Von der Duldung zur Erziehung. Aufgeklärte Judenpolitik in Breslau

Abstract

Abstract The article deals with the State’s Jewish policies in the Silesian metropolis of Breslau at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Jews played a significant role in the economic life of the important market and trading city, especially as intermediaries in East-West trade. As a result, the central principle of Prussia’s absolutist Jewish policies, that of keeping the number of Jews resident in the country as low as possible, met with little resonance in Breslau. Instead, under the leadership of the long-time Provincial Minister Hoym, an educational policy was pursued, the aim of which was to harmonize the lifestyle, language and professional practice of the Jewish population with those of the non-Jews as a prerequisite for legal equality. Thus, at the end of the eighteenth century, Breslau became an early experimental field for enlightened Jewish policies, the possibilities of which, as well as its ambivalences and limits, became apparent at an early stage.