squarely by “divesting ourselves of that narrow spirit of corporation and
congregation in all civil and political matters not directly connected with our
spiritual laws.” In September 1791, emancipation was extended to all Jews in
France, including the Jews of Alsace-Lorraine, with the implicit expectation
that the latter would begin to meet the terms of emancipation immediately.
During the 1790s, legal emancipation was extended to Jews in the
German and Italian states conquered by the French revolutionary armies.
Often the first act of conquering revolutionary armies was to emancipate
Jews. In Italy, French armies dramatically tore down the ghetto walls. In
countries at war with France, the gradual reforms that had been taking place
under the aegis of enlightened sovereigns such as Joseph II were halted by
revolutionary paranoia. But when these countries were defeated by the supe-
rior populist armies of the revolution and Napoleon, they had to reconsider
the benefits of at least some reforms.
The transition from revolutionary government to the reign of Napoleon
Bonaparte meant a transition in the nature of political and social reform.
Napoleon implemented from above what French Revolution set out to do
from below. His policies regarding Jews were in some cases a by-product of
his overall policies, in other cases designed especially for Jews. The main
example of the former was his consistory system, which placed religious
denominations under the supervision of the Ministry of Education and Cults.
The Jewish Consistory, led by the Jewish Consistory of Paris, had regulated
the religious affairs of French Jewry since 1807. In some cases, the consistory
provided a forum for religious experimentation. Israel Jacobson, the head of
the Westphalian Consistory, implemented a series of liturgical and ritual
changes with state authorization that anticipated some of the early tenets of
Reform Judaism a decade later.
The main example of Napoleon’s specific Jewish policy began to unfold in
January 1806. While returning to Paris from Egypt via Alsace-Lorraine,
Napoleon received complaints about the abuses of the Jewish moneylenders.
He was outraged by the fact that, fifteen years after emancipation, Jews in
Alsace had still not abandoned moneylending in favor of more productive
occupations. In response, he convened an assembly of Jewish notables as his
agents in transforming the as yet untransformed Jews of Alsace-Lorraine. He
addressed a series of questions to this assembly regarding the authority of
Judaism over civil matters, intermarriage, and patriotism. In response, the
assembly, and subsequently the Parisian Sanhedrin, its more formal incarna-
tion, managed to provide Napoleon with the answers he wanted.
Nonetheless, Napoleon imposed a series of restrictions on French Jews,
known as le décret infâme, aimed at forcing Jewish moneylenders to move into
other occupations. While ultimately not transforming Jews into peasants and
artisans, this decree did stir emancipated Jews to move into the free profes-
sions during the ensuing decades.
The age of enlightenment and emancipation, 1750–1880 153