During the 130 years from 1750 to 1880, world Jewry proceeded along two
different tracks. For Jews in western Europe, most of central Europe, and the
New World, this was an age defined by the search for and attainment of civic
equality, the gradual entry of Jews into mainstream society, and the desacral-
ization of Jewish life through cultural enlightenment. In the Russian and
Ottoman Empires, and in the eastern reaches of the Habsburg Empire, tradi-
tional Jewish life remained largely intact, buttressed by a surrounding
conservative polity and society. Yet even in these regions, Jews were affected
in varying degrees during the nineteenth century by internal changes and by
the changes emanating from the west. Throughout the Jewish world, dis-
parate political, cultural, and social changes elicited a broad range of Jewish
responses that varied between the different states and even within each state.
By the second half of the nineteenth century, each Jewry had developed a par-
ticular balance between the world of Jewish tradition and the changing world
of the nineteenth century, characterized by a distinct spectrum of religious
observance and belief, varied forms of Jewish communal organization, and
distinct tensions between traditionalists and progressives.
In 1750, the legal status of most Jews remained what it had been for cen-
turies. Whether in the Christian or Islamic world, all but a handful of Jews
were defined as second-class citizens, and faced the same residential, occupa-
tional, and educational restrictions. In western Europe – England, the
Netherlands, France, and the Italian states – as well as in the New World, the
situation of Jews had begun to change by 1750, in fact though not yet legally.
This change facilitated the return of Jews to western Europe, beginning with
the return of semiclandestine enclaves of conversosand crypto-Jews to an openly
Jewish life in port cities such as Livorno in Italy, Hamburg, Amsterdam,
London, and Bordeaux. In Livorno, in 1593 the city fathers issued the
Livornino, which removed residential and commercial restrictions on Jewish
settlers, and protected crypto-Jews from potential persecution by the church:
No inquisition, visitation, denunciation, or accusation may be made
against you or your families. Even though you may have lived outside ofChapter 7