Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

Brunswick, 26th July.

All the Jews of Germany have their eyes fixed on the Hebrew assembly, convoked at Paris by the emperor Napoleon. They all express the wish that H. M. would in like manner deign to take their lot into consideration and extend over them that beneficent solicitude, of which the Jews of the French empire are about to feel the happy effects. Mr. Jacobson, agent of Finances of the court of Brunswick, and founder of a Jewish school in that town, has just addressed to H. I. and R. M., a petition of which the following is an extract:

SIRE,

"Penetrated with sentiments of the deepest veneration and full of that admiration always excited by extraordinary men who, at different periods, are chosen by the eternal to ennoble the human race, I approach the throne of Y. M. with that confidence which the great actions inspire with which you make the astonished universe resound.

"I have not the happiness to be reckoned amongst those men to whose interest you sacrifice all your moments; I do not belong to that happy country to which you have called back peace.

"I form part of the unhappy Jewish nation, against whom ignorance and superstition are leagued, in order to debase it and make it become the opprobrium of every people. May the God of nations choose Y. M. to bring about the happiness of the world, and the Jews form part of this world. I belong to that people whose misery has implored in vain for more than a thousand years, the piety and humanity of Sovereigns; to that people who expected in you their saviour, and who have found him in you, Sire!

"I have constantly laboured, for several years past, to bring about the happiness of my nation by civilising it; my efforts have been crowned with the happiest successes; I have succeeded in interesting several German Princes in favor of the children of my nation; I have obtained for my unfortunate brothers the abolition of an infamous tax, I have established at my own expense an institution for the instruction of young Jewish children, and in which are now educated upwards of twenty Christians.

But at present I set no bounds to my hopes, since I have the happiness to elevate my supplicant voice to the throne of your majesty.

"Vouchsafe, Sire, to extend your beneficent intentions to the Jews who inhabit the countries which approximate to the vast empire. If your majesty confined your bounty to those of my brethren who are your subjects, how much would they not still have to wish for! How would they surmount the obstacles which the difference of the French administration and that of the other States continually places between them and us? The commercial relations of France and of Germany continually calling the Jews of the one nation to the other, what Jew inhabiting your states would come to sully the title of French citizen, by the modifications and vexations which the administrative order of Germany would make him experience? Will he choose his spouse from among a people defamed.

"What a great and sublime enterprise to break the chains of a people unjustly oppressed! What other than a God can listen to their complaints and free them from an insupportable yoke?......

"It is not the princes of Germany who oppose the accomplishment of this great work, it is on the contrary the object of their utmost wishes, they desire to improve our condition. We groan under ancient laws dictated by barbarism, and which prejudice alone has hitherto supported.

"The German Jew would be happy if he might be permitted to earn an honest livelihood; to enjoy the right of citizenship, and if a form and course were given to his worship, which, without departing from the law, might accord with the exercises of all the duties of a citizen.

"But in order to arrive at this end, it would be requisite; 1st, to establish a Jewish Sovereign Council, presided by a Patriarch, sitting in France; 2d, to divide the whole community into districts, each of which should have a particular Synod, which, under the superintendance of the French government and the Jewish Sovereign Council, should decide on all affairs concerning Worship and appoint the Rabbins; 3d, to authorise the said sovereign council to grant to every Jew the necessary dispensation in order to enable him to fulfil his duties of citizen in every country,

"These means, Sire, appear to be as certain as indispensable. Let the political and ecclesiastical chains be broken which still retain the Jew in servitude, and he will soon be seen to ennoble and raise himself to the rank of other men. Then indeed shall we walk in the steps of our ancestors, who changed into delicious gardens the barren rocks of Palestine, enriched them with the finest harvests, and who with the same hands which they set to the plough of the husbandman and the shuttle of the weaver, planted their victorious standards on the banks of Jordan."