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Constitutional Experience of German Jewry

Continuity and Change in the Constitutional Experience of German Jewry

Continuity and Change in the Constitutional Experience of German Jewry

October 21, 2001 | Alan Mittleman
Despite the progress of Emancipation in the nineteenth century, German Jews were required to belong to legally recognized Jewish communities. Even after this requirement was lifted, Jewish communal life remained strong. The community structure that the Prussian state expected the Jews to implement was modeled after German civil administration. This framework, however, resembled both medieval German and medieval Jewish models. Thus, German Jews, while modernizing their own communal institutions,