Seder Olam Revisited: C47a- Napoleon
- Albert Benhamou
- 2 days ago
- 18 min read
CHRONOLOGY OF JEWISH HISTORY
Generation 47: Hebrew years 5520-5640 (1760-1880 CE)
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Introduction
This 47th chronological generation witnessed major transformations in the world: calls for freedom, equalitarian rights, emancipation of people from the yoke of totalitarian regimes and absolute monarchies, huge progress in sciences, development of industrialisation, migration of people from the countryside to the big cities, from being farmers to being workers, and, also paradoxically, in another hand, a race and competition of these Western "liberated" nations to dominate other countries in Asia and Africa in a race for colonialism. The generation will unavoidably end with the seeds that led, in the next generation, to major world conflicts and wars.
Hebrew Year | CE | Event | Source |
5520 | 1760 | Legacy of the Baal Shem Tov | |
5540 | 1780 | Tevele Schiff, chief rabbi of England | |
5541 | 1781 | Edict of Tolerance in Austria | Joseph II of Austria |
5543 | 1783 | Moses Mendelssohn, the Haskalah | |
5544 | 1784 | Cerf Beer | |
5548 | 1787 | Edict of Tolerance in France | Louis XVI |
5551 | 1791 | Civil rights for the Jews of France | Clermont-Tonnerre |
5551 | 1791 | The Pale of Settlement | |
5555 | 1795 | The crossroad for Judaism | |
5557 | 1797 | Legacy of the Vilna Gaon | |
5562 | 1802 | Solomon Hirschell, chief rabbi of England | |
5562 | 1802 | Nachman of Breslov | |
5566 | 1806 | Napoleon establishes the Great Sanhedrin | |
5572 | 1812 | Schneur Zalman of Liadi | |
5572 | 1812 | Emancipation of the Jews of Prussia |
Year 5520 – 1760 CE – Legacy of the Baal Shem Tov
The Baal Shem Tov (the Besht) died not long after the mass conversion of the Frankist Jews to Christianity (see document C46b, year 1759). It is said that the existence of this movement, and the threat it caused to Judaism, undermined his health and caused his demise. It seemed that the Frankist relative success was caused by an appetite from Jews of these times for something new that would shake their lives which were otherwise doomed due to persecutions, poverty, and so on. The Baal Shem Tov came at the right time, for this point of view, as he engaged the mass of mainstream Judaism to raise their spirituality and somehow not be concerned any more by the difficulties of their materialistic conditions. The legacy of the Baal Sham Tov is not in books, but in the spirit that he infused in people and in the Hasidic movement. He was also a man of great optimism who always followed the words that his old father told him before he died: Always believe that God is with you, and fear nothing. He applied this principle to fighting the demons of the soul, such as fear.
Several of the Baal Shem Tov students and followers opened their own schools to teach the Hasidic principles. One of his key principles was that God fundamentally wants His people to experience goodness. So, even if situations were circumstances are bad, or seem bad, there must be a good outcome to result from them. This principle of Bitachon Hashem (meaning "Trust in God") gave huge optimism to masses of Jews in these challenging times. This was particularly true in Ukraine where Jews had previously experienced massacres from the Cossacks, or who were divided by the Frankist movement who endeavored to convert their fellow Jews to Christianity. But, since the Baal Shem Tov, Jews could see divine presence, and hope, in every situation or circumstance that fell upon them: everything had a divine meaning or design, even if they could not fully grasp its significance.
The other important teaching was that the Torah was for every Jew, not just for the scholars, so the effort of his disciples was to bring the Torah to every one of the communities, not by studying it but by living with it.
The Hasidic movement amplified over the years, with more students, and several branches of Hasidic schools opened, named after the founders of the Besht students or disciples. These Hasidic offsprings included the Chernobyl dynasty, the Belz dynasty, the Savran dynasty, the Boston dynasty, and so on. One of the dynasties came of direct descent from the Baal Shem Tov: the Breslover dynasty, founded by one of his great-grandsons, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (see below, year 1802).
Yet the Hasidic movement met with some opposition from Orthodox Judaism and a first excommunication was pronounced in 1777 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The reproach of the Rabbinical authorities was that the Hasidic movement was proselyte, aiming to bring Jews back into the faith and thus making compromises to achieve such goal.
Year 5540 – 1780 CE – Tevele Schiff, Chief Rabbi of England
Meshullam Solomon left for a post of Rabbi in Russia in 1780 and his departure ended the dispute about the role of Chief Rabbi. So, after 24 years of controversies, Tevele Schiff became the sole Chief Rabbi in England. Schiff died in London in 1791.
Year 5541 – 1781 CE – Edict of Tolerance in Austria
On 12 November 1781, the Habsburg emperor Joseph II of Austria promulgated an edict of Tolerance which gave freedom of religion to the subjects of his vast empire which was mainly Catholic. This edict was initially aimed at the Protestants (especially since most of the neighboring German states were Lutheran) but was also applied to the Jews soon after, from 2 January 1782. Needless to say, that the edict was met with strong resistance from the Roman Catholic Church. It created was a change of policy compared to Empress Maria Theresa, Joseph's mother, had followed, and as she, herself, looked at her non-Catholic subjects as enemies of the state. Regarding the Jews, she was in fact the most anti-Semitic monarch at a time when Enlightenment was gaining ground in Europe. In 1777, she wrote:
I know of no greater plague than this race." (source from Wikipedia, citing Marc Saperstein: "Your voice like a ram's horn: themes and texts in traditional Jewish preaching", Hebrew Union College Press, 1996)
The new tolerance however had limitations: Jews children were allowed into school, but Hebrew and Yiddish language were forbidden for any official document or published book. The very first article of this edict made this point clear:
1. In the future also, the Jews in Vienna shall not constitute their own community, under their own direction; each individual family enjoys the protection of the law of the land; no public worship, no public synagogue, no press of their own for works in Hebrew, for which they must use the press in Bohemia. (Joseph II, Edict of Tolerance, 1782, to see the full text translated in English, click here)
This tolerance paved the way to force Jews into assimilation. It is no surprise that, after barely one century, most Austrian Jewry had become wealthy (through education) but broadly assimilated too. This assimilation did not save them, however, from being massacred during WW-II. As seen in other examples of these times, in various nations, assimilation was not a solution to the "Jewish Question" as it became called.
Year 5543 – 1783 CE – Moses Mendelssohn and the Haskalah
Berlin of the middle 18th century was the city of Enlightenment in Europe. The monarch, Frederick II the Great, was determined to modernize his state of Prussia after his grandfather, Frederick I, changed its status from duchy to kingdom. He adopted very liberal policies, even allowing criticism.
Moses Mendelssohn, a Jew born in Dessau in 1729, became involved with German philosophers. His public life started in 1754 and, by 1760, he already became a leading figure of German literature and philosophy. He however resisted conversion to Christianity and published a book in 1783 (Jerusalem, a treatise on ecclesiastical authority and Judaism) to explain his position publicly. In the same year, he also published a German translation of the Torah (the so-called Bi'ur), which was the first of such work since the Luther version (see document C45, year 1533).
Yet his position unveiled the contradictions of his thoughts: in one hand he promoted emancipation of the Jews and their embracing of German identity, but in another hand, he aimed to keep the Hebrew language inside the Jewish community. He refused conversion either, despite other philosophers such as Lavater challenging him to push to the natural conclusion of his desire to assimilate into the German society. Mendelssohn's philosophy had reached its natural barriers.
Mendelssohn is considered as one of the founders of the Jewish Enlightenment movement (called Haskalah in Hebrew). His character helped non-Jews to realize that Jews were indeed able to integrate in their society and contribute to it. Berlin became the centre for the Haskalah movement in Europe. Its existence paved the way to their emancipation across Europe, but not without the associated dangers of assimilation, as Moses' famous grandson, the composer Felix Mendelssohn, will experience.
Haskalah enabled Jews to live a secular life while remaining Jews (at least they thought it possible). But it led secular (non-observant) Jews to end up in two camps after one century: those who assimilated and progressively forgone their Jewish roots, and those who realized that assimilation would not allow them to remain Jewish and campaigned for the creation of a Jewish State (this became the motto of Zionism).
Year 5544 – 1784 CE – Cerf Beer
Naphtali "Cerf" ben Dov Beer, born in Alsace in 1730, became a contractor to the French army to supply them with horses during the Seven-Year War (1756-1763). His relationship with the minister enabled him to obtain the right to reside in Strasbourg and he was the first Jew to be able to do so because the city was closed to them at night.
In 1765, he became the representative of the Jews of Alsace, and, in 1784, he obtained the annulation of the corporeal tax (Leibzoll in German) imposed to Alsatian Jews, under diverse forms, since the Medieval times to allow them to settle in this region after the expulsion from the French kingdom in the year 1306.
In 1786, Cerf Beer established the yeshiva (religious school) of Birscheim in Alsace, with David Snitzheim, his brother-in-law, at its head rabbi. Snitzheim was later chosen to head the first Sanhedrin established in France by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Cerf Beer was a great philanthropist for the Jews of Alsace. He also contributed, through his relationship with Malesherbes, minister of Louis XVI, to their forthcoming emancipation in France, while preserving their Jewish identity and religion.
Cerf Beer died in 1793, during the French Revolution, and was buried in the old cemetery of Rosenwiller, a town which once had hosted one of the largest Jewish communities in Alsace.
Year 5548 – 1787 CE – Edict of Tolerance in France
On 7 November 1787, Louis XVI king of France issued an Edict of Tolerance for all non-Catholic people. This was done following the efforts of his minister Malesherbes, who had been in close relation with Cerf Beer as representative of the Jews in this initiative. The French Parliament approved the edict on 29 January 1788 (20 Shevat 5548).
The state religion remained Roman Catholic, but Protestants and Jews were then granted full citizenship and civil rights without obligation to convert to Catholicism. This edict, more generous than its counterpart in Austra (Louis XVI's wife, Marie-Antoinette, was the sister of Joseph II of Austria), signaled the end of religious discrimination in France. It was in fact the first true edict of tolerance towards Jews. However, it was not applied with the same level of openness throughout France because the country, being the largest populated country in Europe at the time (about 25% of the entire population) had many regions that depended upon the authority of local parliaments. These parliaments could adjust the central royal laws in local flavor. For example, the city of Metz, in north-east France, drastically limited the effect of the edict by excluding the Jews from it, allowing it to apply to Protestants only. The officials of this region, and its clergy, continued to be stern opponents to the emancipation of the Jews during the French Revolution.
Year 5551 – 1791 CE – Civil rights for the Jews of France
Since the beginning of the French Revolution in the summer 1789, voices were heard to give full rights to all citizens, regardless of their faith, throughout France (with no restriction set by the regions). This was after all one of the great principles of the French Revolution, of universal freedom to all humankind. Yet, although such rights were easily adopted for the Protestants and other faiths, there was strong opposition, from the Alsatian representatives, to extend this freedom to the Jews as well. The passing of the law was not eased because, since 1789, the Revolution went through several crises, each time with a revolution on its own, executing the previous political leaders and starting some debates again. For example, Robespierre, a new depute who will become the political leader during the Terror, expressed strong opinion in favor of the emancipation of the Jews:
"Let us bring them to the happiness, to the nation, to the virtue, by returning the dignity of men and citizens to them. Let us remember that it can never be political, whatever it is said, to condemn to degradation and oppression a multitude of men who live among us." (Robespierre, during the debates at the French National Assembly, December 1789)
The Comte of Clermont-Tonnerre expressed the assimilation principle upon which such emancipation should be granted:
We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and grant everything to the Jews as individuals. They must not remain in the state either a political body or an order. They must be individual citizens. (Clermont-Tonnerre, during the debates at the French National Assembly, December 1789)
In January 1790, a first step was achieved by granting civil rights to the Jews from some regions of France. But the greatest part of them lived in Alsace at the time, which was one reason for Jew-hatred there, and opposition from the local authorities remained strong. The debate was postponed several times. In September 1791, the initial National Assembly had to be dismantled to be opened to national elections for the first time in France. But, barely two days before the closure of the first Assembly (and two days before the Jewish New Year of 5552), the Jacobin depute, Adrien Duport, rose to the chair and declared:
I believe that freedom of religion does not allow any distinction in the political rights of citizens because of their [religious] belief. The issue of political existence [of the Jews] was adjourned [several times]. However, Turks, Muslims, men of all sects are allowed to enjoy political rights in France. I request that the postponement [of the question of the Jews] is revoked and therefore to decree that Jews enjoy the rights of active citizenship in France. (Adrien Duport, during the debates at the French National Assembly, 29 September 1791, 28 Elul 5551)
His speech was loudly applauded, and the opponents of the vote were silenced as being against the Constitution itself. The National Assembly then passed to the vote and the law was finally approved to grant all civil rights for all the Jews of France.
The civil rights for the Jews of Europe were obtained in the many years that followed, with the conquests of the French revolutionary armies and of Napoleon Bonaparte: Holland in 1796, Hesse in 1808, Frankfurt in 1811, Prussia in 1812. Napoleon also abolished the Spanish Inquisition after his armies entered Spain. The fall of Napoleon in 1815 did not stop the process once it got started. Other revolutions shook Europe in the 1820s and in the 1830s with civil rights for the Jews obtained in 1830 in Belgium and Greece, 1835 in Sweden, 1839 in the Ottoman Empire, 1842 in Hanover, 1848 in Sardinia. Other countries followed at a much later stage: Hamburg in 1849, Switzerland in 1856, Britain in 1858, Italy in 1861, Austria in 1867, Germany in 1871 (after the French German war of 1870-1871). The last major states to grant such rights were Russia in 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution, and Romania in 1923.
Year 5551 – 1791 CE – The Pale of Settlement
While the solution to the "Jewish Question" in Western Europe seemed to be resolved by the granting of their emancipation, the decision in Russia was rather to affect their expulsion. After unsuccessful past attempts by her predecessors to convert the Jews, Catherine the Great decided to expel them from "Holy Russia". The Jews of Russia were obliged to move west, outside the boundary of Russia, into a "buffer" zone spreading from Poland and the Baltic States in the North, until Ukraine and the Black Sea in the South: this became known as the Pale Settlement, where all Jews from Russia and Poland were ultimately amassed by the authorities.
Year 5555 – 1795 CE – The crossroad for Judaism
The Hebrew year 5555 has surely a special significance, because of the combination of the number 5 which is associated to the Jewish condition (for Jewish symbolism of the numbers, click here). Indeed, the achievement of the divine principles is associated with the number 10, and the number 5 is the only number between 1 and 9 that only needs to mix with itself to achieve 10, as 5+5 = 10 versus 1+9 or 2+8, etc. What does this mean? Jews, if they want to achieve their closeness to God, must remain within their own community and not mix with non-Jews, otherwise they would melt into the other people and entirely lose their identity. This is not a choice of theirs but a divine commandment.
The year 5555 is this special moment when the Jews of Galut (Exile) are faced with many choices, and freedom to choose between the authority of Orthodox/Rabbinical Judaism, the trends to Emancipation (Haskalah) which is the doorstep to Assimilation or even willful conversion as the Frankists did, but also Hasidism who intended to reignite the Jewish soul for those who were losing their faith, and, finally, Reform Judaism who tried to build a Judaism that copied the Gentile culture by loosening the harsher Orthodox principles. The years that followed this year 5555, which was really the crossroad for Judaism between all these dividing trends, showed the result of these paths taken by the Jews of Europe. Their ancestors had faced similar choices about 2000 years before, prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, when they were divided between various sects such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots (see document C32a, year 6 CE). The Zealots were crushed in wars. The Essenes disappeared when their mysticism proved wrong. The Sadducees assimilated with the foreign cultures they admired (Greek, Roman) and became part of them. Only the Pharisaic movement survived and became mainstream Judaism to the present days.
Year 5557 – 1797 CE – Legacy of the Vilna Gaon
The Vilna Gaon died in 1797 at the age of 77 and was buried in his hometown of Vilnius with his family.
At some point, he wanted to make Aliyah to Israel because he thought that the Messiah was due to come in 1840 (year 5600 ת"ר of the Hebrew calendar), based on a text of the Zohar (see document C46a, year 1648). But he was prevented to complete his trip, probably due to the wars that plagued the continent in these years that followed the French Revolution of 1789. Yet he encouraged his disciples to do so when times would enable their return to the Land of Israel.
Three groups of them, known as the Perushim, made Aliyah between 1808 and 1812. They established themselves in Safed because Jerusalem was still under the ban for European Jews (Ashkenazim) to settle in the city (see document C46b, year 1700). This ban was caused by the fiasco of the construction of a synagogue by followers of Juda ha-Nassi who could not pay the debts of this construction. Nonetheless, the arrival of Perushim religious Jews revived the Jewish soul in the Promised Land and initiated the Litvak school there (Litvak refers to Lithuanian yeshiva).
In the Old City of Jerusalem, the Perushim also repaid the old debts, so they were allowed to rebuild the Hurva Synagogue on the same site where the old synagogue had been previously erected and destroyed. Like for other important scholars, the Vilna Gaon also gave root to new schools founded by his students. One of his disciples, Chaim of Voloshin, founded a yeshiva in his hometown of Voloshin in 1803. It became the model for Lithuanian yeshivot and operated for nearly 90 years until its closure in 1892. He also authored a major work, Nefesh ha-Chaim ("The Spirit of Life").
Year 5562 – 1802 CE – Chief Rabbi of England
Solomon Hirschell was chosen Chief Rabbi in 1802, after Tevele Schiff had died in 1791. He came from a Polish family.
Year 5562 – 1802 CE – Nachman of Breslov
Nachman was a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. He was born in 1772 in Medzhybizh, Ukraine, the town where the Besht had his synagogue. He started to attract disciples even from his young age of 13 (at the time of his Bar-Mitzva, the Jewish "confirmation").
In 1799, he travelled to the Land of Israel and helped reconcile the dispute between some of the Hasidic movements who had already settled in the Holy Land. He had to leave quickly on a boat from Akko (Acre) the day before the French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte started its siege of the city.
When he returned to Ukraine a few months later, he was already well-known and attracted thousands of students. In 1802, he and his followers moved to the town of Breslov, also in Ukraine, and settled there: they formed what became known as the Breslaver school, still one of the most important Hasidic schools (yeshiva) to this day.
In 1810, he moved to the nearby city of Uman, where a big massacre had taken place some years earlier in 1768 at the hands of a rebel army of Cossacks. The number of Jews killed in that massacre, along with Poles, was estimated to be anywhere between 2000 and 20,000. After the fateful event, the city started to repopulate and hosted Jews again who had lived there for a long time, with relatives buried in its cemetery.
Rabbi Nachman died in Uman of tuberculosis during Sukkot 1810 at the young age of 38. The site of his grave is the occasion of an annual pilgrimage over the High Festivals from Rosh Hashana until Sukkot, a pilgrimage which has been facilitated since the fall of Communism in 1989. Today this pilgrimage attracts over 25,000 Breslaver followers from all over the world.
A few months before his death, which was anticipated for his two last years of life, Rabbi Nachman made the following vow to his closest disciples that will be valid beyond his death as a reason for pilgrimage:
"If someone comes to my grave, gives a coin to charity, and says these ten Psalms [the Tikkun HaKlali he published], I will pull him out from the depths of Gehinnom [the place where the wicked go after their death]. It makes no difference what he did until that day, but from that day on, he must take upon himself not to return to his foolish ways." (Nachman of Breslov, Tzaddik 122)
Year 5566 – 1806 CE – Napoleon establishes the Great Sanhedrin
On 6 October 1806, Napoleon decreed the creation of the Great Sanhedrin in France. This notification was sent in various languages to all Jewish communities of Europe, which caused negative reaction from the monarchs in Russia, Austria and Germany. Napoleon hoped to attract Jews in France to benefit from the civil rights and contribute to the improvement of the nation, so he brushed out all the critics, even those coming from his close advisors:
"We must prevail in encouraging the Jews who are only a very small minority amongst us. In the departments of the East, we find a great number of Jews that are very honest and industrious." (Napoleon, reply to Marshall Kellermann on the Jewish question, cited in Aish web site)
After further campaigns from the opponents to the emancipation of the Jews, Napoleon eventually tried to soften the freedom law in 1808, but his action caused regions to impose more restrictions against Jews. In 1811, he imposed to remove all these restrictions. Over time, Judaism became the third religion of France, after the Catholics and the Protestants.
Year 5572 – 1812 CE – Schneur Zalman of Liadi
Schneur Zalman was born in 1745 in present-day Belarus and was from the great grandson of the Maharal of Prague. He was educated in the small town of Liubavichi near Smolensk. In 1764, he became the disciple of the "Great Maggid", Rabbi Dovber of Mezeritch, who was himself a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov. So, Schneur Zalman became part of the new movement of Hasidism that had reached that part of Imperial Russia. Then he became the leader of the Hasidic movement in Lithuania when Rabbi Dovber died in 1772, but he had to face the opposition from leaders of Orthodox Judaism. Yet many Hasidic disciples started to spread their teaching onto Europe and received growing enthusiasm from masses of Jews.
Schneur Zalman authored a book called Tanya where he endeavored to combine Hasidism with Kabbalah. This gave a spiritual turn to the Hasidic movement and birth to a branch of it called Chabad, which is known today across the world. He chose the name Chabad as an acronym of the three Hebrew words: Chochma (wisdom), Bina (understanding) and Da'at (knowledge). The Chabad movement is also known as Lubavitch, named after the Russian town (Liubavichi) where it started.
When Napoleon invaded Europe and spread the principles inherited from the French Revolution, with equalities and civil rights for all citizens regardless of faith, many Jews in Europe thought that God guided him like Cyrus the Great has been (see document C27c, year 539 BCE). Yet, Schneur Zalman saw it differently, with emancipation leading to assimilation. He therefore engaged his followers to rather support the Czar, when Napoleon's armies started to invade Russia in summer 1812, as he explained to the following letter to a friend:
Should Napoleon be victorious, wealth among the Jews will be abundant. . . but the hearts of Israel will be separated and distant from their father in heaven. But if our master [Czar] Alexander will triumph, even though poverty will be abundant. . . the heart of Israel will be bound and joined with their father in heaven. . . And for God's sake: Burn this letter. (Rabbi Schneur Zalman's letter to Rabbi Moshe Meisels, Igrot Kodesh Admur ha-Zaken, No. 64, cited in Chabad web site)
Following Rabbi Zalman's opinion, Rabbi Meisels acted as a spy for the Russian army while he was employed as translator by the invading French army. Rabbi Zalman died in late 1812 when the French army was retreating from Russia after Napoleon's failure to force the Czar to peace terms. Rabbi Meisels emigrated to Hebron, Israel, in 1816 where he died in 1849.
Year 5572 – 1812 CE – Emancipation of the Jews in Prussia
During the Napoleonic wars, Prussia had been defeated. Their king, Frederick-Willhem III, may have felt that he needed the support of the broadest possible number of his subjects so he passed a decree on 11 March 1812 to grant most of the citizen rights to the Jews of Prussia. This decree which emancipated the Jews marked a turning point in the religious affairs in Prussia and Germany. While France had granted such rights to its Jews, and while Napoleon imposed it in all the countries where he established his rule and in those allied to him, these rights generally did not survive the fall of his Empire in 1814 because the Congress of Vienna nullified many of the laws passed in France and in Europe during the French Revolution and the Empire. Such attempts to reverse the emancipation of the Jews were also made in Prussia and in other German states after the fall of Napoleon. For example, in Prussia, a law of 1822 forbade the Jews access to academic jobs. In other states however, such as in Bavaria and in Bade, their rights were maintained, despite some resentment from the non-Jewish population. Even with some early emancipation in these times, the Jews were always submitted to high taxation, forbiddance to possess any building, restrictions on their commerce, and lack of political right.
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Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Tishri 5786 - October 2025
