SPONSORED CONTENT 1,700 YEARS OF JEWISH LIFE IN GERMANY

By the Leo Baeck Institute

The year 2021 marks the 1,700th anniversary The Leo Baeck Institute (LBI), a New York- based library and archive, is joining in the of a Roman imperial edict representing commemoration with its “Shared History Project” the first historical evidence of Jewish life – an online exhibition of 58 objects revealing how interwoven the lives of Jews and non-Jews have in the territory of modern-day Germany. been over these nearly two millennia. Institutions in Germany and beyond are Yet the project also tells the history of a minority marking the occasion with a year-long festival that remained distinct from their neighbors for a remarkably long time. Processes of integration and of exhibitions, events, and commemoration. acculturation of minority groups such as the Jews were always subject to persistent counterforces – whether they be the religious or national feelings of the Jews or the prejudice that led the majority to exclude them. A century ago, Jews who felt confident of their JÜDISCHES LEBEN IN DEUTSCHLAND place in society, but threatened by the rise of an ideology that painted them as alien, pointed to their ancient lineage in “German” lands as evidence that they belonged there. Questions about belonging and identity certainly aren’t new in 2021. Who is a German? Who is a Jew? What conditions are necessary for a minority to retain its Opposite page, left: Emperor Constantine’s edict from 321, recorded own identity and a secure place in in the Codex Theodosianus 16,8,3; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana society? Jews have grappled with these (Cod. Reg. Lat. 886), 6th century. Opposite page, right: Spice tower, 18th century (Jewish Museum Frankfurt). Above: Jews were expelled questions since the late Roman empire. from Strasbourg in the 14th century but allowed to do business there The answers they developed can shed until sundown. The “Gruselhorn” sounded nightly when it was time for Jews to leave the city. Right: Earring, dated to 1096. An example light on our own increasingly diverse of medieval goldsmithing shows the flourishing exchange in craft and pluralist world. between Christians and Jews in the Rhineland. (Jewish Museum in the Archeological Quarter of Cologne). Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (321–1450) The history of Jews in the territory life during the early Middle Ages and rise of philosophical and religious of modern-day Germany begins with under the Frankish kings. Some skepticism, the growing power of the a brief mention in an edict issued by distinctions between Christians and centralized state, new ideologies and Emperor Constantine in the year 321 Jews drawn by rulers in this period economic structures, and population CE regarding the city of Cologne. may have even been designed to growth and urbanization characterized Jews in the Roman colony, like their prevent Christians from converting the period beginning in the mid-15th upper-class pagan neighbors, could to Judaism. An uneasy co-existence century that historians refer to as now be compelled to serve on the continued. Later, the prosperous “Early Modernity.” municipal council or curia, which bore cities of Mainz and nearby Worms During this time, the German- responsibility for the financing and and Speyer became centers of Jewish speaking lands were a mosaic of administration of the city. The edict learning on the Rhine. approx. 1,800 small states, each with proves that Jews were not just present A turning point came with the its own policies regarding Jews. These but also numerous and wealthy beginning of the Crusades in 1096, ranged from total banishment to enough to share in the expensive when Christian attacks nearly discriminatory measures, such as a burdens of public office. annihilated whole communities, requirement to wear an identifying Archeological evidence from this early including those in Mainz and Worms. badge or exclusion from many cities period testifies to the common roots In the ensuing years, Jews endured or certain economic activities, to of Jewish and Christian elements periodic violence and expulsion, toleration by order of the local in provincial Roman society, which culminating in the pogroms that sovereign. coexisted with pagan cults in a swept across Europe during the The intellectual and religious ferment state of friendly competition. That Black Death between 1348 and 1350, of the times also brought Jews into changed with the Christianization when Jews were scapegoated for the new kinds of cultural exchange with of the Roman empire, initiated by pandemic and massacred. Christians. An interest in studying Constantine and formalized in 380 religious texts in their original Early Modern Period (1450–1648) with the Edict of Thessalonica. The languages led to a generation of first discriminatory measures against Following the enormous social “Christian Hebraists,” who studied Jews were introduced not long after, disruption and transformation Hebrew and Jewish ritual practice and synagogues (as well as pagan that came with the Black Death, with learned Rabbis. Interested in temples) began to be converted into revolutions in media, religion, and the origins of scripture rather than churches. science ushered in a new world. Judaism per se and often holding Nevertheless, historical and Religious upheaval wrought by the deeply anti-Jewish attitudes, they archeological evidence suggests that Reformation, the invention and spread nevertheless made Judaism accessible Jews were an integral part of urban of printing, the scientific revolution to broader circles. On a more popular level, despite side by side with Christians and to the broader movements for Martin Luther’s incitements against engaged in trade (silk, tobacco, sugar, democracy and reform. It was not the Jews, the Reformation’s focus on horses, and cattle) and practiced until the establishment of Austria- the Bible brought biblical stories into door-to-door peddling. Nevertheless, Hungary in 1867 and the united homes. Protestant fathers integrated they were separated by custom Germany in 1871 that Jews were the Bible into domestic life and began and language, as most Jews spoke finally granted full equality under the to appreciate figures from the Hebrew Yiddish dialects. law in most German-speaking lands. Bible, naming boys Abraham, Daniel, This began to change with the The expansion of political rights, Elias, or Benjamin. Enlightenment and its Jewish accompanied by enormous Both the Reformation and the work equivalent known as the Haskalah. economic growth in the wake of the Christian Hebraists were closely Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) of industrialization, unleashed linked to the advent of the printing brought Jews closer to Germans, as unprecedented energies among the press. For Jews, however, the more exemplified by his translation of the Jews. More integrated into economic, rapid spread of information was a Pentateuch into German. cultural, and intellectual life in double-edged sword. Anti-Jewish German-speaking lands, many Jews conspiracy theories spread far and The 19th Century to World War I adopted a German national identity, wide, even though some humanist While Jews had shared a history with including more traditional German scholars argued that they were not the majority population for at least names, as well as bourgeois fashions based in fact. At the same time, one 1,500 years by this point, it was not and lifestyles. consequence of the Reformation – the until the 19th century that civil rights Many of the same Jewish reformers principle of separation of church and and full citizenship were extended to who fought for emancipation also state – presaged the granting of more Jews throughout German-speaking sought to reform Judaism through equal rights to Jews in a later period. lands. Jewish intellectuals and changes in worship, including shorter reformers such as Leopold Zunz services, musical accompaniment, and Absolutism (1648–1800) carried on the legacy of the Haskalah German hymns. One such example The religious and political tensions and linked Jewish emancipation is the New Synagogue in Berlin, resulting from the Reformation and the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War led to the rise of the nation-state, which provided opportunities for Jews to gain rights and share in the developments of the era. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) ended the war and imposed a new political system of territorial states with independent rulers. While Jews were prohibited from living in some of these states, in those areas where they were permitted, they shared and benefitted from this transformation. Provided with “letters of privilege,” a few Jews became prosperous and powerful, although precariously protected by the ruler who issued the letter. Most Jews continued to live impoverished lives in rural areas as Clockwise from top left: Eyeglasses of Moses Mendelssohn, the Jewish philosopher known as the “Socrates of Berlin” during the Enlightenment (Leo Baeck Institute). Dress worn by the Jewish actress Marie Barkany in the first German- a result of inordinate taxation and language presentation of Schillers’ plays in Paris in 1910 (Jewish Museum Prešov, Slovakia). Salvarsan ampules belonging occupational restrictions. They lived to the Jewish physician Paul Ehrlich, who transformed public health (Georg-Speyer-Haus, Frankfurt am Main). where German texts were introduced modernism. Jews rose to positions of who had survived in mixed families alongside Hebrew texts for the liturgy unprecedented political prominence. , or in hiding, the survivors of labor and prayers were accompanied by an However, the case of Walter Rathenau, and concentration camps, returnees organ and choir. the Jewish industrialist who became from exile, and the mostly Eastern The process of Jewish acculturation Germany’s foreign minister but was European “displaced persons.” Most demonstrated a true shared history. assasinated in 1922, showed the perils of this “saved remnant” remained in Yet at the end of the 19th century, of such prominence for Jews. Allied-occupied western Germany, political antisemitism emerged as The new cultural freedom meant that although a tiny number of survivors a threat in Germany and Austria- Jews could choose to engage with also remained in or returned to Hungary, with political parties their heritage in new ways – whether the Soviet zone and the German espousing antisemitic policies under through religious renewal advocated by Democratic Republic. After the which Jews could not be German and figures like Buber or through national founding of the State of Israel in lobbying for the exclusion of Jews renewal promised by Zionism – or 1948, most emigrated there or to from German society. push it into the background as a more other destinations. or less tightly held religious framework A small number, however, World War I through the for otherwise ordinary German remained. Though many lived Weimar Republic doctors, lawyers and judges, business “with packed suitcases,” always Many Jews in Germany saw World leaders, writers, or politicians. contemplating emigration, they War I as an opportunity to resolve established new synagogues and the tension between their strong National Socialism and the Holocaust communal institutions in Germany, identification with German-speaking This period of freedom came to a despite the disapproval they culture and its endemic antisemitism. painful end when the Nazis came often faced from Jews elsewhere. Patriotic German and Austrian Jews to power in 1933, and it became Thus, Jewish life continued in eagerly signed up to fight for what abundantly clear that the rights Jews German-speaking Europe, however they saw as their fatherlands, driven had gained over centuries could tenuously, after the Holocaust. both by conviction and the hope also be taken away overnight. Nazi This quiet, almost invisible that war service would put to rest Germany ratcheted up the legal existence changed dramatically any question about their national persecution over the next five years, with the immigration of as many belonging. Instead, as the war dragged depriving Jews of their ability to make as 200,000 Jews from the former on, antisemites portrayed the Jews as a living, confiscating their property, Soviet Union in the 1990s and shirkers or profiteers. The German and defining their social horizons then the arrival of Israelis in military even ordered a “Jewish ever more narrowly. In November Germany, particularly Berlin, the census” to show that Jews were 1938, the persecution culminated in new capital of united Germany, avoiding combat service on the front. mass violence against the Jews across in the 20th and 21st centuries. In fact, the results suggested otherwise Germany and the newly annexed The presence of a vibrant Jewish and were suppressed. Austria. Hundreds of thousands community in today’s Germany The persistence of antisemitism emigrated by the end of the 1930s, has highlighted debates about the during the Weimar Republic was still but most of those who remained were future: Does one count as a Jew not enough to prevent a remarkable murdered in the Holocaust. in Germany only if registered as Jewish renaissance. The Weimar Postwar to the Present such? Can one identify as a Jew constitution made Germany a without religious beliefs? How democracy in which civil rights The Nazi period reversed all the gains will Jews respond to the rise of were guaranteed without regard to of Emancipation, and the Holocaust antisemitism in Germany? religion. Women also became citizens surpassed the horrors of the medieval pogroms in previously unimaginable And, how will the Jewish with full rights. Philosophers like community share its history with Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber ways. Yet the story of German- speaking Jewry continued, and not just an increasingly diverse population cultivated new ways of engaging with within Germany? Judaism. Artists and writers such as in exile. Max Liebermann and Alfred Döblin The postwar German-Jewish For more information, visit occupied the vanguard of artistic community comprised German Jews www.sharedhistoryproject.org