In the same year it was decreed that the
Jews should pay "a special tax of 40,000 florins for the right to import
their citrons for the feast of booths." Nevertheless, Joseph II.
(1780-1790) inaugurated a new era for the Jews of his empire. Soon after
his accession he abolished the distinctive Jewish dress, abrogated the
poll-tax, admitted the Jews to military service and their children to
the public schools, and in general opened the era of emancipation by the
_Toleranzpatent_ of 1782. This enlightened policy was not continued by
the successors of Joseph II. Under Francis II. (1792-1835) economic and
social restrictions were numerous. Agriculture was again barred; indeed
the Vienna congress of 1815 practically restored the old discriminations
against the Jews. As time went on, a more progressive policy intervened,
the special form of Jewish oath was abolished in 1846, and in 1848, as a
result of the revolutionary movement in which Jews played an active
part, legislation took a more liberal turn. Francis Joseph I. ascended
the throne in that year, and though the constitution of 1849 recognized
the principle of religious liberty, an era of reaction supervened,
especially when "the concordat of 1855 delivered Austria altogether into
the hands of the clericals." But the day of medieval intolerance had
passed, and in 1867 the new constitution "abolished all disabilities on
the ground of religious differences," though anti-Semitic manipulation
of the law by administrative authority has led to many instances of
intolerance. Many Jews have been members of the Reichsrath, some have
risen to the rank of general in the army, and Austrian Jews have
contributed their quota to learning, the arts and literature. Löw,
Jellinek, Kaufmann, as scholars in the Jewish field; as poets and
novelists, Kompert, Franzos, L. A. Frankl; the pianist Moscheles, the
dramatist Mosenthal, and the actor Sonnenthal, the mathematician Spitzer
and the chess-player Steinitz are some of the most prominent names. The
law of 1890 makes it "compulsory for every Jew to be a member of the
congregation of the district in which he resides, and so gives to every
congregation the right to tax the individual members" (_op. cit._). A
similar obligation prevails in parts of Germany. A Jew can avoid the
communal tax only by formally declaring himself as outside the Jewish
community. The Jews of Hungary shared with their brethren in Austria the
same alternations of expulsion and recall. By the law "De Judaeis"
passed by the Diet in 1791 the Jews were accorded protection, but half a
century passed before their tolerated condition was regularized. The
"toleration-tax" was abolished in 1846. During the revolutionary
outbreak of 1848, the Jews suffered severely in Hungary, but as many as
20,000 Jews are said to have joined the army. Kossuth succeeded in
granting them temporary emancipation, but the suppression of the War of
Independence led to an era of royal autocracy which, while it advanced
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