LOOKING BACK

WHY?

U.S.A. A Distant Echo
To 18th Century Europe

LOTHAR KAHN

W

hat did the oppress-
ed Jews of Western
Europe think of the
momentous events that were
transpiring in Philadelphia
in the summer of 1787? What
was their reaction to the
finished product of the
deliberations that became
known as the U.S.
Constitution?
One would indeed imagine
that there was great excite-
ment at the brave new world
in the offing, that those young
Jewish intellectuals who
could express themselves in
French or German, could
barely suppress their sense of
anticipation. Alas, nothing
could be further from the
truth.
The U.S. Constitution that
was to afford millions of
American Jews the greatest
security that Jews had ever
enjoyed in the Diaspora went
virtually unnoticed. In those
writings that have come down
to us — and they are exten-
sive — there is but a single
reference to the happenings
in Philadelphia. That one ex-
ception was an addendum to
Moses Mendelssohn's
Jerusalem on the separation
of church and state in the
newly promulgated North
American Constitution. Ac-
cording to the late Hans G.
Reissner, an expert on the
period, no single other allu-
sion can be found, not even in
Hameasef, the leading journal
of the Maskilim, the
enlightened ones, who
spearheaded the internal
changes within Judaism that
were then occurring.
Religious reform rather
than politics — except where
they intersected — was high
on their agenda. Moreover
America was far away. Only
a handful of people had been
there and come back to tell
stories about the new world,
many of them exaggerated,
others dealing with the virgin
forests, the Indians who lived
nearby, and the kind of new
and independent world which
the merchants of America
were creating.
Also, both the Jews of
France and those of the Ger-
man states had a nearby
model to inspire them. The
French Revolution followed
the signing of the U.S. Con-
stitution by only two years.
Whereas the Declaration of
Independence had proclaimed
the equality of all people, the

Heinrich Heine: Worshipped
Napoleon.

French Declaration of the
Rights was propounding
similar ideals and in similar
language.
Yet, in spite of the French
declaration, there was reluc-
tance to include Jews among
"human beings." At the
French constitutional
deliberations there was con-
siderable opposition, especial-
ly from the delegates from
Alsace, to the Nation that
Jews should become equal
with others. There was also
the proviso that Jews needed
to reform, shed their anti-
quated and foreign ways, if
they were to become accep-
table as French citizens. As
Arthur Hertzberg has pointed
out, the French revolu-
tionaries in tackling the
Jewish question wanted "a
new man." The framers of the
U.S. Constitution, by •con-
trast, were willing to accept
Jews the way they were.

In France, at least, the
American Revolution was
viewed favorably, though a
Dutch Jew, De Pinto, writing
mostly in French, condemned
the revolutionaries as
disturbers of both a natural
order and of peace. For the
most part the French
thinkers viewed the efforts of
the American revolutionaries
as consonant with their own
advanced philosophies as to
the rights and duties of
citizens.
In the Germanies, by con-
trast, the Revolution and
later the Constitution were
viewed as anarchial and as
undermining legitimate
authority. If there had been
any genuine inclination to
view favorably the events
across the huge ocean, it
would have been discouraged

BECAUSE
IT'S THERE.

— and perhaps punished — by
the authorities.
Though Jews, a decade
later, were fully aware that
Napoleon was according them
equal status, though condi-
tionally, they were mostly op-
posed to him in the Ger-
manies. The need to prove
themselves good Germans —
a need that plagued the
whole history of German-
Jewish relations kept the
bulk of young and educated
young Jews in line. Only the
greatest of them, the poet
Heinrich Heine, the first
Jewish poet writing in a non-
Jewish idiom, dared to ac-
claim Napoleon as his hero.
Others were too fearful to
chime in and distanced
themselves from Heine in his
worship of the French
Emperor who was spreading
the ideas of liberty, equality
and freedom across Europe.
It was Heine's generation,
born between 1795 and 1805,
that first became at least
vaguely aware of the ex-
istence of the United States
and its unique promise for
Jews as well as other oppress-
ed groups. By the time these
men grew to maturity, the
negative reaction to the
French Revolution had made
all its gains questionable. The
Jews of Germany were no bet-
ter off than they had been
before the French Revolution.
Now that all opportunities for
academic careers had vanish-
ed, Heine advised youngsters
to emigrate to America. As
one of his pupils in Heine's
Jewish class was to report
later, "Whenever he spoke to
us about tolerance and
freedom, he advised us to
emigrate to America, or at
least, to England. In these
countries nobody would think
of asking 'What do you
believe or what don't you
believe?' Everyone over there
(in America) can find salva-
tion his own way."
Fifty years after the Zola
movie, the Jewish Museum in
New York is sponsoring an ex-
hibition on the "Dreyfuss Af-
fair: Art, Truth and Justice"

imm'imi

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NEWS

Sills To Chair

White Plains, N.Y. — The
March of Dimes Birth Defects
Foundation announced Oct. 5
that Beverly Sills, general
director of the New York City
Opera, will serve as national
chairman for the foundation's
50th anniversary celebration
in 1988.

THE DETROITJEWISH NEWS

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