Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/717

 683 The gratitude of the Jews was shown by their patriotic devotion in the wars of the Revolution. One of the most remarkable events in modern Jewish history was the convocation of the Sanhedrin (Synedrion) by Napoleon. It was preceded by the session of a general assembly of one hundred and eleven delegates, held in Paris in 1806 under the presidency of Abraham Furtado, merchant, author, and scientific agriculturist, the delegate of the Portuguese congregation in the port of the Girondc. To this assembly twelve questions were submitted by the emperor, and its principal answers were afterwards confirmed and formulated in nine propositions of law by a Sanhedrin formally elected by the synagogues in France and Italy. The Sanhedrin commenced its sittings on February 9, 1807, under the presidency of Piabbi David Sintzheim of Strasburg, with a Piedmontese rabbi as first, and an ex-legislator of Italy as second assessor. The forms of the old Sanhedrin were observed as far as possible ; the responses are couched in the form of statutes binding the constituents of the Sanhedrin, and these decisions have usually been treated with much respect even by communities which sent no delegates, while the Jews of Frankfort and Holland formally accepted them. The following are the nine decrees : (1) polygamy is forbidden, according to a decree of the synod of Worms in 1050 ; (2) divorce is allowed to the Jews if and so far as it is confirmatory of a legal divorce pronounced by the authority of the civil law of the land in which they live ; (3) no Jew may perform the ceremony of marriage unless civil formalities have been fulfilled, intermarriages with Christians are valid civilly, and, although they cannot be solemnized with any religious celebration, they involve the parties to them in no ban ; (4) the Jews of Franco recognize in the fullest sense the French people as their brethren ; (5) acts of justice and charity are to bo performed towards all mankind who recognize the Creator, irre spective of their religion ; (6) Jews born in France and treated by its laws as citizens consider it their native country, they are bound to obey the laws of the land ; Jews are dispensed from ceremonial observances during service in the army ; (7) the Sanhedrin exhorts the Jews to train their children to laborious lives in useful and liberal arts, to acquire landed property as a means of becoming more firmly attached to their fatherland, to renounce occupations which render men odious and contemptible in the eyes of their fellow-citizens, and to do all in their power to acquire their neighbours esteem and good wishes ; (8) interest is not allowed to be taken when money is lent for the support of a family, but interest is per mitted when money is lent for commercial purposes, if the lender runs any risk, and if the legal rate is not exceeded ; (9) the above declarations concerning interest, and the texts of the Holy Scrip ture on the same subject, apply between Jews and fellow-citizens in precisely the same way as between Jews and Jews. Usury is altogether forbidden. At the close of the Sanhedrin, the emperor established the consistorial organization which in its main features still exists in France. Every two thousand Jews were to form a synagogue and a consistory consisting of one chief rabbi, and two rabbis with three laymen householders belonging to the capital town of the consistory. Bankrupts and usurers were excluded from the consistory, which was to watch over the conduct of the rabbis, to maintain order in the synagogues, and to admonish the Jews of the district to follow handicrafts and obey the laws of the conscrip tion. The central consistory, sitting at Paris, had power to appoint and depose the rabbis. The rabbis were to publish the decrees of the Sanhedrin, to preach obedience to the laws, and to pray in the synagogues for the imperial house. Many Hebrew hymns of praise were composed in honour of the despot who had framed this or ganization, although at the same time the emperor issued a decree which made considerable concessions to the popular prejudices against the Jews in Alsace and eastern France generally, forbade the Jews to change their domicile or enter into occupation without special permission, framed stringent precautions against usury, and excepted the Alsatian Jews from the right to provide substitutes for military service. The laws of 1814, 1819, and 1823 made some beneficial changes in the position of the Israelites, and in 1829 Charles X. established at Metz a central school for the instruction of candi dates for the rabbinate. It was subsequently removed to Paris. In 1831 the Government definitively decided, in accordance with the ideas of Napoleon, that the rabbis should be state functionaries. From that year they have been paid by the state. In 1833 the French Govern ment suspended relations with a Swiss canton which had denied equal rights to a French subject on the ground that he was a Jew. In France the absence of political restrictions has been unfavourable to the separate development of Judaism. The ministers Cr6mieux (1796-1879), Fould, and Goudchaux, the archaeologists and philologians Jules Oppert and Hale&quot; vy and the Darmesteters, the composer Meyerbeer, and many others, are well-known names in the general history of their country. Many Israelites have occiipied high civil and military posts. Other Israelites by race have become indistinguishable by religious practice from the main body of the citizens; and the principal contributions in France to Hebrew literature have been from writers born in Germany, like Munk (1802-1867) and Derenbourg, like Samuel Cohen and Franck.
 * Before the year 1860, an outbreak against the Jews iu

Russia, the accusations at Damascus, the Mortara abduction case in Italy, and about this time the sufferings of the Jews in Morocco, had vividly excited the sympathies of the Jews in western Europe ; they had joined together to make con tributions of money for relief of distress at Konigsberg and in the Holy Land, and had even made representations to the Governments of the various countries in which they resided in order to bring political means to bear to alleviate the fate of their unfortunate co-religionists. An English Jew, Sir Moses Montefiore, took the lead in these efforts. But there was no regular provision for prompt and concerted action in defence of outlying and oppressed communities of Jews till, in 1860, an organization was established in Paris which was destined to exert a permanent watchful ness over the oppressions practised in the less civilized countries upon Jews, as well as to improve the backward communities of Hebrews by education. This was the Alliance Israelite Universelle, which on January 1, 1881, had 24,000 subscribers in all parts of the world, though Israelites are by no means unanimous in supporting it. The connexion between the local committees and the central body is not very intimate, but a correspondence is constantly kept up, and subscriptions for public objects flow from one to the other according to their respective wants and wealth. The Alliance and similar societies of a more strictly national character which exist in London and Vienna made representations at the Berlin conference in 1878, and helped to procure some alleviations of the state of the Jews in Roumania and Servia. The exertions of the same bodies had previously arrested, by making them known to Europe, the atrocities practised upon the Roumanian Jews in 1872. Similar action was brought to bear at the Madrid conference in 1880 in favour of the Jews in Morocco. Another part of the work of the Alliance is to maintain or assist schools for boys and girls in North Africa and in the Turkish empire, &c. In this task it co operates with the Anglo-Jewish association formed for similar objects in England, the Board of Deputies in London, and the Alliance in Vienna. The Alliance has also an organization for apprenticing Jewish children touseful tradesin elevenEastern towns. Other Jewish public institutions at Paris are the rabbinical seminary under chief rabbi Wogue, schools and an industrial school for girls, the hospital founded by the late Baron James do Rothschild, the orphanage established by the late Baron Salomon de Rothschild, the ladies committee and house of refuge, a central committee for Jerusalem schools, the society of Talmudical studies, and many burial and mutual aid societies. At Lyons and Marseilles there are similar institutions. The distinction between reform and orthodox congrega tions, which has been noticed in Germany, and reappears elsewhere, is not found in France. The older distinction between the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (Sephardim) on the one hand, and the Polish and German Jews (Ashken- azim) on the other, is, however, still made. They have different synagogues, in which a somewhat different ritual and a different pronunciation of Hebrew are employed. No doctrinal distinction, however, exists between the two divisions, and they now freely intermarry and associate with each other, although at their first meeting in France and England, about a century ago, and for some time later, the rich and polished emigres from the south refused to mix with their uncultured northern brethren. The Jews of German rite are now much more numerous and wealthy in western Europe than the Sephardim. The number of Jews in France in 1880 was about 60,000, of whom 34,000 were in the consistorial circonscription of Paris, 8800 in that of Nancy, 2200 in Lyons, 4000 in Bordeaux, 2200 ill Bayonne, 4000 in Marseilles. The Jewish population in France (including northern Italy, and Treves, Mainz, Coblentz, &c. ) in 1808 was 77. 000 ; it had risen to 158,994 (without including Italy or Treves and its sister cities) when the census of 1866 was taken, but fell to 49,439 in the census of 1872, owing to the loss of Alsace-