Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Frankel Jonathan
Title : The Damascus affair "Ritual Murder", politics, and the jews in 1840
Year : 1997

Link download : Frankel_Jonathan_-_The_Damascus_affair.zip

Introduction : Crisis as a factor in nineteenth-century Jewish history. In February 1840 an Italian monk and his servant disappeared in Damascus. The charge of ritual murder was brought against a large number of Jews in that city and they were declared guilty. News of the case spread across the Middle East, Europe, and the entire Western world. It grew into a cause celebre. Adding to the uproar was the fact that a parallel case erupted in the region almost simultaneously, on the island of Rhodes. As diplomats and governments found themselves entangled in the Damascus affair, it became a marginal but complicating factor in the international conflict that during the year produced one war in the Middle East and threatened another in Europe. Jews in many countries groped for ways to cooperate in order to rescue the surviving prisoners in Damascus and to save their own good name. ...