FRANCIS I°

FRANCIS I °, Austrian emperor 1792–1835, last Holy Roman Emperor (as Francis ii) until 1806. In 1792 Francis ordered the Judenamt (office for Jewish affairs) to enforce the numerous restrictions on Jewish settlement in *Vienna and raised the Bolleten (tax paid by a Jew each time he entered the city). The preamble to his 1797 patent granted to Bohemian Jewry (see *Bohemia), proclaiming equality as its ultimate aim, raised expectations which remained unfulfilled. Most of the petitions for improvement of the status of the Jews addressed to him by representatives of the Jews in the empire were unanswered, though in 1798 Francis authorized the existence of 52 communities in *Moravia. He agreed to the official use of "Mr." instead of "Jew" in reference to Jewish citizens. During the Congress of *Vienna a petition requesting partial equality presented by B. *Eskeles, N.A. *Arnstein, and L. *Herz met with no success (see also *Metternich). In Francis' Italian provinces, however, *emancipation measures were not revoked. In Galicia, Francis supported Naphtali Herz *Homberg; knowledge of his catechism Benei Zion was made compulsory in 1810 for all Jewish couples registering their marriages. While regularly making use of Jewish finance and financial advice, Francis unhesitatingly blamed Jewish financiers for all the economic ills of the empire.

bibliography:

A.F. Pribram, Urkunden und Akten zur Geschichte der Juden in Wien, 1–2 (1918), index; M. Grunwald, Vienna (1936), 168–71; Kisch, in: hj, 8 (1946), 24; S. Baron, Die Judenfrage an dem Wiener Kongress (1920), 20–23, 118, 183; Dubnow, Weltgesch, 8 (1920–23), 280–93; R. Kestenberg-Gladstein, Neuere Geschichte der Juden in den boehmischen Laendern, 1 (1969), index.