JEWS 



659 



with regard to the Jews. In the canton of 

 Aargau a majority of the voters declared against 

 giving to the Jews the right of suffrage, and on 

 March 13th, the Grand Council (the legislature) 

 resolved the same by seventy-nine against 

 sixty-one votes. The Federal Council of Berne, 

 however the supreme authority of the Swiss 

 Confederation on being appealed to by the 

 Jews, decided that all political rights are to be 

 as much enjoyed by the Jewish as by the 

 Christian inhabitants of Switzerland. The 

 Federal Council hesitated, however, in the 

 commercial treaties concluded with several 

 foreign nations, to grant for the Jewish citi- 

 zens of such nations a general right of free set- 

 tlement in every canton. The Chamber of 

 Deputies of Holland rejected on this account, 

 on June 15th, 1863, the treaty concluded with 

 Switzerland, by thirty-three against seventeen 

 votes. From a memoir which the minister of 

 the .United States of America presented to the 

 Federal Council, it appears that there are 

 among the cantons seven in which the Jews 

 have complete religious liberty, while in seven 

 others they are absolutely forbidden to reside. 

 To the latter class belong the half-canton Ba- 

 sel country (Baselland), where whoever re- 

 ceives a Jew into his family or premises, is 

 fined 300 florins, and who rents a store to a 

 Jew, 50 florins. 



The Diet of Holstein repealed, in 1863, some 

 of its most obnoxious laws against the Jews, 

 who received, on the whole, equal rights be- 

 fore the law with the Christians, but remained 

 deprived of the right of suffrage as well as of 

 eligibility to any office. 



By this concession of civil rights the Jews of 

 Holstein lose their autonomy which they en- 

 joyed ever since their settlement in the duchy. 

 Hitherto they were permitted to try their own 

 causes in accordance with rabbinical law, and 

 the verdicts were acknowledged by the Gov- 

 ernment. They further possessed the right of 

 either receiving or excluding foreign Jews 

 without consulting the authorities. Their re- 

 ligious affairs were administered exclusively by 

 their chief rabbi, and no secular power had the 

 right to interfere. All these privileges the 

 Jews of Holstein have cheerfully renounced in 

 exchange for the right of no longer forming a 

 state in the state. 



The Duchy of Lauenburg, which, like that 

 of Holstein, has hitherto been subject to the 

 crown of Denmark, though forming at the 

 same time part of the German Confederacy, 

 still perseveres in its intolerance. In this 

 duchy no Jew is permitted to live, nay, even 

 to stay over night. 



A special hatred against the Jews is shown 

 by the Greeks in Turkey and Greece. New 

 proofs of it have lately been furnished by bloody 

 riots against the Jews at Galatz, in the Danubian 

 principalities, and Smyrna, in Asia Minor. A 

 more liberal spirit began to prevail in the 

 Ionian Islands. There, in 1863, a Jew was for 

 the first time admitted to a masonic lodge, and 



another was chosen into the committee to give 

 expression to the desire of the islands for an- 

 nexation to Greece. Fears were however en- 

 tertained that the annexation might greatly 

 deteriorate their condition. 



England, France, Holland, and the United 

 States were hitherto the only countries in 

 which the Jews had established a denomina- 

 tional organization. In Italy, during last year, 

 a Congress of Italian Israelites was opened at 

 Ferrara on the 12th of May. The "Archives 

 Israelites" contains an account of the proceed- 

 ings of this congress, from which we take the 

 following particulars : 



Delegates from 31 Italian congregations were pres- 

 ent, and the utmost harmony and good feeling pre- 

 vailed. They commenced proceedings by acknowledg- 

 ing their obligations to their sovereign, Victor Eman- 

 uel, and extending a brotherly greeting and an expres- 

 sion of regret to the congregations prevented from 

 participating in the common joy. Just three centuries 

 ago, a congress of the Italian rabbis was held at Fer- 

 rara, to deliberate on the means of averting the storm 

 hovering over them, in consequence of the rigorous 

 prohibition of Jewish scientific and theological works. 

 Now it was an assemblage of free Jewish citizens, meet- 

 ing under the shadow of the Constitution and equal 

 rights, to cooperate for the moral and civil amelioration 

 of the Italian Judaism. 



The Congress having organized by electing as its 

 chairman Prof. Giuseppe Levi, one of the editors of 

 the Educatore Israelite,, it was resolved to petition the 

 Government to pass a law that should protect Jewish 

 citizens from the machinations of conversionists, to 

 compel the restoration of minors who had been lured 

 away from parents and guardians, and to strictly forbid 

 proselyting in hospitals and other public institutions. 

 It was determined to send all future collections for 

 the benefit of the poor of the Holy Land direct, with- 

 out the intervention of messengers. A resolution was 

 also adopted to ask the Italian Legislative Chambers 

 for a grant toward the support of Jewish worship, as 

 long as it is accorded to other religious bodies. 



A want referred to with much feeling, in the deliber- 

 ations of the Congress, was a society for the publica- 

 tion of moral and religious books. It was finally 

 agreed that each congregation be recommended to 

 contribute 1,000 francs annually toward the diffusion 

 of books to be selected by a co'mmittee appointed for 

 that purpose. 



In reference to marriages, it was resolved to petition 

 the Government for exemption from the general law, 

 should this, in deference to the Catholic interpretation 

 of certain biblical passages, forbid divorces ; but in 

 every other respect to submit to the 1 provisions that 

 might be made. A committee was appointed to report 

 at the next Congress on the advisability of establish- 

 ing a rabbinical seminary for the kingdom. 



A proposal was offered that the Congress convene 

 a synod of Italian rabbis. This they declined to do, 

 leaving the matter entirely in the hands of the 

 minister. 



The Congress then appointed an Executive Com- 

 mittee, charged with carrying out its resolutions, and 

 vested with these functions, viz., to watch over the prin- 

 ciples sanctioned by the Congress ; to receive sugges- 

 tions from co-religionists on matters of general inter- 

 est ; to comply with them if desirable, and within the 

 limits of its own power, or to convene, if necessary, a 

 new general Congress. 



It was, in addition, resolved that, every three 

 years, delegates of the Jewish communities^ should 

 meet to deliberate on questions of general interest, 

 the first session to take place in the spring of 1866, 

 at a city to be designated by the Executive Com- 

 mittee. 



The Congress also adopted a constitution on 



