this also did not occur. In 1844, when a later assembly of rabbis began their discussions in Braunschweig with a re-examination of the responses of the Sanhedrin® that effort was also not denounced except by the Orthodox community. The broader Jewish community gladly accepted the new status Napoleon granted even if it did not mean complete civil rights and congratulated the Emperor . The Jewish community had been launched into a new world; the ends were used to justify the means.
The Sanhedrin Napoleon had so cleverly revived could have been the mechanism for all further changes that were needed. This would have been challenged by the emerging Orthodoxy, but as it objected to everything else, it would have been possible to modify the ancient institution and revive it as a halakhic mechanism However, no one even considered this step. The single reappearance of the Sanhedrin on the stage of modern Jewish history in 1806 was considered enough.
The initial steps for women’s equality came from Israel Jacobson , the founder of the Reform movement,(1768-1828),” who established the first modern Jewish school for boys and girls in the small Jewish community of Seesen (Westphalia) in 1801.° Slightly later he introduced the ceremony of Confirmation, which represented graduation and coming of age for both boys and girls.” The establishment of this school for boys and girls, an innovation, was a personal decision of Jacobson and his coworkers, undertaken without halakhic discussion or rabbinic participation. The school in contrast to others of the same period followed a radical modern curriculum and was also open to non-Jewish students. A parallel step toward education specifically for girls also took place in 1801 in Dessau under the leadership of David Fraenkel(1779-1865), a well known Maskil, who enrolled twelve girls among his thirty students. The curriculum in that school was, however not innovative. Confirmation in Dessau was introduced for boys in 1809 and for girls in 1821.
a a TE,
or mT a TE= TE an OE= He« TT
— —_—