Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1898: Volume LIV, No. 2, December 1898Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1898: Volume LIV, No. 2, December 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
A small secondary center of Jewish aggregation appears upon our map
to be manifested about Frankfort. It has a peculiar significance.
The Hebrew settlers in the Rhenish cities date from the third
century at least, having come there over the early trade routes from
the Mediterranean. Germany being divided politically, and Russia
interdicting them from 1110, a specific center was established,
especially in Franconia, Frankfort being the focus of attraction.
Then came the fearful persecutions all over Europe, attendant upon
the religious fervor of the Crusades. The Polish kings, desiring to
encourage the growth of their city populations, offered the rights
of citizenship to all who would come, and an exodus in mass took
place. They seem to have been welcomed, till the proportions of the
movement became so great as to excite alarm. Its results appear
upon our map. Thus we know that many of the Jews of Poland came to
Russia as a troublesome legacy on the division of that kingdom. At
the end of the sixteenth century but three German cities remained
open to them--namely, Frankfort, Worms, and Furth.[5] Yet it was
obviously impossible to uproot them entirely. To their persistence
in this part of Germany is probably due the small secondary center
of Jewish distribution, which we have mentioned, indicated by the
darker tint about Frankfort, and including Alsace-Lorraine. Here is a
relative frequency, not even exceeded by Posen, although we generally
conceive of this former Polish province as especially saturated with
Jews. It is the only vestige remaining to indicate what was at one
time the main focus of Jewish population in Europe. It affords us a
striking example of what legislation may accomplish ethnically, when
supplemented, or rather aggravated, by religious and economic motives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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