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FRANCE

In 1789, speaking on behalf of Jewish emancipation in the French National Assembly, the Count of Clermont-Tonnerre proclaimed that “Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals,” adding that “[t]he existence of a nation within a nation is unacceptable to our country.”

On the eve of the Revolution some 40,000 Jews lived in France. France kept Jews in an inferior status, limiting their occupations and residence and levying special taxes. In January 1790 the assembly granted Sephardi Jews full citizenship and in September 1791 extended citizenship to Ashkenazi Jews as well. In 1806 Napoleon challenged Jews to prove that they deserved the equal status the Revolution had given them.

Israël-Bernard de Valabrègue
Letter or thoughts of a milord to his correspondent in Paris; concerning the demand of the Six Corps merchants against the Jews

London: 1767

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

Born in Avignon, Jewish scholar Valabrègue became an interpreter at the Royal Library (Bibliothèque du Roi). In this piece he reacts to the opposition by the Six Corps of Paris, a powerful trade organization of grocers and furriers, to admitting Jewish members. Valabrègue argues on this page that if Jews are allowed to “enjoy all the rights of citizens, they will suddenly have the soul of a citizen.”

Listen to Sid Lapidus speak about Valabregue, one of the first Jews to hold an official position in France without converting to Christianity.

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Abbé Henri Grégoire
Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs (An Essay on the Physical, Moral, and Political Regeneration
of the Jews)

Metz: Claude Lamort, 1789

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

A friend of the Jews, Grégoire argued that their degeneration was not inherent, but rather a result of their inferior legal status. He believed that Jews could be regenerated and made citizens.

Proclamation Of The King, On a decree of the national assembly, concerning the Jews ...

Bordeaux: Michel Racle, bookseller, 1790

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

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Letters patent from the king, on a decree of the National Assembly, concerning the conditions required to be considered French & admitted to the exercise of the rights of active citizen

Grenoble: Imprimerie Royale, 1790

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

The 1790 decree issued for the civic emancipation of the Jews concerned the Sephardi Jews of Bordeaux and Bayonne, not the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Alsace and Lorraine. By 1791 Louis (no longer an absolute, but rather a constitutional monarch) had extended French citizenship to aliens who had established continuous residence in the kingdom for five years, provided they owned real estate or married a Frenchwoman. However, the question of Jews’ citizenship in Alsace and Lorraine remained “ajourné” (adjourned) or in abeyance.

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Jacques Godard
Petition of Jews established in France, addressed to the National Assembly, 28 January 1790, on the adjournment of 24 December 1789

Paris: Prault, 1790

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

Christian lawyer Jacques Godard traveled with Jewish advocate Zalkind Hourwitz between revolutionary districts, campaigning on behalf of Jewish emancipation. Godard argues here that there is nothing in Judaism incompatible with French citizenship. Godard also states, on this page, that the Talmud does not encourage Jews to return to Palestine until the arrival of the Messiah.

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Receipts for Brancas tax payments, signed by rabbis of the community

Metz, 18th century

Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York

By the mid-eighteenth century nearly 3,000 Jews lived in Metz, where they established a self-governing Jewish community with elected trustees. French officials levied numerous taxes on this Jewish population—taxes that grew more burdensome after the introduction of a 1715 tax that originated from gifts given by the community to the Duke of Brancas.

Letters patent from the King, on the decree of the National Assembly, of July 20, abolishing rights of habitation, protection, tolerance & similar royalties on Jews

Grenoble: Imprimerie Royale, 1790

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

This decree by the French National Assembly abolished the annual levy of 20,000 livres against the Jews of Metz, in addition to any other special taxes imposed on Jews elsewhere other than those paid by all French subjects.

Letters patent of the King, on a decree of the National Assembly, stating that the Jews, known in France as Portuguese, Spanish & Avignon Jews, will enjoy the rights of active citizens ...

Grenoble: Imprimerie Royale, 1790

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

The ideas of the French Revolution—liberté, égalité, fraternité—brought equal rights to the Jews of France and abolished special taxes. Here, the king granted Sephardi French Jews the rights of “active citizens,” following an appeal made by Talleyrand.

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Translation of the hymn or “Hebraic Canticle,” which the Jews of Metz recite & had performed to music in their Synagogue

Metz: Joseph Antoine, 1781

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

Even while governed by harsh laws enforcing an inferior status, Jews of Metz included prayers for the royal family in their daily liturgy. This special hymn preceded those prayers; section four notes the recent birth of the dauphin, Louis Joseph, the second child of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

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Loi relative aux juifs, donnée a Paris [Law relating to the Jews, given in Paris]

Toulon: Mallard, 1791

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

This printing of the law decreed by the National Assembly in September 1791 states that “all men adhering to the duties of the Constitution are given the advantages that it assures; [and it] revokes all delays, reserves and exemptions applying to individual Jews.” In recording the granting of full equality to Jews in Alsace and Lorraine, this document ranks among the most significant in French Jewish history.

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The Paris Sanhedrin

In May 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte convened in Paris the Assembly of Jewish Notables: 111 French, Dutch, and Italian rabbis and Jewish leaders, including Ashkenazim and Sephardim. The emperor posed 12 questions to this assembly, designed to determine whether Judaism was compatible with a postrevolutionary France and the new Code Napoléon. The assembly’s answers expressed the Jews’ willingness to renounce their status as a separate corporation.

Napoleon then convened a “Grand Sanhedrin” in Paris to legalize the assembly’s answers. The Sanhedrin embraced individual rights in place of corporate privileges, claiming that the “political dispositions” of Judaism were “no longer applicable, since Israel no longer forms a nation,” while the “religious dispositions” remained valid and binding.

Decree regarding Jewish usury and the debts of non-merchant (peasant) farmers in certain regions of the Empire

Paris: Rondonneau, May 30, 1806

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

With this document Napoleon initiated
the process of establishing the Assembly
of Jewish Notables. This table shows the distribution of delegates from regions across France, Italy, and Holland who would convene in Paris on July 15, 1806.

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Proclamation to Jewish communities of Europe inviting them to send delegates to the Grand Sanhedrin, 1806

Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary

Abraham Furtado
Minutes of the meetings of the Assembly of French Deputies professing the Jewish religion

Paris: Desenne, 1806

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

Delegates to the assembly elected as their president Abraham Furtado, a wealthy Sephardi Jew from Bordeaux. Furtado brought his political experience and familiarity with Jewish communal issues to his role. Rabbi David Sintzheim, a notable Talmudist from Alsace, represented the concerns of Jewish law (halakhah). Together, Furtado and Sinzheim would lead a committee of 12 to address Napoleon’s questions and articulate how Jewish law and Napoleon’s Civil Code were thoroughly compatible.

Listen to Sid Lapidus discuss the timeline for granting citizenship to French Jews.

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M. Diogene Tama and F. D. Kirwan (translator) Transactions of the Parisian Sanhedrin or, Acts of the assembly of Israelitish deputies of France and Italy

London: Charles Taylor, 1807

Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus

A rabbi and merchant, Tama was chosen as the secretary to a delegate of the Assembly of Jewish Notables. He diligently kept transcripts of the proceedings and received permission from the French minister of the interior to publish them. This printed transcript reflects the tense encounter between Napoleon and the delegates as they negotiated the proper behavior for Jews as citizens.

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Prayer of the Members of the Sanhedrin, Recited in Their Assembly Convened in Paris on the First Day of Adar in the Year 5567

Paris: J. J. Marcel, Imprimerie Impériale, 1807

Yeshiva University Museum, 2008.114

As the members of Napoleon’s Sanhedrin convened in Paris, they prayed both for the wisdom to guide them in their task and for their emperor: “Sustained by your right hand, Lord, it will be easy for us to realize the purity of our intentions ... and to bring your holy laws into harmony with those of the state.”

Medal In Honor of the Grand Sanhedrin of Napoleon Denon & Depaulis, Rev:

Dupres; France, 1806 Bronze

The Jewish Museum, New York;

Gift of Samuel Friedenberg Collection, FB 145

Le grand Sanhedrin, 1807
Alfred Aron, engraver and printer
Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary

Joseph David ben Isaac Sintzheim,
Chief rabbi of Strasbourg and president of Napoleon’s Sanhedrin
Prud’hon (engraver); Damane (painter)

Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary

As the head of a Strasbourg yeshiva and a recognized expert in Jewish law Sintzheim bore the responsibility for addressing Napoleon’s questions from the perspective of rabbinic law (halakhah).

ITALY