Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848
amelia
(Amelia)
#1
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-