Infamous Decree

On March 17, 1808, Napoleon I created three decrees in a failed attempt to bring equality and to integrate the Jews into French society after the Jewish Emancipation of 1790-1791. The Infamous Decree, the third of the three, had adverse effects. Although the decrees´ aim was to emancipate the Jews into equal citizenship, it limited the residency of Jews in France, decreased the lending behavior and by a lack of interest to participate in agriculture and regular craftsmanship, weakened their financial position.

Napoleon Bonaparte initially won allegiance of Jews when in 1797 he emancipated Jews in Ancona, Italy. He officially chose two High Priests of the Jewish Nation and seven councillors to the High Priests. He allegedly encouraged Jews to reclaim Jerusalem in 1799 with the help of his army in a letter to a rabbi in Jerusalem, but the letter is suspected by many to be a forgery. He in no way acted against the Jews until the early 19th century, when he passed a series of three decrees, one of which became known as the Infamous Decree. Some, such as author Franz Kobler, attribute Napoleon’s change in attitude to Napoleon’s new attachment to France and his newfound desire to protect the interests of the French people. When he was the hero of the Jews, he still was an “ardent patriot” of his home island of Corsica.

In France, quite early in the Nineteenth Century, Jewish moneylenders were accused of usury, in Alsace, as well as of abusing other rights, which were given to them in their emancipation in 1791 under Louis XVI. Napoleon sided with popular French opinion. Though he desired equality for the Jews, he called them “the most despicable of men” and proclaimed he did not want their number to increase in an 1808 letter to his brother Jerome.

Napoleon issued an imperial decree in 1806 that suspended payment of debts owed to Jewish moneylenders for one year to warn against usury to the supposedly degenerate Jewish population and called a conference with Jewish leaders. The group he conferred with was dubbed the Great Sanhedrin. and met in 1807.

Though the first meeting of the Great Sanhedrin on February 4, 1807 was ceremonial and solemn, the group was largely ineffective as nothing was done during the month they met to ameliorate the conditions on the Jews that would be imposed by the coming decrees. During the eight sessions, the Great Sanhedrin was forced to condone intermarriage between Frenchmen and Jews in order that the Jewish people might be absorbed into France, since Jews were considered substandard citizens and needed to be either absorbed or expelled. The group also had to support other actions to assimilate the Jews by removing their Jewish ties, such as approving military service to attach young Jewish men to France rather than to their religion and ethnic background. Such measures were a prelude to the passing of the three decrees on March 17, 1808.

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