Jewish disabilities were legal restrictions, limitations and obligations placed onEuropean Jews in theMiddle Ages. In Europe, the disabilities imposed on Jews included provisions requiring Jews to wear specific and identifying clothing such as theJewish hat and theyellow badge, payingspecial taxes, swearingspecial oaths, living in certainneighbourhoods, and forbidding Jews to enter certaintrades. 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 outrightexpelled Jews, for exampleEngland in 1290 (Jews were readmitted in 1655) andSpain in 1492 (readmitted in 1868).
The disabilities began to be lifted withJewish emancipation in the late 18th and 19th centuries. In 1791,Revolutionary France was the first country to abolish disabilities altogether, followed byHungary in 1840[1] andPrussia in 1848.Hungary enacted the full emancipation on 29 July 1849.[2]Emancipation of the Jews in the United Kingdom was achieved in 1858 after an almost 30-year struggle championed byIsaac Lyon Goldsmid[3] with the ability of Jews to sit in parliament with the passing of theJews Relief Act 1858. The newly unitedGerman Empire abolished Jewish disabilities in Germany in 1871.[4]The first Jewish settlers in North America arrived in the Dutch colony ofNew 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 1671Asser Levy was the first Jew to serve on a jury in North America.[5]
In theRussian Empire Jewish disabilities were completely abolished after theRussian Revolution in 1917.[6]
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