This open letter, printed as a brochure, must be seen in conjunction with the
recent achievement of
civil
equality for Jews in
Hamburg in 1860. It documents a related problem, namely the question
of whether, in spite of
Emancipation, a separate Jewish welfare system ought to continue. The
authors of this document were all members of the “Committee for the Poor”
of the
German Israelite Congregation.
This body supervised communal welfare activities. The letter was addressed to
the supervisory committee of the
Congregation. The authors positioned themselves in the debate
concerning the future of the
Congregation vis-à-vis its welfare institutions, now that the
constitutional changes of 1860 placed the Jews of
Hamburg on
an equal footing with non-Jews. Inside the
Congregation’s Council,
disunity prevailed as to whether the continuation of a separate Jewish welfare
system was absolutely necessary, given the elimination of Congregational
self-rule. A minority among the superintendents argued that
the Jewish needy should, from now on, turn primarily to the public domain. The
majority saw things differently, and the open letter reflected its opinion. It
spelled out in a particularly emphatic way the paramount importance of Jewish
welfare activities for the social cohesion and preservation of identity for the
Jews of the
Hansa
city.
The Committee for the Poor of the German Israelite Congregation: “To the honorable Supervisory Committee of the German Israelite Congregation” (15.4.1863), Hamburg, pp. 1-11 (translated by Richard S. Levy), edited in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History,
<https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-26.en.v1> [October 11, 2024].