Disabilities (Jewish)
Jewish disabilities were legal restrictions, limitations and obligations placed on European Jews in the Middle Ages, somewhat analogous to those imposed on Jews in the Muslim world. In Europe, the disabilities imposed on Jews included provisions requiring Jews to wear specific and identifying clothing such as the Jewish hat and the yellow badge, paying special taxes, swearing special oaths, living in certain neighbourhoods, and forbidding Jews to enter certain trades. In Sweden, for example, Jews were forbidden to sell new pieces of clothing. Disabilities also included special taxes levied on Jews, exclusion from public life, restraints on the performance of religious ceremonies, and linguistic censorship. Some countries went even further and outright expelled Jews, for example England in 1290 and Spain in 1492.
The disabilities began to be lifted with Jewish emancipation in the late 18th and the 19th century. In 1791, Revolutionary France was the first country to abolish disabilities altogether, followed by Prussia in 1848. Emancipation of the Jews in the United Kingdom was achieved in 1858 after an almost 30-year struggle championed by Isaac Lyon Goldsmid with the ability of Jews to sit in parliament with the passing of the Jews Relief Act 1858. The newly united German Empire abolished Jewish disabilities in Germany in 1871.
The first Jewish settlers in North America arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1654. They were forbidden to hold public office, open a retail shop, or establish a synagogue. When the colony was seized by the British in 1664 Jewish rights remained unchanged, but by 1671 Asser Levy was the first Jew to serve on a jury in North America.
In the Russian Empire Jewish disabilities were completely abolished after the Russian Revolution in 1917, in which Jews had a prominent role.Soviet Russia had the largest population of Jews in Europe. However, extralegal antisemitic feelings and policies remained.
