October 6: Napoleon’s Sanhedrin

On this date in 1806, the Jewish Assembly of Notables, convened by Napoleon Bonaparte, issued a proclamation to all the Jewish communities of Europe, inviting them to send delegates to a Grand Sanhedrin, convening on October 20. The Sanhedrin would rule on the answers given by the Assembly of Notables to twelve questions posed by Bonaparte back in April, including: Is it lawful for Jews to have more than one wife? Does Jewish law order that the Jews should only intermarry among themselves? Do Jews born in France, and treated by the law as French citizens, acknowledge France as their country? Are they bound to obey the laws and follow the directions of the civil code? What kind of police jurisdiction do the rabbis exercise over the Jews? Postponed until February, the Sanhedrin ruled (without discussion) that the Assembly’s assimilationist responses to these questions were authoritative in Jewish life. Bonaparte then promulgated three decrees concerning Jews in France in March, 1808 that essentially emancipated Jews from discriminatory laws and made France their homeland, but also obliterated many aspects of Jewish life that had preserved Jewish communal identity.

“My primary desire was to liberate the Jews and make them full citizens. I wanted to confer upon them all the legal rights of equality, liberty and fraternity as was enjoyed by the Catholics and Protestants. It is my wish that the Jews be treated like brothers as if we were all part of Judaism. As an added benefit, I thought that this would bring to France many riches because the Jews are numerous and they would come in large numbers to our country where they would enjoy more privileges than in any other nation. Without the events of 1814, most of the Jews of Europe would have come to France where equality, fraternity and liberty awaited them and where they can serve the country like everyone else.” —Napoleon Bonaparte