The Many Faces of Antisemitism
Sixth lecture in the series
1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany
Yair Mintsker and Tsafrir Barzilay
Chair: Elisheva Baumgarten
Facebook Live and Zoom Webinar
On the eve of Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Day
Please register on the Leo Baeck Jerusalem website: www.leobaeck.org

Dr. Tsafrir Barzilay’s lecture Poisoning the Well: Jew Hatred in the Middle Ages and the Historical Residue it Left will focus on the accusations that stoked the wave of persecutions between 1348 and 1350, according to which the Jews had caused the epidemic by poisoning the sources of water. We shall consider the origin of these accusations, the circumstances whereby they led to widespread violence mainly in Germany, and the reasons for their subsidence. We shall conclude by discussing the long-term consequences of these persecutions for the annals of Central European Jewry.

Prof. Yair Mintsker’s lecture The Jew Suess: Antisemitism as Hatred of “the Other”: The Case of Jew Süss

“Jew Süss” (Josef Süsskind Oppenheimer, 1697-1738) is one of the key figures in the history of modern antisemitism and is the subject of one of the most notorious Nazi propaganda films. In his lecture Prof. Yair Mintsker (Princeton University) will discuss the historical figure of this renowned eighteenth century court Jew and the 1940 Nazi propaganda film. The key question raised in the lecture is to what extent the prevalent conception of antisemitism as hatred of “the other” helps us understand the phenomenon, or rather obstructs such understanding.