Anti-Jewish Incidents in Jindřichùv Hradec and Nová Bystřice in 1859: On the History of Modern Anti-Semitism
Anti-Jewish Incidents in Jindřichùv Hradec and Nová Bystřice in 1859: On the History of Modern Anti-Semitism

Summary/Abstract: The anti-Jewish disturbances that took place in Bohemia during the Second War of Italian Independence in 1859 has been a neglected topic of historical research. No monograph has yet dealt specifically with the various kinds of public prejudice against Jews that led to street violence in various places at the time. Surprisingly, these incidents are not even mentioned in studies relating to Jewish history or to the little explored history of modern anti-Semitism in Bohemia after 1848. Perhaps this may in part be attributed to the important fact that there was no reporting of these incidents in the national or local press of the day. This was certainly a result of wartime censorship, as there was a ban on the publication of reports on disturbances in the country, a measure that was intended to prevent the spread of violent protests, among other things. Mere mentions about these incidents appear in an overview study on the mood of the local population in Bohemia at the time of the SecondWar of Italian Independence in a 1988 paper by the Vienna-based historian Arnold Suppan. Otherwise, minor references were limited only to the Jindøichùv Hradec (Neuhaus) incident within the context of interwar studies in regional history. Between the two world wars, this incident was included in an analysis of local political relations in the last seven decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy by the prolific historian and gymnasium (secondary school) teacher Jan Muk, and as part of a treatise on the history of the local Jewish religious community by Michael Rachmuth, the penultimate rabbi in Jindøichùv Hradec.

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