Forging Freedom: The Life of Cerf Berr of Médelsheim

By Margaret R. O’Leary

Forging Freedom is the first full-length biography of Cerf Berr of Mdelsheim (17261793), the formidable eighteenth-century emancipator of the French Jews. His early business providing forage for thousands of horses of the French military garrisoned in Alsace grew into a huge military supply business that earned him the profound respect of French Kings Louis XV and XVI. After receiving his French naturalization papers from Louis XVI as a reward for his service to the French Crown, Cerf Berr worked tirelessly on behalf of his Ashkenazi co-religionists to win their political emancipation in France on September 27, 1791.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475910155

Margaret R. O’Leary

Margaret R. O’Leary served for many years as an attending emergency physician in several academic and community hospitals and as a professional writer. She lives in Fairway, Kansas. Dennis S. O’Leary served as a medical executive at the George Washington University Medical Center (1971–1986) and as president of the Joint Commission(1986–2007). He lives in Fairway, Kansas.

Book preview

Forging Freedom

The Life of Cerf Berr of Médelsheim

61903.jpg

Margaret R. O’Leary

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

The Life of Cerf Berr of Médelsheim

Copyright © 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Front cover photo credit: Eighteenth-century oil-on-canvas portrait of Cerf Berr of Médelsheim, property of the Hospice Elisa in Strasbourg. The portrait hangs in the Musée Historique de Strasbourg. The photograph of the portrait is by Rama, Wikimedia Commons, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr.

ISBN: 978-1-4759-1013-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-1014-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-1015-5 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 05/30/2012

Contents

Chapter One:

The Old Man of Alsace

Chapter Two:

Cerf Berr’s Jewish Heritage, 63 BC–AD 1726

The Roman Era, 63 BC–AD 476

The European Early Middle Ages, 476–1000

The European High Middle Ages, 1000–1300

The European Late Middle Ages, 1300–1500

The European Early Modern Period: 1500–1726

Chapter Three:

Cerf Berr’s Alsace Gamble, 1726–1763

Ashkenazim Settle in Alsace, France

Ashkenazim Settle in Saarland and

the Palatinate, Holy Roman Empire

Cerf Berr Moves from Saarland to Alsace

Chapter Four:

Cerf Berr Besieges Strasbourg, 1763–1784

Cerf Berr Moves to Strasbourg

King Louis XVI Naturalizes Cerf Berr, 1775

Case of the Counterfeit Receipts of Alsace, 1777–1779

Cerf Berr Turns to Moses Mendelssohn, 1780

List of Cerf Berr’s Employees, 1783

Suppression of the Strasbourg Jewish Body Tax, January 1784

Chapter Five:

Cerf Berr: Grand Syndic of the French Ashkenazim, 1784–1788

Death of the Chevalier of la Touche, 1784

List of Cerf Berr’s Family Members, 1784

Cerf Berr Retires from his Businesses, 1786

King Louis XVI Convenes Assembly of Notables, 1787

Malesherbes’ Unfinished Work for Jews in France, 1787–1788

King Louis XVI Agrees to Convene Estates-General, 1788

Cerf Berr Resigns as General Syndic of Alsace, November 10, 1788

Chapter Six:

Cerf Berr Besieges King Louis XVI, 1788–1789

Ashkenazim Excluded from the Estates-General, 1789

Estates-General Opens in Versailles, May 4, 1789

Parisians Revolt against King Louis XVI, July 1, 1789

The Great Fear, Summer 1789

The Rights of Man and Religious Freedom

Deputy Clermont-Tonnerre’s Speech, September 28, 1789

Deputy Berr Isaac Berr’s Speech, October 14, 1789

Deputy Clermont-Tonnerre’s Speech, December 23, 1789

Deputy Adrien Duport’s Amendment, December 23, 1789

Chapter Seven:

Jews in France Receive Citizenship Rights, 1790–1791

Sephardim Receive French Citizenship Rights, 1790

National Assembly Dissolves All Religious Corporations in France, 1790

Civil Constitution of the Clergy Ratified, July 12, 1790

King Louis XVI Attempts Escape from France, 1791

Massacre at Champ de Mars, July 1791

French Constitution of 1791 Proclaims Constitutional Monarchy

Ashkenazim Receive French Citizenship Rights, September 1791

Legislative Assembly Supersedes National Assembly, War Looms

Chapter Eight:

Cerf Berr’s Waning Days, 1792–1793

France Declares War on Austria, April 20, 1792

Tuileries Palace Cased, June 20, 1792

Brunswick Manifesto, July 25, 1792

Tuileries Palace Attacked, August 10, 1792

Jacobins Round Up Enemies in Paris, August 28, 1792

September Massacres, September 2–7, 1792

Fate of Citizen Louis Capet

Reign of Terror Begins, September 5, 1793

Cerf Berr Dies, December 7, 1793

Epilogue

Bibliography

Chapter One:

The Old Man of Alsace

In the early afternoon of December 7, 1793, an old man fell beneath the scythe of death. Silence wrapped his timber-framed, black-and-white Alsatian house along the Quai Finkwiller in Strasbourg. Outside the old man’s house, both along the murky waterfront and in the twisted back streets of old Strasbourg, the bloody French Revolution raged. Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine Léon of Saint-Just, and other macabre members of the Committee of Public Safety in Paris, ordered Strasbourg authorities to intimidate, imprison, and randomly execute Alsatian residents. The rationale for the Reign of Terror was to persuade disaffected provincials to conform to the revolutionary creed and fight. The sadistic Mayor Monet of Strasbourg terrorized the old man by imprisoning him for reasons unknown in a dank, dirty jail during the cold autumn of 1793. In sixteen days, the old man of Alsace was dead.

In the late afternoon of the passing of the old man, his relatives gently closed his plain wooden coffin, covered it with a black sheet, and waited for night to bury him in the forbidden Rosenwiller Jewish Cemetery. Thirteen days earlier, atheist and deist leaders of the French Revolutionary Government in Paris had ordered destruction of the Rosenwiller Jewish Cemetery. All future decedents of the revealed faiths (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) in France were to receive burials in civil cemeteries stripped of all religious symbols and decorated with new Cult of Reason signs that read, Death is an eternal sleep.

Despite the ravaged state of the Rosenwiller Jewish Cemetery, the old man’s kin were determined to bury him there. Who was this old man? How did the particular set of circumstances of his death come about? What did he accomplish during his life that commended him to such extraordinary efforts by his kin after his death? Were his kin successful in burying him in Rosenwiller Jewish Cemetery? Was the old man born in Alsace? If not, where did he come from? Did he always live in Strasbourg?

Why did French revolutionaries destroy religious cemeteries throughout France? Who were the Ashkenazim? Where did they come from? What was the status of the Ashkenazim in Alsace during the lifetime of the old man? What was his line of work? Who was his family? Why did many Alsatian Christians tyrannize the Ashkenazim in Alsace?

The name of the old man was Cerf Berr of Médelsheim (pronounced Serf BARE of MAY-del-shime), the hero of this book. He lived most of his extraordinary life near the eternal Rhine River, which tumbles out of the Alps to race through a north-south-trending trench, rift, or graben cut deeply into the earth’s crust. This Rhine graben is a classic of geologic structures. The Rhine graben belongs to an intercontinental belt of related grabens known as the Rhine graben rift system, which traverses Europe from near Marseille on the southern coast of France, to near Rotterdam on the coast of the Netherlands. The pulling apart of the earth’s crust at these grabens began in the Middle Eocene epoch about forty million years ago.¹–²

The main surface of the Rhine graben is the floor of the Rhine Valley. Beneath this floor are miles of layered sediments under which a giant pillow of molten rock boils.¹–³ The Rhine graben rift system is seismically active. The last major earthquake associated with the Rhine graben occurred on October 18, 1356 at its south end, near present-day Basel, Switzerland. This earthquake destroyed most of Basel and emitted shock waves felt as far west and east as Paris and Prague, respectively.⁴ The Kaiserstuhl Mountains (maximum elevation around eighteen hundred feet above sea level) on the Rhine Valley floor near the City of Freiburg were originally active volcanoes.⁵ The valley floor and lateral edges of the Rhine graben were sinking and spreading, respectively, during Cerf Berr’s lifetime, and they continue to do so today.

The heights of the Vosges (France) and the Black Forest (Germany) form the western and eastern boundaries of the Rhine graben, respectively. These heights appear as rounded mountain chains; however, they are actually the upthrown shoulders of the downthrown Rhine graben. The Vosges extend in a north-northeast direction between the French cities of Belfort and Saverne. The highest peak in the Vosges is the Grand Ballon (around forty-seven hundred feet above sea level). The Jura Mountains near Basel form the natural southern boundary of the Rhine graben. The northern aspect of the Rhine graben lacks a natural boundary and yawns to the North Sea.

What is the location of the Rhine River Valley in Europe? The dominant territorial feature of Europe is its vast west-to-east, upward-trending plain—the Great European Plain—which stretches without interruption for over twenty-four hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains.⁶ Its greatest width is about twelve hundred miles between the Barents and Caspian Seas. Its narrowest width is about one hundred and twenty-five miles in the Low Countries.

The Great European Plain simultaneously tips in two directions. It tips up from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains. Its average west-to-east gradient is twenty-six inches per mile. It tips down from the Alps to the North Sea (south-to-north direction). Most of the major rivers of the Great European Plain flow northward. For eons, humans have followed these rivers to settle Northern Europe. The geography of the major rivers of the Great European Plain creates a series of natural breaks for people migrating across the Great European Plain. These natural breaks divide the traverse of the Great European Plain into six or seven easy stages. The Great European Plain is a windy, dry sea of grasses except for the area between the Rhine and the Oder Rivers where impenetrable, forested hills dominate the landscape.⁶

The Rhine River flows seven hundred and sixty-six miles from glaciers in the Alps to the shallow depths of the North Sea near Rotterdam. Geographers divide the Rhine River into four sections—the High Rhine River (confined to the Alps), the Upper Rhine River (from Basel northward to Bingen), the Middle Rhine River (from Bingen to Bonn), and the Lower Rhine River (from Bonn to the Hook of Holland).

Cerf Berr spent most of his life in the region west of the Upper Rhine River. The Upper Rhine River receives many tributaries including the Ill River, which cleverly invests Strasbourg. The Quai Finkwiller outside of Cerf Berr’s home in Strasbourg was an arm of the Ill River. The Ill River runs the length of Alsace, from its source in the Jura Mountains northward to its mouth on the Rhine River, which it reaches only after investing Strasbourg.

Alsace is a small French province, about one hundred miles long (south to north) by an average twenty miles wide (east to west). Its location is in the southernmost and westernmost part of the Rhine River Valley on France’s northeastern flank. The natural physical boundaries of Alsace are the Rhine River in the east, the Vosges in the west, the Lauter River in the north, and the Jura Mountains in the south. Strasbourg is located in the northern half of Alsace.

Geographers divide Alsace into Lower and Upper Alsace. During the French Revolution, politicians divided Alsace into the Bas-Rhin Department (the Lower Rhine or Lower Alsace) and the Haut-Rhin Department (the Upper Rhine or Upper Alsace). The words upper and haut refer to the higher average altitude (closer to the Alps) of the so-designated region. The words lower and bas refer to their lower average altitude (farther from the Alps, closer to sea level at the Hook of Holland).

The Palatinate is the German region north of the Lauter River and west of the Rhine River. Baden-Württemberg and Hesse are German states east of the Rhine River, i.e., opposite the Palatinate. The Palatinate occupies the western side of the Rhine graben, north of Alsace. Mountains form part of the western aspect of the Palatinate; however, they are not as high as the Vosges of Alsace. The tallest mountain in the Palatinate is around twenty-eight hundred feet above sea level. The mountains of the Palatinate and the Vosges are the same upthrown shoulders of the downthrown Rhine graben.

Saarland is an obscurely-defined region of the Palatinate. Saarland shares its southern boundary with Lorraine Province, France. Lorraine and Alsace Provinces are contiguous along the western side of Alsace and the eastern side of Lorraine. Cerf Berr was born in Médelsheim, a rural village in the southeastern corner of Saarland. Médelsheim is one mile north of the boundary between Saarland and Lorraine.

Alsace forms a blunt point that pokes into Germany and Central Europe. Only the Rhine River separates France from Germany, and Western Europe from Central Europe. Paris is about two hundred and forty miles due west of Strasbourg.

During Cerf Berr’s lifetime, Alsace was unlike any other part of France because of its unique geography and history. Most Alsatians spoke German, an Alsatian dialect, or Yiddish, and they could not fathom French. They initially shared the national enthusiasm for the French Revolution of 1789. However, they retained a strong sense of their peculiar local identity, which differed from that of Parisians and other French people who resided in the interior of France. For example, most Alsatians, including Cerf Berr, sympathized with the plight of King Louis XVI (1754–1793, ruled 1774–1791) during the French Revolution and applauded the adoption of the French Constitution of 1791, which created a constitutional monarchy. However, most Alsatians, including Cerf Berr, worried when the French Revolution took a radical turn in 1792. Historian Norman Hampson noted:

The impact of the Revolution on this idiosyncratic society was both complex and difficult for men from the interior to appreciate. Alsace could not respond like the rest of the country to the new conception of France as an integrated national community. To the majority of the rural population, isolated by the linguistic barrier, the Revolution was an essentially alien movement.⁷

Alsatian society was also distinctive because of its Ashkenazi population, which was the largest Jewish population in France during the eighteenth century. Before the French Revolution, France had four Jewish population centers:

• the Ashkenazim in the three provinces of Alsace, Lorraine, and the Three Bishoprics (i.e., Metz);

• the Sephardim in southwestern France (Bordeaux, Saint Esprit-les-Bayonne, and several smaller towns);

• the four Sephardi communities in the papal possessions of Avignon and Comtat Venaissin; and

• a mixed community of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews in Paris.⁸

The Sephardim, with whom Cerf Berr invariably clashed, immigrated to France from the Iberian Peninsula after expulsion by the Spanish Catholic King Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452–1516) and Queen Isabella I of Castille (1451–1504) during the fifteenth-century Spanish Inquisition (1492–1501). The word Sephardim derived from the Hebrew word for Spain. The Sephardi Jews rapidly assimilated into the mainstream of French society to become prosperous international traders. They received royal letters patent in the early eighteenth century that openly acknowledged their Jewish faith (for many years, they had pretended to be Christians) and granted them the rights of subjects of the French King and the Kingdom of France.

Letters patent were communications written on parchment, marked with the French King’s seal and countersigned by the French King’s Secretary of State. They were called patent (after the Latin word patere, meaning, to open) because they were delivered open (i.e., not in an envelope or folded).

About forty thousand Jews (Ashkenazim plus Sephardim) lived in France on the eve of the French Revolution. Of these forty thousand Jews, the Ashkenazim in Alsace comprised over seventy percent, or about twenty-eight thousand individuals, while the Sephardim comprised about twenty percent, or about eight thousand individuals.⁹–¹⁰ In 1789, the total population of France was about twenty-eight million individuals.¹¹ Thus, in 1789, Jews made up a tiny percentage (about one-tenth of a percent) of the total French population. The French Protestants, the other significant minority in France, made up about two percent (about six hundred thousand individuals) of the population. French Catholics comprised more than ninety-seven percent (over twenty-seven million individuals) of the total population of France.¹²

In 1784, the total population of Alsace was around six hundred and twenty-four thousand individuals, according to a royal census in Alsace ordered by King Louis XVI. Of these six hundred and twenty-four thousand people, almost twenty thousand were Ashkenazim. Thus, in 1784, the Ashkenazim comprised slightly more than three percent of the population of Alsace, although this is almost certainly an underestimate.¹³

Most people living in Alsace and in Southern France personally knew Jews. However, in the rest of France, people could pass their entire lives without ever meeting a Jew. Their information about Jews came from printed materials and by word of mouth. Cerf Berr of Médelsheim relentlessly exposed the plight of the impoverished Ashkenazim to French Kings Louis XV (1710–1774; ruled 1715–1774) and Louis XVI, as well as to the National Assembly during the French Revolution.

In 1784, the Ashkenazim in Alsace lived in one hundred and eighty-two small and rural towns scattered throughout the province. These one hundred and eighty-two towns belonged to at least sixty-one different owners, including King Louis XVI, Roman Catholic authorities, municipal authorities, and nobles of the Holy Roman Empire.⁹ Historian Zosa Szajkowski assembled a long list of the owners of Alsatian towns and cities in 1784 that permitted residence by Ashkenazim. Examples from this list follow:

*********

Ownership of Alsatian Towns and Cities in which Ashkenazim Were Permitted to Dwell (1784)

• King Louis XVI owned nine towns and cities, which were home to more than thirteen hundred Ashkenazim;

• The City of Colmar owned one city (itself), which was home to twenty-eight Ashkenazim;

• The City of Colmar and the Imperial Bailiff of Kayserberg together owned three towns and cities, which were home to about nine hundred Ashkenazim;

• The Prince Bishop of Strasbourg owned sixteen towns and cities, which were home to about fifteen hundred Ashkenazim;

• The Abbey of Neubourg owned two towns, which were home to eighty-one Ashkenazim;

• The Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt owned twenty-one towns and cities, which were home to about nineteen hundred Ashkenazim;

• The Prince of Hohenlohe owned six towns, which were home to about three hundred and fifty Ashkenazim;

• The Prince of Rohan-Soubise owned six towns, which were home to about six hundred Ashkenazim; and

• The Prince of Nassau-Saarbrücken owned one town, which was home to six Ashkenazim.⁹

*********

In summary, during the eighteenth century, Cerf Berr of Médelsheim lived in Alsace Province, which was situated between the Rhine River and the Vosges of the Rhine River Valley, also known as the Rhine graben, in Northeastern France. The Ashkenazim and Sephardim comprised the majority and minority populations of Jews in France. The Ashkenazim and Sephardim together comprised a miniscule minority population in France. The Ashkenazim in France mostly lived in the three French provinces of Alsace, Lorraine, and the Three Bishoprics. In 1784, the Ashkenazim in Alsace were scattered across one hundred and eighty-two, privately-owned, small and rural towns of the province.

Chapter One Notes:

1. J. H. Illies: The Rhine graben rift system-plate tectonics and transform faulting. Surveys in Geophysics. Volume 1, Number 1, 1972, pp. 27–60.

2. J. H. Illies: An intercontinental belt of the world rift system. Tectonophysics, Volume 8, Issue 1, July 1969, pp. 5–29.

3. James E. Wilson: Terroir: The Role of Geology, Climate, and Culture in the Making of French Wines. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1998, pp. 82–107.

4. Jérôme Lambert, Thierry Winter, Thomas J.B. Dewez, and Philippe Sabourault: New hypotheses on the maximum damage area of the 1356 Basel earthquake (Switzerland). Quaternary Science Reviews, February 2005, Volume 24, Issues 3–4, pp. 381–399.

5. C. E. Perrin: A lost identity: Philippe Frederic, Baron de Dietrich (1748–1793). Isis, December 1982, Volume 73, Number 4, pp. 545–551.

6. Norman Davies: Europe: a History. New York City, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 51–52.

7. Norman Hampson: Saint-Just. Oxford, England, United Kingdom: Basil Blackwell, 1991, pp. 140–141.

8. Zosa Szajkowski: Relations among Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and Avignonese Jews in France from the 16th to the 20th centuries. In Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848. New York City, New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1970, p. 235.

9. Zosa Szajkowski: The demographic aspects of Jewish emancipation in France during the French Revolution. In Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848. New York City, New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1970, pp. 45–74.

10. Zosa Szajkowski: The growth of the Jewish population in France. In Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848. New York City, New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1970, pp. 75–80.

11. Peter M. Jones: Reform and Revolution in France: the Politics of Transition, 1774–1791. Cambridge, England, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 13.

12. Rémi Fabre: Les Protestants en France depuis 1789. Paris, France: La Découverte, 1999, p. 6.

13. The data collected during the Jewish census of 1784 is available in Denombrement des Juifs d’Alsace, 1784. Strasbourg, Alsace, France: Cercle de Généalogie Juive, Editions du Cédrat, no date. The book is available for purchase at http://www.genealoj.org/New/ENtexte/page06.php; accessed December 1, 2011. See also Simon Schwarzfuchs: Alsace and Southern Germany: the creation of a border. In Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered. Michael Brenner, Vicki Caron, and Uri R. Kaufmann (eds.). London, England, United Kingdom: Leo Baeck Institute, 2003, p. 9.

Chapter Two:

Cerf Berr’s Jewish Heritage, 63 BC–AD 1726

Cerf Berr of Médelsheim belonged to the ethno-religious group known as the Jews, Hebrews, or Israelites, whose roots are complex. The English word Jew derived from the Latin word Judaeus, which itself derived from the Hebrew word yehudi. The word yehudi derived from the proper name Yehuda, or Judah. Judah was the name of one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Judah was also the head of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Judah’s mother Leah named him Yehuda to praise God for giving birth to so many sons (Genesis 29:35).

During the first century BC, the Romans assigned the word Judaea to the Hebrew province centered on Jerusalem. The word Hebrew derived from the name of the original language (Hebrew) spoken by the Jews. In the first century AD, the Jews used the name Israel on their coins in conscious rejection of the Roman-assigned name Judaea.¹ The word Ashkenazim refers to the Yiddish-speaking group of Jews who first settled around 1000 AD on the banks of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers of Western Europe in the area designated by them as Loter.²

The following overview of the Jewish heritage of Cerf Berr of Médelsheim comprises five sections: the Roman era (63 BC–AD 476), the European Early Middle Ages (476–1000), the European High Middle Ages (1000–1300), the European Late Middle Ages (1300–1500), and the European Early Modern Period (1500–1726). Histories of the long Jewish experience before 63 BC are available elsewhere.³

The Roman Era, 63 BC–AD 476

On a Saturday during Sabbath in June 63 BC, a Roman Republic military commander named Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106–48 BC, henceforth, Pompey) conquered the Hebrew-speaking people of the Kingdom of Judaea by defeating the Hebrew Hasmonean dynast named King Aristobulus II (ruled 66–63 BC). The Roman soldiers entered the court of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem through a breach they had blasted in the wall surrounding the court during a prolonged siege. They first killed the Jewish high priests as they stood sacrificing before the altar and then slaughtered around twelve thousand Judaeans who were attending Sabbath services. Pompey entered the sanctuary of the Jewish Temple to satisfy his curiosity about the much-rumored nature of Judaean worship. He found simplicity and no images. The Jewish religion prohibited visible representation of the Godhead. Pompey left untouched the sanctuary treasure of two thousand talents of sacred money. However, his entry into the sanctuary symbolically ended Jewish sovereignty and subjected Judaea to the rule of the Romans.⁴

Pompey executed the most determined of his Judaean prisoners of war, razed the walls of Jerusalem, placed Judaea in the category of conquered provinces, levied a tax on the people of Jerusalem, and transported King Aristobulus II, his daughters, and many learned and skilled Judaeans across the Mediterranean Sea to Rome on the west side of the Italian Peninsula. The Judaean captives joined a group of Jewish merchants already living as free men in Rome.⁴

In 26 AD, Praetorian Prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus (20 BC–AD 31, henceforth, Sejanus) gained control of the entire state mechanism in Rome when Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BC–AD 37, ruled 14 AD–37) withdrew to the Island of Capri off the coast of Naples, Italy. Sejanus dispatched Pontius Pilate (ruled 26–36 AD) to Judaea to succeed Valerius Gratus (ruled 15–26 AD) as the fifth prefect to govern Judaea since its conquest by Pompey in 63 BC.

Around 30 AD, the Galilean Jew named Jesus traveled to Judaea where he disturbed the Passover celebration in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Temple guards arrested and led him not before the great Synhedrion (Sanhedrin), but before twenty-three members of a smaller Court of Justice presided over by Joseph Caiaphas, a Roman-appointed high priest. Because Jesus answered questions in a certain way, the Jewish Court of Justice declared him guilty of blasphemy. Pontius Pilate then tried Jesus, who answered his questions in a certain way that led to a sentence of execution. Pontius Pilate alone had the power to enforce the verdict of execution. Roman soldiers treated Jesus according to Roman penal laws, which included scourging and crucifixion in Golgotha, the place of skulls. Jesus of Nazareth had twelve disciples while he was alive and preaching. After his crucifixion, the twelve disciples became the twelve apostles who proclaimed Jesus the risen lord Christ and the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. The apostles spread the gospel of Jesus to peoples living around the Mediterranean Basin.

From around 68 to 100 AD, four avowed Christians named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote separate narratives describing the life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. These narratives were included in the canonical Christian New Testament.⁵

In Jerusalem in 66 AD, a Jewish sect called the Zealots attempted to drive the Romans from Judaea through armed guerilla-type warfare. Roman Emperor Vespasian (9 AD–79; ruled 69–79) sent his eldest son, Titus Flavius Vespansianus (39–81, ruled 79–81), to subdue the Zealots. In 70, Titus finally won a prolonged siege of Jerusalem. The exhausted Romans took the rich spoils of the sanctuary of the Jewish Temple before roundly torching the Temple to the ground. They then depopulated Judaea by butchering, banishing, or selling the Hebrews.

In 132, a Judaean named Simon Bar-Cochba led another deadly revolt against the Romans, which required direct intervention by Roman Emperor Hadrian (76–138, ruled 117–138, henceforth, Hadrian). After three years of fighting, Hadrian’s Army crushed the revolutionaries, razed the Temple Mount, and began construction of a new Greek-styled pagan city called Aelia Capitolina on the northern edge of Jerusalem. Hadrian forbade Jews from entering Aelia Capitolina. On the razed Temple Mount, he built a column in his own honor and a temple to honor Jupiter, the Roman God of War.

Hadrian was so angry with the recalcitrant Judeans that he prohibited circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, marriages on Wednesday, attendance at religious schools, and other Jewish rites and customs. His persecution of the Jews was so severe that Jewish Christians sought political and religious recognition as a body separate from the Jews. Historian Heinrich Graetz wrote:

Two teachers of the Church, Quadratus and Aristides, are said to have handed to Hadrian a petition in which they demonstrated that Christianity had no connection with Judaism. From this time dates the unity and identity of most of the Jewish-Christian and Gentile-Christian sects. The Jewish Christians gave up the Jewish laws, which they had hitherto kept, in a greater or less degree, adopting the dogmatic precepts of Christianity as they had been developed under Gentile-Christian views, and as proof of their sincere convictions, they for the first time placed an uncircumcised bishop at the head of the community. From the time of Hadrian, all connection between Jews and Christians ceased, and they no longer occupied the position of two hostile bodies belonging to the same house, but they became two entirely distinct bodies.⁶

Amid the tumult in Judaea in 135, Judah I, also known as Judah the Prince, was born. Around 189, fifty-four-old Judah I completed the compilation of Jewish oral law in a sacred text called the Mishna. Compilation of the Mishna had begun two generations earlier. Judah endeavored to observe a certain systematic order in dealing with the various traditional laws relating to the prayers, to benedictions, taxes on agricultural produce, the Sabbath, festivals and fasts, marriage customs, vows and Nazarites, civil and criminal jurisdiction, the system of sacrifices, levitical purity, and many other points, said Heinrich Graetz.

The Mishna was a sacred text above and beyond the Hebrew Bible, or Torah. The Torah consists of the Law of God as revealed to Moses. The Torah comprises Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy of the Hebrew Bible. Other names for the Torah are the Books of Moses, the Pentateuch, and the Christian Old Testament.

The Mishna contains certain laws that Jews transmitted orally from one generation to the next over many centuries. The constantly changing conditions of life required new regulations, and some sort of an organization must have been in operation from the times of Ezra on to make the Law effective in the life of the community, to preserve it, and to widen its scope, noted historian Hermann L. Strack.⁷

Why was the compilation of the Mishna completed in 189 AD, instead of, say, 100 AD or 300 AD? Hermann L. Strack advanced the theory that the Jews were led to codify and write down in a definitive form certain oral law handed down over the centuries, with a view, in part at least, to the New Testament canon then in process of formation.⁷

The Mishna contains no laws pertaining to Christians, said Heinrich Graetz, suggesting that the danger with which Judaism had been threatened by the Jewish Christians, since the destruction of the Temple until the Bar-Cochba War, had already been averted, and that danger was now no longer to be dreaded. On the other hand, the Mishna contains numerous laws directed against paganism and interaction with pagans, or Gentiles. The pagans were non-Abrahamic (i.e., not Jews, not Christians), Greco-Roman polytheistic believers. Paganism still suffused Palestine, and paganism’s love of images of idols deeply offended the Jews. Mishnaic laws on this subject included prohibiting Jews from receiving medical care during any illness by pagans, selling ornaments or other objects for the use of idols to the pagans, or renting houses to them in Palestine, because pagans would desecrate the premises through introduction of images of idols.⁸

The Roman Emperor Caracalla (188–217, ruled 198–217) celebrated his Syrian roots. His father, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (145–211, ruled 193–211) and his mother, Julia Somna (or Martha) were Syrian natives. Caracella wore Syrian clothes, which were similar to Judaean clothes. In 211, Emperor Caracalla issued his famous Constitutio Antoniniana Edict, which extended citizenship to every inhabitant of the Roman Empire, including all Jews. The purpose of the Constitutio Antoniniana Edict was to augment the tax base of the Roman Empire, increase the number of men eligible to serve in the Roman Army, and abolish distinctions among the diverse peoples of the Roman Empire.⁹

The Constitutio Antoniniana Edict in 211 was the last edict to enfranchise Jews in Europe until September 27, 1791 when the French National Assembly passed into law the political emancipation of all Jews in France. In other words, Jews in Europe lived as a minority population outside the various prevailing political orders for almost sixteen hundred years.

In 313, Roman Emperor Constantine I (the Great, 272–337, ruled 306–337, henceforth, Constantine I), who worshipped pagan gods, decreed in Milan an Edict of Toleration that acknowledged throughout the Roman Empire the validity of all religions, including Christianity. The Edict of Toleration of 313 followed the horrendous persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire that occurred between the ministry of Jesus and the Edict of Milan. During his life, Constantine I increasingly leaned toward Christianity to which he ultimately converted shortly before his death in 337. However, his devotion to Christianity increased in direct proportion to his contempt for Judaism, which he stigmatized as a profligate, godless sect (feralis, nefaria secta).¹⁰ On October 18, 315, Constantine I prohibited Jews from proselytizing Christians as follows:

We wish to make it known to the [Jews] and their elders and their patriarchs that if, after the enactment of this law, any one of them dares to attack with stones or some other manifestation of anger another who has fled their dangerous sect and attached himself to the worship of God [Christianity], he must speedily be given to the flames and burnt together with all his accomplices. Moreover, if any one of the population should join their abominable sect and attend their meetings, he will bear with them the deserved penalties.¹¹

In 325, Constantine I convened the Council of Nicaea to deal with the Arian heresy concerning the nature of the relationship of the persons of the Trinity. Members of the Council of Nicaea also discussed the common practice among many Christian churches in the East, especially the dioceses led by Antioch, of celebrating Easter on the same day that the Jews celebrated Passover. According to this approach, Easter sometimes fell on a day other than Sunday. However, Sunday was the day that Jesus arose from the dead (his resurrection). Constantine I believed that the celebration of the Easter event should occur on Sunday, always. In the west (e.g., Rome), Christians celebrated Easter on the Sunday after the full moon following the spring (vernal) equinox. In 325, Constantine I decreed the latter approach appropriate for all Christendom, as documented in a letter he wrote to the Council of Nicaea. In this letter, he also hurled calumny at the Jews.

*********

Excerpt from a Letter by Roman Emperor Constantine I about

the Timing of the Easter Celebration, 325 AD

At this meeting [at Nicaea], the question concerning the most holy day of Easter was discussed, and it was resolved by the united judgment of all present, that this feast ought to be kept by all and in every place on one and the same day [Sunday]. For what can be more becoming or honorable to us than that this feast from which we date our hopes of immortality should be observed unfailingly by all alike, according to one ascertained order and arrangement?

And first of all, it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul [for refusing to accept Jesus as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah]. For we have it in our power, if we abandon their custom, to prolong the due observance of this ordinance to future ages, by a truer order, which we have preserved from the very day of the Passion until the present time.

Let us have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Savior a different way. A course at once legitimate and honorable lies open to our most holy religion. Beloved brethren, let us with one consent adopt this course, and withdraw ourselves from all participation in their [the Jews’] baseness. For their boast is absurd indeed, that it is not in our power without instruction from them to observe these things.¹¹

*********

During the fourth century, some Jews left the Italian Peninsula for Gaul and the Iberian Peninsula to escape the Jewish persecution of Constantine I and his son Constantius II (317–361; ruled 337–361). During the fourth century, Gaul consisted of present-day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, part of Italy, and parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left (west) bank of the Rhine River.¹² The Gallo-Roman Jewish immigrants from the Italian Peninsula initially settled in about thirty-five localities along Gaul’s Mediterranean coast and in Gaul’s interior river valleys carved by the Rhône, Saône, and Rhine Rivers.

In 355, Roman Emperor Constantius II appointed Julian (331/332–363, ruled 361–363, known as the Apostate or the Philosopher; henceforth, Julian) as Caesar of the western provinces of the Roman Empire. Julian made the only serious attempt to hinder the anti-Jewish persecution that accompanied Christianization of the Roman Empire. Julian was a pagan, but he encouraged freedom of religion for all Roman citizens. As a friend of the Jews, he abolished the special taxes they paid to the Roman government and encouraged the rebuilding of Jerusalem, including the Jewish Temple (the project never got underway). Julian also became famous for crushing the Alamanni warriors in Gaul in 357 at the Battle of Argentoratum, the future site of Strasbourg.

On August 24, 410, the Visigoths, led by King Alaric I (circa 370–410, ruled 395–410), sacked Rome, which prompted many Romans to question their conversion from paganism to Christianity. Around 415, Augustine (354–430), a North African Christian scholar, wrote The City of God for at least two reasons that pertain to the sacking of Rome. First, Augustine wanted to console Roman Christians that their rejection of their traditional pagan gods had not caused the sacking of Rome by King Alaric I. Second, he sought to persuade Roman Christians that Christianity was the true religion among competing philosophies and religions. Augustine was trying to stem a movement among new Christians to return to their pagan system of beliefs.

Augustine proclaimed in The City of God some new thoughts about the Jews, which led to his call for Christians to preserve the Jews as a minority group