Hello, everyone.
Thank you very much for coming.
And I'm absolutely
delighted and honored
to welcome David
Sorkin back to Brown
as the BGS visiting
scholar for 2016.
You may have noticed I said
welcoming back to Brown,
because you may know that
Davis began his teaching career
at Brown in the mid 1980s.
On the way here he
just mentioned to me
it's exactly 30 years
since he left Brown.
The occasion of
his being here has
been commemorated in an iconic
postcard that's still being
sold at the bookstore at Brown.
The postcard show David
conducting a seminar
on the green sitting
cross-legged in midst
of a circle of students who are
looking up at him expectantly.
And that postcard
has become kind
of the image of
Brown and its best.
Since that, he did a portrait
that David Sorkin has gone on
to become one of the most
distinguished and original
practitioners of modern
European Jewish history
of this generation.
He is the Lucy G.
Moses Professor
of Modern Jewish History
at Yale University.
And he's the author of
four important monographs,
as well as several collections
of important essays.
These works of David's
have fundamentally
transformed the categories of
modern Jewish historiography.
Like his undergraduate
mentor, George [INAUDIBLE],
David Sorkin asks
three questions,
focusing on issues
defining moments
in modern Jewish history
and European history,
which at certain points
meet and get entangled.
And it's these entanglements
that David really
is interested in.
Despite their enormous
scope, Sorkin's books
are characteristically specific.
They are enormously erudite.
They have a sense of
balance and fairness.
And, I think, very
important to me,
they also display an enormously
lucid literary style.
But if I were to
seek for the reasons
for the transformative
impact of David
Sorkin along the
profession, I would
point to the
originality of his work,
and his ability to
challenge accepted
orthodoxy in the profession.
His first book was
The Transformation
Of German Jewry, 1780 1840,
which was published in 1987.
It was the winner of the Presnet
Tense Joel Caviar Literary
Award for history.
The book presents a
bold reinterpretation
of Jewish assimilation
in 19th century Germany,
arguing that German Jewish
emancipation resulted
not just in assimilation
or integration,
but rather in the creation of
a new German Jewish subculture
that news elements of
the majority culture
to create parallel but
autonomous social institutions.
And since the
publication of that book,
I have to tell you--
I can't tell you
how often I have heard the use
of the German Jewish subculture
among historian of German Jewry.
His second book was Moses
Mendelsshon and the Religious
Enlightenment.
It was published in 1996.
And this book presents an
intriguing reinterpretation
of the philosopher by
focusing on his Hebrew text,
deriving from Jewish
religious thought,
and showing their
complex interplay
with the better known German
writings on Enlightenment that
have been associated
with Mendelsshon.
His next book,
which was originally
conceived as a series of
essays on the Belgian Haskalah
suggest that Haskalah
or Jewish Enlightenment
was not simply a precursor of
the emancipation, as usually
supposed, but also a
self-generating movement
of religious renewal whose
roots can be traced back
to the Jewish
religious tradition.
His latest is and perhaps
most ambitious book
has been The Religious
Enlightenment Protestants,
Jews, and Catholics
from London to Vienna.
And the book came out in 2008.
This book presents a
broad, synthetic analysis
on Protestant, Jewish and
Catholic Enlightenment ideals,
which he places in the very
center of Enlightenment
intellectual debates.
HIs presentation
at Brown will focus
on another set of
controversial issues, which
is the meeting ground
between Jewish emancipation
and modern politics, as invented
by the French Revolution.
The first of his
lectures on this topic
is entitled Were Jews Central
to the French Revolution,
A Contrarian Analysis.
I'm very pleased and
very happy to welcome
you, David, back to Brown.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you, Mary, for that
extremely kind, generous
and, as always, characteristic
of you, absolutely lucid
introduction.
It's a great pleasure for
me to be here at Brown.
As Mary mentioned, it's
been 30 years since I left.
I'd like to thank
the Judaic studies
program for the invitation
to be the visiting scholar.
Let me just say something
about the shape of the two
lectures and the
seminar that I'm
going to be giving this month.
What I'm trying to
do is to revisit
the emancipation of the
Jews in France, especially
the two decrees of January 28,
1790, and September 27, 1791,
by which the Jews gained
equal rights in France.
This was of course,
a momentous event.
For the first time Jews
were now full citizens
of a modern state.
Looking across
Europe, France seemed
to be the model of a quick,
painless, revolutionary grant
of rights.
In the German
states, for example,
debates about emancipation
had begun in the 1780s,
but equal rights were first
attained, at least on paper,
in 1870 with unification.
In the Habsburg
lands, the process
had begun with Joseph II's
multiple edicts of toleration
for the various parts
of the Habsburg Empire.
But equality on paper
at least was not
achieved until the creation
of the Dual Monarchy in 1867.
Or in England, for example,
full political rights
weren't attained until 1858,
when the first Jew, Rothschild,
was allowed to take the oath to
become a member of Parliament.
In Russia not until 1917.
Now, many historians contrast
France's revolutionary model
of unconditional emancipation
with the protracted enlightened
atodist incrementalist model
of conditional emancipation
in central Europe,
not to mention
a total lack of emancipation
in Eastern Europe,
which actually isn't true, but
I won't talk about that today.
But was the grant of rights
in fact-- in France--
in fact, quick and painless?
Did it and in 1791?
The purpose of my
lectures and the seminar
is to complicate our
understanding of emancipation
in France by
restoring contingency
and the accidents of history to
what has become a mythic event.
Emancipation was, in fact,
neither quick nor painless,
nor perhaps even revolutionary.
In the first lecture today, I'll
undertake a close examination
of those two decrees of January,
1790, and September, 1791.
In the second lecture,
I'll try to present
a new view of Napoleon's
assembly of notables
and Sanhedrin of 1806-1808, and
the so-called infamous decrees,
the discriminatory legislation
Napoleon put in place
for a decade from 1808 to 1818.
In the seminar,
the seminar paper,
I'll assert that
aspects of emancipation
continued in France
down to 1870,
especially if we take
account of Algeria,
rather just of
metropolitan France.
And reaching a
high point in some
respects with the foundation
of the Alliance Israelite
Universelle in 1860.
So to the lecture
itself, was equality
for the Jews central to
the French Revolution?
My topic then will be
three events this evening,
the debate, the famous
debate of December 23rd, 1789
about the emancipation
of the Jews,
and then, as I have mentioned,
the two votes of January 28,
1790, and September 27, 1791,
when the French National
Assembly granted Jews
equality of citizens.
Now, there is no doubt
that the French Revolution
was momentous for the Jews.
The Jews and Jewish
historians have
been obsessed with
the French Revolution
ever since the initial
debate of December 23rd 1789.
It's eminently
comprehensible, since it
represented a major
transformation
in the Jews status.
The eminent historian of the
early 20th century Shimon
Dubnow.
For example, saw this
grant of citizenship
as inaugurating the modern
period in Jewish history.
Yet we should not
allow that obsession
to beget misconceptions.
In marked contrast to Jews
and historians of the Jews,
the French revolutionaries
and historians
of the French Revolution have
not been equally obsessed
with the Jews.
For them, Jews were at best a
minor moment in an enormously
complex decade and a half
of continuous tumult.
To contend that for
the revolutionaries--
the French revolutionaries--
the Jews were good to think,
as Ronald Scheckter has argued,
and held some central place
in the Revolution, whether
in principle or in practice,
is perhaps comforting to Jews
and Jewish historians, who
do not wish to be relegated
to the margins of so
crucial and event.
It is, however, not
empirically true.
In the definitive proceedings
of the National Assembly,
the December 23rd, 1789 debate
takes up all of six pages.
The volume itself for most
of 1789 runs some 900 pages.
It was one brief evening
session of debate.
In contrast, for example,
the Batavian Republic,
the Netherlands under
French occupation in 1796,
debated the issue for eight
full days, from August 22
to August 31, 1796.
Or again, the Galician
Diet in the Habsburg Empire
debated the issue in
1868 for two full days.
To be sure, Jews were central
a century later at the time
of the Dreyfus affair, not
to speak of the Vichy regime
a century and a half later.
We should not, however,
make the mistake
of reading that centrality back
into the French Revolution.
To put it concisely,
the French Revolution
was momentous for the
Jews; Jews were not
momentous for the
French Revolution.
Rather than positing or
inventing the Jews centrality,
we should instead
investigate the Jews agency.
Jews were actively
involved in gaining rights.
Nothing was given to
them on a silver platter
or out of sheer
necessity for the state.
They lobbied and advocated,
declaimed and debated,
in the dogged
pursuit of equality.
Now, today I want to explore
that famous debate of December
23rd, 1789, and show that,
in fact, emerged by accident.
I'll assess the nature of the
decree of January 28, 1790,
granting equality to the
Jews of the southwest,
showing that it was not, in
fact, a revolutionary decree.
And I'll demonstrate that the
decree of September 27, 1791,
was about the Constitution,
not about the Jews,
and was the unfinished business
of a lame duck legislature.
Finally, I want to highlight
throughout that Jewish leaders
actively lobbied
for their rights.
Nothing was given to them
without their participation.
Now, just one piece of
background information.
At the time of the
French Revolution,
there were four separate
communities of Jews in France.
The majority of Jews,
perhaps some 20,000,
were located in the
Northeast in Alsace.
The second largest
community-- and those
were the Ashkenazi Jews-- the
second largest community was
located in the southwest around
the port cities of Bordeaux
and Bayonne, and these
were Sephardic Jews, who
had had extensive privileges
since the 16th century,
having come to France as
new Christians or conversos,
and whose privileges had been
confirmed for them as Jews
in 1723.
There were approximately 5000.
There were also some 500
to 1000 Jews in Paris.
And then there were Jews
in the Papal States.
I won't deal with
them at, all but I
will mention those
other three communities.
OK, so, to begin with the
debate of December 23rd, 1789,
the revolution in
France fashioned
a new political
culture, informed
with the ideals
of natural rights
and equality, the famous
Declaration of the Rights
of Man and Citizen.
In principle, the
revolution should
have introduced the
ideal of equality
for Jews by legislating
immediate full citizenship.
That was not the case.
The legislation of
unconditional rights
had a troubled career
from the start.
As the National
Assembly struggled
to define the nation
and citizenship,
the Jews status defied
an easy solution.
The Assembly, in fact,
introduced two types
of citizenship,
passive citizenship
denoted civic rights based
on the direct Declaration
of the Rights of Man and citizen
and the right of residence
used solely.
Active citizenship
denoted political rights,
which were on a scale graded
according to taxation.
And of course, political
rights were based on property.
You had to be a property holder.
Both forms of citizenship
were in question
for the Jews of the Northeast.
And at crucial
moments the deputies
blurred the distinction
between them.
For the Jews of
Bordeaux, because
of their historic
privileges, the debate
concerned only
active citizenship
or political rights.
On the 26th of August, 1789,
the National Assembly plant
passed the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen.
The Jews of Paris immediately
petitioned the Assembly,
asking it to announce that
the declaration applied
to Jews without
qualifications, giving them
passive or civil rights,
since, quote, "the title of man
guarantees us that of citizen,
and the title of citizen
gives us all the
rights of the city."
Close quote.
At the same time,
the petitioners
renounced all claims
to corporate autonomy,
announcing their desire, quote,
"to submit like all the French
to the same law, the same
order, the same courts."
End of quote.
Occupied with more
pressing matters,
the National Assembly did
not respond to this request.
The now famous debate
of December 23rd, 1789,
on the Jews status
occurred accidentally.
On December 21st,
some deputies asked
whether the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and Citizen
applied to Protestants.
The delegates to the
Assembly then debated
whether the declaration applied
to such proscribed professions
as actors and executioners.
The deputies blundered
onto the Jews status
when, in response to the
motion that no one be excluded
from active citizenship
on account of religion
or profession, a delegate from
Colmar in Alsace, [? Rubel ?]
and he'll come up
again-- queried
whether the motion
included Jews.
And the Count
Claremont-Tonerre--
and will see him once again--
the Count Clermont-Tonnerre
answered bluntly, yes!
In accordance with
the motion, the debate
of December 23rd,
1789, officially
addressed political rights.
Quote, "the admission
of non-catholics
to all municipal and
provincial offices,
and all civil and
military appointments
like all other citizens."
Clermont-Tonnerre seemed to
adhere to this narrow agenda
in his opening speech.
He argued from principle,
the Declaration
of the Rights of Man and
Citizen established the criteria
of citizenship.
Neither profession nor religion
could render someone ineligible
for active citizenship.
The executioner acts
according to the law.
The actor has royal sponsorship.
As for religion, the state's
law is indifferent to it.
Judaism is not an obstacle.
The Jews are perfectly
capable of being citizens.
Quote, "the most serious
accusations against them
are unjust.
The others are specious.
End of quote.
The Jews must renounce
their corporate privileges
and submit to France's one law.
And now I'm going to
read a long quotation
from Clermont-Tonnerre's famous
speech, which I subject you to,
because there are two versions
of Clermont-Tonnerre's speech,
which are in circulation.
One was the account that a
journalist made of the speech,
and which has become the
standard text for virtually
all Jewish historians, and which
leaves out important passages.
The other text is what appears
in Clermont-Tonnerre's speech
as officially published
by the National Assembly.
And then also appears in
the authoritative archives
parlamentaires.
So here we go.
"But they say to me the Jews
have their own judges and laws.
I respond that this is
your fault-- talking
to his fellow delegates
in the National Assembly--
and you should not allow it.
We must refuse everything
to the Jews as a nation,
and accord everything
to Jews as individuals"
Now, here come the
sentences that are lost
in that journalist's version.
"We must withdraw recognition
from their judges.
They should only
have our judges.
We must refuse legal
protection to the maintenance
of the so-called laws of
their Judaic organization.
They should not
be allowed to form
in the state either a
political body or an order.
They must be citizens
individually."
OK, so all those sentences
about the corporate status
of the Jews are
what has disappeared
from that journalist's account.
"But some will say to me they
do not want to be citizens.
Well, then, if they do
not want to be citizens,
they should say so.
And then we should banish them.
In short, Sirs,
the presumed status
of every man resident in the
country is to be a citizen."
In contrast to
Clermont-Tonnerre's
the deputies who
opposed the motion
deliberately erase
the distinction
between active and
passive citizenship.
They denied the Jews
eligibility for both forms.
The Abbe Maury
from Alsace gained
said citizenship to executioners
because they, quote,
"assassinate in cold blood.
Actors since removed
from paternal authority,
they are immoral.
As a separate nation,
the Jews merit
toleration and
protection, but are
incapable of being citizens."
And here I'll read a
quotation from Abbe Maury,
which is very revealing.
"The word Jew is not the name
of a sect, but of a nation
that has laws which it has
always followed and still
wishes to follow.
Calling Jews citizens
would be like saying
that without letters
of naturalization
and without ceasing to
be English and Danish,
the English and Danish
could become French.
They should not be persecuted."
It it's interesting to
hear his language here,
because he'll speak the
language of the revolution
and of rights, but
flip its implications.
"They should not be persecuted.
They are men.
They are our brothers.
And a curse on whomever
would speak of intolerance.
No one can be disturbed
for his religious opinions.
You have recognized this.
And from that
moment on, you have
assured Jews the most
extended protection.
Let them be protected
therefore as individuals,
and not as French for
they cannot be citizens."
Protestants, in contrast,
for the Abbe Maury
qualified for citizenship on
the basis of the edict of 1787.
Louis the 16th had issued
an edict of toleration
for the French, giving
them civil status,
following on the model of Joseph
II edicts for the Protestants
and the Greek Orthodox
in the Habsburg Empire.
Joseph II, of course,
was his brother-in-law.
Adrien Duport's attempt to
bring an alternative motion
on December 23rd, 1789, to
grant active and passive rights
to all Frenchmen, Jews included,
failed to pass by five votes.
On December 24th, the
next day, the deputies
resumed consideration
of the original motion.
The Assembly passed that
motion, yet significantly added
an amendment specifying that
it did not apply to the Jews.
Quote, "without intending to
prejudge anything concerning
the Jews on whose fate the
assembly would decree."
Jews were, then, explicitly
excluded from political rights
until some future deliberation.
What about civic rights?
At best, that status
remained unresolved,
with the advocates, such as
Clermont-Tonnerre, but also
Mirabeau and the Abbe
Gregoire, convinced
that, in the face of
such vehement opposition,
it was better to
postpone the issue.
OK.
Now we come to the second event,
the National Assembly's vote
of January 28, 1790.
The Assembly's failure to
determine the Jews status
propelled the various
Jewish delegations
into concerted action.
Eight delegates from
Bordeaux met numerous times
with their Ashkenazi
brethren from Alsace,
yet only in late January
found their positions
to be irreconcilable.
The Alsatians wanted
economic equality
and juridical autonomy.
They were willing to
forego active citizenship.
The Bordelais wanted
full citizenship
on the basis of their
corporate privileges.
The deputations were aware of
the perils of breaking ranks,
yet also the manifest advantage
that one community's attaining
citizenship would
bring to the other.
The Bordelais mound
and I should say here
that, if you read the accounts
of nationalist historians,
beginning with Dubnow, this is
the great act of disloyalty,
where the Sephardim abandoned
the Ashkenazim That wasn't
the case.
The Sephardim were perfectly
aware that if they got rights,
the Ashkenazim would
eventually get rights as well.
And the Sephardim continued
to lobby behind the scenes
on behalf of the Ashkenazim.
The Bordealais mounted a
campaign on their own behalf
among the deputies in Paris.
The delegates argued
that the Bordeaux Jews
were, quote, "naturalized
Frenchmen enjoying,
quote, all the rights
of citizens [INAUDIBLE]
since 1550."
They neither lived
under a separate regime,
quote, "neither laws nor
courts nor separate officers,
nor behaved any differently
than their fellow citizens."
They had participated fully in
the political life of Bordeaux,
including serving
in the militia.
Why should they be,
quote "the only citizens
denied their civil
and political rights."
The Bordeaux delegate's
lobbying succeeded.
By January 27th,
Talleyran, the Bishop
of Autun, who headed
the National Assembly's
constitutional
committee, was prepared
to bring a motion
on their behalf.
The Bordeaux deputies
emphasized their privileges.
And the fact that
these had been,
quote, "renwed by
rain after rain,"
and this very important
phrase, they thereby
established the terms
of the National Assembly
debate and motion.
Talleyrand took over their
language verbatim, the petition
that they had submitted.
Speaking on behalf of the
constitutional committee
on January 28, 1790, Talleyrand
recapitulated the arguments
the Bordeaux deputies
had presented.
He stressed that
they were already
citizens, quote, "by virtue
of their lettre patente,
legally registered and
renewed from rain to rain."
He moved that their
citizenship be confirmed
and that they be
made active citizens.
The Abbe Maury
objected to the motion
on the grounds
that, once passed,
it would be extended
to the Jews of Alsace.
He proposed that
the Jews of Bordeaux
simply be confirmed
in the rights
that they enjoy by virtue
of their lettre patente.
Clermont-Tonnerre attack
the Assembly's action
as a violation of
principle, transgressing
the uniformity of liberty by
establishing two standards.
Quote, "are your decrees
founded on eternal and immutable
principles, or privileges to
be obtained by some group?"
He nevertheless hoped for the
principle's ultimate triumph.
Quote, "the Jews of
Alsace will be citizens
since they are men and French,
and because you have decreed
that every Frenchman
is a citizen when
he swears the civic
oath and fulfills
the conditions of the law."
So Clermont-Tonnerre objected
on the basis of principle.
He said, how can you award
one group and not the other?
Either this is
universal or it's not.
Some deputies asked that
the motion be deferred
because in the late hour.
Amid the general
clamor, other deputies
proposed amendments,
causing much confusion.
Those in favor
prevailed, and the motion
was passed by 374
votes to 224 votes.
And here is the motion.
It has two sentences.
Listen to the difference
between these two sentences.
The National Assembly
decrees that all
of the Jews known in France
under the name of Portuguese,
Spanish and Avignonese
Jews, shall continue
to enjoy the rights they
have hitherto enjoyed
and which have been granted
to them by lettre patente.
OK?
So that's a confirmation
of their old Ancient Regime
corporate privileges.
In consequence
thereof, they shall
enjoy the rights
of active citizens
if they possess the other
qualifications required
by the decrees of the
National Assembly.
In form and content,
this was decidedly
not a revolutionary decree.
Rather, it was a
renewal and extension
of corporate privileges.
That was the reason
for Clermont-Tonnerre's
vehement objection.
In the Ancient
Regime, corporations
approached each new
monarch to request
the renewal of existing
privileges and the extension
of new ones.
The Bordeaux deputies had
noticed that practice.
"Renewed by rain after rain."
The National Assembly
opted to follow it,
proceeding as if it were
a new sovereign renewing
and extending privileges,
in outright opposition
to the abolition
of corporations.
As a renewal of
existing privileges,
the Assembly confirmed civic
rights or passive citizenship.
As the extension
of a new privilege,
it granted political rights
or active citizenship.
"The Jews of Bordeaux,
Bayonne and Avignon
had attained right to the moment
of revolutionary upheaval,
although not through
a revolutionary act.
The Jews of the Southwest,
thus experienced
a seamless transition from
their extensive privileges,
which had been virtually
tantamount to civic rights,
to political rights
and full citizenship.
They attained political
rights by campaigning
on their own behalf.
Moreover, the Sephardic
Jews understood themselves
as paving the way for
citizenship for all Jews.
The Abbe Maury had good
reason to be apprehensive.
OK, now we come to
the third event,
which was the National Assembly
vote on September 28, 1791.
The 18 months that
elapsed before the Jews
of the Northeast
gained full citizenship
were filled with frenzied
advocacy in Paris,
the headquarters
of the revolution.
Indeed, on January 28,
1790, prior to the vote
in the National Assembly,
Jacques [? Goudart ?],
as a lawyer and member of
the Commune in [? Zalkind ?]
Horvitz, originally a Jew
from Poland who had won--
was one of the three winners of
the Mets essay contest on how
to make Jews useful, and who was
who had recently been appointed
royal librarian
for oriental books.
Wearing his uniform
as a guardsman,
[? Goudart ?] and Horvitz
visited the Paris Commune
to present the
case for equality.
The next day, the Paris
Commune voted unanimously
in favor of active citizenship
for the Jews of Paris,
and sent that decision to
the other Parisian districts
and the National Assembly.
[? Goudart ?], Horvitz and
others spent most of February
visiting the Paris districts.
The result was that
all districts that
reported save one supported
admission of the Jews
to citizenship.
On February 25th, the
deputation from the commune
visited the National Assembly.
Despite this
successful lobbying,
the National Assembly
again deferred the issue.
That was a fateful decision,
since subsequently the assembly
would be far more
divided and preoccupied.
The Jews of Paris continued to
send requests of the National
Assembly, and the
Commune of Paris
continued to intervene
with the National Assembly.
Deputies in the
National Assembly
raised the question of the
Jews status almost monthly,
only to have the Abbe Maury,
[? Rubel ?] and other opponents
from Alsace stymieing.
Despite these repeated
setbacks, the Paris Commune's
tenacious lobbying of
the National Assembly
played a critical
role in ultimately
obtaining a positive vote.
It was under a set of entirely
changed circumstances,
however, that the
National Assembly finally
voted on rights for the Jews
of Paris and the Northeast.
The conflict over the
civil constitution
of the clergy in July, 1790,
had radicalized the revolution
by introducing an
irreconcilable conflict
over the Church's status.
That was also an
accidental conflict.
It had to do less
with the content
of the civil constitution
and more with the way
that it was decided
to implement it,
because people
couldn't take oaths
with reservations, the clergy.
The National Assembly had
dissolved the remaining
corporate structures, including
titles of hereditary nobility,
June 19th, 1790.
And guildmasterships
and privileged
manufacturers March 2nd, 1791.
And had abolished a
specifically onerous tax,
also a form of privilege
on the Jews of Metz.
Moreover, the
National Assembly had
concluded its major business
in improving and approving
the new constitution
on September 3rd, 1791.
It was set to adjourn, so
that on October 1st, 1791,
the new Constituent Assembly,
which had already been elected,
could convene.
With this motion of
September 27, 1791,
just a few days before
the National Assembly
was set to dissolve,
Adrien Duport
aimed to induce a lame duck
legislature to complete
a piece of unfinished business.
The new constitution had
definitively established
the criteria for citizenship.
How could one continue to
defer a decision on the Jews?
He declaimed, "I believe
that liberty of religion
no longer permits
any distinction
about the political
rights of citizens
by reason of their belief.
The question of political
existence has adjourned.
Therefore, Turks,
Muslims, men of all sects,
are admitted to political
rights in France.
I request that the postponement
of the Jews rights be revoked.
And in consequence, it be
decreed that the Jews in France
enjoy active political rights."
[? Rubel ?] a deputy
from Alsace, immediately
oppose the motion.
It was, however, Regnaud's
defense of Duport's motion
that clinched the matter.
He said, I request
that all those who
speak against this motion
be called to order,
since they are attacking
the Constitution itself.
Duport and Regnaud
thus succeeded
in casting the issue as a
question of the Constitution's
integrity.
This was in stark contrast to
the debate on December 23rd,
1789, when the
deputies had failed
to make that vote
about the integrity
of the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen.
Now, the motion
significance was evident
in its tortured wording.
The first paragraph addressed
the fundamental ambiguity
of the Jews of the
Northeast status
by admitting them to passive and
active citizenship by, quote.
"The National
Assembly, considering
that the Constitution
establishes
the conditions requisite
to be a French citizen
and to become an active
citizen, and that every man who,
being duly qualified,
swears the civic oath
and engages to fulfill all the
duties and the Constitution
prescribes, has a right to all
the advantages it ensures."
The second paragraph abrogated
all prior privileges granted
during the Ancient Regime.
This motion annuls
all postponements
restrictions and exceptions
contained in the preceding
decrees affecting
individual Jews who
shall take the civic oath,
which will be regarded
as a renunciation
of all privileges
and exceptions previously
introduced in their favor.
This motion thus constituted
a radical break with the past.
In contrast to the Jews of
Bordeaux seamless transition,
here was a true
rupture that entailed
the repeal of a century
and a half of legislation.
The 18 month delay in
granting citizenship
to the Jews of Paris
in the Northeast
fundamentally
redefined its meaning.
Had the National Assembly
voted citizenship
in December, 1789, alongside
Protestants, actors,
and executioners,
it would have been
an enthusiastic ratification
of the ideals of equality
and humanity.
Instead, the vote on
September 27, 1791,
highlighted
constitutional coherence
as the deciding factor,
withholding rights threatened
to vitiate the Constitution.
Yet, Duport's motion
did not end the matter.
The next day,
September 28, 1791,
[? Rubel ?] the relentless
and wily adversary,
proposed a motion to address
the dangers the Jews'
citizenship posed to Alsace.
He requested
legislation that would
ensure the equitable
resolution of debts
owed to Jewish creditors.
The legislation required
that within one month Jews
provide the government with
detailed lists of their loans.
Government officials
would then determine
fair terms of repayment.
This legislation fundamentally
compromised the Jews' equality.
It imputed guilt without proof.
It regarded the Jews as
a singular group engaged
in exploitative behavior.
On those grounds, it subjected
them to special government
supervision.
This qualification
of citizenship
boded ill for the future.
It indeed passed.
Napoleon would enact
harsher legislation
to address the
same issue in 1808.
Now, what's interesting
is that the law passed,
but because this was a
lame duck legislature,
it was a dead letter.
No one ever paid
any attention to it.
The French
Revolution's alteration
of the Jews political status
was truly fundamental,
although so were
its ambiguities.
The National
Assembly's legislation
did not have an unalloyed
revolutionary pedigree.
The Ancient Regime persisted
in both form and content.
Nevertheless, in a Europe
polarized by the revolution,
full emancipation
or equal rights
would be irrevocably associated
with the ideas of 1789.
When and where those
ideas triumphed,
so did Jewish emancipation.
When and where
opponents triumphed,
Jewish emancipation
suffered either abridgment
or outright abrogation.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
[INAUDIBLE]
Yeah, of course.
I'll be delighted.
[INAUDIBLE]
[INAUDIBLE] has
the first question.
I can see it coming.
So, I'm curious a
little bit about
the historiographical
implications of the argument,
because, trained as a
Modern Jewish historian,
out of a generation that really
followed in some ways yours,
in terms of really thinking
of the Frenh case-- not
just the French case.
The nation state has
very separate stories
in Jewish assimilation
and emancipation.
I sense that you're gesturing
more towards a more integrative
European story.
I understand this
is a French story.
But really saying that
maybe you went too far
in thinking of three wings of
Jewish emancipation, Eastern
European, Central European,
and Western European.
And that actually, the
tensions and ambiguities
in the French case were more
similar in some ways to things
that happened in other
places, althgouh--
[INAUDIBLE]
Yes and no.
I'm certainly trying to
highlight the ambiguities
and contingencies
of the French case,
because there has
been a scholarship--
and I think here of Rheinhard
Rurup's important 1969 article
on Jewish emancipation
in Bourgeois society,
in which she sets up-- he
totally ignores Eastern Europe.
Emancipation never
happened there, right?
Until 1917, which
isn't the case.
But he sets up a
contrast between
the French revolutionary
model of a single edict, which
gives Jews emancipation
unconditionally, as compared
to a central European
etatist enlightened
model, in which
the Jews are given
incremental conditional
emancipation,
conditional on their
regeneration, a kind of ongoing
quid pro quo.
Or if you look, for
example, at Pierre Berenbaum
in that volume that he edited
on paths to emancipation,
he basically
assumes, like Rurup,
that emancipation ends
in 1791 and that's it.
And so that-- what I'm
trying to show, first of all,
is that this revolutionary
process is actually far less
revolutionary than
it seemed, especially
in the case of the
Sephardic Jews,
but even for the Jews of Alsace.
You know, it really is this kind
of piece of unfinished business
that-- significant
for the Jews, but not
at all significant
for the Revolution.
On the other hand, I would
argue that the French case does
fit not neatly, rather messily,
into a tripartite scheme
of emancipation across Europe.
I would argue that the Western
European experience, in which I
would include Holland, England
and the Jews of the Southwest,
but also the British colonies,
Jamaica, Canada, the United
States, the early
republic-- was a pattern
in which Jews had already
gained civic rights,
either through the
terms of resettlement,
or over time in kind
of an ad hoc process,
and then had to struggle
for political rights.
So here is the example of the
Sephardic Jews of Bordeaux
having to struggle
for political rights,
and based on the confirmation
of their civic rights.
Whereas in addition,
what's important
is to see that that's a pattern
of emancipation out of states,
right?
Jews in England
never had a charter,
were never part of a state.
Jews in Holland, particularly
Amsterdam, never had a charter,
were already parts of a kind
of nascent civil society.
It's also true in the
American colonies as well.
The Central European
pattern is one
of a protracted
emancipation process, which
turns on both civic
and political rights,
but, in addition, has two
other layers of ambiguity.
It's a process in which there
are two competing models
of emancipation into states.
That begins with Joseph
II's legislation,
when he opens up occupations
to the Jews, and particularly
the guilds.
Opens up education.
But at the same
time, there's also
in some cases a
pattern out of a state.
And those two patterns
conflict or compete
throughout the 19th century,
and are only resolved in 1870.
In addition, in
Central Europe you
have a kind of singular
competition between two levels
of law, where you have local
rights in German [INAUDIBLE]
and then you have-- so you have
local citizenship and state
citizenship.
And those two compete
because corporations continue
in central Europe down to 1870.
You know, in many of
what Mac Walker calls
"German hometowns,"
citizenship rights
are still in the hands
of the guilds until 1870.
Right?
So you have two
competing-- and you
can be given-- in some states,
Jews get state citizenship,
but they can't get
local citizenship.
So state citizenship
doesn't mean much
if you have no place to live.
Or in some cases,
it's the reverse.
OK, and then in Eastern
Europe, the situation
is-- czarist policy
tends to follow
the policy of the
Habsburg Empire
in Prussia, except in--
and so emancipate--
the scope of
emancipation is broad,
dealing with-- concerning both
civic and political rights.
But in czarist
Russia, the pattern
is always into estates,
because the estates
are very different
kinds of institutions.
They're not the continuation
of medieval and early
modern corporations.
The estates were introduced
by Catherine II in the 1780s
in order to organize
the population
for the utility of the state.
So those estates,
the [INAUDIBLE]
and the table of ranks
will continue until 1917,
even though they get
progressively more ambiguous.
Does that answer-- please.
I was wondering if you could
talk a little bit more--
this is too much of a
[INAUDIBLE] question
[INAUDIBLE] but talk
more about the winter
of '89-'90, and why-- both why
the decision was made to use
the-- sorry, am I not
speaking up enough?
You're stuck.
I'm stuck.
OK.
I can only come so far.
I can come to you.
No, no, no.
That's OK.
I can come around.
So if you could talk more
about why the decision was
made to use the mechanism
of privilege, how unusual
that was.
I mean, certainly as
a French historian,
it comes as something
of a surprise to me,
that that was the mechanism
that was used after August.
And it seems anachronistic.
So was it anachronistic,
or was there
a history in
[INAUDIBLE] '89 and '90
of continuing to kind
of renew and create
new privileges [INAUDIBLE]?
Yeah, that's a really
good-- could everyone
hear the question?
OK.
I think it was anachronistic.
I should know the events
of that winter better.
I think it's singular,
though I'm not positive.
And I think it's-- I think the
Bordeaux Jews realized that
they had unusual leverage,
and that they should use it.
Right?
That Jews were not going
to be given equality
on the basis of principle,
and that they had the leverage
of their privileges.
And that if they could convince
particularly the-- Talleyrand
and the constitutional
committee to buy that argument,
that they could in
fact gain equality.
So they not only submitted
a petition to Talleyrand,
given who Talleyrand
was, and the way
the kind of the
political animal was,
you know, he was
probably the-- well,
if he wasn't the most
corrupt politician
of the French Revolution, he
certainly was near the top,
right?
So they probably
bribed him, right?
But you know, bribery was
a legitimate political tool
in the 18th century, probably
a legitimate political tool
in this current election in
the United States as well.
It'll come out later.
And it was also an established
tool of Jewish intercession,
of [NON-ENGLISH], you know?
The tools of intercession
were first to go and beg,
then to present presents.
You know, when Maria Theresa
expelled the Jews from Prague
in 1744, one of the first
things the local intercessors
from Prague did was to bring
Maria Theresa a huge salmon.
Now, once that failed, you
know, if begging didn't work,
if presents didn't work, then
you presented your charters
and made a legal argument.
And if all that failed,
then you tried bribery.
And if that failed,
then you cried.
Right?
Those were the tools of the
intercessor of the [INAUDIBLE].
So it's not-- it
wouldn't be unusual
for them to have bribed
Talleyrand and maybe
other members of the
constitutional committee
as well.
I mean, Mirabeau, I mean,
maybe Mirabeau was more corrupt
than Talleyrand.
I don't know.
Talleyrand was certainly much
wealthier, being a cardinal
and, you know.
Did nobody object
in the assembly
to the use of-- specifically
to the use of privilege?
Well, [INAUDIBLE]
objected, and there
were other people who objected.
I didn't quote them, but
they objected as well.
They said, you know, this
is a violation of principle.
But nonetheless, the
vote went in favor.
So it is anachronistic,
but you know,
it's also a case where
the-- through lobbying
and through submitting a very
carefully and thoughtfully
worded petition, they
were able to frame
the terms of the debate.
Right?
And that worked, right?
And I think that hasn't
been sufficiently recognized
by Jewish historians.
I mean, there's this
wonderful-- you know,
it's not as if I found
something here in the archives.
There's a wonderful
eight-volume set
of documents that was
issued in 18-- in 1968
on the French Revolution.
And there's a whole volume
on this vote in-- the vote
in January of 1790.
And all I did was to sit there
and read through the volume,
and read the
documents carefully.
It's all there in
print, you know?
Please?
These two groups
that you mentioned,
the Jews in Alsace and
the Jews in Bordeaux,
they seem so
monolithic, you know?
Were there not Jews in
other parts of France
that lobbied on behalf
of the emancipation?
Well, there were the Jews in
Paris who were lobbying, right?
Yes, well, you know, I mean,
for the purposes of the paper,
I treat them monolithically.
There were-- well, there
were some different--
there were differences
within those groups.
But if you look at
the petitions that
were submitted by
the Jewish leaders,
they presented their
positions as being monolithic.
You know, they don't
present dissent.
I mean, there were differences
between the Jews of Bordeaux
and the Jews of Alsace,
but not internally.
Obviously there were
differences of opinion,
but those don't appear
in the actual petitions
and in the actual lobbying.
OK?
I mean, and look, of
course in these petitions,
we're reading the thoughts
of Jewish leaders, who
by and large came
from the-- who were
the elites of the
community, who were pursuing
their own interests,
who weren't necessarily
mindful of the interests of all
of the Jews they represented,
especially the lower classes.
The Bordeaux representatives
were elected.
There was an election process.
The representatives from
Alsace were not elected.
Those communities were
run oligarchically,
and the representatives
were chose oligarchically.
There were leading families
who maintained control
of the communities, who
passed on leading positions
in the community from one
generation to the next.
Maude?
Let's have another go.
I actually have a
follow-up to that,
because I was struck
by what you said
about the Sephardim
and the Ashkenazim,
and how the Sephardim knew
that they were advocating,
or would advocate, on
behalf of the Ashkenazim
afterwards, which seems to
contradict a little bit what
you were just saying
there, about sort
of a sense of
self-representation,
or representing
the larger group.
But my question
really is, why do you
think we have a
different-- like,
to what-- what is
the source difference
that has led prior historians to
make a distinction and argument
that the Sephardim were
in it for themselves,
and the Ashkenazim were--
that they were at odds?
Because I-- that's
certainly how I've always
taught it and learned it
myself, and I'm not sure now,
when I think about it,
why I know what I know.
Yeah, well, you
know what you know
because that has been the
standard line since Dubnow
wrote about it at the
end of the 19th century
and the beginning
of the 20th century.
That is the conventional wisdom
of nationalist historians.
OK, you know, and Dubnow
was not a Zionist.
He was an autonomist.
He was in favor of diaspora
Jewish nationalism.
But he thought
emancipation in the West,
the emancipation of individuals,
had been a disaster, because it
had led to assimilation.
And what he wanted as
part of-- you know,
which was part of
this re-envisioning
of the multi-ethnic,
multinational,
multi-confessional empires of
East Central Europe and Eastern
Europe, of the Habsburg
Empire and Russia,
where thinkers at the end of
the 19th century, you know,
Renner and Bauer and others,
began to think of, rather than
of a central state as a
federation of national groups
enjoying autonomy in
language, education,
perhaps even having national
assemblies and rights
of taxation, Dubnow thought
that emancipation in the West,
the emancipation of individuals,
had not just been insufficient,
but had been a
disaster for the Jews,
which he wanted to prevent in
Eastern Europe by having them--
by having Jews in
Eastern Europe attain
civic rights and
national minority rights
at the same time.
So that's the line, and so
that view, Jonathan Frankel,
the late Jonathan
Frankel, wrote about this
as sort of the East
European Jewish school
of historiography.
That view was taken over by all
the nationalist historians--
autonomists, Zionists,
socialist Zionists, et cetera.
[INAUDIBLE] that
the Bordeaux Jews,
by being as assimilationist
as they were,
turned their back
on their brethren.
Precisely.
They were the assimilationists,
and therefore they
acted entirely in their
own interest and betrayed
Jewish solidarity, which led
to these terrible consequences.
Now, you know, I
haven't-- you know,
it's Gerard Nahon who has a
number of articles on this,
where he's discovered all sorts
of continuing correspondence
and meetings between the
Ashkenazim and Sephardim after
January of 1790, and presents
a totally different view of it.
Now again, he's-- you
could say, well, you know,
he's sort of an apologist
for the Sephardic Jews.
And in some of his
scholarship I think
there's some truth to that.
But the evidence he
presents is so overwhelming
that I find it persuasive.
Please?
So on that note, to what extent
are the Jews of-- the Sephardi
Jews in France
operating in isolation
from other Sephardic
communities,
whether it's London or
Amsterdam, and to what extent
do we need to
broaden the picture?
Oh, at that point-- you mean,
are they in touch with Jews
elsewhere?
And might Dubnow
sort of be picking up
on sort of the legacy of
Sephardi sort of superiority,
vis-a-vis Ashkenazim
in his interpretation?
Well, you know, I hadn't
thought about that.
But that could very
well play a role,
that the Sephardic Jews
in early modern Europe
saw themselves as the nobility
of the-- of European Jewry.
And in many of the
communities where
you had mixed
populations of Sephardic
and Ashkenazic Jews--
Amsterdam and London,
for example-- if a member
of-- a Sephardi Jew
married an Ashkenazi Jew, that
was seen as worse than marrying
a Christian, right, which
was then, of course,
reversed in places like New York
in the 19th and 20th century,
where Ashkenazi Jews
thought the same thing.
Were they in touch with Jews?
Sephardi Jews,
not at this point.
As far as I know.
I've never actually
thought about that.
Where they-- when they
are-- well-- that's
not-- as far as I know,
and I wouldn't say this
is absolutely true.
I'm not sure.
I think this is really an
internal French matter.
It unfolds so quickly
and so dramatically,
particularly the-- you know,
the December 23 debate, and then
the vote in January,
that I don't know.
I don't know if there's--
there's a scholar in Paris who
would know that.
[INAUDIBLE] would know this.
She's really worked through
all that archival material.
It's worth asking her.
When the Jews in France
are in touch with Jews
throughout Europe
is in 1806 to 1808
with the assembly of
notables in the Sanhedrin,
when they're asked to
respond to this series of 12
questions concerning issues
such as polygamy, divorce,
the power of the rabbis,
the attitude of Jews
towards non-Jews, et
cetera, et cetera.
And the relationship--
especially
the relationship between
Jewish law and civil law.
Now there, at that
point, the major rabbi
who's at the
assembly of notables
in the Sanhedrin,
David Sinzheim,
is in touch with rabbinical
authorities throughout Europe.
And there's an enormous--
there is a correspondence where
he wants-- he's
having to convince
the lay members of the assembly
of notables in the Sanhedrin
to act in accord with
Jewish law, with halacha.
At the same time, he wants
the imprimatur, the hechsher,
of rabbinical authorities
throughout Europe.
And he corresponds with
rabbinical authorities
throughout Europe.
And there's a
wonderful older article
by a scholar named
[INAUDIBLE], who
went-- who's worked
through all that material,
and he shows that
Sinzheim actually
does get the backing of
rabbinical authorities,
because to go back
to this earlier
conversation,
historians since Dubnow,
but for many
generations, have argued
that these Jews basically
sold out Judaism in order
to become French citizens.
And that really doesn't
seem to be the case.
In fact, you can argue
just the opposite,
that what Sinzheim
was doing was engaging
in an act of
principled resistance,
because Napoleon at
that point wanted
the Jews to submit to the
centralized imperial state,
just the way the Catholics
had with the Concordat
and the Protestants with the
creation of the [INAUDIBLE],
the Protestant consistory.
And that in fact, Sinzheim
refuses to do that,
because the key decision is
on the question of marriage.
Will Jewish authorities
recognize marriage
between a Jew and a non-Jew?
And the answer is,
certainly in civil law,
that marriage will be valid.
But then there's this
wonderful quotation.
I can't quote it quite verbatim.
But you know, a Jewish
rabbi is no happier
recognizing a marriage
between a Christian
and a Jew than a
Catholic priest.
And therefore an
intermarriage will
have no sanction in Jewish law.
Now, what's also
interesting-- and is
in the published
documents, I didn't
find this in the archives-- is
that Napoleon, when he called
the assembly of notables to deal
with those issues of marriage
and divorce, he actually
wanted to write a law,
or to write into law, that
every third Jewish marriage
would have to be
an intermarriage,
a marriage with a Christian.
And somewhere along the way,
his ministers got rid of that.
Was he married three times?
I'm sorry?
Was he married three times?
Was he married three times?
Twice.
Twice.
Twice.
Please?
[INAUDIBLE]
recapitulating in my head
what we've been talking
about for the last hour.
And I guess the picture
that I'm getting
is there's a real irony here
in how emancipation happened
for these two communities that
you discussed, that one is
seeking to get it in an
assimilationist [INAUDIBLE]
actually gets a headstart on it,
because it's able to leverage
its corporate privileges, which
is the opposite of the way they
wanted it, while the other
community is actually
desperately seeking to protect
its own insular corporatism,
and wins emancipation a year
and a half later precisely
in the opposite way,
by some extension
of a civic assimilationist.
That's right.
So both of them get what they
want, and actually each of them
gets it-- both of them
wanted the same thing,
wanted it in a completely
different way, and each
of those communities got it in
the way the other one wanted
it, and not in the way that
they had designed for themselves
to be achieving the status.
Well, yeah.
It's a wonderful irony,
or a paradox, isn't it?
Yeah.
That's right.
I'll think that one-- I'll
have to think on that one.
But yes, yes.
That's right, because
the Jews from Alsace
wanted to retain a certain
kind of communal autonomy,
particularly their courts,
which of course they
weren't allowed to do.
And the Jews of
Bordeaux were very proud
of their corporate
privileges, but wanted
to give them up and just become
part of the Bordeaux community,
which in fact they did do.
But thanks to their
corporate privileges.
But thanks to their
corporate privileges.
So-- and you can see this.
If you look at one of the
most important delegates
from Bordeaux, Abraham Furtado,
you can actually sort of trace
that political odyssey,
because in the early part
of the revolution, he's actually
kind of a follower of Rousseau,
and is, you know,
vehemently in favor
of creating a unified
democratic France.
And he's elected to--
he plays a role-- he's
elected to the estates
general from Bordeaux,
and he plays a role in the
early revolution in Bordeaux.
He's on a municipal council.
And then the Terror
turns him around,
and from being an
adherent of Rousseau,
he becomes an adherent
of Locke and Montesquieu,
and becomes more attentive to
history and historical rights.
But then he becomes a
member-- he's elected
to the assembly of notables.
And he becomes the president--
he's elected president
of the assembly of notables.
And he has to work with
someone like David Sinzheim,
and he's actually
something of a deist.
You know, he's still a Jew,
but in a very tepid way.
So it's a very-- you
know, even the odysseys
of individuals in the
period are very poignant.
If there's no more
questions, then we'd
like to thank David very much
for a stimulating lecture.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
