magnates, in turn, offered favorable conditions to potential settlers of all
kinds, including Jews, in order to rebuild commerce and urban life and cre-
ate a tax base. This prompted an influx of Moravian and Bohemian Jews
into Hungary eager to evade the restrictions of the Familiants Law. As a
result, the Jewish population of Hungary doubled between 1720 and 1740
from 20,000 to 40,000. This meant that by 1740, Charles had leveled the
Jewish populations of Hungary and the Czech Lands, by capping the Jewish
population of the latter and encouraging Jews to emigrate to Hungary.
The situation of Habsburg Jews changed slightly under Maria Theresa,
though the basic contours of Habsburg policy remained the same. The moment
she assumed the throne, her ascension was assailed by her Hohenzollern cousin,
who invaded the empire to start the War of the Austrian Succession. In order
to secure troops, Maria Theresa reaffirmed the consitutional rights of the
Hungarian nobility, a setback for Habsburg absolutism in Hungary.
In 1744, she suspected the Jews of Prague of siding with her enemies and
expelled them. Two years later, she readmitted them for economic reasons,
but imposed a new tax, first on the Jews of Prague, then on all Jews in the
empire: the Toleration Tax, also called by Jews the Malke-Geld(Queen’s tax).
This tax, originally imposed as a punishment, reflected the two elements of
her attitude toward her Jewish subjects. She regarded them as direct subjects
of the dynasty, and believed that the only way they could and should serve the
state was as a source of tax revenue.
In this light, and in desperate need of money to replenish a chronically bank-
rupt treasury, she rethought the aim of the Familiants Law. Her father had
regarded this law as a way to limit and regulate the size of the Jewish popula-
tion. Maria Theresa regarded the law as a way to register the Jewish population,
in order to raise more tax revenue. To this end, she allowed exceptions to this
law, largely to affluent Jewish families. Marriage permits were issued to second-
born sons for 700 florins and to third-born sons for 500 florins. Also, in
exchange for a considerable “gift,” expired familiants status could be transferred
to another applicant. During her reign, the Jewish population of the Czech
Lands increased by nearly a quarter, and Hungarian Jewry doubled in size.
No less indicative of her Jewish policy was her response to a blood libel
accusation against the Jews of Sárospatak, a small town in northeastern
Hungary. There, twenty-eight Jews were accused of killing a Christian child
and summarily convicted and imprisoned by local authorities. When Maria
Theresa received word, she was outraged by the audacity of local officials in
usurping jurisdiction over her Jewish subjects. She convened a new trial in a
royal court which acquitted the Jews. Twenty-seven of the twenty-eight were
released (the other had died in prison).
World Jewry in flux, 1492–1750 119