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The Leo Baeck Institute holds an extensive collection of official decrees that were issued in early modern times by various principalities and city states throughout the German speaking world. They were intended to regulate the lives of Jews, who were attached to various princes and municipalities without being citizens. In addition, there were officially unattached Jews, who were dismissed as “beggar-Jews (Betteljuden) and other suspicious rabble”. At the beginning of the 19th century, in light of the all-shattering French Revolution, princes and cities started to ease the regulation on Jews, inching forward to their emancipation as full citizens.

Online Catalog Record

Decrees Collection (AR 379)

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