Von gewaltsamen Handlungen zu gewaltsamen Hass: französisch-katholische Reaktionen auf die Damaskus-Affäre

In February 1840, a Capuchin monk, along with his servant, disappeared in the city of Damascus. The French consul, who took charge of the investigation, soon became convinced that the two men had been murdered by members of the local Jewish community in a ritual that is also known as blood-libel killing. The incident was soon dubbed the »Damascus Affair«
and it was redolent with violence: in the imagined brutal killing itself but also in the torture of suspects and in the reactions of French Catholic newspapers. This chapter focuses on the Catholic press response to the Damascus Affair within the French hexagon. It analyses not only media attacks on Damascus Jewry but also on Jews in France, who were trying to help their coreligionists abroad. It furthermore examines Catholic convictions that the
incident in Damascus illustrated the violent and dangerous nature of Jews more broadly and argues that the extraordinary violence of press attacks revealed powerful anti-Semitic tropes that would become murderous later in the century.