, 187, 189-190, 193, 194n, 196, 198-199 France, Anatole 175 Francis I, Emperor of Austria 163 Frederick II “the Great,” King of Prussia 11, 16, 132, 197 Frederick William II, King of Prussia 132-133 Frederick William III, King of Prussia 133n, 136 Freimark, Peter 102n Freke, William 62, 63n Fremaux, Michel 62n French Revolution 11-12, 28, 33, 89n, 140n, 165, 183, 187-188, 192 Freud, Sigmund 199-200 Freudenthal, Gad 93n Friedländer, David 132-136 Frizzi, Benedetto 143, 144n, 155-160 Furet, François 11, 166n Gabriel, Peter 200

Gadebusch Bondio, Mariacarla 177n Galiani, Ferdinando 129, 146, 158 Galicia 142 Garden of Eden 40 Genovesi, Antonio 145 George I, King of England 66 German Jewry 90-96, 130-138 Germany 19n, 28, 33, 45, 53, 82-83, 89-96, 98n, 100, 103, 106, 118-119, 123n, 130, 134n, 136n, 137-138, 140, 152, 168n, 177n, 182, 195n, 196 Ghizzi Ghidorzi, Dacirio 143n Gilam, Abraham 87n Giuntini, Chiara 35n, 62n Glaser, Eliane 40n Glassman, Bernard 39n Gliozzi, Giuliano 183n Glorious Revolution 18, 32, 44, 81 God 21-22, 24, 46, 54, 60-61, 65, 77, 95, 114, 173, 187 Goetschel, Willi 95n Goldstein Sepinwall, Alyssa 33, 166, 168, 177n, 183, 184n, 187n Gonzaga family 140-142 Gospel of Barnabas 62 Göttingen 93-94, 120, 122 Grab, Walter 89n Graf, Arturo 143n Graham, John 177n Grassi, Silvia 94n Grattenauer, Carl Wilhelm Friedrich 136

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Gray, Richard T. 177n Grayzel, Solomon 22n Grégoire, Henri 16, 18, 32-33, 134, 164, 165-190, 196-200 Gregory IX, Pope 22, 74 Grell, Ole P. 37n Grellman, Heinrich M. G. 118n Grieder, Josephine 143n Griffin, Martin I. J. 46n Gruber, Johann D. 106n Guénée, Antoine 119 Guilds, corporations 39, 56, 81, 109-110, 116-118, 129-130, 141, 196-197 Gumpertz, Aaron Solomon 93 Guyana 189-190 Gypsies, Roma people 12, 118 Habermas, Jürgen 190n, 194 Habersaat, Sigrid 99n Habsburg dynasty 11, 16, 18, 28, 33, 131-132, 139-141, 160-161 Hadrian, Roman Emperor 171 Haitian Revolution 166 Ha-Kohen, Joseph 171n, 173 Halifax, George Montagu- Dunk, 2nd Earl of 84 Hamburg 43 Hampton, John 174n Hannaford, Ivan 183n Hanover dynasty 11, 16-17, 66 Hardwicke, Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of 84 Harrington, James 37, 46, 52, 54, 57, 60, 65, 71, 80 Harris, Wilson 22n, 195n Hartmann, Friedrich Traugott

124-125 Haskalah, Jewish Enlightenment 16, 89, 92, 116, 123124, 130-136, 166n Helfand, Jonathan I. 134n Hell, François 97-99 Henry VIII, King of England 193, 198 Herbert of Cherbury, Edward 46n, 49 Herder, Johann Gottfried 95 Hermon-Belot, Rita 165n, 166n, 168n, 187n Herrehunter 133 Herrick, James A. 35n Hertz, Deborah S. 92n Hertzberg, Arthur 9, 98n, 167, 168n Herz, Marcus 123 Hess, Jonathan M. 122n, 171n, 177n Hessayon, Ariel 40n, 46n, 50n Hirschel, Moses 134 Hissmann, Michael 120, 122 Hobbes, Thomas 24, 46 Hohendorf, Georg Wilhelm von 62n Holocaust 12, 138, 190, 195196 Holy Roman Empire 33, 106, 117, 131, 139-142, 148, 151, 161, 192 Hourwitz, Zalkind 167, 168n Hudson, John 47 Hudson, Wayne 35n Huet, Pierre-Daniel 58-59 Hugh of Lincoln 39n Huguenots 46, 82-83, 148

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Humboldt, Wilhelm von 136 Hungary 118 Hutton, Sarah 46n Hyamson, Albert M. 39n Hyman, Paula E. 98n, 168n Iberian Peninsula 25n Ifrah, Lionel 41n, 42n, 123n Imperialism 188 Innocent III, Pope 22 Innocent IV, Pope 74 Inquisition 25n, 43n, 69 Iofrida, Manlio 35n Ireland 16, 33, 37, 42n, 82n, 83, 85 Iselin, Isaak 125 Islam 44, 62-63 Israel 41, 46, 57, 67, 84, 173 Israel, Jonathan I. 26n Italy 12, 28n, 33, 53, 91n, 140, 143n, 149, 152, 155, 160, 163-164, 196 Jaffro, Laurent 62n Jagel, Abraham 48 Jaher, Frederic C. 168n Janner, Greville 87n Jenzsch, Helmut 92n Jerusalem 37n, 171n, 179-180 Jesus Christ 22, 35, 40, 47-49, 51, 63-64, 121, 173 Jew Bill 82-87, 93, 160 Jewish Law, Mosaic Law 37, 40, 45-48, 57, 65, 94, 101-102, 109, 114-117, 122-124, 127130, 149-151, 158-160 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor 16, 97n, 131-132, 137, 139,

142-143, 148, 151, 160-162, 192, 197 Josephus, Titus Flavius 47, 150 Judaism 16n, 17-19, 21-23, 2628, 32-35, 37-40, 43n, 44-49, 50n, 55-57, 59-60, 62-63, 6566, 78-80, 90-96, 98n, 101102, 115, 119, 121n, 128, 130-136, 149, 159, 165n, 167, 168n, 195n Julius, Anthony 39n, 43n, 84n, 87n, 196n Justi, Johann Heinrich Gottlob von 100 Kaplan, Yosef 41n, 123n Karaites 47 Karniel, Joseph 97n, 132n, 142n Karp, Jonathan 9, 16n, 19n, 26n, 37n, 45n, 46n, 166n Kassel 97 Katz, David S. 40, 41n, 42n, 43n, 47n, 50n, 52n, 84n, 87n Katz, Jacob 28n, 78, 79n, 89n, 92n, 95n, 134n, 168, 183n Kaufmann, Uri R. 98n, 134n, 168n Kaunitz, Anton 142, 151, 161 Kaznelson, Siegmund 92n Keene, Nicholas 46n, 50n Kennicott, Benjamin 50-51 Kidder, Richard 67 Klassen, Julie 136n Kleinheyer, Gerd 135n Königsberg 132n Kopitzsch, Franklin 102n Kosenina, Alexander 99n Kravitz, Kathryn F. 57n

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Kushner, Tony 43n, 95n L’Estrange, Roger 47n La Harpe, Bernard de 172n Lacretelle, Pierre-Louis 184n Lalor, Stephen 50n Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste de Monet de 184-185, 189 Lamennais, Hugues-Félicité Robert de 189n Lampronti, Isaac 158-159 Lang, Fritz 200 Langham, Raphael 43n, 86n Latitudinarianism 45, 46n Lavater, Johann Kaspar 177178 Le Camus de Mézières, Nicolas 175 Le Chapelier, Isaac René Guy 109n Lederer, Helen 31n, 89n Leghorn 43, 56, 76, 107, 141n, 162 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 198 Leoni, Bruno 165 Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor 162-163 Lerner, Lawrence S. 187n Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 92, 93n, 95, 102, 113 Levy, Richard S. 16n, 26n Liberles, Robert 89n Lieberman, Saul 99n Liebeschütz, Hans 91n, 92n Liedtke, Rainer 87n, 136n Lightfoot, John 45 Lincoln 39n Lindemann, Albert S. 16n, 26n

Linnaeus, Carl 184-185 Lipman, Vivian D. 43n Lisbon 76 Littleton, Charles 82n Lively, Edward 45 Locke, John 32, 35, 37, 48, 5254, 68, 78, 80, 103 Lombardy 16, 33, 38, 139-140, 142 Lombroso, Cesare 177 London 38, 39n, 42-43, 46, 48, 81, 83-84, 92n, 123, 143, 189n Lorraine 98n, 168n Lost Ten Tribes 41 Louis XIII, King of France 98 Louis XVI, King of France 99, 180n Lowenstein, Steven M. 90n, 91n, 92n, 132n, 136n Lucci, Diego 35n, 36n, 37n, 40n, 49n, 50n, 62n, 63n, 143n, 165n Lurbe, Pierre 37n, 83 Lüsebrink, Hans Jürgen 187n Luther, Martin 24, 26, 93 Lutheranism 24, 26, 93, 128, 133, 136 Luzzatto Voghera, Gadi 144n, 164n Luzzatto, Gino 143n Luzzatto, Sergio 186n, 189n Luzzatto, Simone 9, 17, 51-52, 55-57, 67, 70, 76-78, 162n Machiavelli, Niccolò 24 Maier, Johann Christian 126 Maimonides 57n, 149

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Malino, Frances 134n Malkiel, David 47n Malta 39 Malthus, Thomas Robert 181 Mandeville, Bernard 145 Mantua 11, 16, 33, 139-145, 148, 151n, 152, 154-158, 160-163 Marcus, Laura 18n, 194n Maria Theresa, Empress 16, 139, 141-143, 148, 152 Marlowe, Christopher 39 Marr, Wilhelm 19n, 195n Marseille 147 Marsham, John 59n Marx, Karl 152 Matar, Nibil I. 54n Maupertuis, Pierre-Louis Moreau de 185 McLachlan, Herbert J. 46n McMillan, James 187n, 189 Méchoulan, Henry 41n, 123n Medici, Paolo Sebastiano 149 Medina, Solomon de 43, 44n Melamed, Abraham 45n, 57 Menasseh ben Israel 9, 41-42, 52, 55, 70, 78, 123, 124n, 165n Mendelssohn, Moses 16, 31-32, 42n, 89, 92, 96-99, 102n, 113-116, 123-124, 128, 130-133, 137, 193-194 Mendes-Flohr, Paul R. 31n Mennonites 118, 133, 135 Mercantilism 17, 25-26, 33, 5157, 69-72, 75-81, 87, 96, 99, 112, 153-157 Mercier de La Rivière, Pierre-

Paul 144 Mercier, Louis-Sébastien 182 Messianism 41-42, 48-49, 55, 67, 128, 132n, 159n, 176 Messina 107 Metz 98n, 133, 134n, 167, 168n, 184n, 189 Meyer, Michael A. 91n, 132n Meyer, Pierre-André 98n, 168n Michaelis, Johann David 89, 94, 109, 119, 122-124, 130, 177178 Micheletti, Mario 46n Milan 140n, 151n, 152 Millenarianism 40-42, 55 Milton, John 37, 40 Mirabeau, Honoré Gabriel Victor de Riqueti, Comte de 133, 137 Mirabeau, Victor de Riqueti, Marquis de 144 Mitchell, Harvey 9, 16n, 28n, 175n Modena, Leon 47 Möller, Horst 89n, 99n Monferrato 156 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat de 143, 145, 157, 176 Moravia 142 More, Thomas 65 Moreau, Basil 189n Morgan, Thomas 49 Morisi, Anna 41n Morocco 177 Mortimer, Sarah 46n Moses, 17, 57-63, 65, 67, 150 Mosse, George L. 91n, 136n, 183n

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Müller, Adam Heinrich 197

Ozouf, Mona 166n, 183

Nahon, Gérard 41n Nancy 167, 168n Nantes, Edict of 82, 148 Naples 107 Napoleon Bonaparte 12, 16n, 143, 163, 188, 190 Napoleonic era 12, 28n, 92n, 136-137, 163, 190 Native Americans 40-41 Natural law, law of nature 24, 49, 53, 64, 68, 77, 98-101, 109, 132-133, 158 Nazism 137, 182-184, 190 Nelson, Eric 45, 46n Netherlands 35, 45, 53, 69, 76, 107 Newcastle, Thomas PelhamHolles, 1st Duke of 84 Newman, Aubrey 86n Newton, Isaac 48, 58 Newtonianism 16, 36-37 Nicolai, Friedrich 99 Niekerk, Carl 92n Nieto, David 43 Nissim, Daniele 156n Norway 108 Norwich 39n Nye, Stephen 62, 63n

Paalzow, Christian L. 126n Padua 179 Paganism, Heathenism 36, 6364, 159 Palatinate 82, 118 Palatines 82-83 Palermo 107 Palestine 122, 176, 180 Pantheism 16-17, 36, 58-61 Paoli, Pasquale 143 Parente, Fausto 159n Paris 11, 134n, 180n Paris Commune 11 Paris, Matthew 74 Parma 159-160 Paucker, Arnold 91n, 92n Paul IV, Pope 26, 140 Paul, Saint 64-65 Pavia 155, 160 Peabody, Sue 166n Pearl, Elizabeth 48n Pelham, Henry 84 Percival, Melissa 177n Perpetua servitus 22 Perry, Thomas W. 82n, 84n, 85 Petit, Alain 62n Petuchowski, Jakob J. 43n Physiocrats 17, 29, 93-94, 100, 109-110, 123, 129, 137, 144, 153, 157 Picardie 176 Piedmont 28n, 156 Plantagenet dynasty 38 Plato 65 Plongeron, Bernard 188 Pluchon, Pierre 187n

Oceana 46, 54n, 67 Orsi, Laura 37n Orwell, George 200 Osnabrück 108 Ostiano 155n, 160 Ottoman Empire 53 Oxford 45, 47-48,

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Pocock, J. G. A. 46n Pococke, Edward 45 Poland 76, 132, 154 Poliakov, Léon 9, 183n, 186n Pollins, Harold 39n Pomata, Gianna 179n Pombal, Sebastiao José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of 192 Popkin, Jeremy D. 166n, 183n, 187n, 189n Popkin, Richard H. 41n, 50n, 123n, 166n, 183n, 187n, 189n Populationism 69, 96, 100, 146 Porter, Roy 37n Portugal 25, 140, 162, 171, 192 Post-Westphalian State 10, 2426, 198 Prague 76, 142 Prideaux, Humphrey 44, 48, 51, 149-150, 159 Proteophobia 19-21 Protestant Church of Prussia 113-114, 136 Protestant Reformation 23-24 Provence 176 Prussia 11, 16, 18, 28n, 66n, 90, 91n, 93, 99-100, 113-114, 119n, 132-136, 196 Prynne, William 42, 74, 80 Pufendorfian tradition 101, 109 Puritans 40-43, 55, 74 Quesnay, François 144 Rabinowicz, Oskar K. 44n Racism, Racialism 19-20, 25, 124-125, 137-138, 182-190,

191-200 Radin, Paul 37n Ragg, Laura 62n Ragg, Lonsdale 62n Ramazzini, Bernardino 179-180 Ravid, Benjamin 55n, 57 Rechter, David 87n, 136n Reimarus, Hermann Samuel 94 Reinharz, Jehuda 31n, 55n, 91n, 92n Religious toleration 32, 36-37, 43-44, 51-57, 62-66, 81, 9096, 126-128, 130-137, 142, 148, 150-151, 160-164 Religious Wars 23-24, 29, 92-93, 173, 192, 197 Renan, Ernest 175n Replacement theology, supersessionism 17, 21-28, 48, 102 Republicanism 16-17, 27, 29-30, 37, 45-46, 52-55, 60-66, 80 Reuss, Franz 89n Reventlow, Henning G. 49n, 50n Richardson, Henry G. 39n Richarz, Monika 92n Risse, Regina 90n Robertson, Ritchie 92n, 95n Robespierre, Maximilien 29 Roman Empire 105-106, 119, 128 Roman Law 10, 105-106, 193 Roman Republic 145 Rome 65, 76, 105, 140-141, 156, 164, 171n Rosenthal, Laura 171n Ross, Alexander 45 Ross, J. M. 82n Roth, Cecil 41n

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Rothschild family 82 Rothschild, Lionel de 86-87, 107n Rotterdam 46 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 29, 114 Ruderman, David B. 43n, 49n, 50n, 56 Rüdiger, Johann C. C. 118n Russell, John 86 Russia 11 Russo, Raffaele 54n Sadrin, Paul 174n Salbstein, Martin C. N. 87n Samuel, Wilfred S. 82n Sandauer, Artur 18n Saraval, Jacob Raphael 160 Schatzberg, Walter 91n, 92n Schechter, Ronald 9, 16n, 27, 30, 33, 96n, 167, 187n Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph 197 Schlaich, Klaus 114n Schleiermacher, Friedrich 136n Schlettwein, Johann August 93, 94n, 123, 129 Schlözer, August Ludwig von 94, 120 Schmitt, Carl 188 Schrötter, Leopold von 136 Schulz, Günter 91n Schwager, Johann Moritz 121122 Schwarzfuchs, Simon 98n, 168n Scotland 35, 42n, 74, 85 Secher, Reynald 190n Segal, Lester A. 47n, 119n Selden, John 45-46, 63n, 71,

158-159 Selig, Gottfried 95 Senckenberg, Heinrich C. F. von 106n Septimus, Bernard 57 Sessa, Giuseppe 149 Shakespeare, William 39 Shapiro, James S. 39n Sharon, Diane M. 57n Sheehan, Jonathan 50n Shylock 39n Sidney, Algernon 37, 80 Silvera, Myriam 47n, 119n Simon of Trent 140 Simon, Richard 36, 47 Simonsohn, Shlomo 140n Sina, Mario 50n Slessarev, Helga 102n Smith, Adam 100-101, 158 Snobelen, Stephen D. 46n, 49n Soboul, Albert 187 Socinianism 35, 46n Socrates 32, 56, 128 Sombart, Werner 152 Sonnenfels, Joseph von 100 Sorkin, David 92n, 131n, 189n Sosna, Daniel 90n Sox, David 62n Spain 25, 39, 69, 140, 148, 162, 171 Sparta 65 Spellman, William M. 46n Spencer, John 45, 59n Sperges, Joseph von 147 Spinoza, Baruch 17, 36, 57, 5960, 67 Spree River 94n Starck, Johann W. 126n

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Statt, Daniel 82n, 83n Stern, Selma 91n Stillingfleet, Edward 44 Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara 197n Stovall, Tyler 166n Stow, Kenneth R. 21, 22n Strasbourg 98 Stuttgart 37n Süssmilch, Johann Peter 100, 145 Sullivan, Robert E. 35n Sutcliffe, Adam 9, 16n, 19n, 26, 28, 45n, 46n, 57n, 60n, 66, 166n, 167 Svarez, Carl Gottlieb 134-135 Sweden 108 Swetschinski, Daniel 55n Szajkowski, Zosa 98n, 168n Tacitus, Publius Cornelius 5657, 60 Talmud 41, 95, 146, 149-150, 155n, 158-160 Taylor, Derek 87n Taylor, Thomas 46n, 47 Teller, Wilhelm Abraham 99, 136 Temeswar (Timisoara) 118 Thiéry, Adolphe 167, 168n Tilsit, Treaties of 136 Tindal, Matthew 49-50 Tocqueville, Alexis de 172n Todorov, Tzvetan 182, 183n Toland, John 11, 16-18, 32-33, 35-38, 44, 48, 50n, 51-81, 87-88, 107n, 123n, 160n, 162n, 170, 196-197 Toleration Act 37, 44, 81

Tories 66-67, 83-85 Tortarolo, Edoardo 94n Totalitarianism 188, 195, 200 Toury, Jacob 90n, 91n Tovey, D’Blossiers 48 Tower of Babel 40, 189n Transylvania 46n Trent 140 Trentino 140 Trieste 160 Tudor dynasty 39 Tully, James H. 53n Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques 109, 129 Turin 149, 165n Turkey 76 Tuscany 38, 162 Twersky, Isadore 57n Tytler, Graeme 177n Unitarianism 44-45, 46n, 49, 62, 63n Unzer, Johann Christoph 116n Utopia 65 Valman, Nadia 95n Van Kley, Dale 183 Vanderjagt, Arjo 50n Vandermonde, Charles-Augustin 186n Varnhagen, Rahel 136n Varnum, Fanny 172n Velo Dalbrenta, Daniele 177n Vendée 190, 196 Venice 9, 39, 43, 48, 53, 55n, 56, 57n, 65, 76, 148n, 156, 160n, 180n Venturi, Franco 139n, 143n

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Verri, Alessandro 139 Verri, Pietro 139 Vichy 190 Vienna 92n, 120n, 142, 152, 162, 180n, 189n Vigne, Randolph 82n Viguerie, Jean de 186n Viterbo, Ariel 56 Vivanti family 156 Vivanti, Corrardo 143n, 154n Volney, Constantin-François 172n Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet 16n, 28-29, 119n, 143n, 174-175, 185, 189, 198 Vossius, Gerard 58 Vossius, Isaac 50 Wagenseil, Johann C. 106n Walton, Brian 45-46n War of the Spanish Succession 82 Washington, George 172n Weiner, Max 37n Wells 67 Wessely, Naphtali Hirz 116, 130, 132n, 137 Westphalia, Peace of 24 Whigs 43, 66-67, 83-85 Whiston, William 48-49, 51 Whitehall Conference 42-43 Wievorka, Michel 183n Wigelsworth, Jeffrey R. 36n Wilbur, Earl M. 46n Wilkins, John 40 Willes, John 47 William I “the Conqueror,” King of England 38, 74

William of Norwich 39n Williams, Daniel 62, 63n Wolf, Lucien 41n, 42n, 123n Wollaston, William 49 Wöllner, Johann Christoph von 133 World War II 12, 91n, 190, 196 Württemberg 108 Wyetzner, Peter 65n Yardeni, Myriam 47n, 119n Yerushalmi, Yosef H. 179n York 39n, 74 Zagagi, Lea 165n Zangen, Carl G. von 126n Zenetti, Odoardo 161 Zinguer, Ilana Y. 123n, 177n

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