History of the Jews, Vol. IV (of VI) by Heinrich Graetz

Author:Heinrich Graetz [Graetz, Heinrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

The rabbis were important agents for the crown. They had the privilege of collecting the poll-tax from the communities and paying it over to the state. Therefore, the rabbis of large towns, appointed or confirmed by the king, became chiefs in the administration of communal affairs, represented the Jews before the crown, and bore the title of chief rabbi. The rabbis retained the civil jurisdiction, and were authorized to banish unworthy members, and even to inflict the punishment of death. But in Poland, the country which for several centuries was to become the chief home of the Talmud and the nursery of Talmudic students and rabbis, which was long enveloped, as it were, in a Talmudic atmosphere, there were no prominent Talmudists at the beginning of the sixteenth century; it became the home of the Talmud only after the immigration of numerous German scholars. Coming from the districts of the Rhine and Main, from Bavaria, Suabia, Bohemia, and Austria, swarms of Jewish families settled on the banks of the Vistula and the Dnieper, having lost their fortunes, but bringing with them their most precious possessions, which they defended with their lives, and which they could not be robbed of, namely, their religious convictions, the customs of their fathers, and their Talmudic learning. The German rabbinical school, which at home had no breathing-space, established itself in Poland and Lithuania, in Ruthenia and Volhynia, spread in all directions, and, impregnated with Slavonic elements, transformed itself into a peculiar, a Polish school.

But the Jewish-German fugitives transplanted to Poland not only the knowledge of the Talmud, but also that of the German language, as then spoken; this they imparted to the native Jews, and it gradually superseded the Polish or Ruthenian tongue. As the Spanish Jews turned portions of European and Asiatic Turkey into a new Spain, the German Jews transformed Poland, Lithuania, and the territories belonging thereto, into a new Germany. For several centuries, therefore, the Jews were divided into Spanish and German speaking Jews, the Italian speaking members being too small in number to count, especially as in Italy the Jews were compelled to understand either Spanish or German. The Jews settled in Poland gradually cast off their German awkwardness and simplicity, but not the language. They honored it as a palladium, as a holy remembrance; and though in their intercourse with Poles they made use of the language of the country, in the family circle, and in their schools and prayers, they adhered to German. They valued it, next to Hebrew, as a holy language. It was a fortunate thing for the Jews that at the time when new storms gathered over their heads in Germany, they found on her borders a country which offered them a hospitable welcome and protection. For a tempest burst in Germany, which had its first beginnings in the narrow Jewish circle, but eventually drew on the Jews the attention of all Christendom. An eventful, historical birth, which was to change the face of European affairs, lay, so to speak, in a Jewish manger.

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