History Commons^™

Violence At A Purim Ball, Francesca Bregoli

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The texts presented here address an incident of violence at a Purim ball 1753, in Livorno.

Exorcism And Violence: Contexts Internal And External, Yohanan Petrovsky-Stern

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation discusses projections of violence and social values in a mystical text from eastern Europe.

The Murder Of A Travel Companion. Violence, Gender And Living Conditions Of Servants In 18th Century Prussia, Noa Sophie Kohler

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Jews are often portrayed as non-violent and therefore as powerless victims. Highlighting and examining cases of Jews as violent perpetrators not only refutes this stigmatization of Jews, it also reveals much about day to day life, about personal and social conflicts both within Jewish society and in encounters with the Christian society.

Discussed here sections of a legal document from the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin Dahlem cover a court case against the Jewish servant, Samuel Saul, who was suspected of having murdered the Jewish maid Zierle in Prussia in 1791.

A Jewish Perspective On The Execution Of 'Jew Süss': 4 February 1738, Yair Mintzker

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

“The Story of the Passing of Joseph Süss, of Blessed Memory,” which appears here in full in English for the first time, is an extraordinary document. It concerns the arrest of Joseph Süsskind Oppenheimer in March 1737, his 11-month incarceration, his encounter with two Jews in prison and his execution the following day.

Oppenheimer, who already during his imprisonment began to be known derisively as “Jew Süss,” was born in Heidelberg to a middle-class Jewish family, probably in 1698. Starting in the third decade of the 18th century, Oppenheimer served as a court Jew to several German princes. In 1732 …

Big Blows On A Small Stage: Records Of Violence In Jewish Communal Registers, Altona 1765-1776, Elisheva Carlebach

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The incidents of interpersonal violence discussed here were recorded in semi-private registers kept by communal scribes across a period of approximately a decade during the second half of the eighteenth century in the Ashkenazic community of Altona. The Ashkenazic “triple” community, AHW, whose center was Altona, then under the Danish crown, is richly represented by surviving internal and archival records for the early modern period.

The questions explored address the meaning of this level of physical violence and the means by which it was addressed. Was violence tolerated as a way of keeping disputes within the community? How did it …

Jewish Violence In Polish Laws And Courts, Jerzy Mazur

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation looks at violence in law and in courts in late medieval Poland.

La Mala Sangre: Daily Violence Within The Western Sephardic Diaspora, Daniel Strum

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Recurrent private acts of violence within dense and homogenous communities, or diasporas, illustrate a tension between powerful gossip transmission and imperfect translation of such power into efficient social control.

This presentation explores the manifestation of private violence in the daily life of the Western Sephardic Diaspora in the early seventeenth century, examining inquisitorial sources from Portugal and notarial records from the Netherlands. These sources indicate that as much as group members expected mutual responsibility, trustworthiness and compliance with social norms from their fellow group members. Yet when they felt disappointed, they expressed their resentment aggressively. Aggression took shape of offenses …

Rome, 1571: A Body And A Murder Investigation In The Ghetto, Serena Di Nepi

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 1571 story of Sabato del Corsetto tells about violence in the Roman ghetto in the second half of Sixteenth Century. It concerns many issues related to violence: family violence; verbal violence; physical violence; violence among women; violence arisen both for economic and personal reasons and even attempt made by the Jewish community to manage violence and violent people.

Eschatological Avengers Or Messianic Saviors? Violence And Physical Strength In The Vernacular Legend Of The Red Jews, Rebekka Voss

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The vernacular legend of the Red Jews allows us to explore the relationship of violence, physical strength and power during the early modern period, extending the traditional treatment of Jews and violence in that era. Violence is often linked to power and physical strength. Violence is typically associated with ruling authorities and the realm of the majority, rather than in the hands of an oppressed minority, as in case of Diaspora Jewry, which has been identified with victimhood. Moreover, in historiography, the perception of Jews as targets of aggression perpetrated by “the other,” whether Christian or Muslim, corresponds to the …

Plague And Violence Against Jews In Early Modern Europe, Samuel Cohn

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Based on Italian chronicles and archival sources Samuel Cohn examined questions of violence against Jews during plague.

Killed Or Be Killed. Realities And Representations Of Violence In Seventeenth-Century Ukraine, Adam Teller

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Based on sources related to the 1648 Chmielnicki Uprising, Adam Teller examined "The Realities and Representations of Violence in Seventeenth Century Ukraine"

2013 Emw: Jews And Violence In The Early Modern Period, Emw 2013

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 2013 Early Modern Workshop on “Jews and Violence in the Early Modern Period” sought to contextualize the violence involving Jews in the early modern period in order to understand this crucial aspect of their experience. Participating scholars tried to complicate not only the over-simplified notion of Jews as solely victims of violence in the premodern period, but also examined complexities of the question of Jews as victims of violence.

Keynote address by Robert Davis of Ohio State University, "Typologies of Violence in Early Modern Europe"