Trudy Gold
Napoleon, the Jews and Jewish Identity, Part 1
Trudy Gold | Napoleon, the Jews and Jewish Identity, Part 1 | 07.27.21
- Good morning, Jude. Good morning, Trudy.
Good morning, Wendy.
Good morning.
Good morning, everybody who’s logging in now.
I do love the logo. It does look very, very chic.
I’m so glad. I’m so glad that you like the logo. We really worked very hard on it.
I know. It’s beautiful.
It took a long time to come up with a logo that really worked for us. So I just want to thank the guys. Actually, I worked together with the guys who worked on the Take logo, so, you know, want to say thanks to them. It took a while, but I think we’ve come up with a winning logo.
You tell me when you’re ready for me to start, Wendy.
So just before you start, Trudy. Sorry, I know this is not even relevant, but so many of my friends are online today, and I just wanted to say thank you, just to say that my family, they all have Covid in LA But they’re all fine and they’re doing well. So I’m not sending so many emails. I just wanted say thank for your concern. Everybody’s doing brilliantly and on the mend or on the way to recovery.
Thank goodness.
[Judy] Wendy, there have been some messages for your mom just wishing her a speedy recovery from a number of people online already today. Just to let you know.
Thank you so much to all our friends and to all our family. And now over to you. I’m sorry that we have to discuss this.
No, we’re a community. Thank you for that.
So today we’re going be doing “Napoleon, the Jews, and Jewish Identities,” a follow-on from yesterday’s. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Wendy.
[Wendy] Thanks. Thanks everyone.
Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.
- Good evening, everyone, from London. And yesterday I hoped you heard William give his brilliant lecture on Napoleon. And, of course, Napoleon is such an incredibly important figure in European history, in world history. And now it’s rather like the Jew and the elephant joke, but now I want to concentrate on the role of Jews in the French Revolution and at the time of Napoleon. One of the threads that keeps coming through my presentations is Jewish identity. And don’t forget that extraordinary statement of Elias Canetti. “There are no people more difficult to understand than the Jews.”
If we have problems with our own identity, the outside world does. And what you need to understand with the French Revolution, and, of course, with the work of Napoleon Bonaparte, you are going to see a concrete shift in how Jews identify themselves. And, of course, it doesn’t come from nothing. The French Revolution, and I’m going to just read to you a clause, Article One. This is August the 26th, 1789. It’s postdating the American Revolution. And both of them are, if you like, charters of the Enlightenment. And over the years, I’ve discussed what the Enlightenment means.
Many of you will have read many, many books on the European Enlightenment. It’s basically a movement in philosophy and thought that took over 100 years to gestate. Most historians see its origins in the terrible wars of religion between 1618 and 1648 when something like a third of the German lands were killed in the most appalling way. Europe went to war, ostensibly over the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. But it was also about power, about economics. And the brutality and the fact that it was in the name of religion led thinkers to redefine, and also, remember, it’s a product of more learning. It’s a product of the Renaissance.
It’s a product of the learning of the world of Greece and Rome being discovered. It’s also having philosophers time in France, in Britain, and, of course, in the German lands, to think about, and Holland, to think about what is the nature of the human condition. And the Enlightenment, the subtext, it’s the age of reason. And believe it or not, and sitting in 2021, and I remember my great friend Robert Wistrich, his terrible words when he said, “Trudy, tragically, I think the Enlightenment is a blip.” Because what the Enlightenment was about was this. There was this dream that if we educated everybody to a certain level, and education is bildung, to give it the German word, culture, cultivation, education, people would understand that there were universal truths in the world, and they would also understand the need for reason.
The first article of the French National Assembly, it’s absolutely revolutionary in European history. “All men are born and remain free and equal in rights, social distinctions, and cannot be found but on common utility. No person shall be molested for his opinions, even such as are religious, provided that the manifest of these opinions do not disturb the public order established by law.” Now, of course, the French Revolution was about far more than ideas. It was about the corruption of the Ancien Regime. It was about the rise of an educated middle class. It was about the beginnings of modernization. But the point is it explodes into the revolution, which is a revolution that kills the king.
Now, what on earth has this got to do with the Jews? I want to say very, very clearly, the Jews are absolutely irrelevant to the French Revolution and to the work of Napoleon Bonaparte. But it is central to their identity. I’ve said to you when I’ve lectured on Zionist history, Zionist historians will say that in the diaspora, from the fall of some sort of semi-independence in Judea to the modern period, Jews could only react to the forces around them. They could never control their own destiny. And certainly with the French Revolution, what happens to the Jews is just a really, if you like, clear up, an anomaly.
So I’m just going to give you an overview of which Jews lived in France. Now, the largest community was actually in Alsace-Lorraine. There were between 20, 25,000 of them. There were about 3,500 in Metz in the surrounding area. The numbers had been swelled. They were Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish was their language. Their numbers had been swelled by 1648, again, at the end of the Thirty Years’ War, horrific massacres broke out in the kingdom of Poland, and you have Jews moving back to the West. So you have a community of Yiddish speaking Ashkenazi Jews, very restricted, not allowed into most of the cities.
Basically, they are small petty money lenders, traders, secondhand clothes dealers, eking out a living and living very separately from the outside world. But there was another community. There was a community of Sephardi Jews, ex-conversos who, of course, had fled Spain and Portugal because of the Inquisition. Important to remember, in 1492 when the Jews were expelled from Spain and five years later expelled from Portugal. Why? Because of a marriage contract. When the daughter of the king of Spain married the king of Portugal, written into the marriage contract was the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal.
Now, Jews were never the target of the Inquisition. The only people hit by the Inquisition were conversos. Thousands and thousands and thousands of Jews and Moors, known as the Marranos, beg your pardon, known as the Moriscos, the conversos and the Moriscos. They had changed their religion in order to keep up with the benefits of the kind of life they had in Spain and Portugal. Occasionally religious conversions, but I think mainly not. But the point was these people were always under threat from the Inquisition. And many of them later find sanctuary in other places. So you have quite a large community in Bordeaux, about 10,500.
There’s also a small community in Bayonne. And you have a few Jews living under papal rule in the contact. So you have a community of about 40,000, the majority Ashkenazi. But the Sephardi Jews are very different because they had been conversos. They were used to mixing in gentile society. In the main, they were wine growers. They were much wealthier. So that was the story of the Jews at the time of the French Revolution. Now, what happens at the time of the revolution? You have this extraordinary storming of the Bastille and the screaming of “liberty, equality, fraternity.”
And I want to state very clearly, it’s in terms of the 1789. It doesn’t apply to many groups in French society. It only applied to men over 25, and there were still slaves in the French colonies. So let’s be very careful. In terms of 1789, it was very, very enlightened. And I want to echo what William has said about this kind of issue. “I think it’s important to teach history within the context of the period.” Yes. Why on earth weren’t the slaves freed? Yes. What about women? Yes. What about the poor? Et cetera, et cetera. And of course when you look at it through the eyes of 2021, you might say, “Well, it isn’t as good as it as it appears to be.”
But I’d like you really to see it in its historic context in a world where, if you cross over into the Russian Empire, the serfs are the largest empire in the world. The serfs aren’t going to be freed ‘til 1863. If you go over the border into the German lands, over 360 separate states, all ruled by autocracy. There are slivers of light in Holland, in England, but that’s for another time. So let’s talk now about the Jews because as far as the revolutionaries are concerned, there is an anomaly to be cleared up. So could we please see the first picture? If you don’t mind, Judy. After Napoleon, the wonderful picture of Napoleon.
Let’s have a look at, my French pronunciation is never good. I hope Patrick’s not online to giggle at me. Henri Jean-Baptiste Gregoire. His dates are 1750 to 1831. Now, he’s a very, very interesting man. He came from a relatively poor background, but he was taken on by the Jesuits. Jesuit education is amongst the best in the world. They study for 12 years in a seminary, and it gives you a very, very careful, crafted education. There are some who say it rivals a Yeshiva education. But the problem with the Jesuits is they do not procreate. But that’s another story. He was incredibly bright.
And in 1783, this is under the reign of Louis XVI still, he writes an essay, “Essay on the Physical and Moral Regeneration of the Jews,” because individuals are now beginning to look at the Jewish question. And this essay is going to win him a very important prize at the Metz assembly. The French took great store by intellectuality. I’m just going to read a little bit from this essay. Now remember the title, “An Essay on the Physical, Moral and Political Reformation of the Jews.” This is how it starts. “But the Jews, I am told, are incapable of being reformed because they are absolutely worthless. I reply that we see few of them commit murder or other enormous crimes that calls for public vengeance.”
And then he goes on to say, “There have been so many laws against the Jews, all supposing them a natural and indelible worthlessness. But these laws, which are the fruit of hatred or prejudice, have no other foundation but the motives which give rise to them.” We see talent and virtue shine forth in them whenever they begin to be treated as men, which has so long been their paradise in Holland or even amongst us,“ et cetera, et cetera. Then he goes on to say, "Let us cherish morality, but let us not be so unreasonable as to require of those who we have compelled to become vicious. Let us reform their education to reform their hearts. It’s long been observed that they are men as well as we. And they are so before they are Jews.”
So he’s saying there is something, yes, there is something wrong with the Jews, but we have made them that way. And remember, this is a forward-thinking charter. “The Jews, everywhere dispersed yet nowhere established, have only the spirit of a body which is entirely different from the spirit of the nation. For this reason, it has been observed, they form always a state within a state because they are never treated as children of the country.” But says, Mr. Mikal, this is a man who is against the reform of the Jews, “They will always look towards Palestine as the seat of their repose and will never consider other countries.”
And he goes on to say, “If you give them the joy of being part of our state, when he becomes a member of the state, attached to it by ties of pleasure, security, liberty, and ease, the spirit of the body will become diminished in him. He will not be tempted to transport his riches elsewhere when his landed property had fixed him in this country. When he has acquired it, he would cherish his mother. That is to say, his country, the interests of which will be confounded with his own.” This is incredibly important because, basically, here you have an essay from a man who’s going to become a very important thinker and a member of the French general assembly. And what he’s basically saying is we need to reform the Jews.
If we reform them, if we allow them to become citizens, and this is, remember, before the revolution. “If we allow them to become citizens, if we give them the benefit of France, they will learn to love France.” “At the moment,” he says, “they are thought of as a state within a state.” Go back to Elias Canetti, “No people more difficult to understand than the Jews.” Now, I just want to talk a little more about his background because he’s going to come into the story again. He was a supporter of the revolution.
He was elected to the Estates General, and he actually presided and become, he’s a brilliant speaker, a very important figure. He actually presides over a 62-hour session that happened on July the 4th when, of course, the Bastille was being stormed. And he took a leading role in the abolition of privileges of the nobility and of the clergy. He was an ardent republican. He called for the abolition of the monarchy. He wanted a trial, but he was against the execution.
After the revolution, like all revolutions, it usually gets out of control, be it in ideas, be it in physical revolution. And France moves into what we call the Reign of Terror. Like many of the revolutionaries who deserted religion altogether, he still celebrated Mass in his own. And after the terror abated, he was one of the first to say let’s open the churches again. And he was very important in many ways because he also coined the term vandalism as a reference to the destruction of property, art, artefacts. He was horrified at the destruction of some of the beauty of Paris by the Reign of Terror. He was a very wide individual in his thinking, actually, in many ways of his time. I think he was a bit of a hero.
He took great interest in the abolition of slavery in the French Empire. He published many books on the equality of the peoples. He was responsible for a motion in the general assembly in 1791 that allowed some wealthy free men of colour in the French colonies to have the same rights as white men. And he wrote many books on the story of people of colour. And he advocated that people of colour were equal in every way, including the intellect, to people of white skin. And he said many times in the general assembly that the “supposed degeneracy of the Jew was not inherent, but it’s very much a result of circumstances” and, he said, though, “the ridiculous teachings of their rabbis.” He didn’t like what he called the supposition, but he did believe they could be turned into citizens.
So you have a man who’s already discussing these ideas and was a very, very important figure in the fight for Jewish emancipation in the general assembly. You know, it’s interesting, there’s only 40,000 Jews in France, but they are an anomaly and it has to be cleaned up. Can we now turn to the next picture, please, because I want you to see the faces of characters who are going to be so important in the fight. This is the Count de Clermont Tonnerre. Now, he was also a revolutionary. He was a liberal aristocrat and he also advocated emancipation of the Jews in the debate in the assembly, which I’m going to talk about in a minute. He actually was murdered by the Reign of Terror.
Remember, he was an aristocrat. Before his terrible murder in the guillotine, he was the spokesman of a minority of liberal aristocrats who were in favour of revolution. There were many in France who believed that the old regime had to change, including members of the aristocracy. And he, of course, was another figure. And I just wanted to reclaim him because he was very important in the fight for Jewish rights. Now, shall we see the next one, please, if you don’t mind? Yes, now, Count Louis-Matthieu Mole, he’s going to be very important because he is going to be one of those individuals who later works for Napoleon when Napoleon really does decide how Jews are going to fit into French society.
So I wanted you to see his face. And his background, he lived a long life. He was a very clever diplomat and he was a slippery kind of character. If I give you his background, I think you’ll understand what I mean. His father was president of the parliament in Paris and was, remember, he’s an aristocrat. His father was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. He managed to escape. He came to Switzerland and then London. London was a great haven for aristocrats who could make it over the channel. And you can just imagine at the court of George III and then, of course, the Prince Regent, what it was like, all the aristocrats coming into London.
And ironically, I gave a presentation last week on Alexander Korda, and one of his great films starring Leslie Howard was “The Scarlet Pimpernel.” And that was very much, “Let’s protect England against the evil foreigners.” And you know, when you’re dealing with the French Revolution, it’s much more complicated than that. Anyway, after the Reign of Terror had abated, he returns to Paris. He was very much part of the intellectual salon life. You know, if you think about as the terror abates, the salon is back in Paris, and many of these wonderful society hostesses, including Josephine, they very much court the intellectuals, to meet up with the military, et cetera. It’s a very exciting time.
He actually wrote a series of essays on morality and politics. It attracted attention of Napoleon. Napoleon was very, remember, William called him a genius. Napoleon was interested in ideas and he invited him as a young man to join his Council of State. And he’s going to become his advisor on Jewish affairs. I just wanted to give you the end of his career because he becomes the minister of justice in 1813, and after the fall of Napoleon, and when Louis XVIII comes to the throne, he becomes a peer of France. He manages to keep with favour with various regimes.
And, of course, he falls. And in 1830, he is minister of foreign affairs of Louis Philippe. 1836, he becomes the prime minister. He was elected to the Academie Francaise. And he was very important in the creation of the encyclopaedias. Now, this is the really the beginnings of the spread of knowledge. Important encyclopedists codifying the knowledge of whatever’s available. Rousseau, Deterro, they’re all involved in this, this belief that you educate. This is the age of reason, but the Count Mole was also very, very pragmatic. Now, who were the Jews who were involved and who are going to be important for Napoleon? Can we just see the first of them?
This is Abraham Furtado. Now Abraham Furtado is going to be the leader of something called the Assembly of Notables, which Napoleon will call, and he’s going to be the main spokesman of the Jews in France. And he came from a Sephardi background. You see how clean shaven he is? He dresses as a Frenchman. His dates are 1756 to 1817. He was born in London in 1856. He was born posthumously to a family of conversos. His father had died in the Lisbon fire, the horrible earthquake and fire of 1755, a very important earthquake and then the terrible fires that raged Lisbon. His mother then moved to, she was in London. She then moved to Bayonne and then to Bordeaux. And she outwardly practised Judaism.
She throws off the shackles. He came from a very wealthy merchant family. He practised as a merchant. He also bought and sold land, which there were letters patent awarded under the kings, under the French kings, which allowed Sephardi Jews to have far wider rights than their Ashkenazi brethren. He was very financially secure. So he spent a lot of time studying scientific knowledge, historic knowledge, philosophical knowledge. Later on, some of the Ashkenazi rabbis said of him, “He learnt his Judaism through Voltaire.” Now, back in 1788, he sat on a very interesting commission. Even in the reign of Louis XVI, there was still interest in how do we deal with the Jews. And the Malesherbes Commission, named for Chretien de Malesherbes who was a French aristocrat.
It was to see, remember, I’ve already talked about the essay in Metz. Can the Jews be reformed? Malesherbes came from a very important family. His father was the director of the library under Louis XV, which meant he was in charge of censorship. And he was also very involved in the encyclopaedia movement, which is so important. He’s an aristocrat. But not only did he help with the encyclopedists, he sought to give opinions. This is a quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. “He sought not just to give opinions but to guide opinions.” He was elected to the Academie Francaise and he held office under Louis the XVI but only for nine months. He was very against the excesses of royal power.
Now, in this commission, which Abraham Furtado has said, he brought in six Jews, some from Alsace-Lorraine, some from the Sephardi community, to discuss whether Jews were capable of being reformed. Now, what interested him was how different the two communities were and how they couldn’t agree on anything. He actually wanted to improve the treatment of Jews. But what he really wanted was their conversion. And he wanted to weaken their communal ties. And so what happened to him was, in fact, when Louis XVI was imprisoned, he’s a lawyer and he offers to defend him. And it was he who had to inform him of the death sentence. Then in the Reign of Terror, he was arrested with his whole family, which included his wife, his children, his grandchildren, and they all went to the guillotine.
So, his sister, just to give you a notion of the Reign of Terror and the excesses of it all, his elder sister, who was 78, was executed a year later along with the king’s sister, Madame Elizabeth. The revolution became incredibly cruel. But going back to Furtado, not only is he on the commission, later on, as I said, his name is going to keep on coming up, and he falls in love with France. Can we see the next picture please, Judy? Now this is Berr Isaac Berr. His dates, 1744 to 1828. He’s also represented on the Malesherbes Commission. He came from a very wealthy Alsatian family. He was a manufacturer. His family were actually in the tobacco business, and he was also a very successful banker.
From city to city, from town to town in Europe, despite the abysmal condition of the majority of Jews, this has already been discussed, the majority of courts had court Jews. These are bankers, usually interconnected by marriage, who really were terribly important in finance, but they would only last as long as the regime favoured them. So anyway, he came from a very wealthy, established family. And he was unusual because he, in terms of the Sephardim, he is an Ashkenazi, remember, and unlike Furtado, he had a very excellent Jewish education in Hebrew, rabbinic literature. And he’d been taught by the chief rabbi of Narsi.
Now, wealthy Ashkenazi Jews, for them, it was still let us be taught within the Jewish world. This is going to become one of the most important aspects of modernity and the French Revolution and Napoleon because where do you educate your children? For Berr Isaac Berr, what was important for his family, he has a solid Jewish education. And in 1789, when the issue of Jewish emancipation is going to be debated by the French general assembly, not only did he appear at the Malesherbes Commission, but he’s elected by the Jews of Alsace-Lorraine as one of the six spokespeople to speak on behalf of the Jews of France. He’d had the courage before then to publish a pamphlet refuting the anti-Jewish discourse of the bishop of Norsi.
As I said, he’s going to be very, very important. And later on, under Napoleon, he’s going to be effective in the organisation of Jewish worship in France and in Italy. In old age, he was pensioned off by Louis the XVIII. He was a very prodigious author of his own times. So these are the characters that are going to keep on coming into the story. So let us now go back to the story. The French revolution. Can Jews really, are they worthy of emancipation? And frankly, it took the French assembly quite a long time to debate it. And what happens is in the end, the debate on the eligibility of the Jews, this is Monsieur le Count of Clermont Tonnerre, talks about how the Declaration of the Rights of Man have assured citizenship. “I will now deal with religion. No one should be persecuted for his religious beliefs.”
And he goes on to say that all a religion should do in order for Jews to be emancipated, is to prove one thing, that it is religion. That its religion is moral. “If there is a religion that commands theft and arson, it is necessary to refuse eligibility. Provided the Jews can prove that Judah is a moral religion, they should be emancipated.” Then he said something very, very famous. And this is really daunt Jewish history, I would suggest, right up until the present time. That’s why I was so keen to begin to look at Jewish identity with you. I know many of you would’ve spent an awful lot of time talking about identity. Very much it’s really at the core of who we are.
Are we citizens of the countries in which we live? Are those countries totally welcoming of us? That area at the end of the eastern Mediterranean, the Jewish state of Israel, are we a nationality? And now the Jews are going to be put in a position in France, and it’s going to be much more important than just France because, as Williams told you, Napoleon becomes the great conqueror and he is going to follow the ideas to every country he conquers.
So, this is what Count Clermont Tonnerre, remember, he’s a great advocate of Jewish rights, but, and this is famous, “The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals. They must be citizens. It’s claimed that they do not want to be citizens. That they say this and that they are excluded. There cannot be one nation within another nation. It is intolerable that the Jews should become a separate political formation or class in the country. Every one of them must individually become a citizen. If they do not want this, they must inform us and we shall be compelled to expel them. The existence of a nation within a nation is unacceptable to our country.” Okay.
So that is Clermont Tonnerre. Now, what happens is there’s a lot of debates, it isn’t passed. But then the Sephardim actually proved that they have all these letters patent going back centuries and they are granted emancipation. And then in September 1791, it is finally granted to all the Jews of France, 40,000 of them. Now, what does emancipation mean in human terms? There were about 500 Jews living illegally in Paris, by the way. What emancipation means is you have the rights of citizenship. You know, let me give you a little device. We call it the crisis of modernity. In Chinese, there are two figures that represent crisis. One is danger, one is opportunity. What is the crisis of modernity? What is the danger of modernity? What is the opportunity of modernity.
Well, let’s go back to Berr Isaac Berr. He had a very good religious education. Are his children going to go to the Sorbonne? Or rather, is his son going to go to the Sorbonne? You can now own land. I’m talking about the Alsatian Jews. Sephardi Jews already had all sorts of privileges. You can enter whatever trade or profession you choose. You can live in Paris. You have geographical freedom. But what is the danger? What is the price? Now, they’re finally emancipated in September 1791. Napoleon takes over the state. When he’s returning from the Battle of Austerlitz, a group of deputies, and, of course, Napoleon pulls it back a little, doesn’t he? The French Revolution became secular. Napoleon does a deal with the Pope. He reintroduces Catholicism.
As William said yesterday, religion was very unimportant to Napoleon, but he understood the power of the Catholic Church. So he’s going back, but more than anything else in home affairs, and this comes over strongly, He believes in the central power of the French state. He wants to control everything that goes on in France. So he’s returning from the Battle of Austerlitz when a group of deputies, led by a man called Francois Rewbell, he comes from Alsace, and he says, “The Jews are still in debt.” So we are still the debtors. They are still the money lenders. We’re in debt to the Jews. What are we going to do?
These people are not worthy of citizenship. He was very anti-Jewish, Rewbell. But Napoleon realises he has a problem. And being Napoleon, what he decides to do, because remember, he’s thorough. This is the man who creates the Code Napoleon. This is the man who sets up the bureaucracy of France. This is the man who believes in the central power of French authority. The man is a genius. Can he control the Jews? And what he decides to do, he instructs Count Mole, who I’ve already talked about him. He’s now working for him. He’s going to convene an Assembly of Notables. He’s going to pull together 100 Jews, not just from France, but from the countries he’s conquered. He’s in the Rhineland, remember.
A few interesting cases in the Rhineland. There was a man called Herschel Marx, the son of a rabbi, the brother of a rabbi, the grandson of a rabbi on both sides, married to the daughter of a rabbi. He has children. He has become a lawyer under Napoleon. He has the whole world under Napoleon. He’s affected by this. Later on what happens, I’ll be dealing with. But anyway, also characters like Heiner are going to be affected. Some of the great figures in Jewish history are going to be affected because of Napoleon’s conquests.
So he calls together 100 notables under Abraham Furtado, the sophisticated wealthy Sephardi Jew, who I’ve already told you, some of the Alsatian rabbis, there are rabbis at the assembly, Far more traditional. They’re much more comfortable in the old world. What is the danger of modernity? What is the crisis? What is the opportunity? And he poses them the famous 12 questions. And can we now see those 12 questions? This shows you just how much homework Napoleon did. Now, I’m going to read them. Some of you will know this, but I always believe that we go over things that are so important.
“Is it lawful for Jews to marry more than one wife? Is divorce allowed by the Jewish religion? Is divorce valid when not pronounced by courts of justice and by virtue of laws in contradiction with the French Code? Can a Jewess marry a Christian or a Jew a Christian woman? Or has the law ordered that the Jews should only intermarry amongst themselves? In the eyes of Jews, are Frenchmen considered as brethren or as strangers? In either case, what conduct is their law prescribed towards Frenchmen not of their religion? Do the Jews born in France and treated by the law as French citizens consider France as their country? Are they bound to defend it? Are they bound to obey the law and to follow the directions of the Civil Code? What kind of police jurisdiction have the rabbis amongst the Jews? What judicial power do they exercise amongst them? Are the forms of the elections of the rabbis in their police jurisdiction regulated by the law or are they only sanctioned by custom? Are there professions from which the Jews are excluded by their law? Does the law forbid the Jews from taking usury from their brethren? Does it forbid them or does it allow usury towards strangers?”
Could you just read over those, please? Read over them very carefully. Before this, Napoleon had already decided that he was going to give in to Francois Rewbell. He was very worried. What he did was he cancelled all the contracts, the money lending contracts. And he says, “We’re going to sort this out.” In his report, he said, “The members of the assembly shall come from all departments and should be chosen by prefects from amongst the rabbis.” And the date given is July the 10th. So this is when it is given, and it’s an order from the podium. So, he’s cancelled the debts and now this. Okay, there are rabbis present. Is it lawful for Jews to marry one wife? Now remember, what had been said in the French general assembly?
Now they are emancipated. They have now from from 1791, it’s now 1806. They’ve had a period of the joy of French citizenship, which meant the benefits of the modern world. Now, is there going to be a price to pay? I’m just going to tease you a little bit because when Napoleon was invading Poland, there was a very famous rabbi called Zalman of Liadi who created Chabad Judaism, which so many of you know of. The Czarist authorities, as I’m sure you all know, were completely hostile in their treatment to the Jews. He went with the Czar’s army. He actually said, he wrote a letter. He said, “I would prefer my people be persecuted, even suffer and speak suffer under the Czars, because Napoleon will be the end of the Jewish people.”
The crisis of modernity. That was the words of Zalman of Liadi. There’s a lot to talk about. So, I want you to imagine that assembly, rabbis, lay people. Think of the words of Clermont Tonnerre. “To the Jews as individuals, everything. To Israel as a nation, nothing.” “It will be a sign of weakness,” said Napoleon, “to expel them, a sign of strength to reform them.” It’s always about the reformation. You know, you can’t expunge 1,800 years of Jew hatred, even in a man as great as Napoleon. Okay, it’s there. It’s this negative stereotype of the Jew, the outsider. The fact that Christianity in inverted commerce had superseded Judaism, even in people who are not religious.
Nevertheless, this negative stereotype. The first positive image of a Jew had happened in Germany in 1749. Lessing’s play “The Jews,” that fails on the Berlin stage because no one can imagine a Jew a hero. Yes, you have the work of Moses Mendelson. He dies three years before the French Revolution. But even then, there were many enlightened figures in Germany who challenged him. “Why don’t you convert?” Judaism is a downgraded religion. So, the Assembly of Notables had an absolute nightmare. They were already feeling the benefit of France. Just think about it. Your son can go to the Sorbonne. Later on, it’s going to be your son can go to Oxford, even your daughters later on.
Later on, it’s going to be the University of Vienna, the University of Berlin. You can enter whatever trade and profession you want. It’s like the elastic snaps. All those years of the worship of education for the sake of education, it threw them into the modern world, and what a story it was. And this is where it all begins. And they’ve got to give Napoleon the answers he wants. And he wants to find out. And it’s quite obvious, isn’t it? Is there anything in Jewish law that stops you being good French citizens, and will you give up your notion of nationhood? Are you a nation within a nation?
Look, if you think about it, Jews had not paid taxes as individuals. They paid taxes as a group. One of the reasons, I think, as communities we are good at looking after each other is because for hundreds and hundreds of years it was communal responsibility. Of course there was corruption, but in the end it worked well. Compared with the outside world, it worked very, very well. So, remember the pressure that they’re under. So, I’m going to give you the answers. In a way I thought I shouldn’t. Some of you will know all of this. But I was thinking what a game for you to play with your families on a Friday night or on a Sunday, whenever you can see your families. It’s a good game to play with teenagers, as well, and undergrads if they haven’t studied this. Answer of the first question.
It’s not lawful for Jews to marry more than one wife. In all European countries, they conform to the general practise, marrying only one. Moses does not command expressly to take several, but he does not forbid it. He seems even to adopt the custom as generally prevailing since he settles the rights of inheritance between his children of different wives. Although this practise still prevails in the east, yet their ancient doctors have enjoined them to restrain from taking more than one wife, except where the man is enabled by his fortune to maintain several. Many of you who studied the history of Israel will know that with certain Sephardi communities, they did come with more than one wife because there was no restraint.
Now, the case has been different in the west. The wish of adopting the custom of the inhabitants of the part of the world has induced the Jews to renounce polygamy. But as several individuals still indulge in that practise A synod in the 11th century composed of 100 rabbis with Gershom at its head, the assembly pronounced an anathema against every Israelite who should in future take more than one wife. Although this prohibition was not to last forever, the influence of European manners has universally prevailed. I think it was to last for 1,000 years. So in 2100 we could be in a pickle. Anyway, they gave Napoleon the answer he wanted. And yes, since the synod, yes, Jews in the west, in the Ashkenazi world could only have one wife.
Second question, is divorce allowed by the Jewish religion? Is divorce valid when not pronounced by courts of justice by virtue of laws in contradiction with those of the French code? Answer, I’m sure you all know, of course divorce is allowed in Jewish law. Repudiation is allowed by the law of Moses, but is not valid if not previously pronounced by the French code. Now this is complicated. Certainly, I can’t speak about French law because I never checked it out and I should have done. But certainly in the English law, if a couple obtain a civil divorce, they are not necessarily Jewishly divorced if the husband hasn’t given the woman a get. And if the husband has left Judaism, there is no imperative to make that happen.
So it’s a kind of a fudge of an answer. And this is how they answer it. In the eyes of every Israelite without exception, submission to the prince is the first of duties. It’s a principle generally acknowledged amongst them that everything related to civil or political interests, the law of the state is the supreme law. Before they were admitted in France to share the rights of all citizens, and when they lived under a particular legislation, which set them at liberty to follow their religious customs, they had the ability to divorce their wives, but it was extremely rare. Since the revolution, they have acknowledged no laws on this head. but those of the empire. At the , when they were admitted to the rank of citizens, the rabbis and the principal Jews have cleared before the municipalities and took the oath to conform.
The third question, can a Jewess marry a Christian and a Jew a Christian woman? Now, this was the trickiest in many ways because neither priests nor rabbis would actually sanction in a synagogue or in a church a marriage without conversion. However, there is secular court in France. So a Jew, the word is can. A Jew could marry a Christian, and a Christian could marry a Jew. A secular Jew or a secular Christian, they are marrying in secular court. However, the rabbis insist that this is answered in this way. “The only marriages expressly forbidden by the law are those with the seven Canaanite nations with Amon and Moab and with the Egyptians. The prohibition is absolute concerning the seven Canaanite nations.
With regard to Amon and Moab, it is limited, according to many Talmudists, to the men of these nations,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the prohibition in general only applies to nations in idolatry. The Talmud declares formally that modern nations are not to be considered as such since they worship, like us, the God of Heaven and Earth. And they go on to say there have been intermarriages. It’s interesting as to whether Christianity is a religion of idolatry. Because, certainly, Nachmanides, in a disputation in Barcelona in 1240, did admit that certain rabbis consider Christianity a religion of idolatry because of the elevation of Jesus and of Mary. Now, this is a very, very controversial, deep point.
However, what they go on to say is this, “The rabbis, members of this assembly, they would be no more inclined to bless the union of a Jewess with a Christian or a Jew with a Christian woman than Catholic priests themselves will be disposed to sanction unions. The rabbis acknowledge, however, a Jew who marries a Christian woman does not on that account cease to be a Jew anymore than if he had married a Jewess.” Okay, I’m going to stop there because I really want to give more time to this, while I will continue it on my next lecture on Monday. So I will be bringing back those questions on Monday. Have a look at them.
Think about it. I’ve always said to you, the best source book on Jewish history is “The Jew in the Modern World.” It’s edited by Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz. It was on our original bibliography. You know, the more depth we do, the more useful. Those of you who want to go deeper and deeper, the more useful you will find it.
So shall I have a look at the questions?
Yeah, yes. Thank you, brilliant. Brilliant, Trudy, as usual. Q&A and Comments
I’m taking your advice and I am trying very hard to go slower. Yes, Adrianne, of course you’re right. We’ll be talking about that.
Eli, that influenced neighbouring countries such as Switzerland. Eli, we’re going to find that the French Revolution and the work of Napoleon, by 1878, every country in western and central Europe is going to emancipate. The process in England and in Holland is, in England, it’s a long, slow process. And it’s very, very important to remember this. And you know, there’s something else to say on Napoleon. When he invaded Poland, he evidently, he passed a synagogue on Tisha B'Av. And he heard all the weeping and wailing, obviously. and he sent one of his people to inquire. And they told him they were mourning the loss of their temple. And evidently, he said, “Any people who mourn for that long will one day have their own country.” I don’t know if it’s a mighty, but I like it.
This is from Mike. “My maternal grandmother had a great uncle who joined Napoleon’s army when it passed through Poland on the way to Russia. Became Captain Silverberg.” Oh, I love these memories. It’s fabulous. I’m going to go this way. Yes, the Jews of Alsace were traditionally cattle dealers and also in the shmatte trade, textiles. I knew many people in Zurich whose ancestors were from Alsace.
Yes, the traditional, yes, Eli, that’s very useless. Oh, thank you. Rochelle is commenting on my French. Somebody thinks I speak reasonable French. Please tell my family. I don’t speak reasonable French, Rochelle, but it’s sweet of you. My problem is that so many of my friends do speak perfect French. So that when I’m travelling in France, I’m always with people who don’t encourage my accent.
Denise, Fred and Van Gelder. Yes, all that.
And then Samuel, married name. “My paternal family left Spain and emigrated to Holland. They were members of the Hoog Synagogue, also known as the Portuguese Synagogue because it was built by Portuguese immigrants. I plan to visit when I am able to walk again.”
Oh, thank you, Denise. Denise, the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam is one of the wonders of the Jewish world. And I was fortunate enough to attend a Kondre service there many years ago. And we all had to take a lighted candle in. I don’t know if they still use it for . But of course, Bevis Marks in London is mirrored on that. And I have in the past lectured on the Jews of Holland, and I will be incorporating it into further presentations.
Q: Rod, “Isn’t there a serious dichotomy and contradiction between the Enlightenment and the Reign of Terror?” A: Oh yes, Rod, so many of these revolutions start out with the greatest of intentions and then they boil over. It happened in communism. I’m going to stick my neck out. And I think it’s happening also today in revolutions of thought. I think we are in danger, and I’m going to say this, I don’t like to come up too much with my own opinions, but I hate platforming because I believe passionately in freedom of thought. And when you stop people being allowed to speak, even if you find their views repugnant, don’t forget there are race relations acts, and there are acts that prevent the incitement to race hatred. So I really feel very offy about us becoming too ideological. And of course, it’s nothing to what happened in the Reign of Terror, but this often happened. You have a revolution, and it needs to be corrected back.
[Wendy] Are we talking about today as well?
Yes, I’m afraid I was, Wendy. Sorry. I know I’m not meant to.
[Wendy] No, not, sorry. You’re quite right.
I do feel quite strongly about that, Wendy, that it’s-
And social media, this freedom of expression is actually shutting everybody up. People are afraid to speak up.
Yes, I think what’s happened in the modern world, we’ve got tools that have run away with our ability to control them, haven’t they?
Oh, this is from Audrey.
Q: “Everyone wants to change us, assimilate us or murder us. All men are created equal and all have the spark of God. Why can’t we just be left alone?” A: Audrey, you can take the history of the Jews as one of martyrology. That was certainly Louie Namier’s view. But it’s also an incredible history of survival against all the odds. And ironically, the Chinese never persecuted the Jews. The Hindus never persecuted the Jews. In fact, there were huge communities in China. You know what happened to them? They assimilated. One of the most difficult issues we have to deal with, and I don’t know the answer. All I can do is pose questions. And it was a debate that Jeremy Rosen and I threatened to have. Is antisemitism the key to Jewish survival? Think about it. Think about it.
[Wendy] It’s a good debate to have.
Could you please send us the questions and answers? Is that possible, Judy? Could that be tacked on to my next lecture, do you think? I’m asking.
I think we can send the questions.
[Trudy] Just the questions.
Not the questions because you answered in the presentation.
I’ve only done three of them, Wendy, there’s another-
Exactly. So can we just send the questions and not the answers?
[Wendy] So, Trudy.
Yes.
Trudy, what we can do is you can answer them if you like, write them down.
I can. What I would rather do, Wendy, on Monday, is give them answers to the other questions 'cause I’d like them to think about them. If they could think about them.
[Judy] Let me just interrupt, sorry. Trudy, I can save those questions, and I’ll send them to you on a separate email ready for next week.
Fantastic. I think that that will work. What do you think, Wendy? Can we do that?
That’s fine. No, the questions are easy. It’s just your responses. So what I suggest we do then is that we start again at the very beginning and you go through the answers. You go through all those questions and then at the very beginning of the lecture, give everybody, you know, maybe five, a couple of minutes to come in, and then you run through them. Make sure that you have a pen and paper ready to take notes. Not you, the participants.
What I can do, Wendy, if you’d like, at the end of the lecture, I can send them the answers.
Perfect. We can do that.
Because I really think these are the sort of things families could have a lot of fun discussing because for example, do you regard France as your country for all purposes? Will you defend it? It’s really about loyalty as well. And I think, frankly, post show, these questions are just as important today. Don’t you?
I do. And I just wanted to say I have to jump off now, Trudy, so I’m going to leave you. But what I wanted to say was that today I was watching CNN, watching the testimony of the officers on the 6th of January with the Trump administration and what went on in Washington. And it is well worth watching tonight if any of you, or I’m not sure if it’s still on because I was sat there while waiting for my mom. But it’s well worth watching CNN and watching what went on and listen to the testament of the officers on the 6th of January in Washington.
Thank you, Wendy. You know, it’s fascinating. Times change, things change, but human reactions, and that’s what we’ve got to think about. Anyway, when did the questions appear? The questions in 1806 and, of course, they were circulated. What I’m going to talk about in my next presentation is what’s going to happen. So let’s see. The name of the book I mentioned is “The Jew in the Modern World.” It is on our original bibliography, and myself and my colleagues are working with a comprehensive bibliography.
A question on Jews and last names, David. It’s going next lecture.
Yes, Barrington, I am going to be dealing with the opening of the ghettos because Napoleon breaks down the ghetto walls wherever he conquers. And this is so important, yeah. So that’s my next lecture on Monday. I’ll be talking about that.
Yes, Jonathan is recommending “Citizens” by Simon Schama. Yes, it is an excellent book.
And Myra, the author of “The Jews in the Modern World” is Paul Mendes-Flohr, Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz.
I like this, Eli. The revolution eats its own. Always happens in France, Russia. Now there was an accident on WSJ, yeah.
Oh, this is from Fanny. “The Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam is still having services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s like a fairytale. ” Yes, as I said, I have the privilege of going there. It’s one of the great memories of my life.
Yes, I will be sending a slide of the, yes, you will have the questions. No, I can imagine.
Oh, this is from Michelle Barperic, who I went with. Oh, lovely to hear from you, Michelle. They don’t have lighted candles anymore, Michelle. Flashlights, eh? Get in touch, Michelle.
Michael, I’m going to be talking about Napoleon, the Sanhedrin, on Monday.
No, no, regarding assimilation, the Sassoons in India. That’s an interesting case study. But what I was talking about, the huge number of Jews in Kaifeng in the year 1000 when when there were a million people in the city, and it was a great trading centre. Most of those Jews disappeared into Chinese civilization.
Q: “What subjects would be studied under Jewish education?” A: You would study, of course, to start with you’d learn Hebrew. You would study the Torah and you would study the Talmud. And occasionally, depending on where you studied, maybe the prophets. Mathematics was allowed later. This is a whole other subject, but it’s a fascinating one. There is a verse. I think it’s in the Talmud.
“Never forget there is wisdom amongst the gentiles, but there is no Torah.”
Q: “What may a Jew study?” A: Think about it. This was one of the great questions that the rabbis were faced because of the Enlightenment. May a Jew study philosophy? Jews would study mathematics. The great Adin Steinsaltz studied engineering at the Sorbonne. But may a Jew study philosophy? I remember with the late great Rabbi Sacks, he had trouble with the ultras in his community. Why? Because he studied at Cambridge before Yeshiva. I think if you’re soaked in Yeshiva learning, they don’t worry too much about it. But certainly, look, it’s a big discussion, and I think I’ll be bringing in people who are more knowledgeable about this subject than I to discuss it with you.
This is from Georgie. “To me, the major value of Judaism that applies all style in the basic context, the sanctity of life, especially human life. If all religions and beliefs incorporated this belief, that would be the most one.” Yes, of course, what a wonderful world if we took the best. You know, it’s not about the word of the Almighty. In fact, Moses Mendelson said, “I will never convert because there are many paths to the truth.” If your religion or your belief system is one of morality, why would you need to become someone else’s? But unfortunately, tragically, as people, I think one of the problems is we haven’t progressed enough. We just have incredibly sophisticated tools.
This is from John. “I think Berr Isaac Berr was Lorraine. He was a serf, Berr.” Yeah, thank you. Thank you, John. You are right.
Yes, Maimonides and other rabbis studied . Yes, of course, they did. That’s why I think it’s important when we look at this subject, I think I might ask Rabbi Rosen or another one of our rabbi colleagues to discuss this with you 'cause it’s an important subject, and I’m not knowledgeable enough, yes. But Maimonides, don’t forget, there were some rabbis who didn’t believe that he was, anyway. What a what a strange world. What a strange people.
Anyway, thank you all very much. I think that’s it, isn’t it, Judy?
[Wendy] Yeah, that’s it.
Oh, Wendy, yes, darling.
I’m here.
All right, okay.
[Wendy] I was leaving, but I’m back.
Lots of love to your mom.
Oh, she’s well. Thank you.
And take care of yourself, darling. God bless you all. Bye
[Wendy] And you. Thanks, bye
And the sun’s in London. The sun’s just come out. God bless.
[Wendy] There you go. Bye-bye.
Bye.