Presence in Absence: Anti-Judaism as Cultural Practice in Early Modern Basel

Despite the physical absence of a Jewish community in early modern Basel, Judaism as such had always been present. It served as protagonist in alleged miracles, as well as subject of interest in humanism and its texts such as Johannes Buxtorf’s Synagoga Judaica. It functioned as the intellectual and economic locomotive during the Hebrew printing era and it visually manifested itself through Hebraic letters in the city walls, since Jewish tombstones were used to rebuild the destroyed rampart after the devastating earthquake of 1356. Yet, Basel’s ambivalent and often conflicting interest in Judaism should not be confused with contemporary philo-Semitism or specific desires to better or even enlighten the knowledge and understanding of Judaism. The early modern examination and discussion of Judaism had not been the result of a genuine interest in actual Jewish thinking and traditions, but rather the result of a complex, multilevel discourse about Christian self-understanding and its Jewish heritage.

The proposed paper will examine the writings of protagonists such as Buxtorf and analyze incidents such as the alleged miracle during the Council of Basel to show that Judaism became a distorted image that was supposed to mirror anything Christianity rejected and denied, yet could build its own heritage upon. (Anti-)Judaism thus served, so I will claim, as a vehicle to transport and to catalyze Christian ideas, knowledge, and legitimacy. This made anti-Judaism a continuous necessity or, in other words, a Christian cultural practice.