Authors: David I. Kertzer
ISBN-13: 9780375706059, ISBN-10: 0375706054
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Date Published: September 2002
Edition: Reprint
David I. Kertzer was born in 1948 in New York City. He is Paul Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science and a professor of anthropology and Italian studies at Brown University. He is the author of The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. The Popes Against the Jews was a finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize and he has twice been awarded, in 1985 and 1990, the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies for the best wrok on Italian history. He and his wife, Susan, live in Providence.
In this meticulously researched, unflinching, and reasoned study, National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer presents shocking revelations about the role played by the Vatican in the development of modern anti-Semitism. Working in long-sealed Vatican archives, Kertzer unearths startling evidence to undermine the Church’s argument that it played no direct role in the spread of modern anti-Semitism. In doing so, he challenges the Vatican’s recent official statement on the subject, We Remember. Kertzer tells an unsettling story that has stirred up controversy around the world and sheds a much-needed light on the past.
This is a fascinating study of an important and controversial subject. As well as being both polemical and highly readable it is scholarly and contains a great deal of unfamiliar information from the recently opened Vatican archives.
Introduction | 3 | |
Part 1 | Keeping Jews in Their Place | |
1 | A Missed Opportunity | 25 |
2 | Forced Baptisms | 38 |
3 | The Ghetto | 60 |
4 | Ritual Murder Makes a Comeback | 86 |
5 | The End of an Era | 106 |
Part 2 | The Church and the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism | |
6 | The Catholic Press | 133 |
7 | Jewish Vampires | 152 |
8 | France | 166 |
9 | Austria | 186 |
10 | Race | 205 |
11 | Ritual Murder and the Popes in the Twentieth Century | 213 |
Part 3 | On the Eve of the Holocaust | |
12 | A Future Pope in Poland | 239 |
13 | Antechamber to the Holocaust | 264 |
Acknowledgments | 293 | |
Appendix | Popes and Their Secretaries of State | 297 |
Notes | 299 | |
References Cited | 329 | |
Index | 345 |