Abstract
Until recently the historiographical focus exploring the early burial practice in Jewish communities was concerned with the community of Mecklenburg Schwerin in the eighteenth century. In the first debate considered as ‘the first halachic dispute in the era of emancipation’ the Schwerin Jewish community was able to find a compromise settlement between the claim of the pietistic ruler Duke Frederic of Mecklenburg Schwerin and the own religious tradition. Shortly after that, 1787, the Jewish community of Alt Strelitz was demanded by the Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz Adolf Friedrich IV to reveal their burial practice. In contrast to the conflict in Mecklenburg Schwerin the Alt Strelitz community answered self-confidently the duke and presented the burial practice which they did not want to give up. For more than 7 years they succeeded in continuing their habit inclusively the decided will to avoid early burial. Far away from a progressive narrative of emancipation and assimilation my argument is focused on the hindrances in the process of emancipation and assimilation, the role of the professionalized medicine on the one side and the concepts of the Jewish community concerning tradition and innovation on the other. The community of Mecklenburg Strelitz is an excellent example to show in which way a prosperous community made it to find its own path between Haskalah and German Enlightenment in insisting on tradition and demonstrating own medical expertise as well.
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Notes
- 1.
The Berlinische Monatsschrift was the mouthpiece of the Berlin Enlightenment, that rationalist variety of the European Enlightenment primarily embodied by clergymen and teachers, nearly all of them Prussian civil servants. I would like particularly to thank Dr. Małgorzata Anna Maksymiak (Berlin/Rostock) for reading the manuscript with a critical eye and for her helpful suggestions.
- 2.
The only remark made by the Rostock rabbi regarding the subject of this essay was: “Thanks to a petition submitted by the Jewish community, the matter had remained dormant until 29 November 1793.”
- 3.
Reprinted by Silberstein (1929/1930), pp. 278–279. Though this is only a copy, I will still draw attention to orthographic differences between the document and Silberstein’s transliteration.
- 4.
See also the exceptionally thought-provoking volume by Claire Gantet and Fabrice d’Almeida (Eds.) (2007). Gespenster und Politik. 16. bis 21. Jahrhundert. München: Fink.
- 5.
Other Protestant and Jewish clergymen were also involved, as evidenced in the two letters from Yacov ben Yitzhac Reuven (Sel.) to Tychsen in May and on 5 July 1772, in which Johann Friedrich Vincent Nölting (1735–1806) and Martin Friedrich Pitiscus (1721–1794), both of whom were pastors in Hamburg and connected to establishments for prostelytisation there, were mentioned. Tychsen’s ‘effective deed’ was known to Reuven thanks to Adler. Universitätsbibliothek Rostock, Handschriftenabteilung, Mss. orient. 267a, Nr. 62 and 58. I would like to thank Dr. Małgorzata Anna Maksymiak (Berlin) for informing me about the existence of this correspondence, for her translation of it from Hebrew and her comments.
- 6.
This debate has been the subject of a number of examinations, most recently by Krochmalnik and Gerda Heinrich: Akkulturation und Reform. Die Debatte um die frühe Beerdigung der Juden zwischen 1785 und 1800. In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 50 (1998), pp. 137–155. See also Goldberg, S.-A. (2011). Les deux rives du Yabbok. La maladie et la mort dans le judaïsme ashkénaze. (pp. 148–154) 2. edition. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, and the essay by the Rostock rabbi Siegfried Silberstein cited above. I would like to thank Nathan Wachtel (Collège de France, Paris) for bringing Goldberg’s book to my attention and for the patient discussion and kind advice he provided during his stay in Rostock.
- 7.
Today Strelitz lies about an hour north of Berlin by train.
- 8.
To get a sense of the Strelitz community’s large size, compare the fact that only slightly more than 500 Jews lived in Paris at this time. Arnold, R. (2007). Integrationsdebatten 1807 und 2007. “Le Grand Sanhédrin” und die Deutsche Islam Konferenz. In: Dokumente 5/07, pp. 17–20, here 20a. By the end of the century, every fourth inhabitant of Strelitz was Jewish and the Alt Strelitz community numbered 600 individuals. Hofmann (2007), p. 31.
- 9.
‘As is known,’ the emperor ‘has set an example through his own decrees’ that ‘such terrible evil’ be prevented ‘by law’. The demand for a ‘prohibition’ of early burial, which would not be contrary to Jewish law, ‘is related instead simply to the hotter regions where they once resided, where signs of decay set in more quickly, and where it could pose a risk to the living to allow the dead to remain above ground for longer periods’ – so went the arguments in Tychsen’s pro memoria – and indications too that ‘the nation’s own elders desire such a prohibition’ were submitted to the duke, and it was then asked ‘whether it would not be agreeable’ ‘to introduce a sovereign decree.’
- 10.
In 1788 Fromet Mendelssohn, Moses Mendelssohn’s widow, and her children acquired the house in Strelitz that had previously belonged to the court Jew and later financial agent Nathan Meyer, though with the condition that it ‘not be sold again to a Jew’.
- 11.
For Berlin, see Jacoby, J. (1989). Anfänge und Entwicklung der jüdischen Krankenpflege in Berlin. In: D. Hartung-von Doetinchem, & R. Winau, (Eds.), Zerstörte Fortschritte. Das Jüdische Krankenhaus in Berlin 1756–1861 – 1914 – 1989 (pp. 28–67, 250–253, here 29–30, 251). Berlin: Edition Hentrich, and Halévy, M. A. (1970). Die Idee der Caritas in der jüdischen Religion. In: Zur Geschichte der Jüdischen Krankenhäuser in Europa (pp. 10–19). Düsseldorf: Triltsch.
- 12.
For more, see Eliezer Sariel’s contribution in this volume, which explores the complex relationship between Halacha and medical advice and the relationship between rabbi and doctor in the early modern period. The independent investigation by the poskim, with a probable diagnosis made on the basis of experience, played a critical role in this.
Taking it for granted that a small community would appoint a community doctor reflects the experience of communities in Greater Poland, i.e. the existence of a Jewish community doctor who had passed his exams at a Christian university. Lewin, L. (1912). Jüdische Aerzte in Grosspolen. Jahrbuch der Jüdisch-Literarischen Geellschaft 9, pp. 376–420, here 371. Following the death of Markus Moses, a graduate of the college in Bützow who possessed a doctorate of medicine, on 28 March 1786, Isaak Levy, originally from Königsberg and with a doctorate from Frankfurt an der Oder, was appointed the community doctor of the Jewish community of Strelitz. We can assume that he also assumed Moses’s responsibilities as a doctor in the Jewish hospital. He left Strelitz in 1808.
- 13.
He makes reference here to ‘a number of writers’, particularly Johann Peter Brinkmann, J. J. Bruhier d‘Ablaincourt, Camerer.
- 14.
An argument that was frequently invoked in the debate: See Friedländer (1787), 329 footnote. The Christian reaction to this ‘exception’ was derisive and bitter, as evidenced in K. W. Ramler, K. W. (1786). Sulamith und Eusebia. Eine Trauerkantate auf den Tod Moses Mendelssohns. Berlinische Monatsschrift 1, 481–489, here 484: ‘“Bury him late, so he might still wake!” Such were the cries heard throughout the whole city.’
- 15.
Herz cites Thiéry, F. (1786). La vie de l’homme respectée & defendue dans ses derniers momens; ou instruction sur les soins qu’on doit aux morts, & à ceux qui paroissent l’être &c. Paris, p. 56. German edition: Thiery, F. (1788). Unterricht von der Fürsorge, die man den Todten, oder denen, die todt zu seyn scheinen, schuldig ist wie von den Leichenbegräbnisse und Begräbnissen. Lübeck: Donatius.
- 16.
For more on Herz’s scepticism regarding medical questions, see also Münch, R. and Lammel, H.-U. (1997). Versuch und Experiment bei Marcus Herz. In: Michael Hubenstorf et al. (Eds.). Medizingeschichte und Gesellschaftskritik. Festschrift für Gerhard Baader, Husum. Matthiesen, pp. 101–122.
- 17.
In 1797 Issac Euchel collected and published materials related to the 1785 debate, which had been conducted in the pages of HaMe’assef and begun with an anonymous essay by Euchel alongside the publication of the documents from Mecklenburg that Mendelssohn had given him, in a volume entitled ‘Ist nach dem jüdischen Gesetze das Übernachten der Toten wirklich verboten? In einem Schreiben an den Herrn Professor Löwe in Breslau’. In: Euchel, I. (2001). Vom Nutzen der Aufklärung. Schriften zur Haskala, ed., translated and commentary by Andreas Kennecke, Düsseldorf: Parerga, pp. 119–137, Hebrew 159–176. He undertook a philological analysis of Old Hebrew and rabbinical textual evidence, as a result of which he concluded that an ‘exact stipulation of time’ appeared nowhere and that keeping the deceased overnight, ‘which has been of late the cause of much fuss originates in a simple misunderstanding’ (135). He furthermore determined that the debate had demonstrated that there were still a good many ‘enemies of the yehudim’ at the end of the eighteenth century (120, passim). His concern was limited to the subject in and of itself, not with undermining the ceremonial Jewish law, as certain rabbis claimed (136). One could not put off mourning three whole days just because there could be a case of apparent death, and there were exceedingly few people who could lie still 3 days whilst in agony (137). In this manner, Euchel engaged in an enlightened discussion, one marked by ‘the intent to use facts to refute, [not] to ridicule’ (120), in which he integrated historical, philological and medical arguments to modernise this ‘custom of our forefathers’.
- 18.
The text on the title page reads: ‘Missive addressed to the honourable members of all worthy and charitable societies in Jewish communities that assume responsibility for caring for the ill and burying the dead, by Joel Löwe. Löwe, J. (1792). Schreiben an die würdigen Mitglieder sämmtlicher löblichen und wohlthätigen Gesellschaften in der [!] jüdischen Gemeinden die sich die Krankenpflege und die Beerdigung der Todten zur Pflicht machen von Joel Löwe. Aus dem Hebräischen mit Anmerkung und Zusätzen von Michaelis zum besten der guten Sache, Berlin: in der jüdischen Freÿschule. Freudenthal, M. (1893). Die ersten Emancipationsbestrebungen der Juden in Breslau. Nach archivalischen und anderen Quellen dargestellt. Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 37, pp. 41–48, 92–100, 188–197, 238–247, 331–341, 409–429, 467–483, 522–536, 565–579, here 570–579.
- 19.
Letter of Friedrich Franz to Hennemann. In 1808 Hennemann became a personal physician.
- 20.
Silberstein (1929/30), 241.
- 21.
Declaration of the Strelitz‘Jewish Community, 28 January 1794.
- 22.
Silberstein (1929/30), 241.
- 23.
Ibid., 242.
- 24.
See the headword in Hufeland, Chr. W. (1808): Der Scheintod, oder Sammlung der wichtigsten Thatsachen und Bemerkungen darüber, in alphabetischer Ordnung mit einer Vorrede, Berlin: Buchhandlung Matzdorff, Reprint Bern 1986, p. 128–132, ‚murderous burial of Jews‘, “mörderische Judenbeerdigung”.
- 25.
Letter of the Eldest and Heads of the Strelitz‘Jewish Community to the Duke, 22 December 1793.
- 26.
Silberstein (1929/30), 240.
- 27.
“Von der Gefahr lebendig begraben zu werden, und von allzuspätem Begräbniß.”
- 28.
‘None of these signs are unmistakable.’ The essay was previously printed in Der Teutsche Merkur, 1790, Nr. 5.
- 29.
Von Braun, Chr. (2001). Versuch über den Schwindel. Religion, Schrift, Bild, Geschlecht. Zurich: Pendo, pp. 477–495, identified the interaction between simulation and fiction during the phase of the ‘biologicisation of anti-Judaism’ at the end of the nineteenth century (491).
- 30.
I have followed Krochmalnik (1997), 116, in calling this process ‘hubris’ and have borrowed his examples.
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Lammel, HU. (2019). The Debate over Early Burial Amongst Jews in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in the 1790s. In: Moskalewicz, M., Caumanns, U., Dross, F. (eds) Jewish Medicine and Healthcare in Central Eastern Europe. Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92480-9_4
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