On The Damascus Affair Of The1840

In the middle of19th century, the political situation in the Middle East was in turmoil. The Ottoman Empire was crumbling. Muhammad Ali, who was the Pasha of Egypt, ruled the territory of Syria. Meanwhile, Britain, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia interfered in Syria to build spheres of their own influence. The Damascus is an old famous city, where many consuls of western countries resided.On February5th,1840, Thomas, the monk of Capuchin monastery and his servant disappeared without any clue. Father Thomas was the protector of France, thus the case was to be tried by the Syria government and the French consulate. In proceeding of searching for Father Thomas, the rumor was delivered:Jews murdered Father Thomas and his servant owing to the Blood ritual. Sherif Pasha and the French consul Ratti-Menton sent a group of people to search the Jewish quarter and arrested four Jewish suspects. Under torture, one Jewish barber confessed seven local Jewish celebrities. They were arrested at once. On this circumstance, the Great Rabbi of Damascus called for a gathering to save Jews themselves and look for help from the Jewish community of Constantinople. After the second trial, more Jewish celebrities were put into jail and the entire Jewish community of Damascus was in great danger. That was the blood libel which prevailed in Western Europe in the Medieval, which accused Jews murdered Christians for blood ritual.In the beginning, those consuls in Damascus held the same opinion with Ratti-Menton that Jews murdered Father Thomas and his servant. As the proceeding progressed, the consuls split into two camps:one believed in the existence of blood ritual, France as the representative; the other thought ridiculous of the blood libel and demanded the retrial of the case, Britain and Austria as the representative. In addition to the influence of the great powers, newspapers blew the matter out of proportion, making the local affair into an international one.When Jewish community from all over the world heard the Damascus affair, they took action in forms of presenting petitions, lobbying government, giving donations and sending delegations to Egypt. The traditional unity was demonstrated again in this affair. In the19th century, Jews in Western Europe began to achieve their emancipation and assimilated into local society. The Damascus affair united the Jews all over the world for the first time, which made the rethinking of emancipation movement and producing Jewish nationalism as well. Thus it was the turning point of the modern Jewish history.The paper is divided into three parts, introduction, main body and conclusion. The introduction part includes the meaning of this subject, the materials and the frame of this paper. The main body has four chapters. The first chapter narrates the Damascus affair and the proceeding of the trial. The second chapter introduces the political situation of Middle East, which was the context of Damascus affair. The author then narrates the interference of western consuls and their division, analyzing attitudes of these great powers. In the next section, attitude of the public and European countries is studied, backed by the quoting of a series of essays from newspapers.In the third and the fourth chapters, the author puts emphasize on the reflections and actions of Jewish community worldwide, which is also the most important part of this paper. In the third chapter, a lot of original materials are cited, especially conference papers by different Jewish communities, narrating their assistance to those suffering Jews. The Damascus affair connected Jews together. The fourth chapter narrates and analyzes the whole action of Jewish delegation from Europe in detail. They came back with achieving the goal to save their suffering brethren, but did not get a retrial. The author also introduces charities made by Moses Montefiore and Adolphe Cremieux in Constantinople and Egypt respectively. Charity is also one tradition of Jewish culture, which sustains the Jewish people to this day.The conclusion part explains the influence of Damascus and its meaning to the world. The Damascus affair unites the Jews from every corner of the world. Since then, whenever a Jewish community suffered humiliation or was in danger, their brethren elsewhere in the world would help. In this part, the author emphasizes the Jewish unity and explains the Jewish way of solving problems, which are "unity" and "mutual aid". Moreover, the paper is also aim to illustrate that in order to achieve peace, we should oppose any forms of Anti-semitism.