Benjamin Disraeli

Baruch Spinoza

Sabbatai Zevi

The groups of fleeing Marranos arrived in England

at the end of the 16th century and returned to their Jewish faith there. Oliver Cromwell allowed the Jews to migrate freely. England precedes its age: the Jewish religion was freely practiced from 1673, John Locke stood beside the Jews in his work about religious patience. In 1858, the Jews are fully emancipated, then between 1873 and 1880, Benjamin Disraeli is the first Jewish prime minister in England.

The Netherlands

was liberated from Spanish rule at the end of the 16th century and accepted the Spanish and Portuguese Marranos. A significant Jewish community is founded in Amsterdam. In the 17th century, Baruch Spinoza also lived there. He was the father of Bible Critics who attempted to deny, with a scientific grounding, Biblical truths such as Adam being the first man etc. The rabbis of the communities excommunicated him, although his views take root in European culture.

In Poland,

during the uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1648, in Nemyriv (today belonging to Ukraine), six thousand Jews were killed. The atmosphere was filled with eschatological hopes and the tormented Jews, waiting for salvation, fell for the deception of the fake-Messiahs. The most influential fake-Messiah, Shabbetai Tzevi appeared in 1666, he moved crowds in the Jewish centers of Eastern Europe. Even though Tzevi converted to Islam under the pressure of the Sultan, he had many followers. In 1756, Yaakov Frank was raised as a new “Messiah”, though he later converted to Catholicism with his followers. His people followed him though, not Jesus. In the 18th century, Poland was split three times and consequently Russia inherited a million Jews. Thus, it became the largest Jewish center.

Baal Shem Tov

Moses Mendelssohn

Reform synagogue, Hamburg

Eduard Gurevich (1969-): Wandering Stars

The disappointments in the “Messiah”,

the slaughters in Ukraine, Galicia and Lithuania, the Eastern Jews were hopeless again. This was when Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name) appeared, who started the Hasidic movement (enthusiastic, lover of God and people by deeds). Baal Shem Tov focused on the relationship with God, fidelity to God, honoring God with simple deeds and ecstatic dances. His teachings were followed by miracles and healings as well. His teachings were followed by thousands of people and several communities, trends were founded after him. The spiritual leaders of the Hasidic communities are the charismatic Rebbes who are called tzaddik (righteous).

Another movement began, the Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah)

which attempted to find solutions for the hate against the Jews by assimilation, limbering up the traditional religious frames, and integration to the society. Its leading figure was Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), who encouraged the Jews to learn non-Jewish languages, European values and sciences. In his footsteps, religious reformers started to modernize the Jewish educational system and liturgy. In 1778, the first Jewish Free School was opened in Berlin, where German and other subjects were taught as well. A few years later, the Torah was published in German by a Jewish translation. In 1818, the first reform-synagogue is opened in Hamburg, and the tension between the orthodoxies and the reformers (neologies) was growing. The conservative rabbis were led by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch from Frankfurt.

The Enlightenment made a way for the emancipation of the Jews. In 1776, the American Declaration of Independence guaranteed the equality of Jews with the other citizens. In France, the Jews gained equality in 1791, the first in Europe. The Jews were officially equal in society in Switzerland in 1863; in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1867; in Italy in 1870; in the whole German area in 1871 and in Turkey in 1876.

The Russians

did not know how to handle the large number of Jews they “inherited”. Empress Catherine the Great attempted to prevent the settlement of the Jews in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other Russian cities. The Jewish order in 1804 tried to create an artificial Jewish peasant class but failed to do so. The integration of the Jews into schools was also an unsuccessful attempt. Nicholas I tried to force them to enter the army; and many children were separated from their families and forced to convert to Christianity. In 1828, the Russian-Jewish Hashkalah movement began, led by Isaac Baer Levinsohn, who encouraged the study of sciences and languages. In 1855, a reform-era began in Russia; the Russian cities were opened to the Jews, and thousands of people entered Russian high schools and universities. Besides the new Hebrew literature, Yiddish literature also improved. Although, in Russia only the highest classes of the Jews were assimilated.

Modern antisemitism

is a mixture of the ancient antisemitism and the Christian anti-Judaism, which rose in 19th century Europe, that became more and more secular. Antisemitism appeared as a “scientific” phenomenon. French and German authors – some by building on Darwin’s evolution theory – develop the “racial theory”. The nations are not differentiated by religion, culture, language and history anymore but by “racial characteristics”. According to this ideology, the interchange of religion or culture does not have lasting consequences on people’s lives, as the “racial character” remains the same. The word “antisemitism” is used by Wilhelm Marr for the first time in 1873 in Germany. The French, German, Austrian and Hungarian anti-Semitic propaganda and anti-Semitic organizations were boosted by the rise of the Jews socially and economically, and the search for someone to blame for the economic crisis in the 1870s. Antisemitic pamphlets, newspapers and parties are created, and the first anti-Semitic speeches are given in Parliaments. In 1882, the first antisemitic congress sat to introduce social and economic restrictions for the Jews. In 1894, the assimilationist, Captain Dreyfus was prosecuted in Paris while the antisemitic atmosphere was growing. In Vienna, antisemitism filled the student organizations, gymnastic associations as well, and between 1897 and 1921 the mayor of the city was the antisemitic Karl Lueger.

In 1881,

Alexander III became the Czar in Russia, and pogroms (around one-hundred-and-fifty) were spread all over the country, mostly on the Ukrainian parts. Additionally, several restrictions were introduced against the Jews: they were banned from Moscow and the number of Jews were limited to ten percent in high schools and in higher education. Due to the persecutions, a large number of Russian Jews set off to America or to Israel.

Alfred Dreyfus

Dreyfus in prison, 1895

Karl Lueger

Pogrom in Russia

In North America,

there were already three million Jews in 1914, they mostly lived in the large industrial centers, like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago or Boston. Large communities lived in Canada and South America as well. Others migrated to South Africa.

1914

– The outbreak of the First World War brought even harder years for the Jews. They had to take part in defending Russia whilst from the towns outside the frontlines, they were expelled with the accusation of high treason. In 1915, the expelled Jews were settled in Inner Russia. The weary Jews stood beside the Russian revolution against the Czarist power in 1917. The Czar resigned, and the temporary government ordered equality for the Jews. The Communist-Bolshevist takeover starts the split-up of Russia. Ukraine became an independent state where thousands of Ukraine-Jews were slaughtered by the Russians in 1919, and Ukraine was annexed to Russia again.

1919–1920

– After the First World War, the old empires vanished, and the map of Europe changed. The Jews numbered as follows: in Ukraine 3.3 million, in Poland 3 million, in Romania 1 million, in Germany 600,000, in Hungary half-a-million, in Czechoslovakia 350,000, in Austria 225,000, in France 150,000, in Lithuania 150,000, in Greece 120,000, in Latvia 100,000, in Italy 45,000, in Estonia 5000 Jews. The most assimilated Jews live in peace, while between 1920 and 1926, 60% of the Jews migrated to the United States and to the land of Israel. The United States made it harder to migrate, thus between 1926 and 1929, 350,000 Jews turned to Israel and only 185,000 went to the US. The continent’s shifting to the right and the new antisemitic wave begin with the Great Depression between 1929 and 1933.

Caricature by Grant E. Hamilton