Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/366

328 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Austria

again confirmed the charter of the Jews in Austria. Individual Jews occasionally received special favors, as, for example, the physician Lazarus, whom the tutor of the emperor's children commends highly for services rendered to the imperial household (1534), and the Jew Moyse, who had distinguished himself by services rendered to the mint (1542). The latter was granted, as a special favor, permission to deal in all kinds of merchandise, though he was prohibited from lending money on interest. In spite of his promises to allow Jews to reside in places where they had been tolerated, Ferdinand ordered an expulsion of the Jews from Austria (Jan. 31, 3544). The order was, however, never executed. An expulsion from Bohemia, decreed by Ferdinand in 1561, was repealed owing to the efforts of Mordecai Meisels, who went to Rome and obtained from Pope Paul IV. the absolution of the emperor from his vow. Under the successors of Ferdinand, Maximilian II. (1564-76), Rudolph II. (1576-1612), and Matthias (1612-19), the conditions remained the same. Expulsions were threatened and revoked taxes were imposed on every occasion and petty persecutions, especially in regard to the distinctive Jewish costume or badge, were the key-note of the legislation. In 1567 a charter granted to the Jews of Bohemia confirms



the right of residence to the Jews of Bohemia " for all time " while in the following year it is decreed that they shall not be permitted to reside in the mining towns. From these latter they remained excluded until the new constitution of 1848 abolished their Another decree of expulsion followed, disabilities. for the Jews of Lower Austria, in 1572, which was suspended in the following year, but seems to have been finally executed in 1575 or 1576. This expulsion, like that decreed in 1561 in Bohemia, must either have been revoked or, more probably, became again a dead letter owing to the exceptions in favor of the court Jews, who had the right to take other Jews into their employ for in 1597 the states of Lower Austria again demand the expulsion of the Jews from the province, and, as if they knew that such a decree would not be carried out, they demand the enforcement of the decree compelling Jews to wear a badge. Rudolph II. took a great interest in the Jews from a scientific point of view also. Being an alchemist, he, like many others at that time, believed that cabalistic literature contained information on the mysteries which he was studying, and therefore he called Rabbi Lowe ben Bezalel to his castle in Prague (1592) to give him the much-desired information ("Zemah David," ed. Frankfort-on-the;



Main, 1692,

p. 664).

II. (1619-37) was a bigoted Catholic and a disciple of the Jesuits, who, in their desire to crush out all heresy, were naturally enemies of the Jews. As during the sixteenth century complaint was made that the Jews sympathized with the Turks and served them as spies, so after the battle at the White Mountain near Prague (1620), which restored Bohemia to the house of Hapsburg and to Catholicism, the charge was made that the Jews favored ProtesThus, the dean of Teplitz complains in a tantism. report to the archbishop of Prague that the Jews receive Protestants into their houses, and that the noise of their synagogues (" rugitus et mugitus illo-

Ferdinand

328

rum ") disturbs the church services (" Allg. Zeit. des Jud." 1887, p. 30). In spite of his religious prejudices, however, Ferdinand treated the Jews with comparative fairness. When the town council of Vienna ordered landlords having Jews as tenants to require them to vacate the premises, the emperor at once intervened, enjoined the council from disturbing the Jews, and also took measures to protect them against further disturbances by allotting an area in one of the suburbs of Vienna to be set apart for the habitations of the Jews, in which they would be permitted to acquire real estate (1624). In a charter, dated Dec. 6, 1624, the Jews have assured to them undisturbed residence in Vienna they are permitted to enter the city without the badge the population they are placed exis warned not to molest them clusively under the jurisdiction of the The Vienna imperial authorities and their houses Ghetto. are exempted from the obligation to billet soldiers. On the other hand, Ferdinand, as a strict Catholic, ordered that both in Vienna and in Prague Jews should be forced to attend a mission service on every Sabbath, when a Jesuit would preach to them on the truth of the Catholic religion (1630). The policy of Ferdinand seems to have been to exempt individual Jews from the disabilities imposed upon the Jews as a class. Thus, he gave to Jacob Bassevi hereditary nobility, and to the court Jews of Vienna a privilege which exempted them from the jurisdiction of the congregational authoriThis privilege and the immunit}' of the Jews ties. from communal taxes and from the jurisdiction of the municipal authorities proved bones of contention and after the death of Ferdinand (1637) the Jews of Vienna compromised with the city authorities, offering to pay the sum of 6,000 florins into the city treasury. This offer had not, however, the desired effect. The municipal authorities of Vienna demanded of the new emperor, Ferdinand III. (163757), the expulsion of the Jews from Lower Austria; and the emperor acceded to the extent of ordering that Jews should not be permitted to keep stores in the city, and that their exemption from municipal jurisdiction should cease (1638). year or two later this law was revoked. In 1641 the Immunity status quo of 1624 was restored, and in from recognition of the services rendered by City Taxes, the Jews to the imperial treasury during the severe crisis which the war with the Swedes had brought upon Austria, the former privileges were confirmed in 1645. Although the Jews had been accused of secret complicity with the enemy,, they suffered terribly during the Thirty Years' war. In various congregations of Moravia Jewish houses were pillaged, and in Kremsier seventeen people were killed and a considerable number wounded (June 26, 1643) (Frankl-Grlin, " Gesch. der Juden in Kremsier, " pp. 96 et seq.). The heavy taxes exacted from the Jews, in consequence of the depletion of the imperial treasury during the protracted war, and the constant quarrels in the overburdened Jewish communities, induced the emperor to give to the Jews of Vienna a new constitution (1646) which should enable the officers to enforce their authority (Meynert, in Wertheimer, " Jahrbuch filrlsraeliten,"









A