Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Jews between Volk and Proletariat { 14 7

1839 – 40 ) and that Marx saw the political journalism he engaged in throughout

1842 and early 1843 as a form of philosophical praxis, which he frequently con-

trasted with self-indulgent abstraction.^4

“Zur Judenfrage” appeared in February 1844 in the only (double) issue of

Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher [German-French yearbooks], edited by Marx

and Ruge. The essay appeared in the guise of a review of two 1843 works by

Bauer, Die Judenfrage and a shorter subsequent essay, “Die Fähigkeit der

heutigen Juden und Christen, frei zu werden” (The capacity of contemporary

Jews and Christians to become free).^5 Bauer’s and Marx’s far-ranging remarks

around the issue of Jewish emancipation, the so-called Jewish Question, were

part of a wider debate.^6 When Friedrich Wilhelm III died in June 1840 , Fried-

rich Wilhelm IV was greeted as the herald of a new liberal era. Though he would

soon surround himself with reactionary aristocrats and orthodox Pietists, the

new king’s first actions—relaxing censorship and granting amnesty to political

prisoners—inspired optimism. Prussia’s Jews hoped for reforms in their legal

status, which, among other restrictions, barred them from practicing law or

holding academic positions and burdened them with unfair taxation.

In late 1841 , however, Friedrich Wilhelm IV ordered his minister of the in-

terior, Gustav Adolf Rochus von Rochow, to prepare a law that would create

separate corporations for Jews and standardize their status in the various parts

of Prussia. Von Rochow published the principles of the new draft law in May

1842. Although presented under the pretext of granting Jews greater indepen-

dence and authority, the proposed law stated that Jews would not be allowed

to have “governmental authority” [obrigkeitliche Gewalt] over Christians, and

that no rights should be granted to Jews that would encroach on “the Christian

polity” [das christliche Gemeinwesen]. The proposal to recorporatize Prussian

Jewry met with widespread resistance both from Jewish communities and Ger-

man liberals and set off a far-ranging debate about die Judenfrage.^7 Perhaps the

most outspoken liberal resistance to the proposal appeared in the pages of the

Rheinische Zeitung, an organ that featured a number of Young Hegelian con-

tributors and that Marx edited from October 1842 to May 1843.^8 Contributions

on this issue in the Rheinische Zeitung by Moses Hess and others consistently

maintained that the state must grant the same rights to all citizens regardless

of religious affiliation.^9 Marx planned to write on the issue in the pages of the

Rheinische Zeitung, but he never did. In a letter of around August 25 , 1842 , Marx

asked Dagobert Oppenheim—one of the paper’s publishers—for “if possible,

all Hermes’ articles against the Jews. I will then send you as soon as possible an

article which, even if it does not finally settle the latter question, will neverthe-

less make it take another course.”^10