JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA 
 
fctbrarp of "the Cheolocjical Seminary 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 •agssD* 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 John Stuart Conning, D.D. 
 
 DS 143 .P49 
 
 Philipson, David, 1862-1949 
 Old European Jewries 
 

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OLD EUROPEAN JEWRIES 
 
Old European Jewries 
 
 
 
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 APR 6 
 
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 *2 
 
 BY 
 
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 ^SICAL 3^ 
 
 DAVID PH I UPSON. D. D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF “THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION,” ETC. 
 
 “ By the Ghetto’s plague, 
 
 By the garb's disgrace ” 
 
 Browning 
 
 pbtla&elpbia 
 
 "Cbc 3cwieb publication Society of Hmcrica 
 1804 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1894, 
 
 By the Jewish Publication Society of America. 
 
 Meyers 
 
 in ting and Publishing House, 
 Harrisburg, Pa. 
 
TO MY WIFE, 
 
 WHO, WITH SYMPATHETIC INTEREST, VISITED 
 WITH ME MANY OF THE PLACES 
 HEREIN MENTIONED, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 When, several years ago, I planned a 
 trip abroad, one of my objects was to 
 visit the remains of the old Jewish quar¬ 
 ters in some of the European cities. Be¬ 
 fore that time, I had determined to write 
 the story of the Ghetto, and it occurred 
 to me that it would add interest to the 
 work if I could supplement my studies by 
 a view of the sites of certain old Jewries. 
 This I found to be the case, for memories 
 linger about these spots which bring their 
 history vividly to mind. 
 
 I have limited myself to a study 
 of the officially instituted Ghetto. The 
 legislation restricting Jews in the choice 
 of their dwelling places was in a line 
 with the general policy of church and 
 state towards them up to this century. At 
 
 (0 
 
2 
 
 Preface. 
 
 times, it is true, Jews resided together in 
 separate portions of cities even when they 
 were not forced to do so bylaw. For the 
 formation of these voluntary Ghettos there 
 were various reasons, which I point out in 
 one of the chapters of this book. 
 
 I have included a chapter on the Rus¬ 
 sian Pale of Settlement, the great modern 
 Ghetto, because it is germane to the sub¬ 
 ject. We see the evils and horrors of the 
 old Ghetto repeated in our own day in 
 these districts. 
 
 We can not but stand amazed at the en¬ 
 durance of the Jew which enabled him to 
 triumph over the nameless woes which the 
 thought of the Ghetto suggests. It is one 
 of the wonders of history. 
 
 Cincinnati, y^/y, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Early Settlements of Jews in Eu¬ 
 rope, . 5 
 
 II The Institution of the Ghetto . . 19 
 
 III The Ghetto in Church Legislation 35 
 
 IV The Judengasse of Frankfort-on- 
 
 the-Main . 46 
 
 V The Judenstadt of Prague .... 82 
 
 VI The Ghetto of Rome ....... 120 
 
 VII The Russian Ghetto. 177 
 
 VIII Effects and Results. 194 
 
 IX The Ghetto in Literature .... 220 
 
 Notes. 255 
 
 Index.269 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY SETTLEMENTS OF JEWS IN 
 
 EUROPE. 
 
 After the destruction of Jerusalem by 
 the Romans in the year 70 C. E., the Jews 
 cast about for new dwelling places. Long 
 before this event Jews had settled in 
 the various capitals of the then civilized 
 world, in Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, the 
 cities of Asia Minor and Egypt. In Rome, 
 the influence of their religious teachings 
 became apparent as early as 76 B. C. E., r 
 but their settlement in considerable num¬ 
 bers is usually dated from the time of 
 Pompey, the first Roman general to enter 
 Jerusalem and carry Jews to Rome; 2 
 thereafter, the Jewish colony received ad¬ 
 ditions from time to time. Outside of 
 Rome, it is not likely that there were 
 Jewish settlements in western Europe be¬ 
 fore the beginning of the Christian era, 
 although there were traditions current in 
 
 (5) 
 
6 Old European Jewries. 
 
 later days among the Jews themselves that 
 some of their number had settled in por¬ 
 tions of Europe in very early times. For 
 example, it has been asserted that there 
 were synagogues in Germany, at Ulm and 
 Worms, before the origin of Christianity. 
 The Spanish Jews had a tradition that 
 there were Jews in Spain as early as the 
 days of King Solomon. 3 But these pre¬ 
 tensions cannot be established, and will 
 not bear scrutiny. The earliest authentic 
 notices concerning the Jews in European 
 lands date from the first Christian cen¬ 
 turies. Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem, 
 we know, deported thousands of Jewish 
 captives to the western Roman provinces. 
 Many were sent to Sardinia to work in 
 the mines, many remained in Rome, and 
 we have frequent notices of them during 
 the reigns of succeeding emperors. Into 
 the Italian cities, they naturally drifted 
 from Rome. As for Spain, the earliest au¬ 
 thentic notice is by the apostle Paul, who, 
 in his Epistle to the Romans, says: 
 “ Whensoever I take my journey into 
 Spain, I will come to you ; for I trust to 
 
7 
 
 Early Settlements. 
 
 see you in my journey, and to be brought 
 on my way thitherward by you ; ” 4 and “ I 
 will come by you into Spain.” 5 Paul, we 
 know, journeyed only to places in which 
 Jews dwelt, or in which Jewish teach¬ 
 ings had been established, for only those 
 acquainted with Jewish doctrines could 
 understand him. At any rate, Jews dwelt 
 in Spain before the beginning of the fourth 
 century, for the council of Illiberis, held 
 in 305, devoted four decrees to the Jews, 
 forbiddin of the Christians to live on inti- 
 mate terms with them, this showing that 
 there must have been a considerable num¬ 
 ber of Jews living in Spain at that time. 
 Among these paragraphs are the follow¬ 
 ing : If heretics are unwilling to join the 
 Catholic Church, Catholic girls must not 
 be given to them in marriage ; but neither 
 to Jews nor to heretics should they be 
 given, because there can be no associa¬ 
 tion for the faithful with the unbeliever. 
 If parents act contrary to this prohibition, 
 they shall be cut off from communion for 
 five years. 6 
 
 If, then, any ecclesiastic or any of the 
 
8 
 
 Old European Jewries, 
 
 faithful partakes of food with Jews, he 
 shall be deprived of communion, so that 
 this may be corrected. 7 
 
 Owners (of land) are warned not to 
 permit their products which they receive 
 from God to be blessed by Jews, lest they 
 make our blessing useless and weak. If 
 anyone shall presume to do this after this 
 prohibition, he shall be excluded from the 
 church. 8 
 
 These decrees definitely prove that there 
 were Jews in Spain as early as 300. 
 
 As for France, or Gaul, as the province 
 was called in early days, it is unknown, 
 according to Graetz, when the Jews first 
 settled- there. 9 There is no proof of 
 their residence prior to the second cen¬ 
 tury. 
 
 Depping, 10 arguing from the expressions 
 of Constantine regarding the Jews of Co¬ 
 logne, concludes that they may have been 
 dwelling in some of the cities of north¬ 
 western Europe before the attention of 
 the Roman emperors was directed to them. 
 In a law of the Theodosian code 11 (com¬ 
 piled between 425 and 435), addressed to 
 
9 
 
 Early Settlements . 
 
 the prefect of Gaul, a favorable mention of 
 the Jews occurs, which would go to prove 
 that they were then firmly settled, and were 
 scattered throughout Gaul and Belgium. 
 
 According to tradition, Jews settled in 
 Germany in hoary antiquity. When, in 
 the time of the crusades, the Jews of 
 western Europe were held responsible for 
 the death of Jesus, and thousands upon 
 thousands of them were slaughtered by the 
 wild mobs on that account, some tale had 
 to be invented to disprove the charge, and 
 the Jews put forth the claim that they had 
 had a congregation in Worms long before 
 the time of Jesus, in fact, as early as the 
 days of Ezra, and that, therefore, they 
 were not concerned with nor responsible 
 for the crucifixion. According to another 
 tradition, the Jews of southern Germany 
 were descendants of the soldiers who had 
 sacked J erusalem. These soldiers, the Van- 
 giones—so ran the story—had selected 
 beautiful Jewish women as their portion 
 of the spoil, carried them to their quarters 
 on the Rhine and the Main, and there 
 consorted with them. Their children were 
 
io Old European Jewries. 
 
 reared as Jews by their mothers, and were 
 the founders of the Jewish communities 
 between Worms and M aye nee. 12 This, 
 however, is all legendary. The earliest reli¬ 
 able notices of the settlement of Jews in 
 German cities inform us that there were 
 Jews in Cologne in the fourth century, 13 in 
 Magdeburg, Merseburg 14 and Ratisbon 15 in 
 the tenth, and in Mayence, Speyer, Worms 
 and Treves 16 in the eleventh. As for Nu¬ 
 remberg, one chronicler states that Jews 
 dwelt there in the year ioo, another makes 
 it as early as 46, but historical data do not 
 justify us in considering their residence 
 there as assured before the time of Em¬ 
 peror Henry IV in the eleventh century. 17 
 Undoubtedly, Jews did dwell in the Ger¬ 
 man cities before the tenth and eleventh 
 centuries, for in those times they were 
 present in large numbers, but no earlier 
 archives and authentic documents mention 
 them. 
 
 As for the Jews in England, the first, 
 notices we have of their presence in that 
 country before the Norman conquest are 
 in the collections of canon laws made by 
 
Early Settlements. 11 
 
 Theodoras, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and Egbert, Archbishop of York, for the 
 regulation of the church. By these laws 
 the Jews are subjected to much the same 
 prohibitions as those formulated by the 
 church councils. Theodorus was arch¬ 
 bishop from 669 to 691, and Egbert, from 
 735 to 766. 18 There is one more notice of 
 the residence of Jews in England in early 
 days. A document issued by King Wit- 
 glaff, of Mercia, in 833, confirms the right 
 of the monks of the cloister of Croyland 
 to all the possessions given them by earlier 
 kings of Mercia, nobles and other faithful 
 Christians, and also to those received from 
 Jews as gift, pledge or otherwise. 19 
 
 All argument as to the earlier residence 
 of Jews in these lands is necessarily con¬ 
 jectural ; it seems justifiable to conclude 
 that they settled wherever a home was of¬ 
 fered them, but until positive proofs are 
 produced to the contrary, we must regard 
 those odven above as the earliest authentic 
 
 O 
 
 notices. The first settlements of Jews 
 in Eurooean lands are still shrouded in 
 
 X 
 
 mvsterv. 20 
 
1 2 Old European Jewries . 
 
 Up to the time of the crusades the con¬ 
 dition of the Jews in Europe was bearable. 
 There were outbursts of the persecuting 
 spirit now and then, notably in the reigns 
 of the Visigothic kings in Spain and the 
 Merovingian in France ; there were bitter 
 attacks made against them by churchmen, 
 such as Amolo and Agobard, of Lyons ; 
 but compared with the fiendish treatment 
 inaugurated by the mobs on their way to 
 Palestine to conquer the sepulcher of their 
 Lord, the life of the Jews during the first 
 ten Christian centuries was almost blissful. 
 They were free citizens, could dwell wher¬ 
 ever they liked, and were on terms of 
 friendship and intimacy with the Christian 
 population. If they had not been, decrees 
 would not have been passed by the church 
 councils forbidding such intimacy. They 
 followed what pursuits they pleased, and 
 on the whole led peaceful lives. But with 
 the fanatical cry resounding throughout 
 Europe at the time of the crusades : “ Ex¬ 
 terminate the enemies of Christ at home 
 before fioditincr against them in the far 
 
 o o o 
 
 East,” the terrible woes of the Jews began, 
 
Early Settlements . 13 
 
 and the bloody chapter of the persecutions 
 of centuries was opened. The J ew was safe 
 nowhere in France, Germany, England and 
 Austria, the countries especially affected 
 by the crusades. The mobs, incited by 
 the priesthood, robbed, plundered, out¬ 
 raged, murdered, exterminated. In those 
 dark times, to protect the Jews as far as 
 possible from the persecutions of the pop¬ 
 ulace and the venom of the priesthood, 
 and to assure their right of residence in 
 the different cities and districts, the em¬ 
 perors of the Holy Roman Empire and 
 the kings of various countries took them 
 under their special protection, for pecuni¬ 
 ary considerations, of course, and the Jews 
 became the so-called servi camera, servants 
 of the chamber, of the emperor or king. 
 The idea gained ground that the Jews 
 were subject to the emperor directly, were 
 to be protected by him everywhere, and 
 had to pay for this protection. This ser¬ 
 vitude did not mean that they were slaves 
 or serfs, with whose life or goods the em¬ 
 peror or king could do as he pleased, but 
 merely that they had to pay tribute for his 
 
14 Old European Jewries . 
 
 protection. In the end it virtually robbed 
 them of their freedom, since these rulers 
 did with them much as they wished. The 
 exact date of the beginning of this re¬ 
 lation cannot be determined. The em¬ 
 perors pleased themselves with the fiction 
 that this subjection and protection began 
 with the taking of Jerusalem by Titus; 
 that the Jews came under the protection 
 of the Roman emperors at that time, and 
 that, as they were the legitimate succes¬ 
 sors of the emperors of Rome, they ac¬ 
 quired the rights of the latter. This con¬ 
 tention is not worthy of serious considera¬ 
 tion. The servitude of the chamber was 
 a new institution, called forth by the terri¬ 
 ble calamities that befell the Jews, and was 
 at the time welcomed as a boon, as almost 
 anything would have been that promised 
 respite and deliverance. Graetz 21 says that 
 in Germany this protection was systematic¬ 
 ally instituted in the reign of Frederick 
 Barbarossa. Henry IV protected them 
 in 1103. Conrad III, during the second 
 crusade, gave the Jews who applied to him 
 for protection refuge in Nuremberg. Al- 
 
*5 
 
 Early Settlements. 
 
 though there are these instances of pro¬ 
 tection in the twelfth, yet according to 
 Stobbe 22 it was only in the thirteenth cen¬ 
 tury that the institution of servi earnerce 
 was established. In the reign of Frederick 
 11 , 22 the Jews are called special servants of 
 the chamber, and in 1246 Conrad IV calls 
 the J ews of Frankfort servi earner ce nostree. 
 
 In France and England, 23 a like relation 
 was supposed to hold between the Jews 
 and the kings. This supposition of the 
 special jurisdiction of the emperor or 
 king over the Jews exerted a great influ¬ 
 ence upon their residence in various cities 
 and districts. Jews were looked upon in 
 one light only, viz., as a source of rev¬ 
 enue. For example, in 1407, Emperor 
 Rupert commanded that the Jews be not 
 too heavily burdened, lest they be forced 
 to emigrate, and the cities so suffer a dimi¬ 
 nution of income; in 1480, Frederick III 
 commanded that the Jews of Ratisbon be 
 treated in such a manner that they might 
 restore their fortunes in five years to an 
 extent sufficient to enable them to pay the 
 emperor 10,000 gulden. As they were so 
 
16 Old European Jewries. 
 
 great a source of income, the emperor, 
 when in need, often sold the Jews of a city 
 to princes, counts or bishops for a stipu¬ 
 lated sum, with the understanding that 
 thereafter the purchaser was to enjoy the 
 income derived from taxing them. He 
 sometimes even sold the right to parties 
 not connected with the government of 
 the cities in which the Jews lived. For 
 instance, in 1263, the Jews of Worms 
 were turned over to the jurisdiction of the 
 bishop of Speyer; in 1279, the Jews of 
 the dioceses of Strasburg and Basle, to 
 the bishop of Basle. 24 
 
 Often, if the emperor owed money to 
 some ruler or bishop, he gave the Jews 
 over to him for a number of years, until 
 taxes equal to the debt were collected ; or, 
 if he was in need of money, he borrowed 
 it on the same security ; and if a ruler, 
 noble or priest was in debt to the citizens, 
 he did the same. The archbishop of 
 Mayence was in debt to the citizens of Er¬ 
 furt ; his income from the Jews of Erfurt, 
 whose protection or, in other words, the 
 right to tax whom, had been transferred 
 
Early Settlements . 17 
 
 to him by the emperor, was 100 marks a 
 year; this income he granted the citizens 
 of the city for four years. The emperors 
 also often sold to cities the rights over the 
 Jews. It was the most convenient manner 
 of raising money. It can be well under¬ 
 stood how all this affected the residence 
 of the Jews in the cities. They were 
 granted the right to dwell there, because 
 they were sources of revenue. Otherwise 
 they would not have been tolerated long. 
 
 The right of residence in places in which 
 they had not yet dwelt was also a privilege 
 sold or granted by the emperor. It was, 
 indeed, a privilege for a ruler to have Jews 
 in his domain, for it meant a certain in¬ 
 come, and as princes were always in need 
 of money, this permission to have Jews 
 was much sought for. The technical term 
 for this permission was Judceos tenereE 
 or Judceos habere , the right to keep or to 
 have Jews. It can be seen how precarious 
 their residence everywhere was ; they had 
 the right to dwell not as men, but as tax¬ 
 able property on a footing with all other 
 sources of income. They had to pay for 
 
18 Old European Jewries . 
 
 the mere privilege of living, and even then 
 had not the freedom to choose their dwell¬ 
 ing place. For the most part, a special 
 quarter was assigned to them. 
 
 The conditions of their residence having 
 been discussed, the consideration of the 
 place of dwelling granted them by their 
 masters, the rulers and the peoples of 
 European lands, may now be turned to. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE INSTITUTION OF THE GHETTO. 
 
 Every possible method to degrade and 
 harass the J ews, and mark them off from the 
 remainder of the population was invented 
 and employed in the dark, mediaeval days. 
 Decrees innumerable, regulating the life of 
 the Jews and their intercourse with Chris¬ 
 tians, were passed at church council upon 
 church council, and incorporated into the 
 canon law, and often into civil legislation. 
 Laws prohibiting them to hold offices, to 
 eat or associate with Christians, to employ 
 Christian nurses or servants, to appear on 
 the streets during Passion Week, and many 
 more of the same kind, were enacted time 
 and again. But all such prohibitions, irri¬ 
 tating and troublesome as they were, were 
 yet naught compared with two regulations 
 which only fiendish ingenuity could have 
 invented to crush unfortunates whose only 
 lay in the fact that the faith they 
 (19) 
 
 crime 
 
20 Old European Jewries. 
 
 confessed was a reproach to the claims of 
 Christianity. One was the device hit upon 
 by Pope Innocent III, decreed by the 
 Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, and 
 thereupon by every church council of that 
 century convened anywhere in Europe— 
 from Oxford in England, in 1222, to Buda 
 in Hungary, in 1279—compelling every 
 Jew to wear on his clothes a mark, usually 
 a piece of yellow cloth, by which he might 
 be at once known as a Jew. From that 
 time on the Jew was a marked creature. 
 The command was received by the unfor¬ 
 tunates with a wail of despair resounding 
 throughout Europe. Effort upon effort 
 was made to have it revoked or to evade it, 
 but all in vain. It was the will of the church, 
 and the Jew had to submit. The other 
 device adopted to completely isolate the 
 Jews was to shut them up in separate quar¬ 
 ters, originally called vicus Judceorum , 
 later known as Jttdengasse, Judenstrasse or 
 Jiidenviertel in Germany, as Ghetto in 
 Italy, as Judiaria in Portugal, as Juiverie 
 in France, as Carrier a in Provence and 
 Comtat Venaissin. Here, penned up like 
 
21 
 
 Institution of the Ghetto . 
 
 cattle, they were to live apart from the 
 Christians. This systematic exclusion be¬ 
 gan with the fourteenth century. Before 
 that time Jews had inhabited quarters by 
 themselves, but from choice, not because 
 they had been forced into them. 
 
 What a picture the Ghetto recalls ! The 
 narrow, gloomy streets, with the houses 
 towering high on either side ; the sunlight 
 rarely streaming in ; situated in the worst 
 slums of the city ; shut off by gates barred 
 and bolted every night with chains and 
 locks, none permitted to enter or depart 
 from sundown to sunrise ! The solution had 
 at last been found ; the Jew was effectually 
 excluded. The Christian no longer would 
 be corrupted and contaminated by the close 
 proximity of the followers of the superstitio 
 et perfidia Judaic a, “ the Jewish supersti¬ 
 tion and perfidy.” For four centuries this 
 lasted. As we to-day remove the victims 
 of a pestilence far away from the inhabited 
 portions of our cities, from fear of con¬ 
 tagion, so the Jews were cut off by the 
 walls of the Ghetto as though stricken 
 with some loathsome disease that might 
 
22 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 carry misery and death unto others if they 
 lived in close contact with them. The 
 Ghetto has been well stigmatized as a 
 ‘‘pest-like isolation.” 26 Speaking of the 
 sixteenth century one writer says : “ Stone 
 walls arose in all places wherein Jews 
 dwelt, shutting off their quarters like 
 pesthouses ; the Ghetto had become epi¬ 
 demic.” 27 
 
 At first, as was said above, this dwelling 
 in separate quarters was not compulsory; 
 the Jews lived together in their own quar¬ 
 ters before hostile legislation forced them 
 into the Ghettos. For this we can assign 
 several reasons. One was their fear of 
 the remainder of the population, and 
 another their esprit de corps. They natur¬ 
 ally felt that if they lived together, they 
 could assist one another better in case of 
 need. In some instances, in fact, it was 
 considered a favor when the temporal or 
 ecclesiastical ruler of a city assigned them 
 a quarter in which they would be pro¬ 
 tected, as Bishop Rudiger of Speyer did 
 in 1084. 28 According to some histori¬ 
 ans, 29 their inhabiting separate quarters 
 
Institution of the Ghetto. 23 
 
 was due to the fact that in mediaeval 
 times people of the same industrial, social 
 or commercial class were accustomed to 
 dwell together in certain streets, and the 
 Jews, forming a separate community whose 
 center was the synagogue, naturally lived 
 together. Whatever truth there may be 
 in this contention (and the strong feeling 
 of a common religion and a common past 
 did hold the Jews together), there can be 
 no doubt that the authorities later enclosed 
 them in separate quarters to disgrace 
 them and prevent their having too inti¬ 
 mate relations with the Christians. Such 
 is the reason given in the decrees, quoted 
 in a subsequent chapter, ordering their 
 dwelling in separate quarters. 
 
 The names applied to these Jewish quar¬ 
 ters in different countries, noted above, 
 are readily explained, with the exception 
 of the one now commonly adopted in all 
 languages to designate the isolation of the 
 Jews in Christian communities, viz., the 
 word Ghetto. There have been various 
 explanations of the word. Its form points 
 to Italian origin, and in truth, it was first 
 
24 Old European Jewries. 
 
 used of the Jewish quarters in Italian cities. 
 Italian Jews derived the word, which they 
 spelled g-u-e-t-o , from the Hebrew word 
 get , “ bill of divorce,” finding the idea of 
 divorce expressed by the one term, and 
 that of exclusion in the other, sufficiently 
 analagous to point to a common origin. 
 Another explanation connects the word 
 Ghetto with the German Gitter , “bars.” 30 
 This suggestion has not much in its favor. 
 That the Ghetto resembled nothing so 
 much as a barred cage is true enough, but 
 a likeness of this kind is not sufficient to 
 found an etymological explanation upon. 
 Still another and more plausible explana¬ 
 tion has been offered for the origin of the 
 word. It is traced to Venice, in which a sep¬ 
 arate Jewish quarter existed in 1516. The 
 Jewish quarter was called Ghetto, because 
 it lay in the vicinity of a cannon foundry, 
 which in Italian is termed ghetaE This 
 designation, belonging first only to the 
 Venetian Jewry, soon became general. 
 Berliner adduces, as an example of simi¬ 
 larly wide application of a special term de¬ 
 rived from a particular locality, the word 
 
25 
 
 Institution of the Ghetto. 
 
 catacombs, the name of the subterranean 
 burial vaults of Rome, derived from the 
 first burial place of the kind, which was 
 situated ad Catacombas. I may also men¬ 
 tion the suggestion that the word is an 
 
 oo 
 
 abbreviation of the Italian borghetto, small 
 burg or quarter. 32 
 
 The fifteenth century may be set as the 
 time in which the Ghetto was established 
 as the legal dwelling place of the Jews. 
 As mentioned above, before that time they 
 had dwelt apart, but the isolation was op¬ 
 tional, at times sought as a privilege. But 
 from the fifteenth century on, Ghettos 
 became general ; in almost every city in 
 which Jews dwelt, a Ghetto was formed. 
 In the next chapter will be given some 
 council and papal decrees on the subject. 
 At present, it will suffice to take a rapid 
 survey of the European lands, to see how 
 general the Ghettos were. Comparatively 
 few of the cities will be mentioned, for, as 
 one, so all. 
 
 In Portugal, even before the fifteenth 
 century, in all cities and places in which 
 over ten Jews lived, there was a separate 
 
26 Old European Jewries. 
 
 Jewish quarter, known as Judiaria. In 
 Lisbon, the chief city, there were several 
 Judiarias, and in all other cities Jewish 
 quarters existed. These Judiarias were 
 closed every evening when the bells 
 sounded for prayer, and were guarded by 
 two watchmen appointed by the king. 
 Any Jew found outside of the Judiaria 
 after the first three tollings of the bells 
 was fined ten liveres, or, according to 
 an order of King Dom Pedro, was whip¬ 
 ped through the city, and in case of repe¬ 
 tition of the offense, punished with confis¬ 
 cation of his property. These laws being 
 so stringent, the Jews petitioned for their 
 amelioration. King Joao I promised to 
 lighten their burden, and in 1412 issued 
 new regulations. According to these, every 
 Jew over fifteen years of age found out¬ 
 side the Judiaria after the given signal, 
 was fined for the first offense five thou¬ 
 sand liveres, for the second ten thou¬ 
 sand, and for the third was publicly whip¬ 
 ped. These laws were made bearable by 
 favorable exceptions. For example, if a 
 Jew, returning from a distant point, was 
 
27 
 
 Institution of the Ghetto. 
 
 delayed beyond the given hour, he was 
 not subjected to punishment ; he was 
 merely compelled to take the shortest way 
 to the Judiaria, and in case it was closed, 
 he could spend the night elsewhere. 33 
 
 In Italy the first Ghetto in which the 
 Jews were forced to live was established 
 in Venice, in March, 1516, 34 on the island 
 Lunga Spina. The celebrated Ghetto of 
 Rome, possibly the worst and most noisome 
 of all, was established in 1556, by Pope 
 Paul IV Caraffa, of evil memory among 
 Jews. 35 With this precedent, the Ghetto 
 became a common institution. The other 
 Italian cities quickly followed, Turin, Flor¬ 
 ence, Pisa, Ferrara, 36 Genoa, 37 Mantua, 38 
 Beneventum 39 and Naples. 40 
 
 In Sicily the Jews were placed in sepa¬ 
 rate quarters, long before it was done in 
 the Italian cities. In 1312, Frederick II 
 ordered that the Jews of Palermo should 
 live apart from the Christians, in fact, out¬ 
 side of the city walls ; they were, however, 
 soon after permitted to occupy a quarter 
 within the city, 41 in the vicinity of the 
 town hall and the Augustinian cloister. 
 
28 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 The Moschita Court adjoining contained 
 the synagogue, a hospital and forty-four 
 dwellings. 42 
 
 In 1392, the monk Julian obtained per¬ 
 mission, as royal commissioner, to drive 
 all Sicilian Jews into Ghettos. 43 In Tra¬ 
 pani, the Jewish quarter lay next to the 
 city wall. When this needed repairs, the 
 citizens wished to put the burden of the 
 repairs upon the Jewish community, but 
 the government compelled all to share in 
 the expense. 44 In Castro a special officer, 
 mentioned in a document of the year 1416, 
 had jurisdiction over the Ghetto. 45 
 
 In Germany, the freedom of the Jews 
 began to be impaired in the middle of the 
 twelfth century, the time at which their 
 residence outside of Jewish quarters was 
 first forbidden. 46 In Cologne they were 
 compelled to live in their own quarter as 
 early as this. A porta Judceorum , “Jews’ 
 gate,” is mentioned in 1206, a propugna- 
 culum Judceorum , “Jews’bulwark,” in 1246. 
 According to the Cologne city records of 
 the year 1341, the town officer was to have 
 the keys of the Jews’ gates ; he was to lock 
 
2 9 
 
 Institution of the Ghetto. 
 
 the gates at sundown, and unlock them at 
 prime, for which service the Jews had to 
 pay him twenty marks yearly. 47 The Jews 
 of Ratisbon lived in the Judenviertelf sep¬ 
 arated from the rest of the city by three 
 large and three small gates, locked every 
 evening and opened every morning. In 
 Nuremberg, in 1349, a special quarter was 
 assigned to them, and when their numbers 
 had greatly increased, the authorities were 
 forced to name certain other streets in 
 which they might acquire property. 49 In 
 1460, the Jews of Frankfort were forced 
 to leave their dwellings in all portions of 
 the city, and live in one assigned street. 50 
 Most German cities had their Judengcisse. 
 In Ueberlingen, the street in which the 
 Jews lived was so designated. A porta 
 Judceorum in Worms is mentioned in 1231. 
 To keep stricter watch over the doings of 
 the Jews, the archbishop of Treves, in con- 
 juction with the civic authorities, concluded 
 in 1362 that the Jews should have but three 
 gates leading into the streets of the city, 
 and that the rest of the gates should be 
 walled up. In some cities, the brothels 
 
30 
 
 Old European Jewries . 
 
 were transferred to the Judengasse , this 
 being regarded as of ill repute. In 1375, 
 the council of Schweidnitz, in answer to 
 a petition of the Jews, promised that no 
 fallen women should thereafter be trans¬ 
 ferred to their street. 51 A recent writer 
 mentions two Jewish gravestones of the 
 year 1379 in Rothenburg an der Tauber 
 as reminding him of the days when the 
 Jews all dwelt in the Gassed 2 The Jewish 
 quarter of Speyer dates from the year 
 1084. 53 At first granted as a privilege, it, 
 too, became the enforced dwelling place 
 of the unfortunate people. So throughout 
 Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Eastern 
 lands, the Gasse became an established 
 institution. Karl Emil Franzos sneaks of 
 
 x 
 
 the Ghetto of his native town as an “ out¬ 
 cast quarter, which stretches along the un¬ 
 healthy morasses of the river of our town. 
 Pestilential vapors poison the atmosphere, 
 which remains gloomy in spite of the 
 clearest sunshine.” 
 
 The private houses of the Ghettos, not¬ 
 ably in the larger cities, were high and 
 narrow, and harbored several families. 
 
Institution of the Ghetto . 31 
 
 However much the Jews’ quarters in dif¬ 
 ferent localities may have varied in appear¬ 
 ance, two homes were common to them 
 all, the synagogue and “the home of the 
 dead.” The synagogue was naturally the 
 center of the communal life of the Jews ; 
 their religion was the bond that joined 
 them. In the synagogue, they assembled 
 every day for service, and in prayer there, 
 they gained the strength and endurance 
 necessary to live their lives. Their 
 religion was an integral portion of their 
 existence, and dominated its every hour. 
 Their God was ever in their thoughts, 
 and very near unto them. Their religion 
 was truly their life. And that other spot 
 found in every Ghetto, that last home of 
 the mortal frame, too often was the only 
 resting place they could hope for. In the 
 Ghetto, it was called the “good place,” 
 and who knows unto how many, during 
 the sad days marked by fanaticism, it 
 appeared as a good place, better than any 
 other earthly habitation. Usually situated 
 at the end of the Gasse , the cemetery was 
 a common feature of all Jewish quarters. 
 
32 Old European Jewries. 
 
 The Jews found rest in the synagogue and 
 in the burying ground; the one was the 
 emblem of the living faith, the undying 
 bond that joined the Jews all over the 
 earth ; the other, the eternal home of the 
 generations that had been steadfast to the 
 faith of the fathers, and had been filled 
 with the hope of a better and brighter 
 future, in which the time of suffering 
 would be fulfilled, and their God would 
 bring peace and rest to His people, was 
 the symbol of fealty in death to the same 
 faith. In a measure, that time of surcease 
 of suffering has come. The Jews in the 
 civilized world are as free as other men. 
 God has brought liberty and freedom to 
 them. May the myriads who lived, suf¬ 
 fered, prayed, endured, hoped, and died in 
 exclusion, rest in peace ! Their descend¬ 
 ants are enjoying the benefits of that 
 better day which they felt sure that the 
 God of mercy would bring about, as they 
 expressed it, “in His own time.” 
 
 There was one other communal house 
 in some Jewish quarters, which should be 
 referred to. Sad as was their position, 
 
Institution of the Ghetto . 33 
 
 the Ghetto Jews had their joys and pleas¬ 
 ures, not only in the family circle, but also 
 in their communal life. It must not be 
 imagined that they continually lived in 
 the shadow of exclusion. It was not con¬ 
 stantly present to their thoughts. Years 
 and centuries accustomed them to their 
 life, and the natural buoyancy of human 
 creatures is bound to assert itself. There 
 were not always active persecutions, and 
 in quiet times, the life of the inhabitants 
 of the Ghetto flowed along much as 
 life elsewhere does, with its joy and 
 sorrow, its happiness and woe, its pleasure 
 and grief. For the joyous element, pro¬ 
 vision was made in what was known as 
 the “ Dance house.” The larger com¬ 
 munities, such as those at Frankfort, 
 Eger, Augsburg, Rothenburg, etc., had 
 their own dance houses, which, besides 
 serving the purpose indicated by their 
 name, when necessary, may have been 
 used as gathering places for more earnest 
 occasions. “ Here the Jewish girls could 
 appear without the two blue stripes on 
 their veils, and the men without the dis- 
 
34 Old European Jewries. 
 
 tineuishinof mark on their clothes or the 
 peaked hat on their heads.” 54 It is grati¬ 
 fying to think that there were bright 
 spots, too, in that long life of misery, 
 separation and exclusion. The very fact 
 that the Jews outlived the depression and 
 the evils of the cramped Ghetto existence, 
 and retained the elasticity of temperament 
 which still marks them, speaks volumes 
 for the optimism with which their faith 
 imbued them. Not all the wrongs and 
 ills of centuries could crush the spirit of 
 hope that had its well-springs in the words 
 of their prophets. A trustful earnestness 
 marked them, and tided them over the 
 evil times. The evil times that invented 
 the Ghetto are, it is to be hoped, gone 
 forever; the present, in western Europe 
 and in America, at least, is bright with 
 the promise of better things. In the cities 
 of the western and southern European 
 lands, “ the Ghetto doors have been re¬ 
 moved ; the Jew is no longer cooped up 
 in the worst slums of the city, and sepa¬ 
 rated from his fellow townsmen by gates 
 and chains,” 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GHETTO IN CHURCH LEGISLA¬ 
 TION. 
 
 In order that the various motives that 
 led to the establishment of the Ghetto or 
 Jewish quarter may be better understood, 
 some of the original acts of church authori- 
 ties and councils ordering the dwelling 
 apart of Jews, and stating the reasons 
 therefor will be given here. 
 
 Reference has been made several times 
 in the foregoing pages to the act of Rudi¬ 
 ger, Bishop of Speyer, by which, in the 
 year 1084, he conferred upon the Jews of 
 his diocese what were then considered 
 privileges. He assigned them a separate 
 portion of the city surrounded by a wall, 
 gave them their own burying ground, 
 granted them jurisdiction in their own 
 affairs, etc. This was before the days in 
 which the Ghetto was instituted as a mark 
 of disgrace, but the document 55 is interest¬ 
 ing from the fact that it is the oldest 
 
 (35 ) 
 
36 Old European Jewries . 
 
 extant dealing with a distinctly Jewish 
 quarter. 
 
 “ In the name of the holy and indivisible 
 Trinity, when I, Rudiger, also called 
 Huozmann, Bishop of Speyer, changed 
 the town of Speyer into a city, I thought 
 that I would add to the honor of our 
 place by bringing in Jews. Accordingly, 
 I located them outside of the community 
 and habitation of the other citizens, and 
 that they might not readily be disturbed 
 by the insolence of the populace, I sur¬ 
 rounded them with a wall. Their place 
 of habitation I had acquired in a just 
 manner ; the hill partly with money, partly 
 by exchange; the valley I had received 
 from (some) heirs as a gift. That place, 
 I say, I gave over to them on the condi¬ 
 tion that they would pay three pounds 
 and a half of the money of Speyer annu¬ 
 ally for the use of the (monastery) 
 brothers. Within their dwelling place 
 and outside thereof, up to the harbor of 
 the ships, and in the harbor itself, I 
 granted them full permission to change 
 gold and silver ; to buy and sell anything 
 
37 
 
 Church Legislation. 
 
 they pleased, and that same permission I 
 gave them throughout the state. In addi- 
 tion, I gave them out of the property of 
 the church a burial place with hereditary 
 rights. I also granted the following 
 rights: If any stranger Jew lodge with 
 them (temporarily), he shall be free from 
 tax. Further, just as the city governor 
 adjudicates between the citizens, so the 
 head synagogue officer is to decide every 
 case that may arise between Jews or 
 against them. But if, by chance, he can 
 not decide, the case shall be brought 
 before the bishop and his chamberlains. 
 Night watches, guards, fortifications, they 
 shall provide only for their own district, 
 the guards, indeed, in common with the 
 servants. Nurses and servants they shall 
 be permitted to have from among us. 
 Slaughtered meat which, according to their 
 law, they are not permitted to eat, they 
 can sell to Christians, and Christians may 
 buy it. Finally, as the crowning mark of 
 kindness, I have given them laws better 
 than the Jewish people has in any city of 
 the German empire. 
 
38 Old European Jewries. 
 
 Lest any of my successors diminish this 
 favor and privilege, or force them to pay 
 greater tribute, on the plea that they 
 acquired their favorable status unjustly, 
 and did not receive it from a bishop, I 
 have left this document as a testimony of 
 the above mentioned favors. And that 
 the remembrance of this matter may last 
 through the centuries, I have corroborated 
 it under my hand and seal, as may be seen 
 below. 
 
 Given on the fifteenth of September, in 
 the year of the Incarnation 1084, in the 
 twelfth year since the above mentioned 
 bishop commenced to rule in this state.” 
 
 This document mentions one peculiarity 
 of legislation in regard to the Jews, to 
 which a few words may be devoted. The 
 bishop states that one of the great favors 
 granted the Jews of his diocese was that a 
 Jew passing through the city could lodge 
 with the Jews during his temporary stay 
 without having to pay a tax for the privi¬ 
 lege. In the light of known facts, this 
 was, indeed, a noteworthy concession. In 
 most German cities a non-resident Jew 
 
39 
 
 Church Legislation. 
 
 was not permitted to stay, even over night; 
 to stop for a longer time was altogether 
 out of the question. Other cities granted 
 the privilege, but only for a fixed pecu¬ 
 niary consideration. The privileges here 
 granted are remarkable, and the bishop is 
 quite correct in his statement that his 
 Jews lived under more favorable laws than 
 those in any other German city. 
 
 The real reason that prompted church¬ 
 men to legislate that Jews should occupy 
 separate quarters is given in the following 
 clause taken from the proceedings of the 
 ecclesiastical synod held at Breslau* in the 
 year 1266: 
 
 “ Since the land of Poland is a new 
 acquisition in the body of Christianity, lest 
 perchance the Christian people be, on this 
 account, the more easily infected with the 
 superstition and depraved morals of the 
 Jews dwelling among them * * * we 
 command that the Jews dwelling in this 
 province of Gnesen shall not live among 
 the Christians, but shall have their houses 
 near or next to one another in some se¬ 
 questered part of the state or town, so 
 
40 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 that their dwelling place shall be sepa¬ 
 rated from the common dwelling place of 
 the Christians by a hedge, a wall or a 
 ditch.” 56 
 
 The third provincial council of Ravenna, 
 held in 1311, desiring to put an end to the 
 free commingling of Christians and Jews, 
 apparently in vogue in that province, de¬ 
 creed, among other restrictive measures, 
 one in regard to the habitation of the Jews : 
 
 “Jews shall not dwell longer than a 
 month anywhere, except in those places 
 in which they have synagogues.” 57 
 
 It appears, however, that the commands 
 of this council were not very much re¬ 
 spected, for another held in the same place 
 in 1317 deals more stringently with the 
 same subject. The fourteenth rubric of 
 this council begins, “Although the Jews 
 are tolerated by the church, yet they ought 
 not to be tolerated to the detriment or 
 severe injury of the faithful; because it 
 frequently happens that they return to 
 Christians contumely for favors, contempt 
 for familiarity. Therefore, the provincial 
 council held at Ravenna some time since 
 
4i 
 
 Church Legislation. 
 
 o 
 
 (see above ), thinking that many scandals 
 have arisen from their too free commingling 
 
 o o 
 
 with Christians, decreed that they should 
 wear a wheel of yellow cloth on their outer 
 garments, and their women a like wheel 
 on their heads, so that they may be distin¬ 
 guished from Christians,” and then it 
 continues, in reference to our subject: 
 “And Jews shall not dwell longer than 
 a month anywhere except in those places in 
 which they have synagogues. But because 
 some, not being able to abstain from for¬ 
 bidden things, disregard the sound decree 
 of the aforementioned council, and pretend 
 ignorance, a penalty shall teach them to 
 know how grave an offense it is to dis- 
 regard ecclesiastical decrees ; and with the 
 approbation of the sacred council, desiring 
 to prevent this offense hereafter, we warn 
 all clerics as well as laymen of our province, 
 and we decree that two months after the 
 publication of this decree no one shall 
 erect houses for Jews, nor rent or sell 
 them any already built, nor under any pre¬ 
 tense grant them (any of their houses), or 
 permit them to occupy them. If any one 
 
42 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 acts contrary to this, he shall by that very 
 deed incur excommunication, from which 
 he cannot be absolved until he shall satisfy 
 the above mentioned requirements.” 58 
 
 In this manner the Jews were to be 
 made impossible. Not even a separate 
 quarter was granted them. No new settle¬ 
 ment of Jews was to be permitted any¬ 
 where. They had to be satisfied with the 
 permission to live, in the province of Ra¬ 
 venna, in places in which they chanced to 
 have a synagogue. 
 
 The council of Valencia, in Spain, held 
 in 1388,went further, and defined clearly 
 the habitations that Jews might occupy. 
 Its regulations include Saracens, Jews and 
 Saracens being placed in the same cate¬ 
 gory as contaminating Christians. By 
 associating with them, “ the faithful incur 
 serious danger to body and mind,” as 
 it was put. The church dignitaries ex¬ 
 pressed themselves thus : “We decree, that 
 Jews and Saracens shall no longer be per¬ 
 mitted to have houses, inns or other dwel¬ 
 ling places among Christians, nor Chris¬ 
 tians among Jews and Saracens; but Jews 
 
43 
 
 Church Legislation. 
 
 and Saracens shall confine themselves 
 to the limits assigned to them in certain 
 cities and places. Where the aforesaid 
 Jews and Saracens have not had limits or 
 confines of this kind assigned to them for 
 habitation, there shall be designated, and 
 assigned to them in the aforementioned 
 cities and places, certain quarters separated 
 from the habitations of the Christians, 
 within which they shall dwell, nor shall 
 they be permitted under any circumstances 
 to tarry without the said limits. * * * As 
 for Christians who shall presume to live 
 within the quarters assigned, or to be as¬ 
 signed, to Jews or Saracens, if, within two 
 months from the day of publication of 
 these orders in the Cathedral church of 
 the state or diocese in which they dwell, 
 they do not have a care to betake them¬ 
 selves to dwelling among Christians, they 
 shall be forced to this by ecclesiastical 
 censure. If, two months after the limits 
 are set for the Jews and Saracens, or after 
 the said limits have been made by the 
 decree and will of the king, or other ruler, 
 ecclesiastical or temporal, of the state or 
 
44 Old European Jewries . 
 
 place, they are unwilling or neglect to retire 
 within them, they shall be removed from 
 Christian communion.” 59 
 
 The general church council of Basle, 
 held in 1434, put the matter very clearly, 
 when, in its nineteenth session, it decreed, 
 among other laws affecting the Jews: 
 “ That too great converse with them 
 (Jews) may be avoided, they shall be com¬ 
 pelled to live in certain places in the cities 
 and towns, separated from the dwelling 
 place of the Christians and as far from the 
 churches as possible.” 60 
 
 The council of Milan, convened in 1565, 
 during the papacy of Pius IV, the succes¬ 
 sor of Paul IV, who had, by special decree, 
 instituted the Ghetto of Rome, demands in 
 strong terms the establishment of Ghettos 
 everywhere. The commands of preceding 
 councils in this matter had not always met 
 with obedience, but the example set by 
 the pope himself in forcing the Jews of 
 his domain into the terrible Jew quarter 
 was emulated everywhere. 
 
 The words of the Milan council on this 
 subject are as follows: “We strenuously 
 
45 
 
 Church Legislation. 
 
 demand of the rulers that they shall desig¬ 
 nate in the different cities a certain place 
 in which Jews shall live apart from Chris¬ 
 tians. And if Jews have houses of their 
 own in (other portions of) the city, they 
 (the rulers) shall command them to be 
 sold to Christians within six months, in 
 actuality and not by any pretended con¬ 
 tract.” 61 
 
 The decrees given require no commen¬ 
 tary. They express explicitly enough the 
 reasons why the Jews were relegated to 
 separate quarters. They show also the 
 development of the sentiments towards 
 this people. It is a long way from the 
 mild document of Rudiger, of Speyer, 
 which granted them a special district as a 
 protection, to the harsh and positive com¬ 
 mands of the councils. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE JUDENGASSE OF FRANKFORT- 
 ON-THE-MAIN. 
 
 The best known and most celebrated of 
 all the Ghettos of Germany is that of 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main. Its history is re¬ 
 markable ; some of the most stirring events 
 in German-Jewish history took place there. 
 
 The Jews settled in Frankfort later than 
 in most of the German cities. As late as 
 1152 no Jews lived there. A congregation 
 was formed only towards the close of the 
 twelfth century. The first authentic notice 
 of the presence of Jews in the city is an 
 account in an old chronicle of a figdit 
 
 o 
 
 between Christians and Jews. 
 
 The Jews of Frankfort stood under the 
 
 direct protection of the emperor up to 
 
 1349, the year in which the city bought 
 
 the right over them, i. e. } the right to tax 
 
 them whenever need and occasion required. 
 
 It was in this year, after this acquisition 
 
 (46) 
 
The Judengasse of Frankfort . 47 
 
 by the city, that the greatest calamities 
 befell the Jews, not only in Frankfort, but 
 throughout Germany. The scourge known 
 as the Black Death raged throughout Eu¬ 
 rope. Its victims ran up to thousands and 
 hundreds of thousands. It is said that the 
 Jews escaped its ravages, or at least did 
 not succumb in such great numbers as the 
 Christian population. The cry was raised 
 that Jews had poisoned the wells. Then 
 began one of the most terrible persecu¬ 
 tions on record. The reports against 
 the Jews were spread from place to place 
 by the Flagellants, those bigoted fanatics 
 who swept the country like a whirlwind, 
 everywhere raising the cry of the guilt of 
 the Jews, and inciting the populace to rob 
 and exterminate the hated people. Their 
 residences were burnt to the ground. The 
 flames that destroyed the Jewish quarter 
 spread, and a large portion of Frankfort 
 lay in ashes. The whole Jewish commu¬ 
 nity perished ; at least there is no notice 
 preserved of any Jews that were saved. 
 The ground which they had owned fell to 
 the city. In 1360 permission was again 
 
48 Old European Jewries. 
 
 given to Jews to settle in the city. Money 
 was needed, and taxable property, all that 
 Jews were considered to be, was in de¬ 
 mand. Their condition after the return 
 was bearable. They were, as a matter 
 of course, not in possession of political 
 rights, nor could they hold office. They 
 were not taxed according to individual for¬ 
 tune, but had to pay a certain yearly sum 
 for every Jew, determined upon before¬ 
 hand. No Jews could be members of the 
 Rath , the council of citizens that governed 
 the affairs of the city. They were not 
 admitted into any military organization. 
 At this time, in the fourteenth century, 
 they could own real estate, and fix their 
 residence in any portion of the city. They 
 were not yet compelled to dwell in a cer¬ 
 tain street, although there was a so-called 
 Jewish quarter, in which most of the Jews 
 lived together from choice, for here was 
 the synagogue. Christians also lived in 
 that quarter, and between 1364 and 1375 
 the mayor dwelt there. 
 
 The council passed upon the rights of the 
 Jews in so-called Judenordnungen. From 
 
The Juclengasse of Frankfort . 49 
 
 the beginning of the fifteenth century 
 such an act was passed every three years. 
 This was a very profitable source of reve¬ 
 nue, for the Jews could not gain right of 
 residence for longer than this period, and 
 so, every three years, they had to pay 
 liberally to have the privilege renewed. It 
 was the sword of Damocles continually 
 hanging over their heads. The failure to 
 have a favorable act passed, of course, 
 meant expulsion, but money was all the 
 legislators wanted, and by means of money 
 the Jews succeeded in renewing the trien¬ 
 nial lease whenever the time expired. 
 
 In the act ( Judenordnung ) of 1460, all 
 the Jews were commanded to leave the 
 homes hitherto occupied by them, and 
 dwell together in one street set aside for 
 them. This is the decree establishing the 
 Judengasse or Ghetto. The decree gives 
 as the reason for instituting the Ghetto 
 the fact that many Jews lived in the 
 neighborhood of the chief church of the 
 city, and this proximity was looked upon 
 as a contamination and a desecration. 
 It was nothing short of an affront to 
 4 
 
50 Old European Jewries . 
 
 the Christian religion for Jews to hold 
 their services so near a church, since the 
 noise that the Jews made in chanting 
 durinof their devotions disturbed the 
 Christian service. Furthermore, it was 
 shameful that Jews should view the holy 
 host, and hear the church songs, as owing 
 to the nearness of their dwellings to the 
 church they could, and, therefore, the 
 Jews and their synagogue not only had to 
 be removed from such dangerous prox¬ 
 imity to the holy building of the Christ¬ 
 ians, but, what was more, they had to be 
 relegated to some portion of the city, and 
 be shut off by themselves, so that all inter¬ 
 course between them and the Christians 
 might be impossible. There was to be no 
 unduly close intimacy, lest the baneful 
 influence of the Jews result in harm to the 
 Christians with whom they might come 
 into contact. 
 
 As early as 1442, the council had been 
 ordered by Emperor Frederick III to 
 pass this decree, but it had refused to 
 obey his mandate. In 1458, the order 
 was repeated, and the council did his 
 
The Judengasse of Frankfort. 51 
 
 bidding. The quarter of the city to be 
 inhabited by the Jews was designated. 
 In 1460, work was begun on the new' 
 fudengasse , and in 1462 the Jews were 
 compelled to occupy it. It lay in a sparsely 
 inhabited portion of the city, and was 
 separated from the nearest dwellings of 
 the Christians in such a manner that the 
 Jews dwelt in a completely secluded por¬ 
 tion. It lay on the border between the 
 old and the new city, on a part of the 
 dried-up city-moat which ran along the 
 wall of the old city. By this wall it was 
 separated from the old city; by another 
 wall, recently erected, from the new city. 
 It had three entrances, one at the begin¬ 
 ning of the street, another at the end, and 
 the third in the middle of the wall. The 
 first two connected it with the new city, 
 the third with the old. 
 
 It must not for a moment be imagined 
 that the Jews accepted this decree with 
 equanimity. Up to this time they had 
 lived on a friendly footing with their 
 neighbors, and now to be shut up like 
 marked creatures in a pen, locked every 
 
52 Old European Jewries . 
 
 night, filled them with dismay. They tried 
 by every means to ward off the crushing 
 blow. Why, why should they be forced 
 to leave the dwellings they had hitherto 
 occupied ? They had been law-abiding, 
 harmless. They addressed a petition to 
 the council, in which, with the eagerness 
 of despair, they begged that the decree be 
 revoked, urging reasons, the strongest they 
 could find, why this dreaded order should 
 not be carried into effect. In their peti¬ 
 tion they said that the street appointed 
 for their dwelling would be so completely 
 separated from the city by the city wall 
 that if they needed help, the city would 
 not be able to assist them, and on the 
 other side lived only gardeners and people 
 employed in the woods by the day. Of 
 late, too, the Jews had been mocked, and 
 stoned, and threatened with violence in 
 the streets into which the gates of the 
 Ghetto led; how much more would this 
 be the case if in the future they were com¬ 
 pelled to go through those very streets 
 whenever they went outside of their 
 “street.” Besides, in so isolated a region, 
 
The Judengasse of Frankfort . 53 
 
 they would be exposed, at the time of the 
 two messen or fairs, to the abuse and rob¬ 
 bery of the many strangers who came to 
 the city on those occasions. At the close 
 of the petition, they offered, in order to 
 invalidate the chief reason urged for their 
 removal from their present homes, to have 
 the gate opposite the church closed, to 
 content themselves in the future with the 
 one exit on the opposite side, to build a 
 high wall about their present dwellings, 
 and back of them a second, to sell all the 
 houses standing in the vicinity of the 
 church, and rent houses on the opposite 
 side, and even to be satisfied to have the 
 entrance to the street on that side put 
 under lock and key. 
 
 All this they offered in order that they 
 might maintain their self-respect and pre¬ 
 vent the carrying out of the terrible meas¬ 
 ure which was to make of them, in a more 
 aggravated sense than hitherto, a people 
 apart. In spite of petition and appeal 
 they did not succeed. All the offers they 
 made did not assist their cause. Away 
 from the association with their fellow-men 
 
54 Old European yewries . 
 
 to the narrow, closed-up “street;” away 
 from the enjoyment of God’s light and air 
 to the sunless, close atmosphere of the 
 Gasse; away from house and home to the 
 prison-like tenements in which for well- 
 nigh four centuries mind and body were 
 to be stunted ! The unfortunates had a 
 premonition, as it were, of the terrible ef¬ 
 fects of this latest outrage perpetrated by 
 Christian legislation. In 1462 they were 
 compelled to remove from their dwellings 
 into the new street selected for them ; it 
 was termed at once New Egypt, because 
 the enforced settling of the Jews there 
 showed them to be slaves of the Chris¬ 
 tians, even as their fathers had been of the 
 Egyptians. Truly an apt comparison, for 
 the institution of the Ghetto marked the 
 beginning of a new slavery, and demon¬ 
 strated once again to the devoted people 
 how powerless they were, and how com¬ 
 pletely at the mercy of their masters. 
 They were made to feel that contact with 
 them was an abomination. Wherever they 
 gazed the word “ excluded ” met their 
 eyes—excluded from civic privileges, ex- 
 
The fudengasse of Frankfort . 55 
 
 eluded from political office and honor, 
 excluded from the trades, excluded from 
 the army, and now excluded from free 
 contact and conversation with others, as 
 though their touch was unholy, and their 
 proximity a curse. 
 
 The houses in the Gasse had been 
 erected by the city, also the synagogue, 
 the bath-house, the dance-hall and the 
 Jewish inn. On the other hand, all the 
 houses in which Jews had dwelt became 
 the property of the city, without compen¬ 
 sation to the owners, other than the use 
 of those assigned to them in their new 
 street. These houses were by no means 
 given to them as their property; for the 
 privilege of inhabiting them they had to 
 pay an annual sum into the city treasury. 
 One hundred and fifty years later the 
 houses of the Judengasse were at last de¬ 
 clared to be the property of their tenants, 
 but not the ground whereon they stood, 
 and in place of the house-rent, which they 
 had had to pay formerly, they now had to 
 pay ground-rent. After 1465 all new 
 buildings in the Gasse had to be erected 
 at the expense of the Jews. 
 
56 Old European Jewries. 
 
 It was a most gloomy street, twelve feet 
 broad, in its widest portion fifteen or six¬ 
 teen feet. A wagon could not turn in it, 
 and, that the great confusion incident upon 
 the many stoppages thus caused might be 
 avoided, the city council had the middle 
 entrance widened. The Gasse contained 
 one hundred and ninety houses, built very 
 close together, some of them very high 
 and containing manv souls, the one hun- 
 dred and ninety houses harboring four 
 hundred and forty-five families. In each 
 house there were two or three families, 
 and as the community consisted of between 
 twenty-five hundred and four thousand 
 persons, each house contained, on an av¬ 
 erage, between thirteen and twenty per¬ 
 sons. On account of the extreme nar¬ 
 rowness of the street and the height of 
 the buildings on either side, the tops 
 of the buildings seemed almost to touch 
 each other. The sun had little oppor¬ 
 tunity to penetrate here, and in this con¬ 
 finement the people were compelled to 
 spend their lives. They were forced not 
 only to live here; they could not leave 
 
The Jndengasse of Frankfort. 57 
 
 their “ street” even for recreation. The 
 rest of the city was closed to them. Every 
 night they were locked in. The gates at 
 the entrances of the Gasse were bolted at 
 sundown, and not opened till morning, 
 and on Sundays and all Christian and Jew¬ 
 ish holidays they were kept bolted all day. 
 Only in the most urgent cases was any one 
 permitted to go outside of the “street,” 
 and then only by a small door, built in each 
 gate. It might seem that all means of ex¬ 
 cluding and degrading these people had 
 been exhausted by shutting them up. But 
 no! the inventiveness of the legislators 
 went further. At no time were the Jews 
 to breathe the same fresh air with the citi¬ 
 zens of the city. In spite of their dark, 
 close, unhealthy dwelling place, they could 
 not go forth in leisure hours to walk on 
 the public promenades. By special legis¬ 
 lation it was enacted that no Jew should 
 walk in the Stadt Alice , the public pleas- 
 ance, the only place in the city, at that 
 time, for promenading. When, somewhat 
 later, the moats and ramparts surround¬ 
 ing the city were converted into squares 
 
58 Old European Jewries. 
 
 planted with trees and flowers, the Jews 
 were not permitted to use them, but had 
 to confine themselves to the path leading 
 to them. Can ingenuity go further in 
 fastening the marks of disgrace on an un¬ 
 fortunate community ? They were forbid¬ 
 den not only to live in the locality which 
 they might prefer, but to enjoy the invig¬ 
 orating air of God, a right denied not even 
 to the beasts of the field. 
 
 There were, too, some streets of the city, 
 to say nothing of the public squares, that 
 they scarcely dared tread upon. So, for 
 example, they were absolutely forbidden 
 to walk across the Pfarreisen, that is, the 
 spot adjoining the chief church, or through 
 the thoroughfares (employed as passages) 
 leading to other churches, or over the 
 so-called Holz und Zimmergraben. If a 
 Jew presumed to walk on any of these 
 forbidden places, his hat was snatched 
 from his head by passers-by. The Roemer- 
 berg, the space in front of the Roemer or 
 Rathhaus, they could use only at the time 
 of the fairs ( messen ), and then only on the 
 east side, the side opposite the city hall. 
 
The Judcngasse of Frankfort. 59 
 
 Yes, there was one occasion on which the 
 contamination of the Jew’s presence was 
 suffered even on the side of the space on 
 which the city hall stood. That was when 
 the Jews, on New Year’s Day, entered the 
 city hall with their gift of fine spices, 
 which they were expected to give to every 
 councilman, to express their allegiance to 
 the city fathers, and to convey their grati¬ 
 tude for the precious privilege of being 
 cramped in a dark, gloomy, unhealthy 
 spot. This was the only occasion on which 
 a Jew could enter the hall from the front; 
 if, at any other time, he had business that 
 required his presence in the city hall, he 
 had to enter from the rear. 
 
 Not only were there certain districts of 
 the city in which Jews were forbidden 
 to appear, but even on the streets on which 
 it was understood that they might walk, 
 they were not free from the abuse and 
 insults of the populace. The cry of hep / 
 hep / resounded whenever the unfortu¬ 
 nates showed themselves. They were 
 chased through the streets; stones and 
 mud were flung at them, and they dared 
 
6o 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 not retaliate. Three years after their 
 transfer to the Gasse, the city council 
 issued a special law forbidding any one 
 to strike Jews, or assail them with in¬ 
 sulting epithets on the streets. Such 
 laws, however, were of little avail. The 
 Jews were considered public property as 
 far as the right to revile, abuse, and tor¬ 
 ment was concerned. Every street urchin 
 looked upon the Jew as a subject for ridi¬ 
 cule, and the most venerable, the wisest 
 and the most learned Jew was compelled 
 to take off his hat before any Christian 
 gamin who called out “Jud\ mack mores ! 
 Jud\ mack mores!” That in spite of 
 all these abuses and hardships Jews re¬ 
 mained in Frankfort proves that they 
 were subjected to the same treatment in 
 other places, and were willing to submit 
 to outrages upon honor for the mere per¬ 
 mission to live in any quarter, however 
 uninviting. They had to be thankful for 
 this privilege, and were happy if the insults 
 and abuses were not aggravated into rob¬ 
 bery, pillage and murder. 
 
 The Judengasse of Frankfort mirrors in 
 
The Judengasse of Frankfort . 61 
 
 its story and in the vicissitudes of the lives 
 of its inhabitants the sad, heartrending and 
 tragic history of the Jews of Europe in 
 the centuries during which it existed. The 
 waves of persecution passed over it, the 
 fires of oppression played about it, the 
 stones of religious hatred battered it, but 
 still the Jew lived on, toiled on, suffered 
 on. The two most calamitous affairs in 
 the Gasse were the Pfefferkorn and Fett- 
 milch incidents, and because they are 
 typical of like incidents elsewhere, and 
 left a deep impress on the community, a 
 short account of them will not be out of 
 place in the history of the Judengasse of 
 Frankfort. 
 
 John Pfefferkorn was a converted Jew. 
 He had been a butcher and, as common 
 report had it, had been discovered in the 
 act of stealing. After his conversion to 
 Christianity, like so many of the same ilk, 
 he proceeded to vilify his former co-reli¬ 
 gionists in order to give evidence of zeal 
 for his new religion. It is supposed that 
 he was the tool of the Dominicans of 
 Cologne, whose palms itched for Jewish 
 
62 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 wealth, chief among them being Jacob van 
 Hoogstraten, the grand inquisitor. Begin¬ 
 ning with the year 1507, Pfefferkorn issued 
 a number of writings against the Jews. In 
 that year appeared his Judenspiegel , in 
 which he heaps accusations upon the Jews, 
 and shows what is necessary to convert 
 them to Christianity. One of the means 
 he mentions points to his later course of 
 action. He says that all the books of the 
 Jews, the Talmud, prayer-books, all except 
 the Bible, should be taken from them and 
 destroyed, for they are the source of their 
 obstinacy, being directed against Christi¬ 
 anity. The next year witnessed the pub¬ 
 lication of his diatribe, “The Confessions 
 of the Jews,” and in 1509 appeared his 
 pamphlet, “The Enemy of the Jews,” in 
 which he again made an attack on Jewish 
 books. These publications against the 
 Jews were undoubtedly intended to pre¬ 
 pare the public mind for active steps 
 against them. Through the recommenda¬ 
 tion of Cunigunda, abbess of a convent in 
 Munich, Pfefferkorn obtained an interview 
 with her brother, Emperor Maximilian, 
 
The Judcngasse of Frankfort . 63 
 
 whom he induced to issue an order com¬ 
 manding the Jews to deliver to him (Pfeffer- 
 korn) all books containing anything against 
 Christianity, against the Pentateuch, or 
 the Prophets. He was to be sole judge, 
 and his authority was to extend through¬ 
 out the empire. On his return from Padua, 
 before which the emperor was encamped, 
 Pfefferkorn stopped at Stuttgart to see the 
 celebrated scholar, John Reuchlin, whom 
 he hoped to induce to help him in execut¬ 
 ing the order. In this, however, he did not 
 succeed, as the great humanist, although 
 he expressed approval of the suppression 
 of books that vilified the Christian religion, 
 excused himself from engaging in the 
 work. Pfefferkorn, baffled in his purpose 
 of obtaining the assistance and counte¬ 
 nance of Germany’s greatest scholar, pro¬ 
 ceeded alone on his journey, and began 
 operations at Frankfort. On Friday, the 
 28th of September, the eve of the Feast 
 of Tabernacles, he appeared in the syna¬ 
 gogue with three priests and two town- 
 councilors. In spite of the protests of the 
 Jews, he seized all the books he could lay 
 
64 Old European Jewries . 
 
 hold of. The next day he was to search 
 the private houses, but the Jews objected 
 so vehemently against the desecration of 
 the Sabbath that it was put off till Monday. 
 They saw and felt the danger coming. 
 They knew that this confiscation of books 
 was only an introduction to the assaults 
 on property and life bound to follow, al¬ 
 though, at the time, they did not know 
 that Pfefferkorn was hand in glove with 
 the Dominicans, nor of the designs of the 
 latter upon the wealth of the Jews. Ex¬ 
 cited by the confiscation, and divining what 
 might follow, they put forth every effort 
 to have Pfefferkorn’s proceedings checked. 
 With the aid of the archbishop, whose dig¬ 
 nity had been affronted, because he had 
 not been consulted, they succeeded in ob¬ 
 taining a stay of the proceedings. Nothing 
 daunted, Pfefferkorn again visited the em¬ 
 peror, and succeeded in obtaining a second 
 order, more explicit than the first. It 
 named the committee of inquiry to look 
 into the Jewish books, and among its mem¬ 
 bers were Hoogstraten, the grand inquis¬ 
 itor of the Dominican order ; John Reuch- 
 
1 he Judengasse of Frankfort. 65 
 
 lin, and Victor von Carben, “formerly a 
 rabbi and now a priest.” To the great 
 surprise of the conspirators, Reuchlin de¬ 
 clined to serve, and wrote a defense of all 
 Jewish books except such as contained di¬ 
 rect aspersions on Christianity. In it, he 
 told, in rather plain words, his opinion of 
 Pfefferkorn. The Jews were saved, as the 
 fight was now on between Reuchlin and 
 the Pfefferkorn party, that is, the Domi¬ 
 nicans. Publications containing most bitter 
 recriminations appeared on both sides. 
 The friends of the two parties took up 
 the cudgels, too, and the result was that 
 Pfefferkorn was so belabored that he ex¬ 
 posed himself to the ridicule of all times. 
 The greatest satire of the Middle Ages, the 
 Epistolco Obscurorum Virorum appeared 
 anonymously at this time. These letters 
 are supposed to be the production of 
 Crotus Rubianus and Ulrich von Hutten. 
 The Dominicans, who were supposed to 
 have inspired the actions of Pfefferkorn to 
 advance their ulterior designs against the 
 Jews, are ridiculed in the sharpest possible 
 manner. Pfefferkorn, too, comes in for 
 5 
 
66 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 his share of'satirical notice, ridicule and 
 abuse. So, for once, the enemy of the 
 Jews was baffled. What had promised to 
 be the beginning of persistent outrages 
 upon the Jews—for the confiscation of 
 their books would have led to serious evils 
 and outbreaks—was nipped in the bud by 
 the fortunate refusal of Reuchlin to have 
 anything to do with the work inaugurated 
 by Pfefferkorn. The Jews emerged from 
 what was unquestionably a great difficulty 
 with the loss of nothing more than what 
 money may have been required to bribe 
 the archbishop and the town councilors to 
 stay the proceedings in the first instance. 
 That they were frightened, we can readily 
 believe. The immediate steps they took 
 saved them. 
 
 The other incident to which reference 
 was made above was much more serious 
 in its consequences. The guilds in Frank¬ 
 fort were always very strong. They had 
 a particular animosity against the Jews, 
 and were continually laboring to effect 
 their expulsion from the city. Not suc¬ 
 ceeding in this, an attack on the Jewish 
 
The Judengasse of Frankfort. 67 
 
 quarter was determined upon. The leader 
 was a baker, Vincent Fettmilch. On Au¬ 
 gust 22, 1640, the attack was made. The 
 Jews, having been warned, did not quietly 
 wait for the attack, but made preparations 
 to resist. They procured arms, removed 
 their wives and children to the cemetery for 
 refuge, locked the gates that led into their 
 street, and barricaded the gate upon which 
 the attack was expected. They then pro¬ 
 ceeded to the synagogue, and prayed and 
 fasted. While assembled there, they heard 
 the blows upon the gates and the angry 
 cries of the mob. In terror they poured 
 out of the synagogue, men and youths tak¬ 
 ing up arms to defend themselves. The 
 mob, foiled by the barricade of the gate, 
 broke into the street through a house 
 which stood next to the gate. A bitter 
 fight of eight hours followed; two Jews 
 and one Christian were killed, and many 
 wounded. The Jews, few in number, were 
 gradually overcome. Then began a fearful 
 scene of plunder and destruction. The mob 
 rushed into the houses. They had pro¬ 
 ceeded about half way through the street 
 
68 Old European Jewries, 
 
 when a band of armed citizens appeared 
 and drove them out. The Jews, thor¬ 
 oughly frightened, hastened to seek ref¬ 
 uge in their cemetery, situated at the end 
 of the Gasse , in which they had placed their 
 wives and children. They were advised 
 by the town council to leave the city, since 
 it could not protect them. On the next 
 day, they did this, and for one year and a 
 half they remained away from the city, and 
 lived in the neighboring towns. In the 
 meantime, order had been restored, and 
 steps were taken looking to the return of 
 the Jews. The leaders of the mob, Fett- 
 milch and six others, were beheaded. On 
 the very day that this took place, February 
 28, 1616, the Jews returned. Their return 
 was celebrated with music. When they 
 arrived in front of the Gasse , they were 
 formed into a circle, and the new Juden- 
 ordnung, drawn up by the imperial com¬ 
 missioners, was read to them. The town 
 council having shown itself so powerless 
 to guard them, the protection of the Jews 
 reverted to the emperor; they once again 
 became his private property. After their 
 
The yudcngasse of Frankfort. 69 
 
 return into their “ street,” a large shield 
 was placed upon each of the three gates, 
 upon which was painted the imperial eagle 
 with the inscription, “ Under the protec¬ 
 tion of the Roman Imperial Majesty and 
 of the Holy Empire.” Strange to say, the 
 Christian population was compelled by 
 imperial mandate to pay the Jews 175,919 
 florins indemnity for the loss they had 
 sustained. In memory of these events, the 
 Jewish congregation of Frankfort annually 
 celebrated two events, the 19th of Adar, 
 as a fast day commemorative of their de¬ 
 parture from the city, and the 20th as a 
 holiday, called Purim Fettmilch, in memory 
 of their return. 
 
 The next event of great importance was 
 the complete destruction of the Gasse by 
 fire in 1711. The population had greatly 
 increased, but the space for habitation was 
 not enlarged. The number of houses did 
 not increase, and the one hundred and 
 ninety houses that, in a former day, had 
 sheltered but two thousand persons, were 
 now the homes of some eight thousand, ac¬ 
 cording to the smallest calculation the Jew- 
 
jo Old European Jewries. 
 
 ish population at this time. Each house, 
 therefore, on an average harbored forty- 
 one persons. The Gasse is an example 
 of the worst evils of the tenement system. 
 On January 14, 1711, fire broke out in the 
 house of the chief rabbi, which stood in 
 the middle of the “street.” The cause of 
 the fire was never discovered. It wiped 
 out the Jewish quarter completely, and 
 was called the great Jewish conflagration, 
 in contradistinction to the great Christian 
 conflagration eight years later. The Chris¬ 
 tian population, as soon as the fact of the 
 raging of the fire became known, hurried 
 to the Gasse to give assistance. But the 
 Jews, in an agony of terror, and remem¬ 
 bering former days, had locked the gates 
 for fear of plunder, and kept them closed 
 for an hour. When, at last, they opened 
 them the flames had grained great head- 
 way. The fire spread throughout the 
 quarter, and with the exception of three 
 houses standing at the extreme end of the 
 street, everything was destroyed. The 
 Jews, now homeless, had to look about for 
 shelter. Some were harbored in Christian 
 
The Judengasse of Frankfort, 71 
 
 houses. After the “ street ” was rebuilt, 
 they lingered in these houses with the 
 hope that they might be permitted to re¬ 
 main outside the Gasse, and have freedom 
 of residence, but they were all ordered 
 back in 1716. Some who could not find 
 shelter in the city, settled in neighboring 
 towns, until their homes were rebuilt, 
 while the very poor were placed, by the 
 town council, in a hospital, to sojourn 
 there until their dwelling places were re¬ 
 stored. The rebuilding began almost at 
 once. The synagogue was completed by 
 the autumn of the same year. It stood 
 until 1854, when the large and beautiful 
 building, dedicated in i860, was built in its 
 place. By the year 1717 all the houses 
 were rebuilt. In the process of recon¬ 
 struction the street was widened by four 
 feet, so that it was twenty feet wide. 
 Houses of not more than three stories 
 were permitted to be built, but most of 
 them had gables. Back buildings one 
 story higher were erected, hence the yards 
 were very small, but by decree each house 
 had to be six feet from the wall alone the 
 
72 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 back of the Gasse. On the houses they 
 were compelled to place signs, with pecul¬ 
 iar figures and names, so that they were 
 known as the house of the bear, the 
 dragon, of the white, green, red, black 
 shield, etc. The inhabitants were desig¬ 
 nated according to these figures, e. g. the 
 Jew N. N. zum Baren , etc. The Roth¬ 
 schild family received its name from the 
 red shield that marked its house. 
 
 The “street” again suffered from fire in 
 1774 and in 1796. In the former instance 
 twenty-one houses were destroyed. The 
 inhabitants rented houses without the 
 Gasse for two years until their homes were 
 rebuilt, when they again had to return. In 
 the latter year, the fire assumed larger 
 dimensions, and one hundred and forty 
 houses were destroyed. This was during 
 the bombardment of the city by the French 
 under Kleber, July 12 to 14. This por¬ 
 tion, called Bornheimer Strasse , was soon 
 rebuilt, and very greatly improved by 
 being widened and having fine buildings 
 erected upon it. 
 
 The Judengasse was now approaching 
 
The Jndcngasse of Frankfort . 73 
 
 its end. Better days were beginning to 
 dawn for the Jews. The breath of free¬ 
 dom and emancipation characteristic of the 
 close of the last and the beginning of this 
 century was wafted upon them, too. In 
 1806, Frankfort and some neighboring 
 districts were placed under the jurisdic¬ 
 tion of the enlightened and kindly Karl 
 Theodor von Dal berg, the Ffirst Primas . 
 He took great interest in the improve¬ 
 ment of the Jews of his domain, and 
 assisted them greatly in their efforts 
 towards self-advancement, in the founding 
 of schools, and the like. In 1811 he 
 granted them full rights of citizenship, 
 but in the reaction that ensued shortly 
 after, he was deprived of his rule, and the 
 Jews lost the rights he had granted them. 
 
 After the fall of Napoleon and the con¬ 
 sequent relapse into mediaevalism and me¬ 
 diaeval legislation against the Jews in 
 the German states and cities, the Jews 
 of Frankfort suffered, too. The hep-hep 
 cry again resounded in the streets, the 
 Jewish houses were attacked, the Jews 
 driven from the promenades. In conse- 
 
74 Old European Jewries . 
 
 quence of these disturbances many Jewish 
 families left the city. The second and 
 third decades of this century were a gloomy 
 time for the Jews of Germany ; the eman¬ 
 cipation question was uppermost, and gal¬ 
 lantly did the Jewish champions, headed 
 by Gabriel Riesser, conduct the struggle. 
 In this agitation the Jews of Frankfort 
 were likewise concerned, and in 1848 they 
 once again gained the right of citizenship, 
 but in 1850 they lost it, to receive it a 
 third time in 1864. Since then they have 
 retained it, and, of course, as far as politi¬ 
 cal rights are concerned, are now on an 
 equal footing with all citizens of the Ger¬ 
 man Empire. 
 
 A few words more about the Gassc. 
 Even after it had been rebuilt after the 
 great fire of 1711, it was as gloomy and 
 cheerless as it had been. The high, gabled 
 houses built so close together naturally 
 kept out all sunlight and air. So it con¬ 
 tinued—except in the western portion, 
 which was burnt in 1796, and rebuilt, as 
 stated above—until the year 1830, when a 
 laro^e number of the houses were con- 
 
 o 
 
The yudengasse of Frankfort. 75 
 
 demned by the city authorities because of 
 their ruinous condition, and their removal 
 from both sides of the street produced 
 empty spaces through which the air could 
 circulate. As soon as the note of emanci¬ 
 pation was struck, in the beginning of the 
 century, many Jews removed from the 
 Gasse, nor were they compelled to return 
 thither. The empty houses were rented, 
 and occupied by the poorer classes of 
 Christians, so that, except in name and 
 memory, it was no longer distinctively the 
 fudcngasse , the Jewish quarter. Two of 
 the houses were of especial interest, that 
 in which Lob Baruch, or, as he is known 
 in German literature, Ludwig Borne, was 
 born, and the ancestral home of the Roth¬ 
 schild family. 
 
 About ten years ago, the houses in the 
 old portion of the street fell in because of 
 age and decay. They were demolished and 
 removed, with the exception of the Roth¬ 
 schild house. This portion of the street 
 was then broadened to a width equal to 
 that of Bornheimer Strasse, the section of 
 the old street which had been improved 
 
j 6 Old European Jewries. 
 
 and widened in the early part of the cen¬ 
 tury, and the two portions became one 
 street, the present Borne Strasse, a wide 
 thoroughfare, possessing no similarity to 
 the old, narrow Gasse. A great portion of 
 the street remains to be built up. The old 
 wall that separated the street in the early 
 days from the old quarter of the city is still 
 standing ; a street leading to Borne Strasse 
 has been broken through it. 
 
 One important relic of the old time is 
 still preserved ; at the very end of what is 
 now Borne Strasse, and what was formerly 
 the Judengasse , enclosed by a high wall, 
 and hidden from the view of the passer-by, 
 lies the old cemetery 62 of the Frankfort 
 Jewish congregation, containing, with the 
 exception of some in the cemetery at 
 Worms, the oldest epitaph in western 
 Europe. This was the spot to which the 
 Jews removed their wives and children and 
 helpless ones during the persecutions and 
 the attacks made on the Gasse by the 
 mobs. 63 The cemetery is now in a sad 
 state of neglect; many of the stones 
 have fallen to the ground, and lie in 
 
The yudengasse of Frankfort\ 77 
 
 great confusion, and many are beginning 
 to crumble. In the eastern end of the 
 graveyard the graves are thick and close 
 together. Near the entrance there are 
 but few tombstones, only a number of 
 small groups, here and there. This is ex¬ 
 plained by the surmise that the eastern 
 portion was set aside for the burial of 
 Frankfort Jews, while the smaller groups 
 of graves are those of small communi¬ 
 ties in the vicinity of Frankfort, which 
 made use of this burying ground for the 
 interment of their dead. The cemetery 
 is large, and contains over six thousand 
 tombstones. The inscriptions on these 
 stones offer much material to the student 
 of Jewish history and customs. “Of the 
 immense store which the cemetery at 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main offers, only a slight 
 portion has been published.” 64 This state¬ 
 ment is true, but all the inscriptions have 
 been copied through the instrumentality 
 of Dr. Horowitz, the rabbi of the new 
 synagogue overlooking the old cemetery. 
 He has collated them, and ere long the 
 learned world may be enriched by their 
 
78 Old European Jewries. 
 
 publication. The earliest tombstone in 
 the cemetery dates from the year 1272; 
 the last burial took place in 1828, when 
 the town council decreed that it should 
 be no longer used for purposes of burial, 
 and that it should lie undisturbed for one 
 hundred years. The graves are two and 
 three deep, perhaps more, the surface 
 having been covered over with additional 
 layers of earth whenever the available space 
 had been used. This appears from two 
 facts: in the first place, the burial ground 
 proper is higher than the adjacent walks; 
 and there are often two or three stones 
 on the same grave. The stones are of red 
 sandstone, with the exception of the oldest, 
 which are gray. These have stood the 
 wear of time best; they are still thoroughly 
 well preserved, while many of the later 
 ones are crumbling. The inscriptions are 
 for the most part legible, and some of the 
 stones display very artistic work, the sign 
 of the house in which the departed had 
 lived often being carved on them, 65 so that 
 there are stones ornamented with figures 
 of dragons, bears, lions, stars, and the like. 
 
The Judengasse of Frankfort. 79 
 
 The most beautiful piece of work is on a 
 stone belonging to a family Trach (drache) 
 —a dragon most artistically hewn, and 
 sculptured flowers on the rim. 
 
 Very celebrated rabbis lie buried here, 
 in fact, all the rabbis of the Frankfort con¬ 
 gregation, among them the author of the 
 celebrated P'ne Yehoshuah and Rabbi 
 Pinchas Hurwitz. 66 
 
 Walking through this cemetery, where 
 now all is peace and rest and quiet, I could 
 not but think of the terrible days of the 
 past, and the scenes this spot had wit¬ 
 nessed, and there arose before me the 
 vision of the hundreds of unfortunates, 
 who, in that terrible night of September 
 1, 1614, during the Fettmilch attack, were 
 massed in the '‘home of the dead,” about 
 the graves of their fathers. When all op¬ 
 position was seen to be fruitless, the men 
 repaired to the place to which, in the ear¬ 
 lier period of the affray, they had moved 
 their wives and children. All hope seemed 
 cutoff. “We will sanctify the name of 
 God,” cried they. They donned their 
 shrouds, and determined to meet death 
 
8 o Old European Jewries . 
 
 rather than disgrace. They prepared them¬ 
 selves for the supreme moment by giving 
 voice to the confession of their sinfulness 
 and their belief in the divine justice. With 
 terror and trembling they awaited the 
 dawning of another day. A report came 
 to their ears that the mob had disagreed. 
 Yes, it was true ; by the aid of the town 
 council they made their escape from the 
 cemetery, and with their bare lives, home¬ 
 less, houseless, they left Frankfort to seek 
 shelter in the surrounding towns. 67 
 
 A troubled vision of the night of the 
 past, by contrast making the present all 
 the brighter! 
 
 To return now to the Ghetto : The 
 houses of the Gasse were all very much 
 alike. They were frame, with the excep¬ 
 tion of one stone house. On account of 
 the gloom of the street they were very 
 dark inside. Some points of their inner 
 construction furnish eloquent testimony of 
 the times in which they were built and the 
 continual fear of attack and persecution in 
 which their occupants lived. Many of the 
 houses had no steps leading to the roof, 
 
The Judengasse of Frankfort. 81 
 
 only a ladder, which could be pulled up 
 by those who had fled to the roof from 
 their pursuers. For a like reason, namely, 
 protection in time of danger from the out¬ 
 breaks of mobs, the cellars of neighboring 
 houses were connected by doors, concealed 
 by cupboards. Through these doors the 
 occupants of the houses, if hard pressed, 
 could flee into the cellar of the adjoining 
 residence. Thank God that such precau¬ 
 tions are no longer necessary ! In the new 
 and better time, the Jew is not marked off 
 by his place of residence; justice being 
 done, the marks of oppression have disap¬ 
 peared. The Judengasse of Frankfort is 
 no more. The memories of the days of 
 persecution are permitted to sink into ob¬ 
 livion. The veil of forgiveness has been 
 dropped over them by those so deeply 
 wronged, and in this new time the Jews of 
 Frankfort have assimilated themselves 
 with their fellow citizens, and stand on an 
 equal footing with them in all civic in¬ 
 terests. 
 
 6 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE .JUDENSTADT OF PRAGUE. 
 
 To the tourist visiting the city of Prague, 
 by far the most interesting spot in this 
 gloomy, gray place is the old J ewish quar¬ 
 ter lying on the right bank of the river 
 Moldau, of old designated Judenstadt , but 
 now known as Josefstadt. This ancient 
 
 quarter with its narrow streets, its old 
 * synagogues, its burying ground famed in 
 story, its town hall reminiscent of the days 
 when the Jewish administrative body ex¬ 
 ercised judicial functions, its legends, its 
 history, cannot but awaken a mournful 
 train of thought in him who, permitting 
 his mind to dwell on the past, recalls the 
 sad, sad fate of this Ghetto, with one ex¬ 
 ception probably the oldest Jewish settle¬ 
 ment north of the Alps. Not a single 
 street, as in Frankfort, but a whole section 
 of the city did the J ewish quarter of Prague 
 comprise. It is standing much as it was, 
 
 (82) 
 
The Judenstadt of Prague . 83 
 
 but it is no longer the compulsory dwelling 
 place of Jews, although largely inhabited 
 by them. Many Christians, especially 
 of the poorer classes, now dwell there too. 
 The walls and gates, which in the old days 
 separated the Jewish quarter from the re¬ 
 mainder of the city, have disappeared, but 
 the spot in which they stood is still pointed 
 out. The streets scarcely deserve to be 
 called such, so narrow, crowded, dark and 
 gloomy are they. The houses on either 
 side tower aloft, shutting out the sunlight, 
 so that even on a bright day the lanes rest 
 in shadow. Many stirring scenes have 
 these streets witnessed. Had the stones 
 tongues, what stories could they tell of 
 mobs and plunder, of persecution and 
 murder, of incendiarism and robbery, of 
 fight and strife, of bravery and martyr¬ 
 dom, of silent suffering and heroic endur¬ 
 ance ! The history of the Jewish commu¬ 
 nity of Prague dates from days long past, 
 through many centuries, during which it 
 proudly claimed to be the greatest and 
 most important congregation in Europe. 
 Great names of celebrated rabbis, writers 
 
84 Old European Jewries . 
 
 and heroes, shed lustre over that old 
 Judenstadt, and make it shine with a glory 
 that will never fade. Dark spots there 
 are, too, of superstition, for there is no 
 Jewish community in the world so full of 
 superstitions, legends and traditions as 
 this of Prague, but these gradually disap¬ 
 pear in the light of investigation, while the 
 true and great things there thought and 
 accomplished live on forever. 
 
 The early history of the Jews of Prague 
 is shrouded in mystery. Concerning the 
 time when they first settled in the city, or 
 entered Bohemia, there is no authentic in¬ 
 formation. The statement that a flourish¬ 
 ing Jewish community existed in Prague 
 during the time of the second Temple 
 must be regarded as purely legendary. 
 That there were many Jews in Prague 
 during the earliest Christian centuries may 
 be true, but there is no contemporary evi¬ 
 dence of the fact; that Jews may have 
 lived in the city in quite ancient times is 
 very possible, but the date of their first 
 entrance into the land and their earliest 
 settlement cannot be fixed. There can be 
 
The yudenstadt of Prague , 85 
 
 no doubt that Jews lived in Bohemia and 
 in Prague in heathen times, before the 
 introduction of Christianity in the tenth 
 century. 68 Their first settlement lay on 
 the left bank of the river Moldau. When 
 their numbers increased and their quarters 
 became too small, they were assigned, in 
 all likelihood in the eleventh century, a 
 new and larger dwelling place on the right 
 bank of the river, the present Josefstadt. 
 The Jews were not compelled to live in 
 this one section. They dwelt in various 
 quarters of the city until the middle of 
 the fifteenth century (1473), when, after 
 a destructive pestilence that decimated the 
 population, all the Jews not yet in the 
 Judenstadt determined to cast in their lot 
 with their brethren there, and so all were 
 merged into the one great community, 69 
 which became “a mother in Israel,” an 
 influential congregation. Great rabbis 
 flourished there, schools of Jewish learn¬ 
 ing arose and prospered, men and women 
 whose names are honored in history lived 
 their life in this Ghetto, and all the phe¬ 
 nomena that characterize mediaeval Jewish 
 
86 Old European Jewries. 
 
 history appeared there. Sacred memories, 
 indeed, this Ghetto cherishes, and dark 
 happenings, too, that speak ill for human 
 kind; grand achievements of learning, 
 heroism and philanthropy brighten its an¬ 
 nals, but oages blackened with the record of 
 internal strife and superstition peep forth, 
 too. In this long history of centuries are 
 mirrored the manifold acts that make up 
 the sum of human endeavor, and the record 
 of the Jewish community of Prague, with 
 its lights and shadows, its glories and de¬ 
 gradations, presents a faithful picture of 
 the course of human life as it ebbed and 
 flowed in the narrow confines of Jewry 
 during the centuries that preceded the 
 emancipation of the present. 
 
 First, as to the external history of the 
 community. It was subject to many per¬ 
 secutions and expulsions and extortions. 
 The story is much the same as that of the 
 Jews everywhere. During the crusades, 
 the time fraught with so much misery for 
 these hapless ones, when the mobs fell 
 upon the Jewish communities, and murder, 
 carnage and plunder held high carnival, 
 
87 
 
 The Judenstadt of Prague . 
 
 the Judenstadt of Prague came in for its 
 share of the gentle mercies of the crusad¬ 
 ers. Drunk with the blood of the victims 
 whom they had slaughtered or driven to 
 death in the German cities, the crusaders 
 came to Bohemia, attacked the Jews 
 of Prague, dragged them to baptism, 
 and killed those who resisted. In vain 
 good Bishop Cosmas preached against 
 these terrible proceedings; the crusaders 
 paid no heed to his words. 70 This was in 
 the year 1099. During the third crusade 
 the mobs on their way to Palestine passed 
 through Bohemia, and in Prague demanded 
 money from the Jews. They refused to 
 comply with this request, and the crusad¬ 
 ers resorted to violence. It is refreshing 
 to note that the Jews resisted so success¬ 
 fully that the crusaders were forced to draw 
 off without having accomplished their ob¬ 
 ject. 71 
 
 In the year 1389 occurred the most ter¬ 
 rible persecution to which the Jews of 
 Prague were ever subjected. On Easter 
 Sunday (April 18) of that year, a priest 
 carrying the pyx was passing through the 
 
88 Old European Jewries, 
 
 Jewish quarter. Some Jewish children 
 were playing in the sand on the street (it 
 was the last day of Passover), pelting one 
 another with pebbles. Some of the peb¬ 
 bles chanced to strike the priest, which so 
 enraged him and those who accompanied 
 him that they abused the children shame¬ 
 fully. The parents of the children, alarmed 
 by their cries, hastened to the spot to aid 
 them. The priest now hurried away into 
 the city, crying aloud that his office had 
 been desecrated by the Jews, that they 
 had pelted him with stones, so that the 
 host had fallen from his hands. There¬ 
 upon the citizens of Prague descended 
 upon the homes of the Jews, and offered 
 them the alternative of baptism or death. 
 The J ews, refusing to forswear their 
 faith, were murdered by the thousands 
 on that day and the following night. 
 Many Jews, among others the aged rabbi, 
 killed their own dear ones to save them 
 from the fury of the mob, and then them¬ 
 selves. The synagogues, with one excep¬ 
 tion, were destroyed, and even the dead 
 were not left in peace. The great ceme- 
 
The Ju dens tacit of Prague. 89 
 
 tery was devastated, the tombstones were 
 destroyed 72 (so that there is now no stone 
 in the cemetery dating from earlier than 
 the fifteenth century), and the corpses 
 were disinterred, stripped, and left to rot 
 on the streets. The pope, more merciful, 
 issued a bull on July 2, denouncing these 
 barbarities, and referring to the edict of 
 Innocent IV, which forbade the forcible 
 baptism of the Jews, or the interference 
 with them on their holidays. The king, 
 Wenceslaus, declared that the Jews de¬ 
 served their fate, because they had had the 
 hardihood to leave their houses on Easter 
 Sunday and appear on the streets. It was 
 a canon law that the Jews should not be 
 seen on the streets during Holy Week, and 
 the law was wise, for collisions were bound 
 to take place between the followers of the 
 two religions. Some Jews, without doubt, 
 would take occasion to mock, so that the 
 command to remain in-doors was well-in¬ 
 tentioned. Indeed it has been maintained 
 that this terrible persecution arose from 
 the fact that some Jews mocked the 
 priest. 73 
 
go Old European Jewries, 
 
 Many of the greatest evils were brought 
 upon the Jews by apostates, who often 
 thought to ingratiate themselves with their 
 new comrades by bringing accusations and 
 spreading calumnies against their old co¬ 
 religionists. Their method usually was to 
 declare that here and there in the Jewish 
 writings there was some attack upon Chris¬ 
 tianity or its founder. By specious argu¬ 
 ments they worked up the easily influenced 
 populace and priesthood (for the most part 
 ignorant and not understanding one word 
 of Hebrew) against the Jews, and in spite 
 of protest, declarations that the accusa¬ 
 tions were false, the deposition of clear 
 proof, and the explanation of the passages 
 in question, the unfortunates, condemned 
 by public opinion no matter what they 
 might say, always had to suffer. As though 
 their cup of bitterness were not full enough, 
 the Jews had to bear with ills inflicted on 
 them by those who had gone forth from 
 their own midst. At the end of the four¬ 
 teenth century (1399), one of these con¬ 
 verted Jews, by name Pesach, changed 
 into Peter with his change of religion, 
 
9i 
 
 The Judenstacit of Prague, 
 
 leveled a new accusation against his former 
 brethren in faith by declaring that a blas¬ 
 phemous charge against Jesus is contained 
 in that sublime concluding prayer of the 
 Jewish service known as Alemi, which gives 
 expression to the belief in the unity of 
 God and to the hope for the time when 
 superstition and idolatry will disappear, and 
 God alone will be recognized. The lie 
 was credited, many Jews of Prague were 
 arrested, seventy-seven executed, and three 
 publicly burnt. 74 
 
 So rose and fell the waves of Jewish 
 life ; the Jews were only a tolerated class. 
 The story is the same all over Europe; 
 they were subject to caprice of ruler and 
 mob. It must not be imagined that there 
 was continual persecution ; there were 
 many intervals of peace, in which the reg¬ 
 ular avocations of life were calmly pursued, 
 but at any moment the peace might be 
 broken, and new miseries fall to the lot of 
 the inhabitants of the Ghetto. Of course, 
 the petty persecutions to which Jews 
 were subjected everywhere, the inhabitants 
 of the Prague Ghetto experienced. The 
 
cp Old European Jewries. 
 
 compulsion to wear the distinguishing 
 mark on their clothes, the prohibition to 
 employ Christian nurses for their children, 
 and many other like prohibitions embit¬ 
 tered their lives, but they grew accustomed 
 to these things, too. They had to pay ex¬ 
 tra taxes of various kinds. Time and again 
 they were threatened with expulsion from 
 the land, and it was only by the ex¬ 
 penditure of great sums that they suc¬ 
 ceeded in staying the execution of the de¬ 
 cree. Rulers and people seem to have 
 lost all human feeling in dealing with the 
 Jews. Even in the possession of their 
 books and writings they were not left 
 undisturbed. The confiscations and burn¬ 
 ing of Jewish books, alleged to contain 
 blasphemies against Christianity and its 
 founder, form an interesting chapter in the 
 account of the mediaeval oppression of the 
 Jews. 75 For instance, in the year 1559, 
 all Jewish books and manuscripts found 
 in the Jewish quarter of Prague, including 
 prayer books, eighty hundred-weight in all, 
 were confiscated, and sent to Vienna. In 
 the same year a conflagration broke out 
 
93 
 
 The Judcnstadt of Pi'ague. 
 
 in the Jewish quarter, and destroyed a 
 great number of dwellings. Instead of 
 assisting the unfortunates to quench the 
 fire, the Christian populace threw weak 
 women into the flames, and plundered 
 where they could. Two years later, in 1561, 
 Ferdinand I, who had long been working 
 towards that end, ordered their expulsion 
 from the city. For years they had suc¬ 
 ceeded in preventing the carrying out of 
 the dread order, but now they were com¬ 
 pelled to wander forth. The emperor met 
 all appeals to reconsider the decree with 
 the statement that he had vowed to expel 
 the Jews from Prague, and could not 
 break his oath. Yet was the expulsion re¬ 
 voked, and that, too, in a most unexpected 
 and dramatic manner. Mordecai Zemach 
 Kohen, a Jew of Prague, whose tomb¬ 
 stone still stands in the great cemetery, de¬ 
 termined, if possible, to rescue his brethren 
 from the terrible calamity. He journeyed 
 to Rome, by some means obtained an 
 audience with Pope Pius IV, received a 
 dispensation absolving the emperor from 
 his vow, and the Jews were permitted to 
 return in March of the following year, 76 
 
94 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 In the beginning of the seventeenth cen¬ 
 tury there were about ten thousand Jews 
 in Prague, 77 and they were quite prosper¬ 
 ous. There had been a lull in the perse¬ 
 cutions. Under the emperors Rudolph 
 and Matthias the Jewish quarter attained 
 unexampled splendor. Mordecai Meisel, 
 the great benefactor of the Prague Jewish 
 community, lived during this time (1548— 
 1601). The emperors had issued privi¬ 
 leges and shown much favor to individual 
 Jews, notably Meisel and Jacob Bassewi. 
 The latter was afterwards ennobled on ac¬ 
 count of his services to the imperial house, 
 took the name of von Treuenberg, and 
 was permitted to adopt a coat of arms 
 (blue lion and eight red stars on a blue 
 background). These privileges to indi¬ 
 vidual Jews redounded to the benefit of 
 the community at large, and the people 
 enjoyed happy days. But with the Bohe¬ 
 mian revolt in 1619, an early incident of 
 the bloody Thirty Years’ War, the happy 
 condition of the Jews’ quarter changed al¬ 
 most in a twinkling. The adherents of 
 the Protestant elector palatine, Frederick, 
 
The Judenstacit of Prague, 95 
 
 king of Bohemia, made the Jewish quar¬ 
 ter the object of pillaging attack, be¬ 
 cause of the loyalty of the Jews to the 
 Catholic imperial house. This loyalty 
 brought them fitting reward. At the cel¬ 
 ebrated battle of White Mountain, No¬ 
 vember 8, 1620, the imperial troops gained 
 a decided victory, and at once proceeded 
 to invest the capital city of Prague. Now 
 followed days and weeks of plunder and 
 bloodshed, but, marvelous to say, the 
 Jews, always the first victims on such oc¬ 
 casions, were unexpectedly protected. The 
 commander of the imperial forces, remem¬ 
 bering the faithfulness of the Jews to his 
 cause, stationed guards before the gates 
 .of the Jewish quarter, and thus this sec¬ 
 tion of the city was saved from the hor¬ 
 rors of war rampant in all other quarters 
 of the town. In remembrance of this un¬ 
 expected deliverance, the rabbinate ap 
 pointed the day, the 14th of Marcheshwan, 
 an annual fast and feast day, the forenoon 
 to be spent in fasting, in memory of the 
 tribulation and terror of the people before 
 deliverance came ; the afternoon in feast- 
 
g6 Old European Jewries. 
 
 ing, in memory of the salvation. This day 
 was known as the Prague Purim. 78 The 
 rich Jews of Prague were granted permis¬ 
 sion to purchase the houses abandoned by 
 the Protestants who had sought safety in 
 flight. 
 
 Emperor Ferdinand continued to show 
 favor to the Jews of Prague. In 1623 he 
 issued a privilegium from Ratisbon, in 
 which it was decreed that the Jews of 
 Prague were not to be held responsible 
 for the debts of the Jews of the rest of 
 Bohemia, and that they need pay no higher 
 taxes than the Christians. The allegations 
 of the elders of the community of Prague 
 were to be respected, and the Jews of 
 Bohemia were to be permitted to pursue 
 trade without hindrance. In 1628 he 
 enlarged these privileges, and ordered the 
 Jews to pay 40,000 fl. yearly, and so free 
 themselves from all other taxes. 
 
 During the whole long struggle, the 
 Jews continued faithful to the imperial 
 house. The war was ended in Prague, 
 where it had be^un. When the Swedes 
 approached the city, and besieged it, the 
 
97 
 
 The jfudenstadt oj Prague . 
 
 Jewish quarter, which lay on the bank of 
 the river, was especially open to their at¬ 
 tacks, and the Jews threw up a redoubt, 
 known as the Jews’ redoubt. The quarter 
 was bombarded, and the inhabitants suf¬ 
 fered greatly. When the nobles and other 
 inhabitants of Prague went forth to do 
 battle with the enemy, the Jews were left 
 behind to patrol and guard the city. They 
 were continually engaged in repairing the 
 gaps made in the fortifications and in 
 throwing up new redoubts. Several of 
 them lost their lives. The treaty of West¬ 
 phalia brought the contest to an end, and 
 the evil days were past. In celebration of 
 the cessation of the siege and the deliver¬ 
 ance of the city, the Jews had a public pro¬ 
 cession with music, and at the head of the 
 line of march were carried two flags pre¬ 
 sented to them by former emperors. As 
 a reward for their bravery and constancy 
 during the siege, they were given permis¬ 
 sion to have a small bell in the Jewish 
 town hall to call the people together when 
 important matters were to be decided. 79 
 Besides, in recognition of their action on 
 7 
 
98 Old European Jewries. 
 
 this occasion, Emperor Ferdinand III in 
 creased their privileges and rights by 
 granting them permission to live in all 
 imperial cities and possessions, from which 
 they were not to be expelled without the 
 knowledge of the emperor. They were also 
 permitted to engage in all trades and in¬ 
 dustries except the manufacture of arms. 80 
 But dark days were again coming. In 
 1679 the Jewish quarter was visited by a 
 conflagration; eight years later, in 1687, a 
 second conflagration devastated the quar¬ 
 ter, and laid it almost completely in ruins. 
 The Jews were, therefore, necessitated to 
 seek shelter in Christian homes. The 
 archbishop forbade the priests to adminis¬ 
 ter the rite of extreme unction to Chris¬ 
 tians who had received Jews into their 
 homes. When he refused to reconsider 
 the heartless order, the people appealed 
 to the emperor, who had shown himself 
 more humane. He replied that he knew 
 it to be forbidden for Jews and Christians 
 to live together, but that he considered 
 the present an exceptional case. He 
 warned the Jews, however, not to mock 
 or scoff at the Christians. 81 
 
99 
 
 The Judenstadt of Prague. 
 
 The last expulsion of the Jews from 
 Prague took place in i 744. On the 23d of 
 December of the preceding year, Empress 
 Maria Theresa had issued a decree that by 
 the end of 1 744 all Jews must leave Bohe¬ 
 mia. Entreaties, expostulations availed 
 naught. With the exception of a very 
 few favored ones, all the Jews had to leave 
 Prague. The usual consequences of such 
 a measure followed; trade languished and 
 real estate declined in value, for the sud¬ 
 den withdrawal of a large, active and in¬ 
 dustrious portion of the population always 
 has a deleterious effect. The petitions for 
 the return of the Jews on the part of the 
 authorities, the tradesmen and the popu¬ 
 lace of the city generally, became so urgent 
 and persistent that in 1748 the empress 
 found herself compelled to yield, and 
 granted the Jews permission to return, on 
 condition that they paid, in conjunction 
 with their co-religionists in Moravia and 
 Silesia, an annual Jew-taxof 300,000 florins 
 in addition to the regular taxes. This tax 
 was exacted up to the year 1848. 82 
 
 Towards the close of the century, the 
 
IOO 
 
 Old European Jewries . 
 
 new spirit began to affect the reigning 
 house of Hapsburg, too, and Emperor 
 Joseph II commenced to improve the con¬ 
 dition of the Jews. The emancipation of 
 the Jews went steadily forward, sustaining 
 reverses at times, it is true, but the freedom 
 making itself felt everywhere could not 
 but affect the condition of the Jews, and 
 in 1848—wondrous year—the Jewish quar¬ 
 ter or Ghetto of Prague ceased to be the 
 compulsory dwelling place of the Jews. 
 They were permitted to live in all quarters 
 of the city; gradually the gates and walls 
 were removed ; poorer classes of Christians 
 moved into the vacated houses. The 
 quarter with many of its old landmarks, 
 which will be described briefly, still stands, 
 occupied, in great part, by Jews, but there 
 is a vast difference between the voluntary 
 domicile of this day and the compulsory 
 dwelling place of the dark centuries of the 
 past. 
 
 A few of the salient events of the outer 
 history of the Jews of Prague having 
 been given, some pages may now be de¬ 
 voted to the inner life, the description 
 of the Ghetto and its prominent features. 
 
IOI 
 
 The yudenstadt of Prague. 
 
 The Jewish community of Prague was, 
 with the exception of that of Amsterdam, 
 the largest in Europe during mediaeval 
 times. The Judenstadt was large, and 
 was separated from the city by nine gates, 
 which were locked and barred every night 
 from within. The Jews had their own 
 jurisdiction, and the directory, composed 
 of the chief men of the community, super¬ 
 intended the police regulations. Civil suits 
 were decided by the college of rabbis. In 
 short, the Jewish community was to a cer¬ 
 tain extent self-ruling, and in this differed 
 from other European Jewish communities. 
 From early times this had been the case. In 
 the year 1268, by a friendly decree of Ot- 
 tokar II, the Jews were released from the 
 jurisdiction of the aldermen of the city, 
 and provision was made for the appoint¬ 
 ment of a judex Judceorum , a judge of 
 the Jews, who was to decide in civil and 
 criminal cases. The synagogue was to be 
 the court of justice, and was declared 
 inviolable. Since decisions were given 
 among the Jews according to the rabbini¬ 
 cal code, this judge always had to be a 
 
102 . Old European Jewries, 
 
 rabbi; he presided at the sessions of the 
 court. At the head of the political ad¬ 
 ministration stood the president of the 
 congregation, known as the primator. 
 As just stated, the synagogue was the 
 seat of justice. This was the case until 
 the close of the sixteenth century, when 
 the town hall, which is still standing, was 
 built by Mordecai Meisel, and used there¬ 
 after for all judicial functions, and the 
 synagogue was employed for its proper pur¬ 
 pose, the holding of religious service. The 
 town hall is joined to a synagogue known 
 as the Hoch-Synagoge , which served as a 
 sort of private chapel for the councilors, 
 and for the fulfilment of religious duties 
 connected with the dispensation of justice. 
 The town hall is graced with a tower, on 
 which is a curious dial with the hours 
 marked in Hebrew and Arabic numerals. 
 After the conflagration of 1754, the town 
 hall was rebuilt (on its door appears the 
 date 1755), and the bell of the tower re¬ 
 cast. On this bell may be read in Hebrew 
 characters, “renewed in the year 5525,” 
 i.e. 1764. In 1627, Ferdinand II, the mon- 
 
The y 11 dci is tacit of Prague. 103 
 
 arch who was so kindly disposed toward 
 the Jews of the city, declared the Juden- 
 stadt an independent district, with its own 
 magistrates and jurisdiction. Two judi¬ 
 cial bodies were now formed, a lower and 
 a higher court. The judges of the lower 
 court held daily public sessions. They 
 adjudicated in litigations of small import. 
 The higher court composed of the college 
 of rabbis, the chief rabbi at the head, was 
 the court of appeal, to which cases could 
 be carried from the lower court, suits of 
 great importance being brought before it 
 in the first instance. In 1784 this sepa¬ 
 rate Jewish rabbinical jurisdiction was 
 abolished. The affairs of the Jewish com¬ 
 munity were then placed under the super¬ 
 vision of the town magistrate. 83 At present, 
 since the year 1849, the old town hall 
 serves as an office building for the direc- 
 tors of the religious affairs of the congre¬ 
 gation. 
 
 Directly opposite the town hall stands 
 an old, venerable structure, not very large, 
 but the most interesting building in the 
 whole quarter. The ancient house is 
 
104 Old European Jewries. 
 
 known as the AIt-neu Synagoge , the 
 “Old-new synagogue,” the building that 
 has stood the wear and tear of time, that 
 has existed through the long, sad history 
 of the ages. Many harrowing scenes of 
 man’s inhumanity to man, and many sub¬ 
 lime instances of supreme faithfulness and 
 steadfastness even in death have its walls 
 witnessed. Old, centuries old, is the 
 building, and many have been the theories 
 as to the time of its construction. The 
 name, “ Old-new synagogue,” seems to 
 indicate that at one time the old synagogue 
 was renewed, and in truth, at the first 
 glance it becomes evident that the build¬ 
 ing consists of two entirely distinct por¬ 
 tions, the older, lower story being in the 
 Byzantine style of architecture, the up¬ 
 per, newer in the Gothic. The tradition 
 of the Ghetto has it that the older por¬ 
 tion dates from the sixth, the newer 
 from the thirteenth century. Late in¬ 
 vestigators have concluded that neither 
 is so old ; that the older part was con¬ 
 structed in the twelfth, and the newer 
 in the fourteenth century. 84 
 
The Judc 7 istcidt of Prague. 105 
 
 The synagogue is entered by steps lead¬ 
 ing down to the floor of the building, 
 which lies lower than the street. Accord¬ 
 ing to tradition, it was so built in fulfil¬ 
 ment of the word of the Psalmist, “ Out of 
 the depths have I cried unto Thee, O 
 Lord!” Beautiful and poetical as is this 
 thought, in the light of historical research 
 it has been dissipated, for it has been estab¬ 
 lished that at one time the street was much 
 lower than at present, and that the building 
 was then onalevel with the street; that later 
 the street was raised, and the bidding, now 
 being lower, had to be reached by descend¬ 
 ing steps. The interior is small and 
 gloomy; there is no gallery, and the 
 women had to be content with looking 
 through the small windows situated at in¬ 
 tervals alonor the northern wall. A con- 
 
 o 
 
 spicuous object in the synagogue is the 
 great red flag attached to one of the pil¬ 
 lars opposite the entrance, ornamented 
 with the shield of David, within it the 
 Swede’s hat, and bearing the inscription, 
 “‘The Lord of Hosts, full is the whole 
 earth of His glory’! I11 the year 511 7 A. M., 
 
io6 Old European Jewries. 
 
 (i. e. 1357) his Majesty, Emperor Charles 
 IV, granted the Jews the distinction and 
 the privilege of carrying a flag. This was re¬ 
 newed in the reign of Emperor Ferdinand. 
 Damaged by the wear of time, it is now 
 renewed in honor of our lord, Emperorv 
 Charles VI, may God increase his glory! 
 On the occasion of the birth of his exalted 
 son, Archduke Leopold, in the year 1716.” 
 The privilege of carrying a flag in their pro¬ 
 cessions was highly prized by the Jews. 
 Whenever an emperor came to Prague, 
 and the Jews formed in procession to meet 
 him, the flag was brought forth. The 
 Swede’s hat, embroidered within the shield 
 of David on the flag, is the coat of arms 
 granted the Jews by Ferdinand II, in rec¬ 
 ognition of their bravery and their services 
 during the siege of the city by the Swedes. 
 The flag is now merely a relic, and has 
 lost its former significance and importance, 
 but the Jews of Prague still point to it 
 with pride, as the symbol embodying the 
 patriotism of the early inhabitants of the 
 Ghetto and their faithfulness to the eov- 
 eminent and the land of their residence. 
 
The Judenstadt of Prague. 107 
 
 The interior of the synagogue is dark 
 and gloomy. The gloom was until within 
 the past few years much greater even than 
 it is now, the walls being black with the 
 dust and mold of centuries. There was a 
 tradition that these walls had been bespat¬ 
 tered with the blood of the martyrs of the 
 great persecution of 1389, and for fear of 
 obliterating the traces, the rabbis continu¬ 
 ally protested against a cleansing of the 
 walls. This gave the old building a som¬ 
 bre appearance, and increased the natural 
 gloom in which the interior was shrouded, 
 so that it appeared indeed a relic of a sad, 
 dark, gloomy past. Lately the interior 
 has been renovated, and what it may have 
 lost as a relic of sad antiquity, it has gained 
 in cheer. The history of the old house 
 of worship is remarkable. It passed un¬ 
 scathed through fire and flood. In the 
 great conflagrations which visited the 
 Ghetto, and to which allusion has been 
 made, the flames devoured the buildings 
 in its immediate vicinity, but it escaped un¬ 
 harmed, for great efforts were always made 
 to save it. During the devastating inunda- 
 
io8 Old European Jewries . 
 
 tions of the river Moldau, to which the 
 Ghetto, lying on the bank of the stream, 
 was especially exposed, time and again 
 buildings were swept away, but the old 
 synagogue successfully withstood the at¬ 
 tacks of water, as it had of fire, and even 
 during the persecutions, when cruelty ran 
 riot, and the Ghetto was despoiled by 
 murderous, plundering mobs, the mad¬ 
 dened populace seemed to regard this old 
 structure with awe, possibly with super¬ 
 stitious dread, for never was it despoiled 
 or ruined. Within its walls, the poor, 
 hunted creatures gathered in the days of 
 persecution. At one time, as has been 
 stated, some met their death there, and 
 their life-blood stained the walls. Here, 
 too, they assembled in troubled days to 
 pray for help and strength. No wonder 
 that there gathered about it a mass of 
 legends, superstitions and traditions, that 
 it became the object of the people’s loving 
 care and solicitude, that it embodied for 
 them all the glory of their faith, and 
 became the symbol for the long, sad tale 
 of their history. Many a larger, more pre- 
 
109 
 
 The Jiuienstacit of Prague, 
 
 tentious house of worship has arisen in the 
 city, but none is and none can ever be re¬ 
 garded with the affection and reverence 
 that cling to the Alt-neu Schul, bound 
 up as it is with the life and sufferings of 
 centuries, entwined with memories sad, 
 rare, and glorious, a monument of the past 
 transported into the newer, better present, 
 a link between what has gone before and 
 what is. 
 
 A few minutes’ walk down the street to 
 the right leads to the great cemetery, the 
 home of the dead. The graves are three 
 and four deep, and, therefore, the top of 
 the mounds is much higher than the street 
 without, and the floor of the synagogue 
 next to the graveyard lies many feet lower 
 than the cemetery. The tombstones are 
 very close together; some are beginning 
 to crumble, the inscriptions on others are 
 still very legible ; the epitaphs have all 
 been copied, and a list of the Jewish fami¬ 
 lies of Prague made in accordance with 
 the information gleaned from these silent 
 witnesses. The cemetery, known as the 
 Judengarten, “the Jews’ garden,” was ac- 
 
I IO 
 
 Old European Jewries . 
 
 quired for this purpose in the reign of 
 Ottokar II, in 1254. The oldest tomb¬ 
 stones were destroyed in the terrible per¬ 
 secution of 1389, when the mob, in its 
 fury, did not spare even the resting-places 
 of the dead. The oldest existing epitaph 
 dates from the year 1439. 85 Above the 
 entrance to the cemetery one reads the 
 inscription in Hebrew and German : 
 
 “ Reverence for antiquity ; 
 
 Respect for ownership; 
 
 Rest for the dead.” 
 
 This inscription dates from the year 
 1837, and finds its explanation in the fol¬ 
 lowing circumstance: in that year the 
 Jews of the city, finding their quarters too 
 crowded, petitioned the town council to 
 give them permission to live outside the 
 Ghetto. The council concluded to grant 
 the Jews permission to devote the ground 
 of the old cemetery, not employed as a 
 burial-place for over forty years, to build¬ 
 ing purposes, and in this manner enlarge 
 the Jewish quarter. In consequence of 
 this, Rabbi Samuel Landau had the in¬ 
 scription placed at the entrance. Needless 
 
111 
 
 The Judenstadt of Prague. 
 
 to say, the permission of the council was 
 not taken advantage of, and the cemetery 
 not disturbed. 
 
 As one wanders among the graves, most 
 of them old, centuries old, thought cannot 
 but revert to the past and the checkered 
 history of the Jews. Everything is quiet 
 and peaceful now in this home of the dead, 
 the troubled are at rest; but as we read 
 the names chiseled in the tombstones, 
 some of celebrities who shed glory upon 
 the Jewish community of Prague, most of 
 them unknown or forgotten, we see pass 
 before us the changing views of the pano¬ 
 rama of bygone days, depicting scenes in 
 which those resting here, the great and 
 the small, the rich and the poor, the learned 
 and the ignorant, were the actors. Most 
 of the tombstones are plain slabs, but some 
 over the graves of noted individuals are 
 pretentious monuments. On many of the 
 stones we note engraved figures, symboli¬ 
 cal either of the class to which the deceased 
 belonged, or of his condition, or his name. 
 For instance, the tombstones of the 
 Aaronides, i. e., of priestly families, are 
 
I I 2 
 
 Old European Jewries . 
 
 adorned with two spreading hands, the 
 fingers in pairs, adjusted in the peculiar 
 way in which the priests held their hands 
 over the people while reciting the benedic¬ 
 tion. The stone erected over the grave 
 of a descendant of the Levites is marked 
 with a pitcher cut into the stone, while 
 that placed over the resting place of the 
 Israelite who can trace his ancestry back 
 to neither priest nor Levite, is distin¬ 
 guished by a sculptured bunch of grapes. 
 Besides these there are many other sym¬ 
 bolical figures ; for example, on the tomb¬ 
 stone of a young girl a female figure 
 is at times seen ; on that marking the 
 grave of a young wife, a female figure 
 carrying a rose. The name that the de¬ 
 ceased bore, if taken from some object 
 in the animal or vegetable kingdom, so 
 often the case among the Jews, e. 
 Wolf, Baer, Rose, Vogele (bird), Taube 
 (pigeon), Blume (flower), Lowe (lion), 
 Veilchen (violet), may be learned from 
 the figures of these objects on the stones. 
 The inscriptions are, of course, in Hebrew, 
 and are a valuable source for the history 
 
The Jmiens tacit of Prague. 113 
 
 of the Jews. They have all been copied, 
 and the more important edited. 86 In 
 this cemetery of Prague rest celebrated 
 rabbis, renowned scholars, great physi¬ 
 cians, noted philanthropists, men and 
 women who in life did their duty well, and 
 in death are not forgotten. Here one 
 reads the epitaph of Mordecai Meisel 
 (1528—1601), the great philanthropist, who 
 paved the whole Jewish quarter, built two 
 synagogues, the so-called Hoch-Synagoge , 
 adjoining the Rathhaus, and the Meisel 
 Synagoge , erected an almshouse, a school, 
 a bath, did untold private charity, and as¬ 
 sisted Jewish congregations elsewhere. 
 Here, too, is the grave of Rabbi Judah ben 
 Bezalel, known as the Hohe Rabbi Low , 
 about whose memory innumerable legends 
 float. The people looked upon him as a 
 magician, and the Josefstadt of to-day 
 is still replete with traditions of his won¬ 
 derful powers. Notable among these 
 stories is that of the Homunculus (known 
 among the Jews as the Golem ), the figure 
 created by him that attended to all his 
 
 needs. The foundation for these stories 
 8 
 
114 Old European Jewries. 
 
 appears to be that he busied himself with 
 scientific experiments. The contents of 
 his interview with Emperor Rudolph, in 
 1592, never became known, hence it was 
 made the basis of a legend. He was the 
 most celebrated of the chief rabbis of 
 Prague. The house in which he lived is 
 still pointed out, and is marked with a sign, 
 a lion on a blue background. As we pass 
 along, we note the grave of David Gans 
 (1541 —1613), the historian, whose book, 
 Zemach David , “ The Sprout of David,” 
 is a chronicle of Jewish events from the 
 creation to the year 1592 ; also that of the 
 chief rabbi, David Oppenheim (1664— 
 1 736), who gathered that great collection 
 of Hebrew books and manuscripts still des¬ 
 ignated by scholars as the Bibliotheca Op¬ 
 penheim , the pride of the Bodleian library 
 at Oxford, where it is now preserved in¬ 
 tact; of Joseph del Medigo, of Candia 
 (1591 — 1655), one of the most renowned of 
 Jewish scholars—physician, mathema¬ 
 tician, philosopher and traveler, pupil of the 
 great Galileo, and physician in ordinary of 
 Prince RadziwilL Not far away rest the 
 
The Judenstadt of Prague. 115 
 
 remains of the noble man spoken of 
 above, Mordecai Zemach Kohen, through 
 whose almost superhuman efforts the de¬ 
 cree of expulsion issued by Emperor Fer¬ 
 dinand was revoked. Near by is a pre¬ 
 tentious monument, erected in memory of 
 one of the noblest and most charitable of 
 women, Hendel, wife of Jacob Bassewi von 
 Treuenberg, ennobled by Emperor Ferdi¬ 
 nand II, in 1622 ; and so might many others 
 be named, who, in the old God’s acre, 
 sleep the last earthly sleep, and who, in 
 their day, rose far above mediocrity. Only 
 a few of the most renowned have been 
 mentioned. A century has passed since 
 the last interment took place. A relic of 
 the past, the old cemetery remains quiet 
 and undisturbed by the troubled life of 
 the present. Its epitaphs, in their stony 
 silence, are eloquent witnesses of the * 
 doings and ambitions of men and ages 
 gone, and as we step beyond its portal, we 
 feel that we are leaving the centuries of 
 persecution and oppression, and are going 
 out into the light of freedom. Of the sig¬ 
 nificance and importance of these epi- 
 
i 16 Old European Jewries . 
 
 taphs, the great master of Jewish research 
 says : 87 
 
 ‘‘The epitaphs were intended to keep 
 alive the memory of the dead unto pos¬ 
 terity beyond the time in which the pious 
 affection of relatives and admirers erected 
 them, and the possession or knowledge of 
 these inscriptions, though they reach no 
 further back than the eleventh century, 
 would have an incalculable value in in¬ 
 creasing our meager information concern- 
 
 o o 
 
 ing Jewish families, as well as for literature 
 and history. But nothing was destroyed 
 and uprooted with colder indifference or 
 with more bigoted fanaticism than the 
 Jewish tombstones; whatever tombstones 
 of an old date existed in numberless places 
 in Europe, Asia and Africa, were either 
 purposely destroyed, or carelessly per¬ 
 mitted to disappear. As a matter of 
 course, the purchased sepulchers, together 
 with the epitaphs,were the property of indi¬ 
 viduals, and the cemeteries acquired from 
 princes, towns and bishops for large sums 
 of money were the possessions of the con¬ 
 gregations ; in spite of this the graves were 
 
The Judenstadt of Prague, 11 7 
 
 desecrated and plundered in the thirteenth 
 century in Spain, Italy, France, Germany. 
 ‘ The sacred stones were thrown upon the 
 streets as an insult, the remains of those 
 who had worshipped God were removed 
 from their graves, and before the eyes of 
 the living the bodies of the dead were 
 trampled upon and plundered ’ (old prayer) ; 
 or after the expulsion and killing of the 
 Jews, the graveyards were seized, the 
 tombstones broken to pieces, and used for 
 other purposes. Throughout Germany, 
 between the fourteenth and the sixteenth 
 century, walls, foundations, churches and 
 houses were constructed with Jewish tomb¬ 
 stones thus acquired.” 
 
 So stands still the old Jewish quarter of 
 Prague ; its walls have fallen, the Jews have 
 scattered into all quarters of the city be¬ 
 yond its precincts, but still we thread the 
 narrow, crooked streets, and there crowd 
 in upon us thoughts, sad and painful, when 
 we recall the awful scenes here enacted, 
 and at the same time we are thrilled with 
 admiration for the constancy, heroism and 
 bravery of the thousands of Jews in the 
 
118 Old European Jentries, 
 
 dark years and centuries, in which they 
 withstood all the horrors to which they 
 were continually subjected. But through 
 the darkness that overhangs the past 
 gleams a bright light. In the narrow 
 lanes and byways, here and elsewhere, 
 grew up that beautiful Jewish home life 
 that has been one of the means of salva¬ 
 tion for the Jews. The story of this life is 
 not recorded, but it is more important 
 than the outer events and misfortunes that 
 historians have made note of. By it the 
 character of the people was formed, and 
 as we look upon the unsightly houses in 
 the Jewish quarter, the wretched exterior 
 seems to float away, and the home scenes 
 of joy and love and religious constancy 
 shine brilliantly forth—perpetual lamps— 
 and explain how, in spite of woe and 
 misery, such as have fallen to the lot of no 
 other people so long and so continuously, 
 the Jews have found strength to live and 
 hope on. Religion and home, faith and 
 love, conviction and affection, these are 
 undying possessions that the Jews clung 
 to and preserved. The evils of the 
 
The Judenstadt of Prague, 119 
 
 Ghetto, a hideous nightmare, have passed ; 
 the things that imbued the long-suffering 
 with strength, live forever. The mists 
 dissolve, the sun-light spreads, wrong dis¬ 
 appears, the just conquers, God reigns, 
 and right must triumph. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GHETTO OF ROME. 
 
 The Jewish community of Rome is un¬ 
 doubtedly the oldest in Europe. The Jews 
 have lived there uninterruptedly since Pom- 
 pey’s time, probably even from an earlier 
 day, 88 with the possible exception of a 
 short period during the reign of Claudius, 
 who is said to have expelled them from 
 the city. 89 We have no notice that they 
 were compelled to leave the city at any 
 other time. Even during the terrible days 
 of the crusades, the Jews of Rome were 
 little affected by the cruelty of the mobs, 
 who inflicted untold sufferings on their 
 co-religionists in Germany, France, Aus¬ 
 tria and Bohemia. Their condition in im¬ 
 perial and papal Rome was usually bear¬ 
 able, for, in many instances, the popes were 
 
 ( 120 ) 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 121 
 
 kind, although there were occupants of the 
 see of St. Peter who did all in their 
 power to harass, humiliate and oppress 
 them. Their residence of two thousand 
 years in Rome, the center of Chris¬ 
 tianity, under conditions most unfavor¬ 
 able and depressing, is nothing short of 
 a miracle. It is the same miracle that 
 the preservation of Israel everywhere pre¬ 
 sents ; it belongs to the scheme of Divine 
 Providence. The people has a mission, 
 and until that mission is fulfilled, it will 
 continue to exist, whatever the external 
 conditions and evils it must endure. 
 
 In the old imperial days, the Jews were 
 confined to no special quarter ; they could 
 dwell anywhere in the city, although the 
 majority lived in Transtiberis 90 (Trans- 
 tevere), where their synagogue was situ¬ 
 ated. This portion of the city some of 
 them continued to inhabit until the insti¬ 
 tution of the official Ghetto in 1556. But 
 long before this time Jews lived on the 
 left bank of the Tiber. 91 The bridge 
 Ouattro Capi was known as the Pons 
 Judczorum, “bridge of the Jews.” A 
 
122 
 
 Old European Jewries . 
 
 charter given in 1019 by Pope Bene¬ 
 dict VIII to the bishopric of Portus, whose 
 jurisdiction extended over the island of 
 the Tiber and Transtevere, mentions, as 
 belonging to this territory, fundum integ¬ 
 rum, qui vocatur Judceorum , “the whole 
 district, named after the Jews,” and desig¬ 
 nates, as its boundary, mediumpontem ubi 
 Tudezi habit are videntur , “ the middle of 
 the bridge, where the Jews appear to 
 dwell.” 92 
 
 Their papal masters were content to 
 permit the Jews to live as they had been 
 
 accustomed for centuries. With papal leg¬ 
 islation in regard to the Jews we are not 
 concerned here, except in so far as it touched 
 their dwelling place. With this none of 
 the popes, the spiritual and temporal mas¬ 
 ters of Rome, interfered until the time of 
 the cruel Paul IV Caraffa, one of the 
 most sinister pontiffs that ever occupied 
 the see of St. Peter. He was the one to 
 institute torture chambers and the censor- 
 ship in Rome. He was hated alike by 
 Christians and Jews. So bitter was the 
 animosity against him, that upon his death 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 123 
 
 the Roman people execrated and cursed 
 his memory. They applauded a Jew who 
 placed a yellow hat upon his statue, and 
 thereupon the people dragged the statue 
 through the streets of Rome to the Capitol, 
 destroyed it, and threw the head with the 
 hat into the Tiber. This man, whom the 
 Jews designated by the name of Israel’s 
 traditional arch-enemy, Haman, has the 
 sorry renown 93 of having established the 
 Roman Ghetto, into which, for three hun 
 dred years, thousands of human creatures 
 were crowded, a disgrace to humanity 
 and civilization. Scarce had he ascended 
 the papal throne when, on July 12, 1555, 
 he promulgated the famous bull, Cum 
 minis cibsurdum, in reference to the 
 Jews. It repeats all the restrictions 
 to which the Jews were accustomed, 
 but the only portion that interests us 
 here is the command that “ in Rome 
 and all other cities of the Papal States the 
 Jews shall live entirely separated from the 
 Christians, in a quarter or a street with 
 one entrance and one exit; they shall 
 have but one syna^o^ue, shall build no 
 
 ✓ <3 0 
 
124 Old European Jewries . 
 
 new synagogue, nor own real estate.” In 
 spite of petition and protest, the Jews of 
 Rome were forced into their prison. Paul 
 IV designated as the Ghetto a small 
 territory consisting of a few narrow, un¬ 
 healthy streets along the left bank of 
 the Tiber, and extending from the bridge 
 Ouattro Capi to the Via del Pianto, 
 “ the street of lamentation. ” Truly, an ap¬ 
 propriate entrance for the new quarter, as it 
 was a place of lamentation for the J ews, and 
 with weeping and wailing they entered it 
 on July 26, 1556. The Jews resisted at 
 the start; one of them, David d’Ascoli, 
 published a pamphlet setting forth the 
 reasons why his co-religionists should not 
 be treated thus ; for his pains he was con¬ 
 demned to imprisonment for life. 
 
 At first the district was named vicus 
 Judczorum, later Ghetto. It was shut in 
 by gates. Paul IV has been called the 
 “ heartless Pharaoh, who exposed the Jews 
 to all the ills bound to arise from the 
 cramped space and the low situation of 
 the dwellings along the river, and these 
 ills were a host of Egyptian plagues.” For 
 
125 
 
 The Ghetto of Rome. 
 
 example, in 1656, the Ghetto became such 
 a hotbed of infection that the gates were 
 closed for three months, and the unhappy - 
 inhabitants were not permitted to leave 
 the quarter during all that time. A 
 traveler of forty years ago speaks as fol¬ 
 lows of the Ghetto: “When I visited it 
 (the Ghetto) the first time, the Tiber had 
 just overflowed its banks, and the yellow 
 flood flowed through the Fiumara, the 
 lowest street of the Ghetto, the founda¬ 
 tions of the houses of which stand partly 
 in the water; the river also coursed along 
 the Octavia (another street), and covered 
 the lower portions of the lowest houses. 
 What a melancholy sight to see the wretch¬ 
 ed Jewish quarter thus sunk in the waves 
 of the Tiber ! Yearly must Israel in Rome 
 experience the deluge, and the Ghetto 
 survives the flood, like Noah’s ark, with 
 human creatures and animals. The dan¬ 
 ger increases, when the Tiber, swelled by 
 rains, is driven back from the sea by west 
 winds; then all who live in the lower 
 stories of the houses must seek refuge in 
 the upper apartments.” 94 
 
126 Old European Jewrics. 
 
 An Italian writer, in discoursing upon 
 the emancipation of the Jews in 1848, de¬ 
 scribes this Ghetto as a “formless heap of 
 hovels and dirty cottages, ill kept, in 
 which a population of nearly four thou¬ 
 sand souls vegetates, when half that num¬ 
 ber could with difficulty live there. The 
 narrow, unclean streets, the scarcity of 
 fresh air, and the filth, inevitable conse¬ 
 quences of such a conglomeration of human 
 beings, wretched for the most part, render 
 this hideous dwelling place nauseous and 
 deadly.” 95 
 
 This squalid quarter the Jews had to 
 occupy, and the inhumanity of Paul IV 
 placed the capstone upon the column of 
 indignity, erected in the course of the 
 Christian centuries, block upon block, each 
 designating some new disgrace heaped 
 upon the Jews. Unrelenting was Paul 
 IV in his inimical attitude towards the de¬ 
 voted people, and the day of his death 
 was hailed with joy throughout the Jewry 
 of the Papal States, the Jews hoping that, 
 as each new pope was an independent 
 sovereign, and made new rules for the 
 
127 
 
 The Ghetto of Rome. 
 
 government of his state, his successor 
 might revoke his decrees. That was the 
 only comfort that the Jews had whenever 
 a specially unfriendly pope occupied St. 
 Peters: possibly his successor would be 
 kind to them. And in this hope they were 
 justified this time. Pius IV (1559—1565), 
 the successor of Caraffa, entertained kind¬ 
 lier sentiments toward the J ews. H e light¬ 
 ened their burden considerably, and his 
 treatment was a great relief from the 
 
 unremitting and unrelaxing cruelty of his 
 predecessor. In 1561, at the urgent re¬ 
 quest of the Jews, he issued a brief to the 
 Jews of the Papal States, of the following 
 import: His predecessor had promulgated 
 a bull regulating the life of the Jews, which 
 some, out of desire for their riches, had 
 made use of to harass them. He, therefore, 
 decreed that the Jews, on their journeys, 
 might put aside the yellow head-covering, 
 and that they be obliged to wear it only 
 in the places in which they staid longer 
 than one day ; that, if the quarter assigned 
 to them in the cities was insufficient for 
 them and their business, it could be en- 
 
128 Old European Jewries. 
 
 larged by the governor or vice-legate, or 
 a larger and more fitting quarter could be 
 assigned to them ; that they could acquire, 
 besides their houses in these quarters, 
 other property to the value of 1500 gold 
 ducats ; that they could rent this property 
 to Christians, could do business with Chris¬ 
 tians, could exercise all trades, deal in all 
 manner of goods, and have intercourse 
 with Christians, but not employ Christian 
 servants ; that, in the quarters assigned to 
 them (viz., the Ghetto, established by Paul 
 IV), the (Christian) owners of the houses 
 could not ask exorbitant rents, but had to 
 rent the houses at a price determined by 
 the executive of the city. There were 
 many other regulations in this favorable 
 decree, but the last mentioned was of es¬ 
 pecial importance. At the accession of 
 Pius V (1566—1572), the next pope, the sky 
 was again overclouded for the Jewish resi¬ 
 dents of Rome. The mildness of Pius IV 
 had given them some respite, and encour¬ 
 aged them to hope for better things, but in 
 the days of Pius V the spirit of Paul IV was 
 revived. He revoked the concessions of 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 129 
 
 his immediate predecessor,and renewed the 
 harsh bull of Paul IV, Cum nimis absur- 
 dum. The Jews, when ordered to the 
 Ghetto, had been commanded to sell all 
 their real estate outside. They had evaded 
 this, and in the time of Pius IV, as noted 
 above, they had again been permitted to ac¬ 
 quire landed property. Pius V, however, 
 ordered, in reference to this matter, that 
 all property owned by the Jews not sold 
 within a specified time, or sold only on 
 pretense, was to become the possession of 
 the church. In 1569, he ordered the 
 Jews of all cities and towns of the Papal 
 States, with the exception of Rome and 
 Ancona, to leave within three months 
 under pain of slavery and confiscation of 
 their possessions. The Jews of these two 
 cities were commanded not to harbor the 
 exiles, and were forbidden to leave their 
 own city to go to another place. He 
 also laid down specific regulations for the 
 Jews of the Roman Ghetto. Every Jew 
 had to be in the Ghetto by nightfall. After 
 the Ave Maria , the gates of the Ghetto 
 were to be closed. Any Jew who was 
 9 
 
130 Old European Jewries. 
 
 caught outside after nightfall, was pun¬ 
 ished severely, unless he succeeded in 
 bribing the watchman. Gregory XIII 
 (1572—1585), the next pope, legislated in 
 much the same spirit, but it is said that he 
 permitted the Jews whom Pius V had ex¬ 
 pelled from the Papal States to return 96 . 
 
 Sixtus V (1585—1590),possibly the most 
 humane and liberal minded of all the oc¬ 
 cupants of the papal see, followed him. 
 Pie was very kindly disposed toward the 
 Jews, and in his day matters looked 
 brighter for them than they had dared 
 hope. In 1586 he issued his bull, Chris¬ 
 tiana pietas, in which he gave the Jews 
 permission to settle in all cities of his do¬ 
 main, and suitable dwellings at the custom¬ 
 ary rents were to be assigned to them. 
 These rents were not to be raised later. 
 In places where they had had synagogues 
 formerly, they were permitted to re-open 
 them, In short, in this bull, he renewed 
 all the privileges of the Jews. In his 
 time, attracted by the leniency of his rule, 
 many Jews came to Rome to live. 
 
 Clement VIII (1592—1605) issued his 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 131 
 
 bull, Ceeca et perfidia Hebrceorum obdu- 
 rata , on February 25, 1593. He revoked 
 the mild decrees of Pius IV and Sixtus V, 
 and put into force again the harsh regu¬ 
 lations of Paul IV and Pius V. He aofain 
 expelled all the Jews who had returned to 
 the cities of the Papal States during the 
 pontificate of Sixtus V. Within three 
 months of the date of the publication of 
 the bull, all the Jews except those of 
 Rome, Ancona and Avignon, permitted to 
 remain because of the larore commercial 
 
 o 
 
 interests in their hands, again had to 
 leave their homes. The Jews in Bologna 
 at that time numbered nine hundred souls. 
 On their departure from the city, with that 
 filial reverence characteristic of the Jews, 
 they took the bones of their dead with 
 them, and re-interred them in the ceme¬ 
 tery at Piere di Cento, where there was a 
 small Jewish congregation. 
 
 When Paul IV assigned the quarter be¬ 
 tween the Via del Pianto and the Ponte 
 del Ouattro Capi to the Jews as their 
 Ghetto, Christian families were living in 
 that region. They had to move out of their 
 
132 Old European Jewries. 
 
 homes, of which, of course, they retained 
 the ownership ; many of the other houses 
 were also owned by Christians. These 
 houses the Jews had to rent. They had 
 no alternative. They had to live there. 
 The landlords, knowing this, could ask al¬ 
 most any sum, and they were not slow in 
 taking advantage of the situation. The 
 jews, having been forced into this dwell¬ 
 ing place, had to be protected in some man¬ 
 ner from extortionate rents and from the 
 whim of the landlord, who might put them 
 out at any moment. So it was found nec¬ 
 essary in the time of Clement VIII to 
 issue the law regulating the holding of 
 property in the Ghetto and the relation of 
 tenant to landlord, a law that remained in 
 force until the abolition of the Ghetto. 
 This law was to the effect that the Roman 
 owners should remain in possession of the 
 houses, but the Jewish tenants were to be 
 given a leasehold; they could not be 
 given notice to move so long as they paid 
 their rent. The rent, fixed by the authori¬ 
 ties, could not be raised. The Jew could 
 change and enlarge the house if he de- 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 133 
 
 sired. This right was given a special 
 name, the jus gazzaga (from the Hebrew 
 chazakah, meaning right of possession), 
 and everyone who held such a lease valued 
 it highly, since it assured him and his 
 family of a roof over their heads, and pro¬ 
 tected him from the wanton treatment of 
 grasping landlords. This jus gazzaga was 
 handed down in families from generation 
 to generation, and they who possessed it 
 were regarded as remarkably fortunate,— 
 fortunate to be assured of the right of 
 dwelling in a close, confined, miserable 
 corner of the city! But the Jew had to 
 be thankful not only for a dwelling place, 
 but for the mere right to live. 
 
 In reference to this jus gazzaga , or 
 possession of leaseholds of the houses in 
 the Ghetto, Alexander VII (1655—1667) 
 issued a decree favorable to converted 
 Jews. The popes made continual efforts 
 to convert the Jews by every method in 
 their power, as will be noticed later on. 
 At times they succeeded, and naturally 
 these converted Jews were not regarded 
 with the most affectionate feelings by their 
 
134 Old European Jewries. 
 
 former brethren in faith. Now, it happened 
 at times that a converted Jew was in posses¬ 
 sion of a jus gazzaga. He, of course, 
 could move out of the Ghetto, and live 
 wherever he desired ; that was one of the 
 inducements held out for conversion. 
 Thereby his house in the Ghetto, of which 
 he held the perpetual lease, became va¬ 
 cant, and he was anxious to rent it, since 
 he had to pay rent to the Roman owner. 
 The J ews, however, banded themselves 
 together, an <3 agreed not to rent such 
 houses, in order to injure the faithless and 
 keep others from accepting Christianity. 
 Alexander, therefore, issued a brief in 
 1657, to the effect that the Jews of the 
 Ghetto, as a community, had to make 
 good the rent of such houses as long as 
 they stood empty. In 1658 he issued a 
 further decree in regard to the jus gaz¬ 
 zaga. Since the Jews, without the know¬ 
 ledge of the owners of the houses, often 
 sold this jits on burdensome conditions ; 
 since they made contracts and gave mort¬ 
 gages on it, so that it became difficult for 
 the owners to collect their rents ; since 
 
T 35 
 
 The Ghetto of Rome. 
 
 they took undertenants into the houses, by 
 whom the property was ruined, the own¬ 
 ers incurring - the cost of repair; since 
 they often left houses arbitrarily, and 
 mutually agreed that no Jew should rent 
 certain ones, the pope issued the same law 
 as in regard to the houses whose lease- 
 holds were in the possession of converted 
 Jews, viz., the community of the Ghetto 
 had to pay the rent of such houses to the 
 landlords. Houses in the Ghetto were 
 valuable ; even when empty they filled the 
 coffers of their owners. 
 
 The story of the relations between the 
 popes and the Jews does not belong here, 
 except in so far as it especially affected the 
 community of Rome. The spiritual juris¬ 
 diction of the popes extended over the 
 whole Catholic world, and their repeated 
 decrees against Jewish books, the Talmud 
 in particular; their dealings with the In¬ 
 quisition in its efforts to root out the se¬ 
 cret Jews in Spain, Portugal and Italy • 
 their edicts in regard to the attire of the 
 Jews; the association of Jews with Chris¬ 
 tians ; the employment of Christian ser- 
 
136 Old European Jewries. 
 
 vants and nurses by Jews, and many other 
 laws of the same import affected the 
 Roman Ghetto only as a part of the com¬ 
 munity of European Jews. But there 
 were points in which the Jews of Rome 
 stood in special relations to the pope. 
 
 It has been stated that the popes were, 
 for the most part, kind masters, and that 
 the lot of the Jews in the papal capital 
 was better than elsewhere. 97 The Jews 
 of Rome escaped the terrible persecu¬ 
 tions, the bloody massacres, the fright¬ 
 ful accusations, the heartless expulsions 
 that mark the history of their brethren 
 in France, England, Germany, Spain, 
 Portugal and Austria. They were sub¬ 
 jected to indignities, but to nothing more 
 serious. They were often molested, and 
 pettily persecuted ; they were made the 
 objects of scorn and mockery, not of 
 murder and pillage. Rome' was fre¬ 
 quently a place of refuge, and often re¬ 
 ceived them when they were driven out 
 of other Italian states and other countries. 
 The clemency of many of the popes was 
 due to the fact that they were the tern- 
 
1 37 
 
 The Ghetto of Rome. 
 
 poral rulers of the city, and whenever 
 their material interests clashed with the 
 spiritual legislation in regard to the Jews, 
 the former being the nearer concern ob¬ 
 tained prime consideration. 98 The Jews 
 were useful citizens in times of need, and 
 often aided the popes with money in their 
 struggles with rival powers. As every¬ 
 where, the Jew’s money was his weapon. 
 Up to the pontificate of Paul IV, their con¬ 
 dition in Rome was bearable. Such popes 
 as Gregory the Great, Alexander III, Ho- 
 norius III, Gregory IX, Nicholas IV, were 
 really kind and benevolently disposed to¬ 
 wards them. But from the day of Paul 
 IV, with the exceptions already noted, the 
 bull Cum nimis absurdum became the 
 charter of the Jews of Rome, “the pivot 
 upon which their life and history revolved.” 
 
 Even before the official institution of 
 the Ghetto by Paul IV, it was customary 
 for the Jewish community of Rome to 
 assist in welcoming the new pope on his 
 entrance into the citv. This entrance 
 resembled a triumphal march, and was a 
 magnificent spectacle. The Jews did 
 
138 Old European Jewries^ 
 
 homage to the new pope, and usually 
 from his reception of them they learned 
 whether the coming years would bring 
 weal or woe. The first mention of the 
 participation of the Jews in welcoming the 
 pope is in the time of Calixtus II, at 
 whose entrance in 1120 the plaudits of 
 
 the Jews mingled with those of the Ro- 
 
 « 
 
 mans. They usually met the pope with 
 the scroll of the Law. When Innocent 
 II, in 1138, entered Rome, the Jews ap¬ 
 proached him on his way to the Lateran 
 palace, bent the knee before him, and 
 handed their scroll to him in sign of hom¬ 
 age. He answered, “We praise and 
 honor the Law, for it was given your 
 fathers by Almighty God through Moses. 
 But we condemn your cult and your false 
 interpretation of the Law, for you await 
 the Redeemer in vain ; the apostolic faith 
 teaches us that our Lord Jesus Christ has 
 already appeared.” When Eugenius III 
 entered upon the pontifical office in 1145, 
 Jews were present at the great celebra¬ 
 tion, carrying the Mosaic Law on their 
 shoulders. Alexander III, in 1165, was 
 
The Ghetto of Rome, 
 
 139 
 
 received by a vast multitude, among them 
 the Jews, carrying their Law in their arms 
 according to custom. A ^reat multitude 
 of priests, laymen and Jews in 1187 ac “ 
 corded Clement Ilia hearty welcome amid 
 songs and praises." The method of the 
 reception of the Jews was definitely fixed. 
 In the description of the pope’s welcome, 
 we read in the Ordo Romanics: ‘‘And 
 the Jews come with their Law, make 
 obeisance, and offer him the Law for him 
 to honor it, and then the pope commends 
 the Law, and condemns the cult and 
 interpretation of the Jews, because they 
 say that the Redeemer will come, while 
 the Church teaches and preaches that the 
 Lord Jesus Christ has already come.” 
 The Jews on these occasions usually stood 
 arrayed on the Monte Guardano, or at the 
 Arch of Titus, which lay on the road of 
 the pope to the Vatican. The Arch of 
 Titus, one of the most valued remains of 
 antiquity, was erected after the conquest 
 of Jerusalem by Titus. On its frieze is 
 the figure of an old man on a bier, repre¬ 
 senting the river Jordan; on the arch 
 
140 Old European Jewries. 
 
 itself are pictured the seven-branched 
 golden candlestick, the golden table, the 
 ark and the silver trumpets, all connected 
 with the worship of the Temple. To the 
 Jews this arch embodied the loss of their 
 land. It seemed to them to bespeak their 
 shame and humiliation, and no Jew of 
 Rome ever passed through it; he always 
 made a detour, and passed around the 
 side. 100 
 
 The Jews, standing in these public 
 places, became the objects of scorn for the 
 Roman populace; the gamins jeered and 
 mocked them, the populace subjected 
 them to insult and contumely. As a re¬ 
 sult of their request to be saved from this 
 treatment, Innocent VIII permitted them 
 in 1484 to appear in the inner space of the 
 Castello St. Angelo. In 1513 Leo X re¬ 
 ceived them at the gate of this castle. 
 They reached him the Law for his confir¬ 
 mation. The pope took it, and said : 
 Confirmamus sed non consentimus , “ We 
 confirm, but do not assent.” This was the 
 last time that this ceremony took place. 
 
 One of the greatest indignities to which 
 
The Ghetto of Rome, 141 
 
 the Jews of Rome were subjected was their 
 compulsory participation in the races on 
 the Corso at the carnival. The populace 
 demanded as a great source of pleasure 
 that Jews run in the races. Paul II, in 
 1468, instituted these races, and amid the 
 gibes and jeers of the attendant crowds, 
 a number of Jews were forced annually to 
 participate ; their companions in the races 
 were asses, buffaloes and Barbary horses. 
 What rare sport it was for the Roman 
 populace to see the victims of their scorn 
 and contempt come forth, with no cover¬ 
 ing but a cloth about their loins, and run 
 the length of the Corso on an equal foot¬ 
 ing with animals! The weak degraded 
 by the strong ! So was it always in Rome : 
 none too low, none too degraded to 
 consider himself above the wretched in¬ 
 habitants of the Ghetto, whose very right 
 of residence depended on their doing the 
 will of their superiors. How the crowds 
 laughed and shouted with delight at the 
 sight of the Jews racing! How the 
 Christians pointed the finger of scorn, 
 and noble and gamin , cardinal and beggar, 
 
142 Old European Jewries. 
 
 flung insult and contumely at the miserable 
 ones! Time and again the Jews begged 
 to be spared this disgrace, but for two 
 centuries they were forced to endure it, 
 and only in 1668 Clement IX lent a fav- 
 orable ear to their entreaty, and granted 
 them the request to be freed from the 
 shame. In lieu of appearing on the race 
 course they paid 300 scudi yearly to the 
 papal treasury. 
 
 It was understood that the Jews lived 
 in Rome only on sufferance, and yearly 
 they had to perform the ceremony of 
 asking permission to dwell there another 
 year. On the first day of the carnival, 
 the heads of the Jewish community ap¬ 
 peared before the council of the city as 
 a deputation from the Jews. They pros¬ 
 trated themselves, and presented a bouquet 
 and twenty scudi to be used in decorating 
 the balcony on which the Roman senate 
 sat during the carnival. This deputation 
 at the same time requested the senate to 
 permit the Jews to remain in Rome. A 
 senator placed his foot on the forehead of 
 the Jews, bade them rise, and told them, 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 143 
 
 in the words of a traditional formula, that 
 the Jews were not taken into Rome as 
 citizens, but were suffered in charity. 101 
 This humiliation, too, they were spared in 
 1847 by Pius IX, but in 1850 they still 
 had to appear at the Capitol on the first 
 day of the carnival to express their sub¬ 
 mission, and pay a tribute of eight hun¬ 
 dred scudi in remembrance of the favor 
 that they were excused from taking part 
 in the races and furnishing amusement 
 to the people at this time. 
 
 One of the great objects of the popes 
 was to convert the Jews to Christianity by 
 any means whatsoever, since they firmly 
 believed that by this they were accomplish¬ 
 ing an important and holy work. From 
 their standpoint, they looked upon the 
 Jews as lost. They attributed the refusal 
 to accept Christianity to obstinacy and 
 blindness. Various methods were em¬ 
 ployed by them, but the strangest of all 
 was that introduced by Pope Gregory XIII 
 at the instigation of a converted Jew, 
 Joseph Tzarfati. In his bull, Sancta mater 
 ecclesia , of September 1, 1584, he com- 
 
144 dW European Jewries. 
 
 manded that in all places where there was a 
 sufficient number of Jews, a sermon should 
 be preached to them on the truths of 
 Christianity every Saturday. 102 This ser¬ 
 mon was designated predica coattiva . All 
 Jews above the age of twelve, unless pre¬ 
 vented by sickness, or some other adequate 
 excuse to be given to the bishop, were to 
 attend, so that always at least one-third of 
 the Jewish population was to be pres¬ 
 ent. This was carried out in Rome, es¬ 
 pecially in the eighteenth century. On 
 Saturday afternoon, the strange sight 
 of the police driving men, women, and 
 children over twelve to church with whips, 
 could be witnessed in the Roman Ghetto. 
 Saturday afternoon was chosen, because 
 it was thought that the words preached to 
 them in the church, setting forth the doc- 
 trines and truths of Christianity, compared 
 with the teachings of Judaism listened to 
 in the morning in the synagogue, would 
 appear so far superior and so much more 
 worthy of acceptance that they would 
 be converted easily. At first one hun¬ 
 dred and fifty had to appear, but the nun> 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 145 
 
 ber was later made three hundred. At 
 the entrance of the church stood a watch¬ 
 man, who counted those that entered to 
 make sure that the number was full. In 
 the church, the police made the people 
 pay attention ; if anyone appeared inat¬ 
 tentive, or under the soporific influence of 
 the sermon fell asleep, he was aroused by 
 blows of the whip. The preacher, usually 
 a Dominican, took as his text some pas¬ 
 sage from the Bible read in the morning 
 in the synagogue, and gave the Catholic in¬ 
 terpretation. These services were first 
 held in the church of San Benedetto alia 
 Regola, afterwards in the church of San 
 Angelo in Pescaria. 103 Needless to say, 
 the effort proved entirely fruitless ; from 
 a weekly it dropped into an occasional 
 service, held five times a year. It was 
 gradually dying out when Leo XII re¬ 
 vived it in 1824, and it was finally abol¬ 
 ished in 1847, the fi rst year of Pius IX. 
 
 It was not due to lack of zeal on the part 
 of the popes and the church that the Jews 
 did not adopt Christianity. The greatest 
 inducements were held out to converts : 
 
 I Q 
 
146 Old European Jewries. 
 
 they were released from the Ghetto, and 
 granted all civil rights and privileges. 
 Some converts, of course, there were, and 
 there can be no doubt that in the veins of 
 many bearing proud, old, Roman aristocra¬ 
 tic names the blood of these converted J ews 
 flows. At the ceremony adopting a J ew into 
 Christianity, always performed with great 
 show and pomp, ad majorem Dei et eccle- 
 sice gloriam, some member of the highest 
 aristocracy frequently stood sponsor, and 
 as in ancient Rome the client took the name 
 of his patrician patron, so here the con¬ 
 verted Jew took that of his aristocratic 
 sponsor. 104 His descendants are known 
 by that name, and are looked upon as a 
 branch of that noble family. As a con¬ 
 stant reminder of their obduracy in not 
 accepting Christianity, there was, opposite 
 the Ghetto, on a chapel near the bridge 
 Ouattro Capi, a picture of the crucifixion 
 with the verse Isaiah LXV, 2: “I spread out 
 my hands all the time unto a rebellious peo¬ 
 ple, that walk in the way which is not 
 good.” The unremitting efforts at con¬ 
 version met with partial success, A num- 
 
The Ghetto of Rome . 
 
 H7 
 
 ber of Jews adopted Christianity in 
 order to improve their lot in life, and 
 the careers of some of these apostates 
 and their descendants are so brilliant, 
 striking and surprising that they may well 
 excite wonder. I mention one, because 
 of the strange fact that a descendant of 
 the despised Jews rose to the highest 
 position in the Catholic world, a sufficient 
 excuse for introducing a short account of 
 his career. It is stated in various accounts 
 that the anti-pope Anacletus II, who main¬ 
 tained himself against Innocent II and the 
 greater portion of the Catholic clergy, 
 was of Jewish descent. 105 Anacletus was 
 supported in his claim by the Romans, 
 Sicilians and Milanese. He compelled his 
 rival to flee from Rome twice, and main¬ 
 tained his position until the time of his 
 death, in the year 1138. The following ac¬ 
 count of Anacletus and his family will 
 leave no room for doubt as to his Jewish 
 origin : 
 
 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the 
 Roman Jewish family Pierleoni acquired 
 great riches, and having become converted 
 
148 Old European Jewries. 
 
 to Christianity, played a great role in Rome 
 and in the church. The anti-pope Ana- 
 cletus II (1130—1138), the cause of much 
 dissension in Rome and in the church, was 
 a scion of this family. 106 About the middle 
 of the eleventh century, Benedict, the head 
 of the family, was baptized, and married a 
 lady of the Roman nobility. His son, Leo, 
 and his grandson, Peter Leon, with whom 
 the name Pierleoni begins, belonged to the 
 grandees of Rome ; they also bore the 
 title of consul. They had built their 
 castle at the entrance of the Ghetto, 
 next to the bridge leading to the island of 
 the Tiber, and this island was ruled by 
 them ; even the tower of the Crescent 
 was intrusted to them by Pope Urban II in 
 1098. In the struggle between the popes 
 and the emperors regarding the investi¬ 
 ture, they always took the part of the popes. 
 Urban II had died in 1099, in the castle of 
 Leo, the leader of the papal party, the only 
 place where he had felt secure. Leo’s son, 
 Peter, in the name of Pope Pascal II, con¬ 
 ducted the negotiations regarding the in- 
 vestiture with Emperor Henry V, before 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 
 
 149 
 
 his coronation in 1110. He died in r 128, and 
 one epitaph extols his piety, while another 
 praises him “ as a man unexcelled in riches 
 and glory.” 107 He had sought to pro¬ 
 cure for one of his sons the highly im¬ 
 portant office of prefect of the city, but 
 had failed because a powerful party was 
 opposed to him. One of his daughters 
 became the wife of King Roger, of Sicily, 
 and another son, also named Peter, first 
 appearedasamonk in Cluny. Then through 
 the efforts of his father he became cardi¬ 
 nal, and finally, in the year 1130, he was 
 chosen anti-pope with the appellation An- 
 acletus II. According to contemporary 
 writers, whose testimony, however, must 
 be used with much care, this family never 
 entirely lost its Jewish type, either physi¬ 
 cally or mentally. 108 These writers also say 
 that with keen foresight they ranged them¬ 
 selves on the side of the reform popes, and 
 acquired the highest political influence. 
 The ancestor of the family had amassed 
 an immense fortune by money transactions, 
 and the rest followed in his footsteps. His 
 numerous descendants intermarried largely 
 
150 Old European "pewvies. 
 
 with the Roman grandees. The re¬ 
 mainder of the nobility, however, hated 
 them as upstarts. 
 
 The picture which these chroniclers 
 draw of Anacletus is not very flattering. 
 No doubt they were influenced by a parti¬ 
 san spirit, as they were all strongly in 
 favorof Innocent, his rival. 109 Onereports 
 that Peter, the father of the pope, had 
 the reputation of being an execrable 
 usurer, and was, therefore, most bitterly 
 hated. Walter, archbishop of Ravenna, 
 calls the schism of Anacletus a “ heresy 
 of Jewish perfidy.” St. Bernard com¬ 
 plains that a descendant of the Jews oc¬ 
 cupies the chair of Peter, and that this is 
 an affront to Christ. Another designates 
 him as an avaricious and inordinately am¬ 
 bitious man. Innocent II, the rival 
 claimant to the papal throne, himself 
 wrote to Emperor Lothair, who sided 
 with him, that Peter Leon, i. e. y Anacle¬ 
 tus, had been striving for the papal crown 
 for a long time, and had obtained posses¬ 
 sion of it by means of violence, bloodshed 
 and robbery ; that he imprisoned pilgrims 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 151 
 
 who came from a distance to visit the 
 graves of the apostles, and tortured them 
 by every means, hunger, thirst, etc. 
 Innocent, in a letter to Hugo, Archbishop 
 of Rouen, also calls the action of Anacle- 
 tus “insane Jewish perfidy.” 110 
 
 Anacletus died on the 25th of January, 
 1138. His relatives buried him quietly in 
 an unknown spot. 111 Shortly thereafter 
 they, with all their adherents, submitted 
 to Innocent. 
 
 Evidently this anti-pope was neither 
 better nor worse than the great majority of 
 the occupants of the papal chair of that 
 time. If contemporary writers may be 
 believed, he employed every means to 
 compass his ends. In one point they all 
 seem to be agreed, viz., that he was of 
 Jewish descent, and this, as a matter of 
 course, made him much more despicable 
 in their eyes than all the deeds of vio¬ 
 lence. His career furnishes a very in¬ 
 teresting episode in the history of the 
 
 lews of Rome. 
 
 * 
 
 A few words more on the subject of 
 conversions. There were houses or homes 
 
i 5 2 Old European yewries. 
 
 for catechumens, a monastery for males, a 
 convent for females, where all such Jews as 
 were in the least likely to be converted were 
 kept, taught and supported until the time 
 of their conversion. If he had once con¬ 
 sented, by word or sign, to adopt Chris¬ 
 tianity, there was no possibility for the 
 Jew to retract. There are many in¬ 
 stances on record of men and women, 
 who, regretting their resolve, desired to 
 return to the Jewish community before 
 their conversion, but were not permitted ; 
 some met death, others imprisonment, as 
 a result of their constancy. The affirma¬ 
 tion of a witness, that he had heard a Jew 
 express the intention to adopt Christianity, 
 a remark dropped in conversation, a ges¬ 
 ture, was considered evidence sufficient, 
 and the papal police were sent into the 
 Ghetto to seize the candidate, to search 
 for him if he could not be found at once, and 
 to bring him into the house of the catechu- 
 mens by force, if necessary. 112 The follow¬ 
 ing two instances illustrate the methods 
 employed: “On the 5th of May, 1605, 
 Stella, the daughter of Jacob, was brought 
 
153 
 
 The Ghetto of Rome. 
 
 into the convent, because one of her rela¬ 
 tives, a catechumen, affirmed that, in his 
 hearing, she had expressed the wish to be¬ 
 come a Christian. After resisting for 
 twenty-five days, she consented to abjure 
 her faith. She was baptized under the 
 name of Hortense.” 113 
 
 “On April 26, 1689, upon the declara¬ 
 tion of two witnesses, the protector of the 
 catechumens sent some soldiers into the 
 Ghetto to seize a young girl nineteen 
 years old. The Jews hid her ; her mother 
 and brother were arrested, and the young 
 girl had to surrender herself. She did not 
 renounce Judaism until the fifth day of 
 the following January.” 114 
 
 It was with children that the conver- 
 sionists scored their greatest success. If 
 a Christian took a Jewish child in the 
 absence of its parents, and had it baptized, 
 it was considered a bona fide conversion. 
 In spite of the protests of the parents, 
 the tears of the mother, the agony of the 
 father, their child was kept from them, and 
 raised as a Christian, and the parents per¬ 
 haps never saw it more. The Mortara 
 
154 Old European Jewries. 
 
 case, in this century, was typical of many 
 that occurred in the zeal for converting 
 Jews. Any means were considered legiti¬ 
 mate. 
 
 Intercourse between the catechumen 
 and his co-religionists was forbidden 
 under penalty of the whipping-post and a 
 fine of twenty-five crowns; this prohibi¬ 
 tion included entering the Ghetto, eating, 
 drinking, sleeping with Jews, or even 
 speaking to them. A catechumen appre¬ 
 hended in conversation with his own 
 father or mother was severely punished 
 either by fine, bastinado or exile. 
 
 After the catechumen had expressed 
 his readiness to accept the faith, the sac¬ 
 raments were administered to him on 
 some feast day, either Epiphany or Pen¬ 
 tecost. Usually the pope himself was 
 present; the presiding cardinal addressed 
 the multitude at length upon the miracle 
 about to take place; thereupon the con¬ 
 vert, clothed in white satin, was led 
 through the streets of the city in a car¬ 
 riage, that the citizens might be edified by 
 the sight, and everybody might attest the 
 
J 55 
 
 The Ghetto of Rome . 
 
 conversion. If the convert was married, 
 his conversion annulled his Jewish marri¬ 
 age, and he could wed a Christian without 
 ado. There was in Rome a society, the 
 Brotherhood of St. Joseph, whose especial 
 object it was to convert Jews; this broth¬ 
 erhood was favored greatly by the popes. 
 Large resources were required to further 
 its work and to support the houses of the 
 catechumens. Whence obtain the funds ? 
 What portion of the community should be 
 taxed to carry on the holy work of convert¬ 
 ing Jews? Who was benefited more by 
 these saintly proceedings than Jews them¬ 
 selves? Therefore, let the Jewish com¬ 
 munities be taxed for this purpose. Truly, 
 a brilliant thought! The Jews themselves 
 were to furnish the sinews of war for the 
 proselytizing campaigns of Christianity 
 among their own. Julius III, in his bull, 
 Pastoris ceterni vices , of August 31, 1554, 
 was the first to impose this tax ; ten florins 
 per synagogue was the quota he named. 
 Later, this was increased greatly, and in 
 the period from 1565 to 1568 ten Jewish 
 communities of Italy were compelled to 
 contribute 5238 crowns for this purpose. 115 
 
156 Old European Jewries. 
 
 The most active proselytizing zeal of 
 the popes with regard to the Jews coin¬ 
 cides with the period of the Protestant 
 Reformation, as though they wished to 
 offset the losses occasioned by the lapses 
 from Catholicism to Protestantism by ac¬ 
 cessions from the Jews. 
 
 Vain hope! not all the promises of 
 favor succeeded in compassing that end in 
 more than a slight degree. Amid all the 
 horrors of the Ghetto, the great majority 
 of the Jews remained true to their inherited 
 faith even though renunciation meant the 
 enjoyment of all the rights and benefits of 
 which, as Jews, they were deprived. 
 
 In 1712, Clement XI transferred the 
 property and the privileges of the Brother¬ 
 hood of St. Joseph, the fraternity that 
 exercised care and protection over the 
 catechumens, to the Pii Operaip^ who con¬ 
 tinued the work, but at present their 
 activity as agents for the conversion of 
 the J ews has well nigh ceased. 117 
 
 The Jewish community of Rome, al¬ 
 though under the jurisdiction of the popes, 
 was still, in a measure, autonomous. Nat- 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 157 
 
 urally, Jewish life centred in the syn¬ 
 agogue. This was situated in the Piazza 
 di Scuola or Temple Court. The build¬ 
 ing consisted of five synagogues com¬ 
 bined, the Catalonian, the Sicilian, the 
 Castilian, the New Synagogue and the 
 Temple proper. IlS In all likelihood, they 
 received their names from the different 
 rituals used, and were probably founded by 
 exiles from various countries who sought 
 refuge in Rome. These synagogues, 
 though virtually distinct, were all united 
 into one building, because the Jews were 
 not permitted to have more than one 
 house of worship. The structure was de¬ 
 stroyed by fire in the winter of 1893, and 
 many valuable relics were consumed in 
 the flames. All the debris of prayer books, 
 Bibles, etc., rescued from the fire was buried 
 in the cemetery, and a memorial stone is 
 to be erected over the spot. 
 
 The Jewish community of Rome was 
 looked up to by the other Italian Jewish 
 communities as having a certain pre-emi¬ 
 nence. The rabbi’s influence was prepon¬ 
 derating. The executive heads of the com- 
 
158 Old European Jewries. 
 
 munity were the three fattori; they regu¬ 
 lated the taxes, and superintended the 
 weekly distribution of alms to the poor. 
 They were held responsible by the pope 
 for the good order of the Ghetto. The 
 legislative body of the Ghetto was the 
 council of sixty; its duty was the regula¬ 
 tion of the internal life of the Ghetto; it 
 named the officers, chose the rabbi, and 
 exercised the right of excommunication. 
 As may be readily understood, its power 
 was only advisory. Its decisions had to 
 be sanctioned by the papal officer who had 
 jurisdiction over the Ghetto. 
 
 The edict of Pius VI issued on April 5, 
 1 775, remains to be mentioned. It has 
 been termed “ the blackest page in the 
 history of mankind.” 119 It consisted of 
 forty-four paragraphs, and repeated, in the 
 harshest manner, all the old restrictive 
 legislation in reference to Jews. The 
 thirty-seventh paragraph may be given 
 here as the last official expression bearing 
 upon our subject: 
 
 “ Jews of both sexes may not live outside 
 of the Ghettos. They may not sojourn in 
 
159 
 
 The Ghetto of Rome. 
 
 villages, on country estates, in castles, 
 parks or anywhere else on any pretext 
 whatsoever, not even on the plea that 
 they require change of air, and if they re¬ 
 quire such change, and they wish to go 
 away and remain even one day, they must 
 be particular—according to the decree of 
 the holy assembly of May 19, 1751, agree¬ 
 ing with a like decree of Alexander VII, 
 of September 6, 1661—to secure a written 
 permission in which must be contained 
 the name, the surname and the descent of 
 the Jew, the legal ground upon which 
 the permission was granted him, the length 
 of time of its validity, together with the 
 conditions that the Jews must wear the 
 sign on the hat as is directed above in Ar¬ 
 ticle 20, and that they may not live with 
 Christians, nor associate with them in 
 friendly companionship. Upon return, 
 they shall give back the permit to the 
 court from which they received it under 
 pain of a fine of three hundred scudi, im¬ 
 prisonment and other discretional penal¬ 
 ties for every act of disobedience.” 
 
 The inhumanity that breathes in this 
 
160 Old European Jewries. 
 
 decree is characteristic of the whole edict. 
 The saturnine spirit of Paul IV lived again 
 in Pius VI. But temporary relief at least 
 was coming for the victims of centuries of 
 persecution. In 1798, Pius VI, after the 
 occupation of Rome by the army of the 
 French Republic, left the city never to 
 return. The Roman Republic was pro¬ 
 claimed. The Jews profited by the new 
 state of things. Although the French oc¬ 
 cupied the city a little less than two years, 
 and later the old condition of affairs was 
 in part re-established, yet one of the great¬ 
 est indignities to which the Jews had been 
 subjected was abolished at this time. On 
 July 9, 1 798, the distinguishing mark that 
 the Jews had been forced to wear was 
 officially abolished by an edict of General 
 St. Cvr. 
 
 j 
 
 In 1800, the new pope, Pius VII, en¬ 
 tered Rome. He evinced kindly feeling 
 toward his Jewish subjects, although he 
 did nothing effectual to improve their con¬ 
 dition. In 1808 the French aeain occu- 
 pied Rome. The pope was led away a 
 prisoner. The affairs of the Jews were 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 161 
 
 taken in hand by the French. They were 
 given equal rights with all citizens. The 
 crates of the Ghetto were not locked at 
 
 o 
 
 night. They were granted permission to 
 carry on any trade. This meant a great 
 deal, for Innocent XIII, in renewing Paul 
 IV’s infamous bull, had added thereto, in 
 i 724, the restriction that the Jews of Rome 
 be permitted to ply no trade but that of 
 dealing in old clothes, rags and iron. A 
 few years later, in 1740, Benedict XIV 
 extended this by allowing them to deal 
 also in new clothes. Their freedom, how¬ 
 ever, lasted but a short time. Pius VII 
 returned to Rome in 1814 after the de¬ 
 parture of the French. Although the new 
 regulations that had been instituted by 
 the French were annulled, yet the condi¬ 
 tion of affairs was an improvement upon 
 what it had been before the French in¬ 
 vasion. The pope permitted the Jews to 
 open stores in the vicinity of the Ghetto 
 outside of its walls. A small number of 
 families were also permitted to live outside 
 of the Ghetto. 
 
 His successor, Leo XII (1823 
 
 1829), 
 
162 Old European Jewries . 
 
 gave the Jews the right to acquire houses 
 over and beyond those covered by the jus 
 gazzaga. He increased the number of 
 the gates of the Ghetto to eight, which 
 were closed every night. He legislated for 
 the most part in the old spirit, and many of 
 the more prominent families emigrated 
 from Rome to other lands, where Jews 
 enjoyed greater freedom. The next popes, 
 Pius VIII (1829—1830), and Gregory 
 XVI (1831—1846), did nothing for the bet- 
 termemt of the lot of their Jewish subjects. 
 
 But even Rome had to pay regard to 
 the spirit of liberation and emancipation 
 abroad everywhere in Europe, and, in 
 1847, the new pope, Pius IX, who had 
 lately ascended the papal throne, deter¬ 
 mined to have the ^ates and walls of the 
 Ghetto destroyed, and to permit the Jews 
 to dwell anywhere in the city. On the 
 eve of Passover, April 17, 1848, strange 
 sounds were heard by the Jews, who were 
 celebrating their feast. Often in the 
 past had sounds and noises on that night 
 struck terror to the hearts of the Jewish 
 inhabitants of more than one Ghetto. But 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 163 
 
 too frequently on this occasion had ene¬ 
 mies and excited mobs accused them of hav¬ 
 ing murdered a Christian to use his blood at 
 their feast. Faces blanched and limbs 
 trembled, for the poor creatures knew 
 well what misery and trouble that lie 
 always bore in its train. 120 For once, the 
 sounds from without on the Passover eve 
 bore a joyful message. The purpose of 
 demolishing the walls of the Ghetto had 
 been kept a secret from the Jews of Rome, 
 and when they learned the import of the 
 blows that resounded in the night, what 
 joy, what happiness was theirs ! At last 
 the walls of the Ghetto were removed, 
 and they were free men like all others ! 
 But their joy was not of long duration. 
 The policy of Pius IX was liberal in 
 the first two years of his reign, but a 
 reactionary movement set in after the 
 revolutions of 1848, and the Ghetto was re¬ 
 established. For twenty-two years longer, 
 despite the removal of Ghettos every¬ 
 where, it continued to stand, a reproach 
 to the city. In 1870, the Jews themselves 
 took the matter in hand, and prepared a 
 
164 Old European Jewries . 
 
 remarkable petition, begging for the aboli¬ 
 tion of the Ghetto, and setting forth their 
 sad plight. The opening portion of this 
 important document (first published a few 
 years ago), 121 which graphically describes 
 the horrors of the Ghetto and the misery 
 of its inhabitants, may properly find a 
 place here. The Jews of Rome addressed 
 the ruler under whose power they lived, 
 and in whose mercy they trusted, as fol¬ 
 lows : 
 
 “ Most Holy Father ! The elders and 
 
 J 
 
 the delegates of the Jewish community of 
 Rome, faithful subjects of your Holiness, 
 prostrate themselves before your exalted 
 throne, and offer the assurance of the 
 continued loyalty of their co-religionists. 
 This feeling of loyalty is the result of the 
 many conspicuous deeds of kindness which 
 we, O Holy Father, have experienced at 
 your hands, and we are now animated by 
 the pleasant sensation of hope, since your 
 exalted will has consented to receive new 
 petitions in its name. In fulfilment of the 
 duty imposed on them, the petitioners 
 presume humbly and reverently to lay be- 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 165 
 
 fore your holy wisdom and mildness the 
 present, exceedingly wretched condition of 
 their co-religionists. May you deign to cast 
 a gracious glance from your exalted throne 
 upon those, who, though Israelites, are a 
 portion of your people. 
 
 Your Holiness gave them permission 
 to occupy houses for dwelling and business 
 purposes beyond the boundaries set in 
 earlier times. They have gradually per¬ 
 ceived that this concession has not pro¬ 
 duced the beneficial effects which, without 
 doubt, lay in the thought of your Holi¬ 
 ness. The streets which by that conces¬ 
 sion they could use are very narrow. 
 Room for residence purposes has been 
 further diminished by the palaces and re¬ 
 ligious institutions here and there, so that 
 many families that otherwise would have 
 
 removed from the old section remained 
 
 ♦ 
 
 there. Therefore the contiguity of the 
 houses and the massing of the inhabitants, 
 with all the resultant evils, continue much 
 as they were twenty-two years ago. 
 
 These evils are most noticeable in 
 Azinelle, Catalana and Fiumara streets. 
 
166 Old European Jewries. 
 
 These, inhabited for the most part by the 
 poorest classes, chiefly rag-pickers and sel¬ 
 lers of old soles, defy all the laws of health. 
 
 In the streets Azinelle and Catalana, 
 light and air are very scarce. Seldom or 
 never does a ray of the sun penetrate there; 
 yet small, narrow ground-floors must serve 
 for dwellings and stores. This condition 
 of affairs brings forth even worse results 
 in Fiumara street, which lies so low that 
 whenever the Tiber rises floods ensue, and 
 the dampness which remains long after 
 the water has receded becomes a source 
 of disease, jeopardizing health and often 
 life. The prohibition to have stores 
 outside of the set boundaries, considered 
 from another point of view, is no less in¬ 
 jurious to the Israelites. They meet with 
 difficulties, sometimes insuperable, if they 
 desire to devote their activity to some oc¬ 
 cupation besides trading, more particularly 
 trading in clothes. They cast their eye 
 upon many branches of industry, art and 
 science; but in the condition to which they 
 have been degraded, they can entertain no 
 hope of entering upon any other career. 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 167 
 
 I11 the retail and wholesale branches of the 
 clothing business, which formerly they 
 controlled, foreign and home competitors 
 have arisen in the past few decades. These 
 competitors, with their magnificent stores 
 situated in the most populous and the 
 richest portions of the city, have drawn 
 greatly from the trade of the Israelites, 
 confined, as they are, to a single and less 
 prominent section. As a result, many 
 have been entirely ruined; others have 
 continued to eke out a living with care 
 and trouble ; still others, the richest men 
 of the community, discouraged by their 
 losses, deprived of the right to own real es¬ 
 tate, which would have secured their for¬ 
 tune, have emigrated to other lands, leav¬ 
 ing the great majority to whom they had 
 given help and imparted advice. These 
 now of necessity sink to even lower 
 depths of wretchedness. 
 
 It certainly does not escape your wise 
 insight, Holy Father, how such a concur¬ 
 rence of difficulties must greatly increase 
 the burdens of the pious Israelitish insti¬ 
 tutions, which were founded, and are al- 
 
168 Old European Jewries. 
 
 most entirely supported by private charity. 
 For, owing to the above mentioned emigra¬ 
 tion of those families who formerly man¬ 
 aged the different institutions, and en- 
 deavored, with great zeal and love, to im¬ 
 prove them, only sparse and occasional 
 revenues remain to meet the greatest and 
 most pressing needs. The difficulties of 
 providing for their own support, prevent 
 those to whom the management of these 
 institutions has now fallen from devoting 
 themselves to the work, all the more neces¬ 
 sary since destitution is continually in¬ 
 creasing. This community has not suffi¬ 
 cient means to alleviate the want, for its 
 status as fixed by law and its poverty 
 prevent any attempt towards that end from 
 being- successful. 
 
 o 
 
 The Jewish community has, it is true, 
 founded an elementary school for religious 
 and civic instruction, but impelled by 
 hunger, the son of poor parents leaves 
 school while of tender years in order 
 to procure the piece of bread with which 
 his parents cannot supply him, and to look 
 for a rag with which to cover his naked- 
 
 o 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 169 
 
 ness. Pack-carrier, rag-picker, vender of 
 matches, messenger and waiter, buyer of 
 old soles, water carrier, bearer of burdens, 
 he becomes, and never, never anything 
 else ! No other nourishment for his intel¬ 
 lectual and moral nature ! His forehead— 
 persecutions have pressed the seal of con¬ 
 tempt on it—cannot boast of the noble 
 sweat of work, his hand cannot show the 
 honorable hardness of the workman’s. 
 Abandoned to his poverty, deprived of all 
 means to combat it energetically, he eventu¬ 
 ally comes to identify himself completely 
 with his misery. He cannot even hope 
 for an alleviation of his condition such as 
 others can find in the tasks which the mu¬ 
 nicipality provides. He instinctively feels 
 that he has been robbed of the most pre¬ 
 cious possessions here below, and in his 
 despair he loses all consciousness of his 
 human dignity. He celebrates weddings 
 which have no joy for him ; even the fam¬ 
 ily loses its exalted character. In the 
 dismal room, exposed to all the influences 
 of bitter poverty, a single bed stands, upon 
 which, regardless of every consideration of 
 
 ’ O J 
 
i 70 Old European Jewries. 
 
 health and chastity, parents and the troop 
 of children of every age and sex lie down 
 together. The governing body of the 
 community, indeed, takes account of the 
 moral disorder and the diseases which such 
 a state of affairs causes ; but how can any 
 preventive measures be effectually adopted 
 when there are hundreds and hundreds of 
 such families ! And although you, Holy 
 Father, took this community, too, under 
 the wings of your exalted kindness, and gave 
 it a share of the state charities, yet did 
 those unto whom the carrying out of the 
 merciful act of the great sovereign was in¬ 
 trusted, devote but three hundred scudi to 
 this purpose, notwithstanding the fact that 
 more than two thousand poor are enrolled 
 for weekly alms. Those of moderate means 
 exhaust their resources in the strimo-le 
 
 o o 
 
 with the burdens which they are compelled 
 to bear, viz., the taxes which they have to 
 pay in common with the whole population, 
 and the special tax imposed on their re¬ 
 ligious community. They are also obliged, 
 besides paying other taxes of the congre¬ 
 gation, to give a fixed sum yearlv to two 
 
 o 7 <x> ✓ + 
 
The Ghetto of Rome, 171 
 
 Catholic foundations, the casa pia of the 
 catechumens and the convent of the con¬ 
 verts, two institutions for the conversion 
 of Jews, and must pay the expenses of the 
 governing body of the Jewish community, 
 which consists of non-Jews. With each 
 biennial renewal of the so-called tax for 
 industry and capital, they complain of the 
 continual increase of the sums they must 
 expend in consequence of the falling off of 
 other contributions due to business mis¬ 
 fortunes, and they accuse the administra¬ 
 tion of arbitrariness and injustice.” 
 
 The memorial then goes on to give at 
 length a history of the Jewish community 
 of Rome, dwelling upon the kindness of 
 the popes towards the Jews and their fav¬ 
 orable position up to the time of Paul IV. 
 The later legislation, which, in spite of oc¬ 
 casional intervals of clemency, gradually 
 depressed and degraded the Jews, is set 
 forth in detail. “The unfortunates, op¬ 
 pressed in the present, despairing of the 
 future, excluded from civil rights, grew 
 less and less familiar to the community at 
 large, and at the same time more and 
 
172 Old European Jewries . 
 
 more powerless to fight the slanders di¬ 
 rected against their domestic and com¬ 
 munal life, their religious belief and their 
 history, so that their spiritual elasticity 
 was lamed, and their naturally great en¬ 
 ergy weakened. Thus they sank in the 
 estimation of their fellow citizens, and 
 what was still more deplorable, in that of 
 the exalted popes by whom they had been 
 so highly honored formerly.” 
 
 The petition adduces evidence from 
 non-Jewish sources of the worth of many 
 of the Jews of Rome, speaks of the re¬ 
 markable careers of Jewish physicians 
 who attended popes, cardinals and other 
 dignitaries, calls attention to the learned 
 Jews of Rome, such as Nathan ben Jechiel, 
 compiler of the A ruck, the first Talmudi- 
 cal dictionary, Immanuel, the poet, the 
 friend of Dante, Giulio Romano, the phi¬ 
 losopher, and others, and closes with the 
 following strong prayer : 
 
 '‘Accustomed as the undersigned are to 
 bless your name, they hope not to have 
 spoken in vain to your fatherly heart of 
 the sad lot still theirs ; the insalubritv of 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 173 
 
 the old Jewish dwellings ; the exceedingly 
 contracted space granted the Jews for 
 homes ; the direct and indirect obstacles 
 to the free pursuit of the trades, the fine 
 arts and the larger number of industries ; 
 the limited right to possess real estate ; 
 the denial on the part of some notaries of 
 their right to act as witnesses; the alarm¬ 
 ing increase of poverty; the impotence of 
 the Israelitish benevolent institutions to 
 prevent or lessen misery ; the impropriety 
 of the yearly appropriations paid by order 
 of the finance commission to two Catholic 
 institutions; the alarm of the rich, who, in 
 consequence of the mentioned burdens, - 
 are subjected to many pecuniary sacri¬ 
 fices required by their own religious 
 foundations, and others which the indebt¬ 
 edness of their benevolent institutions 
 demands of them ; the inability to take 
 energetic measures for the better educa- 
 tion of the greatly increasing poorer class— 
 all this (misery), O Holy Father, must 
 appeal to you, in such a degree, that your 
 own heart will find it advisable not to delay 
 the carrying out of the good deed, for 
 
1 74 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 paupercs facti sumus nimis , we have be¬ 
 come too impoverished, and the prayer 
 which the undersigned whisper in the 
 hearing of your Holiness is the prayer of 
 forty-eight hundred of your subjects. 
 
 H ear us, O Holy Father, so that the 
 children of Israel may once again benefit 
 by that noble generosity inseparably con¬ 
 nected with your immortal name ! ” 
 
 The day of deliverance, however, was 
 at hand, arriving sooner than they had 
 expected. While the Jews of Rome were 
 preparing this petition for the final aboli¬ 
 tion of the Ghetto, the pope was still mas¬ 
 ter of the destinies of the city. But the 
 occasion never came to present it, for the 
 temporal sway of the pope came to an end, 
 when on September 20, 1870, the Italian 
 kingdom with Victor Immanuel as king 
 was established. The Jews changed mas¬ 
 ters. They welcomed their king enthusi¬ 
 astically. New hopes were aroused in the 
 Jewish community. The Ghettos estab¬ 
 lished by the popes were virtually abolished. 
 The Ghetto of Rome stood, it is true, fif¬ 
 teen years longer. It was only in 1885 
 
The Ghetto of Rome. 
 
 1 75 
 
 that it began to be demolished, having 
 stood longer than any Ghetto in western 
 Europe. But now this remnant of 
 mediaeval exclusion has passed away. 
 The J ews of Rome, with new opportuni¬ 
 ties, are taking an honored position among 
 their Italian countrymen. It is a long 
 story of oppression, lasting just eighteen 
 hundred years, from the destruction of 
 the Temple of Jerusalem and the depor¬ 
 tation of the Jewish captives to Rome in 
 70, to the accession of Victor Immanuel 
 in 1870. Eighteen hundred years ! 
 Rome has had many masters. Emperors, 
 northern conquerors, popes, Rienzi, pow¬ 
 erful families, such as the Colonnas, Orsinis, 
 Borgias, have appeared on the scene, and 
 lived their short day. Through it all, in 
 that wretched quarter on the Tiber, amid 
 disadvantages inconceivable and under 
 burdens vast, the Jewish community lived 
 on, unchanged amid change, steadfast 
 in oppression, firm in faith and trust in 
 the God of their fathers ! The tocsin of 
 freedom has sounded, and from out the 
 dark hole of forced seclusion Judaism’s 
 
i 76 Old European Jewries. 
 
 followers have issued into the broad light 
 of liberty. Let others account for it as 
 they may ; we see, in the long history and 
 the continued existence of this people, the 
 hand of Providence directing the course 
 of those who lived and suffered for the 
 truth. 
 
 May prosperity find the descendants of 
 the Jews of the Ghetto as faithful as ad¬ 
 versity found their ancestors ! 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN GHETTO. 
 
 The Judengasse of Frankfort has become 
 a memory, the Judenstadt of Prague has 
 ceased to be the compulsory dwelling place 
 of the J ews, the Ghetto of Rome has been 
 demolished—everywhere in Europe relics 
 of hostile legislation have disappeared be¬ 
 fore the enlightened, tolerant spirit of the 
 age. Everywhere? Nay, not so. We 
 should have said, everywhere west of the 
 boundaries of the empire of the Tzar. 
 There, in barbarous Russia, the mediaeval 
 spirit still rules, and a Ghetto exists whose 
 condition is more horrible perhaps than 
 ever that of any Ghetto of earlier days. It 
 stands forth in a blackness the more intense 
 because of the sun of tolerance that 
 shines everywhere else. It is not the 
 Ghetto with which we have become ac¬ 
 quainted thus far, a street or section set 
 apart in a town or city, but a district set 
 
 (177) 
 
 12 
 
i 78 Old European Jewries . 
 
 apart in a country. The Jew is told, “ only 
 in certain sections of the land you may 
 dwell.” The Russian persecutions are 
 the crime of the century, and this massing 
 of millions of people within a compara¬ 
 tively small section, and closing the whole 
 of the remaining portion of the land against 
 them is the height of malicious ingenuity. 
 This Russian Ghetto is known as the 
 Pale of Settlement. In the whole of Rus¬ 
 sia, not counting Poland (for “in stealing 
 Poland, Russia had to take its Jews, too ”), 
 Jews are permitted to reside only in the 
 following fifteen gubernia: Wilna, Kowno, 
 Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk, Moghilev, Vol- 
 hynia, Podolia, in West Russia; Kiev 
 (exclusive of the city of Kiev), Tcherni- 
 eov and Poltava, in the Ukraine or Little 
 Russia; Ekaterinoslav, Taurida (except 
 Sebastopol), Kherson (except Nikolaiev), 
 and Bessarabia, in South Russia. From 
 Great Russia, from the provinces of Kazan 
 and Astrakhan, from Finland and the Bal¬ 
 tic Provinces they are entirely excluded. 122 
 Even in the Pale of Settlement they are 
 permitted to dwell in the cities only, and 
 
The Russian Ghetto. 179 
 
 thus there has been created a Pale within 
 the Pale. What makes the crowd in a- 
 
 o 
 
 within these pens the harder to bear is the 
 fact that for a time a little light had ap¬ 
 peared, and the Jews had been permitted 
 under certain conditions to dwell outside 
 the Pale of Settlement. Alexander II 
 had lightened the burden of the Jews some¬ 
 what, and in 1865 had granted permission 
 to dwell where they pleased to Jews in 
 possession of university diplomas, to mer¬ 
 chants of the first guild, and to artisans. 
 Besides, Jews were tolerated in the princi¬ 
 pal ports, such as Riga, Libau, Rostov. 
 The number who had taken advantage of 
 this permission reached hundreds of thou¬ 
 sands. After the assassination of the 
 humane Tzar, the evil days began. A 
 spirit of fanaticism, fed by cries of pan¬ 
 slavism and supremacy of the Russian or¬ 
 thodox religion, became rampant, and the 
 first victims to feel the terrible effects 
 were the Jews. In May, 1882, by the in¬ 
 spiration of the tyrant Ignatieff, the so- 
 called May laws, fraught with so much 
 misery, were promulgated. These laws 
 
180 Old European yewrics. 
 
 ordered (i) that as a temporary measure, 
 until a general revision of the laws con- 
 cerning the Jews can be made in a proper 
 manner, the Jews be forbidden to settle 
 outside the towns, the only exceptions be¬ 
 ing in Jewish colonies that existed before, 
 and whose inhabitants are agriculturists ; 
 and (2) that the completion of instru¬ 
 ments of purchase of real property and 
 mortgages in the name of Jews, the regis¬ 
 tration of Jews as lessees of landed estates 
 situated outside the precincts of towns, 
 and the issue of powers of attorney to 
 enable Jews to manage and dispose of 
 such property, be suspended temporarily. 123 
 These laws were made to refer to the Pale 
 of Settlement. The Russo-Jewish Com¬ 
 mittee of London commenting on these 
 laws says, “ The effect of the first clause of 
 this enactment would clearly be to create 
 a Pale within the Pale. Hitherto, ordi¬ 
 nary Jews, if prevented from going be¬ 
 yond the Pale, could move from town to 
 village, and from village to village, within 
 the Pale. This was to be stopped. In 
 process of time, all the Jews of the Pale 
 
The Russian Ghetto. 181 
 
 would be cooped up in the towns and 
 townlets found within it. There they 
 might be left ‘to stew in their own juice.’ 
 
 The second clause was not less wide- 
 reaching in its scope, for it tended to the 
 same end, by restricting still further the 
 possibility of Jewish life in the country. 
 If a Jew might not acquire land by pur¬ 
 chase, mortgage or lease, or have any¬ 
 thing to do with landed estate, his country 
 life must come to an end, and even the 
 favored exceptions, permitted to reside in 
 the villages as old inhabitants, would have 
 no work to occupy them.” 124 Upon the 
 enforcement of these laws, the popula¬ 
 tions of the overcrowded cities and towns 
 were augmented by the thousands com¬ 
 pelled to leave their homes in the country 
 and the villages ; it amounted to virtual 
 expulsion, for, unable to find a resting 
 place, the unfortunates had to leave Rus¬ 
 sia. The expulsions of 1882 are still 
 fresh in the minds of all. The unprece¬ 
 dented cruelty and inhumanity of these 
 May laws called forth so indignant a pro¬ 
 test in Western Europe and in America 
 
r82 Old Ettropean Jewries. 
 
 as to bring about the deposal of Ignatieff 
 from favor, and with it the partial suspen¬ 
 sion of his laws. But the persecuting 
 spirit has been at work, and since 1888, 
 when it broke forth more strongly than 
 ever, the May laws have been rigorously 
 enforced. A new power had arisen in 
 the land. Pobiedonostseff, the primate 
 of the Russian church, a man possessed 
 of that “true malignity of genius that 
 makes a grand inquisitor,” had obtained 
 complete mastery over the Tzar’s mind. 
 The miseries of the Russian Jews have 
 increased hundredfold. The crowding 
 into the cities of the Pale goes on apace. 
 Towns such as Tchernigov, of five thou¬ 
 sand Jews, have had the number increased 
 to twenty thousand. 
 
 So Berditchev in the province of Kiev, 
 in 1890, was supposed to contain about 
 60,000 inhabitants, two-thirds Jews. An 
 acute observer says of the effects of the 
 edicts upon this town: “It was then an 
 overcrowded place, made up for the most 
 part of old and insanitary rookeries, in 
 which was huddled one of the poorest 
 
The Russian Ghetto . 183 
 
 populations to be found anywhere in Eu¬ 
 rope. By August, 1891, it was said that 
 fully twenty thousand additional Hebrews 
 had been driven in from the surrounding* 
 country. The spectacle of their poverty 
 and squalor was something too sickening 
 for words. The whole place, with its 
 filthy streets, its reeking half-cellars under 
 the overhanging balconies, and its swarm¬ 
 ing throngs of unwashed, unkempt wretches, 
 packed into the narrow thoroughfares on 
 the lookout for food, made a picture 
 scarcely human. Mr. Pennell tells me 
 that when he was there in November he 
 was assured that, instead of the sixty thou¬ 
 sand Jews of August, there were then in 
 Berditchev no less than ninety thousand 
 
 There are over a hundred towns in 
 that hell called the Pale where the same 
 causes operate which have made Berdit¬ 
 chev such an unspeakable charnel-house, 
 and in each one the Russian police have 
 done their brutal best to reproduce the 
 conditions of Berditchev.” 125 
 
 What are the poor creatures to do ? 
 Harried and harassed, they are veritable 
 
184 Old European Jewries. 
 
 pariahs and outcasts. The Jews in the 
 cities and towns of the Pale are poor 
 enough, and to have the number trebled 
 and quadrupled means lack of sustenance 
 for all. Even the privileged classes, those 
 permitted to dwell without the Pale, are 
 rapidly decreasing. How soon, by confis¬ 
 cation and systematic robbery on the part 
 of the officials, may not a merchant of the 
 first guild sink into the second ? Then off 
 into the Pale, no matter now long he may 
 have dwelt in his home ! Artisans, too, 
 had been granted permission to dwell any¬ 
 where. But what constitutes an artisan ? 
 The authorities decide. For instance, in 
 one province it was decided that Jewish 
 bakers, butchers, etc., are not artisans, and 
 they have been driven out. The word is 
 very elastic, particularly since the law limits 
 it by the adjective “skilled,” 126 and so the 
 authorities (for in Russia every official, no 
 matter how low or how high his rank, 
 considers himself an authority) interpret 
 the term as they please, and the Jews are 
 completely at the mercy of every official, 
 from the ordinary policeman up to the 
 
The Russian Ghetto. 18 s 
 
 governor of the province. Jews with 
 university diplomas are among the privi¬ 
 leged classes, permitted to reside any¬ 
 where, but the government has taken care 
 to limit those entitled to enjoy choice of 
 residence, by passing laws providing that 
 only a very small percentage of students 
 maybe Jews. 127 Restrictions everywhere ! 
 Prohibitions on all sides ! Gradually and 
 surely the Jews are forced into the cities 
 of the Pale. The Russian Ghetto ! oh, 
 the misery, the horror of it -all ! Stories 
 innumerable of crueltv almost incredible 
 
 have come to us—of soldiers who had 
 
 * 
 
 served in the army for years coming back to 
 their native place, being treated as stran¬ 
 gers, and driven out; I2S of artisans, resi¬ 
 dents of villages all their lives, going for 
 a week or a month to some other place 
 for work, and on their return beinof treated 
 as newcomers, their former residence R- 
 nored ; of Jewish girls, who, to remain 
 with their parents, had themselves enrolled 
 as prostitutes (this class of women being 
 permitted to dwell anywhere in Russia), 
 and because they would not ply the 
 
186 Old European yezvries. 
 
 nefarious trade, were driven out. And 
 then the terrible results in the cities of the 
 Pale ! The crowding of thousands of 
 homeless, suffering, destitute jews into 
 the already swarming, dirty, ill-built, half- 
 starving towns, deepened the prevailing 
 misery. Sickness and disease ran riot. 
 Phthisis, which had been practically un¬ 
 known among Jews, led to the rejection 
 of 6.5 per cent of Jewish recruits as 
 against 0,5 per cent of other Russians. 
 Other maladies hitherto unknown arose 
 among them. 129 Another source of misery 
 was the re-enforcement of an old law 
 
 m 
 
 permitted to fall into neglect. This 
 law, first suggested in 1816, 130 had ordered 
 that no Jew should dwell within fifty versts 
 (thirty-three miles) of the frontier. It 
 became a dead letter. Hundreds of thou¬ 
 sands of Jews settled within this district. 
 The old law has been revived, and is being 
 enforced. So the people who have dwelt 
 for years within the forbidden limits are 
 likewise forced back into the Pale. 
 
 Things have been growing worse all the 
 time; in 1891 they reached their climax; 
 
The R zissiciii Ghetto . 187 
 
 new edicts of expulsion of even the .privi¬ 
 leged classes, permitted to dwell in the 
 cities, were promulgated—edicts upon 
 edicts. For example, in Moscow, on July 
 28th, appeared regulations in regard to the 
 artisans, who were divided into three 
 classes : (1) those living in Moscow only 
 three years, unmarried or childless, and 
 employing only one workman ; (2) those 
 of six years residence, with four children and 
 four workmen ; (3) those having “a very 
 long residence” and a “large family,” and 
 more than four workmen. For these ex¬ 
 pulsion was decreed, for the first class, 
 within from three to six months ; for the 
 second, within from six to nine months ; 
 for the third, within from nine to twelve 
 months. To this was attached a rider to 
 the effect that (a) all clerks,personal attend¬ 
 ants and those of small occupations must 
 go within six months ; ( 5 ) all engaged in 
 trade, especially in large factories owned 
 by Russians, must go within one year. 131 
 This in Moscow; St. Petersburg, “holy” 
 Kiev,even Odessa,although within the Pale, 
 have like stories to tell. The Iews must 0-0. 
 
188 Old European Jewries . 
 
 By law or by arbitrary decree, Russia out¬ 
 side the Pale must be cleansed of them, and 
 it is being gradually done. Imagination 
 cannot picture the unfeeling cruelty of it all. 
 Hundreds of thousands of innocent, unof¬ 
 fending citizens deprived of their homes 
 and possessions, and forced into new, 
 strange dwelling places, unable to support 
 their own teeming populations ! It means 
 nothing short of expulsion or death. The 
 number of jews dwelling within the Rus¬ 
 sian Ghetto, or Pale, in 1884, was esti- 
 mated at 2,920,639. A rough calculation 
 has been made of the Jews who by the 
 new edicts and restrictions have been and 
 will be expelled from their homes and 
 forced into the cities of the Pale : 132 
 
 Expulsion from villages inside the Pale 
 
 is estimated to affect. 500.000 
 
 Expulsion of artisans outside the Pale, 200,000 
 Expulsion from commercial towns out¬ 
 side the Pale, . 500,000 
 
 Expulsion from the fifty-verst zone, . . 250,000 
 
 1,450,000 
 
 Adel these to the swarming populations 
 residing in the cities of the Pale, and it 
 will be readily understood that never has 
 
The Russian Ghetto. 189 
 
 there been, even in the darkest days, a 
 Ghetto with accompanying circumstances 
 more dreadful than this, existing in sight of 
 the enlightened world of the year eighteen 
 hundred and ninety-four of Christian civili¬ 
 zation. The Middle Ages, with all their 
 fanaticism and intolerance, have nothing 
 to show surpassing it in systematic 
 cruelty. Mediaeval church laws at least 
 pretend to give a reason for separating 
 the dwelling places of Jews from those of 
 Christians; it was feared that the latter 
 would be contaminated by contact with 
 the former. In the autocracy of Eastern 
 Europe there is not even the pretense of 
 a reason or excuse. The laws are made; 
 it is the tyrant’s will—that is the end of 
 the matter. Possibly the same idea holds, 
 that holy Russia may be contaminated by 
 the presence of Jews. Considering the 
 Jews a pest, the Russian rulers enclose 
 them in the Ghetto as in a lazaretto. 
 
 “ These laws regulating the dwelling- 
 place of the Jews present the most shock¬ 
 ing anomalies. They put the Jews below 
 the crimin-als to whom certain cities, nota- 
 
190 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 bly the capitals, are forbidden only for a 
 specified period after the expiration of their 
 sentence. * * * * According to the 
 
 letter of the law, the greatest sculptor of 
 Russia, Antokolsky, correspondent of our 
 Institute, has not the right to live in St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 Do the Jews enjoy the same rights as 
 the other subjects of the Tzar, at least in 
 the mentioned district (the Pale), in which 
 they are confined ? By no means. They 
 are deprived of several all-important 
 rights. They are forbidden to acquire 
 land in the provinces in which they are 
 forced to live. They are forbidden even 
 to lease land outside of the cities. They 
 cannot be farmers .” 133 
 
 It is the same old story over again : 
 Jews forced into the cities, forbidden to 
 own land, and then reproached for not 
 being farmers. For eighteen hundred 
 years the present Russian policy was the 
 policy of all European states ; the Jews 
 could not be farmers had they wanted to. 
 The Jews of Russia are to-day in the 
 same situation as the Jews of Europe gen- 
 
The Russian Ghetto . 191 
 
 erally before the close of the last century. 
 They know not where to lay their head. 
 Certainly, the prospect of emigration is 
 theirs, but the emigration is forced ; they 
 are literally driven out, for to go into the 
 Ghetto set apart for them is well-nigh 
 synonymous with stepping into a death 
 trap; disease, hunger, starvation await 
 them there. Rich men beggared in a 
 month, honorable men chased from their 
 homes like criminals, ambitious students 
 driven from the universities to go they 
 know not whither, unless to the Ghetto or 
 to strange lands—these are the sad experi¬ 
 ences that hundreds and thousands of Rus¬ 
 sian Jews have lived through in the past 
 ten years. And within that Pale of Settle¬ 
 ment, what a terrifying future presents it¬ 
 self ! Five, eight, ten persons struggling 
 for a livelihood where one can scarcely 
 find sufficient sustenance. Degeneracy, 
 physical, mental, moral. Millions sub¬ 
 jected to the very worst conditions of life. 
 Bad enough before the enforcement of the 
 May laws, infinitely worse now; the over¬ 
 crowded towns are breeders of disease 
 
192 Old European Jewries . 
 
 and contagion. The evils and hor¬ 
 rors of the Ghetto have re-appeared in 
 their worst form. The future is all 
 dark, not one streak of light to relieve 
 the gloom—no hope of improvement ! 
 The miserable, embittered existence of 
 these poor creatures has no prospect of 
 betterment. Death alone will make them 
 free. It is like an oppressive nightmare. 
 But retribution will come. Into Darkest 
 Russia, too, the light must penetrate. 
 “ He sleeps not, neither does He slumber, 
 the guardian of Israel.” The Russian 
 Ghetto will be swept from the face of the 
 earth, as in their time all Ghettos have dis¬ 
 appeared. The wide expanse of the 
 Russian empire, too, will be opened to the 
 Jew, and the frightful conditions of to-day 
 will pass away. Right is might, and with 
 such a champion, the poor, harried, perse¬ 
 cuted Russian Jew will conquer, though 
 all the powers of darkness be arrayed in 
 the lists against him to-day. The abo¬ 
 lition of the Ghetto, the Pale of Settle¬ 
 ment, the full right of the Jew to live and 
 settle in Russia where it pleases him, is 
 
The Russian Ghetto. 
 
 193 
 
 the only solution of the Russo-Jewish 
 
 * V 
 
 problem. 134 
 
 *3 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EFFECTS AND RESULTS. 
 
 The enforced seclusion of a people dur¬ 
 ing centuries, as told in the foregoing 
 chapters, cannot but produce characteristic 
 results. That Jews in many places and in¬ 
 stances, still show the effects of the 
 Ghetto period, cannot be doubted. It is 
 not yet half a century since they have 
 gained full political and social emancipa¬ 
 tion in Western Europe. The habits 
 formed during centuries cannot be ex¬ 
 pected to wear off in a few decades. The 
 unpleasant traits of the Jews are due to 
 the persecutions ; their virtues are the re¬ 
 sultant of the strong hold of their religion 
 upon them. 
 
 Who will wonder at the evil effects 
 which exclusion had on the development 
 of the Jew, physically and mentally ? Pen 
 up a mass of people for centuries in nar¬ 
 row, unhealthy streets and noisome quar= 
 
 (194) 
 
Effects and Resuits. 19 5 
 
 ters, and what results may be expected ? 
 Owing to the unhealthiness of the Jew’s 
 
 environment, he could not develop physi¬ 
 cally, and thus became stunted in body. 
 Owing to his enforced occupations, small 
 peddling and money transactions, he grad¬ 
 ually in his relations to the outer world, be¬ 
 came a fearful, terrified, stricken creature, 
 and these things naturally reacted on the 
 mind. Shut off from all contact with the 
 world at large, the Jew within the walls of 
 the Ghetto naturally did not respond to 
 the culture of the world. Learning, cer¬ 
 tainly, there always was, and learning was 
 held in the highest respect ; but it was 
 the learning of the ancients, the Talmud 
 and rabbinical dialectics. These studies 
 sharpened the mind, it is true, and later, 
 when emancipation came, the Jewish in¬ 
 tellect, exercised for centuries in this 
 dialectical training school, readily mas¬ 
 tered the difficulties of the various 
 branches of learning in the universities. 
 But in the Ghetto, notably in Germany 
 and the countries of Eastern Europe, 
 
 ' this terrible, systematic exclusion of the 
 
196 Old European Jewries. 
 
 Jews from all contact with the outer world 
 contracted the mind, and prevented all culti¬ 
 vation of learning outside of J ewish studies. 
 
 The wonder is that in spite of the moun¬ 
 tain-load of disadvantages, disabilities, and 
 wrongs, the jew preserved himself as well 
 as he did. For evil as were the effects, 
 physical and mental, little as the Jews pro¬ 
 duced of works of general literature, phil¬ 
 osophy, and science between the fifteenth 
 and the eighteenth centuries, yet the 
 moral side of Jewish life, as reflected in 
 the beauty of the home, in the charity, 
 purity, and chastity of the community and 
 of the individual, even the systematic cag¬ 
 ing in the Ghetto by church and state did 
 not affect for the worse. This moral purity 
 was not sullied, and in spite of all the disad¬ 
 vantages of situation, the virtues that 
 crown the life of man with man here found 
 • constant cultivation and application. The 
 Ghetto possibly brought these things out 
 in stronger relief. Family ties were 
 strengthened, domestic purity shone the 
 brighter, because only in the home and 
 in the family the Jew was a free man. The - 
 
i97 
 
 Effects and Results . 
 
 hand of power that rested with such crush¬ 
 ing weight upon him without could not 
 penetrate within. Here he was king. 
 The glory of his ancestors, the pride 
 of race, possessed him. God was with 
 him, of that he was sure ; his troubles 
 would come to an end at some time. This 
 light not all the waves of oppression could 
 extinguish. In the Ghetto, too, it shone. 
 Herein lay the salvation of the Jew. His 
 inner life appeared all the more brilliant 
 when contrasted with the darkness of his 
 external position. The Jew saved himself 
 by force of those virtues which will redeem 
 man from any condition, even though it 
 be as untoward and foreboding as the 
 prison-like confinement of the Jews for 
 centuries within the walls and gates of the 
 Ghetto. 
 
 The Ghetto gave rise to social habits 
 and customs peculiar to its inhabitants. 
 Shut off, as they were, from communication 
 with the remainder of the community, 
 thrown entirely upon their own resources, 
 and associating only with each other, they 
 developed among themselves that peculiar 
 
198 Old European Jewries. 
 
 Ghetto life, which, in our day, has received 
 such masterly portrayal at the hands of 
 Kompert, Bernstein, Franzos, Kohn, and 
 others, to whom I shall have occasion to 
 refer again. Perhaps the most striking 
 product of the Ghetto was the language 
 there spoken. In early days, the language 
 which Jews spoke differed in nowise 
 from that of their neighbors, but in time 
 there was formed the peculiar speech 
 of the Ghetto, the Jiidisch-deutsch, a jar¬ 
 gon. This language was a mixture of 
 Hebrew and German terms in various 
 peculiar combinations, with a liberal sprink¬ 
 ling of words of other European languages, 
 as e. g., blett , a ticket entitling the holder 
 to a meal, the French billet; bens hen, to 
 bless, the Latin benedire ; frimselich , a kind 
 of pastry, the Italian vermicelli; all show¬ 
 ing traces of the days when the J ews spoke 
 these languages. A treatise on this 
 strange linguistic development remains 
 to be written, 135 although some good work 
 has been done by several scholars, the 
 beginning having been made by Alt- 
 meister Z unz, who in his epoch-making 
 
l 99 
 
 Effects and Results. 
 
 work, Die gottesdienstlichen Voutrage der 
 Juden, devotes several pages 136 to a discus¬ 
 sion of the “jargon,” and gives the rules 
 that seem to have been employed in the 
 formation of terms, as well as a list of 
 words and phrases. The “jargon” is a 
 product of the past ; with the fall of the 
 walls of the Ghetto, it disappeared, like so 
 many of the alleged peculiarities to which 
 the oppression of centuries gave rise among 
 Jews. 
 
 But certain effects of Ghetto existence 
 upon the J ew are apparent even to-day. A 
 recent writer has well said: “ People who 
 have been living in a Ghetto for a couple 
 of centuries are not able to step outside 
 merely because the gates are thrown down, 
 nor to efface the brands on their souls by 
 putting off the yellow badges. The isola¬ 
 tion from without will have come to seem 
 the law of their being.” 137 Even in this free 
 country of ours, where a Ghetto has never 
 been established by religious canon or civil 
 law, the effects of Ghetto life in Europe 
 crop out very perceptibly. In our larger 
 cities, Jewish quarters are being formed, 
 
200 
 
 Old European Jewries . 
 
 which, though not defined by law, nor en¬ 
 closed by walls, nor barred by gates, to all 
 intents and purposes are no less Ghettos 
 than those of mediaeval days. The poorer 
 Jews who come to this country naturally 
 flock together, and inhabit whole districts 
 which come to assume the appearance of 
 Ghettos. So it is also in London, Amster¬ 
 dam, Paris, Vienna, and other large cities of 
 Europe. The Ghetto in law has ceased to 
 be; the Ghetto in fact still exists. Now, 
 this esprit de corps , this exclusiveness, this 
 seeking of brethren, is a direct result of 
 the treatment to which Jews have been 
 subjected during the Christian centuries. 
 And not alone the masses of poor, wretched 
 creatures that live in the lowly quar¬ 
 ters of the great cities of the world, but 
 even those Jews who have reaped all the 
 benefits of emancipation, and move in the 
 higher circles of life and thought, are often 
 met with the reproach that they are clan¬ 
 nish and exclusive, that they shut them¬ 
 selves up within their own social precincts, 
 and are attracted to one another by a 
 magnetism of fellowship. Very true, and 
 
201 
 
 Effects and Results. 
 
 very natural ; so long were the Jews ex¬ 
 cluded by legal measure and enactment 
 and religious prejudice and teaching from 
 all intimate contact with non-Jews, so long 
 were they thrown upon one another, that as 
 a logical result, they became exclusive. 
 People maltreated and oppressed for the 
 same reason cling to one another. Suffer¬ 
 ing in a like cause attaches them very close 
 to each other, for there is no bond that 
 unites so firmly as suffering. The Jew 
 was excluded, therefore he became exclu¬ 
 sive ; he was avoided, therefore he be¬ 
 came clannish ; the hand of the world was 
 against him, therefore he sought protection 
 amongst his own. Even though offi¬ 
 cial exclusion be a thing of the past, the 
 prejudices of men and churches cannot be 
 abolished by law and decree, and largely 
 these still exist against the Jew. Pie has 
 met his fellow-man more than half way. 
 The most liberal expressions emanate 
 from the Jewish pulpit and the pens of 
 Jewish authors, 138 but rarely are they recip¬ 
 rocated. The great consensus of opinion 
 in the Christian world still considers the 
 
202 Old European Jewries. 
 
 Jew as lost, and, as though he were 
 heathen, fit subject for missionary effort. 
 As long as this is the state of the case, ex¬ 
 pressed or implied, the Jews are forced in 
 upon themselves. As long as this arro¬ 
 gant assumption of superiority marks the 
 attitude of Christianity, so long can there 
 be no meeting on common ground. 
 Equality pre-supposes mutual respect, and 
 the attitude of the churches that consider 
 the Jew damned for all eternity, unless he 
 be baptized in the name of the Christian 
 Saviour, although not expressed in 
 words, is the same as that of the mediaeval 
 church, which ever spoke and wrote of Ju¬ 
 daism as superstition and perfidy. Ad¬ 
 vances cannot all come from one side. If 
 the ill effects of bygone centuries are ever 
 to be entirely overcome, the Christian 
 world must concede full and equal liberty 
 to Jews to think and believe as they will, 
 leaving the final judgment unto Him who 
 looks into the hearts of men. 
 
 Another time-honored accusation con¬ 
 tinually flung at Jews is, that they are 
 merely consumers, and not producers; that 
 
203 
 
 Effects and Results. 
 
 they are to be found in commercial pur¬ 
 suits only, and not in the handicrafts ; that 
 they flock to the cities and monopolize 
 trade, and are rarely, if ever, found tilling 
 the soil. Superficial observation seems 
 to confirm these statements, but it must 
 be emphatically stated that the Jews them¬ 
 selves are not to blame ; that this is one 
 of the effects of Ghetto life, Ghetto 
 legislation, and Christian treatment of 
 Jews. More than a century ago, Moses 
 Mendelssohn, in response to the same 
 reproach, pithily said: “ Our hands are 
 bound, and we are blamed for not using 
 them.” If the Jews were not conspicuous 
 in trades and industrial branches at the 
 time when these were honorable pursuits, 
 it was not their fault, but that of the gov¬ 
 ernments under which they lived. The 
 limits of the guilds were so narrow and 
 circumscribed, they were governed by 
 such exclusive laws, that no Jew, before 
 the time of general emancipation, could 
 break through the barriers. When the 
 
 O 
 
 note of freedom and emancipation 
 sounded, and the governments began to 
 
204 6W European Jewries. 
 
 grant the Jews rights as citizens, and 
 passed decrees favorable to their entering 
 the trades, then the Jews themselves put 
 forth efforts in this direction. 
 
 In biblical times the Jews were an agri¬ 
 cultural, not a commercial people. The 
 many notices, too, in the Talmud and other 
 Jewish writings on the honorable character 
 of trades, and the necessity of engaging 
 in them, at once dispel the notion that the 
 Jews were opposed to these pursuits. We 
 need only refer to learned men specially 
 mentioned as having gained their liveli¬ 
 hood by the trades of the collier, shoe¬ 
 maker, carpenter, smith. But when the 
 Jews were scattered over Europe’s wide do¬ 
 main, all changed from what it had been in 
 Palestine and Babylonia. They lived now 
 under Christian governments, which, in 
 conjunction with the priesthood, did all 
 in their power, if not to exterminate, for 
 that was impossible, at least, to hamper 
 and degrade the Jews. They were com¬ 
 pelled to resort to those means by which 
 they could gain some hold of power. This 
 their money gave them. Hence their pre- 
 
205 
 
 Effects and Results. 
 
 eminence in commerce and in money trans¬ 
 actions. They cultivated these activities. 
 Gold and silver satisfied the rapacity of 
 their oppressors, and gained them respite 
 from suffering. All the energies of the 
 acute Jewish mind being turned to com¬ 
 merce, they brought it to a high state of 
 perfection, invented bills of exchange, 
 became the bankers and the merchants 
 of mediaeval Europe. There was ample 
 reason, then, for their not engaging in the 
 trades. Self-preservation forced them 
 into commercial life. It must also be 
 remembered that there was a period 
 when the trades and handicrafts were 
 in the hands of the lowest classes, being 
 pursued by either slaves, or women, or by 
 the free classes ineligible to a military 
 career. It is, therefore, not surprising 
 that Jews, severely oppressed because 
 of their religion, did not wish to debase 
 themselves further by engaging in occu¬ 
 pations in themselves considered degrad- 
 ing. 
 
 When the trades rose in general esti¬ 
 mation, we find Jews mentioned here and 
 
206 Old European Jewries . 
 
 / 
 
 there as farmers, as growers of the vine, 
 as mechanics. But gradually these trades 
 and industries enclosed themselves within 
 narrow confines, and against attempts 
 of governments to open the trades 
 to Jews, it was urged that if they 
 were admitted, their competition would 
 soon work to the detriment of Chris¬ 
 tian workmen. Always the same clamor : 
 the Jews place others at a disadvantage, 
 therefore, they must be kept down and 
 out, and, if this be possible by no other 
 means, force must be employed. Per¬ 
 haps this has never been better stated than 
 by Gabriel Riesser, the redoubtable cham¬ 
 pion of Jewish emancipation : “ Commerce 
 requires many and distant—trades, few and 
 close, connections. As long as the hatred 
 of the Christian prevented a close rela¬ 
 tion to Jews, they could be associated in 
 commerce, but not in the trades. This 
 circumstance sufficiently explains, without 
 Sabbath or Talmud, why Jews, until the 
 last century, could engage so little in 
 handicrafts.” 
 
207 
 
 Effects and Re stilts. 
 
 It was the oft repeated cry : contact with 
 the accursed Jews may lead to terrible con¬ 
 sequences. Out with them! out with 
 them ! cried the workman. The Greater 
 
 o 
 
 the number of competitors, the more diffi¬ 
 cult for each to £ain his livelihood. 
 Lower, lower press them down, away from 
 all association with their fellows of other 
 faiths ! Every honorable occupation was 
 closed to them. The power of the trade 
 guildswas great, they resented all attempts 
 of orovernments to interfere in their affairs. 
 
 O 
 
 Whithersoever the Jew turned, he was 
 conscious of lofty though invisible walls. 
 Each century but added to the burden 
 of the preceding century. The load 
 was becoming heavier and heavier. Oft 
 in anguish of soul the Jews cried aloud, 
 for it seemed impossible to bear with such 
 indignities any longer. . Money transac¬ 
 tions, or worse, peddling and hawking, 
 were the only avenues open for earning 
 a livelihood. The Schacherjude was a 
 creature evolved by circumstances and 
 the systematic course resorted to by his 
 enemies to degrade the Jew. The 
 
2o8 Old European Jewries. 
 
 only countries wherein Jews could and 
 did engage in the trades were those 
 in which they dwelt in sufficiently large 
 numbers (as the different provinces of 
 Poland), so that there was no need of 
 others to assist them and associate with 
 them. 
 
 But the time of reckoning was com¬ 
 ing. The recording angel had almost 
 done with the tale of governmental exclu¬ 
 sion and persecution of Jews. The 
 measure was full. The time was ripe. 
 Mankind was awakening from the stupor 
 of ages. Humanity was to assert its 
 rights. The eighteenth century stands as 
 the dividing line between the old and the 
 new. Aye, the eighteenth century ! Bles¬ 
 sed time, when humanity spoke, and advo¬ 
 cated the claims of all the children of men; 
 when the false and rank growths of 
 mediaevalism fell before the purifying 
 influence of awakened reason, even like 
 a crumbling ruin swept by the storm. 
 The American Revolution “fired the shot 
 heard round the world,” and the old, 
 corrupt society of Europe was shaken 
 
Effects and Results. 209 
 
 to its depths by the reverberation. 
 France, all combustible, needed but the 
 spark ; it fell, and the French Revolution, 
 an explosion of the magazines wherein 
 had accumulated the rubbish of centuries, 
 moved Europe from end to end. The 
 new time was inaugurated. Mankind was 
 freed. Humanity ruled. Governments 
 listened. The abuses of ages were laid bare. 
 Unto the Jew, also, the most wronged 
 of Europe’s inhabitants, the new era 
 brought its glad tidings. Kings and rulers 
 turned their attention to the improve¬ 
 ment of the lot of their Jewish subjects. 
 The avenueswhich had been closed to them 
 were gradually opened. Within sixty years 
 after the beginning of the nineteenth cen¬ 
 tury, the Jew was a free man in Western 
 Europe. France, leader in humane 
 
 acts and liberal thoughts, was followed 
 by German princes, by Italy, by Eng¬ 
 land. The walls of the Ghetto had 
 fallen ; the world was open to the Jew, 
 and among the earliest privileges was 
 the right to engage in trades and in¬ 
 dustries. It is remarkable with what 
 
 14 
 
210 Old European Jewries. 
 
 eagerness this permission was seized. U n- 
 doubtedly their leaders felt that it was nec¬ 
 essary to remove the byword of peddler, 
 money-lender, from the Jews, and to make 
 them more readily affiliate with their Chris¬ 
 tian neighbors. Societies were started in 
 the early decades of this century for the 
 purpose of furthering trades among the 
 Jews in Prussia, Frankfort,Bavaria, Baden, 
 Saxony, Pomerania, Hessen, Hamburg, 
 the Saxon duchies. Jewish boys were 
 apprenticed. Industrial schools were insti¬ 
 tuted. Ere long there were Jewish 
 master mechanics all through Germany. 
 They followed trades of every kind and 
 description. They became shoemakers, 
 tailors, saddlers, bookbinders, locksmiths, 
 bakers, weavers, printers, cutlers, watch¬ 
 makers, furriers, lithographers, and the 
 like. Land, too, was beginning to be 
 bought, and here and there Jewish farmers 
 were heard of. Factories were started by 
 J ews, who employed workmen of all 
 classes, both of their own faith and others. 
 They assisted the governments wherever 
 the slightest hope was given that their dis- 
 
2 I I 
 
 Effects and Results . 
 
 abilities would be removed. The Jews 
 themselves entered upon the work with a 
 will, and it is most encouraging to re¬ 
 flect upon their early efforts to improve the 
 new opportunities granted by the govern¬ 
 ments. The inner development was such 
 that within seventy years after Mendels¬ 
 sohn’s death, his co-religionists enjoyed all 
 the rights of men and citizens in the land 
 where he, one of the most distinguished 
 of philosophers and scholars, was regarded 
 as an alien. 
 
 In 1848 most of the disabilities resting 
 upon Jews were removed in the countries of 
 western Europe. How has it been since, 
 there and in America? We still hear of 
 the enormous wealth of the Jews. We 
 are told that if one walks down Broadway 
 in New York, the great majority of the 
 firms are Jewish. The Jewish commercial 
 spirit still forms the refrain of many a 
 prejudice. Whenever anti-Semitism has 
 raised its head in late years, this has been 
 one of its cries. The Jew lives off of the 
 poor Christian workman. The Christian 
 must toil; the Jew enjoys. The Chris- 
 
2 i 2 Old European Jewries. 
 
 tian is poor; the Jew is rich. The Jew 
 works not with his hands at honest toil; 
 he cannot be found in the factories, he 
 cannot be found in the fields, farming and 
 gardening ; only in the street, buying and 
 selling. Such invidious distinctions are 
 still drawn, although careful observation 
 must prove that there is no truth in them. 
 The ideas of medievalism have not been 
 banished from the popular mind. The 
 Jew is still looked upon as standing apart. 
 The conception has not yet gained ground 
 that the only distinction is one of religion. 
 Th is truth the Jews must emphasize in 
 word and in work. And in no better way 
 can it be emphasized and fully proved than 
 by his standing at the same forge, or sit¬ 
 ting on the same bench with others. 
 Trades and industries will bring close con¬ 
 nections. 
 
 It is now felt that one solution of the 
 problem thrust upon the Jews of Western 
 Europe and America by the immigration 
 of hordes of Russian exiles is to form 
 them into agricultural communities. This 
 will require time, money and patience. 
 
213 
 
 Effects and Results. 
 
 The Russian Jews are issuing from a 
 condition like unto that in which the 
 Jews generally found themselves through¬ 
 out Europe in the Ghetto period. They, 
 too, must become accustomed to their 
 new life. What they are is owing not 
 to themselves, but to their government. 
 The taste for new occupations must be 
 fostered ; many a drawback and obstacle 
 will be encountered, but perseverance 
 and time will gain the victory. The Jews 
 must be their own redeemers, and they 
 alone can and will overcome the effect of 
 the exclusiveness of the Ghetto period, 
 which, by closing every other occupa¬ 
 tion to them, forced them into the lines of 
 money-changing, peddling, and hawking. 
 The injustice of popular condemnation 
 has never stood forth so clearly as in this 
 instance of reproaching the Jews for that 
 wherein they fail, their failure being due 
 not to their own shortcomings, but to 
 the treatment, or rather maltreatment, 
 which they have received. 
 
 The remarkable progress made by in¬ 
 dividual Jews in the universities of Europe 
 
214 Old European Jewries . 
 
 and in the learned professions, as soon as 
 these were thrown open to them, has often 
 been the subject of remark and surprise, 
 and speeches and writings of anti-Semites 
 are full of warnings to the effect that Jews, 
 enjoying even now more than their due 
 proportion of professorial chairs, and 
 journalistic and professional honors, will 
 eventually monopolize them. It is true 
 that many Jews have had remarkable 
 careers in the learned world. The moment 
 the opportunity was granted them, they 
 grasped it with avidity, and ere long they 
 became brilliant students. This, too, 
 strange as it may appear, was a result of 
 the Ghetto existence. For centuries the 
 Jewish mind had been confined to the study 
 of the Jewish writings, and been sharp¬ 
 ened in the fencing school of rabbinical 
 dialectics. The schools outside of the 
 Ghetto were closed to them. The classics 
 and the sciences were unknown worlds. 
 As soon as the open sesame of emancipation 
 sounded, and the doors of the schools 
 swung back to admit the Jew, he entered 
 a new domain. His mind was as a field 
 
Effects and Results. 2 15 
 
 long fallow ; it had been gathering strength 
 ,for centuries. The learned words of pro¬ 
 fessors and of books fell upon this new 
 soil, and took deep root. This, together 
 with the keenness and acumen resulting 
 from the discussions in the Talmudical 
 schools, readily explains why he forged 
 ahead so rapidly. 
 
 His striking success may be traced to 
 another cause. If history has an example 
 of the “survival of the fittest ” to present, 
 it is this of the Jews. To have survived in 
 spite of all the dangers and persecutions 
 which they encountered, is evidence suffi¬ 
 cient that there were present among these 
 people the moral and mental qualities 
 that can successfully withstand physical 
 ill and harm. The fittest of the sur¬ 
 vivors, hence the choicest from out a 
 choice band, selected university and 
 professional careers. They were the pro¬ 
 ducts of the endurance of centuries. All 
 these things combined offer full explana¬ 
 tion of a seeming anomaly. 
 
 Hard as this life in the Ghetto was, un¬ 
 bearable as it became at times, sad as 
 
216 Old European Jewries. 
 
 was this continued exclusion, yet these 
 very evils were productive of virtues 
 among the devoted people. To survive 
 despite all these disadvantages, the Jews 
 had to be better than their surroundings, 
 had to live on a higher moral plane. 
 The Ten Commandments were ever re¬ 
 spected and observed by them. The crime 
 of murder was practically unknown even 
 among their poorest and most ignorant 
 classes, rampant as it may have been 
 among others in the same circumstances. 
 Chastity among their women was univer¬ 
 sal ; the home life was a model; never 
 was heard issuing from a Jewish home the 
 wail of the wife beaten by a drunken hus¬ 
 band. A cheerful, trustful piety that il¬ 
 luminated the most squalid existence, and 
 made its inhabitants content with their 
 lot, was characteristic of the Ghetto. It 
 was not for them to murmur against the 
 decrees of God. He knew best, their re¬ 
 lease would come, if not in this world, 
 then in the next. And these same quali¬ 
 ties mark the inhabitants of the lowly, 
 poverty-stricken quarters in our great cities, 
 
Effects and Results . 217 
 
 so like the old Ghetto in all particulars 
 save that residence in them is voluntary, 
 not compulsory. 
 
 Upon modern Ghettos, the Jewish quar¬ 
 ters in the large cities of the world, I have 
 hardly touched, since they do not lie 
 within the scope of these investigations, 
 but I must briefly refer to them since they 
 are another direct result of the officially 
 instituted Ghetto of the Middle Ages. 
 The poverty-stricken huddle together in 
 these districts, because here they find 
 companionship and sympathy, and their 
 social instinct is satisfied. But at least, 
 they are not forced to stay there, and as 
 soon as they desire they can remove thence. 
 If such a thing as a Jewish question in any 
 but the religious signification of the term 
 can be spoken of in this country, it is in 
 reference to these Jewish quarters in New 
 York and other large cities, and their in¬ 
 habitants. How to break these up and 
 disperse their denizens over the surface of 
 this broad, fair land, and make them self- 
 supporting, self-respecting citizens, is the 
 great problem now pressing for solution. 
 
218 Old European Jewries. 
 
 There are not more than several hundred 
 thousand all told, crowded together in three 
 or four localities. This seems to be a 
 large number, but scattered among the 
 population of this vast land it is but 
 as a drop in the ocean. These voluntary 
 Ghettos are a constant menace, for they 
 arouse the worst passions of non-Jewish 
 demagogues, and the Jews are referred to 
 as a class, and discriminated against as a 
 separate body. The Jewish immigrant 
 coming from the Russian Ghetto naturally 
 drifts into this new Ghetto, and continues 
 in the old life, for he finds much the same 
 conditions. These last visible vestiges of 
 Ghetto existence must be wiped out. 
 They are fraught with menace. Char¬ 
 itable and philanthropic effort must be 
 directed to this work. Millions are spent 
 yearly to relieve the poor of these districts, 
 but there will be no permanent relief until 
 these Ghettos shall be no more, until these 
 wretched immigrants will be taken in hand 
 upon their arrival, prevented from invading 
 the already overcrowded districts, and 
 sent to smaller communities, there to as- 
 
Effects and Results. 219 
 
 similate themselves with their American 
 surroundings; those already dwelling in 
 these sections and applying for relief must 
 be taken charge of by our charitable agen¬ 
 cies, and removed into more wholesome 
 quarters. This is a duty that devolves upon 
 all who seek to improve the economic and 
 social condition of the masses. Systematic, 
 intelligent, united effort alone will be 
 able to grapple with this hydra-headed 
 evil. There is no duty more imperative 
 than the relief of the congestion of the 
 slums, both in the interest of their inhab¬ 
 itants and of our American institutions. 
 The work can be begun none too soon. 
 The axe of improvement can be applied 
 to the cutting down of the tenements none 
 too vigorously. Every day of delay but 
 aggravates the evil. Away with these 
 Ghettos, too. The law cannot order their 
 removal as it did with the officially insti¬ 
 tuted Ghetto. Voluntary effort alone 
 will accomplish it. In the words of the 
 old prayer, “may we see it done quickly 
 in our days.” 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE GHETTO IN LITERATURE. 
 
 Although the actual, enforced Ghetto, 
 with the one exception of “the Pale of 
 Settlement” in Russia, has disappeared 
 from the face of Europe, yet the Ghetto 
 life of Jews has found a permanent 
 place in literature, inasmuch as during this 
 century numerous writers have arisen who 
 have drawn their material for most inter¬ 
 esting tales and character sketches from 
 the Ghetto. The life there was unique. 
 Certain types of character were formed, 
 and the development of personality pro¬ 
 ceeded along peculiar lines, so that this 
 Jewish life became the legitimate object 
 of treatment by poets and novelists. And 
 Jewish life and Jewish characteristics, as 
 developed in the Ghetto, are the only 
 rightful objects of treatment in fiction 
 portraying the Jew All other represen¬ 
 tations of the Jew as differing from other 
 
 ( 220 ) 
 
The Ghetto in Literature . 
 
 2 2 I 
 
 men in aught but his religion are misrep¬ 
 resentations, and false to the real thought 
 and present status of the Jew, who, in 
 everything but his religion, is like unto 
 those among whom he dwells. 139 
 
 The Ghetto novel is unique. It trans¬ 
 ports us into a life so different from our 
 own that it scarce seems possible that a 
 comparatively short period has intervened 
 between our day and the time wherein the 
 scenes which it portrays were enacted. 
 It depicts real life within the Ghetto, and 
 shows that existence there in peaceful times 
 was much the same as anywhere else. 
 There are tales of love and marriage; of 
 success and failure; of heroism and self- 
 sacrifice. There are descriptions of phases 
 of life and character peculiar to the Ghetto, 
 written, for the most part, by men whose 
 youthful years were passed there, and who 
 knew from experience the scenes which 
 they depicted. These stories are the swan 
 song of the Ghetto. They cast the gla¬ 
 mour of poetry over it, and are the one 
 fair product left to mankind from the dark 
 record of centuries. 
 
222 Old European ^Jewries. 
 
 The first to attempt a Ghetto novel was 
 the great poet HeinrichHeine in his frag¬ 
 ment, Der Rabbi von Bacharach , perhaps 
 the finest of his prose writings. He de¬ 
 scribes the terrible experience of a rabbi 
 of Bacharach and his wife in the fifteenth 
 century, who, during the celebration of 
 the Seder , the family festival on the eve 
 of the Passover feast, noticed the corpse 
 of a child that had been placed beneath 
 their table. Knowing that the enemies of 
 the Jews had done this to trump up the 
 old accusation that the Jews use Christian 
 blood on the Passover, they fled in terror 
 of what would take place. Of this oft 
 repeated lie, Heine says : “ Another accu¬ 
 sation which cost the Jews much blood 
 and fear throughout the Middle Ages up 
 to the beginning of the last century was 
 the silly story reiterated with disgusting 
 frequency in legends and chronicles, that 
 the J ews stole consecrated wafers, which 
 they pierced with knives till the blood 
 flowed, and that they killed Christian 
 children on their Passover in order to use 
 the blood at their evening service. The 
 
The Ghetto in Literature . 223 
 
 Jews, thoroughly hated because of their 
 faith, their wealth, and their account 
 books, on that holiday were completely in 
 the hands of their enemies, who could ac¬ 
 complish their ruin but too easily, if they 
 spread the report of a child-murder, or 
 succeeded in smuggling a child’s bloody 
 corpse into the house of a Jew, and fell 
 upon the Jewish family at night during the 
 service. Then there was murder, plunder, 
 and baptism, and great miracles occurred 
 through the agency of the dead child, 
 which the church finally even canonized.” 
 Heine describes the Frankfort Ghetto, 
 to which the rabbi fled from the wrath 
 to come. The oft-quoted description 
 of Jewish female beauty that he gives 
 in speaking of Sarah, the rabbi’s wife, is 
 worth repeating : “ Her face was touch¬ 
 ingly beautiful, even as, in general, the 
 beauty of Jewesses is strangely touching. 
 The consciousness of the cieep misery, the 
 bitter disgrace, and the evil experiences 
 under which their relatives and friends 
 live spreads over their lovely features a 
 certain expression of suffering and watch- 
 
224 Old European Jewries, 
 
 ful anxiety, which exercises a peculiar 
 charm upon us.’ 5 
 
 Turning from Heine’s fragment, we find 
 that a number of authors have presented 
 these genre pictures of Ghetto life to the 
 reading world. Auerbach’s novels, Spinoza 
 and Dichter und Kaufmann, although con¬ 
 cerned with Jewish subjects, can scarcely 
 be included in this branch of literature. 
 The versatile Aaron Bernstein, a scientist, 
 editor, and brilliant scholar generally, wrote 
 two novels, Mendel Gibbor, i. e. “ Men¬ 
 del the Strong,” and Vogele der Maggid , 
 i. e. “Vogele the Preacher,” both of which 
 portray in bright flashes and genial style 
 that peculiar life whereof we speak. In 
 reprinting Vogele der Maggid in his maga¬ 
 zine, Der Sinai , in 1861, the great Jewish 
 preacher and writer, Dr. David Einhorn, 
 prefaced the publication with the following 
 note : “The readers of the Sinai will cer¬ 
 tainly thank us for republishing this ex¬ 
 cellent novel of the brilliant Bernstein. 
 It is permeated with the real Jewish spirit, 
 and portrays in masterly touches phases 
 of life and thought that have well nigh 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 225 
 
 disappeared, and sound almost legendary 
 to the younger generation. It is arousing 
 the greatest attention in Jewish circles in 
 Germany. Only a genial man like Bern¬ 
 stein, prominent as theologian as well as 
 scientist (his work on natural history is 
 now being reprinted in America), could 
 write such a novel.” 140 
 
 I will quote a few passages from these 
 tales of Bernstein. In speaking of the 
 persecutions, he says: “The history of 
 the legislation of all states concerning 
 Jews, whether dictated by religious hatred 
 or perverted benevolence, contained the 
 source of eternal pain ; this lent an 
 ever renewed significance to the oldest 
 prophetical lamentations.” The implicit 
 trust in God that characterized Jews 
 even in the darkest days is well ex¬ 
 pressed thus : “ Dost thou not know that 
 with Him there is help? Is it not writ¬ 
 ten, hope in God and trust in Him, for He 
 will bring it to pass? Yes, even though 
 thou canst not speak with man, speak 
 to Him, and thou wilt see, His help will 
 come.” The love of the Jewish husband 
 
226 
 
 Old European Jewries . 
 
 for his wife, the foundation whereon rests 
 the home life of Jews, ever so highly 
 appreciated and praised, is well expressed 
 in a sympathetic reminiscence of the quiet 
 Salme, in Mendel Gibbor. “ Four years 
 God, blessed be He, permitted us to be 
 together. His holy will did not bless us 
 with children, but her heart grew more 
 pious and joyful from day to day, and when 
 she implored God for His mercy and com¬ 
 passion, it was only her eyes that expressed 
 prayer to Him on high, but her lips smiled 
 upon her happy husband. Light rested on 
 her face and in her soul, until her time 
 came, and she was called away by God. 
 * * * God, blessed be He, is my wit¬ 
 
 ness, I did not murmur, for I lived with 
 my pious Yiltte four years, two months, 
 and six days, and that was more than a 
 whole life and a longlife.” In this novel 
 he tells the story of the Polish Jew, Saul 
 Wahl, who is said to have been king of 
 Poland for one day during an interreg¬ 
 num. 
 
 The man entitled above all others to 
 the designation, “ Poet of the Ghetto,” 
 
i 
 
 The Ghetto in Literature. 227 
 
 is Leopold Kompert. Born in the Ghetto 
 of Mtinchengratz, Bohemia, in 1822, ac¬ 
 quainted with the true life of the Ghetto 
 from his very infancy, he knew from ex¬ 
 perience all its phases and all the peculiar 
 characters developed by it. His was a 
 poetic soul, and he threw the glow of 
 ideality over Ghetto scenes, yet presented 
 them garbed in the elements of truth. In 
 a series of tales he has preserved for 
 later generations the peculiarities of that 
 life. So charmingly did he write, so new 
 and striking was the matter of his produc¬ 
 tions, that his tales created a great sensa¬ 
 tion in the literary world, arousing as much 
 attention, it is said, as Auerbach’s equally 
 unique Schwarzwalder Dorfgeschichten. 
 These Ghetto novels of Kompert have 
 become part and parcel of the world’s 
 literature. They were a revelation. 
 They pointed to a life unknown to the 
 world. Joy and sorrow, happiness and 
 woe, love and marriage, scenes of sick¬ 
 ness and death, all the common hap¬ 
 penings that go to make up daily life, are 
 described by him with a sympathetic feel- 
 
228 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 ing that only a loving spirit can experience. 
 They are homely scenes that he pictures. 
 Nothing grandiose or heroic in the sense 
 of the uncommon appears upon his pages, 
 and for this very reason, because all his 
 stories are concerned with scenes and inci¬ 
 dents with which every one is familiar, and 
 which appeal to the human heart, he ex¬ 
 ercised such power with his pen, and made 
 the better side of Ghetto life immortal. 
 Scenes of home, scenes of the heart, of 
 mother’s love, of father’s self-sacrifice, of 
 filial devotion, of conjugal constancy, these 
 form the burden of his tales, and as long as 
 man is interesting to man, so long must 
 stories of this kind meet with a sympathetic 
 reception. The qualities of the heart as 
 appearing in the Ghetto formed the inspi¬ 
 ration of his muse, and the human heart re¬ 
 sponds to what is true or loving, wherever 
 it may appear. Then, too, he presented 
 in strong colors the strange characters pe¬ 
 culiar to the Ghetto, the products of cen¬ 
 turies of seclusion and exclusion, such as 
 the Min , the silent man; the Seelenfan- 
 gerin , the woman who took God’s place 
 
The Ghetto in Literature\ 229 
 
 in protecting the helpless ; the Dorfgeher, 
 the peddler ; the Shlemihl, the awkward 
 individual unfortunate in every undertak¬ 
 ing. Institutions peculiar to the Ghetto 
 were explained to the world, such as the 
 Beschau, the custom of the young men of 
 the Ghetto to visit, with the purpose of 
 taking to wife, the girl recommended to 
 them by the marriage broker, or Shadchen. 
 Ohne B cwilligung is the story of the cou¬ 
 ples who, because of the inhuman regula¬ 
 tion limiting Jewish families to a certain 
 number, could not obtain permission from 
 the government to marry, and there¬ 
 fore, although united by a religious cer¬ 
 emony, were in the eyes of the law not 
 legally married. These scenes and char¬ 
 acters he paints with the brush of the 
 artist, and in a manner so vivid that we 
 perceive at once that he is writing from 
 knowledge and with sympathy. It is only 
 the fairer side that he presents, the hor¬ 
 rors of that existence he passes by. He 
 throws the shimmer of beauty over every¬ 
 thing that he touches, and in the light of 
 his writings the poetry of the Ghetto alone 
 
230 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 appears. Even his characters are for the 
 most part good, and we are led to think 
 that the darker traits that deface human 
 nature did not exist there. This was due to 
 his idealistic, artistic temperament. After 
 his death, in 1886, Karl Emil Franzos, 
 another novelist of the Ghetto, wrote of 
 this feature of Kompert’s stories: ‘‘Jew¬ 
 ish life, as portrayed by Kompert, appears 
 more edifying than it really is. Not that 
 he exaggerated its good traits, or avoided 
 the shadows and the reverse of the medal, 
 but he did not describe these so vigor¬ 
 ously and minutely as its bright side. This 
 was the result, not of carefully planned 
 purpose on his part, but of his artistic in¬ 
 dividuality and character. He could not 
 speak a harsh word, or express an adverse 
 opinion. Wickedness was to him a source 
 of spiritual pain, and, in art, he hated to 
 analyze a low character.” This is a fault of 
 omission, but the purity and ideality of 
 Kompert’s writings atone for a defect of 
 this kind, a defect readily pardoned. Pro¬ 
 fessor H. Steinthal most beautifully says : 
 “ What was it that guided Kompert’s pen ? 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 231 
 
 Gratitude, and the love of a Jewish son 
 for his Jewish mother, the Ghetto street; 
 for this revealed to him the place of his 
 childhood, full of the brightest sunlight. 
 H is glance was not directed to the nar- 
 rowness of the street or the pavement ; 
 he preferred to look up to the sky from 
 which brightness beamed.” 
 
 Now let us examine more closely the 
 stories, so distinctive in their treatment, 
 which fascinated the reading world. 
 
 Kompert wrote his first stories of the 
 Ghetto in 1846—1847 for the Vienna Jahr- 
 buch fur Israeliten. Then followed in 
 rapid succession his many other tales, “At 
 the Plough,” a lengthy romance, “ Bohe¬ 
 mian Jews,” “New Stories from the 
 Ghetto,” “Tales of a Jews’ Street,” vol¬ 
 umes of short stories, and “ Amongst 
 Ruins.” These comprise his Jewish stories; 
 he wrote others also, but with them we are 
 not concerned here. 
 
 F'irst, a few words as to what Ghetto 
 life itself was to him. He says in one of 
 his stories : “In the Ghetto every indi¬ 
 vidual is bound by a thousand chains to 
 
232 Old European Jewries, 
 
 the community. Woe has here a thou¬ 
 sand tongues, and if the lightning blast 
 the happiness of a single one, a thou¬ 
 sand eyelashes are cast down.” 141 
 
 Of the inhabitants of the Ghetto, he 
 tells us: “They had their sorrows and 
 troubles, as we have ours, and when mis¬ 
 fortune came upon them, it visited them 
 with harsh and heavy blows. Rude and 
 unfeeling, it struck them with doubled 
 fist. But when their hearts expanded 
 with happiness, and they wished to enjoy 
 themselves, they were like such as swim 
 in refreshing waters. They plunged in, 
 fresh and courageous, and permitted them¬ 
 selves to be carried by the stream whither¬ 
 soever it, not they, wished.” 142 Again: 
 “We must not look for much romance, for 
 we are in the Ghetto, and there the people 
 have something else to do besides stand¬ 
 ing idly at the wells and helping beautiful 
 Rachels remove heavy stones. The people 
 there are themselves stones, and must 
 permit themselves to be shoved and moved 
 by the caprice of others.” 143 
 
 He wrote in the purest German; he 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 233 
 
 never uses the jargon except when it serves 
 to bring out his characters in stronger 
 light. His stories are truly poetic and 
 artistic. 
 
 In his tale, Die Jahrzeit , 144 i. e., the an¬ 
 niversary of a parent’s death, always com¬ 
 memorated by the children throughout 
 their lives by the Kaddish,X .hat distinctively 
 Jewish prayer, he portrays the loving at¬ 
 tachment of the Jew for his dead, and the 
 anxiety of the living to have some one say 
 the Kaddish for them, when they have pass¬ 
 ed away. An abstract of this tale will fur¬ 
 nish a good example of Kompert’s power 
 and style. The story tells of Jacob Low, a 
 rich man, who had five promising sons and 
 one daughter. He is delighted with the 
 thought that there will be five sons to 
 survive him and recite the Kaddish for 
 the parents after their death. His hopes, 
 however, are shattered, for, one after 
 another, these sons succumb to a treach¬ 
 erous disease. All his expectations now 
 center in the daughter ; if there is to be 
 anyone to remember him after death, it 
 will be her children. He lavishes every- 
 
234 Old European Jewries. 
 
 thing upon her. She is a gay, careless 
 child, and falls in love with a certain Jac¬ 
 ques. Her parents oppose the match. 
 The father had set his heart upon her 
 marrying his cousin Maier, a good-hearted 
 though homely young man. She, how¬ 
 ever, marries the man of her choice, and 
 follows him to Hungary. Her father dis¬ 
 cards her ; the mother dies ; the father 
 grows morose, hard, sullen. There is no 
 one to remember the Jahrzeit of his wife 
 except himself. He is an old man ; when 
 he dies there will be no one to recite the 
 Kaddish ; both will be forgotten. Mean¬ 
 while the daughter fares badly ; she has 
 married unhappily ; her husband deserts 
 her, and goes to America. She returns 
 to her home, and passes the night on a 
 bench in front of her father’s house, 
 her little boy beside her. Early in the 
 morning, before anyone is astir in the 
 street, her cousin Maier, who happens to 
 have left his house, comes across her, and 
 shocked at her appearance and her home¬ 
 less condition, induces her to go into his 
 home to his parents, her relatives. A 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 235 
 
 happy idea strikes him by which to effect 
 a reconciliation with the father. It is two 
 days before the anniversary of the moth¬ 
 er’s death. By dint of hard work and 
 perseverance he succeeds in teaching the 
 child the Kaddish. On the anniversary 
 he takes the child to the synagogue. The 
 close of the story had best be told in 
 Kompert’s own words : “ The decisive 
 
 moment had come. Maier took up the 
 boy quickly, and carried him through the 
 rows of worshippers up to Jacob Low, at 
 whose side he placed him. Lost in the 
 painful recollection of what the prayer 
 aroused in this hour, Jacob looked straight 
 before him, and did not notice what was 
 taking place round about. 
 
 He began the prayer. * * * But clearer 
 and ever clearer resounded the same words 
 from the mouth of a child at his side. His 
 eyes involuntarily filled with tears. * * * 
 He paused and listened, and let the child 
 speak alone. * * * All his woe, all the icy 
 pain at his heart, which had chilled him 
 for so many years, melted before these 
 pure, clear, childish sounds. That 
 
236 
 
 Old European Jcivvies. 
 
 which he had always concealed in his in¬ 
 nermost heart, the lonoqnof for his lost 
 daughter, the secret which he thought no 
 human soul would ever discover, this child 
 unraveled. * * * ‘ Who is this child ?’ he 
 cried with piercing voice, when the last 
 words of the prayer had scarcely sounded. 
 ‘Cousin,’ said Maier behind him, * * * 
 
 ‘ it is your and Esther’s grandchild. * * * 
 It is Bliimele’s child.’ 
 
 With a faint cry Jacob Low staggered 
 backwards, and would have sustained a 
 severe fall had Maier not caught him in 
 his arms. His face was deathly pale, he 
 had fainted. 
 
 A great commotion arose among the 
 worshippers; they crowded around ; an 
 unheard of thing had taken place before 
 their eyes. 
 
 All at once Jacob Low stood up sup¬ 
 ported by Maier. He began to weep bit¬ 
 terly. 
 
 ‘ Where is the child ? ’ cried he, not no¬ 
 ticing it on account of his streaming tears. 
 ‘Where is Blumele’s child?’ 
 
 Then Maier picked up the boy, and laid 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 237 
 
 him upon his grandfather’s breast. Trem¬ 
 bling arms embraced the child. * * * 
 
 ‘ Bltimele! Where is my Blumele !’ 
 cried Jacob Low. 
 
 So the prayer of a child had reconciled 
 father and daughter.” 
 
 Bliimele’s husband died in America; 
 she married her cousin, and Jacob Low 
 lived to see many grandchildren, who 
 would recite the Kaddish for him after his 
 death. 
 
 Of the Kaddish , that remarkable prayer, 
 which even to-day the most lax and in¬ 
 different Jew feels it his duty to recite, 
 as an act of filial piety, in memory of a 
 deceased parent, Kompert says : 
 
 “ The Kaddish is that peculiar prayer 
 handed down from Generation to crenera- 
 tion,from century to century,which, spoken 
 in the language of ancient Zion, forms 
 an essential portion of the daily service. 
 Its origin is mysterious; angels are said 
 to have brought it down from heaven and 
 taught it to men. About this prayer the 
 tenderest threads of filial feeling and 
 human recollection are entwined ; for it 
 
238 Old European Jewries . 
 
 is the prayer of the orphans ! When the 
 father or the mother dies, thesurviving sons 
 are to recite it twice daily, morning and 
 evening, throughout the year of mourn¬ 
 ing, and then also on each recurring anni¬ 
 versary of the death, or, as it is called in 
 the Ghetto, on the Jahrzeit , for it pos¬ 
 sesses wonderful power. * * * 
 
 Truly, if there is any bond strong and 
 indissoluble enough to chain heaven to 
 earth it is this prayer! It keeps the liv¬ 
 ing together, and forms the bridge to the 
 mysterious realm of the dead. One 
 might almost say that this prayer is the 
 watchman and the guardian of the people 
 by whom alone it is uttered; therein lies the 
 warrant of its continuance. Can a people 
 disappear and be annihilated * * * so 
 long as a child remembers its parents ? 
 * * * It may sound strange : in the midst 
 of the wildest dissipation has this prayer 
 of recollection recalled to his better self 
 many a dissolute character, so that he has 
 bethought himself, and for a short time at 
 least purified himself by honoring the 
 memory of his parents. Such a one may 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 239 
 
 well shudder when he thinks of the life 
 he has led, and compares it with that 
 which he might have passed, if the eye of 
 father and mother had still watched over 
 him ! 
 
 Because this prayer is a resurrection in 
 the spirit of the perishable in man, because 
 it does not acknowledge death, because it 
 permits the blossom, which, withered, has 
 fallen from the tree of mankind, to flower 
 and develop again in the human heart, 
 therefore it possesses sanctifying power! 
 To know that thou wilt die, wilt pass 
 from this ever restless, corruptible form 
 into a mysterious hereafter, but that the 
 earth dully falling on thy head will not 
 cover thee entirely; that there remain 
 those behind who know that thou hast 
 died, who, wherever they may be on this 
 wide earth, whether they be poor or rich, 
 will send this prayer after thee ; to know 
 that thou canst call no green spot in this 
 world thine, that thou leavest them no 
 house, no estate, no field by which they 
 must remember thee, and that yet they 
 will cherish thy memory as their dearest 
 
240 Old European Jewries. 
 
 inheritance ; * * * insignificant, despised, 
 a bubble though thou wast in life, they 
 raise thee to importance long after thou 
 art no longer here; * * * who is there 
 that cannot comprehend Jacob Low’s 
 peculiar train of thought, and that he 
 found great satisfaction in the knowledge 
 that five boys would say Kaddish for 
 him?” 
 
 Plain, homely scenes, occurrences in 
 daily life, the old and ever new story of 
 love and devotion, as developed among 
 the J ews, he beautifully describes. The 
 “Jewish heart” that beats so kindly and 
 sympathetically, that even in greatest 
 misfortune retained its interest in men, 
 he knew howto appreciate. In one place, 
 in speaking of this term, “Jewish heart,” 
 he says : “This word embodies something 
 inexpressible, and it is difficult to make 
 it even approximately understood. What 
 may appear to some an empty sound takes 
 on a reality of which the Ghetto is best 
 able to speak. This ‘ heart ’ is an histor¬ 
 ical tradition—whoever appeals to it, 
 desires to say, ‘ Do not forget! be mind- 
 
The Ghetto in Literature . 241 
 
 ful of that which your fathers, my fathers, 
 suffered together, what they experienced, 
 how they rejoiced, and also sorrowed ! ’ It 
 is the expression of the strongest fellow¬ 
 ship, the secret bond of sympathy in a 
 brother’s fate * * * whatever the Ghetto 
 is, and however it may appear, without 
 that ‘ heart ’ it would be something en¬ 
 tirely different. In all likelihood, we 
 would have nothing to report about it ! ” 145 
 “The Jew can give to all, the Jew does 
 not hesitate, and that is the case because 
 the Jew has a heart.” 
 
 And who will not appreciate these words? 
 “A mother’s heart is a peculiar thing. 
 Stronger and more courageous than any 
 hero in battle, if it is necessary to defend 
 a child, whether from real danger or 
 from the slightest fancied evil, it be¬ 
 comes fearful, almost cowardly, when it 
 anticipates danger.” 14 *’ Throughout his 
 writings occur these beautiful expressions, 
 giving proof of his deep and searching in¬ 
 sight into human nature. 
 
 But Kompert was more than the poet 
 of the feelings. He was enthusiastically 
 
242 Old European Jewries. 
 
 interested in the complete emancipation 
 of the Jew from the oppression of centuries. 
 All plans to further the development of 
 trades among Jews found his hearty sup¬ 
 port, and in one of his stories, TrenderlJ 7 
 he tells of a Jewish boy who became a 
 skilled workman. He felt that, more than 
 anything else, the Jew’s working in the 
 same trades with others, a privilege that 
 past legislation had denied him, would tend 
 to break down the barriers of prejudice, 
 and so he exclaims, “ Hammer away, O, 
 locksmith ! every blow on the anvil breaks 
 a link from the chain of slavery that binds 
 thy people, and sounds a welcome to the 
 new time coming.” 
 
 In the movement to make Jews farmers 
 he showed lively interest. He felt that 
 the Jew must out from the Ghetto with 
 its trading into the field with its freedom. 
 The day of emancipation that had dawned 
 must see more and more Jews ploughing 
 the fields and harvesting the grain. The 
 farmer is a free man, he says, far, far supe¬ 
 rior to the trader and the merchant. His 
 beautiful story, “The Princess,” I4S dwells 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 243 
 
 on the superiority, the independence of 
 the farmer’s life, and describes the doings 
 and the happiness of the Jewish agricul¬ 
 turist. He makes his farmer say: “Can 
 you not be made to understand that in this 
 day of ours a farmer counts for far more 
 than all who sit in their shops, and contend 
 with one another for customers? * * * I, 
 who dwell here on my estate, and owe no 
 man a penny, I am more than the people 
 in the * Streets ’ with all their money and 
 treasures.” In his romance,“At the Plough,” 
 he treats of the same subject. He tells of 
 a family that left the Ghetto, and took to 
 farming. The book teaches a like lesson 
 -of the departure of the Jews from the 
 Ghetto, the participation in the new life 
 that a kindlier legislation opened to Jews, 
 the struggle to give up the old familiar 
 habits, and the final adaptation to new 
 conditions. These stories he wrote con 
 amore. He was a lover of nature, and 
 his descriptions of the fields and their pro¬ 
 ducts are masterly. He felt that a new 
 and better time had come, that the Jews 
 would have to adapt themselves to new 
 
244 ( 9 /^/ Etiropean Jewries. 
 
 conditions, that the Ghetto with its nar¬ 
 rowing influences would have to give way 
 to the larger life of nature and companion¬ 
 ship with men in general. 
 
 Although he so poetically portrayed the 
 scenes and the life of the Ghetto, yet was 
 he a child of his age. He was much af¬ 
 fected and influenced by the new spirit. 
 In writing his stories of the Ghetto, he 
 seemed to be describing incidents of a dis¬ 
 tant past; in his tales depicting the strug¬ 
 gles in adopting new ideas and new occu¬ 
 pations, he stood in the present. The 
 story that gives most complete expression 
 to the new spirit is his longest tale, 
 “Amongst Ruins.” Here the new strug¬ 
 gles with the old, the letter with the spirit. 
 Tolerance between Jew and Christian is 
 the text; a new life arising from the ruins 
 of what was wrong, intolerant, hateful in 
 the old. Thus was Leopold Kompert a 
 power; he opened a new department in 
 literature. He moved in a narrow groove, 
 it may be said, but on that very account 
 he reached such mastery in his art. He 
 has had followers and imitators, but as the 
 
The Ghetto in Literature . 245 
 
 interpreter of the now vanished life of the 
 Ghetto he stands unequalled. 
 
 There have been many others who, after 
 Kompert had given the impulse, worked 
 the mine of Ghetto life, and wrote stories 
 more or less true to life. We may men¬ 
 tion S. Kohn, author of Gabriel , and many 
 other stories, whose scenes are laid in the 
 Ghetto of Prague ; Edward Kulke, E. O. 
 Tauber, Michael Klapp, S. H. Mosenthal, 
 Leo Herzberg-Frankel, Fanny Lewald, 
 S. P'ormstecher, Ludwig Philippson, M. 
 Lehmann, Max Ring, M. Goldschmidt ; 149 
 Ludwig August Frankl, who wove 
 the legends of the Prague Ghetto 
 into his poem, Der Primator; Phoebus 
 Philippson, in his strange and powerful 
 tale, Der unbekannte Rabbi; Nathan 
 Samuely, author of “Pictures of Jewish 
 Life in Galicia,” and many others. There 
 are several living authors who should be 
 particularly mentioned as excelling in the 
 treatment of Ghetto life. Karl Emil 
 Franzos may be called the intellectual 
 scion of Kompert. His scenes are for 
 the most part laid in Galicia and the Buko- 
 
246 Old European Jewries . 
 
 wina. He depicts the darker and sadder 
 sides of Ghetto life. He is different from 
 Kompert in this. Kompert’s was an opti¬ 
 mistic nature ; he lived in the period of 
 emancipation when hope gilded the hori¬ 
 zon. Franzos, living in a later day, has 
 experienced the futility of those hopes. 
 The Jews of the Galician towns are as 
 they were before the year 1848, which 
 promised to bring about an entire revolu¬ 
 tion in the status of Jews everywhere 
 in Europe. His best known Jewish writ¬ 
 ings are, “The Jews of Barnow” and 
 “ From the Don to the Danube,” sketches 
 that inform the world of the characteris¬ 
 tics of Jewish life in those far-off and un¬ 
 known quarters of Galicia, where super¬ 
 stition is rife, and firm belief in the mira¬ 
 cles wrought by the wonder-rabbi of 
 Sadagora rules. It is a pity that Franzos 
 paints only the sombre pictures, but the 
 misery and sorrows of that life seem to 
 have so impressed themselves upon his 
 mind as to force out of sight the brighter 
 and lighter scenes. His last Ghetto 
 novel .Judith Trachtenberg ,; is a powerful 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 247 
 
 tale, and treats the vexed subject of inter¬ 
 course betwen Christians and Jews. The 
 moral he desires to teach is the impos¬ 
 sibility of happiness in mixed marriages. 
 Judith Trachtenberg is the victim of the 
 unhappiness caused by such a union. Her 
 father says to her at the start, fire and 
 water will not readily mix. In the intoxi¬ 
 cation of love she consents to become a 
 Christian. When she learns that she has 
 been duped, a revulsion of feeling sets in. 
 She desires to remain a Jewess ; her hus¬ 
 band, a Christian nobleman, looks down 
 upon Jews; she feels that there is only 
 misery in store for them both, and 
 rather than live on so, she determines to 
 die after having exacted a promise that 
 she will be buried as a Jewess. It is bet¬ 
 ter for her, better for her husband. As a 
 Jewess she was content; she can never be 
 anything else. A home disrupted by reli¬ 
 gion must be unhappy. The author sets 
 forth the consequences of intermarriage 
 in these strong colors to make the lesson 
 as powerful as possible. 
 
 I mention further the well known 
 
248 Old European Jewries . 
 
 writer, Sacher-Masoch, who, although a 
 Christian, has written many realistic stories 
 of Jewish life in Poland and Galicia. 
 
 Born in Lemberg, he is thoroughly well 
 acquainted with the scenes which he de¬ 
 scribes and the life which he portrays. 
 H e is altogether unprejudiced, and al¬ 
 though his tales do not always place his 
 characters in the most favorable light, yet 
 we feel that he is true to nature. 
 
 Some years ago, a new writer of Ghetto 
 novels, Miss E. P. Orzeszko, appeared on 
 the horizon, and created a sensation with 
 her book Meier EsofowiczM The scene 
 is laid in the far off village of Szybow, 
 Russia, and depicts the struggles of a 
 youth whose desire for culture stirred up 
 all the bitter fanaticism of the strict Jew¬ 
 ish conformists. It is the tale of the 
 struggle of enlightenment with ignorance, 
 of reason with blind faith, of the spirit of 
 religion with the form. Meier represents 
 all the strivings of a lofty human soul for 
 the best and noblest, rising above outward 
 circumstances and surroundings; his ene¬ 
 mies embody the uncompromising fealty 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 249 
 
 to tradition. The scenes are powerfully 
 drawn. The story is essentially one of 
 to-day, and the author has well succeeded 
 in depicting the different currents of re¬ 
 ligious thought. Since then Miss Or- 
 zeszko has written other Jewish stories, 
 one of which, “A Flower,” has lately ap¬ 
 peared in the columns of the Allgemeine 
 Zeitung des JudenthumsT 1 
 
 The latest writer of sketches of Ghetto 
 life, and at the same time the first English 
 author of strength to undertake the treat¬ 
 ment of the traits developed in the con¬ 
 fines of Jewry, is Israel Zangwill, whose 
 book entitled ‘'The Children of the Ghet¬ 
 to” appeared recently. It is true that his 
 sketches are pictures of life in the Jewish 
 quarter of London, which is not a Ghetto 
 in the sense in which I have considered 
 Ghettos. This J ewish quarter was the domi¬ 
 cile voluntarily chosen by Jews who settled 
 in the great city, and, therefore, this book 
 scarcely comes within the range of my sub¬ 
 ject, but the traits and characteristics 
 developed in this quarter, as set forth in 
 the pages of his volumes, are much the 
 
250 Old European Jewries . 
 
 same as the Ghetto everywhere produced. 
 The inhabitants came for the most part 
 from real Ghettos, and transferred to their 
 new home the peculiarities acquired in the 
 old. These sketches are unique, different 
 from what we had grown accustomed to 
 in the Ghetto novels of the German writers 
 mentioned. The author writes of present 
 conditions, and throws many a flash-light 
 of keen observation upon modern English 
 Jewish life in the east and west ends of 
 London. The small vices and the many 
 virtues of the children of the Ghetto are 
 skilfully set forth in these powerful sketches, 
 unlike any thing in English literature. 
 
 My task is done. I have traced the 
 establishment of the Ghetto from its be¬ 
 ginning to the day of its removal in civil¬ 
 ized lands, and have presented its life in 
 its various phases and localities. It is a 
 long, sad story of religious repression and 
 sectarian hatred, and forms a gloomy chap¬ 
 ter in the volume of the dark doings of 
 men. The Jew, however, bears no rancor ; 
 he thanks God that this is past, and with 
 the optimism characteristic of his religion 
 
The Ghetto in Literature. 2 s 1 
 
 works on and hopes on, looking forward 
 to the coming of the time when all men 
 will be free to think, free to act, free to 
 live anywhere and everywhere on the earth, 
 which “God has given to the children of 
 
 o 
 )9 
 
 men. 
 

 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTES AND INDEX 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Frederic Heidekoper, Judaism at Rome, B. C. 76 to A. 
 D. 140, p. 6. New York, 1876. 
 
 2 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XIV, 4, 5. 
 
 H. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. Ill, p. 142. 
 Leipsic, 1863. 
 
 E. Renan maintains that there were Jews in Rome as 
 early as the second century B. C. E. Histoire du Peuple 
 Israel, Vol. V, p. 6. Paris, 1893. 
 
 3 G. B. Depping, Res Juifs dans le Moyen Age, pp. 1-2. 
 Paris, 1834. 
 
 I. Bedarride, Res Juifs en France, en Italie et ear 
 Espagne, p. 25. Paris, 1S61. 
 
 4 Romans, XV, 24. 
 
 h Ibid ., 28. 
 
 6 “ Haeretici, si se transferre noluerint ad ecclesiam 
 catholicam, nec ipsis catholicas dandas esse puellas : sed 
 neque Judaeis, neque haereticis dare placuit; eo quod 
 nulla possit esse societas fideli cum infideli. Si contra 
 interdictum fecerint parentes abstineri per quinquennium 
 placet.” See Rabbe et Cosartii, Concilia Sacrosancta, 
 Vol. I, pp. 1273-1276. Paris, 1671-1672 ; also, Conciliarum 
 omnium generalium et provincialium collectio regia, Vol. 
 I, p. 645. Paris, 1644. 
 
 7 u Si vero quis clericus vel fidelis cum Judaeis cibum 
 sumpserit, placuit eum acommunione abstinere, ut debeat 
 emendari.” Ibid ., p. 651. 
 
 8 “ Admoneri placuit possessores, ut non patiantur fruc- 
 tus suos quos a Deo percipiunt, a Judaeis benedici: ne 
 
 (255) 
 
256 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 nostram irritam et infirm am faciant benedictionem. Si 
 quis post interdictum facere usurpaverit, penitus ab 
 ecclesia abjiciatur.” Ibid. 
 
 9 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. V, pp. 55-56. 
 
 10 Depping, Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age, p. 4. 
 
 11 Martin Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, 
 Vol. I, p. 746. Paris, 1840-1876. 
 
 12 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. V, p. 219. 
 
 Otto Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland wahrend des 
 Mittelalters, p. 201. Brunswick, 1866. See also the arti¬ 
 cle, “Stammen die Juden in den siidlichen Rheinlanden 
 von den Vangionen ab? M in Briill’s Jahrbiicher fiir 
 jiidische Geschichte und Literatur , Vol. IV, pp. 34-40. 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1879. 
 
 13 Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 88. 
 
 14 Ibid., p. 200, note 10. 
 
 15 Moritz Stern, Aus der alteren Geschichte der Juden in 
 Regensburg, in Zeitschrift fiir die Geschichte der Juden 
 in Deutschland , Vol. I, p. 383. 
 
 16 Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 200, note 10. 
 
 17 Hugo Barbeck, Geschichte der Juden in Niirnberg 
 und Fiirth, p. 6. Nuremberg, 1878. 
 
 18 On the subject of the earliest notices concerning 
 Jews in England, see Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Ange¬ 
 vin England, p. IX and pp. 2-3. New York and London, 
 
 1893- 
 
 19 Salomon Goldschmidt, Geschichte der Juden in Eng¬ 
 land, pp. 2-4. Berlin, 1886. 
 
 20 For first settlement in Bohemia, see below, p. 84. 
 
 21 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. VI, p. 269. 
 
 22 Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 12. 
 
 23 For the relation between the king and the Jews in 
 England, see Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England, 
 Introduction, p. XV ff. 
 
 24 Stobbe, Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, p. 19. 
 
 25 For instance, in the act of Frederick I, of the year 
 
Notes. 
 
 1156, by which Margrave Henry was created duke of 
 Austria, among other privileges granted him is this of 
 having Jews in his land : “ et potest in terris suis omnibus 
 tenere Judaeos, ” etc. See Sulamith , Vol. IV, p. 220. 
 
 26 “Pestmassige Abschliessung,” Leopold Zunz, Die got- 
 tesdienstlichen Vortrage der Juden, p. 451. Frankfort- 
 on-the-Main, 1892. 
 
 27 David Kaufmann, Don Joseph Nassi, der Begriinder 
 der Colonien im Heiligen Lande und die Gemeinde von 
 Cori in der Campagna, in Allgemeine Zeiiung des Juden- 
 thums , Vol. XLIX, p. 9. 
 
 28 See below, pp. 35-39. 
 
 29 Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 176. 
 
 Honiger, Zur Geschichte der Juden im friiheren Mit- 
 telalter, in Zeitschrift fur die Geschichte der Juden in 
 Deutschland , Vol. I, p. 90. 
 
 80 Leopold Treitel, Ghetto und Ghetto Dichter, p. 7, in 
 M. Brann’s Volks und Haus Kalender. Leipsic, 1892. 
 
 31 A. Berliner, Aus den letzten Tagen des romischen 
 Ghetto, p. 2. Berlin, 1886. 
 
 Joseph Jacobs, Studies in Jewish Statistics, Appendix, 
 p. XXI, note 3. London, 1891. 
 
 32 E. Rodocanachi,Le Saint-Siege et les Juifs, p. 41, note 
 4. Paris, 1891. 
 
 33 For an account of the Portuguese Judiarias, see M. 
 Kayserling, Juden in Portugal, pp. 49-52. Leipsic, 1867. 
 
 34 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. IX, p. 46. 
 
 35 See below, Chap. V. 
 
 36 Bedarride, Les Juifs in France, en Italie et en Es- 
 pagne, p. 335. 
 
 37 Ibid., p. 365. 
 
 38 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. X, p. 49. 
 
 39 L. Erler, Historisch-kritische Uebersichtder national- 
 bkonomischen und social-politischen Literatur, p. 372. 
 Mayence, 1879. 
 
 40 Ibid., p. 50. 
 
 17 
 
258 Old European Jewries. 
 
 41 L. Zunz, Zur Geschichte und Literatur, p. 488. Ber¬ 
 lin, 1845. 
 
 42 Ibid., p. 505. 
 
 43 Ibid., p. 491. 
 
 44 Ibid., p. 500. 
 
 45 Ibid., p. 514. 
 
 46 Honiger, Zur Geschichte der Juden im friiheren Mit- 
 telalter, in Zeitschrift fur die Geschichte der Juden in 
 Deutschland , Vol. I, p. 91. 
 
 47 Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 94. 
 
 48 Moritz Stern, Aus der alteren Geschichte der Juden 
 in Regensburg, in Zeitschrift fiir die Geschichte der 
 fuden in Deutschland, Vol. I, p. 383. 
 
 49 Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 63. 
 
 50 See below, Chap. IV. 
 
 51 Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 276. 
 
 52 Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums , Vol. LV (Octo¬ 
 ber, 1891), p. 500. 
 
 53 See below, Chap. III. 
 
 54 Berliner, Aus dem inneren Leben der deutschen 
 Juden ini Mittelalter, p. 52, quoted in Allgemeine Zeit¬ 
 ung des Judenthums , Vol. LV, p. 500. See also Frankel’s 
 Monatsschrift fur die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des 
 Judenthums , Vol. X (1861), p. 280. 
 
 55 “In nomine sanctae et individuae Trinitatis. Ego, 
 Rudigerus, qui et Huozmannus cognomine, Nemetensis 
 qualiscunque Episcopus. Cum ex Spirensi villa urbem 
 facerem, putavi melius amplificare honorem Loci nostri, 
 si et Judaeos colligerem. Collectos igitur locavi extra 
 communionem et habitationem caeterorum civium, et ne 
 pejoris turbae insolentia facile turbarentur, muro eosdem 
 circumdedi: Locum vero habitationis eorum juste ac- 
 quisieram ; primo namque clivum partim pecuuia, partim 
 commutatione : Vallem autem dono cohaeredum accepi: 
 Locum, inquam, ilium tradidi eis ea conditione ut an- 
 nuatim persolvant III Libras et dimidiam Spirensis 
 
Notes. 
 
 2 59 
 
 monetae ad communem usum Fratrum ; attribui etiam eis 
 intra ambitum liabitationis suae et e regione extra usque 
 navalem portum et in ipso navali portu,liberani potestatem 
 cominutandi aurum et argentum, emendi vero et vendendi 
 omnia quae placuerint, eandunque licentiam tradidi eis 
 per totam civitatem. Dedi insuper eis de praedio Eccle- 
 siae locum sepulturae sub haereditaria conditione. Illud 
 quoque addidi, si ut Judaeus aliunde apud ipsos habitatus 
 fuerit, nullum ibi solvat teloneum; deinde, sicut tri- 
 bunus urbis inter cives, ita Archisynagogus suus omnem 
 judicet querimoniam quae contigerit inter eos et adversus 
 eos. At, si quam forte non determinare potuerit, ascendit 
 causa ante Episcopum civitatis, vel ejus camerarium. 
 Vigilias, tuiciones, municiones, circa suum tantummodo 
 exhibeant ambitum ; tuiciones vero communiter cum 
 servientibus. Nutrices et conductitios servientes ex 
 nostris licite habeant; carnes mactatas, quas viderint sibi 
 illicitas secundum legis suae sanctionem, licite vendant 
 Cliristianis, licite emant eas Christiani. Ad summam, 
 pro cumulo benignitatis concessi illis legem, quancumque 
 meliorem liabet populus Judaeorum in qualibet urbe, 
 Teutonici Regni. 
 
 Quam Traditionem, atque concessionem, ne aliquis 
 meorum successorum ejus pejorare, vel ad majorem 
 censum eos constringere valeat, tanquam ipsi banc con- 
 ditionem sibi usurpaverint et non ab Episcopo acceperint, 
 hanc cartam praedictae Traditionis idoneam. testis reliqui 
 eis. Et ut ejusdem rei memoria per temporalia saecula 
 permanent, manu propria subscribendo corroboravi ac 
 sigilli mei impressione, ut infra videri potest insiguiri 
 perfeci. 
 
 Data est haec carta idibus vSeptembris, Anno Dominicae 
 Incarnationis MDXXXIIII Indict VII (mediante fere 
 Januario) Anno XII ex quo coepit praesidere in eadem 
 civitate praenominatus Episcopus, cujus est caracter 
 iste.” 
 
 Published in Orient 1S42, p. 391. 
 
26 o 
 
 Old European Jewries .' 
 
 56 <‘Q uum adhuc terra Polonica sit in corpore Christian- 
 itatis nova plantatio, ne forte eo facilius popnlus Chris- 
 tianus a cohabientium Judaeorum superstitionibus et 
 pravis moribus inficiatur . . . praecipimus, ut Judaei in 
 hac provincia, Gneznensi commorantes, inter Christian os 
 permixti non habitent, sed in aliquo sequestri loco civi- 
 tatis vel villae domos suas sibi contiguas sive conjunctas 
 habeant, ita quod a communi habitatione Christianorum, 
 saepe muro vel fossato habitatio separatur.”—See 
 Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 176, note. 
 
 57 “Nec recipiantur (Judaei) alicubi ultra mensem ad 
 liabitandum, nisi in locis in quibus habuerintsynagogas.” 
 Conciliarum omnium generalium et provincialium Col- 
 lectio regia, Vol. XXVIII, p. 783. 
 
 58 . “ Btquod ad habitandum alicubi ultra mensem recipi 
 non deberent (Judaei), nisi in locis, in quibus obtinent 
 synagogas. Sed quia nonnulli nescientes a vetitis absti- 
 nere, statutum salubre praefati Concilii (Ravenna III) 
 vilipeudunt,ignorantia affectata, poena docente, poterunt 
 cognoscere, quam sit grave constitutiones ecclesiasticos 
 praeterire, ideoque sacro approbante concilio volentes 
 huic morbo salubriter providere, monemus omnes tarn 
 clericos quam laicos nostrae provinciae atque statuimus, 
 quatenus nullus de cetero locet domos ipsis Judaeis nec 
 locatas dimittat, aut vendat seu quocumque colore con- 
 cedat, vel inhabitare permittat ultra duos menses a publi- 
 catione praesentisconstitutionis. Quivero contra fecerit, 
 ipso facto excommunicationis incurrat sententiam, a qua 
 absolvi non possit, nisi plene satisfecerit in praedictis. ” 
 —Ibid., Vol. XXIX, p. 47. 
 
 59 “ Statuimus ut Judaei et Saraceni inter Cliristianos, 
 vel Christiani inter Judaeos, vel Saracenos, domos, lios- 
 pitia seu alia receptacula in quibus habitent, nullatenus, 
 permittantur habere ; sed in civitatibus et locis ubi certae 
 limitationes sunt, eisdem Judaeis et Saracenis deputatae, 
 reducantur ad eas, et infra ipsas constituant habitationes 
 
Notes. 
 
 261 
 
 suas. Ubi vero Judaei et Saraceni praedicti ad habitan- 
 dum non habuerint hujusmodi limitationes seu tertninos 
 deputatos, limitentur et assignentur eisdem partes ali- 
 quae in civitatibus et locis praedictis a Christianorum 
 habitationibus separatae, infra quas reducant se, nee ex¬ 
 tra praedictam limitationem permittantur quomodolibet 
 commorari; . . . Christiani autern, qui intra limitationem 
 Judaeis vel Saracenis, assignatam vel assignandam, hab- 
 itare praesumpserint, si infra duos menses a die publica¬ 
 tions praesentium factae in ecclesia cathedrali civitatis 
 vel diocesis ubi moram traliunt, se ad commorandum 
 inter Christianos reducere non curaverint, ad id per cen- 
 suram ecclesiasticam compellantur. Judaeis vero et Sar¬ 
 acenis, si infra dictum terminum duorum mensium ubi 
 limitatio est facta, vel postquam dictae limitationes de 
 ordinatione et voluntate domini regis, vel cujuscumque 
 alterius domini ecclesiastici vel temporalis civitatis vel 
 loci factae fuerint, se ad easdem reducere noluerint vel 
 neglexerint, Christianorum communio subtrahatur.”— 
 Ibid., Vol. XXIX, p. 171. 
 
 60 “ Quorum (Judaeorum) ut evitetur nimia conversatio, 
 in aliquibus civitatum et oppidorum locis a Christianorum 
 cohabitatione separatis habitare compellantur et ab *eccle- 
 siis longius quantum fieri potest.” Ibid.,V ol. XIV, p 207. 
 
 C1 “ Vehementer autem a principibus petimus ut in 
 singulis civitatibus certum locum constituant ubi Judaei 
 separatim a Christianis habitatum conveniant. Et, si 
 quas proprias aedes Judaei in civitate liabent, intra sex 
 menses eas, vere, non autem simulato contracto Christ¬ 
 ianis vendi jubeant.”— Ibid Vol. XXXVI, p. 137. 
 
 62 H. Baerwald, Der alte Friedhof der israelitischen 
 Gemeinde zu Frankfurt-am-Main. Frankfort-on-the 
 Main, 1880. 
 
 B. Bewysohn, Seclizig Epitaphieu von Grabsteinen des 
 israelitischen Friedhofes zu Worms, p. 3. Frankfort-on- 
 the-Main, 1855. 
 
262 
 
 Old European Jewries . 
 
 63 See above, pp. 67-68. 
 
 64 David Kaufmann in the introduction to S. Hock, Die 
 Familien Prags nach den Epitaphien des alten jiidischen 
 Friedhofs in Prag, p. 36. Pressburg, 1892. 
 
 65 See above, p. 72. 
 
 66 The author of the P'ne Yehoshtiah , a commentary on 
 various sections of the Talmud, was Rabbi Jacob Joshua 
 Falk, rabbi in Frankfort from 1741 to 1756 when he died. 
 On the rabbis of Frankfort see M. Horowitz, Frankfur¬ 
 ter Rabbinen. Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1885. 
 
 67 H. Baerwald, Der alte Friedhof der israelitischen 
 Gemeinde zu Frankfurt-am-Main, p. 13. 
 
 68 D. Podiebrad, Alterthiimer der Prager Josefstadt, p. 
 131. Prague, 1882. 
 
 69 Ibid., p. 132. 
 
 70 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. VI, p. no. 
 
 G. Wolf, Die Juden (in the series, Die Volker Oester- 
 reich-Boehmens), p. 7. Vienna and Teschen, 1883. 
 
 71 Wolf, Die Juden, p. 8. 
 
 72 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. VIII, p. 58. 
 
 Wolf, Die Juden, p. 16. 
 
 73 Isaak Markus Jost, Geschichte der Israeliten, Vol. 
 VII, p. 275. Breslau, 1820. 
 
 74 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. VIII, pp. 76-78. 
 
 Wolf, Die Juden, p. 17. 
 
 75 See above, pp. 62-66. 
 
 On the subject of the confiscation of Jewish books, see: 
 A. Berliner, Censur and Confiscation hebraischer Bucher 
 im Kirchenstaate, Berlin, 1891. A. Kisch, Die Ankla- 
 geartikel gegen den Talmud and ilire Vertheidigung 
 durch Rabbi Jechiel ben Joseph vor Ludwig dem Heili- 
 gen in Paris, in Graetz-Frankel’s Monatsschrift fur 
 Geschichte und IVissenschaft des Judenthums, Vol. 
 XXIII (1874), pp. 10-18, 62-75, 123-130, 155-163, 204- 
 212. H. Graetz, Aktenstiicke zur Confiscation der jiidi- 
 schen Schriften in Frankfurt-am-Main unter Kaiser Maxi- 
 
Azotes. 
 
 263 
 
 milian durch Pfefferkorn’s Angeberei, Ibid. $ Vol. XXIV 
 (1875), pp. 289-300, 337-343, 3 8 5'402. S. A. Hirsch, John 
 Pfefferkorn and tlie Battle of the Books, in Jewish Quar¬ 
 terly Review , Vol. IV, pp. 256-292. London, 1892. 
 
 76 K. Lieben, Gal Ed. Grabsteininscliriften des prager 
 israelitischen alten Friedhofs (with notes by S. Hock and 
 introduction by S. L. Rappoport), p. 22. Prague, 1S56. 
 This incident forms the plot of S. Kohn’s Ghetto novel, 
 Der Retter. See below, p. 115. 
 
 77 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. X, p. 29. 
 
 78 A. Kisch, Die Prager Judenstadtwahrend der Schlacht 
 am Weissen Berge. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, 
 Vol. LVI, p. 400. 
 
 79 Jost, Geschichte der Israeliten, Vol. VIII, p. 227. 
 Frankel’s Monatsschrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft 
 des Judenthums , Vol. X (1861), p. 2S0. 
 
 80 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. X, p. 50. 
 
 81 Wolf, Die Juden, p. 31. 
 
 82 Ibid., p. 37. 
 
 83 From 1784 to 1849 the Jewish community of Prague 
 had a kind of special government, far from autonomous, 
 however, since its affairs, even in their details, were 
 under the supervision of the town magistrate. The 
 Jewish quarter remained distinct in one respect : the 
 funds necessary for its administration had to be raised 
 from among its own inhabitants. In 1894 even this dis¬ 
 tinction disappeared. The Judenstadt became incorpor¬ 
 ated with the rest of the city in all respects. Since then 
 the Jewish community has been a religious body only. 
 The old Jewish quarter is now known as the Josef.stadt. 
 Podiebrad, Die Alterthiimer der Prager Josefstadt, p. 120. 
 
 84 Wolf, Die Juden, p. 112. 
 
 85 Ibid., p. 7, note. 
 
 In the introduction to Gal Ed mentioned above (note 76), 
 S. L. Rappoport proves that the stone supposed to date 
 from the year 606, and regarded as the oldest in the 
 
264 Old European Jewries . 
 
 cemetery, really belongs to the seventeenth century, pp. 
 XXXVII-XL. 
 
 86 Lieben, Gal Ed. 
 
 Hock, Die Familien Prags nach den Epitaphien des 
 alten jiidisclien Friedhofs in Prag. 
 
 87 Zunz, Zur Geschichte und Literatur, p. 395. 
 
 88 A. Berliner, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, Vol. I, 
 pp. 5-6. Frankfort-on-tlie-Main, 1893. 
 
 89 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 25. 
 
 90 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 105. 
 
 91 Rodocanachi, Le Saint-Siege et les Juifs, p. 25 ff. 
 
 92 D. Cassel, article “Juden,” in Ersch und Gruber’s 
 Allgemeine Encyclopadie (Part XXVII), p. 148. 
 
 93 See above, p. 27. 
 
 94 F. Gregorovius, Wanderjahre in Italien, Vol. I, pp. 
 103-104. Leipsic, 1876-1881. 
 
 95 Quoted in Rodocanachi, Le Saint-Siege et les Juifs, 
 p. 60. 
 
 96 Berliner, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, Vol. II, Pt. 
 II, p. 13. 
 
 97 Rodocanachi, Le Saint-Siege et les Juifs, p. 2. So, 
 for example, Alexander III (1159-1181) said that Jews 
 were to be tolerated “ pro sola humanitate,” “on account 
 ofliumanity alone,” and Clement III (1187-1191), “ ex 
 vera gratia etmisericordia,” “ from real mercy and pity.” 
 
 M. Giidemann, Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und 
 der Cultur der Juden in Italien wahrend des Mittelalters, 
 Vol. II, p. 76. Vienna, 1884. 
 
 98 See on this point, Berliner, Geschichte der Juden in 
 Rom, Vol. II, Pt. I, p. 34. 
 
 99 Cassel, article “Juden,” in Ersch und Gruber’s 
 Encyclopadie, p. 148, notes. 
 
 100 See Ludwig August Frankl’s poem, Tourist und 
 Cicerone am Titusbogen in Rom, Ahnenbilder, p. 93. 
 But Berliner, in his lately published work, Geschichte 
 der Juden in Rom, Vol. I, p. 40, states that this tradition 
 
Notes. 
 
 265 
 
 is unknown among the Jews of Rome. 
 
 101 Rodocanachi, Re Saint-Siege et les Juifs, p. 205 ff. 
 
 102 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. IX, pp 501-502. 
 
 103 Gregorovius, Wanderjahre in Italien, Vol. I, p. 99. 
 
 104 Ibid., p. 100. 
 
 lff5 Cassel, article “Juden,” in Ersch und Gruber’s 
 Encyclopadie, p. 148. 
 
 Archibalb Bower, History of the Popes, Vol. II, p. 464 
 Philadelphia, 1844-1845. 
 
 106 Giidemann, Geschichte des Erzichungswesens und 
 der Cultur der Juden in Italien, Vol. II, p. 77. 
 
 107 Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelal- 
 ter vom fiinften bis zuin sechzehnten Jahrhundert, Vol. 
 IV, p. 396. Stuttgart, 1869-1873. 
 
 108 Cassel, article “Juden,” in Erscli und Gruber’s 
 Encyclopadie, p. 148. 
 
 109 Bower, History of the Popes, Vol. II, p. 464. 
 
 no p£ r i erj Historisch-kritisclie Uebersicht der national- 
 okonomischen und social-politisclien Literatur, p. 389. 
 
 111 Bower, History of the Popes, Vol. II, p. 470. 
 
 112 Berliner, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, Vol. II, p. 39. 
 
 113 Rodocanachi, Re Saint-Siege et les Juifs, p. 284. 
 
 114 Ibid., p. 285. 
 
 115 Ibid., p. 301. 
 
 116 Ibid., p. 306. 
 
 117 Gregorovius, Wanderjahre in Italien, Vol. I, p. 100. 
 
 118 Before the institution of the Ghetto, there were a 
 number of synagogues in different portions of the city. 
 Berliner, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, Vol. II, pp. 12-13. 
 
 119 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 107. 
 
 120 A thorough discussion of the origin and history of 
 the blood accusation may be found in Prof. Hermann R. 
 Strack, Der Aberglaube in der Menschheit, Blut-Morde 
 und Blut-Ritus. Munich, 1892. 
 
 121 In 1886. vSee Berliner, Aus den letzten Tagen des 
 romischen Ghetto, p. 8. 
 
266 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 122 The Persecution of the Jews in Russia, p. 5. Lon¬ 
 don, 1891. Report of the Russo-Jewish Committee, 
 
 123 Leo Brrera, Les Juifs Russes, Extermination ou 
 Emancipation ? p. 18. Brussels, 1893. 
 
 These May laws were certainly inhuman, but in the 
 spring of 1894 the special commission appointed to’ in¬ 
 quire into the Jewish question recommended to the 
 authorities at St. Petersburg a number of provisions, com¬ 
 pared with which the May laws of 1882 seem only a be¬ 
 ginning. These provisions, as reported in the press, are 
 as follows : 
 
 To forbid the Jews from residing in those places where 
 the real estate is the property of the peasantry. 
 
 To banish from the villages of the western district all 
 those Jews who have attained their majority since the 
 passing of the May laws of 1882; and to forbid all Jews, 
 as soon as they have attained their majority, from tak¬ 
 ing up their residence iu villages that belong to the 
 peasantry. 
 
 To extend to all the Polish districts those provisions of 
 the May laws of 1882 which prohibit Jews from settling 
 outside the towns as well as from acquiring property in 
 land. 
 
 To enact that all those Jews who do not act in accord¬ 
 ance with the restrictive laws concerning residence in 
 the western provinces (districts of the Pale of Settlement 
 and of Poland) are to be subjected to a special punish¬ 
 ment of four months’ imprisonment in addition to trans¬ 
 port by etape. 
 
 To institute special supervision over those Jews who, 
 according to the new laws, have the right to sojourn in 
 the villages. This supervision is to be entrusted to the 
 village police, who are to draw up complete lists of 
 Jews coming under this category. These lists are to be 
 kept in the government offices and to be open for gen¬ 
 eral inspection, and the bureau is to have the right of 
 
Notes. . 267 
 
 * 
 
 expelling from the hamlets and villages any Jews who 
 may be considered open to suspicion. 
 
 To restrict throughout the whole empire the rights of 
 the Jews in reference to the purchase of real estate. 
 
 To revoke that law which allows Jewish mechanics, 
 doctors and assistants, dentists, and wet-nurses to settle 
 in all parts of the country. 
 
 To forbid the Jews from entering the provinces of the 
 interior in order to learn pharmaceutical chemistry, 
 medicine, and dentistry. 
 
 To expel from the districts of the interior all apothe¬ 
 caries, medical assistants, and wet-nurses of the Jewish 
 religion who now reside there. 
 
 To institute a special punishment, in addition to trans¬ 
 port by etape , for all those Jews who may offend against 
 the above laws concerning sojourn in the districts of the 
 interior. 
 
 At the time of writing, it is not known whether or not 
 these recommendations have been adopted. 
 
 124 The Persecution of the Jews in Russia, pp. 7-8. 
 
 125 Harold Frederic, The New Exodus. A Study of 
 Israel in Russia, pp. 260-261. New York, 1892. 
 
 126 Errera, Les Juifs Russes, pp. 68-69. 
 
 127 Ibid., p. 83. 
 
 128 Hall Caine, “ Scenes on the Russian Frontier. ” Ton- 
 don Jewish Chronicle , December 10, 1892. 
 
 129 Frederic, The New Exodus, p. 164. 
 
 13 ° Nicolas de Gradowsky, La Situation Legale des 
 Israelites en Russie, Vol. I, p. 326 ff. Paris, 1891. 
 
 131 Frederic, The New Exodus, p. 224. 
 
 132 The Persecution of the Jews in Russia, p. 20. 
 
 133 Anatole Leroy Beaulieu, Les Juifs Russes et leur 
 
 Ghetto, in Les Juifs de Russie, Recueil d’Articles et d’ 
 Etudes sur leur Situation Legale, Sociale et Economique. 
 Paris, 1891. 
 
 134 See PJrrera, Les Juifs Russes, pp. 162-177. 
 
268 
 
 Old European Jezvrics. 
 
 1:55 Charles G. Iceland is said to have such a work in 
 preparation. 
 
 136 Zunz, Die gottesdienstliclien Vortriige der Juden, pp. 
 
 453 - 457 - 
 
 Giidemann, Gescliiclite des Erziehuugsweseus und der 
 Cultur der Juden in Deutschland, walirend des vierzehnten 
 und des fiinfzehnten Jalirhunderts, p. 280 ff. Vienna, 
 1888. 
 
 See also an article on ‘‘ The Jargon,” by D. N. Dembitz 
 in The American Hebrew (New York), May 6, 1892. 
 
 137 1 . Zangwill, Children of the Ghetto, Vol. I, p. 6. 
 Philadelphia, 1892. 
 
 138 Judaism at the World’s Parliament of Religions, 
 passim. Cincinnati, 1894. 
 
 139 See the author’s Jew in English Fiction, p. 8 ff. 
 Cincinnati, 1889. 
 
 140 David Einhorn, Sinai , Vol. VI, p. 1S6. 
 
 141 Eeopold Kompert, Gesammelte Schrifteu, Vol. I, p. 
 
 11. Eeipsic, 1887. . 
 
 142 Ibid. , Vol. IV, p. 4S. 
 
 143 Ibid. y Vol. I, p. 246. 
 
 144 Ibid., Vol. V, pp. 1-57. 
 
 145 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 62. 
 
 146 Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 82. 
 
 147 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 220. 
 
 148 Ibid.) Vol. IV, p. 202. 
 
 149 Adolpli Kohut, The Ghetto Novel and its Represen¬ 
 tatives. The Menorah Monthly (New York), Vol. IV, 
 
 P- 35 1 - 
 
 150 The English translation appeared in The Jezvish Re- 
 former (New York). January to June, 1886. 
 
 151 January 8 to February 5, 1892. 
 
I N D E X . 
 
 “A Flower,” novel by Or- 
 zeszko, 249. 
 
 Agobard (bishop) attacks 
 Jews, 12. 
 
 Agriculture advocated by 
 Kompert, 242-243. 
 for Russian Jews, 212-213. 
 
 Alexander II (Tzar) per¬ 
 mits Jews to dwell be¬ 
 yond the Pale, 179. 
 
 Alexander III (pope) quot¬ 
 ed, 264. 
 
 welcomed by Jews, 138- 
 139 - 
 
 Alexander VII (pope) favors 
 converted Jews, 133-134. 
 a decree by, 159. 
 
 Alexandria, Jews settle in, 
 5 - 
 
 Alt-Nen Syncigoge at 
 Prague, 103-109. 
 
 Amolo (bishop) attacks 
 Jews, 12. 
 
 “Amongst Ruins,” novel 
 by Kompert, 231, 244. 
 
 Amsterdam, the largest Jew¬ 
 ish community, 101. 
 
 Anacletus II, pope of Jew¬ 
 ish descent, 147-151. 
 
 Ancona, Jews permitted to 
 live in, 129, 131. 
 
 Anti-Jewish laws in Russia, 
 179 ff, 266-267. 
 
 Anti-Semitism, charges of, 
 211-212. 
 
 Antokolsky not permitted 
 in St. Petersburg, 190. 
 
 Artisans, definition of, 184. 
 
 live outside of Pale, 179. 
 
 Russian regulations about, 
 187. 
 
 Ascoli, Davidd’, defends the 
 Jews, 124. 
 
 Asia Minor, Jews settle in 
 cities of, 5. 
 
 Astrakhan, Jews excluded 
 from, 178. 
 
 “At the Plough,” novel by 
 Kompert, 231, 243. 
 
 Auerbach, Berthold, novel¬ 
 ist, 224, 227. 
 
 Austria, Ghettos established 
 . in > 30 - 
 
 Avignon, Jews permitted to 
 live in, 131. 
 
 Baden, Jewish trade socie¬ 
 ties in, 210. 
 
 Baltic Provinces, Jews ex¬ 
 cluded from the, 178. 
 
 Basle, decree of council of, 
 44 - 
 
 Jews of, sold to the 
 bishop, 16. 
 
 Bassewi, Jacob, of Prague, 94. 
 
 Bavaria, Jewish trade so¬ 
 cieties in, 210. 
 
 Belgium, Jews settle in, 9. 
 
 Benedict VIII (pope) gives 
 a charter to the Jews of 
 Rome, 122. 
 
 (269) 
 
2/0 
 
 Old European Jewries. 
 
 Benedict XIV (pope) ex¬ 
 tends the privileges of 
 the Jews, 161. 
 
 Beneventum, Ghetto estab¬ 
 lished at, 27. 
 
 Berditchev, effect of May 
 laws upon, 182-183. 
 
 Berliner, A., quoted, 24-25. 
 
 Bernstein, Aaron, novelist, 
 198, 224. * 
 
 novels of, characterized, 
 224-225. 
 
 quoted, 225-226. 
 
 Beschau , a Ghetto custom, 
 229. 
 
 Bessarabia, Jews excluded 
 from, 178. 
 
 Bibliotheca Oppenheim at 
 the Bodleian, 114. 
 
 Black Death imputed to 
 Jews, 47. 
 
 Blood-accusation described 
 by Heine, 222-223. 
 
 history of, 265. 
 
 Bohemia, early settlement 
 of Jew 7 s in, 84-85. 
 
 Ghettos established in, 30. 
 
 Jew tax in, 99. 
 
 “ Bohemian Jews,” stories 
 by Kompert, 231. 
 
 Borne, Ludwig, in the 
 Frankfort Ghetto, 76. 
 
 Borne Strasse, a street of 
 the Frankfort Ghetto, 
 76. 
 
 Bornheimer Strasse, a street 
 of the Frankfort Ghetto, 
 72, 75 - 
 
 Breslau, decree of council 
 of, 39-40. 
 
 Bukowina, scene of Fran¬ 
 zes’s novels, 245. 
 
 Bulls (papal), 123, 130, 131, 
 143-144, 155. 
 
 Caraffa, see Paul IV. 
 
 Calixtus II, first pope wel¬ 
 comed by Jews, 138. 
 
 Canon laws (English) lay 
 restrictions on Jews, 11. 
 
 Carben, Victor von, exam¬ 
 ines Hebrew books, 65. 
 
 Carnival, Roman Jews take 
 part in the, 141. 
 
 Carriera , Provencal name 
 for Ghetto, 20. 
 
 Castro, Ghetto established 
 at, 28. 
 
 Cemetery at Frankfort, 76- 
 80. 
 
 at Prague, 109-117. 
 
 “Children of the Ghetto, 
 The,” novel by Zang- 
 will, 249-250. 
 
 Christian prejudices, 201- 
 202. 
 
 Christians separated from 
 Jews, 21-22. 
 
 Church Councils, decrees of, 
 7, 20, 39-45. 
 
 Clement III (pope) quoted, 
 264. 
 
 Clement VIII (pope) ex¬ 
 pels the Jews, 130-131. 
 
 Clement IX (pope) frees 
 the Jews from participa¬ 
 tion in the races, 142. 
 
 Cologne, Jews’ quarter es¬ 
 tablished at, 28-29. 
 
 Jews settle in, 10. 
 
 Confiscation of Hebrew 
 books, 64, 92. 
 
 literature on, 262-263. 
 
 “Confessions of the Jews, 
 The,” pamphlet by 
 Pfefferkorn, 62. 
 
 Conrad III (emperor) pro¬ 
 tects Jews of Nurem¬ 
 berg, 14. 
 
 Conversion of Jews at 
 Rome, 143-156. 
 
Index . 2 71 
 
 Cosmas (bishop) preaches 
 against the crusades, 
 87. 
 
 Croyland, possessions of 
 monks of, 11. 
 
 Crusaders attack the Jews 
 of Prague, 87. 
 
 Crusades, Jews during the, 
 12-13. * 
 
 Cunigunda encourages Pfef- 
 ferkorn, 62-63. 
 
 Dalberg, Karl Theodor von, 
 improves the Frankfort 
 Ghetto, 73. 
 
 Dance house in the Ghetto, 
 33 - 
 
 Del Medigo, Joseph, Jew¬ 
 ish scholar, 114. 
 
 Depping, G. B., quoted, 6. 
 
 Der Primator, poem by I,. 
 A. F'rankl, 245. 
 
 Der Rabbi von Bacharach, 
 fragment by Heine, 222. 
 
 Der Sinai (magazine), 
 quoted, 224-225. 
 
 “Der Retter, ” novel by S. 
 Kolin, 263. 
 
 Der unbekannte Rabbi , 
 novel by Phoebus Phil- 
 ippson, 245. 
 
 Dichter uncL Kaufmann , 
 novel by Auerbach, 224. 
 
 Die Jahrzeit , novel by 
 Kompert, 233-240. 
 
 Dominicans employ Pfeffer- 
 korn, 61. 
 ridiculed, 65. 
 
 Dorn Pedro issues a Ghetto 
 regulation, 26. 
 
 Dorfgeher, a Ghetto char¬ 
 acter, 229. 
 
 Bast, Ghettos established in 
 the, 30. 
 
 Einhorn, Dr. David, quoted, 
 224-225. 
 
 Ekaterinoslav open to Jews, 
 178. 
 
 “ Eneinj/of the Jews, The,” 
 pamphlet by Pfeifer- 
 korn, 62. 
 
 Egbert (archbishop) collects 
 English canon laws, 11. 
 
 Egypt, Jews settle in cities 
 of, 5 - 
 
 England, first notices of 
 Jews in, 10-11. 
 
 Epistle to the Romans, quot¬ 
 ed, 6, 7. 
 
 Epistolce Obscurorum Vir- 
 orum , satire, 65. 
 
 Erfurt, right of taxation of 
 Jews of, 16-17. 
 
 Eugenius III (pope) wel¬ 
 comed by Jews, 138. 
 
 Falk, Jacob Joshua, rabbi 
 at Frankfort, 262. 
 
 Ferdinand I (emperor) ex¬ 
 pels the Jews from 
 Prague, 93. 
 
 Ferdinand II (emperor) 
 makes the Prague 
 Ghetto independent, 
 102-103. 
 
 relieves the Jews of Prague 
 from unjust taxes, 96. 
 
 Ferdinand III (emperor) in¬ 
 creases the privileges of 
 the Jews of Prague, 98. 
 
 Ferrara, Ghetto established 
 at, 27. 
 
 Fettmilch, Vincent, a festi¬ 
 val named for him, 69. 
 attacks the Frankfort. 
 Ghetto, 67. 
 
 Finland, Jews excluded 
 from, 178. 
 
 Flagellants calumniate 
 Jews, 47. 
 
 Florence, Ghetto estab¬ 
 lished at, 27. 
 
272 Old European Jewries . 
 
 Formstecher, S., Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Frankfort buys the right to 
 tax Jews, 46. 
 
 Ghetto of, abandoned, 75; 
 attacked by Fettmilch, 
 67-69; cemetery of the, 
 76-80; construction of 
 the houses in the, 80-81; 
 description and regula¬ 
 tions of the, 56-60; de¬ 
 stroyed, 69-70; estab¬ 
 lished, 29, 49; establish¬ 
 ment of the, decreed, 
 50; improved, 71, 73; 
 occupied, 54; owner¬ 
 ship of the houses in the, 
 55; reasons for the estab¬ 
 lishment of the, 50; signs 
 on the houses of the, 72; 
 situation of the, 51. 
 
 guilds hostile to Jews, 
 
 66 . 
 
 Jewish trade societies in, 
 22. 
 
 Jews of, bought by the 
 emperor, 68-69; cele¬ 
 brate Purim Fettmilch, 
 69; civil and political 
 status of, 48-51. 
 
 Jews settle in, 46. 
 
 re-admits Jews, 47-48. 
 
 Frankl, Ludwig August, 
 Ghetto poet, 245, 264. 
 
 Franzos, Karl Emil, Ghetto 
 novelist, 198, 245-247. 
 
 quoted, 30, 230. 
 
 Frederick II (emperor) in¬ 
 stitutes the Salerno 
 Ghetto, 27. 
 
 Frederick III (emperor) in¬ 
 stitutes the Frankfort 
 Ghetto, 50. 
 
 protects the Jews of Ratis- 
 bon, 15, 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa (em¬ 
 peror) institutes imper¬ 
 ial protection of Jews, 
 14. 
 
 Gabriel , Ghetto novel, 245. 
 
 Galicia, scene of Franzos’s 
 novels, 245 ; of Sacher- 
 Masoch’s novels, 248. 
 
 Gans, David, Jewish his¬ 
 torian, 114. 
 
 Gaul, settlement of Jews in, 9. 
 
 Genoa, Ghetto established 
 at, 27. 
 
 Genoa, Ghettos established 
 in, 30. 
 
 Germany, restrictions laid 
 upon Jews of, 28. 
 
 Ghetto {see under Frank¬ 
 fort, Prague, Rome, 
 Russia, etc.) 
 characters, 228-229. 
 customs, 229. 
 dance house in the, 33. 
 establishment of the, 25- 
 30 - . 
 
 inhabitants described by 
 Kompert, 232. 
 
 Italian name for Jews’ 
 quarter, 20. 
 
 life described by Kom¬ 
 pert, 231-232; effects of, 
 apparent now, 199-200; 
 legitimate subject for 
 fiction, 220. 
 
 novelists, 198,245,248-250. 
 novels, 222, 224-226, 229, 
 231, 233-240, 242-244, 
 
 245-250, 263. 
 
 Ghetto, the, perpetuated in 
 literature, 220. 
 the, produces a peculiar 
 language, 198; isola¬ 
 tion, 21 ; peculiar cus¬ 
 toms, 197-198; virtues, 
 216. 
 
Index. 
 
 Ghetto, brothels transferred 
 to the, 30. 
 
 voluntary, 22-23, 200-201, 
 217-219. 
 
 Goldschmidt, M., Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Golem , figure made by the 
 Hohe Rabbi Low , 113. 
 
 Graetz, quoted, 8, 14. 
 
 Great Russia, Jews ex¬ 
 cluded from, 178. 
 
 Gregory XIII (pope) com¬ 
 pels Jews to listen to 
 sermons, 143-144. 
 permits Jews to return to 
 the Papal States, 130. 
 
 Grodno open to Jews, 178. 
 
 Guilds exclude Jews, 203. 
 hostile to Jews, 66. 
 
 Hamburg, Jewish trade so¬ 
 cieties in, 210. 
 
 Heine, Heinrich, first Ghetto 
 novelist, 222. 
 quoted, 222, 223. 
 
 Hendel, wife of Jacob Bas- 
 sewi, 115. 
 
 Henry IV (emperor) pro¬ 
 tects Jews, 14. 
 
 Herzberg-Frankel, Leo, 
 Ghetto novelist, 245. 
 
 Hessen, Jewish trade so¬ 
 cieties in, 210. 
 
 Hoch Synagoge attached to 
 the Prague town hall, 
 102. 
 
 Hohe Rabbi Lozu, chief 
 rabbi of Prague, 113- 
 114. 
 
 Hoogstrateu, Jacob van, 
 grand inquisitor, 62. 
 examines Hebrew books, 
 
 64. 
 
 Horowitz, Dr. M., collector 
 of Frankfort epitaphs, 
 77 - 
 
 18 
 
 Hutten, Ulrich von, author 
 of Epistolce Obscuro- 
 rum Virorum , 65. 
 
 IgnatiefF inspires the Rus¬ 
 sian anti-Jewish laws, 
 
 IT ?- 
 
 Illiberis, decree of council 
 of, 7-8. 
 
 Intermarriage treated by 
 Franzos, 247. 
 
 Innocent II (pope) wel¬ 
 comed by Jews, 138. 
 
 Innocent III (pope) limits 
 the trades of the Jews, 
 161. 
 
 Innocent IV (pope) forbids 
 forcible conversions, 89. 
 
 Innocent VIII (pope) 
 shields the Roman 
 Jews, 140. 
 
 Jahrbuch fur Israeliten , 
 Vienna publication, 231. 
 
 Jerusalem destroyed by 
 Romans, 5. 
 
 Jew badges abolished at 
 Rome, 160. 
 
 decreed by Church 
 councils, 20. 
 
 devised by Innocent III, 
 20. 
 
 Jewesses, beauty of, 223. 
 
 “Jewish heart,” described 
 by Kompert, 240-241. 
 
 Jew quarters, names for, 
 20. 
 
 Jews {see under the various 
 cities , countries , etc.) 
 as artisans, 206, 208-209; 
 farmers, 206,210; jour¬ 
 nalists, 214; manufac¬ 
 turers, 210; vinegrow- 
 ers, 206. 
 
 abhor murder, 216. 
 absorbed in Rabbinical 
 dialectics, 195. 
 
274 Old European Jewries. 
 
 Jews attacked by bishops of 
 Lyons, 12. 
 
 Black Death imputed to, 
 47- 
 
 carried to Rome by Pom- 
 pey, 5- 
 
 charged with blasphemy, 
 90-91. 
 
 condition of, improved by 
 Joseph II, 100. 
 consumers, 202-203. 
 converted, favored, 133- 
 134- 
 
 deported by Titus, 6. 
 descended from Van- 
 giones, 9. 
 
 disabilities of, removed, 
 211. 
 
 during the crusades, 12-13. 
 emancipated in the nine¬ 
 teenth century, 209. 
 excluded from guilds, 
 203 ; from trades, 206. 
 family life of, 196-197. 
 form trade societies, 210. 
 forbidden to appear dur¬ 
 ing Holy Week, 89. 
 forced to adopt commerce, 
 204-205. 
 
 granted to the Duke of 
 Austria, 257. 
 
 isolated by Ghettos, 21-22. 
 liberality of, 201-202. 
 mentioned in the Theo- 
 dosian Code, 8-9. 
 Merovingians hostile to, 
 12. 
 
 morality of, 196, 216. 
 protected against exces¬ 
 sive taxation, 15. 
 protected by Conrad III, 
 14; by the emperors, 
 14 - 15 - 
 
 protest against the confis¬ 
 cation of their books,64. 1 
 
 Jews, restricted to certain 
 trades, 207 ; by English 
 canon laws, 11. 
 
 separated from Christ¬ 
 ians, 21-22. 
 
 settlements of, 5, 9, 10, 
 84-85. 
 
 show effect of Ghetto life, 
 194. 
 
 sold, 16. 
 
 stunted by exclusion, 
 T 95- 
 
 successful at the univer¬ 
 sities and in the profes¬ 
 sions, 213-214. 
 
 trained by Talmud 
 studies, 195, 214. 
 
 unpleasant traits of, due 
 to persecution, 194. 
 
 Visigothic kings hostile 
 to, 12. 
 
 Jew tax in Bohemia, 99. 
 
 Josefstadt, name of Prague 
 Ghetto, 82, 263. 
 
 Joseph II (emperor) im¬ 
 proves the condition of 
 the Jews, 100. 
 
 Journalism, Jews successful 
 in, 214. 
 
 Joao I, of Portugal, issues 
 Ghetto regulations, 26. 
 
 JudcEOS habere , right of 
 residence, 17-18. 
 
 Judah ben Bezalel, chief 
 rabbi of Prague, 113-114. 
 
 Judeng arten, name of 
 Prague cemetery, 109. 
 
 Judengasse , German name 
 for Ghetto, 20. 
 
 Ghetto atUeberlingen, 29. 
 
 Jndenordn ungen , decrees 
 concerning Jews of 
 Frankfort, 48-50. 
 
 Judenspiegel , pamphlet by 
 Pfefferkorn, 62. 
 
Index . 
 
 Judenstadt , name of Prague 
 Ghetto, 82. 
 
 Judenstrasse , German name 
 for Ghetto, 20. 
 
 Judenviertel , German name 
 for Ghetto, 20. 
 
 Judex Judceorum , appoint¬ 
 ed by Ottokar II, 101. 
 
 Judiaria , Portuguese name 
 for Ghetto, 20, 26. 
 
 Judisch-deutsch (j argon), 
 analyzed by Zunz, 198- 
 1 99 - 
 
 work on, 268. 
 
 Judith Trachtenberg , novel 
 by Franzos, 246-247. 
 
 Juiveries , French name for 
 Ghetto, 20. 
 
 Julius III (pope) imposes a 
 tax 011 the Jews of 
 Rome, 155. 
 
 Jus gazzaga, rent law in 
 the Roman Ghetto, 133- 
 135 . 
 
 Kaddish described, 237-240. 
 
 Kazan, Jews excluded from, 
 178. 
 
 Kherson open to Jews, 
 178. 
 
 Kiev (city), Jewish artisans 
 ejected from, 187. 
 
 Jews excluded from, 178. 
 
 Kiev (province) open to 
 Jews, J 78- 
 
 Klapp, Michael, Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Kolien, Mordecai Zemach, 
 averts the expulsion of 
 the Jews from Prague, 
 93 . Ir 5 - 
 
 Kohn, S., Ghetto novelist, 
 198, 245, 263. 
 
 Kompert, Leopold, Ghetto 
 novelist, 198, 226-245. 
 
 Kowuo opeu to Jews, 178. 
 
 Kulke Edward, Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Landau, R. Samuel, of 
 Prague, no-in. 
 
 Lateran council (Fourth), 
 decrees Jew badges, 20. 
 
 Lehmann, M.,Ghetto novel¬ 
 ist, 245. 
 
 Leland, Chas. G., writer on 
 the Jewish jargou, 268. 
 
 Lemberg, birthplace of 
 Sacher-Masoch, 248. 
 
 Leo X (pope) improves the 
 Roman Ghetto, 161-162. 
 revives compulsory ser¬ 
 mons for Jews, 145. 
 
 Lewald, Fanny, Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Libau open to Jews, 179. 
 
 Lisbon, Ghettos of, 26. 
 
 Lunga Spina, Ghetto island 
 at Venice, 27. 
 
 Magdeburg, Jews settle in, 
 10. 
 
 Mantua, Ghetto established 
 at, 27. 
 
 Maria Theresa (empress), 
 decrees the expulsion of 
 the Bohemian Jews, 99. 
 imposes an annual Jew 
 tax, 99. 
 
 Maximilian (emperor), or¬ 
 ders the confiscation of 
 Hebrew books, 63, 64. 
 
 Mayence, Jews settle in, 10. 
 
 May laws (Russian) cause 
 overcrowded cities, 181, 
 182-183. 
 
 depose Ignatieff, 182. 
 comments on, by the Lon¬ 
 don committee, 180-181. 
 inspired by Ignatieff, 179. 
 prevent Jews from leading 
 a rural life, i8r. 
 provisions of the, 180. 
 
Old European Jewries. 
 
 276 
 
 Meier Esofowics, novel by 
 Orzeszko, 248-249. 
 
 Meisel, Mordecai, builds 
 town-hall at Prague, 102. 
 
 philanthropic work of, 94, 
 TI 3- 
 
 Mendel Gibbor, novel by 
 Bernstein, 224. 
 
 Mendelssohn, Moses, quot¬ 
 ed, 203. 
 
 treated as an alien, 211. 
 
 Merovingian kings hostile 
 to Jews, 12. 
 
 Merseburg, Jews settle in, 10. 
 
 Milan, decree of council of, 
 44-45- 
 
 Min, Ghetto character, 228. 
 
 Minsk open to Jews, 178. 
 
 Moschita Court at Palermo, 
 28. 
 
 Moscow, artisans ejected 
 from, 187. 
 
 Mosenthal, S. H., Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Miinchengratz, birthplace 
 of Kompert, 227. 
 
 Naples, Ghetto established 
 at, 27. 
 
 “New Stories from the 
 Ghetto,” novels by 
 Kompert, 231. 
 
 Nikolaiev, Jews excluded 
 from, 178. 
 
 Nuremberg, Ghetto estab¬ 
 lished at, 29. 
 
 Jews find refuge in, 14; 
 settle in, 10. 
 
 Odessa, artisans ejected 
 from, 187. 
 
 Ohne Bewilligung , novel 
 by Kompert, 229. 
 
 Oppenheim, David, chief 
 rabbi of Prague, 114. 
 
 Ordo Romanus , quoted, 
 139 . 
 
 Orzeszko, Miss E. P., Ghet¬ 
 to novelist, 248-249. 
 
 Ottokar II makes the Jews 
 of Prague autonomous, 
 
 IOT. 
 
 Pale of Settlement, the 
 (Russia), composed of 
 fifteen gubernia, 178. 
 description of, 191-192. 
 Jews excluded from the 
 cities of, 178; expelled 
 from, 188. 
 
 rights of Jews within, 190. 
 number of Jews in, 188. 
 treatment of dwellers in, 
 185-186. 
 
 Palermo, Ghetto established 
 at, 27-28. 
 
 Papal States, Jews expelled 
 from the, 129, 131 ; per¬ 
 mitted to return to the, 
 130. 
 
 Paul (apostle) mentions 
 Jews of Spain, 6-7. 
 
 Paul II (pope) institutes 
 carnival races, 141. 
 
 Paul IV Carafifa (pope), 
 death of, 126. 
 establishes the Roman 
 Ghetto, 27, 44, 122-124. 
 
 Pennell quoted, 183. 
 
 Pesach (Peter) charges Jews 
 with blasphemy, 90-91. 
 
 Pfefferkorn, John, endang¬ 
 ers the Jewish commu¬ 
 nity of Frankfort, 61-66. 
 
 Pliilippson, Ludwig, Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Pliilippson, Phoebus, Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Phthisis, Jews suffer from, 
 186. 
 
 “Pictures of Jewish Life 
 in Galicia,” novel by 
 Samuely, 245. 
 
Index . 
 
 2 77 
 
 Pierleoni, a distinguished 
 Roman family of con¬ 
 verts, 147-150. 
 
 PH Operai, agents for the 
 conversion of Jews, 156. 
 
 Pisa, Ghetto established at, 
 27. 
 
 Pius IV (pope) absolves Em¬ 
 peror Ferdinand from 
 his oath, 93. 
 
 council of Milan held 
 under, 44. 
 
 permits Jews to put off 
 Jew badges, 127. 
 
 regulates rents in the 
 Ghetto, 128. 
 
 treats Jew’s kindly,127-128. 
 
 Pius V (pope) confiscates 
 the property of the 
 Jews, 129. 
 
 expels Jews from the 
 Papal States, 129-130. 
 
 issues Ghetto regulations, 
 129-130. 
 
 revokes the concessions of 
 Pius IV, 128-129. 
 
 Pius VI (pope) restricts 
 the liberties of the Jews, 
 158-160. 
 
 Pius VII (pope) kindly dis¬ 
 posed to Jews, 160. 
 
 made prisoner, 160. 
 
 returns to Rome, 161. 
 
 Pius IX (pope), abolishes 
 the sermons for Jew r s, 
 145 -. 
 
 demolishes the walls of 
 the Roman Ghetto, 162- 
 
 i6 3 ; 
 
 reactionary policy of, 163. 
 
 removes an indignity from 
 the Jews, 143. 
 
 P'ne Yehoshuah , a cele¬ 
 brated Jewish work, 79. 
 
 author of, 262. 
 
 Pobiedonostseff influences 
 the Tzar against the 
 Jews, 182. 
 
 Podolia open to Jews, 178. 
 
 “ Poet of the Ghetto,” 
 Leopold Kompert, 226. 
 
 Poland, Jewish life in, de¬ 
 scribed by Sacher-Ma- 
 soch, 248. 
 
 Jews of, engaged in trades, 
 208. 
 
 Poltava open to Jews, 178. 
 
 Pomerania, Jewish trade so¬ 
 cieties in, 210. 
 
 Pompey, first Roman gener¬ 
 al to enter Jerusalem, 5. 
 
 Pons JudcBorum , a bridge 
 at Rome, 121. 
 
 Porta Jzidceorum, gate at Col¬ 
 ogne, 28 ; at Worms. 29. 
 
 Portugal, Ghettos establish¬ 
 ed in, 25-27. 
 
 Propugnaculum Judceo- 
 rum , redoubt at Col¬ 
 ogne, 28. 
 
 Prague, Ghetto of, Alt-Neu 
 Synagoge in the, 103- 
 109; books confiscated 
 in the, 92 ; burnt, 92-93, 
 98 ; ceases to be com¬ 
 pulsory, 109-117 ; courts 
 of the, 103 ; description 
 of the, 82-84, 101 I gov¬ 
 ernment of the, ior-102, 
 203; guarded, 95; Hoch- 
 Synagoge in the, 102; 
 made independent, 103 ; 
 name of the, 82 ; pillag¬ 
 ed, 94-95 ; president of 
 the, 102; rabbinical jur¬ 
 isdiction of the, abolish¬ 
 ed, 103 ; restrictive reg¬ 
 ulations in the, 92; 
 town-hall in the, T02- 
 103. 
 
278 Old European Jew ides. 
 
 Prague, Jews of, alleged de¬ 
 secration of host by, 87- 
 89 ; attacked by crusad¬ 
 ers,87; freed from unjust 
 taxes, 96 ; gather in the 
 Judenstadt , 85 ; guard 
 the city against Swedes, 
 97 ; last expulsion of, 
 99 ; loyal to the imper¬ 
 ial house, 95 ; made au¬ 
 tonomous, 101 ; ordered 
 to leave the city, 93; 
 privileged, 98; re¬ 
 warded for fidelity, 97- 
 98; saved from expul¬ 
 sion, 93, 115. 
 
 Purim, instituted during 
 the Thirty Years’ War, 
 95 _ 96 - 
 
 Predica coattiva, conver- 
 sionist sermon for Jews, 
 144-145. 
 
 Primator , president of the 
 Prague congregation, 
 102. 
 
 “Princess, The,” novel by 
 Kompert, 242-243. 
 
 Professions, Jews successful 
 in, 214. 
 
 Prussia, Jewish trade socie¬ 
 ties in, 210. 
 
 Purim Fettmilch celebrated 
 by Jews of Frankfort, 
 69 - 
 
 Pur im (Prague) instituted 
 during the Thirty Years’ 
 War, 95-96. 
 
 Rappaport, S. L., quoted, 
 263. 
 
 Ratisbon, Ghetto at, 29. 
 
 Jews of, protected, 15. 
 
 Jews settle in, jo. 
 
 Ravenna, decree of council 
 of, 40-42. 
 
 Renan, Ernest, quoted, 255. 
 
 Residence, rights of, how 
 granted to Jews, 17-18. 
 
 Reuchlin, John, humanist, 
 friendly to Jews, 63, 64. 
 
 Revolutions, American and 
 French, banish medise- 
 valism, 207-208. 
 
 Riga open to Jews, 179. 
 
 Ring, Max, Ghetto novel¬ 
 ist, 245. 
 
 Riesser, Gabriel, champions 
 Jewish emancipation, 
 74 - 
 
 quoted, 206. 
 
 Romans, the, destro'y Jeru¬ 
 salem, 5. 
 
 Rome, age of Jewish com¬ 
 munity at, 120. 
 
 Ghettoof, abolished, 174; 
 description of the, 125- 
 126; edict concerning 
 the, 158-160; estab¬ 
 lished, 27, 44, 122-124; 
 government of, 157- 
 158; improved, 162; 
 limits of the, 124; name 
 of the, 124; regulations 
 about holding property 
 in the, 132-135 ; regula¬ 
 tions of Pius V about 
 the, 129-130; rent regu¬ 
 lated in the, 128 ; syna¬ 
 gogues of the, 157, 265 ; 
 walls of the, demol¬ 
 ished, 162-163. 
 
 Jew badge abolished in, 
 160. 
 
 Jews of, compelled to 
 listen to sermons, 143- 
 145 ; conversion of, 143- 
 156; expelled, 130-131 ; 
 favorable position of, 
 120-121, 136-137; given 
 equal rights, 1 6 1 ; 
 granted permission to 
 
Index. 
 
 2 79 
 
 Rome, Jews of, continued. 
 carry on trades, 161 ; 
 live in Transtiberis, 
 121; must ask permis¬ 
 sion to remain in the 
 city, 142-143; permitted 
 to live outside of the 
 Ghetto, 161; petition 
 Pius IX, 163-174 ; privi¬ 
 leges of, renewed, 130; 
 receive charter, 122 ; re¬ 
 leased from participa¬ 
 tion in the races, 142; 
 shielded from insult, 
 140; take part in the 
 carnival races, 141-142 ; 
 taxed, 155. 
 
 Jews permitted to live in, 
 129, 131; settle in, 5. 
 
 Rostov open to Jews, 179. 
 
 Rothenburg, Jewish tomb¬ 
 stones at, 30. 
 
 Rothschild family in the 
 Frankfort Ghetto, 75. 
 
 home of, not destroyed, 75. 
 
 Rubianus, Crotus, author of 
 Epistolcs Obscurorum 
 Virorum , 65. 
 
 Rudiger (bishop), decree of, 
 35 - 38 . 
 
 protects Jews, 22. 
 
 Rudolph (emperor) re¬ 
 ceives Judah ben Beza- 
 lel, 114. 
 
 Rupert (emperor) protects 
 Jews from excessive 
 taxation, 15. 
 
 Russia (see May laws, Pale 
 of Settlement, etc.) 
 
 Ghetto of, a district, 177- 
 178. 
 
 Jews excluded from cer¬ 
 tain provinces of, 178, 
 and from frontier of, 
 186. 
 
 Jews of, effect of restric- 
 tivejaws upon, 191-192 ; 
 new laws against, 266- 
 267 ; privileged classes 
 among the, 179, 184- 
 
 186; restricted by the 
 May laws, 180-181; suf¬ 
 fer from phthisis, 186. 
 
 Jews permitted to live in 
 certain cities 0^178,179. 
 
 Russo-Jewish committee in 
 London, 180-181. 
 
 Sacher-Masoch, Ghetto nov¬ 
 elist, 248. 
 
 St. Cyr (general) abolishes 
 Jew badges, 160. 
 
 St. Petersburg, artisans 
 ejected from, 187. 
 
 Salerno, Ghetto established 
 at, 27. 
 
 Samuely, Nathan, Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Sardinia, Jews work in 
 mines of, 6. 
 
 Saxon Duchies, Jewish 
 trade societies in, 21a. 
 
 Saxony. Jewish trade so¬ 
 cieties in, 210. 
 
 Schacherjude , the Jew of 
 popular conception, 207. 
 
 Schwarzwalder Dorfge- 
 
 schichten by Auerbach, 
 227. 
 
 Sebastopol, Jews excluded 
 from, 178. 
 
 Seelen fiingerin , Ghetto 
 character, 228. 
 
 Servi camera?, origin and 
 meaning of, 13-14. 
 under Frederick II, 15. 
 under Conrad IV, 15. 
 
 Shadchen . Ghetto charac¬ 
 ter, 229. 
 
 Shlemihl , Ghetto charac¬ 
 ter, 229. 
 
280 Old European Jewries. 
 
 Sicily, Ghettos in, 27-28. 
 
 Jews of, driven into 
 Ghettos, 28. 
 
 Sixtus V (pope) renews 
 privileges of the Jews, 
 J3°. 
 
 Spain, earliest notice of 
 Jews in, 6. 
 
 Jews of, numerous, 7. 
 
 Speyer, Ghetto of, decree 
 concerning the, 35-38; 
 established, 30 ; for pro¬ 
 tection, 35. 
 
 Jews settle in, 10. 
 
 Spinoza , novel by Auer¬ 
 bach, 224. 
 
 Steinthal, H., quoted, 230 
 
 Stobbe, Otto, quoted, 15. 
 
 Strack, Hermann L,., dis¬ 
 cusses the blood accusa¬ 
 tion; 265. 
 
 Strasburg, Jews of, sold, 16. 
 
 Szybow, scene of Meier 
 Esofowicz, 248. 
 
 “Tales of a Jews’Street,” 
 novels by Kompert, 
 231. 
 
 Talmud, the,enforces trades 
 and agriculture, 204. 
 
 sharpens the wits of the 
 Jews, 195. 
 
 Tauber, E. O., Ghetto 
 novelist, 245. 
 
 Taurida open to Jews, 178. 
 
 Tchernigov open to Jews, 
 178. 
 
 population of, increased 
 by May laws, 182. 
 
 Ten Commandments re¬ 
 spected by Jews, 216. 
 
 Theodorus (archbishop) 
 collects English canon 
 laws, 11. 
 
 Theodosian Code mentions 
 Jews, 8-9. 
 
 Titus, arch of, 139-140, 264 
 (note 100.) 
 deports Jews, 6. 
 
 “Tourist und Cicerone,” 
 poem by L,. A. Frankl, 
 264. 
 
 Transtiberis residence of 
 the Roman Jews, 121. 
 
 Trapani, Ghetto established 
 at, 28. 
 
 Trenderl , novel by Kom¬ 
 pert, 242. 
 
 Treuenberg, Jacob von, 94. 
 
 Treves, Ghetto at, 29. 
 
 Jews settle in, 10. 
 
 Turin, Ghetto established 
 at, 27. 
 
 Tzarfati, Joseph, counselor 
 of Gregory XIII, 143. 
 
 Ueberlingen, Ghetto at, 29. 
 
 Ulm, early settlement of 
 Jews in, 6. 
 
 Universities, Jews promi¬ 
 nent in, 214. 
 
 Valencia, decree of council 
 of, 42-44. 
 
 Vangiones, Jews descended 
 from, 9. 
 
 Venice, Ghetto established 
 at, 27. 
 
 Vicus Judesorum , name of 
 the Roman Ghetto, 124. 
 original name for Ghet¬ 
 tos, 20. 
 
 Visigothic kings hostile to 
 Jews, 12. 
 
 Vitebsk open to Jews, 178. 
 
 Vogele der Maggid , novel 
 by Bernstein, 224. 
 
 Volliynia open to Jews, 178. 
 
 Wenceslaus, of Bohemia, 
 censures Jews, 89. 
 
 Wilna open to Jews, 178. 
 
 Witglaff favors the monks 
 of Croyland, 11. 
 
Index. 
 
 281 
 
 Worms, date of Jewish set¬ 
 tlement in, 6, 9, 10. 
 Jews of, sold, 10. 
 Zangwill, Israel, Ghetto 
 novelist, 249-250. 
 
 Zemach David , a Jewish 
 chronicle, 114. 
 
 Zunz, Leopold, analyzes the 
 Jewish jargon, 198-199. 
 quoted, 116-117. 
 
PUBLICATIONS 
 
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 OUTLINES OF JEWISH HISTORY. From the Return from Babylon to 
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OUTLINES OF JEWISH HISTORY. 
 
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 1890 . 
 
 With Three Maps, a Frontispiece and Chronological Table 4 *, 
 
 By LADY MAGNUS. 
 
 Revised by M. FRIEDLANDER, Ph. D # 
 
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 A STORY. 
 
 BY MILTON GOLDSMITH. 
 
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 Bound in Cloth 
 
 Price, Post-paid, $1. 
 
SPECIAL SERIES No. 1. 
 
 The Persecution of tlie Jews in Russia, 
 
 WITH A MAP, SHOWING THE PALE OF JEWISH SETTLEMENT 
 
 Lso, an Appendix, giving an Abridged Summary of Laws, 
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 Russia, brought down to the year 1890. 
 
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 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
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CfllbDREJl OF THE GHETTO 
 
 BEING 
 
 PICTURES OF A PECULIAR PEOPLE. 
 
 BY I. ZANGWILL. 
 
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Vol. 
 
 HISTORY Of THE JEWS. 
 
 BY 
 
 PROFESSOR H. GRAETZ. 
 
 I. From the Earliest Period to the Death of Simon 
 the Maccabee (135 B. C. E.). 
 
 Vol. II. From the Reign of Hyrcanus to the Completion 
 of the Babylonian Talmud (500 C. E.). 
 
 Vol. III. From the Completion of the Babylonian Talmud 
 to the Banishment of the Jews from England (1290 
 C. E.). _ 
 
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 of genius.— Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 The writer, who is considered by far the greatest of Jewish historians, 
 is the pioneer in his field of work—history without theology or polemics. 
 
 . . . His monumental work promises to be the standard by which 
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 also for the writer’s excellent style and for the almost gossipy way in 
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 there can be no question.— Richmond Dispatch. 
 
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 subject because he is himself a Jew, he should resort to the volumes of 
 Graetz.— Revieiv of Reviews (New York). 
 
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 Price, postpaid, $3 per volume 
 
SABBATH HOURS. 
 
 THOUGHTS. 
 
 By LIEBMAN ADLER. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Rabbi Adler was a man of strong and fertile mind, and his sermons 
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 As one turns from sermon to sermon, he gathers a wealth of precept, 
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 sweet thought well worthy of the cherishing by either Jew or Christian. 
 —Richmond Dispatch. 
 
 The topics discussed are in the most instances practical in their 
 nature. All are instructive, and passages of rare eloquence are of fre¬ 
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 The sermons are simple and careful studies, sometimes of doctrine, 
 but more often of teaching and precept.— Chicago Times. 
 
 He combined scholarly attainment with practical experience, and 
 these sermons cover a wide range of subject. Some of them are singu¬ 
 larly modern in ton q.—I ndianapolis News. 
 
 They are modern sermons, dealing with the problems of the day, and 
 convey the interpretation which these problems should receive in the 
 light of the Old Testament history.— Boston Herald. 
 
 While this book is not without interest in those communities where 
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 be particularly so in those communities where there is but little Jewish 
 teaching.— Baltimore American. 
 
 The sermons are thoughtful and earnest in tone and draw many forci¬ 
 ble and pertinent lessons from the Old Testament records.— Syracuse 
 Herald. 
 
 They are saturated with Bible lore, but every incident taken from the 
 Old Testament is made to illustrate some truth in modern life.— San 
 
 Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 They are calm and conservative, . . . applicable in their essential 
 meaning to the modern religious needs of Gentile as well as Jew. In 
 style they are eminently clear and direct.— Review of Reviews (New York). 
 
 Able, forcible, helpful thoughts upon themes most essential to the 
 prosperity of the family, society and the state.— Public Opinion (Washing¬ 
 ton, I). C.). _ 
 
 Bound in Cloth. Price, postpaid, $1.25. 
 
OF THE 
 
 Jewish Women’s Congress 
 
 HELD AT CHICAGO, SEPTEMBER, 1893. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 This meeting was held during the first week of September, and was 
 marked by the presentation of some particularly interesting addresses 
 and plans. This volume is a complete report of the sessions.— Chicago 
 
 Times. 
 
 The collection in book form of the papers read at the Jewish Women’s 
 Congress . . . makes an interesting and valuable book of the history 
 and affairs of the Jewish women of America and Englaud.— St. Louis 
 Post-Dispatch. 
 
 A handsome and valuable souvenir of an event of great significance 
 to the people of the Jewish faith, and of much interest and value to in¬ 
 telligent and well-informed people of all faiths.— Kansas City Tima. 
 
 The Congress was a branch of the parliament of religions and was a 
 great success, arousing the interest of Jews and Christians alike, and 
 bringing together from all parts of the country women interested in 
 their religion, following similar lines of work and sympathetic in ways 
 of thought. . . . The papers in the volume are all of interest.— 
 Detroit Free Press. 
 
 The Jewish Publication Society of America has done a good work in 
 gathering up and issuing in a well-printed volume the “ Papers of the 
 Jewish Women’s Congress.”— Cleveland Plain-Dealer. 
 
 Bound in Cloth. Price, Postpaid, $1.