Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

56 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

cated: what the state is, where it is, and who has a place in it and on what terms

are all up for grabs—at least in theory, if you will. The Vereinler would ultimately

discover that neither the Jewish community nor the reactionary Prussian state

had any use for Hegelian theory. The Verein would collapse when the distance

that yawned between the Vereinler’s Hegelian philosophy of Judaism and actual

Jews, and also between their conception of the state and the real Prussia, became

too wide and too existentially acute to bridge.

The Verein and Hegel’s State

In “Jews and the State: The Historical Context,” Richard Cohen concisely

overviews Jewish relationships to the early-modern and modern state. Jews

in the diaspora traditionally looked to the state or crown for permissions and

protections.^50 Alliances with rulers were generally the only viable strategy for

Jewish communities. Negotiating arrangements with a central state authority

was certainly more effective than trying to pursue alliances with other possible

entities, whether the corporations, clergy, local authorities, or—most anxiogenic

of all—the unruly masses. Because absolutist rulers benefited from the high

annual taxes they could levy on Jewish communities, states and Jewish com-

munities frequently maintained marriages of convenience: the ruler received

money, and the Jewish community enjoyed relative autonomy and a measure of

protection.

In the heyday of absolutist centralization in Central Europe, the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries, the interests of centralizing absolutist rulers and Jews

living in their territories often overlapped. Jews’ position as social outsiders

proved useful to rulers trying to wrest power from the estates and local authori-

ties. During this period, a small Jewish elite moved in the highest strata of power

and, as minters, tax collectors, bankers, and army purveyors, provided services

that were indispensable to the project of centralization. Such “Court Jews” were

often in a position to intercede on behalf of their communities, but equally often

they served as convenient scapegoats for failed policies or governmental corrup-

tion. The fate of entire Jewish communities could hinge on Court Jews’ precari-

ous fortunes.^51

In the late eighteenth century concerted efforts began to integrate Jews

more fully into Central European states, a phenomenon that many maskilim

applauded but that traditionalists looked on with well-founded skepticism. In

his epochal 1782 Divrei shalom ve’emet (Words of peace and truth) Naphtali

Herz Wessely welcomed with almost messianic excitement the first of Joseph

II’s Edicts of Toleration for Jews in the Habsburg territories—policies that re-