Die Juden Böhmens in den letzten Tagen. Ein Wort eines Christen an seine Brüder (Bohemia's Jews During the Last Days. A Word of a Christian to His Brothers )
Prague: Prager=Zeitung; printed at C. W. Medau, (1848). First printing. Loose leaf. Folio Broadside (15 x 9"). Original broadside. An insert of the Prager=Zeitung (Prague Newspaper) No. 63. No OCLC records. One copy found in the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus (City Hall)l.
The Prague Uprising in 1848, known as the Pentecostal Storm, was a spontaneous uprising suppressed by the army. The March 1848 uprising is considered to be part of the wider revolutionary current sweeping throughout Europe. By June of the same year the authorities decided to show a strong military presence in the capitol. The situation escalated, a state of siege was declared and in the following confrontations forty-three of the insurgents were killed. By the end of July the siege was lifted.
Our insert, composed by Christian Heinrich, describes the situation in Prague in the year 1848 as a time when all provinces demanded improvements of their rights under the national structure. The Jewish community however remained quiet without putting forth any demands, and there were no petitions presented to the Prague citizens to sign either. Nevertheless, various unnamed protagonists managed to turn the Prague citizens against the Jews. An anonymous libel printed by Joh. Spurny claims that Jews around the country are out of control demanding equal rights, therefore distributing a petition among Christians, demanding equal rights. This claim is called out as a lie by Heinrich while emphasizing that no such petition has been circulated by the Jews.
Heinrich emphasizes that the libels against Jews were drafted by a small circle of non-Jews, seeing an easy target in the Jewish community, while rehearsing for claims against other sections of the population ("heute wollen sie die Massen gegen die Juden aufreizen, morgen werden sie es gegen Andere thun"). Heinrich deems these strategies to be a disgrace as much for the publishers as it is for the people who penned these petitions.
In closing Heinrich addresses his fellow Christians, imploring them to see that these writings are more harmful to them as to the Jews, designed to coax people into committing the most appalling barbaric deeds, trying to turn the population into animals. These agitators are criminals, he claims, destroying the new order and threaten everybody not in line with them. Finally he implores the reader not to fall for these shenanigans, reminding the people that Christianity is a religion of love, not hatred.
Text in German, Gothic script. Paper browned. Some medium chipping along top, bottom and left edge with minor loss of text. Byline: Missing the word "Beilage. Line six of text: Missing " trauen." Line eight: Missing "...gelegt." Line 9: Missing "und." Line ten: Missing "und." Second to last line: Missing "Wehe." Last line: Missing "Gedruckt." Good condition. Item #54010
Price: $1,250.00