Lloyd P. Gartner, History of the Jews in Modern Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)


Chapter 4: Era of Revolution

Study Questions

1) Did the arguments contained in Moses Mendelssohn’s treatise Jerusalem, Or On Religious Power and Judaism in any way conflict with the traditional exercise of power in the Jewish communities of 18th century Europe?

2) By which arguments did the Prussian civil servant Christoph Wilhelm Dohm seek to convince Louis XVI to ease discriminatory laws against the Jews in Alsace?

3) Among the “reforms” which Habsburg Emperor Joseph II introduced into Jewish life, which one proved the most controversial within the Jewish community?

4) In what way did the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, according to Gartner, represent the “new era” by the late eighteenth century whereas Moses Mendelssohn had come to represent the old?

5) Was the demise of the “Jewish salons” in Berlin and other European capitals another symptom of this new era? If so, in what way?

6) Was the abolition of “Jewish autonomy” in revolutionary France in 1791 an advance or a setback for Jews in Europe?

7) What steps did Napoleon Bonaparte undertake to assess the credibility of French Jews as true citizens of France?

8) In what ways did the Assembly of (Jewish) Notables differ from the Grand Sanhedrin?

9) How would you assess Napoleon’s overall policy towards the Jews? Do you think a fair compromise was struck between the promotion of French national identity and the preservation of Jewish identity? Why or why not?

10) Is coerced acculturation by a nation-state, in your opinion, justifiable?

11) How did the lives of Jews in Poland-Lithuania change with the country’s seizure by Prussia, Russia, and the Habsburg regimes in 1172? Did their lives change again for the better or the worse in the wake of the Napoleonic conquests?

Return to syllabus.