The History of an Estrangement between Two Jewish Communities: German and French Jewry during the Nineteenth Century

The flow of immigrants reveals the attraction France had for German Jews. Although the migration was small, it influenced French Jewry's path to modernization, giving a serious impetus to the Science of Judaism during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Science of Judaism influenced even French Jewry's institutional evolution: the Societe litteraire pour la science du Judaisme and the periodical Revue des Etudes Juives grew out of a continuous contact between French- and German-Jewish intellectuals. The Revolution and the Napoleonic regime created a particular sociopolitical setting that differentiated French from German Jewry. In light of German Jewry's particular reality, the Brunswick assembly adopted some minor modifications, but it preserved the core of the Sanhedrin decisions. German Jewry exercised a considerable impact before 1789, as long as the Jews on both sides of the Rhine lived in the common sociocultural setting of the traditional Jewish community.