Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/462

 JEWS

398

JEWS

ures; and finally, in England, the Jews were simply tol- erated as aliens, and a naturalization act, which was passed by both Houses and ratified by George II (175.3), was actually repealed (1754) owing to the na- tion's opposition to it.

Gradually, however, a number of circumstances les- sened this spirit of hostility against the Jews. Among these circumstances may be particularly mentioned: (a) the vast influence exercised by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), who, by his literary attainments and his strong personality, proved to the world that his race could produce men worthy of admittance into the highest society, and showed to his fellow-Jews the way to remove prejudices against them; and (b) the vigor- ous defence of the Jews by the Christian writer Dohm, who, in his work " Upon the Amelioration of the Con- dition of the Jews", suggested many practical meas- ures which Joseph II of Austria partly accepted in 1781, when he abolished the Jewish poll-tax and granted civil liberties to the Jews. Under these, and other such circumstances, a more liberal spirit towards the Jews prevailed in Prussia and in France, where William 11 and Louis XVI, respectively, abolished the Jewish body tax. It made itself felt also in Russia where Catherine II (1762-1796) even decreed the civil and religious liberty of the Jews, but under whose rule the Russian Senate managed to organize the " Pale of Settlement " or portion of Russia in which Jews are al- lowed to reside, and to enforce other anti-Jewish meas- ures. It culminated in the decrees of the French Revolution which actually opened the era of Jewish emancipation: in 1790, the French National Assembly granted citizenship to the Sephardic Jews, and, in 1791, it extended full civil rights to all the Jews of the coun- try. With French victories and influence, Jewish liberty naturally followed, and, in 1796, the Batavian National Assembly decreed citizenship for the J<^ws. Napoleon I summoned in 1806 an assembly of Jewish notables which succeeded in calming his prejudices against the Jews, and in 1807 a Great Sanhedrin, which proved to his satisfaction that the Jewish race may be faithful both to its religion and to the State. Then followed, not without difficulties, yet in rapid succes- sion, the emancipation of the Jews of Westphalia and of Baden (1808), of Hamburg (1811), of Mecklenburg, and of Prussia (1812).

The fall of Napoleon and the consequent period of European reorganization gave a setback to Jewish lib- erty, especially in Germany, which was for a wliile the scene of bloody riots against the Jews; but gradually, and nearly everywhere in the Old World, Jewish hb- erty prevailed. In France, the Jewish rabbis were put, under Louis Philippe (1831), on the same footing with regard to salary as the cures of the Catholic Church; in 1846, the oath "More Judaico" was abol- ished as unconstitutional; and since the wave of anti- Semitism which culminated in the well-known case of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish population of the country and of Algiers has not been molested. In England, it was not before 1858 that Parliament was freely opened to the Jews by the suppression of the clause "On the true faith of a Christian" from the oath of office, and not before 1870, that all restrictions for every position (except that of sovereign) in the British Empire were abolished. In northern Germany, the various states allowed civil liberty to their Jewish popu- lation in 1848, and after 1870, all restrictions disap- peared, although since that time, owing to anti-Semit- ism, minor disabilities have been publicly enacted or quietly enforced in some parts of the Empire. Den- mark enfranchised the Jews in 1849, whereas Sweden and Norway still subject them to certain disabilities. In 1867, the Jews of Austria were emancipated, and in 1895, those of Hungary obtained, moreover, that Juda- ism be considered as "a legally recognized religion". In Switzerland, after a long and bitter struggle, the Federal Constitution of 1874 granted to the Jews full

liberty. In Italy, the Jewish disabilities, revived on the fall of Napoleon I, and the application of which oc- casioned in 1858 the celebrated Mortara Case, have all been gradually abolished, and Rome, the last Ital- ian place where the Jews were emancipated, elected a Jew, Ernesto Nathan, for its mayor, 10 Oct., 1908. Spain and Portugal have not yet recognized officially their small Jewish population. The Danubian prov- inces of Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, have, in accordance with the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, allowed civil and religious hberty to their Jewish settlers, whereas the province of Rumania, in defiance of the same treaty, has refused it and carried out persecu- tions which have entailed a very large emigration of Rumanian Jews. Turkish Jews were granted citi- zenship in 1839; yet, in various parts of the Turkish Empire, there repeatedly occur accusations of ritual child-murder which inflame the populace and lead to anti-Jewish riots.

In Palestine, their number is rapidly increasing (they are now 78,000) despite the sultan's restrictions (1888, 1895) concerning the accession of Jewish immi- grants in numbers; and agricultural colonies are es- tablished in various parts of the land. In Fez and chiefly in Morocco, Jews have still much to fear from the fanaticism of Mohammedans. In Persia, they are at times oppressed, despite the ruler's general good- will towards them. Their fate has been, and still is, deplorable in Russia where lives nearly one-half of the total Jewish population of the globe. The liberty of trade and commerce granted to them by Alexander I (1801-1825) was replaced, under Nicholas I (1825- 1855), by a legislation calculated to diminish their number, to deprive them of their religious and national character, and to render them morally and commer- cially harmless to Christians. Alexander II (185.5- 1881) was very favourable to the Jews; but the reaction again.st them under Alexander III (ISSl- 1894) was of the most intolerant kind. F'rom the promulgation of the Ignatieff law of 1882, the most restrictive measures liave been piled up against the Jews, and since 1891 they have been applied with such severity that Russian Jews have emigrated in hun- dreds of thousands, mostly to the LTnited States. Under the present emperor, Nicholas II, new restric- tions have been devised; riots against the Jews oc- curred in 1S96, 1897, 1899, and culminated in the mas- sacres of Kishineff, Homol, etc., from 1903 to 1906, helped in various ways by Russian officials and sol- diers; during the year 1909, the persecution took the form of orders of expulsion, and the trials prescribed by the Duma against the organizers and the perpe- trators of the massacres of some years ago are apparently a farce.

Jews at an early date settled in South America, exiled from Spain and Portugal, or taking part in the Dutch and English commercial enterprises in theNew World. Brazil was their main centre. Those found there in the sixteenth century were Maranos who had been sent in company with convicts. They acquired wealth and became very numerous at the beginning of the seventeenth century. They helped the Dutch in wresting Brazil from Portugal (1624), and were joined in 1642 by many Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam. At the end of the Dutch rule over Brazil (16,54), most Jewish settlers returned to Holland ; some emigrated to French settlements — Guadaloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne; others took refuge in Curasao, a Dutch possession; and finally, a small band reached New Amsterdam (New York). After a very few years, tho.se who had settled on the French islands were com- pelled to turn to friendly Dutch possessions, and to other places of refuge, notably to Surinam (then be- longing to England) where they became increasingly prosperous. The other early settlements of Jews in Mexico, Peru, and the West Indies do not require more than a passing mention. Of much greater im-