The Damascus Affair of 1840

One of the events in the Muslim world that pointed to the rise of anti-Semitism in the nineteenth century was the Damascus Affair of 1840 in which a Capuchin monk in Damascus, Father Thomas, disappeared with his servant. The Jews of Damascus were accused of killing him to secure Christian blood which allegedly was required for their rituals. This was known as the Blood Libel. The accusation was very old but wholly without substance. It was often related to the Passover meal and seen as a satanic Jewish Holy Communion. The libel accusation was energetically fostered by Ratti-Menton, the French consul at Damascus and the Quai Dorsay, the French Foreign Office, that saw the incident as a means of strengthening French-Muslim bonds at Jewish expense. In the twentieth century, France was usually hostile to Jewish ambitions in Palestine.