Jews in the Napoleonic Wars and European armies

The French Revolution and the emancipation of the Jews opened the French armies to Jewish soldiers, and a significant number of them served under the Napoleonic Empire, contributing to their civic integration. Napoleon convened in 1806–1807 an Assembly of Notables and then a Grand Sanhedrin in order to define the relationship between Jewish law and citizenship. In Central and Eastern Europe, by contrast, conscription was often experienced as an ordeal: in Russia, the cantonist system instituted under Nicholas I from 1827 enrolled young Jewish boys for many years, under conditions frequently aimed at their conversion. Military service thus became a powerful factor of integration where it accompanied equality of rights, and an instrument of pressure elsewhere. These contrasting experiences illustrate the ambivalences of political modernity for Jewish communities.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe ↗