Old Damascus: Jew's Quarter or Gathering Lemons, Circa 1873-1874 by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema[1]
1840 Damascus affair: In February, at Damascus, a Catholic monk named Father Thomas and his servant were murdered. The accusation of ritual murder was brought against members of the Jewish community of Damascus
1840 Rhodes blood libel: The Jews of Rhodes, during the Ottoman Empire, were accused of murdering a Greek Christian boy. The libel was supported by the local governor and the European consuls posted to Rhodes. Several Jews were arrested and tortured, and the entire Jewish quarter was blockaded for twelve days. An investigation carried out by the central Ottoman government found the Jews to be innocent.
Mavi Boncuk |
Americans React to Damascus Blood Libel
The earliest collective action by American Jews on behalf of their overseas brethren came in response to the Damascus blood libel of 1840. That spring, in the ancient capital of Syria, an Italian friar and his Muslim servant mysteriously disappeared. The Capuchin order of monks charged that Jews had kidnaped and murdered the two men to use their blood in Passover matzoh. Under torture, two “witnesses” named several prominent Damascus Jews as the killers. The accused were arrested, tortured and sentenced to death. Local officials then seized 63 Jewish children to compel others to reveal where the blood was hidden.
Word of these outrages reached America in the summer of 1840. American Jews were dismayed that the ancient blood libel had reared up again. But what were they to do? The well-organized English Jewish community sent the respected Sir Moses Montefiore[2] to the Ottoman Sultan to protest events in Damascus. American Jewry, numbering no more than 15,000 individuals scattered across a vast nation, had no national organization or recognized leader to speak for them. American Jewry had never before presented a united front on any issue of national or international moment.
Rabbi Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia[3], joined by communal leaders from other major American cities, stepped into the breach. Public rallies, meetings of synagogue congregations, and committees of correspondence—organized by the Jewish communities in New York, Philadelphia, Richmond and Cincinnati, among other cities—called on President Martin Van Buren to intervene in Damascus.
Their petitions argued that “the moral influence of the Chief Magistrate of the United States would be, under Heaven, the best aid we could invoke for the protection of our persecuted brethren under the Mohammedan domain.” The New York protesters did “most emphatically and solemnly deny as well in our own name as in that of the whole Jewish people, that murder was ever committed by the Jews of Damascus, or those of any other part of the world, for the purpose of using the blood or any part of a human being in the ceremonies of our religion.”
Van Buren ordered American diplomats in Constantinople and Alexandria to tell the Ottoman rulers of Syria of the “horror” felt by all Americans at the “extravagant charges strikingly similar to those which, in less enlightened ages, were made pretexts for the persecution and spoliation of these unfortunate people.” Van Buren cited America's liberal institutions, which “place upon the same footing, the worshipers of God, of every faith and form” as his basis for intervening “in behalf of an oppressed and persecuted race, among whose kindred are found some of the most worthy and patriotic of [American] citizens.”
Bowing to pressure from America, Britain and France, Pasha Muhammed Ali, overlord of Syria, ended the torture of Jewish prisoners and ordered their release, and instructed Damascus officials to protect the Jewish community. The American ambassador helped Montefiore secure from the Ottoman Sultan an imperial decree in November declaring that the blood libel had “not the least foundation in truth” and that Jews “shall possess the same advantages and enjoy the same privileges” as his other subjects, especially the free exercise of their religion.
American Jewry experienced its first taste of successful united action on behalf of its brethren overseas. Rabbi Leeser expressed the thinking of many American Jews of that time, as well as the spirit of the Babylonian Talmud, when he observed: “As citizens we belong to the country we live in; but as believers in one God, as the faithful adorers of the Creator, as the inheritors of the law, the Jews [of other lands] are no aliens among us, and we hail the Israelite as brother, no matter whether his home be the torrid zone, or where the poles encircle the earth with impenetrable fetters of icy coldness.”
Source: American Jewish Historical Society
Sacrifice of Isaac, woodcut from the Ritual Responsals (Sheelot w-teshuvot) of Asher b. Yechiel, Constantinople,1517
[2] Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, Kt (24 October 1784 - 28 July 1885) was one of the most famous British Jews of the 19th century. Montefiore was a financier, banker, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. He went to the Sultan of Turkey in 1840 to liberate from prison ten Syrian Jews of Damascus arrested after a blood libel.
[3] Rabbi Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia. American rabbi, author, translator, editor, and publisher; pioneer of the Jewish pulpit in the United States, and founder of the Jewish press of America; born at Neuenkirchen, in the province of Westphalia, Prussia, Dec. 12, 1806; died at Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 1, 1868. Educated at the gymnasium of Münster, he was well grounded in Latin, German, and Hebrew, besides having studied the Talmud tractates Beẓah, Baba Meẓi'a, and a part of Ḥullin and Baba Batra under Hebrew masters. At the age of seventeen he emigrated to America, arriving at Richmond, Va., in May, 1824. His uncle, Zalma Rehiné, a respected merchant of that city, sent the youth to a private school; but after ten weeks the school was closed, and for the next five years Leeser was employed in his uncle's counting-room. Unfavorable as were the circumstances for a growth of Jewish knowledge, the young man showed his bent by voluntarily assisting the ḥazzan to teach religion on Saturdays and Sundays and also by appearing in the public prints from time to time in defense of Judaism when assailed. In Aug., 1829, Leeser went to Philadelphia with the manuscript of his first book ("The Jews and the Mosaic Law") in his pocket and great thoughts for Israel in his mind. Up to that time the ḥazzanim in America had been merely precentors.When Leeser commenced his public career the scattered Jewish individuals and the members of congregations in the United States did not number more than from 12,000 to 15,000. His purpose to mold these into a community was to be achieved in part by the pulpit and in part by the press. He was the earnest promoter of all the national enterprises—the first congregational union, the first Hebrew day-schools, the first Hebrew college, the first Jewish publication society—and of numberless local undertakings. The "Occident" acquired a national and even an international reputation; the Maimonides' College, of which he was president, paved the way for future Jewish colleges in the United States; and his translation of the Bible became an authorized version for the Jews of America.
1840 Rhodes blood libel: The Jews of Rhodes, during the Ottoman Empire, were accused of murdering a Greek Christian boy. The libel was supported by the local governor and the European consuls posted to Rhodes. Several Jews were arrested and tortured, and the entire Jewish quarter was blockaded for twelve days. An investigation carried out by the central Ottoman government found the Jews to be innocent.
Mavi Boncuk |
Americans React to Damascus Blood Libel
The earliest collective action by American Jews on behalf of their overseas brethren came in response to the Damascus blood libel of 1840. That spring, in the ancient capital of Syria, an Italian friar and his Muslim servant mysteriously disappeared. The Capuchin order of monks charged that Jews had kidnaped and murdered the two men to use their blood in Passover matzoh. Under torture, two “witnesses” named several prominent Damascus Jews as the killers. The accused were arrested, tortured and sentenced to death. Local officials then seized 63 Jewish children to compel others to reveal where the blood was hidden.
Word of these outrages reached America in the summer of 1840. American Jews were dismayed that the ancient blood libel had reared up again. But what were they to do? The well-organized English Jewish community sent the respected Sir Moses Montefiore[2] to the Ottoman Sultan to protest events in Damascus. American Jewry, numbering no more than 15,000 individuals scattered across a vast nation, had no national organization or recognized leader to speak for them. American Jewry had never before presented a united front on any issue of national or international moment.
Rabbi Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia[3], joined by communal leaders from other major American cities, stepped into the breach. Public rallies, meetings of synagogue congregations, and committees of correspondence—organized by the Jewish communities in New York, Philadelphia, Richmond and Cincinnati, among other cities—called on President Martin Van Buren to intervene in Damascus.
Their petitions argued that “the moral influence of the Chief Magistrate of the United States would be, under Heaven, the best aid we could invoke for the protection of our persecuted brethren under the Mohammedan domain.” The New York protesters did “most emphatically and solemnly deny as well in our own name as in that of the whole Jewish people, that murder was ever committed by the Jews of Damascus, or those of any other part of the world, for the purpose of using the blood or any part of a human being in the ceremonies of our religion.”
Van Buren ordered American diplomats in Constantinople and Alexandria to tell the Ottoman rulers of Syria of the “horror” felt by all Americans at the “extravagant charges strikingly similar to those which, in less enlightened ages, were made pretexts for the persecution and spoliation of these unfortunate people.” Van Buren cited America's liberal institutions, which “place upon the same footing, the worshipers of God, of every faith and form” as his basis for intervening “in behalf of an oppressed and persecuted race, among whose kindred are found some of the most worthy and patriotic of [American] citizens.”
Bowing to pressure from America, Britain and France, Pasha Muhammed Ali, overlord of Syria, ended the torture of Jewish prisoners and ordered their release, and instructed Damascus officials to protect the Jewish community. The American ambassador helped Montefiore secure from the Ottoman Sultan an imperial decree in November declaring that the blood libel had “not the least foundation in truth” and that Jews “shall possess the same advantages and enjoy the same privileges” as his other subjects, especially the free exercise of their religion.
American Jewry experienced its first taste of successful united action on behalf of its brethren overseas. Rabbi Leeser expressed the thinking of many American Jews of that time, as well as the spirit of the Babylonian Talmud, when he observed: “As citizens we belong to the country we live in; but as believers in one God, as the faithful adorers of the Creator, as the inheritors of the law, the Jews [of other lands] are no aliens among us, and we hail the Israelite as brother, no matter whether his home be the torrid zone, or where the poles encircle the earth with impenetrable fetters of icy coldness.”
Source: American Jewish Historical Society
Sacrifice of Isaac, woodcut from the Ritual Responsals (Sheelot w-teshuvot) of Asher b. Yechiel, Constantinople,1517
[1] Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) was one of the most renowned painters of late nineteenth-century Britain. Born in Dronrijp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean sea and sky.
[2] Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, Kt (24 October 1784 - 28 July 1885) was one of the most famous British Jews of the 19th century. Montefiore was a financier, banker, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. He went to the Sultan of Turkey in 1840 to liberate from prison ten Syrian Jews of Damascus arrested after a blood libel.
[3] Rabbi Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia. American rabbi, author, translator, editor, and publisher; pioneer of the Jewish pulpit in the United States, and founder of the Jewish press of America; born at Neuenkirchen, in the province of Westphalia, Prussia, Dec. 12, 1806; died at Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 1, 1868. Educated at the gymnasium of Münster, he was well grounded in Latin, German, and Hebrew, besides having studied the Talmud tractates Beẓah, Baba Meẓi'a, and a part of Ḥullin and Baba Batra under Hebrew masters. At the age of seventeen he emigrated to America, arriving at Richmond, Va., in May, 1824. His uncle, Zalma Rehiné, a respected merchant of that city, sent the youth to a private school; but after ten weeks the school was closed, and for the next five years Leeser was employed in his uncle's counting-room. Unfavorable as were the circumstances for a growth of Jewish knowledge, the young man showed his bent by voluntarily assisting the ḥazzan to teach religion on Saturdays and Sundays and also by appearing in the public prints from time to time in defense of Judaism when assailed. In Aug., 1829, Leeser went to Philadelphia with the manuscript of his first book ("The Jews and the Mosaic Law") in his pocket and great thoughts for Israel in his mind. Up to that time the ḥazzanim in America had been merely precentors.When Leeser commenced his public career the scattered Jewish individuals and the members of congregations in the United States did not number more than from 12,000 to 15,000. His purpose to mold these into a community was to be achieved in part by the pulpit and in part by the press. He was the earnest promoter of all the national enterprises—the first congregational union, the first Hebrew day-schools, the first Hebrew college, the first Jewish publication society—and of numberless local undertakings. The "Occident" acquired a national and even an international reputation; the Maimonides' College, of which he was president, paved the way for future Jewish colleges in the United States; and his translation of the Bible became an authorized version for the Jews of America.
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