Continuity and Change in the Constitutional Experience of the German Jews

Despite the progress of Emancipation in the nineteenth century, German Jews were required to to legally recognized Jewish communities. Even after this requirement was lifted, Jewish communal life remained strong. The community structure that the Prussian state expected the Jews to implement was modeled after German civil administration. This framework, however, resembled both medieval German and medieval Jewish models. Thus, German Jews, while modernizing their own communal institutions, continued to maintain both their own and their German neighbors' political traditions. The German Jewish communal constitutions attest to a Jewish political tradition of adaptation to prevailing gentile norms, as well as retention of ancient Jewish elements. Copyright , Oxford University Press.