Michael Kadish
It's painfully obvious when looking at Napoleon's questions to the Jewish elders, and their responses, that the Jews were willing to sacrifice the truth in order to obtain the citizenship offered. They answered the questions proffered in such a round about way, to either avoid an answer that the French would not want find to their liking, or to intentionally misunderstand the question. Their answer to the ninth question, concerning Jewish businesses was a clear diversion from the question.
To the Elders' credit, they never devalued any part of the religion. They ignored many Rabbis' positions when they said that the Christians were not polytheistic, they ignored the reaction of most families towards an intermarriage, but they never said that any one part of their religion wasn't important. However, in order to answer the questions, specifically number nine, concerning whether there are any businesses Jews cannot enter, they did simply sidestep the question.
Napoleon's logic for asking it would seem to be that he didn't want to hear Jews respond that they couldn't do X, for it was against there religion. There are obvious jobs that quite definitely a Jew is not permitted to perform. A Jew can't be a religious leader in a different religion, nor can a Jew take many jobs that most of the world sees as immoral; hitman, prostitute, thief, etc.
But, there are "normal" jobs that a Jew cannot do according to halacha. A Jew cannot be a farmer, if he has to graft, because grafting is forbidden. A Jew cannot be a mortician, should he ever have to perform autopsies, which are also forbidden. A Jew cannot be a sculptor, should he have to carve human forms, which violates the commandment against creating graven images. A Jew cannot be a reporter, unless they have somehow mastered the extremely complex laws of Lashon Ha'ra, the rules against gossip.
Yet, the elders' response was that there is no trade banned. They went on to give the unrelated assurance that every Jewish father was to teach their child a trait.
That wasn't what was asked by the French, and that wasn't what the assurance they were looking for. The French wanted to make sure that no Jew could say that the job was against his religion. If pressed, the elders, given the way they phrased themselves, could then explain that a Jew COULD do any job.
But, they couldn't do the normal things associated with the job. It was such an extreme problem, that the elders placed their answer in a very positive light, so that the steps to break down the truth would be harder. It is extremely close to a lie.
It's as if a new job would be created, with the word Jewish being a prefixual adjective of the normal job. A Jewish farmer can't graft trees. A Jewish mortician can only clean bodies. A Jewish reporter could not tell about anybody who wasn't there, or if all parties didn't approved of the story. A Jewish hunter, following the laws of kashrut could only hunt with a long, sharp knife, only with certain animals, and almost never with an animal in the wild.
I'm not saying that the elders' "misunderstanding" of the question was a bad thing. If offered a freedom that had never been given to my people before, I would probably also give my answers spun in such a way that would assure the questioners, that granting me this gift would not cause a problem.
But the fact is, they sidestepped the question that they knew would be a problem. Rather than get the definitive problems that would arise out of the way, they misread the question so as not to expose the dangerous answer.
