Napoleon and Jewish emancipation in Europe, reforms and restrictions

Do you know why Heine so loved Napoleon? Besides the spirit of the French Revolution, with whose grandeur the name of Bonaparte was invariably associated, it was precisely thanks to Napoleon that the movement for Jewish emancipation rose throughout Europe. He is often called the liberator of the Jews.

What exactly did Napoleon do for the Jews? Let us say at once that, despite the granting of full civil rights to the Jews after the Revolution, Napoleon's rule nonetheless began with a large anti-Jewish programme, fuelled by the reluctance of a large and interested circle to repay to Jewish banks the enormous loans taken out for the purchase of secularised church lands. In 1806 he suspended the enforcement of French court rulings on the recovery of debts in favour of Jews in the eight departments most densely populated by Jews.

However, as early as 1799 his promise to restore the Temple of Jerusalem, Jerusalem itself and, finally, a Jewish state had flown across Europe. The news of the imminent return to Eretz Yisrael intrigued the Jewish communities, but the Jews of Gaza, Hebron, Ramla, Jaffa, Acre and Haifa were in no hurry to help hand their cities over to the advancing French army, which was in the end forced to withdraw to Egypt.

Secondly, all the European countries enslaved by the army of a hundred peoples received Jewish emancipation, and the local Jews greeted Bonaparte as a liberator. This compelled the states at war with Napoleon to turn to the Jewish question, so that part of their population should not sympathise with the enemy. And indeed, in Prussia and Russia concessions for the Jews began: the Prussian Jews finally received equal civil rights in 1811, while in Russia it was decided to postpone the implementation of the law on the general expulsion of Jews from villages and hamlets.

Thirdly, Napoleon established the first representative assembly of the heads of the Jewish communities of France and Europe, and then the Sanhedrin as well. True, one of the questions put to the assembly was whether Judaism really proclaims hatred of Christians.

Yet many of Napoleon's decisions and decrees seriously restricted the rights of the Jewish population of France and of the conquered countries. In 1808 he proclaimed a list of professions in which Jews were forbidden to engage for 10 years, in a number of localities he introduced a Pale of Settlement, continued to restrict the recovery of debts in favour of Jews, and deprived them of the right to provide a substitute for military service. These measures were repealed in most regions only by 1812.

Nevertheless, the image of Napoleon as the liberator and benefactor of the Jews took firm root in the minds of the broad Jewish masses, and in many synagogues hymns were even sung in his glory. The freedoms and concessions for the Jews proclaimed by Napoleon could not be annulled and vanish without trace even after the emperor's overthrow. So Bonaparte really did put an end to the complete rightlessness of the Jews of Europe and to some extent even made the communities think together about the problems of preserving national identity and culture.