Until the 1890s German Jews' behaviour in the intolerant social climate of the Kaiserreich was guided by the principle that ‘stepchildren must behave twice as well’. The style of their public activities was cautious and reserved. The early 1890s, however, saw a profound change. Now the Jewish community became much more open, self-assertive, sometimes even belligerent. The contention here is that these changes were closely connected with the entrance into the field of Jewish politics of a new generation, with a distinct set of formative generational experiences.

The aim of this essay is to describe the nature of German Jewry's public activities before the 1890s, examine the changes that then took place, and finally establish and explain the connections between those changes and the age and generational experiences of the various groups of activists that had initiated them.

Since their emancipation in 1871 (1869 in the North German Confederation) the Jews of Wilhelmine Germany had theoretically been equal before the law, but in practice continued to be subject to a variety of forms of discrimination. Their position within German society can best be illustrated by a little story that appeared in some Jewish newspapers in 1891. The story began with a report in the Berlin daily Berliner Boersen-Courier to the effect that the officers of the Prussian Second Guards regiment, stationed in Berlin, had spent a quiet evening with their wives in a Jewish kosher hotel, having been taken there by the regimental doctor, himself a Jew.On learning about the report, the officers of that regiment had immediately prosecuted the editor and reporter for libel.