Abbé Grégoire, a Catholic priest who would later be a member of the national
assembly. From these three essays emerged a common set of ideas for trans-
forming French Jewry. First, the acculturated Jews of Bordeaux were
esteemed as representing an ideal situation that the Jews of Alsace should
aspire to. Second, the clearest ways of improving the situation of French
Jewry was a combination of the state removing civic restrictions on Jews, the
Jewish community ceding its authority over Jews, and Jews abandoning irra-
tional aspects of Judaism and those that placed social barriers between Jews
and non-Jews.
Grégoire, whose essay won this contest, couched these suggestions as
political, moral, and physical regeneration. Ultimately, Grégoire called for
Jews to abandon those aspects of Judaism that dealt with civic matters such as
marriage and divorce; and keep those that dealt with religious matters. Three
aspects of the debate over emancipation emerged from Grégoire’s essay: an
attempt to advocate civic equality for Jews despite Catholic prejudices such as
a disdain for Jewish usury; the notion that emancipation would be extended
to Jews quid pro quo – that is, in exchange for Jews giving up corporate
autonomy and some measure of Jewish observance; and the ultimate aim of
improving the lot of the Jews being to entice Jews to convert to Christianity.
The emancipation of the Jews of France, the first great event in the age of
legal emancipation, took place in two phases: the debates of the constituent
national assembly during the early 1790s, and the policies of Napoleon
Bonaparte a decade and a half later. During the initial debates, the question of
equality for Jews (and actors) elicited strong support. Jews were offered eman-
cipation conditionally, as stated succinctly and famously by the count of
Clermont-Tonnerre: “The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but
granted everything as individuals. ... There cannot be one nation within
another nation.”
The precise meaning of this statement became clear as Jews were emanci-
pated in two stages, owing to the stark differences between the Jews of
Bordeaux and the Jews of Alsace-Lorraine. The former were highly accultur-
ated and lived largely as individual Jews. They were emancipated with little
objection. To all intents and purposes, they were emancipated already, and
there was no doubt that they did not constitute a nation within a nation.
The Jews of Alsace-Lorraine were largely unacculturated, Yiddish-speaking
Jews living in autonomous Jewish communities and disproportionately
engaging in petty commerce and moneylending. Nearly two more years of
debate passed until these Jews were emancipated. From this delay emerged a
clear notion as to the conditions of emancipation: Jews were expected to cede
at least some particularistic beliefs and customs, to abandon Yiddish, to cede
corporate autonomy, and to move into more productive occupations. This
prompted Jews such as Cerf Berr, a leading Jew in Strasbourg, to urge the mass
of traditional Jews in Alsace to meet the conditions of emancipation more
152 The age of enlightenment and emancipation, 1750–1880