\nwith the collection describes one of the folders as containing an edict
\nregarding taxation of the Jewish community of Metz, and the manuscript “Rapport
\nrelativement \u00e0 une contestation entre les juifs de Metz et les juifs de la campagne” (circa 1791; French; manuscript; 11 pages + 2
\nunnumbered pages) regarding the Brancas tax, enacted 1715 as a tribute tax on
\nthe Jewish community for the duke of Brancas.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/b2607c85556da7aab5f3c523d960c8cc\/tumblr_inline_ohiijnImZz1r0yq0k_540.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\u00a0“Rapport relativement \u00e0 une
\ncontestation entre les juifs de Metz et les juifs de la campagne” (circa
\n1791; French; manuscript; 11 pages +2 unnumbered pages) Metz Jewish Community
\nCollection<\/i>,<\/i> 1700-1799.<\/i> \u00a0<\/i>Leo
\nBaeck Institute Archives<\/i>.
<\/i><\/p>\nPhoto credit:
\nShayna Marchese<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nJust a bunch of tax
\ndocuments, right? Maybe not\u2026<\/p>\nA multilingual friend roughly
\ntranslated the title of the 1791 manuscript to a \u201creport
\nrelating to a dispute between the Jews from Metz and the Jews from the
\ncountryside.\u201d <\/p>\nHmm. That sounds more interesting than tax
\ndocuments. <\/p>\n\u201cI may not be an historian,\u201d I thought, \u201cbut I know
\nhow to work the internet,\u201d and I began to read about the city of Metz, and it
\nwas fascinating. Much of the following information was gathered from jewishencyclopedia.com
\n<\/a>and jewishvirtuallibrary.org<\/a>.<\/p>\nCurrently situated in France near the northeast
\nborder, Metz has proximity to Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany. Jews originally
\nsettled in Metz, a German fortified city in Lorraine, in the year 221, and
\nlived relatively peacefully alongside Christians all the way to the 11th<\/sup>
\ncentury, when the Crusades scattered the Jewish population. <\/p>\nThose returning during the 13th<\/sup> and 14th<\/sup>
\ncenturies found refuge, but had taxes levied upon them for protection. They
\nwere again expelled in 1365 after being assigned the blame for a disastrous
\nfire caused by lightning, and remained at large until France took possession of
\nMetz in 1567, when the Marshal of Vieilleville admitted a number of Jewish
\nfamilies. By the turn of the 17th<\/sup> century the French had recognized
\nthe elected officials of the Jewish Community as intermediaries to the city
\ngovernment. <\/p>\nThe Jewish Community of Metz grew steadily under
\nFrench rule, and by the end of the 18th<\/sup> century were considered
\ncitizens of France. But the period was not uneventful for the Jews, having
\nsurvived multiple changes of French rule, including taking a supportive
\npatriotic role in the revolution, in defense of the city. We find evidence of
\nalternating persecution and acceptance throughout the entire history of Metz,
\nbut the Jewish community there has persevered and often prospered for almost
\ntwo thousand years.<\/p>\nThese documents, the manuscript, the scraps of
\nevidence, all provide illustration of a crucial moment in that history. The 18th<\/sup>
\ncentury was one of several periods of over-taxation that resulted in the
\ncommunity fighting back and ultimately gaining citizenship and the official
\nacceptance of Judaism. <\/p>\nHaving finally understood
\nwhat it was about this collection that felt so important, I asked Michael
\nSimonson, Archivist for the Leo Baecke Institute, to contribute his insight
\ninto the importance of these materials. The following is Michael\u2019s thoughtful analysis:<\/p>\n\nThe Metz Jewish Community
\nCollection came to the Leo Baeck Institute in the decades immediately after the
\nSecond World War.\u00a0 The Jews of Metz, and indeed of all of the
\nAlsace-Lorraine region, were expelled almost immediately after the Nazi
\noccupation in June 1940.\u00a0Many of these people, now caught in central and
\nwestern France, were to undergo the restrictions, persecutions, and
\ndeportations that took place under the occupation.\u00a0 Alsace-Lorraine had a
\nnumber of very old Jewish communities, and when the war ended some of the
\ncommunity records were discovered, salvaged and deposited at the Leo Baeck
\nInstitute.<\/p>\nThe records of the Jewish Community of Metz found at the Leo Baeck Institute
\ncomprise receipts that track a history of payments forced upon the Jewish
\nCommunity of Metz. These date from the 18th<\/sup>
\ncentury. There is further a decree from 1724 regarding the taxation of
\nthe Jews of Metz by the French authorities, and a manuscript from the same time
\nperiod about the Brancas Tax.\u00a0 Established in 1715, the Brancas Tax was a
\nregular fine on the Jews of Metz as payment to the Duke of Brancas, in exchange
\nfor his \u201cprotection.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0There were numerous other taxes on the Jewish
\ncommunity throughout the 18th<\/sup> century as well. The debts of the
\ncommunity became enormous, reaching 500,000 livres by the time of the French
\nRevolution. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Following the French Revolution there were active attempts
\nto stop the heavy taxation, particularly the Brancas Tax, and many of these
\nwere discontinued as the 19th<\/sup> century began.\u00a0 One item in the
\ncollection is a manuscript, written probably around 1740, about the Brancas Tax
\nand its heavy financial toll on the Jewish community at the time.\u00a0 By
\npreserving these financial receipts of the Jewish community, we can see the
\nways that anti-Semitism worked economically to oppress Jews and Jewish life in
\nthe 18th<\/sup> century in Metz.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThis has been a tremendously rewarding investigation,
\nranging from the microscopic examination of a few grains of sand, to an
\nappreciation of an entire community\u2019s plight under Nazi occupation, and beyond.
\nI hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this ride as much as I have, thanks for taking it with
\nme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dong Eun Kim, Head Conservator, Center for Jewish History Michael Simonson, Archivist and Registrar, Leo Baeck Institute Post 3 In the previous blog post, the Werner J. and Gisella Levi Cahnman Conservation Laboratory had received the Leo Baeck Institute\u2019s Metz Jewish Community Collection for assessment and treatment. The Conservators in the lab were captivated by these artifacts; we felt there was something truly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[176,178,137,177,179],"class_list":["post-1280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-conservation","tag-dong-eun-kim","tag-leo-baeck-institute-collections","tag-metz","tag-michael-simonson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}