The Emancipation Of The Jews In The French Revolution

The emancipation of the Jews in the French revolution can be seen as the catalyst for change in the nature and ideology of anti-Semitism. It was an event that ushered in enlightened ideas such as democracy, liberation, the abolishment of slavery, secularism and ideals of individualism - elements which would later play important roles with French international dealings and Jewish emancipation. Prior to the emergence of 18th century enlightened thinkers, Jews accused of a crime faced immediate death from vigilantes, however the enlightenment meant state involvement: Jews could be held by the police and essentially prosecuted by a court due to laws that meant Jews were regarded as citizens and therefore had access to the “trial by jury” an element
of an edict in the The Rights of Man. Thus the prosecution of Jews became state led and centered around socio-political and economical motives rather than religious agenda such as the blood libel which claimed Jews killed Christian children in order to use their blood to make unleavened bread to eat during Passover as exemplified by the 1882 Tiszaeszlár Affair where following the disappearance of a local girl, Jews were accused of murdering and beheading her. William Marr acknowledged this when differentiating between the term anti-Judaism, religious hatred of the Jews and the phrase anti-Semitism explained in his thesis as hatred of the Jews because of their characteristics and assumed greed and power (A). The Dreyfus affair could be considered a key turning point because of its setting, France, a country with newly liberated citizens amongst them Jews. It could be argued that the Dreyfus affair showed the new ideology of anti-Semitism; persecution against Jews not because of their religion but because they were a race.
The French revolution unfortunately started animosities that were to prove fatal to Jews later on, the most noticeable, being the persecution of Catholics in the 18th and 19th century that were in the words of Michael Burleigh, “tantamount to genocide” (B) that occurred as a result of the Emancipation that would lead to further Christian opposition towards Jews. This Christian opposition would emerge mostly in Germany and Russia in the 19th and 20th Century, where Christians would support Hitler in his answer for the Jewish question and Russians would blame Jews for the death of their God elected Tsar and his family. In Germany the Revolutions of 1848 led to Jewish emancipation which was granted throughout Germany. The basic Rights of the German people by Frankfurt Parliament stated that human rights were not to be conditional on religious faith (C) leading to Jews experiencing a period of tolerance that could be argue to last until the first world war, as long as one acknowledges it was undeniably threatened in various stages by the push for German unification – which acted as fertile ground for insurgent anti-Semitism, the rise of Communism which became apparent in the Russian Revolution as well as the 1919 Spartacist Uprising and Germany’s economic, political and social tensions .
Nationalism, a rising ideological view would become a very important factor in changing the nature of anti-Semitism. Nationalists who wanted the unification of Germany’s two dozen kingdoms to form a greater Germany, which would rival the economic and military power of Britain, France and Russia. However the unification was blocked by political obstacles and regional self-interest leading to supporters becoming frustrated by the lack of progress – and of course blamed it on the region’s Jews, claiming the Jews feared a united Germany and preferred small, bickering kingdoms.
The scapegoating of Jews as the deliberate perpetrators of problems occurring such as socio-economic problems caused by urbanisation etc disease in cities and lack of amnesties for the poor.
Because of the growth in industry and money economy, Jews became rich and influential “commanding height of the economy” (D). This led to resentment and jealousy from many nationalists who began to spread the view that Jews were not "true Frenchmen of France". This is supported by Read who asserts that the “most easily identifiable enemies were the Jews, because many were rich and their talents had led to a disproportionate presence in the judiciary, the civil service, the press and even the army” (E).
Lindemann in his book “The Jews accused” implies that the significance of the Dreyfus affair can only be judged when taking into consideration two other major events; the Russian “Beilis affair” (1913) where a Jew was accused of ritual murder in Kiev, leading to a trial and the Syrian 1840 “Damascus affair” in which an accusation of ritual murder was brought against members of the Jewish community of Damascus where no trial was ever undertaken
(F)..
The Damascus affair, set in the French colony of Syria called into question Jewish loyalty to the French state; this was as French Jews protested against the arrests made, which led to Right wind propaganda that stated that Jews put their interest first before French interests. The Bellis affair can be linked to the growing scapegoating of Jews occurring in European countries, caused by the growing tensions that would eventually lead to the First World War in 1914. This was amplified by the development of romantic nationalism towards scientific and social racism such as the publication of Wagners 'Jews in music' which argued that jews could not produce true German music as they were Jews first and thus were incapable of the emotional love required to produce "German" music(G)..
There was a significant increase in anti-Semitism during the nineteenth and twentieth fed by political division, instability and scapegoat-ism. Naomi E. Pasachoff , a historian states that “Dramatic change had swept across Europe during the course of the century, and the Jews provided a convenient scapegoat for many of those whose existence was destabilized, as old established social roles were overturned (H) ”. This is proved by the emergence of the May laws which removed the importance and influence of religion in 1873 Germany thus propelling more political revolutions that furthered democracy across Europe and meant a loss of status and power for the old nobility and clergy. In the estimation of some of the losers, the Jews were the most obvious gainers, and anti-Jewish resentment built...” this resentment would lead to the blame of the loss of WW1 (1914-1918) being attributed to Jews as well as the stab-in-the back theory that was to accompany the treaty or Versailles and the great depression in 1929.
The publication of the protocols of the Elder of the Zion's a Russian hoax book, presented as being the records of a secret plan by Rabbis to take over the world through the means of subverting the morals of Gentiles and controlling the press and the world's economies was published in 1903 and then translated into many languages and internationally distributed in the early part of the Twentieth century, in America Henry Ford funded the publishing of half-a-million copies that were then distributed all over the US. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they immediately ordered the text to be studied in German Classrooms, historian Norman Cohn suggested that Hitler used the Protocols as his primary justification for initiating the Holocaust—his "warrant for genocide".
Jew Theodor Herlzl who reported on the trial for his Viennese newspaper, wrote, "If France, the home of the Revolution, was susceptible to the basest anti-Semitism, was that not proof of the need for a Jewish homeland?" The Dreyfus affair most definitely had much to do with mobilizing the nascent Zionist undertaking into the political movement that subsequently contributed almost fifty years later to the creation of the state of Israel.
Herzl’s actions unknowingly fueled a revival of anti-Semitism that is still present in the modern world. Zionism and German unification. Zionism sought the restoration of a Jewish homeland by creating a Jewish state in Palestine. As Zionist leaders, groups and texts emerged they called for greater Jewish unity and co-operation to achieve their goals. The growth of Zionism led to fanciful conspiracy theories that Jews were engaged in an underhanded plot to take over the
world.
The idea of a ‘Jewish homeland’ led anti-semites to further argue that the Jews were a nation within a nation and thus because the Jews had a homeland already, Israel, any where outside of Israel was not their homeland making them foreigners and immigrants and proving that Jews were never “true” citizens where they resided.
While the Dreyfus affair had a overall positive outcome – Dreyfus was freed and then reinstated into a higher position in the army after all, one could argue that many of these positive outcome didn’t benefit the Jews at all or even aid the stoppage of anti-Semitism, which actually continued to grow instead of decline after the Dreyfus affair…
The Dreyfus affair is attributed as contributing to the French Collaboration with Nazi Germany during Vinchy France, a collaboration argued to be the result of nationalistic right wing revolutionaries and anti-Dreyfusards taking revenge after their failure to overthrow the government ruling in favour of Dreyfus. This can be exemplified that in the year 1940 – France was essentially underwent a state purification of Jews as many were shipped to Concentration camps in Germany.
However many critics (Find a supporting critic and quote for this argument)argue that the Dreyfus affair actually led to the growth of anti-Semitism in France, in a period that had before been quite tolerant of Jews which renders Jacqueline Rose's opinion that "ultimately the Dreyfus Affair was a defeat for anti-Semitism" incomprehensible. Therefore in considering the changing nature of anti-Semitism over 100 years of the period, the Dreyfus affair can be seen as a key turning point in the fact that it changed the ideologies and nature as well as the agenda of anti-Semitism. It also had the effect of unconsciously increasing anti-Semitism and causing the formation of Zionism as a political movement that still affects the world to this day.