<NAPOLEON BONAPARTE (1769-1821),
emperor of the French. He proclaimed the *emancipation of the Jews in
the Italian states which he had established, and the majority of the
Jews in Italy hailed Napoleon as a liberator and political savior,
calling him "Helek Tov" (lit. "Good Part"; (col. 823)
cf. Bona-Parte).
Even by this time, however, problems had arisen from the contradictions
posed by Jewish laws and communal autonomy on the one hand and the
political and civic obligations of the Jews on the other. In May 1799,
during Napoleon's campaign in Palestine (see below), the government
newspaper
Moniteur published
the information that Napoleon had issued a manifesto in Palestine which
promised the Jews their return to their country. Many European
newspapers reproduced this information, although today it is questioned
whether Napoleon really issued such a declaration.
The news concerning the manifesto and Napoleon's Palestine campaign
made little impression on the Jews in Europe. On the other hand, the
campaign gave rise to millenarian hopes among certain nonconformist
circles in England; for the first time, their expectation of the return
of Israel to Palestine and hence to the Church was linked with
realistic political projects.
[[The Arabs were not asked, but racist Zionism did no exist yet]].
The principal influence exercised by Napoleon as emperor on Jewish
history was in the years 1806 to 1808 when he convened the *Assembly of
Jewish Notables and the (French) *Sanhedrin, and established the
*Consistories. The programmatic documents formulated during this period
and the institutions which then came into being embody the first
practical expression of the demands made by a centralized modern state
on the Jews who had become its citizens - "the separation of the
political from the religious elements in Judaism". The news of the
activities of the Jewish assemblies stirred both Jewish and gentile
[[non-Jewish]] sectors of society in Central and Western Europe. The
Austrian authorities were apprehensive [[worried]] that the Jews would
regard Napoleon in the light of a messiah. In England, theological
hopes and political projects for the "Return of Israel" intensified.
On March 17, 1808, however, Napoleon issued an order restricting the
economic activity and the freedom of movement of the Jews in the
eastern provinces of the empire for a period of ten years, an order
which became known among Jews as the "Infamous Decree".
Napoleon's victorious armies brought civic emancipation to the Jews in
all the countries of Central and Western Europe where governments
dependent on him were formed. The central Jewish Consistory established
in the Kingdom of Westphalia was the first Jewish institution in Europe
to introduce reforms into the Jewish religion. The Jews of Eastern
Europe were only ephemerally [[short lived]] influenced by Napoleon's
conquests. Discussions were held among Hasidim [[Orthodox]] as to
whether support should be given to Napoleon or the Russian Czar
Alexander I in order to hasten [[speed up]] the coming of the messiah.
[B.M.]> (col. 824)
<The Palestine Campaign (Feb.
8-June 1, 1799) [Napoleon states the strategic importance of Palestine]
After the conquest of Egypt in August 1798 by Napoleon's army, the
defeated survivors fled to Palestine, where the pasha of *Acre, Ahmad
al-Jazzar, and the Turks, attempted to organize resistance. At the
beginning of February, Napoleon moved into Palestine at the head of a
13,000-man army.
He took El Arish on Feb. 20 and reached Gaza on Feb. 24: the small
Jewish community there fled to Hebron. On March 1 Napoleon reached
Ramleh and on March 7 Jaffa surrendered after a four-day siege. The
French army continued northward, crossed the southern Carmel on March
16 and 17, and reached al-Havithiyya (west of Sha'ar ha-Amakim). Haifa
was captured on March 18. On March 19 the French army reached the walls
of Acre; however, supported by British warships, the city withstood a
protracted siege and several assaults by the French.
A Jew, H.S. *Farhi, Ahmad al-Jazzar's chief aide, played an important
role in its defense. By June 1799, Napoleon's army, now plague-ridden
and decimated, had moved back into Egypt. (col. 824)
From a political point of view, Napoleon's campaign in Palestine marked
the beginning of a renewed interest of the Western Powers in Palestine
as occupying an important international position [[without asking the
Arabs]]. From a social-cultural point of view the importance of the
campaign was much more limited. However, this was the first substantial
contact made between the inhabitants of Palestine and Westerners since
the destruction of Crusader Acre.
[A.J.BR.]> (col. 825)
<Impact on Jewish History.
[Napoleon opens new worlds to the Jews]
The forces unleashed by Napoleon brought in their wake contradictory
effects on the course of modern Jewish history. The breakup of old
European feudal patterns of societal organization was eventually to
open up a range of new economic and political options for the Jew.
The closed societies that restricted but sheltered him were never again
to be the same. On the other hand, the immediate effect of these forces
was to provoke an almost total reversal in the process of civic
emancipation brought about in the course of Napoleonic conquests.
Nonetheless, Jewish Emancipation was to come eventually, even if its
triumph was to be delayed till later in the century. Well in advance of
that time the Napoleonic uprooting of the established order forced the
Jewish community to contend with the many challenges posed by that
process to their traditions and their lives. Already before Napoleon
there were individual Jews seeking an accommodation with the world
outside the ghetto. The events that surrounded the Napoleonic adventure
extended the concern of the few to the preoccupation of the people as a
whole.
Moreover, Napoleon's insistence on a price to be paid by the Jew for
his entrance into the modern world was to set the tone for much of the
debate within the Jewish community during the Emancipation era. How to
remain loyal to the traditions of his people and at home in the modern
world was a problem with which the Jew wrestled throughout the period
of his modern history; it is a problem first posed practically and
seriously by the threat of Napoleonic successes.
[A.SHA.]
Bibliography
-- R. Anchel: Napoléon et les Juifs (1928)
-- E.A. Halphen (ed.): Recueil des lois, décrets et ordonnances
concernant les Israélites (1851)
Sagnac, in: Revue de l'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 2-3 (1901-02)
-- P. Guedalla: Napoleon and Palestine (1925)
-- Gelber, in: REJ, 83 (1927), 1-21, 113-45
-- F. Kobler: The Vision was There (1956), 42-47
-- F. Pietri: Napoléon et les Israélites (1965)
-- B. Mevorakh: Napoleon u-Tekufato (1968)> (col. 825)
Sources
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Napoleon, vol. 12, col. 823-824
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Napoleon, vol. 12, col. 825
|
