Despair, Suffering and Compassion: Jews and Crime in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Vortrag von Shmuel Feiner

Shmuel Feiner ist Professor für modern jüdische Geschichte an der Bar Ilan University und Vorsitzender der Historical Society of Israel. Der vielfach ausgezeichnete Historiker hat mit einer Vielzahl von Werken zur Geschichte der jüdischen Aufklärung in Europa und zur modernen jüdischen Geschichtsschreibung einen herausragenden Beitrag zur Interpretation der jüdischen Geistes-, Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit und der Moderne geleistet. In deutscher Sprache erschienen sind seine Bücher „Die jüdische Aufklärung“ (2007) und seine Biographie Moses Mendelssohns (2009).  Sein zweibändiges großes Werk widmet sich dem jüdischen 18. Jahrhundert: Bd. 1: „The Jewish Eighteenth Century: A European Biography, 1700-1750” (2020) und Bd. 2: “The Jewish Eighteenth Century: A European Biography, 1750-1800” (erscheint 2023).

Abstract

The Eighteenth Century was the first modern century in Jewish History. The deep changes that took place in its course shaped the following generations, and many of its voices still reverberate today. The lecture will highlight the dark aspect of the century, concentrating on poverty and crime. It will ask about the historical context and the meaning of Jews involved in crime, no doubt a topic that was under-researched in the previous generations and was hidden by Jewish historians who turned a blind eye to what was considered a shameful chapter in Jewish history. The topic of criminal Jews will be addressed through a few perspectives: the back yard of the London Jewish community; the Jewish Betteljuden in Germany; The tortured body; the juridical abuse of the Jews; and the independent voice of the criminal. For the interpretation of the Jewish Enlightenment, this study of the criminal Jews is an important corrective. The skeptical narrative proposes descent from philosophical heights and abandonment of the glowing and dramatic images that were attached to the eighteenth century, and, in their stead, acknowledging the fact that no tangible change occurred in lives of most of the inhabitants of Europe. For the majority, according to the British historian Jeremy Black, life was a struggle for survival similar to that of their grandparents. Dangers to life were abundant: epidemics, serious viral diseases, natural disasters, famine and crime. Despite the importance of the Enlightenment revolution, the story of Jews and crime is mostly the story about despair, poverty and suffering, but also of compassion, individualism and autonomy, the main achievements of the Jewish 18^th Century.

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