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Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews (1781)

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These faults caused specifically by the occupation of commerce must appear much more strongly and strikingly in the Jewish than in the Christian merchant. The latter have mainly by virtue of their education a higher sense of honor than the oppression of their nation and their poverty allow the Jews. An additional reason is that in Christian families there is seldom only one kind of occupation through the generations, so that the principles of various kinds get mixed and modify each other. The Jews, however, have been forced for many centuries now to live on commerce exclusively. Is it surprising that the spirit of this occupation became entirely their spirit and by long heredity has gained strength and now determines so much more the faulty formation of their character? Love of profit must be much more vivid in the Jews because it is the sole means of survival for them; the little business tricks must be more known to them since they have been practiced so long. Usury and unfair profits must be considered more permissible by them because all branches of their trade were heavily taxed, so that regular profits would not have sufficed to pay all these fees. Logically the soul of the young Jew must be entirely conditioned to desire profit in commerce when he notices early in life that this is the only way for him to make a living, since his parents and all other Jews of his acquaintance know no more plentiful theme for conversation than their trade. One has to consider that of necessity an occupation which for more than a thousand years was the only one carried on by a nation must have had a one-sided influence on its character and must have transmitted with the most powerful intensity faulty impressions to its character.

If this reasoning is correct, then we have found in the oppression and in the restricted occupation of the Jews the true source of their corruption. Then we have discovered also at the same time the means of healing this corruption and of making the Jews better men and useful citizens. With the elimination of the unjust and unpolitical treatment of the Jews will also disappear the consequences of it; and when we cease to limit them to one kind of occupation, then the detrimental influence of that occupation will no longer be so noticeable. With the modesty that a private citizen should always show when expressing his thoughts about public affairs, and with the certain conviction that general proposals should always be tailored, if they should be useful to the special local conditions in every state. I dare now, after these remarks, to submit my ideas as to the manner in which the Jews could become happier and better members of civil societies.

To make them such it is FIRST necessary to give them equal rights with all other subjects, since they are able to fulfill the duties they should be allowed to claim the equal impartial love and care of the state. No humiliating discrimination should be tolerated, no way of earning a living should be closed to them, none other than the regular taxes demanded from them. They would have to pay all the usual taxes in the state, but they would not have to pay protection money for the mere right to exist, no special fee for the permission to earn a living. It is obvious that in accordance with the principle of equal rights, also special privileges favoring the Jews -- which exist in some states -- would have to be abolished. These sometimes owed their existence to a feeling of pity which would be without basis under more just conditions. When no occupation will be closed to Jews, then they should, in all fairness, not have a monopoly on any occupation in preference to other citizens. When the government will decide to fix the rate of interest by law, the Jew will not be able to ask for any more than the legal rate of interest. If it will be prohibited to private citizens to lend money on pawns, or do so only under certain conditions, the Jews will have to observe these rules.

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