Jewish emancipation in Prussia

This collection contains research assembled by Shulamit Magnus on Jewish life in Prussia and consists entirely of photocopies of nineteenth century Prussian documents. Included are copies of address books for the city of Cologne as well as copies of transcriptions of Prussian government agencies' documents relating to Jews, including statistics of Jewish populations, government reports and official governmental correspondence. All transcriptions are typed; some photocopies of the original documents are included. Photocopies of documents were previously numbered and arranged in chronological order.

The first five folders of the collection consist of copies of address books for Cologne, showing the names, addresses and occupations of residents. They include a few notes that relate to the existence of Jewish-related locations such as synagogues.

The bulk of the collection consists of copies of transcriptions of Prussian government agencies' documents. These documents relate to numerous subjects and various locations within Prussia and were often written on behalf of government agencies, most frequently for officials in the Ministry of State (Staatsministerium) and the Ministry of Religion, Education and Medical Affairs (Ministerium der Geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medizinal-Angelegenheiten, usually abbreviated in the documents as MGUMA), but also for members of the Ministry of Justice (Justizministerium) and the Ministry of the Interior (Ministerium des Innern), among various others. Many of these documents consist of reports with statistics on Jews and Jewish life for various Prussian cities and towns, including statistics on the Jewish population, on Jewish religious, cultural and educational structures, and on Jewish businesses. Such statistics are especially prominent for the years of 1843 and 1845.

Another frequent subject of the Prussian documentation, especially among the later documents, is the citizenship of Jews; such documents include minutes of meetings of the Ministry of State and official correspondence considering this subject. Related are the decisions of, propositions for and minutes of meetings of the Rhenish and the Westphalian Provincial Parliaments (Provinziallandtage) related to the emancipation of Jews, which will be found in the folders of undated documents as well as of those from April-July 1843, January-March 1845, and April-December 1845. Later documents also frequently focus on questions related to the military service of Jews and, especially in documents from 1847-1849, the involvement of Jews in criminal activities.

The container list for this collection includes specific listings for each folder of locations for which there are reports or statistics as well as other prominent documents within folders.