What Became of Two Jewish Thieves Caught in Frankfurt in 1714?

In August 2018, the National Library purchased a rare item at auction: an anti-Semitic pamphlet published circa 1714, that mocked two Jewish thieves who were publicly executed for their crimes.

Stefan Litt | 04.03.19

In the early modern era, scores of impoverished individuals, groups, and even penniless families migrated across the roads and streets of Europe. They travelled from region to region in search of work or charity. Among these wandering migrants were downtrodden Jews. Their stories usually do not appear in the archives. The exceptions are the miserable souls who ran into trouble: Jews who were arrested, imprisoned and brought before judges to face trial.

Such was the case in the city of Frankfurt in 1714, which back then was already a bustling urban center, full of opportunity and industry. There was a well-known, established Jewish community in the city which owed its status to, among other things, its well-groomed relationship with the Holy Roman Emperors (in other words, the German emperors) as well as the abundance of employment opportunities available.

Poor, wandering Jews knew that they could find food, shelter, and charity in Frankfurt because of the generosity of its Jewish residents. At times, the wandering Jews socialized with the poor locals, who at least benefited from being members of the community.

This may have been the background setting for the events of the summer of 1714, when a gang of at least four Jews burst into the shop of a Christian clothes merchant named Maria Elizabeth Lochmann. The widow Lochmann ran a thriving business. Her shop was located in Frankfurt’s city center, already known for its valuable real-estate, and the loot from the burglary was reported to be 2,500 florins, a very high sum of money at the time. The circumstantial evidence was documented in a criminal case brought against the thieves and is preserved in the archives of the municipality of Frankfurt to this day.

But, there is another document that details the affair, which resulted in the execution of two of the accused Jews. In August 2018, the National Library purchased a very rare item at an auction: an anti-Semitic pamphlet that ridiculed the two Jews who were, ultimately, executed. One was named Lev Hertz (apparently a resident of Frankfurt). The second was named as Solomon Dickkopf (the surname means “thick head”). The four pages of this satirical anti-Semitic text detail the final moments of the two thieves’ lives. The anonymous author was undoubtedly familiar with Jews, their customs and their style of speech and subjected these to twisted mockery in his work. He described the execution of the two as a “wedding” between the condemned men and the new gallows which had been erected outside the city walls.

Anti-Semitic pamphlet recently purchased at auction by the National Library

The pamphlet purchased at auction by the National Library is quite rare. The only other known copy is found in the criminal files of the Frankfurt city archives. A number of details in the pamphlet indicate that the precise documentation of the crime was of little interest to the author. It makes no mention of the reasons for the execution (the theft) and also ignores the fact that the other two participants were apparently given only minimal punishments.

A curious detail appears at the bottom of the pamphlet’s first page, where we find the name of the printer, Veit Schnitzler, and the town in which it was printed, Katzenelnbogen (west of Frankfurt). However, we know of no printing presses owned by a man of this name. A logical conclusion that can be drawn from this is that “Veit Schnitzler” was actually a fictitious name that was chosen in order to hide the true source of the text.

It is possible that the author feared that the Jewish community would press charges against him for the abhorrent content of the pamphlet. A similar situation had occurred several years earlier, when the Jewish community sued anti-Semitic author Johann Andreas Eisenmenger. Eisenmenger had authored a book referred to in short as “Judaism Unveiled” (the publication’s full name was: “Judaism Unveiled, a thorough and genuine account of the horrific manner in which the stubborn Jews sully the Holy Trinity and disgrace it”). The Jewish community of Frankfurt successfully blocked the publication of the book in the Holy Roman Empire because of its well-established relations with the imperial court.

In 1734, nearly twenty years after the affair, additional information was published about the incident in a historical chronicle. The author, Georg August von Lersner, mentions the hanging of two Jews on the 31^st of August, 1714. According to von Lersner’s account, the authorities ordered that the bodies not be taken down following the execution. They wanted them to remain hanging as a warning to any other would-be thieves. But, on the night of November 14^th, the bodies were removed without authorization. The identities of the perpetrators were never discovered. Von Lersner took the liberty to assume that it was another thief, but it could just as well have been a gesture of decency by local Jews in order to recover the bodies of their brethren for the sake of a proper Jewish burial.

The section dealing with the hanging begins on the left page and continues on the right

This article was written in collaboration with Dr. Verena Kasper-Marienberg, an expert in the field of the Frankfurt Jewry.

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How the Antisemitic Dreyfus Affair Led to the Creation of the Tour de France

How a group of anti-Dreyfusards channeled their anger into the creation of one of the world's most popular sporting events, centered on a new invention: the bicycle.

Nick Gendler | 26.02.19

Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his ranks, La Petite Journal, January, 1895. From the collections of the National Library of Israel

This is the story of a footnote to two major events in French history – the Dreyfus Affair and the introduction of the world’s greatest bicycle race, the Tour de France, that briefly, and ever so slightly intersected in June of 1899.

Following a humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, the French Third Rebublic placed its focus on the rebuilding of national pride – Revanchism.

The newly invented bicycle quickly became a symbol of health, fitness, and modernity, and a national obsession with cycling saw races taking place all over the country by the 1890s. The insatiable appetite for cycling meant an increase in the desire for news about the sport while manufacturers of bicycles and cycling components made use of the media for advertising purposes. Competing newspapers set up races to promote themselves.

In many senses the Third Republic was progressive but it was also beset by crises. One of these, the Panama Canal scandal, fostered growth in antisemitism since two of the businessmen at the center of it, and upon whom the patriotic press focused, were German Jews. This brought monarchists into conflict with Republicans, and Catholics into conflict with secularists – antagonisms that continued with the Dreyfus Affair. Throughout the nineteenth-century Jews enjoyed a degree of emancipation and political and commercial influence, thus feeding the antisemitic “international-Jewish-lobby” trope.

The Trap set for Dreyfus "Dreyfus the Martyr", The Graphic London, 1899 National Library of Israel — The Trap Set for Dreyfus, “Dreyfus the Martyr”, The Graphic London, 1899. From the collections of the National Library of Israel.

Four years after Dreyfus’s original conviction based on concocted evidence, the affair rumbled on. The real culprit, Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, had been identified but was quickly cleared by a military court determined to hold tight to the army’s position and avoid humiliation. By the time Emile Zola’s “J’Accuse” article was published, the country was deeply split between those who were for and those who were against Dreyfus.

Emile Zola’s “J’Accuse” — “J’Accuse”, Emile Zola’s famous article in L’Aurore, January 3, 1898, from the collections of the National Library of Israel.

On February 16, 1899, French President Felix Faure suffered a brain hemorrhage while in the arms of his Jewish mistress, Marguerite Steinheil. His sudden death presented an opportunity for the Dreyfusards as Faure was succeeded by Emile Loubet, a left-leaning senator from humble origins who was very much a friend of the underdog. He was popular enough with other members of the national assembly to easily beat his opponent for the Presidency, but not universally popular across the riven nation; Loubet was seen as an enemy of the anti-Dreyfusards because he supported reviews of the trials of Dreyfus and Esterhazy.

On June 3, 1899, the Supreme Court overturned the original court-martial judgment against Dreyfus and ordered a retrial. Tensions were high when, the following day, Loubet accepted an invitation to watch horse-racing at the Auteuil Race Course.

Alfred Dreyfus at his Rehabilitation Ceremony, July 21, 1906, from the Dreyfus Family Collection at the National Library of Israel.

Unlike the Longchamp racecourse which was frequented by the lower classes, and therefore Loubet’s core support, Auteuil was the playground of the wealthy, monarchist, anti-Republican and mainly anti-Dreyfusard classes. Loubet’s presence was seen as provocative and he was confronted by hordes outraged by the order for a retrial. The demonstration turned violent almost as soon as the President took his seat. Among those who were arrested following the fracas was the wealthy industrialist Jules Albert Compte de Dion.

The pugnacious de Dion had two passions – engineering and dueling. At one point, his automobile company, De Dion Bouton, was the largest manufacturer of cars in the world.

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Pierre Gifford, the editor of the Le Velo newspaper, criticized the demonstration, as did much of French society, appalled at the humiliating treatment of the President by these uncouth aristocrats.

Politically, Gifford was on the left and wrote scathing articles criticizing De Dion and other anti-Dreyfusards, despite many of them being important advertisers in his newspaper. Gifford’s reporting of the demonstration incensed De Dion and others industrialists such as Eduard Michelin, a vigorous antisemite, and Gustave Clement.

The Le Velo newspaper which covered sport and politics, dominated the sports paper market, enabling it to command high advertising rates. It was also financially backed by the Darracq motor company – a rival automobile manufacturer to De Dion and Clement.

Giffard’s criticism following the Auteuil incident was the last straw. The anti-Dreyfusard businessmen were already frustrated that Le Velo had a virtual monopoly and was controlled by one of their rivals. Dion and his allies decided to withdraw their advertising and to launch their own rival paper, L’Auto-Velo, under the editorship of Henri Desgrange, a man with significant experience in journalism and the world of cycling.

De Dion chose Desgrange to be his editor for his hard-headed, opinionated and autocratic style. He left the running of the paper to Desgrange with a single instruction: to drive Le Velo out of business.

L’Auto-Velo was launched on October 16th, 1900 and was printed on yellow paper to distinguish it from the green of Le Velo, a decision that was to have lasting significance.

In November 1902, as the renamed L’Auto struggled with circulation at consistently around a quarter of that of Le Velo, Desgrange held a crisis meeting. It was at this meeting that a young reporter by the name of Geo Lefevre, allegedly desperate to suggest something, spontaneously floated the idea of the Tour de France as a promotional enterprise.

Desgrange initially received the idea with skepticism, but after consulting his finance manager, he decided to launch the race in January of 1903. To his surprise “Le Tour” was an immediate success for the paper with circulation rising from around 25,000 to 65,000 after the first edition of the race, spelling disaster for Le Velo which ceased publication in 1904.

de_L'Auto — Le Tour de France is announced in L’Auto.

L’Auto went on to enjoy massive benefit on the back of the Tour de France, and, by the time of the 1923 tour, it was selling 500,000 copies a day during the race. Sales peaked at over 850,000 during the 1933 tour.

Desgrange stayed in charge until his death in 1940 when the paper was taken over by a German consortium. During the war period L’Auto was not unsympathetic to the Nazis, allowing it to continue operating under the Vichy government, but after the war, it was shut down along with all other pro-German publications. From the ashes of L’Auto emerged the now popular French sports paper, L’Equipe.

So, if we look back and connect the dots, we can see that, if it wasn’t for Alfred Dreyfus and his antisemitic ordeal, there would be no Tour de France.

This post was written as part of Gesher L’Europa, the NLI’s initiative to connect with Europe and make our collections available to diverse audiences in Europe and beyond.

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The “New Haman” of Frankfurt

The Jews of Frankfurt established a second Purim in 1616 in celebration of the downfall of a new Haman who tried to eradicate the local Jewish community.

Josh Weiner | 25.02.19

Antisemitism Diaspora Gesher L’Europa Jews Judaism Life Before The Holocaust Purim פורים

Postcard from the end of the 19th-century featuring an illustration by Hermann Junker of a Jewish family in Germany celebrating Purim. Image from the Folklore Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

My grandfather’s book collection was impressive. With him, it was hard to play the usual game of guessing someone’s personality through their selection of books because he spent the later decades of his life as a bookbinder in Jerusalem and had a love for the physical material of books. His bookshelves included all sorts of books that people had left him or that he had found and fixed. That being said, I can’t be sure that the old siddur I have from him is the one that he actually used.

The Sfas Emes siddur is fairly famous in Germany. It was first published in Rödelheim by Rabbi Wolf Heidenheim in 1799 and is still being re-published in the German-speaking Jewish world today. Almost every page makes mention of the special liturgical traditions of Frankfurt. In Frankfurt, one says such and such, in Frankfurt one changes the order, in Frankfurt this word is omitted.

I was using my copy of the siddur that I got from my grandfather for a while, trying to get the feel of it, when I noticed an interesting note. Within the list of ‘happy’ days – days of celebration and holidays on which it is inappropriate to say the penitential prayer called Tachanun, the note adds “In Frankfurt-am-Main, also Frankfurter Purim [is celebrated] on the 20th of Adar.”

I’m a big fan of regular Purim but had never heard of Frankfurter Purim. I decided to do a bit of research and this is what I learned.

purim frankfurt — A book from the National Library collection on Jewish customs in Frankfurt, published in 1723. These pages describe the customs of Purim Vintz.

Frankfurter Purim, also called Purim Vintz, celebrates a local miracle on the 20^th day of the Hebrew month of Adar, just six days after the holiday of Purim. In 1614, a local baker and troublemaker named Vincent Fettmilch who considered himself to be the “New Haman” lead the city guilds in an uprising against the new Emperor. Included in their demands for lower taxes were also demands for fewer Jews in town and lower interest rates on Jewish loans.

When the Emperor ignored or rejected the demands of the city guilds, Fettmilch led a mob to ransack the Jewish quarter of Frankfurt, burning, fighting, and pillaging until the entire Jewish population was forced to flee. Two years later, in February of 1616, Emperor Matthias had Vincent Fettmilch and five of the other rebels hanged, and the Jews were allowed to safely return to the city. The proximity of the hanging to Purim that year, as well as the resonances of the Purim story, encouraged the community to celebrate the return as a mini-redemption, with special songs and a long poetic retelling of the story in Judeo-German called “Megillat Vintz.”

Frankfurt is not alone. In many Jewish communities throughout history, local episodes of near-destruction and sudden salvation have been marked along the lines of Purim. Reading through the history books and discovering hints of Purim Narbonne, Cairo Purim, Purim Hebron, Purim of Saragossa and the four Purims of Ancona, Italy, to mention just a few, is a fascinating experience.

The echoes of these celebrations are still felt today. In his latest halachic (Jewish law) treatise, Peninei Halacha, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed defends the religious obligation to celebrate Yom Haatzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day), despite voices that claim that creating holidays after the destruction of the Temple is forbidden, by citing the precedent of Purim Frankfurt.

For me, now, living and continuing my rabbinical studies in Berlin, these stories of local Purims bring life and complexity to the country I now live in, connecting me to libraries and synagogues in Frankfurt and Jerusalem. Nobody in Frankfurt today celebrates Purim Vintz, as far as I know, and since my grandfather z”l has passed away, I cannot ask whether this was the siddur he grew up with. The Jewish story is colorful and complicated, and having a story like Purim being retold and made continually relevant is an inspiration for me today.

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This article has been published as part of Gesher L’Europa, the National Library of Israel’s initiative to connect with people, institutions and communities across Europe and beyond, through storytelling, knowledge sharing and community engagement.

The Women Who Captivated Muslim Travelers of the Middle Ages

Descriptions of Muslim travel in the middle ages reveal exotic marriage customs and a meeting with a Jewish doctor expelled from Spain

Chen Malul | 24.02.19

13th century illustration of pilgrims on their way to Mecca

The pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, called the hajj in Arabic, is one of the five central commandments in Islam. Every believing Muslim is obligated to fulfill this commandment at least once in his life. But, for Muslims in the middle ages, it was only one of many opportunities for Muslims to explore the far-reaching Muslim empires.

These empires were dominated by trade, and the imperial trade routes offered merchants and adventurers countless opportunities to leave their homes and see new places.

Cover of “Muslim Travels in the Middle Ages”

Among the hundreds of thousands of books and manuscripts stored in the Islam and the Middle East Collection at the National Library of Israel is a book that looks innocent enough. It title is الرحالة المسلمون في العصور الوسطى or “Muslim Travels in the Middle Ages” tells the stories of some of these travelers and provides a glimpse into the strange and distant land they encountered on their journeys.

גלובוס — A sketch of the earth by Muhammad al-Idrisi, born 1100 in Spain. One of the great Muslim geographers

Among the many names in the book, the most famous is probably that of Ibn Battuta, who lived in the 14th century. The words of the renowned scholar and Muslim traveler illustrate in great detail the Muslim custom of taking an additional, local wife when one arrives in a new land. Whenever he was in a particular country for business, he would stay with his local wife (or wives). We know that Ibn Battuta had at least six different wives during his lifetime – two in Egypt and four in the Maldives. Of the women he met in the Maldives he said:

“Marriage is easy on these islands. Dowry is rare, and it is good and proper to socialize with women…they never leave their country, and I have never seen anything more beautiful in the world than these women… [here he includes a description of how these women pleasure their men] and the custom is that the woman does not eat with her husband, and that the man does not know what his wife eats.”

Kill an enemy to marry a woman. Soleiman al-Tajir’s description from the book.

Another example of marriage customs is seen in the travel diary of Soleiman al-Tajir, who wrote about his travels to ninth-century India. “There is much gold there. They eat coconuts and use them to fight and draw. If any of them wants to get married he need but bring a man’s skull back from their enemies. Killing two people allows him to marry twice, and he who kills fifty will marry fifty women…”

In Morocco, North Africa, the traveler Zakariya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini (1203-1283) came across a city that had very different customs than any other found by previous travelers. This was the city of women. Al-Qazwini wrote, “They are women whose men do not control them. They ride horses and engage in war all on their own. They have strength and power…and they have slaves. Every servant belongs to his mistress, and they rise before the dawn.”

Muslim travelers did not only meet women on their journeys, however. Abd al-Basset tells of an encounter with a Jewish doctor he met in Algeria in the 15th century. At the end of this century, all Jews and Muslims who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled from Spain. He writes, “I needed the most skilled physician Musa Ben Samuel Ben Yehuda of Israel…I have not heard of or seen one so skillful and professional in his field as he, knowledgeable in contemporary science as well as in ancient science…he is of the Jews of Spain originally and is a great expert in the field… “

Thanks to Tehila Bigman of the National Library’s Arabic catalogue for her help in translating the excerpts and in composing this article.

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