Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/364

326 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Austria

326 in the

German empire

likely

meant that he

the Jews of Italy was the hull of Dec. 23, 1420, decreeing that Jewish children under the age of twelve

chief rabbi of all the

should not be baptized. The fate of the Jews he either could not or would not alter, although in his bull of Feb. 12, 1418, he had confirmed to them the whole of the privileges which they had possessed in Germany. All the Jews who had not professed Christianity were burned near Vienna, March 12, 1421; the duke confiscated their property; their houses were either sold or donated to persons of dis-

should be responsible for the collection of taxes The (Gratz, "Gesch. der Juden," 3d ed., viii. 102). assumption that Israel was from Kremsier (FrankelGrun, " Gesch. der Juden von Kremsier," i. 15, Breslau, 1896) is improbable (see "Deborah," 1902, p. 132). The Jews refused to submit to him. From the Expulsion of 1420 to that of 1670 Albrecht's posthumous son, Ladislaus (144057), who was declared of age in 1452, was a religious fanatic, and in the treatment of the Jews followed In charters granted to the example of his father. the municipality of Vienna (June 6. 1453, and Sept. 27, 1455) he confirmed his father's law, that no Jew should have the right to reside in that city. He further declared that loans contracted by his subjects from Jews residing elsewhere should be invalid, just as his father had in 1423 made an agreement with his cousin, Ernst of Styria, that the Jews living in the latter's dominion should not be permitted to lend money to the subjects of Albrecht. The physicians of Vienna complained that a Jew who had a safe-conduct from the German emperor Frederick III., Ladislaus' cousin, practised medicine

tinction



and the synagogue was destroyed, and the

materials given to the university. The children of the Jews were placed in monasteries to he educated; and the duke made a treaty with his cousin Ernst of Styria that the Jews in the latter's dominion should have no dealings with his subjects. Even in his own dominion, however, he could not enforce his law, for in 1438 he issued a safe-conduct to a Jew, named Isserlein, basing this favor on the fact that the latter was innocent of the crime for which the Jews had been punished. His epitaph, however, praises him for the cremation of the Jews ("Jussi Judreos ante

cremare meos"). Culture



tions, as

number

Jews in Austria some congregaVienna, Wiener Neustadt, and

"While the

must have been

of

considerable, and

those of

Krems, had contained Jewish settlements as early as the cities along the Rhine, and while Eliezer of Bohemia speaks with an expression of pity of the spiritual conditions among the Jews of Hungary and Poland (Buber, "Anshe Shem," p. x, Cracow, 1895), little is

Jews

known

of this country.

of literary activity among the Of the fourteenth century is

ben Baruch ha-Levi in Vienna, who have introduced the title Mokenu as

reported

Mel'r

is

to

license for

the exercise of the rabbinical prerogative. Among his contemporaries were Abraham Klausner, Shalom of Neustadt, and Aaron of Neustadt. Their activity is chiefly in the field of the minutite of law, in which Shalom's disciple, Jacob ha-Levi (Maharil), became specially prominent. The latter has preserved to us the fact that as early as the fourteenth century the Jews of Austria had their own ritual and their peculiar melodies in public worship ("Minhag Bene Oesterreich " see Maharil, in " Laws of Yom Kippur," ed. Warsaw, 1874, p. 47). Religious practises in Austria must have been so developed in the twelfth century that Isaac of Durbalo, a Frenchman, thought them worthy of his special attention, and he quotes what he has heard about them in Olmutz

(Mahzor Vitry, p. 338, Berlin, 1896-97). There must, however, have been some participation in the spiritual life of their neighbors, as Jewish physicians are frequently mentioned, and their practise seems to have aroused the jealousy of their Christian competitors. It is further probable that G. Wolf is right when he thinks that the title " Morenu " was introduced by R. Mei'r ha-Levi in imitation of the conferring of degrees in the University of Vienna founded in 1365 (" Studien zur Jubelfeier der Wiener The only TalUniversitat," p. 15, Vienna, 1865). mudic scholar of great literary reputation was Israel Isserlein of Marburg, Styria, author of " Terumat ha-Deshen," who lived in the first half of the fifteenth century. The great-grandfather of Isserlein, Israel of Krems, was appointed by Emperor Rupert

(May

3,

1407),

Jews which most



The young king's enmity toward the Huswas even more bitter than that of his father;

(1454). sites

and under his protection the fanatic Permonk C'apistrano preached against secutions the heretics, arousing the population Capistrano. against the Jews. They were expelled from Olmutz, Brunn. Znaim, Neusladt, Breslau, Schweidnitz, and other cities of Sile:

sia (1454-55).

Ladislaus died (

Nov.

23, 1457),

when only seventeen years

and

old

his lands passed into the posses-

sion of Frederick V. of Styria,

who was also German

emperor after 1440. Frederick was always in financial difficulties, and therefore needed the Jews; but he was also favorably inclined to them from humanitarian reasons, so that people gave him the nickname "King of the Jews." Probably because of the attacks on them by Capistrano, Frederick obtained from Pope Nicholas V. a bull (issued Sept. granting him express permission to allow to reside in all of his dominions, which included Austria, Carinthia, Carniola, Styria, Tyrol, and Alsace (Vorder-Oesterreich). This permission 20, 1451)

Jews

explained by the fact that the Jews were tolerated for the benefit of the inhabitants needing moneylenders (Christians not being allowed to engage in is

this business), and,

further, because tradition had from time immemorial sanctioned this toleration. A correct text is found in Scherer (I.e. p. 436). When

Frederick succeeded to the possessions of Austria, the states ("Stande") petitioned (1458) that the expulsion of the Jews from Upper and Lower Austria be enforced. The petition was renewed in 1460, and in his reply (March 23, 1460) in which he grants the petitioners' request and states that Jews shall settle nowhere in his territories except where they have been permitted to reside before, he repudiates the rumor that he favored the Jews: " Wiemansein

genad beschulldig, sein genad halt hye hewser vol Juden und time den gnadig schub und furderung, etc.,

wolt sein kay. gn. gern solcher zicht vertragen