Merchants and Tutors in University Towns

GERMAN UNIVERSITIES OF the seventeenth century had a poor reputation and were not well regarded, particularly after the Thirty Years’ War, which had severely affected them. Given the Holy Roman Empire's territorial and denominational divisions, they were no more than small, poorly equipped state universities. Scholastic teaching dominated, professors were dependent on additional sources of income, and student life was characterized by fagging. The denominational orientation of intellectual life in the individual German states also shaped universities and was responsible for the religious intolerance and intellectual insularity of these institutions. Given that universities were strictly divided into Catholic, Protestant, and Reformed (Calvinist) institutions and professors and doctoral students had to affirm their allegiance to the respective denomination, the idea of matriculating Jews was unthinkable.

Yet, even before the admission of Jewish students to university, several points of contact between Jews and universities existed. Professors often exercised state supervision over Jewish religious and medical institutions, as well as over Hebrew printing offices. Theologians were tasked with censorship of Hebrew books and surveillance over Jewish prayers, because of the alleged danger of anti-Christian statements. In Brandenburg-Prussia, the Hebrew printing office of Moses Abraham Wulff was granted permission in 1707 to publish books in Halle on the condition that the local Faculty of Theology had the right to censor all publications in advance. When Wulff failed to comply, the faculty orchestrated his expulsion in 1740, on the grounds that, owing to his books, “the local university could acquire a bad reputation.” In 1709, the Faculty of Theology at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder was, likewise, tasked by the king with vetting all publications of the local Jewish printing press. In Brandenburg-Prussia, theologians had already subjected Jewish services to surveillance since 1703, after a Jewish convert denounced the Aleinu prayer as anti-Christian. As a result of this denunciation, parts of this prayer were banned. Even in 1778, the Königsberg synagogue featured an inspector's seat, which one of the theology professors occupied in return for special compensation.

As with its censorship of books, the university's supervision of medicine was not restricted to Jews alone. In most states, universities were responsible for issuing medical licenses to both Christian and Jewish doctors, conducting examinations for surgeons, and supervising barbers and midwives, as well as itinerant healers.

IF ONE REVIEWS the task and position of Jewish university graduates over the 170 years dealt with here, this period appears as an epoch of the profoundest transformations and crises for them—more so than for other Jews. The position of the few academically trained doctors had been relatively clear and secure until Mendelssohn's time. Regardless of whether they had studied in Italy, Germany, or the Netherlands, as community doctors educated in the natural sciences and in the Talmud, they held positions of respect in the large Jewish communities. Insofar as they had not only a knowledge of practical and theoretical medicine but also a profound knowledge of the Talmud, they shared in the respect that Talmudic scholarship evoked in traditional Jewish society. As doctors to the poor in the employ of their communities, they discharged the community's religious obligation to sustain its members and, in addition, earned aboveaverage incomes from private practice and the sale of remedies that was permitted them. In addition to their medical functions, they often took on other community offices and, thanks to their study and their professional practice, even had contact to a limited extent with scholars and representatives of courtly society. In an intellectual respect, individual doctors played a role in relaying extra-Jewish knowledge to Jews and hence became bearers of the incipient Enlightenment movement within Jewry. From a social perspective, however, their situation fundamentally remained that of all Jews: as protected Jews, who were only tolerated, they lived outside of estate-based society.

The intellectual and social situation of Jewish university graduates changed in the second half of the eighteenth century, on the “eve” of the emancipation movement that had set in from France, even as their constitutional status remained the same. We can see that their number in the medical profession increased dramatically as did their professional and social contact with the non-Jewish world. The Enlightenment movement both within and outside of the Jewish world decisively transformed the intellectual and sociocultural relationships of Jewish university graduates with the outside world and improved the social status of “cultured” Jews, that is, individuals acquainted with extra-Jewish culture.

Traditional Education and Upbringing

UNTIL THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, the traditional form of life of Jewish communities in Germany was characterized by the unity of the Jewish people, religion, and culture. The Jews of Germany lived in selfcontained corporations in precincts that the local territorial sovereign had ceded to them. These precincts were enclosed by ghetto walls only in a few cases and enjoyed extensive religious and social autonomy. In terms of professional activity, Jews were almost exclusively restricted to trading. From an economic perspective, they had the function in the individual territories of bolstering the growing power of the absolute princes. These princes possessed direct legal authority over the Jews. In particular, they collected the Judenregal, the protection money that Jews were required to pay, and thus had a financial interest in the Jews.

As a distinct “nation,” the Jews were subject to the Jewish religious law, which preserved the solidarity of the community and governed their social and intellectual life. Since the beginning of modernity, the arts and sciences had progressively emancipated themselves from the influence of the church in the larger Christian world. By contrast, intellectual life in Jewish communities in Germany was restricted almost entirely to study of the Torah and the Talmud. All scholarship and knowledge aimed at the Law. Jews were permitted to study non-Jewish subjects, collectively referred to as “external knowledge” (chochmot chizonijot), only insofar as this served an understanding of the Torah or, as was the case with medicine, in fulfilling its commandments. Compared with the Middle Ages, by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the cultural isolation of the Jews in Germany had increased to such an extent that they risked stasis. Even the centers of Talmudic studies could now be found in Poland.

A determination to preserve tradition had not always meant intellectual isolation from the outside world in Jewish history. We know of Jews who knew the culture and science of their times as well as they knew the Talmud and the Torah in both the Hellenistic world and, later, in the Arabic and Spanish worlds. Not coincidentally, Moses Maimonides in particular was rediscovered in the eighteenth century as exemplifying this attitude and became a prototype for Jews who had begun to take an interest in the sciences of their time.

MONIKA RICHARZ REQUIRES little introduction. She is one of the most important historiographers of German-Jewish history, and a recognized authority on Jewish social life in Germany before the Holocaust. Her three-volume work Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland: Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte, based on materials collected from the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute New York, during her time as a researcher there, is a standard reference work familiar to all students of the field. But it is her pioneering role in advancing the debate on German anti-Semitism that will particularly stand out in memory. As Christhard Hoffmann notes in his review of German-Jewish historiography, following the revelations about the extent of German involvement in the Holocaust in the early years of the Federal Republic (the Ulm trial in 1958, the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial from 1963 to 1965), it was not the “historical establishment,” but “individuals from the generation of assistants and students, such as Werner Jochmann, Reinhard Rürup, Stefi Jersch-Wenzel, Monika Richarz and Arno Herzig, who followed these impulses and addressed questions of Jewish history and especially antisemitism.”

But despite Richarz's international prominence, a significant part of her work, her doctoral dissertation, has not received the attention it deserves outside of Germany. The dissertation was originally published in 1973 by the Leo Baeck Institute, London, with the title Der Eintritt der Juden in die akademischen Berufe: Jüdische Studenten und Akademiker in Deutschland, 1678–1848. Richarz's book is still considered the standard work on the subject and is widely cited (compare Feiner's foreword in this volume). But the lack of an English translation has meant that, in the English-speaking world, as a rule, only scholars of German-Jewish historiography—mainly those who studied the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) and the role of an academized elite in the transformation of German Jewry in early modernity—are familiar with it. This is a major shortcoming, because, despite newer studies of individual figures from this period, Richarz's book remains a source of vital information about the lives, the struggles, and the legal conditions of Jewish Akademiker in this period. In this translator's note, I would like to introduce the English edition, a few important translation choices, and my reasons for translating this book entirely on my own and without financial support of any kind.

Their Background

MOST JEWISH STUDENTS in the eighteenth century were from large Jewish communities. Occasionally, smaller Jewish settlements such as those in Düsseldorf or Göttingen provided larger numbers of students. But these were exceptional cases, which were rooted in specific circumstances. These conditions started to change by the early nineteenth century. The interest in extra-Jewish knowledge and in academic studies captivated ever larger circles and gained in social prestige in the measure that Jewish tradition was neglected. Naturally, the new professional opportunities that emancipation legislation, for all its restrictions, had opened up for Jewish university graduates also played a role. Yet another factor was the growth in the Jewish population, which outstripped even the rapid increase in the general population and created ever greater demand for university graduates and, above all, for doctors within Jewish communities as well. Ever more Jews from midsized and smaller communities now studied at universities. Thirty-eight percent of Jewish students at the University of Heidelberg and a mere 18 percent of students at the University of Bonn came from communities numbering 1,500 or more Jewish inhabitants around the mid-nineteenth century. In Bonn, Jews from larger communities such as Düsseldorf, Cologne, Bonn, and Koblenz comprised roughly 42 percent of Jewish students, whereas in Heidelberg, Jews from midsized communities such as Hannover, Hanau, Darmstadt, Mainz, Worms, and Munich comprised 24 percent of Jewish students. By contrast, the ratio of Jewish students from small Jewish settlements and Jewish village settlements was 38 percent in Heidelberg and 40 percent in Bonn. Nonetheless, as was also the case among Christians, the purely rural population was less represented at universities. This explains, for instance, the poor attendance at universities such as Tübingen, which was in a district that almost exclusively contained rural Jewish settlements. This can be attributed both to the poorer economic situation of the rural Jewish population on average (which, in any case, was relatively small) and to the lack of suitable educational facilities in rural areas. Many of the students from rural communities later settled in cities so that university study led to a further concentration of Jews in cities.

FROM THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY until the Holocaust, a Jewish academic elite stood out in Germany, making impressive achievements. The members of this elite were far more numerous than the proportion of Jews in the general population. Legal emancipation and the dramatic transformation of German society from a social, economic, and political system of estates to one of classes—two developments that were fueled by ideas of equality and enlightenment—enabled unprecedented social mobility for Jewish university graduates. The vast majority of these graduates adopted bourgeois values and acculturated to German society, while some of them converted to Christianity and became fully assimilated. Monika Richarz's important, impressive, and learned book asks the intriguing questions of how this group emerged and what its historical impact and importance was.

The answer to these questions is given on three levels, taking the reader along on a complex two-hundred-year journey from the midseventeenth century until 1848. On the first level, the book supplies a considerable amount of statistical information drawn from meticulous archival research in the matriculation records of German universities, the history of Jewish legislation, and the documents of the Jewish communities. From these archival sources and data Richarz reconstructs the story of the acceptance of Jewish students into universities from an institutional perspective. On the second level, her comparative research sheds light on the differences among the academic institutions that accepted Jews, calling attention to the social situation of the students and emphasizing the personal stories of several of the better-known students. It takes note of the successions of families of physicians and entrepreneurs and the gap between them and those who came from a lower, poorer social class.

This is mainly the story of Jews who overcame linguistic and cultural barriers and acquired secular knowledge in addition to traditional religious knowledge. Richarz's point of departure is traditional Jewish education and the religious ideals that formed it. The book then goes on to discuss the Jewish medical students and physicians of the seventeenth century and the growth in their numbers in the eighteenth century. At the end of this period the gates to general education were opened wide to the Jews in Germany, both in the Gymnasium and in the university.

TWO HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS, above all, laid the ground for the entry of Jews into European culture and society—a process that attained its crowning and, to contemporary observers, apparently irreversible legitimation with dawning political emancipation. The first was the growing role that a small group of German Jews played in the economic life of the eighteenth century. Represented mainly by Jewish bankers and military suppliers employed by German princes as advisors and financiers, this group of so-called court agents amassed wealth and influence by their efforts. The second development resulted from the participation of Jews in German intellectual life. Although summary accounts often date this development to Moses Mendelssohn, in truth, it had already begun to some extent before him. The separation of Jews and their exclusion from European thought has never been as complete as it appears to a schematic glance. Contacts of an intellectual nature had always existed and in the aforementioned layers of financial aristocracy, intimate familiarity with German literature and philosophy had become a reality that would induce a rapid transformation in the intellectual situation of the Jews.

Inevitably, this process of Jews taking an interest in secular education also fostered their inclination towards professional careers. But as in other spheres of life, Jews had to overcome significant resistance in their attempt to gain a foothold in professional occupations. The economic ascent of Jews, beginning with the era of enlightened absolutism and the incipient industrial revolution, has often been studied. But there have only been few detailed studies of Jews’ access to university study and professional occupations. Monika Richarz's book, which emerged from seminar assignments on the history of the Jews in Germany conducted under my direction at the Free University of Berlin, therefore represents a significant step towards filling this lacuna. It is a study of the profound transformation in the Jewish ideal of education, the abandonment of their cultural separation, and the renunciation of the restriction to Talmudic learning, on the one hand, and the simultaneous turn towards university studies and professional careers, on the other. It thus makes a major contribution to the social and intellectual history of Jews in this period.

The Effects of Emancipation

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGES in Germany between the French Revolution and the Congress of Vienna fundamentally transformed the situation of the Jews and of the universities. As a result of the radical social reforms at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the old estate-based society dissolved, and legal emancipation in most German states liberated Jews from their fomer status of tolerated protected Jewry (Schutzjudentum) and turned them—in the words of the Prussian Emancipation Edict of 1812—into “(regular) inhabitants” (Einländer) and “citizens” (Staatsbürger). In the context of constitutional improvements, some of the severe professional restrictions were also partially repealed in the expectation that changes in the professional composition of the Jews and the shift away from trade would have a particular reformative and assimilatory effect. Under these conditions, emancipation laws could not but facilitate a dramatic increase in the number of Jewish students and they awakened professional hopes among Jewish university graduates in particular. These hopes that would prove only too soon to be illusory in the wake of the conservative backlash after 1815.

Given the territorial fragmentation of Germany, we cannot speak of a general Jewish emancipation. Rather, individual states varied so considerably in their policy towards the Jews that, in the pre-1848 era, full emancipation could exist alongside medieval protected Jewry, even though most states adopted a middle path in their Jewish legislation. Discussion of Jewish emancipation had begun in Germany in the 1780s and stood entirely under the influence of the Enlightenment idea of “moral improvement,” an idea that later also influenced the reform edicts of Emperor Joseph II. The incipient reforms undertaken in Prussia after the death of Friedrich II (Frederick the Great) remained at a standstill. Fundamental changes to Jewish legislation in Germany only occurred after 1791, once revolutionary France had granted its Jewish population full emancipation and this legislation also became the reigning law in several German territories in the Napoleonic period. Areas temporarily affected by French emancipation legislation included the Left Rhine territories ceded to France, the Grand Duchy of Berg, the Kingdom of Westphalia, and also briefly the Hanseatic cities after 1810.

Exclusion from Civil Service

LOOKING BACK IN 1848, Ludwig Philippson described the situation of Jewish university graduates in the pre-1848 era thus: “All the gates leading into the temple of academic scholarship and intellectual development had been opened to the Jews, but all the gates leading out of this temple into a life of flourishing activity and joyous recognition were sealed, and firmly so.” This complaint referred to the exclusion of Jews from civil service positions, through which the integration of the Jewish cultural elite in the state and society was hindered, even though those affected strenuously pursued it. Already in the pre-1848 era, the lack of professional emancipation created a situation in which Jewish intellectuals by and large could only work in the few professions that were open to them. Although Jews were licensed everywhere as doctors and were also admitted to the attorneyship and to the privatdozentship in some states, they remained excluded from higher civil service positions in the judiciary, schools, universities, and the medical administration. Even the Electorate of Hesse's Jewish Law of 1833, which conceded civil service positions, had no practical consequences for university graduates. The public and individual struggle of those affected for the political right denied them remained futile until 1848 in all states. Repeatedly denied the Habilitation and the attorneyship, Gabriel Riesser felt called to a heightened struggle for emancipation by his professional conditions, whereas many of his fellow believers, who were materially less independent, drew the consequence of converting to Christianity. Not admitting Jews to civil service positions was—as we have seen—a very successful means of “proselytizing” Jewish intellectuals, who were often quite alienated from their ancestral religion.

Jewish university graduates faced the severest professional restrictions in Prussia and Bavaria. The Prussian Emancipation Edict of 1812 permitted Jews to hold academic teaching and school offices “for which they are qualified” in paragraph eight and added in paragraph nine: “We reserve the right to determine by law to what extent Jews may be admitted to other public services and civil service positions at a later date.” But the additional legislation that was announced here never appeared and even the rights granted in paragraph eight remained almost without any practical significance owing to the ensuing reaction.

THE PRESENT WORK seeks to contribute to the educational and social history of the Jews in Germany. In that it deals with the rise of a university- educated elite among the Jews of Germany, it also provides an excerpt of the history of acculturation and emancipation of German Jewry. Setting out from an account of the traditional religious ideal of education current among Jews of the seventeenth century, I trace the process of the “secularization” (Verweltlichung) and assimilation of Jewish education, as more Jews began to pursue university study. My aim is primarily to provide a social history of the Jewish intellectual elite and not to undertake an intellectual- historical analysis of acculturation, even though both aspects are closely related.

It is a recognized fact that, relative to their numbers, German Jews were significantly over-represented in the bourgeois middle class in the Weimar period and in many professional occupations. The economic presuppositions of this rise and the economic expansion of the Jews of Germany have often been dealt with in their individual details, but we lack investigations into the role of Jewish intellectuals in the process of social assimilation to the German bourgeoisie. I have deliberately chosen the early history of this process as my topic because the transformation of the ideal of education and an understanding of the social function of education in the emancipation period are decisive if we are to understand the process of this ascent.

Since the Jews were a minority and still faced social discrimination despite the progress of emancipation, it was inevitable that, in their struggle for social recognition, they would aspire all the more to education and culture (Bildung) and to property (Besitz), these foundations of the bourgeoisie. Particularly in the first half of the nineteenth century, education began to play a paramount role as a means of social ascent among Jews as well as Christians. When a census of denominations was undertaken for the first time at Prussian universities in 1886–1887, it showed that, relative to their share of the population, Jews formed an eight times greater proportion of students.

The process of Frenchification that started with de Bélinay and du Bouchet was implemented through specific policies. These combined the twofold objectives of evangelism and social development. Part II of this book argues that social progress was considered a form of evangelism in the Chad Mission. The Jesuits, drawing from their old traditions in the field of education, applied different strategies among the Muslim populations and ethno-religionists. It explores how the combination of social development and Frenchification helped to advance the political and ecclesiastical agenda of Africanisation.

The Jesuit mission also faced the cultural and political challenge of Chad's Cultural Revolution, which the Jesuits addressed by drawing from their traditional mission strategy of accommodation. In Chad a Church was established in its own right, with its own bishops, seminaries, and schools, while remaining independent from neighbouring Cameroon and Ubangi. Africanness took the form of grassroots evangelism and was led, in this initial stage, by Jesuit Brothers, who also launched the first inculturation project and raised the prospect of African Jesuit vocations. Ultimately, the creation of ecclesiastical Chad and its French ties set up the foundations of the modern Chad state as an ally of France and a stabilising force in a region at the crossroads of competing global ideologies and religions.

In the early stages of the mission, before independence had been achieved, Chadian Muslims asserted their African identity by rejecting Western education, which they considered to be contrary to their beliefs and irrelevant for their already-established Muslim political elite. The Jesuits developed a vast educational project for Chad's Muslim populations which was designed to convert moderate Muslims while pushing back against Pan-Arabism, which was seen in France as a direct threat to French interests in the region.

For the ethno-religionists of southern Chad who converted to Christianity, the political outcome of the Jesuits’ vast educational project was paradoxical. Christian political leadership at independence was the result of a Western education. This education favoured their being auxiliaries in the colonial administration, and then leaders of independent Chad. Yet, unlike other Christian missions in Africa, whose educational initiatives led to the birth of African Christian nationalism, Jesuit education in southern Chad simply came too late to create an infrastructure that could foster nationalism among Catholics.