Court Jews’ privileges were greater than those of non-Jewish citizens.

Evidence

To the modern historian rights and liberties granted the court Jews during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may appear to be only the forerunners of equality: court Jews could live wherever they liked, they were permitted to travel freely within the realm of their sovereign, they were allowed to bear arms and had rights to special protection from local authorities. Actually these court Jews, characteristically called Generalprivilegierte Juden in Prussia, not only enjoyed better living conditions than their fellow Jews who still lived under almost medieval restrictions, but they were better off than their non-Jewish neighbors. Their standard of living was much higher than that of the contemporary middle class, their privileges in most cases were greater than those granted to the merchants. Nor did this situation escape the attention of their contemporaries. Christian Wilhelm Dolim, the outstanding advocate of Jewish emancipation in eighteenth-century Prussia, complained of the practice, in force since the time of Frederick William I, which granted rich Jews “all sorts of favors and support” often “at the expense of, and with neglect of diligent legal [that is, non-Jewish] citizens.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1967

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the narrative on Jewish emancipation and the later argument about Jewish statelessness and pariah status in the main chapters of this same book.