18th century
Great Fear riots
Juill.-août 1789·Alsace
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Jewish houses plundered in Hegenheim, Durmenach and in the Sundgau, a thousand Jews flee to Basel
The summer of the Great Fear, which saw the French countryside take up arms against imaginary brigands, turned in Alsace into attacks on Jewish homes. In the Sundgau, in Hegenheim, Durmenach, Uffheim, and neighboring villages, dwellings were pillaged and debt bonds and promissory notes burned — it was rural credit, more than religion, that was being targeted.
A thousand people crossed the Rhine and took refuge in Basel, from which the authorities would return them after a few weeks. The episode weighed upon the debates of the Constituent Assembly: it was precisely the Jews of Alsace who would face the strongest resistance to emancipation, voted for them two years later.
- Period :
- 18th century
- Type :
- Pogrom
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- France
Robert Badinter, *Libres et égaux* ; Zosa Szajkowski, *The Economic Status of the Jews in Alsace* ; archives départementales du Haut-Rhin.