How did anti-Semitism persist and develop in the 19th century?
v Damascus Affair 1840 in Syria
¨ Blood libel
¨ Jews were accused of killing a missionary monk in Damascus. The Christians couldn’t accuse the Muslims because they were Christian missionaries in a Muslim country, so they made up a blood libel against the Jews instead
¨ Muslim authorities investigated, couldn’t find any evidence, so they took some Jewish children as hostages and said they will torture the children until someone confesses. However, no one confessed because no one committed the murder
¨ The French consul agreed with the monks. This event became a worldwide scandal!
¨ Help
Ø Adolphe Cremieux and Sir Moses Montefoire came to help. They went to Egypt to Mehmet Ali and talked into freeing the survivors
Ø The US also sent a memo saying the libel was absurd
Ø Russia, the most anti-Semitic place on earth, also sent a message telling Ali to let the hostages go
v Mortara Affair
¨ Edgar Mortara was a wealthy Jewish child. He was always sick, and it tortured his Christian nanny that if he would go to hell if he died because he was not baptized. So one day, she secretly took Edgar to Church to baptize him just in case he died. But he got healthy and grew up. But one day, the police came and took him away for being a Christian in a Jewish home, and brought him to be raised by the Church. This caused a lot of upheaval among the Jewish community- so many people appealed to the Church, but they wouldn’t do anything about it. When he was 11, he was allowed to see his parents and told them to leave him alone. He grew up to become a priest, and there was nothing anyone could do about it
¨ This story shows that people felt Jews were inferior- old fashioned religion anti-Semitism
v 2 affairs à creation of the Alliance Israelite Universelle
¨ Defend Jewish rights
¨ Also helped Jews in poor countries get an education
4/28/11
v 2nd ½ of 19th century
¨ Germany
Ø Bismarck
Gave the Jews citizenship (they couldn’t get top government and military jobs)
However, anytime Bismarck had a problem he blamed the Jews
¶ Stock market problem
¶ Kulturkampf (Bismarck’s effort to fight and defeat the Church). When Bismarck failed, he blamed it on the Jews
Ø Other anti-Semites
Wilhelm Marr- called Jews a different group that did not belong in German life (coined the term anti-Semitism)
Richard Wagner- musician, denounced any Jewish influence in music (his music was played in the concentration camps)
Heinrich von Treitschke- German philosopher, “the Jews are our misfortune”
Ø Political anti-Semitism
1878 Adolf Stocker- Christian Social Workers Party
¶ Anti non-Christians, namely Jews
¶ Jews are not truly German and not truly loyal
1880 Anti-Semites petition
¶ People went around with petitions asking people to sign to take away Jewish citizenship and limit Jewish immigration
¶ 225,000 people signed the petition
1887 Anti-Semitic Peoples’ party
¨ Justification for modern anti-Semitism
Ø Needed a reason to hate Jews, and felt they couldn’t use the classic Christian reason (Christianity was dying down)
Ø Gobineau wrote a paper on French superiority à Germans argued for German superiority
Ø Anti-Semitism became based on “science”, not religion
Denied any contribution Jews made to society, which proved them useless
19th century- hated Jews because they were biologically inferior. This is a problem because there is no cure for/any way to stop biological inferiority à no possible way to improve Jews
4/29/11
v Dreyfus Affair
¨ Captain Dreyfus was not such a religious Jew (he didn’t keep Shabbat, Kosher, etc). His loyalty was to France, and all he wanted was to be an officer. Since France was open to Jews, it was possible for Dreyfus to become a Jewish officer in the French army (this shows how tolerant the French were to the Jews). Dreyfus was posted on the general staff (but he was still a captain) and was training for higher office
¨ Problem- Dreyfus was accused for treason!
Ø The French had a spy in the German Embassy, and the spy found a letter that had French military plans. France said it had to have been someone on the general staff, and they accused Dreyfus of sending this letter of French military plans to Germany
Ø Problems with the evidence
The handwriting in the letter was completely different from Dreyfus’ (but obviously he was a spy and used a different handwriting)
The French had virtually no evidence that Dreyfus was guilty
The absence of evidence against Dreyfus was taken as proof that he was the spy who sold French military secrets to the Germans (anti-Semitism at its finest- Dreyfus was the only Jew on the general staff)
¨ Dreyfus was arrested, degraded, and sent to jail
¨ The trial was a media sensation and watched and reported all over the world
Ø Side note: Theodor Herzl was the foreign correspondent for an Austrian newspaper. At first, he thought Dreyfus was guilty. However, he was horrified at the crowd at the trial- they were yelling “kill the Jews” à Herzl’s work for Zionism instead of assimilation (he believed assimilation was truly impossible)
¨ The army engaged in a real cover up- evidence in favor of Dreyfus was buried, and Major Picard who tried to help Dreyfus was sent off to a distant posting
¨ Emile Zola wrote a front page letter to the President of France- “J’Accuse”
Ø Named names, gave evidence, and could not be ignored
Ø Demanded that the French president take action and reinvestigate
¨ Eventually, the truth came out
Ø Dreyfus was given a pardon (which meant he was guilty but won’t be punished) but he didn’t really want it because he knew he didn’t do anything. Then, Dreyfus was restored to the army
Ø It was proven that Major Esterhazy was the spy
¨ The whole event split France
Ø Drefusards
Supported Dreyfus
Tended to be liberals and republicans
Ø Anti-Drefusards
Conservatives- monarchists, senior army people, and representatives of the Catholic Church
Ø Represents the struggle in France for liberal democracy
¨
v
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