Alsatians complained to Napoleon that local Jews were ruining them through usury. Napoleon answered their complaints on April 30, 1806 when he told the Imperial Council it was “dangerous to allow so large a preponderance of the Jews, who constitute a state within a state, in a part of the French empire bordering on the territories of its enemies.”
His solution? Instead of further segregating or persecuting the Jews Napoleon advocated a novel idea: equality and opportunity.
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