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Napoleon And The JewsNapoleon and the Jews. The rise of Napoleon Bonaparte proved an important event in the emancipation of the Jews of Europe from old laws restricting them to Jewish ghettos, as well as limiting rights to property, worship, and careers. Napoleon's Law and the Jews The French Revolution abolished the different treatment of people according to religion or origin that existed under the monarchy; the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen guaranteed freedom of religion and free exercise of worship, provided that it did not contradict public order. At that time, most other European countries implemented measures restricting the rights of people from minority religions. The conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte had the effect to spread the modernist ideas of revolutionary France with respect to the equality of citizens and the rule of law. Starting in 1806, Napoleon passed a number of measures supporting the position of the Jews in the French Empire, including assembling a representative group elected by the Jewish community, the Sanhedrin. In conquered countries, he abolished laws restricting Jews to ghettos. In 1807, he made Judaism, along with Roman Catholicism and Lutheran and Calvinist Protestantism, official religions of France. Under great pressure from his allies, he rolled back some of these reforms, but reinstated them in 1811. Though Napoleon may have had some special goodwill towards the Jews, he was clearly also acting for political reasons. He hoped to use equality as a way of gaining advantage from discriminated groups, like Jews or Catholics. Both aspects of his thinking can be seen in a response to a physician who asked why he pressed for the emancipation of the Jews, after his exile in 1816: - My primary desire was to liberate the Jews and make them full citizens. I wanted to confer upon them aIl the legal rights of equality, liberty and fraternity as was enjoyed by the Catholics and Protestants. It is my wish that the Jews be treated like brothers as if we were aIl part of Judaism. As an added benefit, I thought that this would bring to France many riches because the Jews are numerous and they would come in large numbers to our country where they would enjoy more privileges than in any other nation. Without the events of 1814, most of the Jews of Europe would have come to France where equality, fraternity and liberty awaited them and where they can serve the country like everyone else.
Napoleon and a Jewish State in Palestine? During the siege of Acre in 1799, Napoleon prepared a proclamation declaring a Jewish state in Palestine. The siege was lost to the British, however, and the plan was never carried out. The text follows: -
- Letter to the Jewish Nation from the French Commander-in-Chief Buonaparte
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- (translated from the Original, 1799)
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- General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th, 1799,
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- in the year of 7 of the French Republic
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- BUONAPARTE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
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- IN AFRICA AND ASIA, TO THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS OF PALESTINE.
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- Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have been able to be deprived of their ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence !
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- Attentive and impartial observers of the destinies of nations, even though not endowed with the gifts of seers like Isaiah and Joel, have long since also felt what these, with beautiful and uplifting faith, have foretold when they saw the approaching destruction of their kingdom and fatherland: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35,10)
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- Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled ! A war unexampled In the annals of history, waged in self-defense by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by its enemies as plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by a stroke of the pen of Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of the remotest nations, long forgotten under the yoke of slavery, and also, the almost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon you; and, while time and circumstances would seem to be least favourable to a restatement of your claims or even to their expression,and indeed to be compelling their complet abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, Israel's patrimony !
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- The young army with which Providence has sent me hither, let by justice and accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my head-quarters and will, within a few days, transfer them to Damascus, a proximity which is no longer terrifying to David's city.
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- Rightful heirs of Palestine !
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- The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as did those which sold your ancestors unto all people (Joel,4,6) herewith calls on you not indeed to conquer your patrimony ;nay, only to take over that which has been conquered and, with that nation's warranty and support, to remain master of it to maintain it against all comers.
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- Arise ! Show that the former overwhelming might of your oppressors has but repressed the courage of the descendants of those heroes who alliance of brothers would have done honour even to Sparta and Rome (Maccabees 12, 15) but that the two thousand years of treatment as slaves have not succeeded in stifling it.
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- Hasten !, Now is the moment, which may not return for thousands of years, to claim the restoration of civic rights among the population of the universe which had been shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years, your political existence as a nation among the nations, and the unlimited natural right to worship Jehovah in accordance with your faith, publicly and most probably forever (JoeI 4,20).
Napoleon's Legacy But Napoleon's indirect influence on the fate of the Jews was even more powerful than any of the decrees recorded in his name. By breaking up the feudal trammels of mid-Europe and introducing the equality of the French Revolution he effected more for Jewish emancipation than had been accomplished during the three preceding centuries. The consistory of Westphalia became a model for other German provinces until after the fall of Napoleon, and the condition of the Jews in the Rhine provinces was permanently improved as a consequence of their subjection to Napoleon or his representatives. Heine and Brne both record their sense of obligation to the liberality of Napoleon's principles of action, and the German Jews in particular have always regarded Napoleon as one of the chief forerunners of emancipation in Germany. When Jews were selecting surnames, some of them are said to have expressed their gratitude by taking the name of "Schntheil," a translation of "Bonaparte," and legends grew up about Napoleon's activity in the Jewish ghettos. References
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