Continuity and Change in the Constitutional Experience of the German Jews

Abstract

Despite the progress of Emancipation in the nineteenth centu ry, German Jews were required to belong to legally recognized Jewish communities. Even after this requirement was lifted, Jew ish communal life remained strong. The community structure that the Prussian state expected the Jews to implement was modeled after German civil administration. This framework, however, re sembled both medieval German and medieval Jewish models. Thus, German Jews, while modernizing their own communal insti tutions, continued to maintain both their own and their German neighbors' political traditions. The German Jewish communal constitutions attest to a Jewish political tradition of adaptation to prevailing non-Jewish norms, as well as retention of ancient Jew ish elements.