Deeply Yiddish

[kabutoki]

Hi,
can "ersatz" really be found in english now ? Hm, looks like we will totally conquer your language...

Karsten

[kantsipr]

FWIW, it's been in use for a while. Here's the OED entry:

1875 Encycl. Brit. II. 594/2 (German army), Those who are exempted..are passed into the Ersatz reserve. 1892 J. ROYCE Let. 17 Oct. in R. B. Perry Tht. & Char. of W. James (1935) I. 803 To me he is a great comfort, although..no Ersatz for the aforesaid condition of my heart. 1910 Pedagogical Seminary 305 When names are forgotten owing to such a disturbance, an Ersatz name appears. 1919 War Terms in Athenæum 1 Aug. 695/1 Another word not seldom met with is ‘ersatz’. It is the German ‘substitute’. 1927 Daily Express 30 Sept. 1/1 It will merely be an imitation Parliament, an ‘Ersatz’ Parliament, designed to fulfil the immediate needs of the Dictatorship. 1928 T. S. ELIOT For Lancelot Andrewes 89 Of course Mr. Shaw and Mr. Wells are also much occupied with religion and Ersatz-Religion. 1930 Observer 9 Mar. 12 The coffee..will be..tempered with a judicious mixture of ‘ersatz’. 1938 Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XLII. 919 The problem of ‘Ersatz’ materials is well considered and modern aeronautical materials (like plastics, compressed wood, resin glues, etc.) are described. 1939 Punch 22 Nov. p. vii/2 (Advt.), A real tobacco. There is no Ersatz in Four Square. 1940 Nature 13 Jan. 60/1 Present-day brands of margarine cannot be considered in any way Ersatz butter. 1942 L. B. NAMIER Conflicts 58 This set a high premium on Hitler's jack-boots and ersatz uniforms. 1944 E. H. W. MEYERSTEIN Let. 24 Nov. (1959) 297 He [sc. Swinburne] went now and then to places where women beat him, which must have been a wretched ersatz for the sort of thing he wanted, e.g. to be flogged by the Duke of Wellington. 1949 F. MACLEAN Eastern Approaches III. v. 362 A breakfast of black bread and captured ersatz coffee made from roasted grain. 1950 Mind LIX. 20 Propositions regarded as ersatz facts or quasi-things. 1952 H. READ Philos. Mod. Art I. iii. 69 All we can create in that way is an ersatz culture, the synthetic product of those factories we call variously universities, colleges or museums. 1956 C. WILSON Outsider v. 133 Kant, with his ersatz morality, is a special target.

[ghp]

Ersatz, from the German meaning "replacement", usually with a perjorative nuance.

Yes, it is still used as a loan-word; it ranks right up there with [i]angst, mensch, and ordungshunger. Oh, and sauerkraut ;)

--Guy

[Cady Goldfield]

Don't forget <i>schmuck</i> and <i>putz</i>!
Many German words used in America were brought over via Yiddish. They are not contemporary German, but Old High German from medieval times.

[kabutoki]

Lol,
thats nice. I like the "ordnungshunger". Sounds somehow poetic in German although its not so much a virtue but more in the meaning of a bad habit.
I knew that some words, especially from social sciences became loanwords long ago but the list i know of still grows. Very interesting...I wonder what connotation these word have for those who know nothing about their origin...

Oh and before I forget it, Glenn. Good luck for the training. hopefully it works out for you.


Karsten

[kabutoki]

Hi,
how do you define schmuck and putz then, since their meaning in German changed a lot since the times of "Walther von der Vogelweide". Maybe we should transfer this to somewhere else ?

Karsten

[Cady Goldfield]

Okay, after this, anyone with a compelling urge to pursue the off-topic can begin a new thread. :D

Originally posted by kabutoki
Hi,
how do you define schmuck and putz then, since their meaning in German changed a lot since the times of "Walther von der Vogelweide". Maybe we should transfer this to somewhere else?

Karsten

"Schmuck," as I understand it, literally meant "ornament" or "jewel." It came to refer to the... er... ornament that hangs between a man's legs. Eventually, in Yiddish, it came to be a derogatory term for a man, equivalent to "prick" in American slang... but much stronger.

[kabutoki]

Hi,
Schmuck still means any form of ornament or jewellery. I heard the term in English before and realized that it was Yiddish but i wasn´t aware of the origin...

Karsten

[Cady Goldfield]

Likewise, "putz" also originally meant "decoration" or "ornament" but was used by Yiddish to be a slang reference to the male sex organ, and eventually as an insult equal to "schmuck."

Here's a list of Yiddish words, some of which are High German in origin. Others come from Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish, Russian, Slavic and other languages of countries where Jews passed through...

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Yiddish

Okay, back to the thread on Mr. Craig. BTW, does he know he is being written about on a popular Internet forum?

[Ron Tisdale]

but I'll bet they changed the spelling

Wouldn't you???? I would....

Ron

[Cady Goldfield]

Originally posted by ghp
Hi Cady, Yes, and I also supplied the thread link.

Cheers,
Guy
... who no longer shall use the word Putzfrau to mean "cleaning lady." Nor shall he buy Schmucker's Jams! Oh ... that should be Smucker .... but I'll bet they changed the spelling :)

I hope he isn't offended, and is comfortable with posting here. He has, after all, been kind of put on the spot!

A <i>putzfrau</i> must have been the woman who dusted the <i>tschotchkes</i> in German households.

Hey, anyone named "Schmucker" or "Schmuckler" should be proud... their ancestor was a jeweler. Either that, or had a notable...er... paternal ornament. :D

Cady
Who still has a photograph she took of the "Schmuck's Drycleaners" sign in York, PA in 1978.

[Earl Hartman]

Ersatz isn't English? Since when? That's sort of like saying kindergarten isn't English. I've used it for as long as I can remember, and I don't think I've met any adult in the US (so far, anyway), who speaks English as his or her native language that does not know what it means. But then, my father grew up speaking German. (Karsten: In colloquial American English ersatz just means "fake".)

Everybody please remember that English refers originally to the Angles, who, were, of course, originally Germanic. AFAIK, "England", after all, is only a corruption of the original name for the place, "Angle-landt", or "Land of the Angles".

The apparent origins of schmuck give a wole new meaing to the term "family jewels", huh?

:D

[kabutoki]

Hello,
my best friends last name is Schmucker. I think nobody was saying that these word are not English, though I´m not familiar with the regulation on when a loanword originally adopted from another language is finally condsidered to be part of a language.
BTW, "Christbaumschmuck" is the stuff you decorate your christmastree with ...

Karsten

[Earl Hartman]

Well, I don't think there is any particular regulation about how long it takes. But then, English has probably borrowed more words from other languages than most. I also know a guy named Schmucker, BTW.

I thought a Christmas tree was Tannenbaum?

[kabutoki]

Hi Earl,
you can say both. Tannenbaum refers more to the fact that it´s a pinetree (tanne=pinetree), Christbaum has the connection to christian faith and christmas.

We really should stop the language lesons here...it´s fun though.
Karsten

[Earl Hartman]

Karsten:

Thanks.

[G. Zepeda]

Let's hear it for our favorite borrowed German word:

BIER!

[glad2bhere]

Excuse me, but I thoughts that "schwantz" was the Yiddish equivalent of "prick"

and "putz" was the Yiddish equivalent of "dick"

Also does anyone know if the term "schwarze" is considered the equivalent of "negro" in the US or is it more a a perjorative like that "other" word?

Finally there are still words like schlep, schtupe, and schlemiel to account for. No Lenny Bruce performance would have been complete without them. ;)

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[Cady Goldfield]

Bruce,
<i>schwantz</i> means "snake" or "serpent," yet another allusion to the male member. However, unlike <i>schmuck</i> and <i>putz</i>, it never "graduated" to Yiddish insult.

I should mention that the latter two words are much overused in American English now. They really are verrrry strong words. My parents would never use them, and cringe when they hear them dropped casually on television. I guess, the fact that they are foreign words makes it easier to casually toss them into American conversation. But to us Ashkenazic Yids, they are harsher and deeper in nuance than even the crudest Anglo-Saxonisms -- which are still considered no-nos in polite conversation. Yet, people use 'em all the time.

BTW, "prick" and "dick" are pretty much the same thing in American English, although "prick" is considered more insulting by some.

<i>Schvartz</i> is just the German and Yiddish word for "black." However, its "status" as a derogatory word depends entirely on the way it is said, and by the intent behind it. It can be innocuous, or it can have the same venom as "nigger," unfortunately. By the same token, the Hebrew/Yiddish word <i>goy</i> literally means "nation," and refers to whoever the indigenous gentile peoples were of the countries where Diaspora Jews were living. It's how to they referred to the nation of people surrounding them. Again, it can be innocuous -- just a reference -- or full of venom as an insult to a non-Jew. Nuance and intent are everything.

Geez. How did we get onto this off-tangent?! I digress.

[Earl Hartman]

I have heard schvantz used as an insult; it is just not as common in "Yinglish" as putz or schmuck, that's all.

Another word for the male member, which I have never heard used as an insult however, is schlong.

Cady is correct; all of these words are extremely rude in Yiddish. In English, the only Yiddishims that people know are swear-words and insults popularized by comedians and other show-business types. This, unfortunately, reduces Yiddish, a real languge spoken by real people, and with a rich literature, to a vulgar joke. Although I am not a Yiddish speaker, I do find this disturbing.

However, I do get a kick out of ignorant but well-meaning people mixing their multi-lingual metaphors by saying things like "he was going for the whole megillah" when what is meant is something along the lines of "the whole enchilada". (Colloquially, megillah means a long involved story.)

Also, while the word goy has come to be used in Yiddish to refer exclusively to a person who is not Jewish, this word is Hebrew, not Yiddish, and simply means "nation", and not necessarily a non-Jewish one. In the Torah, the nation of Israel is referred to as a goy kadosh, or a "holy nation".

[gendzwil]

Originally posted by Cady Goldfield

I should mention that the latter two words are much overused in American English now. They really are verrrry strong words.
Was watching "While You Were Sleeping" on TBS the other day, and there's a scene where the sole Jewish character calls another character a putz. The TV editing folks substituted "bum", which I thought was a bit of an overreaction but then I guess it depends on your POV, eh?

[Earl Hartman]

Inasmuch as we are on the subject of Yiddish, I thought this might tickle a few funny bones. (The use of "Oy vay!" [literally, "Oh, woe!"] is incorrect, and a Chanuka menorah is properly called a chanukiya, but this is funny enough that I can forgive the author, who was obviously trying pretty hard, in a good spirit of fun.)

Karsten, can you understand any of the Yiddish? I assume some of it will be quite familiar to you.

The Night Before Chanukah

'Twas the night before Chanukah, boichiks and maidels
Not a sound could be heard, not even the dreidels
The menorah was set by the chimney alight
In the kitchen, the Bubbie was khopping a bite
Salami, Pastrami, a glaisele tay
And zoyere pickles mit bagels-- Oy vay!

Gezint and geschmock the kinderlach felt
While dreaming of taiglach and Chanukah gelt
The alarm clock was sitting, a kloppin' and tickin'
And Bubbie was carving a shtickele chicken
A tummel arose, like the wildest k'duchas
Santa had fallen right on his tuchas!

I put on my slippers, ains, tzvay, drei
While Bubbie was eating herring on rye
I grabbed for my bathrobe and buttoned my gottkes
And Bubbie was just devouring the latkes
To the window I ran, and to my surprise
A little red yarmulka greeted my eyes.

When he got to the door and saw the menorah
"Yiddishe kinder," he cried, "Kenahorah!"
I thought I was in a Goyishe hoise!
As long as I'm here, I'll leave a few toys."
"Come into the kitchen, I'll get you a dish
Mit a gupel, a leffel, and a shtickele fish."

With smacks of delight he started his fressen
Chopped liver, knaidlach, and kreplach gegessen
Along with his meal he had a few schnapps
When it came to eating, this boy sure was tops
He asked for some knishes with pepper and salt
But they were so hot he yelled out "Gevalt!"

He loosened his hoysen and ran from the tish
"Your koshereh meals are simply delish!"
As he went through the door he said "See y'all later
I'll be back next Pesach in time for the seder!"
So, hutzmir and zeitzmir and "Bleibtz mir gezint"
he called out cheerily into the wind.

More rapid than eagles, his prancers they came
As he whistled and shouted and called them by name
"Come, Izzie, now Moishe, now Yossel and Sammy!
On Oyving, and Maxie, and Hymie and Manny!"
He gave a geshrai, as he drove out of sight
"A gut yontiff to all, and to all a good night!"

[kabutoki]

Hi Earl,
i can understand some word and fragments of sentences and even some lines but not even 50%.
I´m not familiar with Yiddish at all but looking at the history of the jews in Germany and Europe as a whole I guess it was not even meant to be understood by everyone. Not really like a secret language but more like a sociolect because they were seperated from other parts of the society. But again, I know next to nothing about it. If someone out there has a brief outline on it prepared...I´d read it ;)

Karsten

[Cady Goldfield]

Karsten,
I'd say that your perception of the existance and purpose of Yiddish is totally correct. It was the ghetto language of a people who were isolated from the mainstream while at the same time, thrown together with fellow Jews who'd wandered in from all over Central and Eastern Europe and West Asia.

As for translating that poem Earl provided (Hilarious, Earl! Someone posted a similar version on Bugei Sword Forum), don't feel bad if you can't understand a lot of the Yiddish -- Remember, it's Old High German. Even my German sister-in-law (hey - she's from Hamburg! Blankenese) can't understand a lot of it because it's archaic. And, many of the words are Hebrew in origin.

Earl,
Your explanation of "goy" was spot-on. "Lo Y'sal goy el goy cherev; lo yilmahdu od milchamah!" ("Nation shall not lift sword against nation; nor will there be any more war!") It's what I meant to say, but didn't word quite right. I was thinking more of its use as a Yiddish word and its sometimes derogatory context. Keeping in mind that Yiddish is a mix of Hebrew and a hodgepodge of other languages, "goy" is very much a Yiddish word.

Neil,
The television censor probably was Jewish and was ticked off by the use of such a crude and obscene Yiddish word. ;)

John,
Bless you for carving this off-topica from that beknighted Kenjutsu Forum thread, and giving it its own spot in this meshugina Members Forum, where it belongs.

[kenshorin]

Originally posted by Earl Hartman
This, unfortunately, reduces Yiddish, a real languge spoken by real people, and with a rich literature, to a vulgar joke.

And to make an off-topic observation - (budo related however): this is very similar to what a lot of McDojo Kuhrottey schools do when they teach their students a Jacko Zooki (gyaku tsuki) - absolutely butcher the Japanese language. Then again, it also works in reverse (Engrish, anyone??? (http://www.engrish.com/))

Language is a messy thing. Especially when you don't know what you're saying.

http://www.engrish.com/image/engrish/peopie.jpg

[Cady Goldfield]

Yes, some of us spend an inordinate amount of time on Engrish.com when we're not dawdling on E-Budo. :p

[Dahlia]

I still like Doppelganger and "I'm schlepping my suitcase" best... How do you pronounce ersatz in English?

But:

Are you talking about a completely different Yiddish that I can think of? Yiddish as developed from Hebrew as now spoken in Jerusalem as is the native language of my father? Because this one sounds quite different... :confused:

[Cady Goldfield]

Darina,

The content of Yiddish changes according to the prevailing language of the country where Jews are living. Since Hebrew is the language of Israel, I think that more Hebrew words will find their way into the Yiddish spoken there. It may also have a bit more Arabic or Turkish in it from Jews who have immigrated from Yemen, Turkey and surrounding areas.

Yiddish was prominant in Germany in the Middle Ages when Jews were ghettoized there. It consisted mainly of Hebrew and the German of the time -- Old High German (11th century through 13th century). Later, though, it faded somewhat because between the 18th and early 20th centuries, Jews were allowed to assimilate more into German society and were deghettoized.

Yiddish in Eastern Europe was mostly Hebrew mixed with Slavic languages, Turkish, Arabic and Persian until the early 19th century (I think it was in the 1830s or 40s... so maybe more the middle 19th century). At that time, German-born Jews were "shipped" to Russia/Ukraine to make settlements, and still others migrated east for trade and business. They brought German with them, and that colored the Yiddish of Eastern Europe.

My own grandparents - all of them - emigrated from Tsarist Russian Ukraine between 1906 and 1909. My father's parents spoke Yiddish that had Hebrew, a Russian, Polish and a little Turkish mixed in with a substantial amount of German. My maternal grandfather's parents had been from Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany, but were transported east to Russian Ukraine and ended up in Odessa, with its prominent Jewish ghetto. Their Yiddish was heavy in Old High German, and that's the Yiddish my mother's parents spoke.

Yiddish and Ladino (the language of Jews living in Spain, Portugal and North Africa -- a mix of Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish...) are urban ghetto languages, like "Spanglish" is for urban Latinos in America. They take on the flavor of whatever countries their speakers were shunted through, and became the common tongues by which a diaspora people could communicate, no matter where they had lived. With Hebrew words and writing as the glue that hold Yiddish and Ladino together, you can add anything you want to them.

P.S. "Ersatz" = "Air-sahtz" according to most people I've heard!

[glad2bhere]

A quick thanks to Cady et al for reminding me that many of the words that are used casually in American society are not always --- well--- "kosher" in polite society. I am routinely surprised to hear some of the language that gets by the TV censors these days when I grew-up in a time of TV governed by George Carlins' routine on the "Seven words you can't say on TV." I suppose that the rationale of making TV more "realistic" allows for a great many things. All the same, its nice to be reminded that people judge us by the way we speak, and while well-behaved people will probably not mention that our language might not be very acceptable, I can imagine that they would be thinking it VERY loudly. Thanks again.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[Earl Hartman]

While I am sure this is not her intention, I'm a little uncomfortable with Cady's characterization of Yiddish as a "ghetto" language, as though it is some uncouth, vulgar patois or pidgin developed by people who had no access to anything better. It is true that Jews were ghettoized (this really didn't start happening until after the Crusades began; in the Frankish empire of Charlemagne's time Jews were not ghettoized at all, AFAIK), and it is true that Yiddish developed among them. But that does not mean that it is somehow an inferior language, as the term "ghetto langauage" might indicate. I forget who said it, but a famous Yiddishist once said that "A language is just a dialect with an army and a navy".

AFAIK, the gramatical structure of Yiddish is German; that is, Yiddish is a Germanic dialect spoken exclusively by Jews (in Yiddish, after all, "Yiddish" just means "Jewish"). It is not just a hodgepodge of stuff thrown together haphazardly (or a mishegoss, if you will). It is true that it contains words from a large number of different languages, but what language does not? Different communities of Jews developed different dialects of Yiddish with different pronunciations and accents, just as languages anywhere.

Ladino (written with Hebrew characters, as is Yiddish) is even closer to Castillian Spanish than Yiddish is to German.

One of my favorite Yiddish words, definitely Russian in origin: paskudnyak, meaning a thoroughly disgusting reprobate and lowlife.

For those who are interested, the following link has a short descripton of the origins, history, etc., of Yiddish:

http://www.jewish-languages.org/yiddish.html

[Cady Goldfield]

Earl,
But Yiddish IS a ghetto language. Jews were ghettoized throughout Europe, from the moment they arrived in Europe from the Middle East in sizeable numbers. Same for Ladino. Why does that make you uncomfortable? There were times, certainly, when benighn kings and rulers saw the value of Jewish cultural contributions, and let them own property and mix into the cities. But Yiddish brewed during the many times and periods when that was not the case.

Did you know that the word "ghetto," was created SPECIFICALLY to describe the part of the city to which Jews were restricted to live? It literally means, in Italian, "foundry," because in Florence, Italy, the Jews were forced to live in the quarter that housed the city's foundrys. E.G., an undesireable part of town, fit only for outcasts.

Yes indeedy-do, Yiddish and Ladino are the ghettospeak of Jews.

[Earl Hartman]

I am quite aware of the history of the Jews in Europe, and I also know where the word "ghetto" came from. I need no lecture about it from you or anyone else, Cady.

Yiddish is indeed the vernacular of the Ashkenazim. I object, however, to the connotations of the term "ghetto language" as though Yiddish is a vulgar, uneducated slang that the Jews would not have developed if it hadn't been for the big, bad goyim who oppressed us, and that we couldn't wait to drop like a hot potato the minute they let us out of the cages they forced us into.

Yiddish is not the "ghetto language" of the Jews of Europe, it is their mama loshen.

[Cady Goldfield]

Wow! You're getting a bit up in the tsitsit there, Earl. Are you a Galitsiano??? :D

There's no need for you to get snitty, <i>boychik</i>. Chill. Sheesh. Reminds me of the debates we used to have over actual budo matters. :laugh:

Seriously though, from your surprising reaction, it is evident that you have a misinterpretation of the meaning of "ghetto speak" if you associate ghettos with the vulgar and crude. I made no such allusion, and don't know where you get that idea. Unless you've been watching your DVD of "I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka" too many times and think that "ghetto" means that environment.

Now, it's Shabbat and time to put aside the worldly and banal. Shabbat Shalom.

[Joseph Svinth]

"Creole" is probably the word you're looking for. Specifically, the generic meaning of a natural human language (as opposed to designer languages, such as Esperanto) that develops as the result of contact between two languages.

***

From http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/pidgins/pidgin.html

By definition Pidgins and Creoles (following Bickerton, item 11.1) involve language mix, and currently spoken Creole languages arose as a direct result of European Colonial expansion. Between 1500 and 1900, there came into existence, on tropical islands and in isolated sections of tropical littorals, small, autocratic, rigidly stratified societies, mostly engaged in monoculture, which consisted of a ruling minority of some European nation and a large mass of (mainly non-European) laborers, drawn in most cases from many different language groups. Speakers of different languages at first evolved some form of auxiliary contact language, native to none of them, known as a Pidgin(1), and this language, suitably expanded, eventually became the native or Creole (2) language of the community that exists today. These Creoles were in most cases different enough from any of the languages of the original contact situation to be considered "new" languages. Superficially, their closest resemblance was to their European parent, but this was mainly because the bulk of vocabulary items were drawn from that source, and even here there were extensive phonological and semantic shifts. In general then, the term Creole is used to refer to any language which was once a Pidgin and which subsequently became a native language ; some scholars have extended the term to any language, ex-Pidgin or not, that has undergone massive structural change due to language contact. It is this extended definition that is followed in this guide, treating as it does creolized and simplified languages in the broadest sense of the terms.

***

[Earl Hartman]

"Up in my tsitsit "? Is that some new way to say "knickers in a twist"?

I am a Yekke , if it matters. And that is Galitzianer , not "Galitsiano".

And, lastly, seeing as I have a married son who is almost 30, I am most certainly not a boychik . Not unless you are significanly older than I am.

And while Yiddish may be a language of gollus, I still object to characterizing it as "ghettospeak".

[Tripitaka of AA]

Thanks for this entertaining and informative thread. I haven't a clue how it started, how it came to be here on the Members Lounge of E-Budo, or where it's going now that Earl and Cady have managed to find themselves on different sides of a busy street, but hey, this was most enlightening.

My father was in the Merchant Navy in his younger days and he travelled to New York many times. I think this is where he picked up a little knowledge of Yiddish, later enhanced by mixing with the Jewish members of the English Theatre scene. It was he who explained to me many of the terms that you have used. But you have taught me so much more. I certainly was unaware of just how rude those were to Jewish ears.

It reminded me of the movie "Kid Millions" with Eddie Cantor. It is a very old film with a star of old-time Vaudeville who was a populkar singer-comedian of the 1930s-40s. He took his name from his Father's occupation as a Cantor at the synagogue (sounds a bit like Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer). In the movie, Eddie Cantor drops a one-liner about stepping on his "toga" (he's wearing Roman garb), which my Dad explained was meant to sound like the Yiddish for ... well you said it earlier, but I can't remember the spelling, but it's the one that has now morphed and abbreviated into "tush".

Language grows and develops all around us.


oh, and because Kimpatsu was otherwise engaged, he forgot to point out that gyaku and tsuki become gyaku zuki when used together. :D

[Cady Goldfield]

Originally posted by Earl Hartman
"Up in my tsitsit "? Is that some new way to say "knickers in a twist"?

I am a Yekke , if it matters. And that is Galitzianer , not "Galitsiano".

And, lastly, seeing as I have a married son who is almost 30, I am most certainly not a boychik . Not unless you are significanly older than I am.

And while Yiddish may be a language of gollus, I still object to characterizing it as "ghettospeak".

Oh, pardon me.:rolleyes:

I shoulda guessed you're a <i>Yekke</i>! I can see you clicking your heels and requiring people to call you "Herr Professor"... ;)
I'm just one of the unwashed from the rural ghettoes of the Pale of Russia. That rustic ancestry -- along with it having been the evening of a looong week -- sometimes affects my spelling. Anyway, Galician is Galician, whether one puts an Ashkenazic spin on it or a Ladino one. ;)

And, I could also have an adult child of almost 30, if I'd had children. So, as far as I'm concerned, you're a boychik to me, especially when you act all pouty like a <i>Yeshiva-bucher</i> whose shiny diploma got dissed. :D

News Flash: When I call Yiddish "ghettospeak," of course I'm being glib. Certainly you must get the drift by now that I have pride in my family's <i>mama loschen</i>. If you don't get it, you can "<i>ferdreidt dein kapf.</i>" (No spelling corrections requested, thank you, Perfessah.)

I say that affectionately.

Yiddish truly is a language of the ghetto. It's what the word "ghetto" has come to mean in American culture that confuses some folks.

[Dahlia]

Cody,

Thank you, I haven't known any of that. What language is used to write? My father (he's from Russia) writes in Hebrew letters, the same that we use in Hebrew lessons at school, only without vocals. But I can hardly imagine that one would write German words in Hebrew letters...

[Earl Hartman]

Yiddish is written with the Hebrew alphabet, but since it is not Hebrew, the vowels are used differently. For example, the text of the Torah is written without vowels, and in modern Hebrew markings called nikudot are used to indicate a vowel sound that follows a consonant (fluent readers of Hebrew do not need nikudot, however). Hebrew words consist of a three-letter root called a shoresh. For example, the root of both the words "fat" and "milk" is (in English, anyway), "clv" (ChElEv is fat and chAlAv is milk). In Biblical Hebrew, the proper vowelization is understood from tradition.

AFAIK, Yiddish, on the other hand, actually writes the vowel sounds into the words, just as in English, basically.

However, it is not really so strange for different languages to share the same script even if they are not related. Arabic and Farsi use essentially the same script, even though they are completely dfferent languages, and Western Romance languages are all written with Latin script, with variations to accomodate the different sets of sounds in each language.

[Jack B]

Put two Jews together and you have three opinions and four synagogues...


A Jew is stranded alone on a deserted island. After several years, a ship comes to rescue him. In that time, the Jew had built a house with landscaping, a garden with a greenhouse, a mill, a stable with livestock, a distillery, and two synagogues.

The caption of the ship said, "This is all incredible. You have done so much. But I'm confused -- why did you build TWO synagogues?"

The Jew answered, "Well, this is the synagogue I go to... and THAT ONE, I wouldn't be caught DEAD in!"

[Cady Goldfield]

Heh heh. I was just about to evoke the ol' "Two Jews, three opinions" saw myself.

[Jock Armstrong]

An old jewish chap is sitting on the train when into his compartment steps a guy wearing a prayer shawl, black suit, homburg hatwith ringlets hanging down.The only thing is he's black. Hesits down and starts reading a newspaper in hebrew. The old chap leans over, taps him on the knee and when he looks up says
"Being black was not enough???"

I schlub them all..........Hear about the Jewish scotch- Loch Eim.:D :beer:

[Cady Goldfield]

Jock,
You do know, don't you, that one of the largest kilt- and tartan manufacturing companies in Scotland was founded by an immigrant Jewish tailor...?

Your joke reminds me of one from the "Borscht Belt"... Two Yiddishe ladies are talking about (black) entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., who had adopted the Jewish faith. One lady says to the other, "Oy, that Sammy Davis, Jr. He's such a brave mensch to convert to Jewish. I'd never have the courage to convert to Black!"

[Jock Armstrong]

MacIsaac???????????? Wouldn't surprise me though- the Scots and Jews agree on one thing- the value of a penny!!

[Cady Goldfield]

Here's a summary of Jewish post-Diaspora history, drawn from a very lengthy essay on an on-line encylcopedia. I cut out the first half of history from ancient times to the big Diaspora, but if you want to see the <i>ganseh Megillah</i>, here's the URL: http://64.1911encyclopedia.org/J/JE/JEWS.htm :D

III.FR0M THE DISPERSION TO MODERN TIMES

42. The Later Empire.With the failure in 135 of the attempt led by Barcochebas to free Judaea from Roman domination a new era begins in the history of the Jews. The direct consequence of the failure was the annihilation of political nationality. Large numbers fell in the actual fighting. Dio Cassius puts the total at the incredible figure of 580,000, besides the incalculable number who succumbed to famine, disease and fire (Dio-Xiphilin lxix. 1115).

Jerusalem was rebuilt by Hadrian, orders to this effect being given during the emperors first journey through Syria in 130, the date of his foundations at Gaza, Tiberias and Petra (Reinach, Textes relatifs au Judalsme, p. 198). The new city was named Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of Jehovah there arose another temple dedicated to Jupiter.

To Eusebius the erection of a temple of Venus over the sepulchre of Christ was an act of mockery against the Christian religion. Rome had been roused to unwonted fury, and the truculence of the rebels was matched by the cruelty of their masters. The holy city was barred against the Jews; they were excluded, under pain of death, from approaching within view of the walls.

Hadrians policy in this respect was matched later on by the edict of the caliph Omar (c. 638), who, like this Roman prototype, prevented the Jews from settling in the capital of their ancient country. The death of Hadrian and the accession of Antoninus Pius (138), however, gave the dispersed people of Palestine a breathing-space. Roman law was by no means intolerant to the Jews. Under the constitution of Caracalla (198-217) all inhabitants of the Roman empire enjoyed the civil rights of the Cives Romani (Scherer, Die Rechtsverhallnisse der Juden, p. 10).

Moreover, a spiritual revival mitigated the crushing effects of material ruin. The synagd~ue had become a firmly established institution, and the personal and social life of the masses had come under the control of communal law. The dialectic of the school proved stronger to preserve than the edge of the sword to destroy. Pharisaic Judaism, put to the severest test to which a religious system has ever been subject, showed itself able to control and idealize life in all its phases.

Whatever question may be possible as to the force or character of Pharisaism in the time of Christ, there can be no doubt that it became both all-pervading and ennobling among the successors of Aqiba (qv.), himself one of the martyrs to Hadrians severity. Little more than half a century after the overthrow of the Jewish nationality, the Mishnah was practically completed, and by this code of rabbinic lawand law is here a term which includes the social, moral and religious as well as the ritual and legal phases of human activity the Jewish people were organized into a community, living more or less autonomously under the Sanhedrin or Synedrium (q.v.) and its officials.

Judah the prince, the patriarch or ndsi who edited the Mishnah, died early in the 3rd century. With him the importance of the Palestinian patriarchate attained its zenith. Gamaliel II. of Jamnia (Jabne Yebneh) had been raised to this dignity a century before, and, as members of the house of Hillel and thus descendants of David, the patriarchs enjoyed almost royal authority. Their functions were political rather than religious, though their influence was by no means purely secular.

They were often on terms of intimate friendship with the emperors, who scarcely interfered with their jurisdiction. As late as Theodosius I. (379-395) the internal affairs of the Jews were formally committed to the patriarchs, and Honorius (404) authorized the collection of the patriarchs tax (aurum coronarium), by which a revenue was raised from the Jews of the diaspora.

Under Theodosius II. (408-450) the patriarchate was finally abolished after a regime of three centuries and a half (Graetz, History of the Jews, Eng. trans. vol. ii. ch. xxii.), though ironically enough the last holder of the office had been for a time elevated by the emperor to the rank of prefect. The real turning-point had been reached earlier, when Christianity became the state religion under Constantine I. in 312.

Religion under the Christian emperors became a significant source of discrimination in legal status, and non-conformity might reach so far as to produce complete loss of rights. The laws concerning the Jews had a repressive and preventive object: the repression of Judaism and the prevention of inroads of Jewish influences into the state religion.

The Jews were thrust into a position of isolation, and the Code of Theodosius and other authorities characterize the Jews as a lower order of depraved beings (inferiores and perversi), their community as a godless, dangerous sect (secta nef aria, feralis), their religion a superstition, their assemblies for religious worship a blasphemy (sacrilegi coetus) and a contagion (Scherer, op. cit. pp. 1112).

Yet Judaism under Roman Christian law was a lawful religion (religio ilicita), Valentinian I. (364-375) forbade the quartering of soldiers in the synagogues, Theodosius I. prohibited interference with the synagogue worship (Judaeorum sectam nulla lege prohibitam satis constat ), and in 412 a special edict of protection was issued. But the admission of Christians into the Jewish fold was punished by confiscation of goods (357), the erection of new synagogues was arrested by Theodosius II. (439) under penalty of a heavy fine, Jews were forbidden to hold Christian slaves under pain of death (423). A similar penalty attached to intermarriage between Jews and Christians, and an attempt was made to nullify all Jewish marriages which were not celebrated in accordance with Roman law.

But Justinian (527-565) was the first to interfere directly in the religious institutions of the Jewish people. In 553 he interdicted the use of the Talmud (which had then not long been completed), and the Byzantine emperors of the 8th and 9th centuries passed even more intolerant regulations. As regards civil law, Jews were at first allowed to settle disputes between Jew and Jew before their own courts, but Justinian denied to them and to heretics the right to appear as witnesses in the public courts against orthodox Christians.

To Constantine V. (911-959) goes back the Jewish form of oath which in its later development required the Jew to gird himself with thorns; stand in water; and, holding the scroll of the Torah in his hand, invoke upon his person the leprosy of Naaman, the curse of Eli and the fate of Korahs sons should he perjure himself.

This was the original of all the medieval forms of oath more judaico, which still prevailed in many European lands till the 19th century, nd are even now maintained by some of the Rumanian courts. Jews were by the law of Honorius excluded from the army, from public offices and dignities (418), from acting as advocates (425); only the curial offices were open to them. Justinian gave the finishing touch by proclaiming in 537 the Jews absolutely ineligible for any honor whatsoever ( honore fruantur nullo ).

43. Judaism in Babylonia.The Jews themselves were during this period engaged in building up a system of isolation on their own side, but they treated Roman law with greater hospitality than it meted out to them. The Talmud shows the influence of that law in many points, and may justly be compared to it as a monument of codification based on great principles.

The Palestinian Talmud was completed in the 4th century, but the better known and more influential version was compiled in Babylonia about 200. The land which, a millennium before, had been a prison for the Jewish exiles was now their asylum of refuge. For a long time it formed their second fatherland. Here, far more than. on Palestinian soil, was built the enduring edifice of rabbinism.

The population of the southern part of Mesopotamia the strip of land enclosed between the Tigris and the Euphrates was, according to Graetz, mainly Jewish; while the district extending for about 70 m. on the east of the Euphrates, from Nehardea in the north to Sura in the south, became a new Palestine with Nehardea for its Jerusalem.

The Babylonian Jews were practically independent, and the exilarch (reshgalutha) or prince of the captivity was an official who ruled the community as a vassal of the Persian throne. The exilarch claimed, like the Palestinian patriarch, descent from the royal house of David, and exercised most of the functions of government. Babylonia had risen into supreme importance for Jewish life at about the time when the Mishnah was completed.

The great rabbinic academies at Sura and Nehardea, the former of which retained something of its dominant role till the I Ith century, had been founded, Sura by Abba Arika (q.v.) (c. 219), but Nehardea, the more ancient seat of the two, famous in the 3rd century for its association with Abba Arikas renowned contemporary Samuel, lost its Jewish importance in the age of Mahomet.

To Samuel of Nehardea (q.v.) belongs the honor of formulating the principle which made it possible for Jews to live under alien laws. Jeremiah had admonished his exiled brothers:

Seek ye the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace (Jer. xxix. 7). It was now necessary to go farther, and the rabbis proclaimed a principle which was as influential with the synagogue as Give unto Caesar that which is Caesars became with the Church. The law of the government is law (Baba Qama 113 b.), said Samuel, and ever since it has been a religious duty for the Jews to obey and accommodate themselves as far as possible to the laws of the country in which they are settled or reside.

In 259 Odenathus, the Palmyrene adventurer whose memory has been eclipsed by that of his wife Zenobia, laid Nehardea waste for the time being, and in its neighborhood arose the academy of Pumbedita (Pombeditha) which became a new focus for the intellectual life of srael in Babylonia.

These academies were organized on both scholastic and popular lines; their constitution was democratic. An outstanding feature was the Kallah assemblage twice a year (in the month of Elul at the close of the summer, and in Adar at the end of the winter), when there were gathered together vast numbers of outside students of the most heterogeneous character as regards both age and attainments.

Questions received from various quarters were discussed and the final decision of the Kallah was signed by the Resh-Kalich or president of the general assembly, who was only second in rank to the Resh-Netibta, or president of the scholastic sessions. Thus the Babylonian academies combined the functions of specialist law-schools, universities and popular parliaments. They were a unique product of rabbinism; and the authors of the system were also the compilers of its literary expression, the Talmud.

44. Judaism in Islam.
Another force now appears on the scene. The new religion inaugurated by Mahomet differed in its theory from the Roman Catholic Church. The Church, it is true, in council after council, passed decisions unfriendly to the Jews. From the synod at Elvira in the 4th century this process began, and it was continued in the West-Gothic Church legislation, in the Lateran councils (especially the fourth in 1215), and in the council of Trent (1563). The anti-social tendency of these councils expressed itself in the infliction of the badge, in the compulsory domicile of Jews within ghettos, and in the erection of formidable barriers against all intercourse between church and synagogue.

The protective instinct was responsible for much of this interference with the natural impulse of men of various creeds towards mutual esteem and forbearance. The church, it was conceived, needed defence against the synagogue at all hazards, and the fear that the latter would influence and dominate the former was never absent from the minds of medieval ecclesiastics. But though this defensive zeal led to active persecution, still in theory Judaism was a tolerated religion wherever the Church had sway, and many papal bulls of a friendly character were issued throughout the middle ages (Scherer, p. 32 seq.).

Islam, on the other hand, had no theoretic place in its scheme for tolerated religions, its principle was fundamentally intolerant. There the mosque was erected, there was no room for church or synagogue. The caliph Omar initiated in the 7th century a code which required Christians and Jews to wear peculiar dress, denied them the right to hold state offices or to possess land, inflicted a poll-tax on them, and while forbidding them to enter mosques, refused them the permission to build new places of worship for themselves.

Again and again these ordinances were repeated in subsequent ages, and intolerance for infidels is still a distinct feature of Mahommedan law. But Islam has often shown itself ~nilder in fact than iin theory, for its laws were made to be broken. The medieval Jews on the whole lived, under the crescent, a fuller and freer life than was possible to them under the cross.

Mahommedan Babylonia (Persia) was the home of the gaonate (see GA0N), the central authority of religious Judaism, whose power transcended that of the secular exilarchate, for it influenced the synagogue far and wide, while the exilarchate was local. The gaonate enjoyed a practical tolerance remarkable when contrasted with the letter of Islamic law. And as the Bagdad caliphate tended to become more and more supreme in Islam, so the gaonate too shared in this increased influence. Not even the Qaraite schism was able to break the power of the geonim. But the dispersion of the Jews was proceeding in directions which carried masses from the Asiatic inland to the Mediterranean coasts and to Europe.

45. In Medieval Europe: Spain
The dispersion of the Jews had begun in the Hellenistic period, but it was after the Barcochebas war that it assumed great dimensions in Europe. There were Jews in the Byzantine empire, in Rome, in France and Spain at very early periods, but it is with the Arab conquest of Spain that the Jews of Europe began to rival in culture and importance their brethren of the Persian gaonate. Before this date the Jews had been learning the rOle they afterwards filled, that of the chief promoters of international commerce.

Already under Charlemagne this development is noticeable; in his generous treatment of the Jews this Christian emperor stood in marked contrast to his contemporary the caliph Harun al-Rashid, who persecuted Jews and Christians with equal vigour. But by the 10th century Judaism had received from Islam something more than persecution. It caught the contagion of poetry, philosophy and science. The schismatic Qaraites initiated or rather necessitated a new Hebrew philology, which later on produced Qimbi, the gaon Saadiah ffounded a Jewish philosophy, the statesffian IJasdai introduced a new Jewish culture and all this under Mahommedan rule.

It is in Spain that above all the new spirit manifested itself. The distinctive feature of the Spanish-Jewish culture was its comprehensiveness. Literature and affairs, science and statecraft, poetry and medicine, these various expressions of human nature and activity were so harmoniously balanced that they might be found in the possession of one and the same individual.

The Jews of Spain attained to high places in the service of the state from the time of the Moorish conquest in 711. From IJasdai ibn Shaprut in the 10th century and Samuel the nagid in the 11th century, the line of Jewish scholar-statesmen continued till we reach Isaac Abrabanel in 1492, the date of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. This last-named event synchronized with the discovery of America; Columbus being accompanied by at least one Jewish navigator. While the Spanish period of Jewish history was thus brilliant from the point of view of public service, it was equally notable on the literary side.

Hebrew religious poetry was revived for synagogue hymnology, and, partly in imitation of Arabian models, a secular Hebrew poetry was developed in metre and rhyme. The new Hebrew Piyut found its first important exponent in Kalir, who was not a Spaniard. But it is to Spain that we must look for the best of the medieval poets of the synagogue, greatest among them being Ibn Gabirol and Halevi. So, too, the greatest Jew of the middle ages, Maimonides, was a Spaniard. In him culminates the Jewish expression of the Spanish-Moorish culture; his writings had an influence on European scholasticism and contributed significant elements to the philosophy of Spinoza.

But the reconquest of Andalusia by the Christians associated towards the end of the 15th century with the establishment of the Inquisition, introduced a spirit of intolerance which led to the expulsion of the Jews and Moors. The consequences of this blow were momentous; it may he said to inaugurate the ghetto period.

In Spain, Jewish life had participated in the general life, but the expulsion, while it dispersed the Spanish Jews into Poland, Turkey, Italy and France, for the time drove the Jews within their own confines and barred them from the outside world.i 46. In France, Germany, England, Italy.

In the meantime Jewish life had been elsewhere subjected to other influences which produced a result at once narrower and deeper. Under Charlemagne, the Jews, who had begun to settle in Gaul in the time of Caesar, were more than tolerated. They were allowed to hold land and were encouraged to becomewhat their ubiquity qualified them to be the merchant princes of Europe.

The reign of Louis the Pious (814840) was, as Graetz puts it, a golden era for the Jews of his kingdom, such as they had never enjoyed, and were destined never again to enjoy in Europe prior, that is, to the age of Mendelssohn. In Germany at the same period the feudal system debarred the Jews from holding land, and though there was as yet no material persecution they suffered moral injury by being driven exclusively into finance and trade. Nor was there any widening of the general horizon such as was witnessed in Spain.

The Jewries of France and Germany were thus thrown upon their own cultural resources. They rose to the occasion. In Mainz there settled in the 10th century Gershom, the light of the exile, who, about 1000, published his ordinance forbidding polygamy in Jewish law as it had long been forbidden in Jewish practice. This ordinance may be regarded as the beginning of the Synodal government of Judaism, which was a marked feature of medieval life in the synagogues of northern and central Europe from the 12th century. Soon after Gershoms death, Rashi (1040-1106) founded at Troyes a new school of learning. If Maimonides represented Judaism on its rational side, Rashi was the expression of its traditions.

French Judaism was thus in a sense more human if less humane than the Spanish variety; the latter produced thinkers, statesmen, poets and scientists; the former, men with whom the Talmud was a passion, men of robuster because of more nave and concentrated piety. In Spain and North Africa persecution created that strange and significant phenomenon - Maranism or crypto-Judaism, a public acceptance of Islam or Christianity combined with a private fidelity to the rites of Judaism.

But in England, France and Germany persecution altogether failed to shake the courage of the Jews, and martyrdom was borne in preference to ostensible apostasy. The crusades subjected the Jews to this ordeal. The evil was wrought, not by the regular armies of the cross who were inspired by noble ideals, but by the undisciplined mobs which, for the sake of plunder, associated themselves with the genuine enthusiasts.

In 1096, massacres of Jews occurred in many cities of the Rhineland. During the second crusade (1145-1147) Bernard of Clairvaux heroically protested against similar inhumanities. The third crusade, famous for the participation of Richard I., was the occasion for bloody riots in England, especially in York, where 150 Jews immolated themselves to escape baptism.

Economically and socially the crusades had disastrous effects upon the Jews (see J. Jacobs, Jewish Encyclopedia, iv. 379). Socially they suffered by the outburst of religious animosity. One of the worst forms taken by this ill-will was the oft-revived myth of ritual murder (q.v.), and later on when the Black Death devastated Europe (1348-1349) the Jews were the victims of an odious charge of well-poisoning

Economically the results were also injurious. Before the crusades the Jews had practically a monopoly of trade in Eastern products, but the closer connection between Europe and the East brought about by the crusades raised up a class of merchant traders among the Christians, and from this time onwards restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent (op. cit.).

After the second crusade the German Jews fell into the class of servi camerae, which at first only implied that they enjoyed the immunity of imperial servants, but afterwards made of them slaves and pariahs. At the personal whim of rulers, whether royal or of lower rank, the Jews were expelled from states and principalities and were reduced to a condition of precarious uncertainty as to what the morrow might bring forth.

Pope Innocent III. gave strong impetus to the repression of the Jews, especially by ordaining the wearing of a badge. Popular animosity was kindled by the enforced participation of the Jews in public disputations. In 1306 Philip IV. expelled the Jews from France, nine years later Louis X. recalled them for a period of twelve years. Such vicissitudes were the ordinary lot of the Jews for several centuries, and it was their own inner life-the pure life of the home, the idealism of the synagogue, and the belief in ultimate Messianic redemption that saved them from utter demoralization and despair.

Curiously enough in Italy and particularly in Rome, the external conditions were better. The popes themselves, within their own immediate jurisdiction, were often far more tolerant than their bulls issued for foreign communities, and Torquemada was less an expression than a distortion of the papal policy. In the early 14th century, the age of Dante, the new spirit of the Renaissance made Italian rulers the patrons of art and literature, and the Jews to some extent shared in this gracious change.

Robert of Aragon vicar-general of the papal states in particular encouraged the Jews and supported them in their literary and scientific ambitions. Small coteries of Jewish minor poets and philosophers were formed, and men like Kalonymos and Immanuel, Dante's friend shared the versatility and culture of Italy.

But in Germany there was no echo of this brighter note. Persecution was elevated into a system, a poll-tax was exacted, and the rabble was allowed (notably in 1336-1337) to give full vent to its fury. Following on this came the Black Death with its terrible consequences in Germany; even in Poland, where the Jews had previously enjoyed considerable rights, extensive massacres took place.

In effect, the Jews became outlaws, but their presence being often financially necessary, certain officials were permitted to hold Jews, who were liable to all forms of arbitrary treatment on the side of their owners. The Jews had been among the first to appreciate the commercial advantages of permitting the loan of money on interest, but it was the policy of the Church that drove the Jews into money- ending as a characteristic trade. Restrictions on their occupations were everywhere common, and as the Church forbade Christians to engage in usury, this was the only trade open to the Jews.

The excessive demands made upon the Jews forbade a fair rate of interest. The Jews were unwilling sponges by means of which a large part of the subjects' wealth found its way into the royal exchequer (Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, ch. xii.). Hence, though this procedure made the Jews intensely obnoxious to the peoples, they became all the more necessary to the rulers. A favorite form of tolerance was to grant a permit to the Jews to remain in the state for a limited term of years; their continuance beyond the specified time was illegal and they were therefore subject to sudden banishment.

Thus, a second expulsion of the Jews of France occurred in 1394. Early in the 15th century John Husunder the inspiration of Wycliffeinitiated at Prague the revolt against the Roman Catholic Church. The Jews suffered in the persecution that followed, and in 1420 all the Austrian Jews were thrown into prison.

Martin V. published a favorable bull, but it was ineffectual. The darkest days were nigh. Pope Eugenius (1442) issued a fiercely intolerant missive; the Franciscan John of Capistrano moved the masses to activity by his eloquent denunciations; even Casimir IV. revoked the privileges of the Jews in Poland, when the Turkish capture of Constantinople (1453) offered a new asylum for the hunted Jews of Europe.

But in Europe itself the catastrophe was not arrested. The Inquisition in Spain led to the expulsion of the Jews (1492), and this event involved not only the latter but the whole of the Jewish people. The Jews everywhere felt as if the temple had again been destroyed (Graetz). Nevertheless, the result was not all evil. If fugitives are for the next half-century to be met with in all parts of Europe yet, especially in the Levant, there grew up thriving Jewish communities often founded by Spanish refugees.

Such incidents as the rise of Joseph Nasi (q.v.) to high position under the Turkish government as duke of Naxos mark the coming change. The reformation as such had no favorable influence on Jewish ffortunes in Christian Europe, though the championship of the cause of toleration by Reuchlin had considerable value. But the age of the ghetto (q.v.) had set in too firmly for immediate amelioration to be possible. It is to Holland and to the 17th century that we must turn for the first real steps towards Jewish emancipation.

47. Period of Emancipation.The ghetto, which had prevailed more or less rigorously for a long period, was not formally prescribed by the papacy until the beginning of the 16th century. The same century was not ended before the prospect of liberty dawned on the Jews. Holland, from the moment that it joined the union of Utrecht (1579), deliberately set its face against religious persecution (Jewish Encyclopedia, ~. 537).

Maranos (crypto Jews), fleeing to the Netherlands, were welcomed; the immigrants were wealthy, enterprising and cultured. Many Jews, who had been compelled to conceal their faith, now came into the open. By the middle of the 17th century the Jews of Holland had become of such importance that Charles II. of England (then in exile) entered into negotiations with the Amsterdam Jews (1556).

In that same year the Amsterdam community was faced by a serious problem in connection with Spinoza. They brought themselves into notoriety by excommunicating the philosopheran act of weak self- defence on the part of men who had themselves but recently been admitted to the country, and were timorous of the suspicion that they sshared Spinoza's then-execrated views.

It is more than a mere coincidence that this step was taken during the absence in England of one of the ablest and most notable of the Amsterdam rabbis. At the time, Menasseh ben Israel (q.v.) was in London on a mission to Cromwell. The Jews had been expelled from England by Edward I., after a sojourn in the country of rather more than two centuries, during which they had been the licensed and oppressed money-lenders of the realm, and had through the special exchequer of the Jews been used by the sovereign as a means of extorting a revenue from his subjects.

In the i7th century a considerable number of Jews had made a home in the English colonies, where from the first they enjoyed practically equal tights with the Christian settlers. Cromwell, upon the inconclusive termination of the conference summoned in 1655 at Whitehall to consider the Jewish question, tacitly assented to the return of the Jews to this country, and at the restoration his action was confirmed.

The English Jews gradually substituted for the personal protection of the crown, the sympathy and confidence of the nation (L. Wolf, Menasseh ben Israels Mission to Cromwell, p. lxxv.). The city of London was the first to be converted to the new attitude. The wealth they brought into the country, and their fruitful commercial activity, especially in the colonial trade, soon revealed them as an indispensable element of the prosperity of the city. As early as 1668, Sir Josiah Child, the millionaire governor of the East India company, pleaded for their naturalization on the score of their commercial utility.

For the same reason, the city found itself compelled at first to connive at their illegal representation on Change, and there to violate its own rules by permitting them to act as brokers without previously taking up the freedom. At this period Jews controlled more of the foreign and colonial trade than all the other alien merchants in London put together. The momentum of their commercial enterprise and stalwart patriotism proved irresistible. From the exchange to the city council chamber, thence to the aldermanic court, and eventually to the mayoralty itself, were inevitable stages of an emancipation to which their large interests in the city and their high character entitled them.

Finally the city of Londonnot only as the converted champion of religious liberty but as the convinced apologist of the Jews sent Baron Lionel de Rothschild to knock at the door of the unconverted House of Commons as parliamentary representative of the first city in the world (Wolf, 1cc. cit.).

The pioneers of this emancipation in Holland and England were Sephardic (or Spanish) Jews - descendants of the Spanish exiles. In the meantime the Ashkenazic (or German) Jews had been working out their own salvation. The chief effects of the change were not felt till the 18th century. In England emancipation was of democratic origin and concerned itself with practical questions.

On the Continent, the movement was more aristocratic and theoretical; it was part of the intellectual renaissance which found its most striking expression in the principles of the French Revolution. Throughout Europe the 18th century was less an era of stagnation than of transition. The condition of the European Jews seems, on a superficial examination, abject enough.

But, excluded though they were from most trades and occupations, confined to special quarters of the city, disabled from sharing most of the amenities of life, the Jews nevertheless were gradually making their escape from the ghetto and from the moral degeneration which it had caused. Some ghettos (as in Moravia) were actually not founded till the 18th century, but the careful observer can perceive clearly that at that period the ghetto was a doomed institution.

In the dark ages Jews enjoyed neither rights nor privileges; in the 18th century they were still without rights but they had privileges. A grotesque feature of the time in Germany and Austria was the class of court Jews, such as the Oppenheims, the personal favorites of rulers and mostly their victims when their usefulness had ended.

These men often rendered great services to their fellow-Jews, and one of the results was the growth inJewish society of an aristocracy of wealth, where previously there had been an aristocracy of learning. Even more important was another privileged classthat of the Schutz- ude (protected Jew). Where there were no rights, privileges had to be bought.

While the court Jews were the favorites of kings, the protected Jews were the protgs of town councils. Corruption is the frequent concomitant of privilege, and thus the town councils often connived for a price at the presence in their midst of Jews whose admission was illegal. Many Jews found it possible to evade laws of domicile by residing in one place and trading in another. Nor could they be effectually excluded from the fairs, the great markets of the 18th century.

The Sephardic Jews in all these respects occupied a superior position, and they merited the partiality shown to them. Their personal dignity and the vast range of their colonial enterprises were in striking contrast to the retail traffic of the Ashkenazim and their degenerate bearing and speech. Peddling had been forced on the latter by the action of the gilds which were still powerful in the 18th century on the Continent. Heh heh - Earl, check out the comment about degenerate bearing and SPEECH. Oy! Those unwashed. Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim! - cg

Another cause may be sought in the Cossack assaults on the Jews at an earlier period. Crowds of wanderers were to be met on every road; Germany, Hol]and and Italy were full of Jews who, pack on shoulder, were seeking a precarious livelihood at a time when peddling was neither lucrative nor safe.

But underneath all this were signs of a great change. The 18th century has a goodly tale of Jewish artists in metal-work, makers of pottery, and (wherever the gilds permitted it) artisans and wholesale manufacturers of many important commodities.

The last attempts at exclusion were irritating enough; but they differed from the earlier persecution. Such strange enactments as the Familianten-Gesetz, which prohibited more than one member of a family from marrying, broke up families by forcing the men to emigrate. In 1781 Dohm pointed to the fact that a Jewish father could seldom hope to enjoy the happiness of living with his children.

In that very year, however, Joseph II. initiated in Austria a new era for the Jews. This Austrian reformation was so typical of other changes elsewhere, and so expressive of the previous disabilities of the Jews, that, even in this rapid summary, space must be spared for some of the details supplied by Graetz. By this new departure (19th of October 1781) the Jews were permitted to learn handicrafts, arts and sciences, and with certain restrictions to devote themselves to agriculture. The doors of the universities and academies, hitherto closed to them, were thrown open.

An ordinance of November 2 enjoined that the Jews were everywhere considered fellow-men, and all excesses against them were to be avoided. The Leibzoll (body-tax) was also abolished, in addition to the special law-taxes, the passport duty, the nightduty and all similiar imposts which had stamped the Jews as outcast, for they were now (Dec. 19) to have equal rights with the Christian inhabitants.

The Jews were not, indeed, granted complete citizenship, and their residence and public worship in Vienna and other Austrian cities were circumscribed and even penalized. But Joseph II. annulled a number of vexatious, restrictive regulations, such as the compulsory wearing of beards, the prohibition against going out in the forenoon on Sundays or holidays, or frequenting public pleasure resorts. The emperor even permitted Jewish wholesale merchants, notables and their sons, to wear swords (January 2, 1782), and especially insisted that Christians should behave in a friendly manner towards Jews.

48. The Mendelssohn Movernent.
This notable beginning to the removal of the ignominy of a thousand years was causally connected with the career of Moses Mendelssohn ((1729-1786; q.v.). He found on both sides an unreadiness for approximation: the Jews had sunk into apathy and degeneration, the Christians were still moved by hereditary antipathy.

The failure of the hopes entertained of Sabbatai Zebi (q.v.) had plunged the Jewries of the world into despair. This Smyrnan pretender not only proclaimed himself Messiah (c. 1650) but he was accepted in that role by vast numbers of his brethren. At the moment when Spinoza was publishing a system which is still a dominating note of modern philosophy, this other son of Israel was capturing the very heart of Jewry. His miracles were reported and eagerly believed everywhere; from Poland, Hamburg and Amsterdam treasures poured into his court; in the Levant young men and maidens prophesied before him; the Persian Jews refused to till the fields. We shall pay no more taxes. they said, our Messiah is come.

The expectation that he would lead Israel in triumph to the Holy Land was doomed to end in disappointment. Sahbatai lacked one quality without which enthusiasm is ineffective; he failed to believe in himself. At the critical moment he embraced Islam to escape death, and though he was still believed in by many, it was not Sabbatai himself but a phantom resemblance that had assumed the turban. His meteoric career did but color the sky of the Jews with deeper blackness.

Despite all this, one must not fall into the easy error of exaggerating the degeneration into which the Jewries of the world fell from the middle of the 17th till the middle of the 18th century. For Judaism had organized itself; the Shullian aruch of Joseph Qaro (qv), printed in 1564 within a decade of its completion, though not accepted without demur, was nevertheless widely admitted as the code of Jewish life. If in more recent times progress in Judaism has implied more or less of revolt against the rigors and fetters of Qaros code, yet for 250 years it was a powerful safeguard against demoralization and stagnation. No community living in full accordance with that code could fail to reach a high moral and intellectual level.

It is truer to say that on the whole the Jews began at this period to abandon as hopeless the attempt to find a place for themselves in the general life of their country. Perhaps they even ceased to desire it.

Their children were taught without any regard to outside conditions, they spoke and wrote a jargon, and their whole training, both by what it included and by what it excluded, tended to produce isolation from their neighbors. Moses Mendelssohn, both by his career and by his propaganda, for ever put an end to these conditions; he more than any other man. Born in the ghetto of Dessau, he was not of the ghetto. At the age of fourteen he found his way to Berlin, where Frederick the Great, inspired by the spirit of Voltaire, held the maxim that to oppress the Jews never brought prosperity to any government.

Mendelssohn became a warm friend of Lessing, the hero of whose drama Nathan the Wise was drawn from the Dessau Jew. Mendelssohns Phaedo, on the immortality of the soul, brought the author into immediate fame, and the simple home of the Jewish Plato was sought by many of the leaders of Gentile society in Berlin. Mendelssohns translation of the Pentateuch into German with a new commentary by himself and others introduced the Jews to more modern ways of thinking.

Two results emanated from Mendelssohns work. A new school of scientific study of Judaism emerged, to be dignified by the names of Leopold Zunz (q.v.), H. Graetz (q.v.) and many others. On. the other hand Mendelssohn by his pragmatic conception of religion (specially in his Jerusalem) weakened the belief of certain minds in the absolute truth of Judaism, and thus his own grandchildren (including the famous musician Felix Mendelssohn - Bartholdy) as well as later Heine, Borne, Gans and Neander, embraced Christianity.

Within Judaism itself two parties were formed, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and as time went on these tendencies definitely organized themselves. Holdheim (q.v.) and Geiger (q.v.) led the reform movement in Germany and at the present day the effects of the movement are widely felt in America on the Liberal side and on the opposite side in the work of the neo-orthodox school founded by S. R. Hirsch (q.v.).

Modern seminaries were established first in Breslau by Zacharias Frnkel (q.v.) and later in other cities. Brilliant results accrued from all this participation in the general life of Germany. Jews, engaged in all the professions and pursuits of the age, came to the front in many branches of public life, claiming such names as Riesser (d. 1863) and Lasker in politics, Auerbach in literature, Rubinstein and Joachim in music, Traube in medicine, and Lazarus in psychology. Especially famous have been the Jewish linguists, pre-eminent among them Theodor Benfey (1809-1881), the pioneer of modern comparative philology; and the Greek scholar and critic Jakob Bernays (1824-1881).

49. Effect of the French Revolution.
In close relation to the German progress in Mendelssohns age, events had been progressing in France, where the Revolution did much to improve the Jewish condition, thanks largely to the influence of Mirabeau.

In 1807 Napoleon convoked a Jewish assembly in Paris. Though the decisions of this body had no binding force on the Jews generally, yet in some important particulars its decrees represent principles widely adopted by the Jewish community. They proclaim the aci~eptance of the spirit of Mendelssohns reconciliation of the Jews to modern life. They assert the citizenship and patriotism of Jews, their determination to accommodate themselves to the present as far as they could while retaining loyalty to the past. They declare their readiness to adapt the law of the synagogue to the law of the land, as for instance in the question of marriage and divorce.

No Jew, they decided, may perform the ceremony of marriage unless civil formalities have been fulfilled; and divorce is allowed to the Jews only if and so far as it is confirmatory of a legal divorce pronounced by the civil law of the land. The French assembly did not succeed in obtaining formal assent to these decisions (except from Frankfort and Holland), but they gained the practical adhesion of the majority of Western and American Jews.

Napoleon, after the report of the assembly, established the consistorial system which remained in force, with its central consistory in the capital, until the recent separation of church and state, Many French Jews acquired fame, among them the ministers Crmieux (1796 1879), Fould, Gondchaux and Raynal; the archaeologists and philologians Oppert, Halvy, Munk, the Derenbourgs, Darmesteters and Reinachs; the musicians Halvy, Waldteufel and Meyerbeer; the authors and dramatists Catulle Mendhs and A. dEnnery, and many others, among them several distinguished occupants of civil and military offices.

50. Modern Italy.
Similar developments occurred in other countries, though it becomes impossible to treat the history of the Jews, from this time onwards, in general outline. We must direct our attention to the most important countries in such detail as space permits. And first as to Italy, where the Jews in a special degree have identified themselves with the national life.

The revolutions of 1848, which greatly affected the position of the Jews in several parts of Europe, brought considerable gain to the Jews of Italy. During the war against Austria in the year named, Isaac Pesaro Marogonato was finance minister in Venice.

Previously to this date the Jews were still confined to the ghetto, but in 1859, in the Italy united under Victor Emanuel II., the Jews obtained complete rights, a privilege which was extended also to Rome itself in 1870. The Italian Jews devoted themselves with ardour to the service of the state. Isaac Artom was Cavours secretary, L Olper a counsellor of Mazzini. The names of the Jewish soldiers who died in the cause of Italian liberty were placed along with those of their Christian fellow soldiers on the monuments erected in their honor (Jewish Encyclopedia, vii. 10). More recently men like Wollemberg, Ottolenghi and Luzzatti rose to high positions as ministers of state. Most noted of recent Jewish scholars in Italy was S. D. Luzzatto (q.v.).

51. Austria.
From Italy we may turn to the country which so much influenced Italian politics, Austria, which had founded the system of Court Jews in 1518, had expelled the Jews from Vienna as late as 1670, when the synagogue of that city was converted into a church. But economic laws are often too strong for civil vagaries or sectarian fanaticism, and as the commerce of Austria suffered by the absence of the Jews, it was impossible to exclude the latter from the fairs in the provinces of from the markets of the capital.

As has been pointed out above, certain protected Jews were permitted to reside in places where the expulsion of the Jews had been decreed. But Maria Theresa (1740-1780) was distinguished for her enmity to the Jews, and in 1744 made a futile attempt to secure their expulsion from Bohemia. In 1760 she issued an order that all unbearded Jews should wear a yellow badge on their left arm (Jewish Encyclopedia, ii. 330).

The most petty limitations of Jewish commercial activity continued; thus at about this period the community of Prague, in a petition, complain that they are not permitted to buy victuals in the market before a certain hour, vegetables not before 9 and cattle not before II o'clock; to buy fish is sometimes altogether prohibited; Jewish druggists are not permitted to buy victuals at the same time with Christians (op. cit.).

So, too, with taxation. It was exorbitant and vexatious. To pay for rendering inoperative the banishment edict of 1744, the Jews were taxed 3,000,000 forms annually for ten years. In the same year it was decreed that the Jews should pay a special tax of 40,000 forms for the right to import their citrons for the feast of booths. Nevertheless, Joseph II. (1780-1790) inaugurated a new era for the Jews of his empire. Soon after his accession he abolished the distinctive Jewish dress, abrogated the poll-tax, admitted the Jews to military service and their children to the public schools, and in general opened the era of emancipation by the Toleranz patent of 1782.

This enlightened policy was not continued by the successors of Joseph II. Under Francis II. (1792-1835) economic and social restrictions were numerous. Agriculture was again barred; indeed the Vienna congress of 1815 practically restored the old discriminations against the Jews. As time went on, a more progressive policy intervened, the special form of Jewish oath was abolished in 1846, and in I848, as a result of the revolutionary movement in which Jews played an active part, legislation took a more liberal turn.

Francis Joseph I. ascended the throne in that year, and though the constitution of 1849 recognized the principle of religious liberty, an era of reaction supervened, especially when the concordat of 1855 delivered Austria altogether into the hands of the clericals. But the day of medieval intolerance had passed, and in 1867 the new constitution abolished all disabilities on the ground of religious differences, though anti-Semitic manipulation of the law by administrative authority has led to many instances of intolerance.

Many Jews have been members of the Reichsrath, some have risen to the rank of general in the army, and Austrian Jews have contributed their quota to learning, the arts and literature. Low, Jellinek, Kaufmann, as scholars in the Jewish field; as poets and novelists, Kompert, Franzos, L. A. Franki; the pianist Moscheles, the dramatist Mosenthal, and the actor Sonnenthal, the mathematician Spitzer and the chess-player Steinitz are some of the most prominent names.

The law of 1890 makes it compulsory for every Jew to be a member of the congregation of the district in which he resides, and so gives to every congregation the right to tax the individual members (op. cit.). A similar obligation prevails in parts of Germany. A Jew can avoid the communal tax only by formally declaring himself as outside the Jewish community. The Jews of Hungary shared with their brethren in Austria the same alternations of expulsion and recall. By the law De Judaeis passed by the Diet in 1791 the Jews were accorded protection, but half a century passed before their tolerated condition was regularized.

The toleration-tax was abolished in 1846. During the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, the Jews suffered severely in Hungary, but as many as 20,000 Jews are said to have joined the army. Kossuth succeeded in granting them temporary emancipation, but the suppression of the War of Independence led to an era of royal autocracy which, while it advanced Jewish culture by enforcing the establishment of modern. schools, retarded the obtaining of civic and political rights. As in Austria, so in Hungary, these rights were granted by the constitution of 1867.

But one step remained. The Hungarian Jews did not consider themselves fully emancipated until the Synagogue was duly recognized as one of the legally acknowledged religions of the country. This recognition was granted by the law of 1895-1896. In the words of Buehler (Jewish Encyclopedia,vi. 503): Since their emancipation the Jews have taken an active part in the political, industrial, scientific and artistic life of Hungary. In all these fields they have achieved prominence. They have also founded great religious institutions. Their progress has not been arrested even by anti-Semitism, which first developed in 1883 at the time of the Tisza-Eslar accusation of ritual murder.

52. Other European Countries.
According to M. Caimi the present Jewish communities of Greece are divisible into five groups : (I) Arta (Epirus); (2) Chalcis (Euboea); (3) Athens (Attica); (4) Volo, Larissa and Trikala (Thessaly); and (5) Corfu and Zante (lonian Islands).

The Greek constitution admits no religious disabilities, but anti-Semitic riots in Corfu and Zante in 1891 caused much distress and emigration. In Spain there has been of late a more liberal attitude towards the Jews, and there is a small congregation (without a public synagogue) in Madrid. In 1858 the edict of expulsion was repealed.

Portugal, on the other hand, having abolished the Inquisition in 1821, has since 1826 allowed Jews freedom of religion, and there are synagogues in Lisbon and Faro. In Holland the Jews were admitted to political liberty in 1796. At present more than half of the Dutch Jews are concentrated in Amsterdam, being largely engaged in the diamond and tobacco trades. Among famous names of recent times foremost stands that of the artist Josef Israels. In 1675 was consecrated in Amsterdam the synagogue which is still the most noted Jewish edifice in Europe.

Belgium granted full freedom to the Jews in 1815, and the community has since 1808 been organized on the state consistorial system, which till recently also prevailed in France. It was not till 1874 that full religious equality was granted to the Jews of Switzerland. But there has been considerable interference (ostensibly on humanitarian grounds) with the Jewish method of slaughtering animals for food (Shehitah) and the method was prohibited by a referendum in 1893. In the same year a similar enactment was passed in Saxony, and the subject is a favorite one with antiSemites, who have enlisted on their side some scientific authorities, though the bulk of expert opinion is in favor of Sheiiitah (see Dembo, Das Schlachten,1894).

In Sweden the Jews have all the rights which are open to non-Lutherans; they cannot become members of the council of state. In Norway there is a small Jewish settlement (especially in Christiania) who are engaged in industrial pursuits and enjoy complete liberty. Denmark has for long been distinguished for its liberal policy towards the Jews. Since 1814 the latter have been. eligible as magistrates, and in 1849 full equality was formally ratified. Many Copenhagen Jews achieved distinction as manufacturers, merchants and bankers, and among famous Jewish men of letters may be specially named Georg Brandes.

The story of the Jews in Russia and Rumania remains a black spot on the European record. In Russia the Jews are more numerous and more harshly treated than in any other part of the world. In the remotest past Jews were settled in much of the territory now included in Russia, but they are still treated as aliens. They are restricted to the pale of settlement which was first established in 1791.

The pale now includes fifteen governments, and under the May laws of 1892 the congestion of the Jewish population, the denial of free movement, and the exclusion from the general rights of citizens were rendered more oppressive than ever before. The right to leave the pale is indeed granted to merchants of the first gild, to those possessed of certain educational diplomas, to veteran soldiers and to certain classes of skilled artisans. But these concessions are unfavourably interpreted and much extortion results.

Despite a huge emigration of Jews from Russia, the congestion within the pale is the cause of terrible destitution and misery. Fierce massacres occurred in Nizhniy-Novgorod in 1882, and in Kishinev in 1903. Many other pogroms have occurred, and the condition of the Jews has been reduced to one of abject poverty and despair. Much was hoped from the duma, but this body has proved bitterly opposed to the Jewish claim for liberty.

Yet in spite of these disabilities there are amongst the Russian Jews many enterprising contractors, skilful doctors, and successful lawyers and scientists. In Rumania, despite the Berlin Treaty, the Jews are treated as aliens, and but a small number have been naturalized. They are excluded from most of the professions and are hampered in every direction.

53. Oriental Countries
In the Orient the condition of the Jews has been much improved by the activity of Western organizations, of which something is said in a later paragraph. Modern schools have been set up in many places, and Palestine has been the scene of a notable educational and agricultural revival, while technical schools such as the agricultural college near Jaffa and the schools of the alliance and the more recent Bezalel in Jerusalem have been established.

Turkey has always on the whole tolerated the Jews, and much is hoped from the new rgime. In Morocco the Jews, who until late in the 19th century were often persecuted, are still confined to a mellah (separate quarter), but at the coast-towns there are prosperous Jewish communities mostly engaged in commerce. In other parts of the same continent, in Egypt and in South Africa, many Jews have settled, participating in all industrial and financial pursuits.

Recently a mission has been sent to the Falashas of Abyssinia [cg's note: In the 1980s, the Israeli gov't airlifted 10,000+ "Falashas" to Israel from Ethiopia to remove them from persecution. Since then, most of the Jewish population of Ethiopia has been moved to Israel], and much interest has been felt in such outlying branches of the Jewish people as the Black Jews of Cochin and the Bene Israel community of Bombay. In Persia Jews are often the victims of popular outbursts as well as of official extortion, but there are fairly prosperous communities at Bushire, Isfahan, Teheran and Kashan (in Shiraz they are in low estate). The recent advent of constitutional government may improve the condition of the Jews.

54. The United Kingdom
The general course of Jewish history in England has been indicated above. The Jews came to England at least as early as the Norman Conquest; they were expelled from Bury St Edmunds in 1190, after the massacres at the coronation of Richard I.; they were required to wear badges in 1218.

At the end of the 12th century was established the exchequer of the Jews, which chiefly dealt with suits concerning money-lending, and arranged a continual flow of mony from the Jews to the royal treasury, and a so-called parliament of the Jews was summoned in 124,: in 1275 was enacted the statute de Judaismo which, among other things, permitted the Jews to hold land.

But this concession was illusory, and as the statute prevented Jews from engaging in finance, the only occupation which had been open to them, it was a prelude to their expulsion in 1290. There were few Jews in England from that date till the Commonwealth, but Jews settled in the American colonies earlier in the I7th century, and rendered considerable services in the advancement of English commerce.

The Whitehall conference of 1655 marks a change in the status of the Jew in England itself, for though no definite results emerged it was clearly defined by the judges that there was no legal obstacle for the return of the Jews. Charles II. in 1664 continued Cromwell tolerant policy. No serious attempt towards the emancipation of the Jews was made till the Naturalization Act of 1753, which was, however, immediately repealed.

Jews no longer attached to the Synagogue, such as the Herschels and Disraelis, attained to fame. In 1830 the first Jewish emancipation bill was brought in by Robert Grant, but it was not till the legislation of 1858-1860 that Jews obtained full parliamentary rights.

In other directions progress was more rapid. The office of sheriff was thrown open to Jews in 1835 (Moses Montefiore, sheriff of London was knighted in 1837); Sir I. L. Goldsmid was made a baronet in 1841, Baron Lionel de Rothschild was elected to Parliament in 1847 (though he was unable to take his seat), Alderman (Sir David) Salomons became lord mayor of London in 1855 and Francis Goldsmid was made a Q.C. in 1858. In 1873 Sir George Jessel was made a judge, and Lord Rothschild took his seat in the House of Lords as the first Jewish peer in 1886.

A fair proportion of Jews have been elected to the House of Commons, and Mr Herbert Samuel rose to cabinet rank in 1909. Sir Matthew Nathan has been governor of Hong-Kong and Natal, and among Jewish statesmen in the colonies Sir Julius Vogel and V. L. Solomon have been prime ministers (HYAMSON: A History of the Jews in England, p. 342).

It is unnecessary to remark that in the British colonies the Jews everywhere enjoy full citizenship. In fact, the colonies emancipated the Jews earlier than did the mother country. Jews were settled in Canada from the time of Wolfe, and a congregation was founded at Montreal in 1768, and since 1832 Jews have been entitled to sit in the Canadian parliament. There are some thriving Jewish agricultural colonies in the same dominion.

In Australia the Jews from the first were welcomed on perfectly equal terms. The oldest congregation is that of Sydney (1817); the Melbourne community dates from 1844. Reverting to incidents in England itself, in 1870 the abolition of university tests removed all restrictions on Jews at Oxford and Cambridge, and both universities have since elected Jews to professorships and other posts of honor.

The communal organization of English Jewry is somewhat inchoate. In 1841 an independent reform congregation was founded, and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews have always maintained their separate existence with a IJaham as the ecclesiastical head. In 1870 was founded the United Synagogue, which is a metropolitan organization, and the same remark applies to the more recent Federation of Synagogues. The chief rabbi, who is the ecclesiastical head of the United Synagogue, has also a certain amount of authority over the provincial and colonial Jewries, but this is nominal rather than real. The provincial Jewries, however, participate in the election of the chief rabbi.

At the end of 1909 was held the first conference of Jewish ministers in London, and from this is expected some more systematic organization of scattered communities. Anglo-Jewry is rich, however, in charitable, educational and literary institutions; chief among these respectively may be named the Jewish board of guardians (1859), the Jews college (1855), and the Jewish historical society (1893).

Besides the distinctions already noted, English Jews have risen to note in theology (C. G. Montefiore), in literature (Israel Zangwill and Alfred Sutro), in art (S. Hart, R.A., and S. J. Solomon, R.A.) in music (Julius Benedict and Frederick Hymen Cowen). More than 1000 English and colonial Jews participated as active combatants in the South African War. The immigration of Jews from Russia was mainly responsibk for the ineffective yet oppressive Aliens Act of 1905. (Full accounts of Anglo-Jewish institutions are given in the Jewish Year-Book published annually since 1895.)

55. The American Continent.
Closely parallel with the progress of the Jews in England has been their steady advancement ir America. Jews made their way to America early in the 16th century, settling in Brazil prior to the Dutch occupation. Under Dutch rule they enjoyed full civil rights. In Mexico and Peru, they fell under the ban of the Inquisition. In Surinam the Jews were treated as British subjects; in Barbadoes, Jamaica and New York they are found as early as the first half of the 17th century.

During the War of Independence the Jews of America took prominent part on both sides, for under the British rule many had risen to wealth and high social position. After the Declaration of Independence, Jews are found all over America.

[elder999]

55. The American Continent.
Closely parallel with the progress of the Jews in England has been their steady advancement ir America. Jews made their way to America early in the 16th century, settling in Brazil prior to the Dutch occupation. Under Dutch rule they enjoyed full civil rights. In Mexico and Peru, they fell under the ban of the Inquisition. In Surinam the Jews were treated as British subjects; in Barbadoes, Jamaica and New York they are found as early as the first half of the 17th century.

During the War of Independence the Jews of America took prominent part on both sides, for under the British rule many had risen to wealth and high social position. After the Declaration of Independence, Jews are found all over America.

Oddly enough,many Jews made their way here to New Mexico during the 16th century, coming up with the Spanish settlers from Mexico City.Of course, they were also subject to the Inquisition even here, so they practiced Judaism in secret, while attending Catholic Mass. To this day there are these cryptoJews (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/12/ferry.htm) in New Mexico, many of whose families have been keeping the Sabbath for more than 400 years.

Alexander Hamilton and Benedict Arnold's aide, David Salisbury Franks , were both Jewish.

[Cady Goldfield]

Aaron,
Alexander Hamilton was possibly Jewish (half Jewish); his MISTRESS definitely was, however. :)

[elder999]

Originally posted by Cady Goldfield
Aaron,
Alexander Hamilton wasn't Jewish; his MISTRESS was, however. :)

So was his mother, Sarah Levine(Lavein)-and his mother's first husband. Last I heard, that makes him Jewish, whatever he called himself.Because he was the illegitimate son of James Hamilton, it's believed that he attended a Jewish school on Nevis.He was proud of his education in a Hewbrew school too. According to his son, he used to tell them about the school and how he had to stand on a chair to be seen while reciting the Decalogue.He only attended school for a short time-though he did attend King's College in New York.He was a remarkable auto-didact-read a book on artillery and thus, was an artillery officer during the Revolutionary War.
In a "Jewish" tradition, though, he was the founder of the Bank of New York, as well as the New York post....;)

[Earl Hartman]

Cady:

I submit once again that Jews WERE NOT confined to ghettos throughout their sojourn in Europe as your own post states:

But the reconquest of Andalusia by the Christians associated towards the end of the 15th century with the establishment of the Inquisition, introduced a spirit of intolerance which led to the expulsion of the Jews and Moors. The consequences of this blow were momentous; it may he said to inaugurate the ghetto period.

In Spain, Jewish life had participated in the general life, but the expulsion, while it dispersed the Spanish Jews into Poland, Turkey, Italy and France, for the time drove the Jews within their own confines and barred them from the outside world.i 46. In France, Germany, England, Italy.

In the meantime Jewish life had been elsewhere subjected to other influences which produced a result at once narrower and deeper. Under Charlemagne, the Jews, who had begun to settle in Gaul in the time of Caesar, were more than tolerated. They were allowed to hold land and were encouraged to becomewhat their ubiquity qualified them to be the merchant princes of Europe.

The above excerpt clearly states that 1) the ghetto period was inaugurated by the Reconquest of Iberia by the Catholics, and 2) the Jews enjoyed relative freedom in the Frankish lands under Chalemagne, as I said.

What that means is that the ghetto period began in Europe in the 15th century, almost 1500 years after the beginning of the Christian era. How can you say that Jews have been in ghettos throughout their history?

I never said that Jews did not suffer disability and persecution under Christian and Islamic rulers due to the fact that they were not members of the majority religion. This was sometimes mild, sometimes severe. (Indeed, the Christians got the idea for the infamous Jewish badge from the Muslims.) That is NOT the same as saying that the minute they set foot in Europe they were thrown into ghettos, as you would have it.

Also, scholars date the "birth" of Yiddish to around the year 1300 of the common era (from the link I posted above):

It is likely that the migrations that first gave rise to Yiddish occurred at some time between the Crusades and the Black Death (i.e., between the late 11th and mid 13th century). For present purposes, the somewhat arbitrary birth date of 1300 C.E. has been chosen.

If we take the information in your post as to the beginning of the "ghetto era" to be reliable, what that means is that Yiddish predates it by about >200 years. So, I submit once again that while Yiddish was of course spoken by the Jews in Europe when they were ghettoized and confined to shtetls in places like the Pale of Settlement, it was not created in the ghettos.

[Cady Goldfield]

:rolleyes:

Earl, when I said "throughout" I meant that they were ghettoized for considerable periods, and always somewhere or another. Note that I also said that there were "benign" kings and rulers that provided freedoms to the Jews at various points.

Furthermore, when Jews had freedoms in one country, they almost always were being ghettoized in another. When Jews were welcomed or tolerated in one place, they were still being persecuted somewhere else. Freedom was never pan-Europe. Europe before the EU wasn't one cohesive culture, ya know. :D

The tract I posted above is something I've read many times, btw. The periods of isolation and ghettoization are punctuated by periods of freedom, and that's what I meant to convey. That's why I posted the history here.

Anyway, my original contention is that Yiddish is the language of those ghetto times, when Jews were not allowed to assimilate, and when cast-outs of one benighted group turned up in the Jewish quarters or ghettos of a land that allowed them to come in. It sure wasn't high-falutin' assmilated Jewish society that welcomed in unwashed, Yiddishe-sprachen Jews from some godforsaken place! ;)

Remember the joke about the Jew in the New York tenement, having Shabbos dinner with a newly arrived Jew from the Old Country? The newcomer asks for more <i>kugel</i>, to which the "new American" replies, "Don't sound like a bumpkin! It's not <i>kugel</i>, it's *poodging*!

[Earl Hartman]

Cady, you really ought to be more precise in your use of langauge. The title of your post is "Jews in and out of ghettos through history". I just pointed out that your own post dates the beginning of the ghetto period to only about 500 years ago, which means that Jews were not ghettoized for about 1500 years prior to that, that's all (or even longer, since there were Jews in Rome prior to the beginnings of Christianity).

I should also point out that Jews living in close proximity to one another does not a ghetto make. Even today, Orthodox Jews always live within walking distance of the shul. This is entirely voluntary and due to internal Jewish religious reasons, not external gentile pressure.

Alexander Hamilton was Jewish, huh?

I had no idea. Damned interestin'.