Between Toleration and Emancipation: The Self-Empowerment of Jewish Intellectuals in the Habsburg Monarchy

Louise Hecht

doi:10.3390/rel8060113

Abstract

Analyzing a sample of prominent Jewish intellectuals from the Bohemian lands, this article explores Jewish networks as well as cultural and political activism in the Vormärz period and during the 1848 revolution. It seeks to answer the question of whether Joseph II’s ‘Edicts of Toleration’ had, unintentionally, generated a new group within Jewish society that was determined to fight for their rights. Already during the Vormärz period, these Jewish intellectuals enjoyed a high level of social integration, but also fought the repressive structure of the Metternich regime. After the removal of legal discriminations in 1867, the majority felt a deep sense of loyalty to the state and significantly enriched the cultural and political life of the Monarchy.

Highlights

Kurt and Ursula Schubert Center for Jewish Studies, Palacký University, tř
Weisel’s contested tract on the reform of Jewish education was a reaction to the imperial circular published by Joseph II in May 1781 (for an analysis of Weisel’s tract cf. (Kieval 1987, pp. 83–84; Hecht 2004, pp. 118–19; Pribram 1918)), where the emperor had announced his intention to issue new edicts for the Jewish subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy and outlined a series of measures he intended to take, in order to make Jews “more useful to the state.”
Supporters of the 1848 revolution; i.e., whether Joseph’s ‘Edicts of Toleration’ had, unintentionally, generated a new group within Jewish society that was determined to fight for their rights

Summary

Introduction

Kurt and Ursula Schubert Center for Jewish Studies, Palacký University, tř. Svobody 26, Olomouc 77900, Academic Editors: Peter Iver Kaufman and Malachi Hacohen. Extending Pazi’s claims, I would like to explore whether the combination of academic education and frustrated hopes for emancipation turned young Jewish intellectuals into critics of the Monarchy and radical supporters of the 1848 revolution.

Results

Conclusion