Damascus Affair

In February 1840 a Capuchin friar, Father Thomas, and his servant disappeared in Damascus, then under the Egyptian rule of Muhammad Ali. Encouraged by the French consul, Ulysse de Ratti-Menton, the authorities accused the Jews of killing them to use their blood for Passover. A Jewish barber confessed under torture. Leading members of the community were arrested and tortured; some died, one converted to Islam to escape, and dozens of children were held to force their parents to confess.

The affair caused an international outcry. Moses Montefiore of London and Adolphe Crémieux of Paris, with the scholar Salomon Munk, traveled to Alexandria and in August 1840 won the release of the surviving prisoners from Muhammad Ali. In November Sultan Abdulmejid issued a decree declaring the blood libel false. It was the first organized international Jewish campaign of modern times. It helped lead to the founding of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in 1860, and it pushed Moses Hess toward Jewish nationalism.