Bleichröder et Crémieux

Résumé du livre

Jewish autonomy under Ottoman rule in the Romanian principalities was abolished by the Russian-imposed "Organic Regulations" after 1830, and the movement for emancipation of the Jews was blocked by Romanian nationalists. The 1866 Constitution, stating that only Christians could be Romanian citizens, resulted in a campaign of anti-Jewish persecutions and expulsions which aroused sharp reactions from Western Jews and their governments. Outlines the role of Adolphe Crémieux (of the Alliance Israelite Universelle) and of Bismarck's Jewish banker Bleichröder in making recognition of Romanian independence at the Berlin Congress (1878) conditional on the emancipation of Romanian Jewry as a whole. However, in order to protect German investments in the Romanian railways project, Bismarck compromised with the anti-Jewish Romanian policy-makers and accepted individual naturalization for Jews. Includes correspondence between Crémieux and Bleichröder.