On Jewish Law and Loyalty under Napoleon

Declaration

Resolved, by the French deputies professing the religion of Moses, that the following Declaration shall precede the answers returned to the questions proposed by the Commissioners of His Imperial and Royal Majesty.

First Question

Is it lawful for Jews to marry more than one wife?

Answer

It is not lawful for Jews to marry more than one wife: in all European countries they conform to the general practice of marrying only one.

Moses does not command expressly to take several; but he does not forbid it. He seems even to adopt that custom as generally prevailing, since he settles the rights of inheritance between children of different wives. Although this practice still prevails in the East, yet their ancient doctors have enjoined them to restrain from taking more than one wife, except when the man is enabled by his fortune to maintain several.

The case has been different in the West; the wish of adopting the customs of the inhabitants of this part of the world has induced the Jews to renounce Polygamy. But as several individuals still indulged in that practice, a synod was convened at Worms in the eleventh century, composed of one hundred Rabbies, with Guerson at their head. This assembly pronounced an anathema against every Israelite who should, in future, take more than one wife.

Although this prohibition was not to last for ever, the influence of European manners has universally [p]revailed.

Second Question

Is divorce allowed by the Jewish religion? Is divorce valid when not pronounced by courts of justice by virtue of laws in contradiction with those of the French code?

Answer

Repudiation is allowed by the law of Moses; but it is not valid if not previously pronounced by the French code. In the eyes of every Israelite, without exception, submission to the prince is the first of duties. It is a principle generally acknowledged among them, that, in everything relating to civil or political interests, the law of the state is the supreme law. Before they were admitted in France to share the rights of all citizens, and when they lived under a particular legislation which set them at liberty to follow their religious customs, they had the facility of repudiating their wives; but it was extremely rare to see it put into practice.

Since the revolution, they have acknowledged no other laws on this head but those of the empire. At the epoch when they were admitted to the rank of citizens, the rabbis and the principal Jews appeared before the municipalities of their respective places of abode and took an oath to conform in everything to the laws and to acknowledge no other rules in all civil matters.

Consequently, they can no longer consider as valid the repudiation pronounced by their rabbis, since, to make it valid, it must have been previously pronounced by competent tribunals; for, in like manner as by an arrete [legal decree] of the consular government, the rabbis could not impart the matrimonial benediction until it appeared to them that the civil contract had been performed before the civil officer; in like manner they cannot pronounce repudiation, until it appears to them that it has already been pronounced by a sentence which gives it validity. Supposing even that the aforesaid arrete had been silent on this head, still the rabbinic repudiation could not be valid; for, according to rabbis who have written on the civil code of the Jews, such as Joseph Karo [1488–1575] in the Even ha-ezer [of the legal code Shulḥan ‘arukh], repudiation is valid only in case there should be no opposition of any kind. And as the law of the state would form an opposition, in point of civil interests—since one of the parties could avail himself or herself of it against the other—it necessarily follows that, under the influence of the civil code, rabbinic repudiation cannot be valid. Consequently, since the time the Jews have begun to enter into engagements before the civil officer, no one, attached to religious practices, can repudiate his wife but by a double divorce—that pronounced by the law of the state, and that prescribed by the law of Moses; so that under this point of view, it may be justly affirmed, that the Jewish religion agrees on this subject with the civil code.

Third Question

Can a Jewess marry a Christian, and a Jew & Christian woman? or does the law allow the Jews to intermarry only among themselves?

Answer

The law does not say that a Jewess cannot marry a Christian, nor a Jew a Christian woman: nor does it state that the Jews can only intermarry among themselves.

The only marriages expressly forbidden by the law, are those with the seven Canaanean nations, with Amon and Moab, and with the Egyptians. The prohibition is absolute concerning the seven Canaanean nations: with regard to Amon and Moab, it is limited, according to many Talmudists, to the men of those nations, and does not extend to the women; it is even thought that these last would have embraced the Jewish religion. As to Egyptians, the prohibition is limited to the third generation. The prohibition in general applies only to nations in idolatry. The Talmud declares formally that modern nations are not to be considered as such, since they worship, like us, the God of heaven and earth. And, accordingly, there has been, at several periods, intermarriages between Jews and Christians in France, in Spain, and in Germany: these marriages were sometimes tolerated, and sometimes forbidden by the laws of those sovereigns, who had received Jews into their dominions.

Unions of this kind are still found in France; but we cannot dissemble that the opinion of the Rabbies is against these marriages. According to their doctrine, although the religion of Moses has not forbidden the Jews from intermarrying with nations not of their religion, yet, as marriage, according to the Talmud, requires religious ceremonies called Kiduschim, with the benediction used in such cases, no marriage can be religiously valid unless these ceremonies have been performed. This could not be done towards persons who would not both of them consider these ceremonies as sacred; and in that case the married couple could separate without the religious divorce; they would then be considered as married civilly but not religiously.

Such is the opinion of the Rabbies, members of this assembly. In general they would be no more inclined to bless the union of a Jewess with a Christian, or of a Jew with a Christian woman, than Catholic priests themselves would be disposed to sanction unions of this kind. The Rabbies acknowledge, however, that a Jew, who marries a Christian woman, does not cease on that account, to be considered as a Jew by his brethren, any more than if he had married a Jewess civilly and not religiously.