The Oath As A Jewish Disability
A decidedly aggressive change took place when, in 1555, the German imperial court procedure (Reichskammergerichtsordnung) prescribed a form of oath that, with some alterations, formed a model to subsequent legislation. Horrible were the terms in which the swearer called down upon himself all the curses of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the ten plagues of Egypt, the leprosy of Naaman and Gehazi (see 2 Kings 5), the fate of Dathan and Abiram, etc.
According to a recount in his "Gesammelte Schriften," the great German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn of the Enlightenment persuaded the Prussian government to moderate the terms of the oath during the 18th century. The small German states gradually surrendered the most objectionable features of the oath: Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), in 1828; Oldenburg, 1829; Württemberg, 1832; Saxony, 1839 (on which occasion Zecharias Frankel published his famous "Die Eidesleistung"); Schaumburg-Lippe and Anhalt-Bernburg, 1842; and Hesse-Homburg, 1865.
Prussia retained the obnoxious formula until March 15, 1869; the Netherlands modified the oath in 1818, and Russia in 1838 and 1860. The Jewish advocate Isaac Adolphe Crémieux won great fame by effecting the abolition of the oath through a case brought before the court of Nîmes in 1827. Lazard Isidor, as rabbi of Pfalzburg, refused in 1839 to open the synagogue for such an oath; prosecuted for contempt of court, he was defended by Crémieux and acquitted. The French Supreme Court finally declared the oath unconstitutional on March 3, 1846. However, as late as 1902, a court in Romania upheld that country's version of the oath.
Read more about this topic: Oath More Judaico
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