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Columns: December 2003

This Month in Jewish History: December

by Alexis Rubin

December: Emperor's edict ends privilege; call for synagogue reforms denied; Allies issue Joint Declaration

Colonia, Germania, December 11, 321 C.E. — As Roman legions pushed north into Gaul (France and western Germany), Jewish peddlers followed the advancing armies. And where soldiers established encampments on the banks of major rivers, Jews opened small businesses selling food, military supplies and other goods brought from Rome. Established in 50 C.E., the camp named Colonia Agrippinensis (later known as Cologne) quickly became a civil and military headquarters. Archeological evidence hints that Jews were among Colonia's first permanent settlers. However, the only official Roman document still in existence confirming a Jewish population there dates from the fourth century C.E.

On December 11, 321, Emperor Constantine the Great, a recent convert to Christianity, issued an edict specifically addressed to Colonia's Jewish population. Up to that time, the town's Jews had the privilege of not serving on the municipal council or Curia. Curia duties, it seems, were more of a burden than an honor, requiring considerable time (perhaps working on the Sabbath) and payment of certain amounts of money. Constantine's decree withdrew the privilege by annulling the Jews' previous exemption. This edict foreshadowed the end of the Jews' favorable situation in Europe and the beginning of a long era of prejudice and persecution.

Charleston, South Carolina, December 23, 1824 — In the first decades of the 19th century, a growing number of Jews in the United States felt alienated from traditional modes of Jewish worship. One difficulty was the dearth of Hebrew teachers in America and, as a result, many congregants knew little of the sacred tongue. The nearly incomprehensible prayers rendered worship services less meaningful. The situation at Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina, exemplified this problem.

On December 23, 1824, a group of congregants presented the synagogue's president and board members with a list of changes they hoped would revitalize Beth Elohim's services. "[We] would strenuously recommend," they wrote, "that the most solemn portions [of the service] be retained, and everything superfluous [be] excluded and …all that is read in Hebrew, should also be read in English (that being the language of the country)." When the synagogue leaders refused to institute these changes, the disaffected group walked out and established the Reformed Society of Israelites. Although short lived, this society introduced many innovative practices that laid the groundwork for Reform Judaism in America.

Washington, D.C., December 1942 — Through the spring and early summer of 1942, eyewitnesses reported large-scale rail transport of Jews heading toward Poland. Once there, they vanished. Jewish leaders in the Allied and neutral nations strongly suspected that their brethren were being systematically murdered. The U.S. State Department and the British Foreign Office dismissed these reports as unfounded "war rumors." Even after receiving specific information in early summer about Hitler's "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem," neither government took the information seriously.

Other corroborating evidence began to appear. In November, faced with mounting public pressure from both Jews and non-Jews, the British government reversed it previous silence and asked the United States to support a joint statement condemning Nazi atrocities against European Jewry.

In December 1942, after days of trans-Atlantic haggling over the proper wording, the United States and Great Britain issued an eleven-nation Joint Allied Declaration detailing Nazi brutalities and promising retribution against the perpetrators of those crimes. For the first time, the U.S. and its allies publicly recognized the special character of the Nazis' war against the Jews. Yet the statement also made clear that nothing would be done to try to save lives or rescue the Jewish victims until the war ended. As "rescue through victory" became the new catch-phrase, dismayed rescue advocates feared that by the time victory was accomplished there would be no European Jews left alive.

© Copyright 2003 Alexis Rubin Reprint by permission only
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Alexis Rubin is a Jewish history teacher, writer, researcher and syndicated columnist. Her articles, essays and book reviews have appeared in historical journals, Jewish women's magazines and community newspapers in the U.S. and in Canada.

This Month in Jewish History