(1840–1878)
On the evening of February 5, 1840, a monk known as Father Thomas and his servant, Ibrahim Amara, disappeared without a trace in Damascus, Syria. Within weeks, Christians in the city were accusing Jews of murdering the two men. Newspapers around the world carried the story. In March, the editor of a Paris newspaper proclaimed, “Rightly or wrongly, the Jews… have the terrifying and inconceivable reputation of sacrificing a Christian on their Passover and distributing the blood to their coreligionists in the region.”1 “And all of this is happening in 1840,” wrote the editor of another paper, horrified at the idea of ritual murder in his own time.
A contemporary drawing of Father Thomas and his servant.
How did a disappearance become a possible murder and then a “ritual murder”? Why were people who lived thousands of miles from Damascus so interested in the story? How do Jews or any other people combat a lie about “terrifying and inconceivable” crimes—particularly when such a lie erupts at a time when most people like to think of themselves as modern, even “enlightened”?
Many people in the 1800s believed that they had cast off the prejudices of earlier times. Indeed, some devoted their lives to undoing the great injustices of earlier, less enlightened eras. One western European nation after another granted Jews their rights as citizens. In 1861, Russia freed its serfs; four years later, the United States abolished slavery; and in 1876, reluctantly and under great pressure, the Ottoman Empire granted non-Muslims civic equality (which was, however, later revoked).
And yet despite such progress, discrimination and persecution persisted throughout the 1800s. Instead of turning to reason and science to challenge old myths and misinformation, many people used reason and science to justify their prejudices. In the early 1800s, Frederick Douglass, an African American who fought slavery, explained:
It is the province of prejudice to blind; and scientific writers, not less than others, write to please, as well as to instruct, and even unconsciously… sometimes sacrifice what is true to what is popular. Fashion is not confined to dress; but extends to philosophy as well—and it is fashionable now in our land to exaggerate the differences between the [African American] and the European.2
It was also fashionable to exaggerate differences between the Jew and the European. When the disappearance of Father Thomas and his servant led to charges of ritual murder against prominent Jews in Damascus, a number of educated people in Europe and the Middle East readily believed the accusation—not because they saw Jews as a threat to Christianity or Islam but because they saw Jews as a separate and dangerous “race.” Their responses reveal much about the way individuals and groups adapt the myths and stereotypes of earlier times to current events. The Damascus affair also reveals the impact of nationalism and racism on antisemitism.
In 1840, about 100,000 people lived in Damascus, the capital of Syria. To Europeans, its crowded markets and narrow streets gave it an air of remoteness and mystery. To people in the Middle East and North Africa, it was a center of trade where camel caravans stopped on their way to Baghdad in the east or Beirut to the north. Although Damascus was mainly a Muslim city, it was also home to about 12,000 Christians of various denominations and about 5,000 Jews. Each group lived in its own quarter, but people of all faiths mingled in the markets, and some knew one another socially as well. Both Christians and Jews had a long history in the city, dating back more than 18 centuries.
In 1840, the Ottoman Empire was not as powerful as it had been in earlier times; Syria, for example, was under Egyptian rule, even though it was officially part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1831, Muhammad Ali, the viceroy of Egypt, had driven the Ottomans out of Syria and made his adopted son, Sherif Pasha, governor-general. But that victory did not end the dispute over the territory.
That dispute between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire attracted attention in several European nations whose leaders were eager to expand their economic and political influence in the region. Throughout the 1800s, these nations competed for colonies, markets, and influence. France, which had occupied Algeria since 1830, hoped to gain additional territory in North Africa and the Middle East; its leaders supported Egypt and Muhammad Ali. Therefore Austria and Britain backed the Ottoman sultan as a way of preventing French expansion.
To make things more confusing, a few people in Syria in 1840 were not under the protection of the Ottomans or the Egyptians. Among them was Father Thomas. Even though he had lived in Damascus for more than 30 years, he and other Catholic missionaries in the region were under French protection. As European influence in the Middle East increased, France and other European nations had placed a number of people in Syria under their protection. The sultan had recognized their right to do so in various treaties; so had Muhammad Ali. Like Father Thomas, most of these people had been born in Europe but now lived in the region; a few had been born in Syria but had business dealings with various European nations.
Soon after Father Thomas disappeared, the monks notified the Count de Ratti-Menton, the French consul in Syria. Three weeks later, Ratti-Menton sent a report to his superiors that emphasized the victim’s connections to France:
An appalling drama has just stained the city of Damascus in blood. The fact that the principal victim had direct ties to the [French] consulate; that he occupied a position that was both public and consecrated; that those who played the primary role in this scene of murder enjoy a [high] social position; and above all, that their actions were inspired by an anti-human idea, all conjoin to justify the length and detail of what I am about to report.
On the afternoon of the 5th of this month, Father Thomas, a… missionary and chaplain of the French Capuchin monastery at Damascus, left in the direction of the Jewish quarter in order to put up a notice on the door of one of the synagogues about an auction for the benefit of a poor European family. He was due on the following day, the 6th, to have dinner with the other members of the religious orders at Dr. Massari’s where he failed to appear. His absence was rendered the more unusual by the fact that he was not at the monastery at the usual time for the celebration of the mass and also by the simultaneous disappearance of his only domestic servant. However, this could initially be explained by the supposition that Father Thomas had gone to one of the neighboring villages in order to vaccinate some of the children there.
Informed of what had happened, I went to the monastery where the street was full of Christians from all the different sects who were shouting that Father Thomas had been slain by the Jews.3
On Friday, February 7, Ratti-Menton reported the disappearance to the Egyptian governor-general, Sherif Pasha, and asked his permission to lead police in a search of the Jewish quarter, which was believed to be the last place the two men had been seen. As a result of that search, Ratti-Menton brought a barber named Solomon Halek to the French consulate for questioning. Halek was singled out because the notice Father Thomas had taken to the Jewish quarter hung on a wall near his shop. Still, after three days of interrogation, the barber continued to insist that he knew nothing. Describing Halek’s refusal to talk as “obstinate silence,” Ratti-Menton claimed that he had no choice but to turn the man over to Sherif Pasha.
The French consul knew exactly what would happen next. Even though France and other western European nations had outlawed torture as a “barbarous practice”—one that too often resulted in false admissions of guilt—torture was routine in the Ottoman Empire. After beatings so brutal that he was unable to sit, Halek “confessed.” He told the authorities that Thomas had been brought to the home of a Jewish businessman. There, several Jews, including a rabbi, had bound the monk and then slit his throat. The account continued:
[The Jews] collected the blood in a large silver bowl, because it was to serve for their [Passover] holiday. They stripped the dead friar of his vestments… took his body to another room, cut it to pieces, and crushed its bones with an iron grinder. They put everything into a big coffee sack and threw it into a ditch. Then they poured the blood into bottles, which they gave to the rabbi.4
This was the same “blood libel” that had been used against Jews throughout Europe and the Middle East for more than 600 years (see Chapter 5).
Sherif Pasha and Ratti-Menton kept written records of their dealings with every witness and every suspect. They quoted the barber as saying, “Go to the important people in the quarter and they will settle everything.”5 As a result, seven of the richest and most respected Jews in the city were arrested. They too “confessed” after torture so brutal that two of them died. The authorities then searched for evidence but found nothing. Rather than reconsider the theories about the supposed crime, Sherif Pasha took hostages—60 boys ranging in age from 5 to 11—in the hope that their frightened parents would “talk.”
Ratti-Menton claimed that at first he had been skeptical that “the Jews” “employ human blood in the celebration of their religious mysteries,” but with “the mounting evidence,” he overcame his doubts (see Chapter 5). What was that evidence? Essentially, it consisted of little more than a few forced confessions and the discovery of a handful of possibly human bones in a sewer in the Jewish quarter.
Early in the investigation, a young Jew named Isaac Yavo reluctantly told the chief rabbi of Damascus that he had seen Father Thomas and his servant in another part of the city on the night of February 5. He had even spoken to them. Knowing that the authorities firmly believed that the Jews they had in custody were guilty of murder, the rabbi tried to make sure that Yavo would be safe if he testified. Ratti-Menton assured the rabbi that no honest witness had anything to fear. As a result, Yavo agreed to tell his story.
The French questioned Yavo for three days and then turned him over to Sherif Pasha for “further interrogation.” Pasha later issued a statement explaining what happened next. It was summarized in this report to the French government:
As the place where this young man stated that he had seen the monk is situated in the west of the town while the Jewish quarter is in the east, he [Sherif Pasha] realized that [Yavo] was therefore lying; he asked [the young man] whether he had not been coached by anybody, but he denied it. He was then flogged; he confessed nothing and was taken to the prison where he died.6
Yavo’s death was a turning point for many Jews in Damascus. They now understood that the authorities were interested only in “evidence” that would “prove” Jews had committed a ritual murder. Several events over the next few weeks confirmed that conclusion. The authorities quickly arrested five more men—this time for the murder of Father Thomas’s servant. Once again, the men charged were among the most prominent Jews in the city, including the chief rabbi. These new prisoners were also subjected to torture; one man died, bringing the death toll to four. But this time two men—the chief rabbi and Moses Salonicli, a merchant—refused to confess to crimes they had not committed.
Charges of ritual murder against Jews were not unusual in the Middle East. Throughout the early nineteenth century, Christians in the Ottoman Empire had accused Jews of ritual murder—in Aleppo in 1810, Beirut in 1824, Antioch in 1826, Hama in 1829, Tripoli in 1834, and Jerusalem in 1838, to name a few. The Ottoman authorities had not punished Jews in any of these cases.
This time was different, because the libelous accusation had the backing of not only the French consul but also nearly every European and American diplomat in the region. The American vice-consul stationed in Beirut claimed in a letter to the U.S. secretary of state that “a most barbarous secret for a long time suspected in the Jewish nation… at last came to light in the city of Damascus, that of serving themselves of Christian blood in their unleavened bread at Easter, a secret which in these 1840 years must have made many unfortunate victims.”7
Casper Merlato, the Austrian consul, warned Jews under his protection that “the secret guarded by the Jewish nation would serve no purpose and would only prove prejudicial to the innocent.” He also congratulated Sherif Pasha on the “zeal and vigor” with which he was conducting the case.8
Why were Europeans so certain Jews were responsible? Were they blinded by old stereotypes and myths? Were they motivated by economic and social competition between Christians and Jews in a city where both were vulnerable minorities? Or were they taking advantage of a local dispute in order to advance their national interests? There are no clear answers. We only know that they were united in their thinking until one European had second thoughts.
Within days of declaring his support for Sherif Pasha, the Austrian consul challenged the entire investigation. Merlato reconsidered his stand in March, soon after the authorities accused more Jews of murdering Father Thomas’s servant. Among them was Isaac Picciotto, a young Jewish merchant under Austria’s protection. As soon as Picciotto was named a suspect, Merlato told the French consul and Sherif Pasha that he would be tried under Austrian law.
Without waiting for a reply, Merlato and his staff began questioning Picciotto, and they quickly discovered that he had a solid alibi. On the evening of February 5, Picciotto and his wife had attended a party in the Christian quarter. The host, an employee of the British East India Company, confirmed the alibi. Other people also recalled seeing Picciotto and his wife that evening. Yet in spite of this strong alibi, Ratti-Menton and Sherif Pasha continued to insist that Picciotto was guilty.
After much negotiation, Merlato allowed Ratti-Menton and Sherif Pasha to question Picciotto. But unlike the other prisoners, Picciotto never faced his interrogators alone. He was always accompanied by an Austrian official, who was there solely to ensure that he was not mistreated. The consul was making it clear to everyone involved in the case that Austria would do everything possible to protect Picciotto’s rights.
Like Ratti-Menton, Merlato reported the interrogations to his superior, Anton von Laurin, the Austrian consul-general in Alexandria, Egypt. He emphasized that the case against the prisoners was based entirely on forced confessions. There was no evidence to support the idea that the two men were dead, let alone murder victims. Merlato asked von Laurin to transfer the case to Egypt “to prevent not only a subject of our empire, but any European whosoever, from being handed over… to the horrors of this infamous judicial inquisition.”9
Von Laurin was one of the few diplomats in the Middle East who did not believe that Jews engaged in ritual murder. When Merlato changed his mind about the case, von Laurin supported the consul’s new stand. He also asked Muhammad Ali to intervene. To add weight to the request, he persuaded other European diplomats in Alexandria to support the call for a new investigation. Only the French refused.
The increasingly uncompromising stand taken by the Austrian diplomats placed Sherif Pasha in a difficult situation. The only way he could get a confession from Picciotto was to use torture. But to do so in defiance of a powerful European nation would be dangerous to him and to his father, Muhammad Ali. At a time when European rulers were competing for colonies, many were willing to use any excuse to attack a weaker country. So even though Sherif Pasha bombarded Merlato with complaints, he made no effort to torture Picciotto or take him into his own custody. At the same time, Sherif Pasha slowed the pace of the interrogations and released the children he had been holding hostage. It was becoming clear to him that the fate of his prisoners would be decided in Egypt, not Syria.
As the case was winding down in Damascus, however, it took on new urgency elsewhere. As the story spread through the Middle East, anger against Jews grew in many other cities. A Jew in Beirut wrote in March, “[W]e can hardly leave our homes. Everybody, great and small alike, attacks us and forces their way into our houses. We are utterly abased.”10
Tensions were also high in Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and the island of Rhodes.
Indeed, Christians in Rhodes had charged Jews with another ritual murder at around the same time. On February 17, a young Greek Orthodox boy had failed to return home from an errand. The next day his mother appealed to the authorities for help. When the boy was still missing after a few days, the European consuls put pressure on the local government to solve the case. The agitation increased when news of the Damascus affair reached Rhodes.
In the 1840s, news traveled slowly—the first telegraph line was not built until 1844, and the telephone was not invented until the 1870s. Using the fastest transportation available, it took about 20 days for a letter from Syria to reach Paris or Vienna. As a result, most Europeans were unaware of the events unfolding in Damascus until early March when a steady stream of letters arrived from a variety of sources. Frantic Jews in the Middle East wrote to relatives, friends, and anyone who could possibly help. Letters also came from European diplomats, businessmen, missionaries, and travelers.
Anton von Laurin, the Austrian consul-general in Alexandria, sent one of those letters to James Rothschild, a member of one of the richest and most influential Jewish families in the 1800s. James’s father, Mayer Rothschild, had made his fortune buying and selling antique coins and medals in the Frankfurt ghetto in what is now Germany. Later he branched out into money lending and investment banking. In time, his sons joined the business. Each set up a branch in a major European city: Amschel, the oldest, remained in Frankfurt, Nathan settled in London, Solomon in Vienna, James in Paris, and Karl in Naples. During the Napoleonic wars, the brothers had increased the family’s wealth by lending money to governments and transporting gold and other precious metals across enemy lines for the British, Prussian, and Austrian armies.
The letter von Laurin sent to James Rothschild detailed everything he knew about the Damascus affair. It was not the only letter Rothschild and his brothers received. Jews in Istanbul and Jerusalem, Christian missionaries, heads of Jewish charities in Syria, and many others also pleaded with the brothers to intervene. In 1840, there was nowhere else to turn for help.
Although many people believed that the Rothschild family had enormous power, the brothers were acutely aware of the limits of their influence. Antisemitism affected all Jews, including the very rich. For example, the emperor of Austria made Solomon Rothschild an honorary citizen and awarded him the title of baron in recognition of his contributions to the empire. Yet, as a Jew, Solomon could only be an “honorary citizen,” not a real one. He and his family lived in a hotel, because no Jew—not even one with the title of baron—could buy a house in Vienna. That right was reserved for Christians.
A few days after sending his first letter to James Rothschild, Anton von Laurin sent a second letter, informing Rothschild that the situation was getting worse and urging that he go to the newspapers with the story, because they would “raise a cry of horror.”11
Von Laurin had no way of knowing that the story was already headline news in Europe. And most of the early newspaper accounts supported the French consul and Sherif Pasha. These papers spoke of the “barbarity of the Jews,” denounced the “horror of the crime,” and expressed outrage at “human sacrifices.” Why were European editors so certain that “the Jews” were guilty of such terrible crimes? No newspaper in the 1840s had a single reporter in any foreign country. The press got its information from Europeans in the area—in this case, in Damascus and nearby cities.
Some Jews responded to the sensational stories with indignant letters to the editor. One of those letters was written at the request of James Rothschild, based on information from von Laurin and others in the region. The author was Adolphe Crémieux, the vice president of the Central Consistory of French Jews (see Chapter 9). His letter changed the way the Damascus affair was treated in the French press.
Crémieux claimed that he spoke, “in the name of your Jewish fellow-citizens whom your report has shocked; in the name of all the Jews throughout the world who will protest en masse; and in the name of the Damascus Jews over whom at this very moment the sword of death may be poised.”12 He began by questioning the assumptions made by the authorities in Damascus. Why would a few wealthy Jews plotting a horrendous crime have let a stranger—Solomon Halek, the barber—in on their scheme? How likely was it that murderers eager to escape detection would dispose of “the bones” of their victim near their own homes? And finally, why would Jews be collecting blood for Passover two months early?
On the issue of ritual murder, Crémieux pointed out that Jewish law does not permit Jews to eat eggs that have a blood spot. How likely was it, he asked, that such a religion would allow the use of blood to make unleavened bread?
Although the letter did not stop talk of ritual murder, it did change the tone of the newspaper stories. One paper backed off, declaring, “We had not intended to be understood as guaranteeing the truth of this accusation.” In other words, that paper and others like it had printed whatever information they received without questioning its truth or its logic.
The Rothschilds and other Jewish leaders also met privately with heads of government and religious leaders. Their success varied. The Austrian and British governments were eager to help, mainly because it was in their interest to do so. Both saw the affair as an opportunity to embarrass France. Some Jews tried to persuade Pope Gregory XVI to speak out, but he chose to remain silent and banned all public discussion of the affair in Rome. When asked for permission to reprint statements made by earlier popes condemning Christians who accused Jews of ritual murder (see Chapter 5), the pope refused.
Adolphe Thiers, the French prime minister, was also silent. In an effort to force him to speak, Benoît Fould, the only Jew in the Chamber of Deputies, gave a speech on June 2 in which he charged:
The disappearance of the [monk] became an occasion for deliberate religious persecution. The consul of France incites to torture: at a time when the French nation offers an example not only of equality before the law, but of religious equality, it is a Frenchman who instigates exceptional [police] measures, who has recourse to torture, who upholds arbitrary measures [and] the executioners of the Pasha.13
In response, Thiers declared, “The more [Ratti-Menton and his colleagues] are attacked by foreign agents, the firmer will be my support for them, above all when they are attacked by the interested parties [such as Britain and Austria].” The deputies applauded.
Nevertheless, as people around the world followed the debate, public opinion began to shift. On July 8, at a meeting in London, Christian clergymen and members of Britain’s Parliament joined others in England in protesting the tortures and the charges of ritual murder. Similar rallies took place in Paris, New York City, and Philadelphia. U.S. President Martin Van Buren sent letters to the U.S. consul in Alexandria and the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, asking them to help Jews in Damascus. American diplomats throughout the region, including the vice-consul in Beirut, quickly adjusted their stand on the case.
By early summer, Jewish leaders in Paris and London were planning a trip to Egypt to try to resolve the crisis. Adolphe Crémieux and Moses Montefiore, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, headed the mission. Montefiore was an Orthodox Jew whose activism was rooted in his religious beliefs. Crémieux was a secular Jew—one who is not observant but who identifies with Jews as a people. His activism grew out of his strong commitment to the values of the French Revolution—liberté, egalité, and fraternité (liberty, equality, and fraternity, or brotherhood).
BLOOD LIBELS (1800–1914)
The false claim that Jews murdered Christians for “their blood” did not end with the Enlightenment. It continued throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth.
The two men left for Egypt on July 18, 1840, after learning that the viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, was going to open a new investigation into the Damascus affair. Crémieux and Montefiore hoped that he would give them permission to question witnesses and collect evidence in support of the defendants. By the time they reached Alexandria, however, the situation had changed dramatically: The French consul-general had persuaded Muhammad Ali to abandon the idea of reopening the case.
To further complicate the situation, Egypt was now on the brink of a war with the Ottoman Empire and its four European allies—Austria, Britain, Russia, and Prussia. Just a few days after Crémieux and Montefiore reached Alexandria, the five governments gave Muhammad Ali an ultimatum: give up Syria and other conquered territories within 30 days or risk a war.
Although this ultimatum had nothing to do with the Damascus affair, it made it more difficult for Crémieux and Montefiore to meet with Muhammad Ali. As a result, they decided to alter their strategy. Instead of insisting on a new investigation, they urged Muhammad Ali to free the prisoners and issue a royal decree declaring the accusation that Jews commit ritual murder is false and slanderous.
Until August 26, Muhammad Ali refused to take action. That day, he learned that the British had sunk several Egyptian supply ships in the Mediterranean Sea and were preparing to land on the beaches of Lebanon. The British were aiding the Ottomans, and the two were willing to use any means to get the Egyptians out of Syria—including attacks on unarmed ships and innocent civilians. Muhammad Ali was now convinced that unless he acted quickly, he could lose everything, including Egypt. On August 28, he gave up his claim to Syria without consulting his ally, France. The French were also not consulted about a second concession—this time, one regarding the outcome of the Damascus affair. How that decision came about sounds incredible, but it appears to be a true story.
Muhammad Ali had called his two private physicians—both Christians, one French and the other Italian—to the palace early on the morning of August 28 to remove a painful boil from his buttocks. As they lanced the boil, one of the doctors remarked that the viceroy would need all his strength to deal with the political threats he was facing, and surely the voice of six million Jews raised in his favor would be of great importance. (At the time, it was widely believed that there were six million Jews in the world.) To the surprise of the two men, Muhammad Ali agreed, saying that he would free the Jewish prisoners immediately. The tactic used by the two doctors had worked partly because Muhammad Ali, like many other people, agreed with their exaggerated view of “Jewish power.”
As soon as the physicians finished their work, they told Crémieux the news. Over the next few days, Crémieux and Montefiore tried once again to persuade the viceroy to issue a decree declaring that Jews do not engage in ritual murder. Muhammad Ali turned them down, saying that even though he did not believe that Jews killed Christians for their blood, he had no interest in issuing a public statement.
Montefiore was determined to get a decree—if not from the viceroy of Egypt, then from the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. So he stopped in Istanbul before heading home. The sultan, who had already dismissed charges of ritual murder against Jews in Rhodes, agreed. He announced that after examining Jewish beliefs and religious books, he had concluded that accusations of ritual murder made against Jews were “pure slander.”
On September 6, news of the viceroy’s decision reached Damascus. The next day, Merlato, the Austrian consul, sent a letter to Crémieux:
Yesterday was the happiest day of my life. All the prisoners… were set at liberty and sent to their homes…. The joyful liberated men before returning… to their enraptured families proceeded to the [synagogue] where in unison with an immense multitude they… prayed for peace and every blessing upon Muhammad Ali and all their other powerful benefactors.14
Jews around the world also rejoiced. They greeted Montefiore and Crémieux as heroes wherever they traveled. Jews were proud of themselves as well. Never before had so many Jews in so many countries worked together to shape public opinion on an issue. Many also took pride in the fact that a large number of Christians had actively supported the Jews of Damascus, and a few, like Merlato and von Laurin, had shown courage in their defense of Jews.
But not everyone was pleased with the outcome. Thiers, France’s prime minister, along with many French citizens, continued to support Ratti-Menton. Univers, a conservative Catholic newspaper, proclaimed that “Judaism has reappeared as a power, as a nationality… and, as such, it has held all of Christianity in check.” After asking “Who can now say how far their aspirations will extend?” the editors turned their attention to the Rothschild family. “On [King] David’s throne, once it is restored, there will sit that financial dynasty which all Europe recognizes and to which all of Europe submits; its inauguration will surely provide a scene… most worthy of the [corrupt] century in which we are living.”15
These French writers attributed great power to Jews in general, and to the Rothschilds in particular, at a time when Jews were powerless almost everywhere. As the twentieth-century philosopher Hannah Arendt noted,
Where… was there better proof… than in this one family, the Rothschilds, nationals of five different countries, prominent everywhere, in close cooperation with at least three different governments (French, Austrian, British)…? No propaganda could have created a symbol more effective for political purposes than the reality itself.16
In other words, the power of a few wealthy and prominent Jews was seen as proof of the power of all Jews even though that power did not really exist.
During the Damascus affair, Jews discovered the power of publicity in fighting prejudice and discrimination. They were successful in shaping public opinion in part because many people in the early 1800s shared their belief in universal human rights. They were also successful because modern rulers—even dictators like Muhammad Ali—could not afford to completely ignore public opinion at home or abroad. In 1858, however, an incident in what is now Italy revealed that public opinion does not always prevail.
Early on the morning of June 24, papal guards in Bologna came to the home of a Jewish couple, Salomone David Mortara and his wife, and demanded their six-year-old son Edgardo. To the parents’ horror, the guards had a written order, signed by Father Pier Gaetano Feletti, a local priest, to take the child. At the time, Italy was divided into territories, some of which were ruled by other countries and some by the pope. Bologna was located in a papal state.
Convinced that a terrible error had been made, Mortara raced to Feletti’s home, only to learn that it was no mistake. Five years earlier, when Edgardo was ill, a Christian servant of the family had secretly baptized the baby by sprinkling water on his head and saying a prayer. The woman later left her job without telling anyone what she had done. In time, however, the woman spoke to friends about the baptism, and the information eventually reached Feletti.
In the view of the Catholic Church in the 1800s, once a child has been baptized, even if it was done without the parents’ knowledge or consent, the child is a Christian. And under papal laws, Jewish parents could not rear a Christian child, even if he was their own. Frantic efforts to release the boy failed. He had been taken with the approval of the secretary of state at the Vatican, Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, who proudly told Edgardo’s father that his son was already “joyously wearing the cross” and attending mass.
Edgardo was not the first child the church had taken from Jewish parents in the 1800s, but his parents were the first to publicize their case. And like the Damascus affair, the story made headlines. In almost every western European city, Christians and Jews protested “the heartless abduction of a small child.” They were outraged that a child could be taken from loving parents for any reason.
Several government leaders, including the emperor of France, found the story so troubling that they quietly tried to persuade Pope Pius IX to release the boy. He refused. Moses Montefiore tried to arrange a meeting with the pope to discuss the matter, only to be told there was nothing to discuss. The church saw no reason to respond to public opinion about a matter of faith. This time, publicity only hardened the church’s stand.
Italy won its independence as a united nation in 1870—12 years after Edgardo’s abduction. During the fight for independence, the pope lost all of his territory in Italy except for the Vatican itself. Pius blamed those losses on his refusal to release Edgardo. The pope was painfully aware that most Italians, regardless of their faith, identified with the Mortaras. Yet Pius continued to believe that he had done the right thing. He was convinced that the baptism had saved the child’s soul and was therefore justified. Pius also felt threatened by the changes that were taking place in Italy and was convinced that bending the rules even slightly would endanger the traditions he valued and the beliefs he had vowed to uphold.
Soon after the independent Kingdom of Italy was formed, Jews became citizens in the new nation, entitled to the full protection of the law. Almost immediately, the authorities informed the Mortaras that their son was now free to rejoin his family. But by then it was too late: the boy was 18 and studying to become a priest.
The Damascus affair and the Mortara case had shown how precarious it was to be outside a government’s universe of obligation—the circle of individuals and groups toward whom the government has obligations, whose rights are respected, and in whose name justice is sought. In May 1860, Adolphe Crémieux and other French Jewish leaders held a meeting in Paris to create a new organization known as the Universal Israelite Alliance. They explained why Jews needed such a group:
[A]ll other important faiths are represented in the world by nations—embodied, that is to say, in governments that have a special interest and an official to represent and speak for them. Ours alone is without this important advantage; it corresponds neither to a state nor to a society nor again to a specific territory; it is no more than a rallying-cry for scattered individuals—the very people whom it is therefore essential to bring together.17
Those who joined the alliance were mainly secular Jews who had come to believe that they must unite in response to a growing nationalism, which tended to treat Jews as permanent outsiders—a people beyond any nation’s universe of obligation. The early successes of the alliance eventually led to the founding of parallel organizations in other nations—the Anglo-Jewish Association in Britain in 1871, the Israelite Alliance in Vienna in 1873, the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden in Berlin in 1901, and the American Jewish Committee in New York in 1906. These groups often worked together or at least coordinated their efforts.
The French alliance relied on three main tools to protect Jews: education, publicity, and diplomacy. On his first trip to the Middle East during the Damascus affair, Crémieux had been appalled at the lack of educational opportunities for Jews in the region. After meeting with Jewish leaders in Alexandria, he offered to raise money for a school. Under his leadership, the alliance expanded that idea by building a network of schools in North Africa, the Middle East, and eastern Europe to provide secular education and vocational training for both girls and boys. Those schools helped thousands of young Jews from poor families learn a trade or profession.
The French alliance also fought discrimination and prejudice through a combination of publicity and diplomacy. In earlier times, even large-scale massacres had gone unnoticed by most of the world. Now the alliance set out to document acts of violence against Jews. Frantic letters like the ones Jews wrote during the Damascus affair now went to a dedicated staff with the resources needed to take action.
How successful were such efforts? The late 1800s were a time of realpolitik. The word had been coined earlier in the century to describe Austrian efforts to keep the peace by balancing the influence of Europe’s great empires—Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia—so that no single power would have the upper hand. Leaders of the French alliance and similar Jewish groups in other nations were increasingly aware that they must take into account not only a growing nationalism in eastern Europe but also the competing interests of the great powers.
In 1858, for example, the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia in southeastern Europe broke away from the Ottoman Empire and formed a country later known as Romania. Like people in other newly independent countries in the 1800s, the Romanians wanted the great powers to accept and acknowledge their independence. At a meeting in Paris, representatives of the five powers prepared a treaty that recognized the new nation. At the urging of a number of Jews, that treaty included an important condition: legal equality for all Moldavians and Wallachians. The condition was an attempt to make Jews citizens. The leaders of the new nation signed the treaty but avoided granting Jews citizenship by declaring that they were not, and never could be, Moldavians or Wallachians.
The Universal Israelite Alliance supported schools for poor Jewish girls as well as for boys in the Ottoman Empire and eastern Europe. The students shown in the photograph are learning a valuable trade—dressmaking.
As discrimination against Jews continued in Romania, Emperor Louis Napoleon of France protested. So did Otto von Bismarck of Prussia, the chancellor of a newly united Germany. Romanian leaders ignored them. They also ignored efforts by various Jewish groups to secure at least some rights for Romanian Jews.
Then, in 1877, Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire in one of the many wars of the nineteenth century. Afterward, several countries in southeastern Europe declared their independence from Ottoman rule; others, like Romania, expanded their borders. These new nation-states asked their more powerful neighbors to recognize the change in their status. In 1878, diplomats from France, Germany, Britain, Austria, Russia, and other nations gathered in Berlin to prepare a treaty that would set the conditions for such recognition. Members of various Jewish groups saw the Congress of Berlin as an opportunity to protect Jews in an expanded Romania. Although they had no official standing at the Congress, they could state their case through intermediaries or in written statements.
These lobbying efforts were carefully coordinated, and they succeeded beyond expectation. The delegates to the Congress of Berlin tried to make it clear that citizenship could not be limited to people of a particular religion or culture. The new treaty stated:
In Romania the distinctions of religion, creed, or confession cannot be brought up against anyone as a motive of exclusion and incapacity, as regards the enjoyment of civil and political rights, admission to public employment and honors, or exercise of different professions or industry. The freedom and open practice of all religions shall be assured to all citizens of the Romanian state, and also to foreigners.18
The French ambassador boasted that in defending the Jewish cause at the congress, delegates had “defended the cause of justice, humanity, and civilization.” Jews throughout Europe celebrated. A group in Romania sent Crémieux a telegram: “Hallelujah! We are free. God be praised! Glory to you, noble and illustrious champions of our cause, glory to the Alliance!”
But the tone was very different in Romania’s parliament, where Jews were seen not as fellow citizens but as aliens who did not share in Romanian culture. One deputy declared, “I have the courage to say from this rostrum, that I shall never agree to the Jews of Romania, en masse, enjoying political rights.” He added, “If it turns out that injustice goes as far as Europe demanding any such a thing, the Powers will have first to pass over my body rather than get me to join in the murder of my country.”19
Romania refused to sign the treaty. After 18 months of debates, negotiations, and arguments, the nation’s deputies offered a compromise—a slightly improved version of the 1858 treaty they had signed but had ignored ever since. It allowed a few Jews to become citizens. Austria, Italy, France, Britain, and Germany all agreed to the compromise, despite frantic efforts by Jews and Jewish organizations fearful that this new treaty would provide no more protection than the one signed in 1858.
Why did the great powers back down? Some historians point out that the treaty process was a long one and that most nations had other priorities and interests. Perhaps they felt that they had done all they could and it was time to move on. Regardless of their motives, the decision to accept the compromise had consequences.
By the end of the 1800s, only a handful of Romania’s 250,000 Jews were citizens, and even they experienced constant persecution and discrimination. In 1891, for example, the government evicted all Jewish children from state schools and then blocked the French alliance’s attempts to open schools for Jewish students. Whenever elections were held, the government would inflame public opinion by announcing a policy of “repression” against “the Jews.” Before long, thugs would roam Jewish neighborhoods, attacking people, looting stores, and setting fires. By the turn of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Romanian Jews were leaving the country. Between 1881 and 1914, about 74,000 poured into the United States—a little over 28 percent of Romania’s total Jewish population in the late 1800s.
Western Jews had defended the rights of Romanian Jews with determination, passion, and skill. In the end, however, they were unable to provide Romanian Jews with even a small measure of safety and security. Yet to some Europeans, the fact that Jews had tried to influence the Congress of Berlin was proof that Jews had a world government that threatened the citizens of every country. Wilhelm Marr, a German journalist who believed in that myth, tried to document the power of European Jews in an 1878 pamphlet entitled “The Victory of Judaism over Germandom.” He wrote:
In this French cartoon, James Rothschild is shown controlling the world. Notice that the crown on his head includes a golden calf. Note, too, that his hands look more like claws than the hands of a man.
There is no stopping them….
German culture has proved itself ineffective and powerless against this foreign power. This is a fact; a brutal [inescapable] fact. State, Church, Catholicism, Protestantism, Creed and Dogma, all are brought low before the Jewish tribunal, that is, the [irreverent] daily press [which the Jews control].
The Jews were late in their assault on Germany, but once they started there was no stopping them.
Gambetta, Simon and Crémieux were the dictators of France in 1870–1871….
In England, the Semite Disraeli [Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli], a German hater…, holds in his vest pocket the key to war and peace in the Orient [the East].
Who derived the real benefit at the Congress of Berlin from the spilled blood of the Orient? Jewry. The Alliance Israélite Universelle [French Universal Israelite Alliance] was first in line. [Romania] was forced to open officially its doors and gates to destructive Semitism. Jewry did not yet dare to make the same demand of Russia. But, this demand, too, will soon come.20
The pamphlet was widely read even though it was filled with errors. Jews did not control the press in any country. Although Crémieux was a Jew, he was not a dictator or a head of state; he did serve as France’s minister of justice in 1870. Leon Gambetta, the president of the French Chamber of Deputies in 1879, and Jules Francois Simon, a minister of education in 1870, were not dictators either. Nor were they Jews; both men were Christians. “The Jews” have never controlled France, even though a few individual Jews have held important government positions.
As for England, Marr referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, a member of the Anglican Church, as a “Semite” because Disraeli was born to Jewish parents. To Marr and a growing number of other Europeans, all Jews, regardless of their religious beliefs, belonged to the “Semitic race.” In the 1800s, many European and American scientists believed that humankind was divided into “races,” one of which was the “Semitic race.”*
Marr viewed Jews as more than just members of a distinct “race”: in his view, theirs was a dangerous and alien race. He used the word antisemitism to describe his opposition to Jews. He also founded the League of Antisemites in Berlin in 1879 to combat the threat he imagined Jews posed. The group tried to turn antisemitism into a popular political movement. Although it never attracted many members, another political party founded a year earlier by Adolf Stoecker—the Christian Socialist Worker’s Party—had more success.
At first Stoecker’s party focused more on the social effects of industrialization and the need for German society to rededicate itself to Christianity and return to Germanic rule in law and business. Antisemitism was a relatively minor theme. The party gained in popularity only after it began to emphasize an antisemitic agenda. Stoecker and other members demanded that German Jews renounce their supposed dream of ruling Germany and called on the government to limit the number of Jews allowed in certain professions and universities. Like Marr, Stoecker and his followers were convinced that Jews belonged to a separate and dangerous “race.” And they claimed that modern “science” justified discrimination against Jews.
By the end of the century, antisemitism had found a home almost everywhere in Europe and beyond. Every country interpreted racist ideas a little differently. In Germany, Ernst Haeckel, a biologist, popularized the idea by combining it with romantic notions about the German Volk, or people. In a book called Riddles of the Universe, he divided humankind into “races” and ranked them. Not surprisingly, “Aryans”—the mythical ancestors of the German people—were at the top of his list.
Scientists who tried to show that more differences existed within a so-called “race” than between one “race” and another were ignored. In the late 1800s, for example, the German Anthropological Society conducted a study to determine whether there were racial differences between Jewish and Aryan children. After studying nearly seven million students, the society concluded that the two groups were more alike than different. Historian George Mosse said of the study:
This survey should have ended controversies about the existence of pure Aryans and Jews. However, it seems to have had surprisingly small impact. The idea of race had been infused with myths, stereotypes, and subjectivities long ago, and a scientific survey could change little. The ideal of pure, superior races and the concept of a racial enemy solved too many pressing problems to be easily discarded. The survey itself was unintelligible to the uneducated part of the population. For them, Haeckel’s Riddles of the Universe was a better answer to their problems.21
So the myth that Jews belonged to a distinct and inferior race continued to grow throughout Europe. That myth gave individuals and governments a new excuse for discrimination and persecution. It was based not on ethnicity or religion (although the myth was sometimes expressed in religious and cultural terms) but on “race.”
