A Program of Enhancement – Swiss Liberalism and the Emancipation of the Jews

When modern Switzerland was founded in 1848, the new liberal constitution denied equal rights to the Jewish inhabitants. They had no general right of establishment throughout the country, they were discriminated against in court, and their business was legally obstructed in many ways. These anti-Jewish restrictions were abolished only 18 years later, when foreign pressure made it economically damaging for Switzerland to maintain the discriminatory laws.

But this is only half the story. In my paper I will show, that throughout the first half of the 19^th Century, the Swiss Liberals, too, discussed the issue of Jewish emancipation. While still considered foreigners around 1800, the Jews in Switzerland came into focus as potential citizens in the following decades. And yet it was common knowledge among ‘enlightened’ Liberals that before giving them equal rights, the Jews had to be culturally and morally enhanced and educated. This typical discourse of “Enhancement” had politically ambivalent consequences: On the one hand, the Jews were considered capable of becoming full citizens, on the other hand, they were considered a potential threat to society, which could even lead to further discriminatory legislation.

I will examine both these strands of the emancipation discourse and their consequences in legislation (eg. more money for improved school education, but also prohibition of “Jewish” peddling) and the reaction of the Jewish community to it. I will argue that the ambivalent stand of the Swiss Liberals towards Jewish “ability to improve” to be the main reason for the delayed emancipation after 1848.