Landesrabbiner - As Spiritual Chiefs

As Spiritual Chiefs

In the course of the 18th century various governments attempted to influence the internal condition of the Jewish communities, and for this reason legislated with regard to their congregational constitutions. Typical in this respect is Maria Theresa, who in her "General-Polizei-Prozess und Kommercialordnung für die Judenschaft" of Moravia (December 29, 1753) prescribes in detail the duties of the Landesrabbiner; e.g., that he shall assign the tractate which all other rabbis shall adopt for instruction; bestow the title of "Doppelter Reb" ("Morenu"); see that all taxes are promptly paid; and arrange the complicated election of a new official (Willibald Müller, "Beiträge zur Geschichte der Mähr. Judenschaft", pp. 86–99, Olmütz, 1903). Other provinces were to have a Landesrabbiner. Indeed, the empress appointed one for Galicia, but he had no successor (Buber, "Anshe Shem", pp. xix. et seq., Cracow, 1895). In Germany it was chiefly in the small states, where the governments directed all affairs, that the institution was established. Hesse-Cassel had a "Landesrabbinat", which was a board constituted on the same basis as the Protestant consistory, but with a Landesrabbiner as presiding officer. Its establishment was decreed in 1823. Hanover made similar provisions in the law of 1844 on Jewish affairs. Up to the present (1900s) it has had 3 Landesrabbiners, at Hanover, Hildesheim, and Emden. Specially typical conditions existed in the grand duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, where the government established the institution of Landesrabbiner May 14, 1839. Here the rabbis were at first supposed to introduce radical reforms, but after the revolution of 1848, when the policy of the government became reactionary, the newly elected rabbi was intended to strengthen "historic Judaism" (Donath, "Gesch. der Juden in Mecklenburg", pp. 221 et seq., Leipsic, 1874). In Saxe-Weimar the government used the Landesrabbiner to enforce the law of June 20, 1823, which ordered that services be held in German (see Hess, Mendel). In Saxe-Meiningen the Landesrabbinat was organized by the law of Jan. 5, 1811 (Human, "Gesch. der Juden im Herzogthum Sachsen-Meiningen-Hildburghausen", pp. 69 et seq., Hildburghausen, 1898). Here as elsewhere in the small German states the object of the institution was to raise the moral and intellectual status of the Jews.