Jewishness, Gender, and Sexual Violence in Early Nineteenth-Century Frankfurt am Main: An Intersectional Microhistory

Abstract

Abstract:This article analyzes the criminal procedure against the Schutzjudensohn (son of a protected Jew), Heyum Windmühl, who was charged with raping the six-year-old daughter of a Christian citizen in a case in Frankfurt am Main in the early nineteenth century. In doing so, it engages with three topics currently debated in historical scholarship: sexualized violence, the relationship between anti-Jewish resentment and gender, and marginalized masculinity and intersectionality. As this study posits, Christian criminal justice provides insight into the nature of contact and conflict between Jews and gentiles. The article illuminates the role discrimination played in the anti-Jewish-encoded criminal arena of sexuality and violence while also exploring the patriarchal gender order that shaped the misogynous construction of sexual assault in the case. Finally, it reveals how the mechanisms of criminal procedure, as well as the legal discourses of reform and regulatory interests impacted the verdict and its interpretation. This case evidences the impact of the motif of the "Jew as desecrator of virgins," the Jud Süß (Jew Süß) motif, which constructed Jewish men as rapists of Christian women.