the Fourth Week of Advent
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Encyclopedias
Europe
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia
or I Early Period (163 B. C. to 500 C.E.):
The first settlements of Jews in Europe are obscure. There is documentary evidence only for the fact that in 163 B.C. Eupolemus, son of John, and Jason, son of Eleazar, went to Rome as ambassadors from Judas Maccabeus and sealed a compact of friendship with the republic (I Macc. ). Twenty-five years later other visitors to Rome are said to have made an attempt to win over wider circles to the Jewish faith (Valerius Maximus, 1:2,3); and in the time of Cicero there was already a fairly large Jewish community in Rome (Cicero, "Pro Flacco," 28). Its numbers grew steadily; and in the year of Herod's death (4 B.C.) not fewer than 8,000 Jews of Rome supported the commission from Jerusalem to Augustus (Josephus, "B. J." 2:6, § 1). The settlements in the provinces also increased. There were Jews at Vienne (Vienna), Gallia Celtica, in the year 6 C.E.; at Lugdunum in 39; and the apostle Paul preached in the synagogues of Athens, Corinth, and Thessalonica. The number of Jews was also augmented by converts. The communities were well organized. They had houses for prayer, and cemeteries, and, under the protection of the law, went peaceably about their business. They were farmers, artisans, and, later, merchants. They attained to Roman citizenship when Caracalla granted civil rights to all the inhabitants of the empire (212).
Christianization of Europe.
But toleration came to a sudden end when Constantine the Great bowed to the sign of the cross, and the Church established the doctrine, unheard of in pagan antiquity, that the possession of municipal and state rights is dependent on submission to certain articles of faith. At the Council of Nicæa (325) she broke the last threads which bound her to the mother religion. She declared officially that the Jews were cast off by the God of their fathers because they had refused to accept the Christian dogmas. Constantine's successors promulgated many exceptional regulations aiming to lower the Jews both socially and economically. The stream of the migration of nations set in, which shook the Roman world to its foundations. In Italy, in southern Gaul, on the Pyrenean peninsula, and in Germany these hordes found large numbers of Jews who experienced no change at the hands of their new masters.
Attitude of Church.
While thus the gradual decay of the world-empire was terrifying the unprotected Jews and scattering them still more, the ecclesiastics, and especially the holy Ambrose of Milan, endeavored to hasten the destruction of Judaism. Theodosius II., by a law dated Jan. 31, 439, took away civil rights from the Jews, set limits to the free exercise of their religion, forbade them to build synagogues, made it difficult for them to own slaves, and excluded them from holding office in the state. This law remained the basis for the contemptuous treatment of the Jews in all Christian countries during the succeeding 1,500 years.
II. Period of Many-Sided Development (500-1500):
The East-Roman empire was at first affected but little by the barbarian invasion. The legislation of Justinian culminated in the principle of taking away civil rights from heretics and unbelievers and of making their existence as difficult as possible. The restrictive laws of Constantineand Theodosius were renewed with increased rigor. The public observance of their religion was forbidden the Jews. The loss of their civil rights was followed by disregard for their personal freedom. In the wars waged by the Iconoclasts (eighth and ninth centuries) the Jews especially had to suffer, and mostly at the hands of iconoclastic emperors who were suspected of being heretics with Jewish tendencies. Many Jews fled to the neighboring states of the Slavs and Tatars, which were just coming into existence, and found refuge and protection on the lower Volga and on the northern shores of the Black Sea in the realm of the See see CHAZARS.
While the East-Roman empire was prolonging its inglorious existence by perpetual warfare with neighbors who were ever growing stronger, the Western empire fell a prey to the barbarians. With the exception of the restrictive laws of the first Christian emperors, which still remained in force, the Jews were not troubled on account of their faith. Not until the beginning of the ninth century did the Church succeed in drawing all humanity within her jurisdiction, and in bringing together and definitely settling the regulations in canonical law which the authority of the Church ordained for believers and their treatment of non-believers. Intercourse with Jews was almost entirely forbidden to believers, and thereby a chasm was created between the adherents of the two religions, which could not be bridged.
Church Laws on Usury.
On the other hand, the Church found herself compelled to make the Jew a fellow citizen of the believer; for she enforced upon her own communities the Biblical prohibition against usury; and thus the only way left open to her of conducting financial operations was to seek loans at a legally determined rate of interest from the adherents of another faith. Through these peculiar conditions the Jews rapidly acquired influence. At the same time they were compelled to find their pleasures at home and in their own circles only. Their sole intellectual food came from their own literature, to which they devoted themselves with all the strength of their nature.
This was the general condition of the Jews in Western lands. Their fate in each particular country depended on the changing political conditions. In Italy they experienced dark days during the endless wars waged by the Heruli, Rugii, Ostrogoths, and Longobardi. The severe laws of the Roman emperors were in general more mildly administered than elsewhere; the Arian confession, of which the Germanic conquerors of Italy were adherents, being in contrast with the Catholic characterized by its tolerance. Among the Burgundians and Franks, who professed the Catholic faith, the ecclesiastical sentiment, fortunately for the Jews, made but slow progress, and the Merovingian rulers rendered only a listless and indifferent support to the demands of the Church, the influence of which they had no inclination to increase.
Arabs in Spain.
In the Pyrenean peninsula, from the most ancient times, Jews had lived peaceably in greater numbers than in the land of the Franks. The same modest good fortune remained to them when the Suevi, Alani, Vandals, and Visigoths occupied the land. It came to a sudden end when the Visigothic kings embraced Catholicism and wished to convert all their subjects to the same faith. Many Jews yielded to compulsion in the secret hope that the severe measures would be of short duration. But they soon bitterly repented this hasty step; for the Visigothic legislation insisted with inexorable severity that those who had been baptized by force should remain true to the Christian faith. Consequently the Jews eagerly welcomed the Arabs when the latter conquered the peninsula in 711. SPAIN.
Those Jews who still wished to remain true to the faith of their fathers were protected by the Church herself from compulsory conversion. There was no change in this policy even later, when the pope called for the support of the Carolingians in protecting his ideal kingdom with their temporal power. Charlemagne, moreover, was glad to use the Church for the purpose of welding together the loosely connected elements of his kingdom when he transformed the old Roman empire into a Christian one, and united under the imperial crown all the German races at that time firmly settled. When, a few decades after his death, his world-empire fell apart (843), the rulers of Italy, France, and Germany left the Church free scope in her dealings with the Jews, and under the influence of religious zeal hatred toward the unbelievers ripened into deeds of horror.
The Crusades.
The trials which the Jews endured from time to time in the different kingdoms of the Christian West were only indications of the catastrophe which broke over them at the time of the Crusades. A wild, unrestrained throng, for which the crusade was only an excuse to indulge its rapacity, fell upon the peaceful Jews and sacrificed them to its fanaticism. In the first Crusade (1096) flourishing communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed. In the second Crusade (1147) the Jews in France suffered especially. Philip Augustus treated them with exceptional severity. In his days the third Crusade took place (1188); and the preparations for it proved to be momentous for the English Jews. After unspeakable trials Jews were banished from England in 1290; and 365 years passed before they were allowed to settle again in the British Isles.
False Accusations.
The justification for these deeds was found in crimes laid to the charge of the Jews. They were held responsible for the crime imputed to them a thousand years before this; and the false charge was circulated that they wished to dishonor the host which was supposed to represent Jesus' body. They were further charged with being the cause of every calamity. In 1240 the plundering raids of the Mongols were laid at their door. When, a hundred years later, the BLACK DEATH raged through Europe, the tale was invented that the Jews had poisoned the wells. The only court of appeal that regarded itself as their appointed protector, according to historical conceptions, was the "Roman emperor of the German nation." The emperor, as legal successor to Titus, who had acquired the Jews for his special property through the destruction of theTemple, claimed the rights of possession and protection over all the Jews in the former Roman empire.
"Servi Cameræ."
They thus became imperial "servi cameræ." He might present them and their possessions to princes or to cities. That the Jews were not utterly destroyed was due to two circumstances: (1) the envy, distrust, and greed of princes and peoples toward one another, and (2) the moral strength which was infused into the Jews by a suffering which was undeserved but which enabled them to resist persecution. The abilities which could find no expression in the service of country or of humanity at large, were directed with all the more zeal toward the study of the Bible and Talmud, toward ordering communal affairs, toward building up a happy family life, and toward bettering the condition of the Jewish race in general.
Expulsions.
Everywhere in the Christian Occident an equally gloomy picture was presented. The Jews, who were driven out of England in 1290, out of France in 1394, and out of numerous districts of Germany, Italy, and the Balkan peninsula between 1350 and 1450, were scattered in all directions, and fled preferably to the new Slavic kingdoms, where for the time being other confessions were still tolerated. Here they found a sure refuge under benevolent rulers and acquired a certain prosperity, in the enjoyment of which the study of the Talmud was followed with renewed vigor. Together with their faith, they took with them the German language and customs, which they have cultivated in a Slavic environment with unexampled faithfulness up to the present time.
As in Slavic countries, so also under Mohammedan rule the persecuted Jews often found a humane reception, especially from the eighth century onward in the Pyrenean peninsula. But even as early as the thirteenth century the Arabs could no longer offer a real resistance to the advancing force of Christian kings; and with the fall of political power Arabic culture declined, after having been transmitted to the Occident at about the same period, chiefly through the Jews in the north of Spain and in the south of France. At that time there was no field of learning which the Spanish Jews did not cultivate. They studied the secular sciences with the same zeal as the Bible and Talmud.
But the growing influence of the Church gradually crowded them out of this advantageous position. At first the attempt was made to win them to Christianity through writings and religious disputations; and when these attempts failed they were ever more and more restricted in the exercise of their civil rights. Soon they were obliged to live in separate quarters of the cities and to wear humiliating badges on their clothing. Thereby they were made a prey to the scorn and hatred of their fellow citizens. In 1391, when a fanatical mob killed thirty thousand Jews in Seville alone, many in their fright sought refuge in baptism. And although they often continued to observe in secret the laws of their fathers the Inquisition soon rooted out these pretended Christians or Maranos. Thousands were thrown into prison, tortured, and burned, until a project was formed to sweep all Spain clean of unbelievers. The plan matured when in 1492 the last Moorish fortress fell into the hands of the Christians. Several hundred thousand Jews were forced from the country which had been their home for 1,500 years. Many of them fled to the Balkan peninsula, where a few decades before the Crescent had won a victory over the Cross through the Osmanli Turks. These exiles have faithfully preserved the language of the country they were forced to leave; and to-day, after a lapse of more than 400 years, Spanish is still the mother tongue of their descendants.
III. Period of Decay (1500-1750):
The renaissance of art and science was coeval with the death of the Byzantine empire; and the newly discovered art of printing scoffed at canonical laws which tried to enslave thought. In the same year in which Spain expelled the unbelievers the shores of America appeared above the horizon. The age of inventions and discoveries brought about an immense change in ideas. Only the Jews remained in the night of the Middle Ages. These homeless people were crowded from the west of Europe ever farther toward the east. They had to seek refuge in the realms of the Slavs and the Turks, in which a native culture was as yet unknown. Their external circumstances were not at first unfavorable. They even attained to high positions in the state, at least in Turkey. Don Joseph Nasi was made Duke of Naxos; and Solomon Ashkenazi was ambassador of the Porte to the republic of Venice.
In Poland the Jews were an indispensable link between the pomp-loving nobility and the peasant serfs; and trade and industry were entirely in their hands. Not finding a higher civilization in their new homes, their only mental nourishment came from their national literature, and they either pursued the one-sided study of the Talmud, which exercised the understanding only, or dived deep into the mysterious depths of the Cabala. The persecution of the Jews in Turkey and Poland in the middle of the seventeenth century came to the aid of the visionaries and dreamers. Especially disastrous were the trials which were brought upon the Polish and Lithuanian Jews through the Cossack hetman Chmielnicki (1648) and by the Swedish wars (1655). According to trustworthy reports, hundreds of thousands of them were killed in these few years. Once more fugitives and unsettled, the anxious Jews waited trustfully for the message which should announce to them that at last the deliverer had appeared in the far East.
Shabbethai Ẓebi.
Thus it came about that a talented youth from Smyrna, Shabbethai Ẓebi, succeeded in passing himself off as the promised Messiah. Numberless followers crowded about him; and these still clung to Shabbethai in their delusion even after he had adopted Islam through fear of the death penalty with which the sultan had threatened him. The incomprehensible extent of his following was due to the fact that even those Jews who enjoyed greater intellectual freedom than their brethren in Poland were yet severely oppressed and gave themselves up to cabalistic reveries.
Hebrew Books Burned.
Fugitives from Spain and Germany had come also to Italy, and founded new communities beside the existing ones. Here they greeted the dawn of the new period, and together with the Greeks—who had fled hither from Constantinople bringing the treasures of classical antiquity with them—became the leaders and guides of the humanists to the source of Jewish antiquity. The Italian Jews taught Hebrew, and learned Latin and Greek. The clergy in Italy and Germany armed itself to fight against the victoriously advancing enlightenment and civilization, and directed its attacks chiefly against Jewish literature. Jewish apostates in the pay of the Dominicans spread false calumnies concerning the Talmud. In its defense the German humanists arose in a body, not so much out of friendliness toward the Jews as out of zeal for free investigation. In these straits the Jesuits, who were the most faithful defenders of the Church, came into existence. They took up the fight against the Talmud in Italy, and as early as 1553 pyres were lighted upon which copies of it and other Hebrew books without number were burned. Guided by apostates, the Council of Trent expurgated the Talmud of all pretended objectionable passages, and the numerous spies of the Inquisition forced the educated Jews to secrecy and hypocrisy. The only study they were allowed to pursue unhindered was the Cabala, which the Jesuits erroneously believed supported Christian ideas. Thus here also the soil was prepared for belief in the dreamer Shabbethai Ẓebi.
The inclination to study esoteric doctrines spread at that time even among the Jews who had founded new communities in the Protestant states on the shores of the North Sea under Dutch and English protection. This new mysticism strongly influenced the German Jews, who in consequence of superstitious error were plunged into the deepest ignorance, and were watching for a speedy redemption after the sufferings of the Thirty Years' war. Judaism was saved only when a beam of enlightenment shone in the night of its existence. Shabbethai Ẓebi was still alive when the Jews were driven out of Vienna (1671). The elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg allowed them to settle in Berlin, and protected them with a strong hand from injury and slander. Even here they were hampered by oppressive taxation and narrow-minded regulations; but their versatile minds could not long remain shut out from the growing enlightenment. For the third time a Moses appeared in the midst of them, to lead his people from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom.
IV. The New Period (1750 to the Present Time):
Moses Mendelssohn translated the Bible into High German for his coreligionists, and thus tore down the wall that separated the German Jews from their fellow citizens. With the newly acquired possession of a mother tongue the homeless Jew acquired also the right to a fatherland. By the end of the eighteenth century the Jews were taking an active part in German education and civilization. They had their youth instructed in secular studies, and aimed at ennobling the internal affairs of the religious community. This was not accomplished without severe inner struggles. To the adherents of a radical reform like Holdheim and Geiger stood opposed the champions of tradition like Samson Raphael Hirsch, who in religious matters would not deviate a hair's breadth from the traditional observances, while Zacharias Frankel tried to pave the way for an intermediary position on a historically positive basis. The rabbinic councils (1844-46) and synods (1869-71) acquired no authoritative influence (CONFERENCES, RABBINICAL). But the change in western Europe gradually came about of itself. To-day in every large community sermons are preached in the vernacular; the synagogue service is accompanied by a trained choir and presided over by a scientifically educated rabbi.
Political Equality.
Thus Judaism was enabled to take part in the work of civilization. North America and France showed how salutary it might be to make use of all the forces in the state. Prussia adopted the same opinion when in its years of trial it collected the weakened remnants of the fatherland and in 1812 made Jews full citizens in the land of their birth. The new ideas, then, which were prevalent in the constitutional states of Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century recognized the political equality of all citizens without regard to difference in belief.
The mental development of the Jews kept pace with their civil recognition, and the science of Judaism was developed. Its founder was Leopold Zunz (1794-1886). Berlin was again the starting-point of the new science, which succeeded in giving a firm foundation to modern Judaism.
Anti-Semitism.
Notwithstanding the fact that political equality was secured to the Jews in the revolutions of 1848, the majority of them still live outside the sphere where liberal ideas predominate. A certain relaxation of vigilance was shown in Russia during the reign of Alexander II.; but upon his death (March 13, 1881) a series of outbreaks against the Jews occurred which were followed by more systematic persecution on the part of the Russian bureaucracy, so that the state of the Russian Jews at the end of the nineteenth century was almost worse than it had been at the beginning. Similarly, in Rumania for the last quarter of a century restriction has been added to restriction till the very existence of a Jew in that country has been rendered almost impossible, notwithstanding the fact that the Berlin Congress, which gave autonomy to Rumania, did so on condition that full political rights should be granted to all Rumanian citizens without distinction of creed. Even in the European countries where political equality exists there have been certain signs of social antagonism, which gave rise to the movement known as ANTI-SEMITISM. Beginning in 1875 in Germany, this spread to Austria, and ultimately to France, where it culminated in the Dreyfus Case. Neverthless, its virulence has perceptibly declined, and Russia and Rumania remain the chief sources of ill will against the Jews on the continent of Europe. See also articles on the various countries of Europe.
Map Showing the Comparative Density of Jewish Population per 1,000 in Europe, 1900.
The following table gives the official or estimated number of Jews in the different European countries at the four most recent census periods, about 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900; the first set of figures being taken from Andree, "Volkskunde der Juden"; the second, from I. Loeb's article "Juifs," in Vivien de St. Martin, "Dictionnaire de Géographie"; the third, from J. Jacobs, "Jewish Year Book," 1900; and the last partly from I. Harris, in "Jewish Year Book," 1903. Estimates are marked with an asterisk.*
| Country. | 1870. | 1880. | 1890. | 1900. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | 820,200 | 1,005,394 | 1,143,305 | 1,224,899 | |
| Belgium | 3,000* | 4,000* | 3,000* | 12,600* | |
| Bosnia | ........ | 3,426 | ........ | 5,845 | |
| Bulgaria | 8,959 | 10,000 | ........ | 28,000* | |
| Denmark | 4,290 | 3,946 | 4,080 | 5,000* | |
| Eastern Rumelia | ........ | 4,177 | ........ | 6,982 | |
| England, etc. | 68,300* | 60,000* | 101,189 | 179,000* | |
| France | 49,439 | 76,897 | 72,000 | 86,885 | |
| Germany | 520,575 | 561,610 | 567,884 | 586,948 | |
| Greece | 2,582 | 2,652 | 5,792 | 8,350 | |
| Holland | 68,003 | 81,693 | 97,324 | 103,988 | |
| Hungary | 552,233 | 638,314 | 716,801 | 851,378 | |
| Italy | 35,356 | 40,430* | 50,000* | 44,037 | |
| Luxemburg | 661 | 777 | 1,000* | 1,200* | |
| Norway and Sweden | 1,870 | 3,027 | 3,402 | 5,000* | |
| Portugal | 1,000* | 200* | 300* | 1,200* | |
| Rumania | 400,000* | 265,000* | 300,000* | 269,013 | |
| Russia (European) and Poland | 2,552,549 | 2,552,145 | 4,500,000* | 5,142,195 | |
| Servia | 2,000* | 3,492 | 4,652 | 5,100 | |
| Spain (with Gibraltar) | 6,000* | 1,902 | 2,500 | 4,500* | |
| Switzerland | 6,996 | 7,373 | 8,069 | 12,551 | |
| Turkey, etc. | 62,413 | 115,000* | 120,000* | 75,295 | |
| Cyprus and Malta | ........ | ........ | ........ | 130 | |
| ________ | ________ | _________ | ________ | ||
| Totals | 5,166,426 | 5,441,455 | 7,701,298 | 8,659,496 | |
These files are public domain.
Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'Europe'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/e/europe.html. 1901.
