Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/715

JEWS 681 the historian pass out of the scope of this article. These celebrated persons belong rather to the general history of German culture than to that of the race from which they sprang. Among the general body of the Jews, the removal of political restrictions and a closer communion with modern thought worked noticeable, though less radical, changes. The old system of preaching in the synagogue was revived, and led to the excision of some of the interminable prayers and sacred poems which the piety of preceding ages had accumulated in embarrassing profusion. After the estab lishment of the consistory in the (French) kingdom of Westphalia, German lectures were held in Cassel, Dessau, Berlin, Hamburg, &c.; and now there is scarcely anywhere an important Jewish community without a preacher. Organs were introduced into some synagogues. The altera tions brought about disputes in several communities and even secessions, as at Hamburg in 1819. In Prussia the Government, acting on the principles urged in Mendelssohn s time by his friend Dohm, but vigorously combated by the Jewish philosopher, gave the sanction of state authority to the resolutions of the orthodox. The private synagogue 1 founded in Berlin by Israel Jakobsohn, after the breaking up of the Westphalian consistory, on principles similar to those of the reformed Hamburg Temple, was closed, and suffered the same fate when reopened as a public synagogue in 1817 and again in 1823. Even choirs and sermons were prohibited as un-Jewish innovations. Such regula tions tended to disgust many educated persons who might otherwise have continued to remain attached to the faith of their fathers. They felt themselves isolated in the midst of their less advanced brethren, and were tempted to identify themselves even in religion with their more cultured Christian associates. Besides, a change of faith offered an escape from humiliating legal restrictions, and opened the way to more dignified careers than those permitted to the conforming Jews. The smaller German states appointed rabbis who were more or less state officials. When the Government restrictions were removed, considerable diver gences manifested themselves, which the assemblies of rabbis and synods, beginning in 1844, and continued from time to time to the present day, did little to heal. There now exist in most German towns an orthodox and a reform congregation, which differ in their mode of conducting public service, in the prominence given to the belief in the Messiah and the return to the Holy Land, and in their greater or less adherence to the laws of the Sabbath, and laws concerning diet, &c. One reformed congregation in Berlin keeps the Sabbath on the first day of the week. More remarkable examples of sectarian dissent were the move ments known by the names of Sabbathai Zebi, of Frank, and of the Chasiilim. Sabbathai s career had Turkey for its theatre, but the influence of his strange pretensions was felt in Poland and Germany, as well as throughout the East. Sabbathai Zebi was born at Smyrna in 1626. He announced himself the Messiah in Jerusalem, named his brothers kings of Judah and Israel, took the title for himself of king of the kings of the earth. Miracles were related of him ; from Poland, Hamburg, and Amsterdam treasures poured into his court ; in the Levant young men and maidens prophesied before him ; the Persian Jews refused to till the fields. "We shall pay no more tribute," they said, "our Messiah is come." The pretender, whom so many unhappy people were ready to acclaim as their deliverer from unendurable evils, afterwards embraced Mahometanism to escape death from the Porte. Some of his followers went over with him to Islam; others treated his conversion as forced, and still pro claimed themselves Jews and his disciples. Their faith was nearer to immortality than their Messiah, and he was still believed in and his return expected after his death. Out of the wrecks of the Sabbathaic party Jacob Frank formed in Poclolia the Zoharites, whose Bible was the Cabbalistic work called Zohar. Persecuted by the orthodox, he put himself under the protection of the bishop of Kaminiek, and burnt the Talmud in public. When his protector died he migrated with hundreds of followers, and afterwards lived in royal state at Vienna, Brtinn, and Offenbach, ending by becom ing a Roman Catholic. He died in 1791, and his sect perished with him. Very different was the fate of the Chasidim ("the pious"), who preceded Frank and have survived him. They also swear by the Zohar, and revere as their founder Israel Baal Shem ("pos sessor of the wonder-working name"), or Besht, who flourished at Miedziboz in Podolia in 1740. Besht pretended to be the pro mised child foretold by the prophet Elijah, and named by him Israel before his birth. A long sojourn in solitary places, much fasting and physical torment, the tortures of rolling in thorns in summer and of bathing in half-frozen rivers at midnight in the winter, gave this prophet the faculty of seeing visions, the power to heal diseases, and to release souls held captive in the bodies of brutes. Like the older Kabbalists he treated the Talmud with contempt ; he exhorted his followers not to lead a gloomy ascetic life, but praised gaiety and enjoyment as tending to a career agreeable to God. Joyful religious worship was to be induced by drinking, jumping, clapping of hands, making noises and screaming, to which were added ablutions according to the fashion of the Essenes of old, and the wearing of a peculiar dress. Amongst his followers many found out how to derive advantage from the superstition and ignorance of the masses. Dob Beer (Berusli) of Mizricz seldom showed him self but to his disciples, and had reports of his wondrous works spread by them ; many sick and lame went to him for cure ; offerings of money came in and supplied the Zaddik with means to lead a princely life. The Chasidim still flourish in Russia and Jerusalem, and the Zaddikim (or "righteous") and Reblx s, as their leaders are called, live in magnificence upon the contributions of the most ignorant of the people. While this and cognate heresies were driven back into the over-crowded Jewish communities of Russia and Poland from which they came, in Germany Talmudic studies were pursued with undiminishing zeal, though carried on in gradually narrowing circles, and largely owing to the knowledge of the Talmud being a qualification for appoint ments in large congregations. Gradually the Talmud, which had been once the common pabulum of all education, passed out of the knowledge of the laity, and was abandoned almost entirely to candidates for the rabbinate. In the earlier part of this period, the rabbis received their educa tion at the Yeshiboth ("sessions" of academies devoted to the Talmud, the Shulchan Aruch, and their commentators). As the spirit kindled by Mendelssohn penetrated the various sections of the Jews, it was felt that this mode of instruc tion would not suffice, and institutions were founded, not confined exclusively to these studies, but embracing the whole domain of Hebrew theology, philosophy, and history. Jonas Frankel in 1854 established the Juclseo-theological seminary at Breslau, an institution which has provided Germany and Austria as well as England and the United States with many rabbis. Its first director was Zacharias Frankel (1801-1875), predecessor of Graetz in editing the Monatsc.hr if t, and author of works on the Septuagint, the Mishna, and the Talmud of Jerusalem. Of later date are the high school for the study of Judaism, founded in 1872, and the " seminary for rabbis for orthodox Judaism," under Dr Hildesheimer, established at Berlin in 1877. Israel Jakobsohn, president of the Westphalian consistory (1768- 1823), did good service in improving teaching. He founded in Seesen (Brunswick) an educational and normal institution, bearing his name, for Jews and Christians, which still flourishes. A similar college was instituted by his brother-in-law Isaac Samson, and directed by S. M. Ehrenberg, amongst whose pupils were Jost and Zunz. Schools of a more elementary character were the Berlin Free School, already referred to, and others. In Dessau, Moses Mendelssohn s birthplace, the free school fostered by the duke, and called after him Franzschule, flourished under David Frankel (1779-1865), editor of the journal Sulamit ; in Frankfort-on-the-Main was the Philanthropin, now converted into a technical school. In almost all Jewish communities we now find institutions teaching religion. After a first and unsuccessful attempt, Dr Moritz Veit founded a normal school, which existed under Zunz in Berlin from 1840 to 1852, and was revived by Dr Veit and the famous preacher and author Dr M. Sachs. Similar schools were founded in other places Hanover, Miinster, Diisseldorf, Cassel, with more or less success. The union XIII. 86