Precarious Tolerance: Jews on the Early Modern Habsburg Frontier

Abstract

Abstract: As the Habsburgs expanded their territories throughout the eighteenth century, they gained control over a wide variety of ethno-religious groups. In an effort to secure the frontier, administrators favored some groups, like German-speaking colonists, while only "tolerating" others, like the Jews. The government had a dilemma when dealing with the Jews. On the one hand, they were seen as an alien population and possible threat to the economic well-being of the Habsburgs' other subjects. On the other hand, the authorities recognized the important economic place occupied by Jews on the frontier (and elsewhere). This led authorities to alternate between policies intended to exclude Jews from society and those intended to integrate them. As the eighteenth century progressed, policies focused on assimilation dominated, though official and unofficial perceptions of the Jews themselves remained largely negative. Thus, while Jews gained more rights and recognition of their important place on the frontier, they nevertheless remained tolerated rather than accepted into that society.