(FRANCE). Consistoire central des Israélites de France. Six rare printed documents from the Restoration Orléanist ...

(FRANCE). Consistoire central des Israélites de France. Six rare printed documents from the Restoration Orléanist periods.

Paris, 1819-37

1. Instructions adressées par le Consistoire central des Israélites de France à Messieurs les Membres  des Consistoires departmentaux, Paris.10 August 1819.

In order to make returning royalty less  unpalatable after Napoleon, Louis XVIII, the guillotined Louis XVI's brother and heir, accepted the  principle of constitutional monarchy. Here, Abraham de Cologna and Emmanuel Deutz, chief rabbis of  the Consistoire central in Paris, advise members of the provincial consistoires of their rights and  responsibilities under the arrangements that they have just negotiated with the  ''just and magnanimous  King, who, driven by his paternal love'' is determined to apply the new constitution ''to all of his children  without distinction''. In practice, what this means mainly is that the salaries of communal rabbis will like  those of Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist clergy, be paid by the state from taxes that it will oblige  members of these communities to pay. The document also discusses the chief rabbis & other post- Napoleonic preoccupation--the establishment of Jewish schools in the provinces and a national facility  for the training of rabbis.

2. Adminstration du Temple israélite de Paris. 10 January 1822.

Advance notice that seats have gone on sale for the rue St. Laurent synagogue, soon to be completed. Men and womens seats cost the same, and both are divided into five classes. A first class seat may be purchased for 75 francs a year or 3,000  francs in perpetuity; fifth class is 12 francs a year or 1,200 francs in perpetuity.

3. Consistoire central des Israélites à MM. les Membres des Consistoires départmentaux. 22 November  1822.

With the Napoleonic wars over and the monarchy restored, chief rabbis de Cologna and Deutz, invoking the new stability, try again, after a ten-year gap, to persuade every provincial consistoire to  establish its ownJewish secondary school, plus a ''simple but servicable'' Jewish elementary school in  each sub-district (circonscription). The secondary schools were meant to ensure that a sufficient number of candidates were adequately grounded to go on to rabbinic training; after the upheaval and  secularization of the past thirty years, indigenous rabbi material was in desperately short supply.

4. Note pour Messieurs les Membres de la Chambre des Deputés. After 2 August 1823.

This ''note for the members of the Chamber of Deputie'' though anonymous, has the Consistoire central fingerprints all over it: ''Certain individuals, born Jews but enemies of any institution identified with the Mosaic faith,   just as they are enemies of all religions, and, indeed, of law and order, are seeking to subvert the  conscience of honorable Members at the moment when the Chamber is called upon to vote on the  paragraph in the budget that authorizes, as in the past, the defraying of the operating expenses of this  religious denomination, and they want to make believe that taxation for this purpose is not only of no  social utility and arbitrary but also illegal''; Accordingly, the author feels it his duty to remind the  deputies of the opinion rendered in the Chamber on this matter in 1821 by Count Siméon.

The eminent  French jurist Joseph Jérôme, serving at the time as the Minister of the Interior. Remarkably, the fourth-  century Church father Augustine's famous argument for tolerating Jews--that the sight of their sunken  condition is a living proof of the certainty of Christianity--is stretched by Siméon into an argument for  why Judaism is a religion deserving of having its financial support mandated by the state. Even more  amazing is that the Consistoire should choose to reprint such an argument. Less controversially, Siméon  objects to opponents of this taxation, who point admiringly to the example of the United States, where  those born Jewish and not belonging to any other religion are not taxed by the government to pay  rabbis salaries. This is irrelevant, Siméon replies, for, unlike France ''in that country no religions clergy  is paid'' by the state.

5. Lettre pastorale addressé par le Consistoire central des Israélites de France aux Consistoires des  Circonscriptions. 19 Septmber 1824.

Chief rabbis de Cologna and Deutz express their regret at the death  of the adored King ''whose return among us was the salvation of France'' Louis XVIII's ''glorious career''  furnishes a ''noble example of pious and heroic constancy in times of adversity and of a rare moderation  in times of prosperity''. The children of Abraham ''for whom gratitude is a religious duty'' will feel with a  special acuteness the loss of ''the magnanimous Prince who placed the faith of our fathers under his  royal protection''--the magnanimity in question being Louis's; authorization of state-salaried rabbis. Each  provincial consistoire is to hold a memorial service ''to pray for divine mercy on the soul of our late good  King''. The service must include a reading of this circular and end with the prayer for Louis's brother, the  new King Charles X, whose words, when the Consistoire central had the ''signal honor'';of offering its ''first  homage of fidelity and love'' immediately following his accession were ''reassuring and full of  benevolence'' .

6. Monsieur et cher Coréligionaire. 15 December 1837.

M. Cerfberr, a lay member of the Consistoire  central, writes his fellow members of the Consistoire central and the Consistoire de Paris, asking them to  consider a proposal that he intends to put forward at their impending joint meeting. Over the course of  the 1830's ''the prosperity and wellbeing of a great number of (Paris) Jews has increased substantially''. The time is now right, therefore, he believes, to pay off the community's debts. He proposes raising the  requisite 100,000 francs by finding subscribers for a bond issue that will offer 0% interest.