[lbo-talk] More Goldhagen

Charles A. Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Tue Apr 22 13:17:51 PDT 2008


One detail I discovered in my searches on Strauss was very interesting and has direct baring on European anti-semiticism in the 19thC

Jews were given citizenship by signing an oath of alliance to the French Republic during the revolution.

Napoleon in his negociations with the Pope, and as a partial gesture to the Catholic clergy, dropped that provision in the new constitution and created a series of exclusions and segregations for Jews in the new Code Civil. These provisions mostly related to business, property and travel (forgot the details).

When Napolean conquered Europe his armies and governors established code civil through out, thereby legalizing anti-semitic practices.

Dot, dot, dot. When the French got rid of Napoleon they revised their own version and got rid of most of the Jewish provisions some time in the 1820s. Spain, the German states, and probably most of eastern Europe did not revoke the Jewish provisions.

More dot, dot, dot. When Bismark united the German states under Prussia, the new German state was given a unified legal code and through out the old Code Civil. Jews were in effect `liberated' as a by-product by this new legal system in 1871. Travel and business restrictions were gone as were various provisions other provisions.

While legally sanctioned anti-semitic practices in law were gone, of course none of the social and cultural tradtions of anti-semiticism were erased.

Meanwhile France, the supposed liberal and tolerant state, of course was no paradise. Just a few years after the German unification, the famous Dryfus case blew the lid off Fench liberalism....

CG



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