Sexualized violence, hostility towards Jews, and MARGINALIZED JEWISH MASCULINITY – Jews before the Penal Court in Central Europe around 1800

• In Event: Ritual Bodies, Ritual Spaces in 19th Century Europe

Abstract

My talk engages with three thematic complexes currently debated in historical scholarship: sexualized violence, the relationship between anti-Semitism and gender, and the implementation of concepts originated in Gender Studies such as MARGINALIZED MASCULINITY and INTERSECTIONALITY in Jewish history. With the help of a praxeological microanalysis further refined by an intersectional approach, my talk analyzes the trial against the SON OF A PROTECTED JEW, Heyum Windmühl, accused of having raped the seven-year-old daughter of a Christian citizen in the case of the city of Frankfurt on the Main in the early 19th century.

I begin my paper by outlining the legal status of Frankfurt’s Jews around 1800. In a second step, I analyze the case against Heyum Windmühl (1808). I use selected results of my upcoming monograph based on my PhD thesis that explores, praxeologically and by way of qualitative analysis of criminal records, the treatment of Jews by and their agency within the Christian authoritarian criminal jurisdiction at the turn of the 19th century in Frankfurt. Thereby, Christian criminal justice can be understood as an encounter that provides insight into contacts and conflicts between Jews and Gentiles.

My talk discusses a number of factors necessary for case interpretation. In addition to the inequality of Jews and Christians, manifest in the different social and legal positions of a citizen’s daughter and a SON OF A PROTECTED JEW with a physical handicap, discrimination plays a role in the anti-Jewish encoded crime area SEXUALITY and VIOLENCE. Furthermore, the patriarchal gender order is evident in a misogynous construction of rape, which did not take the victim’s young age into account. Finally, the mechanisms of the inquisition process as well as the legal discourses of reform and regulatory interests impact the verdict and its significance. Although the results reveal that both the Christian girl and the young Jewish man became victim of the proceedings, the existing premodern penal law was not ultimately applied. This case marks, therefore, the beginning of a transformation in the penal justice system.

Author

• Vera Kallenberg, Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University