The German Question, Part Twelve

Early Jewish Settlements in German Lands

From what I know, there were Jewish settlers in German lands from the 300s A.D., and probably before that time. Later, with the splintering of centralized power within the German-led Holy Roman Empire, the individual “states” had laws governing Jewish immigration, with some states prohibiting Jews from settling within their territory, while others sought special taxes from Jewish settlers, or prohibited Jews from many occupations, restricting them to being moneylenders and/or pawnbrokers. The Christian Church periodically wanted anti-Jewish laws passed and strictly enforced, including the wearing of badges to distinguish Jews from Christians. The Church-inspired anti-Jewish feelings spread throughout the general population, but even with all of this, and the fact that the German emperors chose to refer to old Roman law,* eventually, the German city of Mainz became a major center of Jewish life in Europe, with other German cities like Cologne (Köln, in German), Vienna (Wien, in German), Worms and Speyer, not far behind. Emperor Friedrich II, a fairly enlightened leader for those times, gave protections to German Jews during the 1200s, declaring them to be a separate and distinct group of people, and giving Jews certain rights, like the right to judge other Jews by Jewish law. Friedrich also encouraged other Jews to come to German areas and be involved in the money lending business, as well as become tax collectors.**

The beginning of the Crusades brought terrible measures against German Jews, as Christians turned on the nearest non-Christian minority. Thousands of Jews were murdered. When calamities struck, like the invasion of the Mongols and the spread of the Black Death (plague), Jews were accused of being the cause, regardless of the fact that Jews suffered from these calamities, too.*** Many Jews fled to Poland, where laws against Jews were not yet as developed, nor was public feeling against Jews as heightened.**** Other Jews were expelled from the major cities to small towns or rural areas within the German lands, although they were eventually “invited” back for the taxes they could pay. The tide of Jewish persecution in German lands ebbed and flowed periodically. More on this important and tragic subject later on.

* The Roman emperor, Titus, claimed that he “owned” the Jews within the Roman Empire as his own personal property. As such, he gave protection to Jews.

** Let's be honest, while probably not Friedrich's intention, being involved in money lending and tax collecting can create lots of hatred; after all, people don't like paying taxes, and there's a tendency for us to resent people to whom we owe money, even if we legally signed on the dotted line of our own free will.

***This shows how people can fall for such nonsense. The failure to engage our minds can be a VERY dangerous thing.

**** Poland was to become a major center of Jewish population in Europe.

WORD HISTORY:
(Sauer)kraut-This famous food, seen by most people as THE typical German dish, was borrowed into English from German, seemingly in the early 15th Century. It literally means "sour cabbage," although the German word "Kraut" actually means "herb, or the green tops of non 'woody' plants," but in southern German dialect, it means "cabbage," and indeed, it has entered the entire German vocabulary with at least that secondary meaning and also as a shortened form of "sauerkraut." Interestingly, the history of the word "kraut" is a bit sketchy, and it "seems" to have come into use among the Germanic dialects of northwestern Europe during the 700s A.D. (these dialects became modern German, Low German, Dutch, and Frisian). It's use in other Germanic dialects/languages is due to borrowing. It doesn't seem to have a form in Old English (Anglo-Saxon), whose ancestral lands were in that same area of northwestern Europe until about 450 to 500 A.D. So if correct, this would give some validity to the idea that the word was either not in use at that time, or at least not in enough widespread usage to travel to Britain with the Anglo-Saxons. "Kraut" goes back to Old High German "krut," the form still in use in Alsatian German dialect (Elsässisch), which came from Old Germanic "krutha/kruda" (plant, herb). I cannot find a further connection to some Indo European base, although that doesn't mean there isn't one (some have connected it to an Old Greek word and then to an Indo European base, but the proof of such is not overwhelming). As to why the nickname "Krauts" came into use for "Germans," it "may" simply be because the dish has been so connected to Germans, although I've read somewhere (I now can't recall where), that German commercial and naval vessels carried sauerkraut, which has a good vitamin C content, to help their crews to ward off scurvy, and that this brought about the nickname. I'll deal with the "sauer" part of the word in another edition, but of course it comes from the same source as English "sour."