PRESENT STATE OF THE JEWS.

THE petition which has just been presented to the Legislature for the removal of the civil disabilities to which our fellow-subjects professing the religion of Moses are still liable and the consequent discussion of the subject, have shewn that the prejudices which would exclude men from a participation in civil rights on account of their religion are fast wearing away, and that the boon recently conceded to the Catholics cannot be long withheld from the Jews. A hasty survey of the present state of these people in the principal countries of Christendom may be instructive in itself, while it serves to demonstrate the sound policy of abolishing civil distinctions when a government wishes to derive the greatest possible advantage from the talents and energies of all its subjects.

The history of the professors of the Mosaic law is the history of the degradation of the human race. A writer who should thoroughly investigate this subject and discuss it in a manner worthy of its importance, how favourable soever might be at first his opinion of human nature, could scarcely fail to become a misanthrope during the progress of his labour: for what person of sensibility could devote his whole life to researches into and meditations on a history which embraces a space of more than four thousand years, the vicissitudes of a hundred long extinct or yet existing nations in three quarters of the globe, and all the horrors, abominations, and cruelties, which prejudice, superstition, religious phrenzy, and the barbarism of priests, princes, and people, could ever devise and put in practice!

The religion of Moses is perhaps the most ancient and at the same time the most persecuted of any. Christians and Mohamedans have drawn from its sources, and yet hated its professors with unexampled inveteracy. The great persecutions of the Christians were a mere bagatelle compared with the persecutions which the Jews have suffered, chiefly from the Christians, in every successive age.

And what was the crime of these unfortunate people?-That they adhered to the most ancient religion of the human race, to the faith of their fathers, without striving to force others to adopt it—that in their capital the judicial sentence of a foreigner doomed the Founder of Christianity to die; a deed in which the whole Jewish nation, at that time comprising about six millions of souls, neither did nor could participate that this nation would not bow the neck in servile submission to the sovereigns of Rome, but struggled for independence with the heroism of despair, till most of its towns, and the everlasting Jerusalem itself, were transformed into heaps of ruins, and their inhabitants sold like brute beasts in the markets of Terebinth and Gaza. The population of this petty province was not to be subdued by the conquerors of the world-they could do no more than tear it up, as it were, by the roots, out of its native soil, and distribute it over all the regions of the globe. And yet it was not destroyed. It continued to be a peculiar people, without country, without ruler, without political constitution; a people dwelling as strangers for thousands of years among the most diverse nations, yet never mingling its blood, its manners, its language, its religion, with theirs. All the

abominations of European national history, all the atrocities of religious and civil wars, massacres, Sicilian Vespers, dragonades, fusillades, noyades, guillotinades, are to be found under other names accumulated in the history of the defenceless Jewish nation. This nation has nevertheless subsisted unexterminable, unique in its kind, to the present day. It is a miracle to which the history of the world presents no parallel.

At that period when the Jewish nation in the East had attained the pinnacle of greatness, under David and Solomon; at that period when it sent forth conquering armies to Egypt; when it had no superior in civilization and knowledge; when it was a mighty nation, indeed one of the principal nations of the world; it comprehended no more than about five millions of souls. The Jews now living dispersed in the four quarters of the globe, under various degrees of oppression, must certainly amount to nearly eight millions.

From the moment of their dispersion these pitiable strangers were detested, whithersoever they came, by all nations, as incorrigible heretics, and despised and spurned as slaves. In vain did the voice of humanity, in vain did the solemn injunction of love from the lips of Christ himself, plead in their behalf; in vain had they among them virtues, talents, learning, and wealth-all that belonged to them seemed to the fanatics contemptible and polluted. Here, in order that they might be immediately known, they were obliged to wear a yellow hat, there a circular patch of the same colour on the upper part of their outer garment, or a horn in their cap, or some other mark of degradation.

This state of reprobation could not fail at length to produce its effect. People reduced to servitude necessarily contracted servile habits and sentiments, and thereby rendered themselves objects of scorn and disgust. After the professors of the Gospel and the Koran had crippled this nation, they began to consider it as a degenerate race of the human species. Even Voltaire, who piqued himself so highly upon his toleration, sunk into the prejudices of the populace and of his age. The Popes themselves were more tolerant than he. When, in March 1492, Ferdinand the Catholic, with a piety that makes us shudder, cast forth from Spain with a single stroke of the pen seventy thousand Jewish families and a capital of thirty millions of ducats, Pope Alexander VI. threw open his territories to the exiles. Clement VI. made Avignon their asylum when they were persecuted with fire and sword in all the countries of Europe. Many other popes remonstrated with sovereigns and nations against the cruelties practised upon the Jews, and several publicly styled themselves "Protectors of the Israelites in Christendom."

These liberal sentiments, it is true, were not shared by all priests. When Philip III. of Spain-so it is related-was obliged to attend an auto-da-fé, he could not repress his tears when he beheld a young Jewess and a Moorish lad of fifteen or sixteen led to the stake. The Grand Inquisitor denounced the tear of pity on the cheek of a king as a crime which was only to be expiated with his blood. The monarch was forced to submit to be bled, and the blood was thrown into the fire.

Even Luther, the great reformer, was filled with inexpressible hatred of the Jews, excited princes against them, declared from the pulpit that next to the devil the Christian has not so bitter an enemy as the genuine Jew, and even went so far in his pious fanaticism as to advise that the synagogues of the Israelites should be set on fire, and that what might not be consumed should be covered with earth, "that neither stone nor vestige of them might be seen by man for evermore.'

The persecutions of the Jews continued till the middle of the last century, when in 1744 they were expelled without cause, probably out of pious zeal alone, from Bohemia. The government, however, being soon convinced of their innocence, repented the barbarous procedure, and the following year recalled the exiles.

Since that time these unfortunate people have begun to be treated with more humanity. England set the first example to the other nations. An act of parliament in 1753 conferred on the Jews the rights of denizens, but not a right to public offices. It granted them freedom of trade and the privilege of purchasing lands.

France followed the example of England. Louis XVI. in 1784 relieved the Jews from the payment of the poll-tax, which had till then degraded the professor of the religion of Moses to the level of the brute. Napoleon did still more. At his bidding the great Sanhedrim assembled at Paris on the 28th of July, 1806, under the presidency of the venerable Portuguese Jew, Furtado, of Bordeaux. Since that time the Israelites in France, who are engaged in useful occupations, enjoy a complete equality of civil rights with other denizens. Many Jews hold public offices in various departments; they serve in the army as soldiers and officers, and obtain promotion, without regard to their religion, when they signalize themselves by talents and courage.

Before Louis XVI. and Napoleon paid this tribute to justice and humanity in France, the liberal-minded emperor Joseph II. had improved the condition of the Hebrew race in the Austrian dominions. By decrees issued in 1781 he made the Jews denizens of his empire; he relieved them from all impósts which distinguished them in a degrading manner from their christian fellow-subjects; he gave them schools under the superintendence of christian directors; he permitted them to set up printing-presses; he opened to them all the academical institutions within his states for the study of every branch of knowledge, and all the arts, trades, and professions, as well as commerce, manufactures, and agriculture; but they were enjoined in all cases to employ persons of their own religion as workmen, if such were to be procured.

By these ordinances three hundred and fifty thousand souls were raised from political servitude to civil liberty, and the result proved that the vulgar prejudices against the Jews were no more than prejudices. It is true that the spirit which had been bowed down by the yoke of many centuries could not elevate itself to its full height the moment this yoke was broken by the hand of the philosophic emperor; but a few years sufficed to prove that man in a state of freedom can be honest, learned, industrious, whether he profess the

law of Moses or of Christ. In all parts of the Austrian monarchy the Jewish citizens advantageously distinguished themselves. One of their number was created a baron. The linen, cotton, and muslin manufactures of the Jews in Bohemia soon became some of the most flourishing in the empire. To be sure all these manufactures were not established till long after the promulgation of Joseph's ordinances. The Jews have since been appointed to military and civil offices; they have a right to follow all civil professions without exception, and can aspire to the rank of barons, counts, &c.

Among all the polished states of Europe, Austria therefore has the glory of being the first to establish and to act upon just principles, principles such as reason, humanity, and prudence recommend, in regard to the professors of the Jewish religion. Joseph did no less than Napoleon at a later period. The former had at his time to contend with greater difficulties, and perhaps precisely on this account his operations were less ostentatious than Napoleon's, but not less effective and beneficial. The Israelites in the Austrian monarchy enjoy, like all its other subjects, the blessings of a mild government; they have numerous scholastic institutions, and at Prague, and Lemberg in Gallicia, academies for the education of rabbins.

In northern Germany, where people have ever shewn more disposition to reason than to act, or rather, where the works of great writers have least influence upon princes and the spirit of their cabinets, there was long not one sovereign liberal enough to follow Joseph's example. And yet there has been in modern times no country which could boast of such a galaxy of scholars and artists of the Jewish religion. Neither England, nor France, nor Austria, has produced such illustrious names as Prussia. They have had no Mendelssohn, no Bendavid, no Marcus Hertz, no Solomon Maymon. In vain did a Schlözer, a Dohm, a Herder, and numberless other celebrated writers, advocate the freedom of the professors of the Mosaic religion. The utmost that they could achieve was the abolition of the disgraceful poll-tax, which was repealed by Prussia, Mecklenburg, Hanover, Anhalt, Baden, Wirtemberg, Salzburg, and other

states.

Such is the prodigious power of prejudice imbibed with the mother's milk, and of habit, that even princes who enjoyed or aspired to the brilliant character of patrons of civilization and improvement, could neither be humane enough to confer the rights of men and of free subjects on a class condemned by the barbarous fanaticism of past ages, nor prudent enough to turn the talents and energies of a portion of their people to the best account for the state. Even to the present day, German writers are contending for and against the civil liberty of the Jews, and narrow-minded persons still pretend to doubt the practicability of ideas which have been realized by Joseph II. and Buonaparte.

In the Prussian dominions the lot of the professors of the Mosaic religion was decided in 1811, through the humanity of king Frederic William III., and they were placed on the same footing as their fellowsubjects, in regard to civil rights.

In the kingdom of Saxony they are still prohibited from following trades or professions, and live in a state of the most degrading oppression. They are obliged to pay very heavy imposts, and dare not move from town to town without expensive passports. Foreign Jews travelling through Saxony at any other than the fair times are forced to pay a daily tribute for the air they breathe. Saxony is probably the only country in Europe where the poll-tax, equally degrading to the professors of the Mosaic religion and disgraceful to the State, is still exacted. It was only on the application of the court of Cassel, that the Westphalian subjects of the Jewish religion, when they attended the fairs of Leipzig or Naumburg—and these alone-were exempted from the payment of the poll-tax.

In the kingdom of Bavaria, nothing but ruinous wars, which nip every thing good in the bud, long prevented the execution of philanthropic projects in favour of its Jewish subjects. An electoral edict of January 26th, 1802, paved the way to the improvement of their condition, and subsequently an academy for the education of rabbins was founded for them at Fürth.

By a rescript of January 20th, 1804, the grand-duke of Baden relieved all Jews, native and foreign, from the poll-tax, passagemoney, and other imposts devised by former pious financiers; and by an ordinance of July 4th, 1808, the subjects of Baden of the Mosaic religion were declared free denizens. Every Jew who can prove that he follows the same kind of occupation as the christians has the local right of citizenship granted to him: till then he is only a protected citizen.

The wise and good Karl von Dalberg, once prince-primate of Germany, contributed not less to the promotion of this good cause. He abolished so early as the year 1804 this relic of a barbarous age, and subsequently gave to the Jewish inhabitants of Frankfurt on the Mayn, who, including their servants of both sexes, amounted in 1807 to 4270 souls, a better organisation, upon the whole resembling that adopted by Napoleon, though with some limitations, owing to local circumstances.

In the former kingdom of Westphalia, Napoleon's humane and politic principles respecting the professors of the Mosaic law were carried into effect without opposition. It is my will, and that of the constitution of my country," said King Jerome to the Jewish deputation, "that no distinctions be made among my subjects, be they of what religion they may." By a decree of the 27th of January, 1808, he extended to the Jewish inhabitants of his kingdom all the rights and immunities enjoyed by their christian fellow-subjects, without condition or limitation. When the names of the young men of a certain age were entered in the conscription list, it was found that all those of the Jewish religion capable of bearing arms punctually attended. Many others bound themselves to christian masters for the purpose of learning arts or trades. A Jewish inhabitant of

Minden was appointed criminal counsellor, nay the colonel of the king's body-guard himself was a Jew, and had distinguished himself as an officer in the imperial army of France.