Al Reguel Ajat

Emancipation, the recognition that Jews had the same rights as other citizens, was seen as a historic change that heralded a better future for the Jewish people and became a central issue for Jews everywhere, although each community had to fight its own battle to achieve it.

In many places, it was a long process of social and economic integration of Jews into Gentile society, which also required them to renounce their traditional way of life. In 1789, Count de Clermont Tonnere, in his famous speech before the French National Assembly, said: “The Jews must be denied everything as a nation, but they must be given everything as individuals.” The French introduced this type of emancipation to all the countries Napoleon conquered. Whether as a result of a deliberate choice, as in France, or imposed by force, as in Germany or Italy, or the product of a long process of sociocultural maturation, as in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, emancipation was a difficult and painful process. The customary religious animosity of Gentiles toward Jews did not make it easy.

Emancipation suffered setbacks in the years following the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, after Napoleon’s defeat. However, liberal and democratic groups took up the banner of Jewish emancipation as a central theme of their political campaigns. By 1848, the idea of ​​equality for Jews was an accepted concept in Western countries.

Emancipation had its own timetable. It was achieved in 1786 in Virginia, in 1787 throughout the United States, in 1791 in France, in 1796 in Holland, in 1812 in Prussia, in 1814 in Denmark, in 1831 in Belgium, in 1832 in Canada, and in 1866 in Switzerland. It was achieved in 1867 in Austria and Hungary, in 1869 in Italy, in 1870 in Sweden and Greece, and in 1871 in Great Britain and Germany. It was achieved in 1919 in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania. It was achieved in 1917 in Russia, when the Russian government granted equal rights to all its citizens. In Poland, it lasted until 1935.

In Latin America, it occurred as a consequence of the independence movements of each country in the early and mid-19th century. In the Islamic world, there was no emancipation in the Western sense. In the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan granted equal rights twice, in 1839 and 1856, to Jews and Christians. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 ratified this. In Yemen, Jews were never granted equal rights. In Egypt, Syria, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, they were officially granted, but were revoked after Israel’s War of Independence.

Today, it’s hard for us to imagine that there were places and times when Jews did not have the same rights as any other citizen. Achieving them was not a natural and simple process, but rather difficult and painful.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopedia Judaica and other sources.

The time of the French Revolution was when, for the first time, European Jews were granted the right to be citizens of the countries in which they lived. Ghettos were abolished, special clothing or insignia were abolished, people could live where they wanted, dress as they wanted, and have whatever occupation they wanted. Many Jews settled outside the Jewish quarters and began to live like their neighbors and speak the language of the country. They also began to attend secular schools and universities.

In 1815, after Napoleon’s defeat, Jews lost their citizenship rights in some European countries. It was then that some of them converted to Christianity in order to retain those rights. Scholars of the problem realized that these actions were not because these Jews disliked their Judaism, but rather they had done so in order to retain the advantages that being citizens now gave them. Many rabbis thought that the solution was to force Jews to distance themselves from Christians and not attend their schools. But this did not work.

In 1819, Leopold Zunz proposed that Jews study their history and learn from the great achievements of their past. Together with other young men, including the poet Heinrich Heine, he founded the “Society for the Culture and Science of the Jews,” with the aim of presenting the Jew as a people in his own right and not just as a religious tradition. Although the society was not very successful, the concept of the “Science of Judaism,” Der Wissenschaft des Judentums, inspired many intellectuals to study Judaism in a structured way.

Their idea was to put Jewish culture on a par with Western European culture and they sought to introduce Judaic studies into universities as an area of ​​study as valid as any other. They wanted to end the prejudice that presented Judaism as an inferior precursor to Christianity. His approach to Jewish studies involved complete freedom in interpreting traditional texts, without concern for the effects of such interpretations on religious observance.

Although Zunz was observant of Jewish ritual practices, he understood them as symbols, in contrast to the traditional position that saw them as divine commandments to be obeyed without questioning their meaning. Nevertheless, the “Science of Judaism,” der Wissenschaft des Judentums, had a religious background. Many rabbis in seminaries followed its guidelines when preparing their students, as a preamble to what would be the new approaches of liberal Judaism. However, other scholars such as Zecharias Frankel and Heinrich Graetz, who used critical methods for the study of Judaism, continued to consider religion and Jewish history as a reflection of divine revelation and guidance.

The “Science of Judaism” produced a great number of academic works, but the most notable of these was the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906, considered the culmination and final fruit of this era. Its legacy was inherited by universities such as the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Brandeis and Harvard in Boston and many others that have opened departments of Jewish studies. The “Science of Judaism”, der Wissenschaft des Judentums, left a mark that has lasted to this day.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.

In ancient times, the most important thing for people was faith in God. Religious authorities were the intermediaries between the divine and the common people, and they held that tradition was sacred and unchangeable, so they strictly enforced accepted religious customs and principles. The rabbi was the most important authority. He, in addition to being a scholar of sacred texts, also officiated at religious ceremonies and acted as a judge.

Professor Jonathan Israel tells us that Western civilization was once based “on a core of faith, tradition, and authority.” But in the mid-17th century, the Enlightenment emerged, a European movement whose thinkers held that human reason could combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny. Their writings began to challenge the authority of the most respected institutions, such as the figure of the rabbi. They sought to replace belief in the supernatural with knowledge of nature, dogmas with science, commandments with natural laws, priests with philosophers. Reason and experience were exalted as the way to solve problems. And special consideration was given to human rights, especially the right to be free from oppression and government corruption. Thus, faith was transferred from God to man.

The Enlightenment sought to limit the power of organized religion. Baruch Spinoza wanted to separate politics from religion and Moses Mendelssohn said that religion was an individual and private matter. For them, the value of a religion was its ethical principles and not the logic of its theology.

The Jewish Enlightenment, called Haskala, from the Hebrew root sejel = intelligence, was a movement that occurred among European Jews who wanted to adapt the principles of the Enlightenment to Judaism. His followers, the Maskilim, sought to integrate the Jew into European gentile society and to teach secular subjects in schools, along with the Hebrew language and the history of Judaism.

Although the Haskala originated primarily in Germany, it soon spread throughout Europe. Even in Eastern Europe, where the heart of Rabbinic Judaism was with its two streams, the Mintagdim and the Hasidim, the Maskilim brought the ideas of the Haskala to those regions and, with the help of the Russian government, promoted secular education in the Jewish provinces. Their presence in those places resulted in the creation of a secular Jewish culture, with an emphasis on Jewish history and identity. The Haskala went hand in hand with the Emancipation.

The light of the Enlightenment was a watershed in the history of Judaism. Just as in Genesis, the earth was in disarray and darkness was upon its face. But this time it was man who said: let there be light in the human understanding and there was light.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.

In biblical times, the “mohar” was the financial compensation that the groom paid to the bride’s father in order to marry her, and it was customary for the bride’s father to give this money to his daughter. The mohar, rather than an agreement between individuals, was an agreement between families.

In Talmudic times, given the difficult economic conditions of that time, many of the potential grooms did not have the means to pay the mohar, so this custom began to decline and even reached the point where the bride’s father offered a dowry to the groom, so that his daughter could marry. Furthermore, the mohar ceased to be that sum of money that was given directly to the bride’s father, and became a kind of mortgage that would be paid to the wife in the event of divorce or the death of the husband. This sum would come from his property. This was put in writing, in what we know as the Ketubah, the marriage contract where the agreement was certified and the woman’s rights were assured.

Until the end of the Middle Ages, marriage was celebrated with two ceremonies, separated by an interval of time, sometimes up to a year. The first was the betrothal, “erusin,” where the bride and groom agreed to marry on a certain date and which legally implied considering the bride as a married woman, although she still lived in her parents’ house. Breaking this commitment required a divorce process. The second ceremony, “nisuim,” was the wedding itself, when the bride was taken to the groom’s house, to consummate the marriage.

In biblical times, a couple consummated their marriage in a special room. In Talmudic times, this room was called a “chuppah.” In the Middle Ages, the two marriage ceremonies began to be performed at the same time and the use of the chuppah as a bridal chamber was no longer used. Symbolically, the term chuppah began to be applied to different objects in different communities. In some, in the 16th century, it was used to refer to a veil worn by the bride, while in others it referred to a piece of cloth placed over the shoulders of the bride and groom. Many illustrations of Jewish weddings in medieval Europe did not show evidence of the use of the chuppah as we know it today, a canopy supported by four poles.

Today, the rules for celebrating a marriage imply that in the same ceremony, the betrothal, “erusin,” is performed first, where the groom gives the ring to the bride as “payment” for the mohar, followed by the reading of the ketubah and concluding with the “nisuim” part, all this with the bride and groom placed under the chuppah, as a symbol of their future home. The oldest known ketubah dates back to 440 BCE and was found in Egypt. It is written on papyrus and describes, in Aramaic, the amount that a groom paid to his future father-in-law, what each family contributed to the couple’s dowry, and where the wife is named as the beneficiary in the event of the husband’s death. Three hundred years later, the text of the ketubah was defined by Rabbi Simeon ben Shetaj and was written in Aramaic. The current text is very similar to that of two thousand years ago and the Talmud has an entire treatise, Ketubot, dedicated to systematizing all the details relating to this document.

Today, the ketubah records the date of the wedding, the names of the bride and groom, and the obligations of each one towards the other. It is signed by, among others, two witnesses who verified that the groom fulfilled his commitment. The fundamental objective of the Ketubah is to be the basis for a happy marriage, but if this does not turn out to be the case, then the little piece of |paper speaks.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography. Encyclopaedia Judaica and other texts

From the time of the Bible to the time of the Talmud, the Jewish people did not celebrate the Bar Mitzvah ceremony. The Torah only mentions that one must be 20 years old to enter the army. The term “Bar Mitzvah” appears for the first time in the Talmud, in the tractate of Pirkei Avot (5:24), where it says: “At five years old a person must study the Scriptures, at ten years old the Mishnah, and at thirteen years old begin the fulfillment of the commandments, «ben shalosh esrei le mitzvoth.”

During the Talmudic period and until the beginning of the Middle Ages, minors were allowed to participate in religious ceremonies without restrictions. It was at the end of the Middle Ages that their participation in religious worship was limited. They could no longer be called to the Torah or put on tefillin. In the 16th century, in the Jewish communities of Germany and Poland, the custom of celebrating the Bar Mitzvah began. To do so, the boy had to be 13 years old to be able to put on tefillin and be called to the Torah, the two essential parts of the ceremony.

The Bar Mitzvah ceremony was also celebrated at home with a banquet and a religious speech, “drasha,” prepared by the celebrant. He would also sing the blessings, read a portion of the Torah and the Haftarah for that day. It was also established that at the end of the ceremony, the father would say the prayer: “Baruch shepatrani meionsho shel aze” (Blessed is He who freed me from being responsible for the actions of this young man).

Although the Bar Mitzvah ceremony is a significant event in the Jewish life cycle today, we see that it is only about 600 years old. The Bat Mitzvah ceremony for women is even more recent. In 1902, a Bat Mitzvah was performed by Rabbi Yechezkel Karo in Lvov, Ukraine. In the United States, the first Bat Mitzvah ceremony was that of Judith, the eldest daughter of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, on March 18, 1922. Kaplan’s primary goal, aside from celebrating the eldest of his four daughters, was to give Jewish women the opportunity to educate themselves in Jewish matters, just as men already did. Initially, its content was developed within the framework of Conservative Judaism, in a ceremony where women did not read directly from the Torah scroll but from a volume of Chumash. Over time, the ceremony was adopted by the Reform and Reconstruction movements.

However, this was not the case with the Orthodox movement. Rabbi Moshe Fainstein and other Orthodox rabbis said: “As for those who want to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah, it cannot be done in a synagogue in any way. This ceremony is optional and even trivial. If they want, they can do it at home, although it is not equivalent to a celebration like a Bar Mitzvah.”

Even so, the Bat Mitzvah ceremony has spread throughout the Jewish world. Its celebration, along with the Bar Mitzvah, is a further step, within Judaism, towards gender equality.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Texts by Hayyim Schauss and other sources.

Judaism can be best understood if we think, figuratively, of it as a great structure made up of three great pillars. These pillars are: God, the Torah and the People of Israel. None stands out more than the other, the three are interdependent and the emphasis given to each has varied over time. God is the Creator, the One who is only One, the one who gave us the golden rule. For its part, the Torah represents the intellectual creation of Judaism, focused on studying, understanding and interpreting the sacred texts. Finally, Israel is the history of the culture and civilization of the Jewish people.

Conceiving Judaism as a monotheistic system, a literary tradition and a historical culture, presents us with three concepts full of meaning and open to a very wide range of interpretations, which inevitably causes some Jews to emphasize one concept more than another. The concept of God as the origin of universal ethics is interpreted as the force that moves people to act and gives meaning to each person’s life. It is what drives them to seek the good of the family, the community, humanity, the dispossessed and leads them to seek a better world. These are those who admire the wonder of Creation. It is in Reform Judaism where this pillar is most emphasized.

Others dedicate their efforts to studying the Torah and observing its commandments, since they consider it a privilege to be able to do so. They accept that ultimately it is difficult to understand God’s ways and the only thing left is to obey His law and the interpretations that the wise have made of it, without questioning His motives. Their spirit rejoices in fulfilling His precepts as best as possible. It is the Orthodox groups that give greater importance to this second pillar.

A third group fills their hearts with love for the Jewish people, for Israel. They admire their achievements and learn from their problems and difficulties. They suffer its hardships and rejoice in its blessings. They fulfill their desires by working for the good of their people and understand that Judaism is not something static but something that has evolved and will continue to evolve throughout history. It is the Conservative movement within Judaism that is most attached to this pillar.

Louis Jacobs tells us: “The rabbis in the Talmud teach us that just as no two human beings have the same physical characteristics, so too people are different in what they think and what they feel. So we should not be surprised by the differences and the emphasis that each Jew places on his Judaism. Each person, said a Hasidic sage, must discover his own path in Judaism and live it sincerely.”

One can be particularly inclined to one of the pillars of Judaism, but what cannot be accepted is that the other two are totally or partially excluded. A Judaism without God is not Judaism, a Judaism without the Torah is not Judaism, a Judaism without the People of Israel is not Judaism. It is the three pillars together that give value to its structure.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Book of Jewish Belief, by Louis Jacobs; God, Torah, and Israel, by Abraham Joshua Hescheml and other sources.

Emancipation was the recognition that Jews had equal rights with other citizens of a country. It first reached the Jewish communities of Western Europe between 1760 and 1860.

Before emancipation, the political, economic, social and cultural rights of Jews were very limited. In principle, they were considered foreigners, even those born in the country in question. They lived tolerated by the authorities, since they were not given the right to reside where they wanted, since within the same country, often influenced by public opinion, there were local governments that did not allow Jews to live in their cities, as happened in Holland, where Jews could not live in Utrecht, Gouda and Deventer. Apart from restricting their residence, the authorities also charged them a special tax to have the protection of the king. In general, Jews were only allowed to work in financial matters and in trade, where they were the only agents who had contacts with the outside world for commercial exchange.

Socially, Jews lived in closed communities, where legal matters such as marriages, divorces, inheritances and disputes between individuals were handled internally and sanctioned according to the precepts of Jewish law. Family life, education and religious services also took place internally. Jews lived in isolation and contact with non-Jews was minimal, a result of convictions and restrictions both their own and those of their neighbors.

Emancipation did not happen suddenly but gradually. There were several factors that helped it happen. The first was the presence of Jews at court. They were wealthy Jews who managed to get important positions. Many took advantage of their position to help their communities, as in the case of Moses Mendelsshon and the Jews of Dresden. The presence of Jews at court also served to pass laws that helped their emancipation.

Another factor of change was in the organization of the Jewish communities. Until about 1650, the communities enjoyed a certain autonomy, since the authorities only sought to ensure that the Jews behaved well and that the corresponding taxes were collected. But new rules arose that implied greater government interference in their affairs, such as the provision that accounting be kept in German and could be reviewed, the appointment of community authorities and the granting of permits for weddings, in order to limit their growth.

The affectation of the autonomy of the Jewish community caused new problems for the authorities, and their only solution was to give the Jews citizenship rights. Rationalist ideas, the separation of church and state and the fact that Jews began to adopt cultural habits from the external environment were also factors that led to their emancipation.

Although Christians continued to avoid contact with Jews, they soon began to change their attitude, driven by the impact that the Jews had on the economy. Some justified this by saying that it was the way to convert them to Christianity. But eventually religious tolerance and acceptance of different systems and institutions paved the way for the emancipation of the Jews of Europe. But this did not happen overnight; it took more than 100 years.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Out of the Ghetto, by Jacob Katz.

The mikveh is a small pool filled with water collected from natural sources, such as rainwater, a river, or a spring. Clean, warm water can be added to this water, which is called “otzar.” According to our sages, the mikveh is the most important institutional building in a community. If the Jews of a city need to build a synagogue and a mikveh, Jewish law dictates that the mikveh must be built first.

The Bible tells us in Leviticus 15:19-22 that a woman must keep herself separate (nidah) for seven days during her menstruation, while if anyone comes into contact with her or any object of hers, they must purify themselves ritually by immersing themselves in living water (mayim hayim). Although other purification rituals, the practice of which was associated with the Temple in Jerusalem, were cancelled by the rabbis after the destruction of the Bet Hamikdash, the practice of Nidah has been maintained to this day, with the variation that now it is the woman herself who must immerse herself in the mikveh.

During the Second Temple period, from 100 BCE to 70 CE, the Jewish population in Eretz Israel practiced the ritual of purification, immersing themselves in mikvaot (plural of mikveh). Many have been found in archaeological excavations dating from that period. However, there is no evidence that this practice was performed in earlier periods. The term mikveh was used in a general sense in the Bible to refer to a body of water of indeterminate size, water from a spring, or a water reservoir in Jerusalem. But in no case is there any mention of their being used for purification rituals.

All the rules regarding the mikveh were defined by the rabbis in the Mishnah, in a special treatise called “Mikvaot.” It is interesting to note that this treatise was not commented on by our sages either in the Talmud Jerusalemi or in the Babli.

Today the mikveh is primarily intended for use by women, who go to the mikveh before they get married, after their Nidah period, and after having a child. It is also obligatory for those who are converting to Judaism to use it. Some very religious groups customarily immerse themselves in the mikveh on the eve of Shabbat and holidays, especially Yom Kippur. The mikveh is also used to immerse cooking utensils that were purchased from non-Jews. (Numbers 31:22-23)

Today, the Tevilah (immersion) ceremony of a future bride has gone from being a ceremony attended only by the bride accompanied by her mother and sometimes by her mother-in-law, to a social event where the bride receives gifts from the attendees, especially from her mother-in-law. For this reason, the architectural space of the mikveh is increasingly resembling a spa. But one must not forget that the purpose of immersing oneself in it is not to cleanse oneself physically but spiritually. It may be a spa, but a spa for the spirit.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jewish Standard Encyclopedia and other sources.

The Declaration of Rights of the State of Virginia (United States) is a document that was drafted in 1776 and proclaimed the inherent rights of man. Its content influenced not only the Declaration of Independence of the United States and its Bill of Rights (1789) but also the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, promulgated by the National Assembly of France in 1789. Its importance lies in the fact that it was the first time that individual rights were protected within a constitutional framework, which made them a universal precept with the force of law.

The French Assembly declared in Article X of the Declaration of the Rights of Man: “No one shall be molested on account of his beliefs or his religion, nor harassed in the exercise of his form of worship, provided that forms of worship do not disturb public order as established by law.” Furthermore, on September 28, 1791, the Assembly decreed that all Jews in France had the same rights as all active citizens. French Jews had been emancipated.

Emancipation is the recognition by a society that Jews have the same rights as all other citizens of a country. The French Revolution had granted them these rights, but it was Napoleon who made them a reality. In its military campaigns, the French army carried out the principles of the French Revolution, while opening the gates of the ghetto.

Michael Goldfarb, in his book “Emancipation,” tells us: “In Ancona, there was a good-sized Jewish community. The men were forced to wear a yellow badge on their hats, to further distinguish them from their neighbors. By the end of February 1797, Napoleon’s troops had taken the city. A platoon composed mostly of Jewish soldiers was sent to the Via Astagna and set to work demolishing the gates of the ghetto. When the gates were no longer open, they marched through the empty streets. Slowly people began to come out and look at the soldiers. One soldier shouted in Hebrew to one of the curious onlookers, “Come here.” A gasp of surprise spread through the growing crowd. “Are you Jewish?” “Yes.”

Jewish soldiers wearing the uniform of France, a Christian country? Yes, one of the obligations of an “active citizen” of a country is military service. There was more conversation in Hebrew, when suddenly, a soldier removed the yellow badge from the hat of one of the ghetto dwellers, took off his red, white and blue revolutionary ribbon and put it where the badge had been. Another soldier repeated the same gesture and then another. The Jews of Ancona had been emancipated. “

Napoleon not only opened the gates of the Ancona ghetto. He also did it in Turin, Milan, Rome and Venice. Virginia’s ideas had reached Ancona.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Emancipation by Michael Goldfarb, the Jewish Religion by Louis Jacobs and other sources.