Descriptive Overview
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The Damascus Affair took place in Damascus, Syria during 1840. It began with the disappearance of Italian monk, Father Tomaso de Camangiano, Superior of a Capuchin cloister in Damascus. The Capuchin order is a brotherhood of monks originating in Italy, with various sects scattered throughout Europe, one of which was located in Damascus. Tomaso had been educated in France and was now stationed at this cloister to perform missionary work.
When his servant, Ibrahim Amara, discovered that Father Tomaso was missing, he went to look for him in the Jewish Quarter, toward which the monk was last seen traveling, and also did not return.
There had been a rumor a few days before the two had gone missing that the monk had been involved in a quarrel with a Turkish mule driver. According to these rumors, during the dispute, the Turk heard Father Tomaso blaspheme the prophet Muhammad and had sworn, "that dog of a Christian shall die by no other hand but mine!"
Tomaso's fellow monks ignored this rumor, and spread the story that their Superior had been murdered by the Jews for ritual purposes. According to medieval Christian beliefs, Jews were thought to use the blood of Gentile children to make their Matzah (unleavened) bread for Passover, their holiday which commemorates the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. It was during the Middle Ages when the term "blood libel" was first introduced to describe this accusation and, even though both Jews and Gentiles are familiar with it, who coined the label still remains a mystery.
1840, and the years preceding it, were ones of great social and political upheaval in Syria, There are many different versions of what occurred during the Damascus Affair, which shouldn't be a surprise considering Damascus society at the time. It was primarily comprised of Jews, Catholics and Muslims, each possessing a separate interpretation of events and differing motives. The country, governed by Muhammad Ali of Egypt, had been under Turkish rule since 1515 and had rebelled against this rule. France supported Muhammad Ali because they believed he was in the best position to spread French influence into the Middle East. Austria and Great Britain supported Turkey because they wanted to limit France's eastward expansion. Britain and Austria also objected to Egyptian rule in Syria because it was a threat to the Ottoman Empire, the weakness or disintegration of which might cause a European crisis, since the Empire encompassed such a vast area. In 1839 war broke out between Muhammad Ali and SultanSelim I, ruler of Turkey but Ibrahim Pasha, Muhammad's son, had defeated the Turkish army and life returned to normal, at least until the Affair began.
Catholic missions in other countries such as Syria were carried out by France. They helped to enlarge both Latin and Eastern Catholic communities, create schools, and spread knowledge of European languages. At that time, monks who operated in Syria were officially under protection of the French consul in Damascus, Count Benoit de Ratti-Menton, and Father Tomaso was one such individual. Because of this, the consul became involved in the case. On February 7, however, he suggested that the investigation be turned over to the Muslim governor of Damascus, an Arab named Sherif Pasha.
There are many conflicting views of what happened preceding the murder. Some sources say that Tomaso was on his way to post a notice at a Jewish Quarter synagogue, others that he was lured by false requests for a vaccination. At any rate, following Ratti-Menton's instructions, the police arrested Suleiman Negrin, an Israeli barber, who lived near the synagogue. His shop, in which one of the monk's leaflets was found, was considered the last known whereabouts of the pair.
The barber and a servant, after being whipped, were forcibly made by Ratti-Menton to "confess" that Father Tomaso was in the Jewish Quarter with a group of Rabbis including Moshe Behor Yehuda, Moshe Abu Al-Afia, Yosef Laniado, David Harari, and his two brothers Isaac and Aaron. Then he admitted that all of them had went to Harari's home where he had been invited a half-hour after sunset to slaughter the handcuffed Father Tomaso. He said he could not do it, but the men promised him gold and silver coins. He still did not agree. Then, according to official court records, "...They [the Rabbis, Harari, etc.] threw Father Tomaso on the ground, put his neck on a basin, and slaughtered him. They were very careful to make sure that not a single drop was spilled. Then they moved him to another room, burned his clothes, and cut his body to pieces, which they put into a sack and threw to the sewage near the Jewish Quarter."
Another variation (from Jonathan Frankel's book, The Damascus Affair: Ritual Murder: Politics and the Jews in 1840) says that "… he [Harari's servant] had pulled his [Tomaso's] head up by the beard in order to facilitate the flow of blood into a copper basin… he had stripped him of all his clothes which were burnt… the body, then still in one piece, was carried into a neighboring room… In the meantime Harari's servant had returned to the house and was put to work with cutting Father Thomas up. Then they smashed the skull and pounded the bones to pieces on the marble stone of the courtyard. Finally, under the cover of darkness, they went and threw all that remained of the flesh and the bones into one of the conduits in the quarter." It is unclear what may account for such discrepancies in the stories. Some say that the body was found, others that it was not. Another states that a doctor was unable to identify the bones as a human's.
The seven men (Harari, the Rabbis, etc.) reported as present were the most distinguished leaders of the Jewish community. They were all arrested and subjected to torture: Their teeth were pulled out, they were burned, beaten, immersed in ice water and forced to stand for 36 hours without food, water or sleep. Some of them had their eyes gouged out and were dismembered.
In order to further the case against the Jews, Sherif Pasha and Ratti-Menton had also arrested a Muslim servant of David Harari and forced him to "confess" that the monk's assistant, Ibrahim Amara, had been murdered in the presence of the seven Jewish leaders, as well. Other than this account, it is not known what really happened, since only Father Tomaso's death is described.
The Arabs began relentlessly tracking down and arresting all Jews who could be found. Because many male Jewish citizens feared these arrests and tortures, they soon began to flee the city. To aid in capturing these runaways, sixty Jewish children were kidnapped by Muslims and mothers were threatened with the deaths of their children unless they would reveal the hiding places of the husbands. It is unknown what fate befell the children and mothers.
Among the group of later detainees was Isaac Levi Piccioto, an Austrian citizen, who was under the protection of the Austrian consul in Damascus. This brought the Austrian government into the fray. He managed to escape prison, and ran to the Austrian consul, Giovanni Merlato. Despite heavy pressure, Merlato refused to return Piccioto to jail for torture. He openly criticized Arab court proceedings and, according to official Arab court records, describes the methods used as barbaric and "inhuman excesses by the Arabs who, anyhow, were known for their brutalities and total disrespect for truth and justice." Apparently Piccioto possessed an airtight alibi but, so far, what it was remains unknown.
Merlato then sent a special report detailing what was happening to Antonio Laurin, the Austrian consul-general in Egypt. Laurin petitioned Muhammad Ali to stop the torture, and tried to influence the French consul-general in Egypt to restrain his subordinate, Ratti-Menton. When this proved unsuccessful, he sent the report to James de Rothschild, the honorary Austrian consul in Paris. He asked Rothschild and other prominent Jews to intervene with the French government. When the government ignored all pleas, Rothschild released the report to the European press and the Damascus Affair became public knowledge. Both the Jews and many Gentiles throughout Europe were horrified by the tales of torture and the resurrection of the medieval ritual murder myth.
In France, the prominent lawyer and orator, Adolphe Cremieux, appealed to King Louis Philippe and his Foreign Secretary, Adolphe Thiers, to intervene and terminate the barbaric torture in Damascus. He realized that the French government was not interested in the plight of the Jews; it wanted to continue to keep Muhammad Ali in power. In Vienna, Solomon Rothschild, James' brother, approached Klemens von Metternich on the issue. Austria and Britain then got involved. In England, the Jews, including Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Nathaniel Rothschild, approached the English Foreign Secretary, Henry John Palmerston, for help. Palmerston promised to empower England's consulate in Alexandria and his ambassador in Constantinople to use their influence with the Egyptian Pasha and the Turkish Sultan to help.
Muhammad Ali suddenly found himself the object of international pressure. Because of this, he promised to convene an international court of justice to judge the Jews. However, the French Foreign Secretary, Thiers, was opposed because it would weaken French prestige if the brutal behavior of Ratti-Menton and Sherif Pasha were discovered. At that point, public opinion the world over began shifting in favor of the condemned Jews.
On July 8, 1840, there was a meeting in London at which members of Parliament and Christian clergy protested the medieval blood libel and the torture of the accused Jews. Similar gatherings took place in Paris, New York City and Philadelphia. U.S. President Martin Van Buren sent letters to the U.S. consul in Alexandria and the State Department's Minister in Turkey to help the Jews in Damascus. The English Jews sent a delegation to Egypt comprised of Adolphe Cremieux, Moses Montefiore and Solomon Munkin in order to make a last appeal to Muhammed Ali for help with saving the Damascus Jews. The French consul-general, following instructions from Thiers, did his best to sabotage that effort. However, as a war between Egypt and Turkey was on the horizon, French influence began to weaken.
After three weeks of negotiations with the French delegations, Muhammed Ali yielded to pressure. He ordered Sherif Pasha to release those Jews who had survived the numerous rounds of torture. They were finally freed, on August 28, 1840. Reports differ once again on the results of the aftermath. One says that seven of them had been severely mutilated, four had died, and only two had escaped injury. Another claims that four had died, ten were sentenced to death but later freed by Muhammed Ali, and four, who had incriminated others, were granted release.
In the months that followed, Muhammad Ali lost most of his power. The British, Ottomans and Austrians formed an alliance and invaded the Syrian coast; there was a local insurrection encouraged from outside, and the Egyptians were forced to withdraw from Syria, which reverted back to the Sultan's government. Sherif Pasha was captured by the Turks and dragged in chains to Cairo where he was executed. It is uncertain whether their involvement in the Damascus Affair is to blame or if there are other reasons. Only Ratti-Menton emerged unscathed.
Sources are very dubious at best. Most are comprised of web sites that
could have been set up by anyone. The majority of information, however,
is from the newspaper, Our Jerusalem and some academic papers, such
as Debacle in Damascus. Jonathan Frankel's book, Ritual Murder:
Politics and the Jews in 1840 has also been extensively drawn upon
for information, as well. The details of the interrogations and
"confessions" were excerpts from actual official court records.
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