Non-Fiction - International Works on Jews and Crime, Espionage, etc. (including the following books):

Note: The coverage of the different countries in this section is less comprehensive than in the previous chapters on the U.S., Canada, Israel and the U.K., due to limitations of language, available materials, and time. My hope is that others will treat this as a challenge to be met by further research and effort. – SS

8.3.1 General and Miscellaneous

8.3.1.1 Synopsis: Michael Berkowitz, The Crime of My Very Existence: Nazism and the Myth of Jewish Criminality

Berkowitz, Michael, (The Crime of My Very Existence: Nazism and the Myth of Jewish Criminality [hc, U. of California Press, 2007] 978-0520251120 [pb, U. of Cal. Press, 2007] 978-0520251144 [ - argues that one of the central ideological foundations of Nazi antisemitism was the claim that being Jewish was itself a form of criminality. Rather than portraying Jews simply as a religious or racial “other,” Nazi propaganda increasingly depicted them as an international criminal conspiracy whose very existence threatened Germany and civilization. Berkowitz demonstrates that this stereotype was not an accidental feature of Nazi rhetoric but one of its organizing principles, influencing law, policing, propaganda, and ultimately genocide.

The book traces the long history of the association between Jews and crime in European thought. Medieval accusations of ritual murder, host desecration, and poisoning wells evolved during the nineteenth century into supposedly “scientific” claims that Jews were naturally inclined toward fraud, usury, prostitution, black-market activity, revolutionary politics, and financial manipulation. Modern criminology, racial anthropology, and conspiracy theories all contributed to this narrative. By the time the Nazis came to power, they inherited an intellectual tradition that portrayed Jews as simultaneously capitalist exploiters, communist revolutionaries, sexual predators, and corrupting cosmopolitans—contradictory accusations united by the assumption that Jews constituted an inherently criminal people.

Berkowitz shows how the Nazi state systematically institutionalized this myth. Police forces, courts, criminologists, racial theorists, and propaganda agencies collaborated in constructing the image of the “criminal Jew.” Crime statistics were manipulated, isolated offenses were generalized to an entire population, and Jewish economic activity was routinely redefined as criminal behavior. The regime’s anti-Jewish laws then created a vicious circle: once ordinary Jewish activities were criminalized, arrests and prosecutions appeared to confirm the original stereotype. The Nazis thus manufactured evidence for their own ideology.

A major contribution of the book is its examination of visual propaganda. Berkowitz analyzes newspapers such as Der Stürmer, police exhibitions, photographs, caricatures, films, and museum displays that portrayed Jews as gangsters, smugglers, pimps, black marketeers, and swindlers. Criminal imagery was often blended with racial stereotypes: hooked noses, furtive expressions, and images of hidden wealth reinforced the notion that criminality was biologically encoded. This visual language normalized persecution by persuading ordinary Germans that Jews represented a public safety threat rather than merely a disliked minority.

The Holocaust itself, Berkowitz argues, cannot be fully understood without recognizing this criminalization process. Nazi leaders frequently justified increasingly radical measures—including deportation and mass murder—not only in racial terms but also as a form of crime prevention or public protection. Jews were treated not simply as racial enemies but as permanent offenders whose elimination supposedly constituted legitimate policing. The transformation of genocide into an apparent exercise in law enforcement was one of the regime’s most dangerous ideological achievements.

The book also demonstrates that Jewish responses varied considerably. Some Jewish organizations attempted to counter antisemitic stereotypes by emphasizing exceptionally low rates of criminality among Jews, while others rejected the premise entirely, insisting that an entire people could not be judged collectively by the actions of individuals. Berkowitz highlights how impossible it was to refute a propaganda system whose conclusions had been predetermined.

One of the book’s broader historical lessons is that myths of collective Jewish criminality have repeatedly resurfaced in new forms after 1945. Although the specific racial language of Nazism became discredited, many underlying narratives survived, often detached from explicitly biological theories. Rather than accusing Jews as individuals, critics increasingly directed analogous allegations toward the Jewish collective represented by the State of Israel.

This historical continuity provides a useful framework—but one that should be applied carefully—for understanding certain contemporary manifestations of antisemitism that appear in anti-Israel discourse. Legitimate criticism of Israeli governments, military operations, or policies is not inherently antisemitic and is a normal feature of democratic debate. However, scholars of contemporary antisemitism have noted that some rhetoric goes beyond policy criticism by attributing uniquely criminal or inherently malevolent characteristics to Israel or to Jews collectively.

Examples include claims that Israel is uniquely genocidal while comparable conflicts are ignored; portrayals of Zionism as a uniquely evil or criminal ideology; allegations that Israel operates as the central source of global instability; conspiracy theories about Jewish control of governments, media, or finance through support for Israel; or assertions that Jews worldwide bear collective responsibility for Israeli actions. Such narratives can echo earlier patterns by treating Jewish collective existence itself as intrinsically illegitimate or criminal rather than evaluating specific actions or policies on their merits.

Berkowitz himself is primarily a historian rather than a polemicist, and The Crime of My Very Existence is fundamentally a work of historical scholarship rather than a direct analysis of twenty-first-century politics. Nevertheless, its central insight remains highly relevant: antisemitism has often operated by transforming Jewish identity into evidence of inherent criminality. Whether directed at individual Jews or, in some contemporary contexts, at the Jewish state, this pattern of collective criminalization has proven remarkably adaptable across different historical periods. The book therefore serves as both a detailed study of Nazi ideology and a broader warning about how conspiracy theories, collective guilt, and the language of criminality can be mobilized against Jews in changing political and cultural circumstances. – ChatGPT]

Berkowitz, Michael, “A Hidden Theme of Jewish Self-Love: Eric Hobsbawm, Karl Marx, and Cesare Lombroso on “Jewish Criminality,” in The Cesare Lombroso Handbook, ed. Paul Knepper and PJ Ystehede (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 255

Bristow, Edward, (Prostitution & Prejudice: The Jewish Fight Against White Slavery, 1870–1939 [Schocken Books, 1983]) 978-0805238662

8.3.1.2 Synopsis: Arnold Goldsmith, The Golem Remembered

Goldsmith, Arnold, (The Golem Remembered, 1909–1980: Variations of a Jewish Legend [hc, Wayne State UP, 1981] 978-0814316832 [- a scholarly study of the modern literary afterlife of the golem legend rather than a retelling of the story itself. Goldsmith examines how writers between 1909 and 1980 repeatedly reinterpreted the ancient Jewish tale of the artificial man fashioned from clay, especially the version associated with Rabbi Judah Loew (the Maharal) of Prague.

Goldsmith traces the golem’s transformation from a figure in Jewish folklore into a versatile symbol in modern literature. He compares numerous versions of the legend in Hebrew, Yiddish, German, English, and other European literatures, showing how each reflects the concerns of its own historical and cultural setting. The book discusses major treatments by authors such as Gustav Meyrink, H. Leivick, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, among others.

A central argument is that the golem evolved into a powerful metaphor for a range of modern issues, including: the relationship between creator and creation; the ethical limits of human knowledge and power; Jewish persecution, exile, and survival; the tension between mysticism and rationalism; and questions of identity and responsibility in the modern world. Goldsmith also explores the influence of the golem on drama, fiction, and popular culture, demonstrating how the legend gradually moved beyond specifically Jewish contexts to become an international literary and cultural motif.

For anyone studying Jewish literature, folklore, or mythology, the book serves as both a literary history and a critical survey of one of Judaism’s most enduring legends. It remains a useful reference because of its extensive bibliographical coverage of twentieth-century golem literature. – ChatGPT]

Hyman, Elizabeth R., (The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising – The Holocaust Biography of Female Resistance Leaders [pb, Harper, Perennial, 2025] 978-0063355019 [The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is one of the most storied events of the Holocaust, yet previous accounts of have almost entirely focused on its male participants. In The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto, Holocaust historian Elizabeth Hyman introduces five young, courageous Polish Jewish women—known as “the girls” by the leadership of the resistance and “bandits” by their Nazi oppressors—who were central to the Jewish resistance as fighters, commanders, couriers, and smugglers. They include:

Zivia Lubetkin, the most senior female member of the Jewish Fighting Organization Command Staff in Warsaw and a reluctant legend in her own time, who was immortalized by her code name, “Celina”

Vladka Meed, who smuggled dynamite into and illegal literature out of the Warsaw Ghetto in preparation for the uprising

Dr. Idina “Inka” Blady-Schweiger, a young medical student who became a reluctant angel of mercy

Tema Schneiderman, a tall, beautiful and fearless young woman who volunteered for smuggling and rescue missions across Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe

Tossia Altman, a heroic courier with a poetic soul, who helped bring arms into the Warsaw Ghetto, fought in the Uprising, and ferried communiques to the outside world. – Amazon]

Kritzler, Edward, (Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge [hc, Doubleday, 2008] 978-0385513982 [pb, Vintage, 2009] 978-0767919524 [At the end of the fifteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition forced many Jews to flee the country. The most adventurous among them took to the high seas as freewheeling outlaws. In ships bearing names such as the Prophet Samuel, Queen Esther, and Shield of Abraham, they attacked and plundered the Spanish fleet while forming alliances with other European powers to ensure the safety of Jews living in hiding. This is the entertaining saga of a hidden chapter in Jewish history and of the cruelty, terror, and greed that flourished during the Age of Discovery. Readers will meet such daring figures as “the Great Jewish Pirate” Sinan, Barbarossa’s second-in-command; the pirate rabbi Samuel Palache, who founded Holland’s Jewish community; Abraham Cohen Henriques, an arms dealer who used his cunning and economic muscle to find safe havens for other Jews; and his pirate brother Moses, who is credited with the capture of the Spanish silver fleet in 1628--the largest heist in pirate history. - Amazon]

Ronel, Natti & Y. Ben Yair, “Spiritual Criminology: The Case of Jewish Criminology,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 62, no. 7 (2018)

8.3.1.3 Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe

Shoham-Steiner, Ephraim, (Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe) [hc, Wayne State UP, 2020] 9780814345597 [pb] 9780814348239 [- a groundbreaking historical study written by a professor of medieval Jewish history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. It challenges traditional, sanitized narratives of medieval Jewish history by exploring the neglected reality of internal Jewish criminality. Historically, both Jewish collective memory and academic movements (like the 19th-century Wissenschaft des Judentums) avoided the topic of Jewish crime. Historians often dismissed criminal allegations as antisemitic fabrications or attributed actual misdeeds entirely to the corrupting influence of the surrounding Christian society. Shoham-Steiner shatters this myth of universal moral exceptionalism. He demonstrates that medieval Ashkenazic communities (primarily between the 11th and 13th centuries) were complex, fully functional societies that naturally included their own share of transgressors, including thieves, murderers, brawlers, and domestic abusers. The book relies heavily on rabbinic responsa (case law and legal correspondence), liturgical texts, and archival data to analyze daily life from the perspective of community misconduct. It is organized into three main thematic sections: 

Theft and Economic Crime: Examines how Jewish thieves operated within and outside the community, looking at property crimes like home robberies and fenced plundered goods. 

Violence and Murder: Investigates instances of physical assaults, domestic abuse (such as wife-beating), and homicides committed by Jews. 

Women and Crime: Explores gender dynamics, tracking how women were involved in criminal behavior both as victims and perpetrators (including cases involving infidelity, sex work, and child abandonment).

Shoham-Steiner argues that a society’s attitude toward its criminals serves as a “window” into its core values, mores, and internal hierarchies. The book highlights the communal mechanisms—such as rabbinic courts, social ostracization, and the threat of religious bans—used by the autonomous Jewish leadership to maintain social order and manage transgressors. [Google/AI]

An expanded Hebrew version of the book was published in 2026 by the Magnes Press of the Hebrew University. A reviewer (Ofri Ilany, “Violent? Us?”, Ha’aretz English edition, June 12, 2026) observed that the book deviates from the apologetic bias of much Jewish historiography in minimizing such phenomena, for fear of reinforcing anti-Semitic stereotypes. Ilany concludes: “Jews are no worse than other groups, but they are also far from being a purely holy flock. Strange as it may sound, we are human beings. And human beings are capable of the most horrendous atrocities.”

Simon, Rachel, “Jewish Defense in Libya,” Jewish Political Studies Review 13, nos. 3–4 (Fall 2001): 107–141. [Simon traces Jewish protection in Libya over a long period. Because Jews frequently doubted whether Ottoman, Italian or local authorities could protect them, they developed informal protective mechanisms involving Jewish strongmen, communal organizations and alliances with local political figures.

After the violent Tripoli pogrom of 1945, Jewish defense became much more systematic; by 1946 emissaries from Palestine helped establish and train an organized defense framework. Simon emphasizes that these security organizations were deliberately kept somewhat separate from the official communal leadership, allowing Jewish leaders plausible deniability when authorities objected. – ChatGPT]

Teter, Magda, (Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation [hc, Harvard UP, 2011]) 978-0674052970 [An examination of the criminalization of Jews in post-Reformation Poland for the alleged offense of defamation of the eucharist, as part of the Catholic Church’s struggle to retain dominance]

Van Onselen, Charles, “Jewish Marginality in the Atlantic World: Organised Crime in the Era of the Great Migrations, 1880–1914,” South African Historical Journal 43, no. 1 (2000)

Van Onselen, Charles, “Jewish Police Informers in the Atlantic World, 1880–1914,” The Historical Journal, 50, no. 1 (2007)

Weinreich, Gil, (Who Killed Rav Adda bar Abba?: A Talmudic Murder Mystery [pb, published independently, 2025] 979-8299485356

8.3.2 France

Cohen, Marthe with Wendy Holden, (Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany [hc, Harmony, 2002] 978-0609610541 [pb, Renaissance Literary & Talent, 2021] 978-1950369317 [See related film] [Marthe Cohn was a young Jewish woman living just across the German border in France when Hitler rose to power. Her family began sheltering fellow Jews fleeing the Nazis, including Jewish children sent away by their terrified parents. But soon France also fell under Nazi rule. As the French Jews’ basic human rights were stripped away under German occupation, Marthe’s sister Stéphanie was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she was never heard from again. The rest of her family fled safely to the south of France, but Marthe joined the French Army to help rid her country of the Nazis.

As a member of the intelligence service of the French First Army, Marthe risked her life to retrieve crucial information about Nazi troop movements by slipping behind enemy lines, utilizing her perfect German accent and blond hair to pose as a young German nurse desperately trying to obtain word of a fictional fiancé. By traveling throughout the countryside and approaching troops sympathetic to her plight, chancing exposure every time she did so, she learned where they were going next and alerted Allied commanders.

When, at the age of eighty, Marthe Cohn was awarded the Médaille Militaire, France’s highest military honor, not even her children knew to what extent this modest woman had faced death daily while helping defeat the Nazi empire. At its heart, this remarkable memoir is the tale of an ordinary human being who, under extraordinary circumstances, became the hero her country needed her to be. – Amazon] See the entry on the documentary film about her - Chichinette: The Accidental Spy [2019] – in the companion list of Movies, Films and TV series.

8.3.2.1 Pierre Goldman, Dim Memories of a Polish Jew Born in France

Goldman, Pierre, (Dim Memories of a Polish Jew Born in France [French title: Souvenirs obscurs d’un juif polonais né en France] [translated by Joan Pinkham, pb, Viking, 1977]) 978-0670272730 [See related film] [- the autobiographical memoir of Pierre Goldman (born 1944 in Lyon and assassinated in Paris, 1979) — militant, intellectual, criminal defendant, and eventually cult figure of the French radical left. The book mixes political confession, psychological self-analysis, Jewish memory, and crime narrative.

Goldman was the son of Polish Jewish communist Resistance fighters who survived Nazi occupation in France. Raised after the war in Paris, he grew up with a powerful sense of displacement and inherited trauma: Jewish, immigrant, leftist, and marked by the Holocaust without directly experiencing it himself. The memoir explores how this background shaped his identity and attraction to revolutionary politics.

The book’s central drama concerns Goldman’s descent into marginality and violent crime during the 1960s. After involvement with leftist causes — including sympathy for Latin American guerrilla movements — he drifted into robberies and underworld life. He was arrested and convicted for several armed robberies and, most controversially, for the 1969 murder of two pharmacists during a Paris holdup. Goldman admitted participating in some robberies but always denied the murders.

The memoir was written while he was imprisoned awaiting retrial. It became famous because it combined a fierce critique of French society and policing, reflections on Jewishness and postwar identity, existential guilt and self-destruction, and a passionate defense against what Goldman portrayed as a miscarriage of justice.

A major theme is the burden of being a post-Holocaust Jew in France. Goldman describes feeling haunted by the destruction of European Jewry and by the heroic myth of his Resistance-fighter parents, while simultaneously feeling incapable of living up to that legacy. Crime, in the memoir, often appears less as greed than as nihilism, alienation, and a search for intensity or identity.

The book became a sensation among French intellectuals. Figures including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Michel Foucault supported Goldman’s campaign for retrial, seeing the case as bound up with antisemitism, class prejudice, and state repression. Goldman ultimately won a retrial and was acquitted of the murder charges in 1976, though convicted on lesser robbery counts. Stylistically, the memoir is intense, fragmented, intellectual, and emotionally raw — part political testimony, part noir confession, part meditation on Jewish identity and violence.

Goldman was assassinated in Paris in 1979 by unknown gunmen, probably linked either to far-right networks or shadowy security circles; the murder has never been definitively solved.

[ChatGPT] See the entry on the 2023 film about Goldman’s trial (The Goldman Case/ Le Procès Goldman) in the companion Filmography (immediately following)..

Gorrara, Claire, (French crime fiction and the Second World War: Past crimes, present memories [hc, Manchester UP, 2012] 978-0719082658 [pb, Manchester UP, 2014] 978-0719095498 [This study explores France’s preoccupation with memories of the Second World War through an examination of popular culture and one of its more enduring forms: crime fiction. It examines what such popular narratives have to tell us about past and present perceptions of the war years in France and how they relate to post-war debates over memory, culture and national identity.

Starting with narratives of the Resistance in the late 1940s and concluding with contemporary crime fiction for younger readers, Gorrara examines popular memories of the Second World War in dialogue with the changing social, cultural and political contexts of remembrance in post-war France. From memories of the persecution of Jews and French collaboration to the legacies of the concentration camps and the figure of the survivor-witness, all the crime novels discussed grapple with the challenges of what it means to live in the shadow of such a past for generations past, present and future. – Amazon]

Note: This does not contradict the assertion, as in the listing of the 2006 film “Tell No One” in the companion Movies-Films list, that Jewish detectives are rare in French crime fiction, or that their Jewish identities are not highlighted. Rachel Kupferstein, the Jewish detective in Arab Jazz by Miské, is actually the lone exception who proves the rule. Gorrara is focusing on a different issue: how French crime fiction engages with memory of Occupation, Vichy, collaboration, deportation, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust. In that framework, Jews may be central even when there are no explicitly Jewish detectives at all. The gradual change in French attitudes toward the German WW2 occupation, the Vichy regime and the narrative of French resistance during the 1970s, impacted crime fiction as well. More attention was paid to collaboration, anti-Semitism, the myth of the Resistance and suppressed wartime guilt. This does not necessarily generate Jewish detectives, but it does make Jews and Jewish memory highly significant to the moral architecture of the genre. Gorrara is focusing on the function of crime fiction as a national memory vehicle, and asking how it processes unresolved WW2/Vichy memories. In that framework, Jews become central symbols of historical truth, deportation becomes a hidden crime, collaboration becomes an unsolved case, and archives and missing identities become detective structures. So even if the detective is not Jewish, Jewish history may be central to the narrative.

This illustrates a major difference between American and French crime fiction. Jewish detectives appear frequently in American crime fiction, embodying questions of assimilation, outsiderhood, ethnic identity, urban mobility and moral anxiety. In French crime fiction, Jewishness more often appears through historical trauma, memory politics, Vichy, Holocaust aftermath and national guilt., American Jewish detective fiction tends more toward identity narrative, while French Jewish-inflected crime fiction tends toward historical-memory narrative. Thus, French crime fiction may contain relatively few overtly Jewish detectives while still being profoundly shaped by Jewish history, especially through narratives of Vichy, deportation, memory, and hidden wartime crimes. [ChatGPT]

It will be interesting to see how recent fluctuations in French attitudes to Jews, Judaism and especially Israel play out in French crime fiction and film trends.

Kaminsky, Sarah & Adolfo, (Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger’s Life [translated from the French by Mike Mitchell, hc, Doppel House Press, 2016] 978-0997003406 [pb, DoppelHouse Press, 2016] 978-0997003475 (born in Buenos Aires in 1925, died in Paris in 2023) [“Every resistance movement had its forgers, but few have told their tales. Many, like Kaminsky, were very young technicians and chemists when they began their work. Sarah Kaminsky’s affectionate rendering of her father’s life, with all the intricacies of his trade, is a book not just about a remarkable craftsman, but a man who strove to save ‘every life that was in danger.’” –Times Literary Supplement

Best-selling author Sarah Kaminsky takes readers through her father Adolfo Kaminsky’s perilous and clandestine career as a forger for the French Resistance, the FLN, and numerous other freedom movements of the twentieth century. Recruited as a young Jewish teenager for his knowledge of dyes, Kaminsky became the primary forger for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Then, as a professional photographer, Kaminsky spent the next twenty-five years clandestinely producing thousands of counterfeit documents for immigrants, exiles, underground political operatives, and pacifists across the globe. Kaminsky kept his past cloaked in secrecy well into his eighties, until his daughter convinced him to share the details of the life-threatening work he did on behalf of people fighting for justice and peace throughout the world. [Amazon]

While not a detective chasing criminals, Kaminsky was a forensic investigator in reverse. He used his background in chemical dyeing to analyze official French and German identity papers, figuring out exactly how watermarks, stamps, and inks were manufactured. He ran a secret laboratory in Paris that manufactured flawless fake documents, systematically tracking German round-up schedules to warn and hide Jewish families before the police arrived. He estimated that his forensic forgery directly saved roughly 14,000 lives. [ChatGPT]

8.3.2.2 Serge & Beate Klarsfeld, Hunting the Truth

Klarsfeld, Serge & Beate, (Hunting the Truth: Memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld [hc, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018] 978-0374279820 [pb, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019] 978-0374538170 [This dual autobiography by the Nazi-hunter couple is written in alternating first-person chapters, recounting more than fifty years of activism devoted to exposing Nazi war criminals, documenting the Holocaust in France, and fighting antisemitism and historical amnesia. It begins with the sharply contrasting wartime backgrounds of its authors. Beate was born in Berlin in 1939 into a German family whose world had been shaped by Nazism. Serge was born in 1935 into a Jewish family in Romania and raised in France. His father was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there, while Serge was a hidden child survivor.

Much of the memoir chronicles their dramatic campaigns against former Nazis living freely in Europe and Latin America. The Klarsfelds investigate and publicize the whereabouts of figures such as Klaus Barbie, Kurt Lischka, and Maurice Papon. They combine archival research, legal activism, journalism, public protests, and media spectacle to pressure governments into prosecutions. One of the memoir’s most famous episodes is Beate’s 1968 public slap of West German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, whom she denounced as a former Nazi propagandist.

Alongside these dramatic confrontations, the memoir also emphasizes painstaking memorial work. Serge Klarsfeld devoted decades to compiling exhaustive records of Jews deported from France, especially children murdered in the Holocaust. The couple portray historical documentation itself as a form of justice and resistance against denial.

The tone of the memoir is both personal and political. It presents the Klarsfelds not simply as “Nazi hunters,” but as activists who believed democratic societies had a moral obligation to expose complicity, reject forgetting, and preserve memory across generations. The book therefore functions simultaneously as autobiography, Holocaust testimony, political history, and a chronicle of postwar European memory struggles. [ChatGPT]

8.3.2.3 Lisa M. Leff, The Archive Thief

Leff, Lisa Moses, (The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust [hc, Oxford UP, 2015]) 978-0199380954 [pb, Oxford UP, 2018] 978-0190690588 [In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the Jewish historian Zosa Szajkowski stole tens of thousands of archival documents related to French Jewish history from public archives and collections in France and moved them, illicitly, to New York. Why did this respectable historian become a thief? And why did librarians in the United States and Israel accept these materials from him, turning a blind eye to the signs of ownership they bore?

With her award-winning book, The Archive Thief, Lisa Moses Leff reconstructs Szajkowski’s gripping story in all its ambiguity. Born into poverty in Russian Poland in 1911, Szajkowski was a self-made man who managed to make a life for himself as an intellectual, first as a journalist in 1930s Paris, and then, after a harrowing escape to New York in 1941, as a scholar. Although he never taught at a university or even earned a PhD, Szajkowski became one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of the Jews in modern France, publishing in Yiddish, English, and Hebrew. His work opened up new ways of thinking about Jewish emancipation, economic and social modernization, and the rise of modern anti-Semitism.

But beneath Szajkowski’s scholarly accomplishments lay his shameful secret: his pathbreaking articles were based upon documents that he moved illicitly to New York. Eventually, he sold these documents, piecemeal, to American and Israeli research libraries where they still remain. Leff takes us into the backstage of the archives, revealing the powerful ideological, economic, and psychological forces that made Holocaust-era Jewish scholars care more deeply than ever before about preserving the remnants of their past. As Leff shows, it is only when we understand the issues at the heart of his story, in all their ambiguity and complexity, that we can begin to address the larger questions of the rightful ownership of Jewish archives, as well as other contested archives, that are still at issue today. – Amazon]

Loinger, Georges, with Kathy Hazan and Michèle Schlanger-Merowka, (L’odyssée d’un résistant: témoignage d’un centenaire, enfant d’Alsace (“The Odyssey of a Resistance Fighter: Testimony of a Centenarian from Alsace”) [pb, OVADIA, 2013] 978-2363920881 [Loinger (1910–2018), from a prominent Jewish family in Strasbourg, was an athlete and soldier who was captured by the Germans, escaped from a POW camp, and joined Jewish rescue networks connected to the OSE (Œuvre de secours aux enfants), a Jewish children’s aid organization. He also became a key operative in the Armée Juive (Jewish Army), a resistance network operating in southern France. He functioned as a tactical intelligence investigator, mapping out German and Vichy checkpoint patterns, border-guard shifts along the Swiss frontier, and train schedules. Using this precise, gathered intelligence, he orchestrated the escape of hundreds of Jewish children, often disguising them as sports clubs out for a day of exercise near the border before slipping them across. To assist in keeping the children calm, quiet and focused during these activities, Loinger recruited his cousin, the mime artist Marcel Marceau (original name: Marcel Mangel). See the entry on the biographical movie about Marceau and his participation in these child-saving operations (Resistance, 2020) in the companion lists of Movies-Films. After the war, Loinger remained active in Jewish communal life and memory work. He also played a role in the development of Jewish sports organizations in France and was active in commemorating Resistance and Holocaust history.] [Google/AI and ChatGPT]

8.3.2.4 France: Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (SPCJ)

The SPCJ was established in 1980, immediately following the 3 October 1980 bombing of the rue Copernic synagogue in Paris. Its declared purpose is the protection of Jewish communal life rather than political activism. It occupies an unusual position between communal self-protection, private/community security, monitoring of antisemitic crime, victim assistance, and cooperation with the French police and Interior Ministry.

Its work now includes security audits of synagogues, schools and communal institutions; training volunteers and professionals; protecting religious services and communal events; advising Jewish schools; assisting victims; operating reporting mechanisms; and compiling statistics on antisemitic incidents. Its statistical work is conducted in cooperation with French state services, currently including the Direction Nationale du Renseignement Territorial (DNRT). It is regarded as the French counterpart to the Community Security Trust (C.S.T.) in Great Britain.

An especially interesting development has been the "Parents Protecteurs" program, in which Jewish parents receive training in vigilance around schools. This represents a genuine form of civilian/community self-protection, but one based on observation, alerting and cooperation with authorities rather than vigilantism.

The state relationship is unusually close. For example, the Interior Ministry reported that a government-supported security program for Jewish institutions involved €15 million and security improvements to 349 buildings—schools, community centers and synagogues—with the SPCJ overseeing implementation on behalf of the FSJU.

Ghiles-Meilhac, Samuel, (Le CRIF: De la Résistance juive à la tentation du lobby, de 1943 à nos jours) Paris: Robert Laffont, 2011. 353 pp. ISBN 978-2221123843 [Probably the most useful book for placing the SPCJ in its institutional context. It is a history of the CRIF rather than the SPCJ, but because the SPCJ emerged from the organized communal establishment, the book provides valuable background on Jewish institutional responses to antisemitism, relations with the French state, and especially the transformation produced by the second Intifada and the post-2000 surge in antisemitic violence. It is based on archives and extensive interviews.]

Wieviorka, Michel, (La Tentation antisémite: Haine des Juifs dans la France d'aujourd'hui) Paris: Robert Laffont, 2005. [This is not a history of the SPCJ but is important background for understanding why the SPCJ's role expanded dramatically after 2000. It arose from a major field investigation into the renewed antisemitism of the early 2000s commissioned with support from the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah—the same foundation that became an important financial supporter of the SPCJ.]

Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive. Annual Report on Antisemitism in France 2010. Paris: SPCJ, 2011. [The report contains a special "30 Years of SPCJ: Testimonials" section commemorating the organization's creation after the Copernic bombing and discussing its protection of communal buildings, assistance to victims and cooperation with public authorities. An English version survives online.]

Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive. "Comment sont comptabilisés les actes antisémites recensés?" SPCJ. [This explains that the SPCJ's official count of antisemitic acts is produced in cooperation with state services and generally requires a complaint, main courante, referral to the prosecutor, or official police/judicial finding.]

Couvelaire, Louise, “Deux ans après l’Hyper Cacher, la communauté juive condamnée à la vigilance.” Le Monde, 9 January 2017 [One of the best pieces for seeing the SPCJ in actual operation after the 2015 Hyper Cacher murders. Particularly valuable on the "Parents Protecteurs" program and the shift toward community members taking a greater role in vigilance after static military protection of Jewish institutions was reduced in 2016.]

Monnot, Caroline, “La Ligue de défense juive menacée de dissolution.” Le Monde, 31 July 2014. [Useful in clarifying the distinction between the institutionally sanctioned SPCJ and militant Jewish self-defence groups such as the LDJ, the French version of the JDL. It cites sociologist Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac and describes clashes in which SPCJ members attempted to restrain LDJ militants.]

Ghozlan, Sammy, "Une lettre de Sammy Ghozlan." Le Monde, 13 November 2004. [An interesting primary testimony by former police commissioner Sammy Ghozlan. He states that at the beginning of the new wave of antisemitic attacks in September 2000 he was asked to address the problem and "reactivated" the SPCJ, before creating the Bureau de Vigilance in 2002. This is useful evidence for the institutional response to the dramatic post-2000 change in French antisemitism.] [See below following for more details on Ghozlan]

Faye, Olivier, “Inside France's Jewish Community Protection Service,” Le Monde, November 20, 2023. [one of the best journalistic accounts of the SPCJ]

Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, (Rapport d'activité 2017. Paris: Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, 2018, p. 57. [This gives considerably more operational detail: security audits, financial assistance for security improvements, a training department dating from 2002, recruitment/training of professional security personnel, and the combination of professionals with trained volunteers.]

The post–October 7 period has substantially increased the importance of the SPCJ, Its current website defines its mission as exclusively the protection of Jewish life and lists six principal areas: security audits/advice, training, emergency assistance, legal assistance, an incident-reporting platform, and recording antisemitic acts.

October 7 transformed the environment in which it operates. France recorded 1,676 antisemitic acts in 2023, compared with only 436 in 2022; the great majority of the increase occurred after October 7. The level then remained extraordinarily high: 1,570 in 2024 and 1,320 in 2025. Thus, 2025 was somewhat lower than the two immediately preceding years, but still roughly three times the pre–October 7 level of 2022. Moreover, physical violence actually increased in 2025, to 126 assaults, the highest recent figure.

This means that the SPCJ has not reverted to its pre-2023 posture. Its 2025 assessment explicitly says that France has reached a new, persistently high plateau of antisemitism. It reports incidents in 88 of France's 101 departments and 431 municipalities. Jewish communal sites—synagogues, schools, communal organizations and related locations—remain important targets.

The SPCJ's function now goes considerably beyond putting guards outside synagogues. It operates in a kind of public-private/community security partnership with the French state. The post-October 7 reports also increasingly emphasize schools, universities, workplaces, private residences and online environments, rather than treating the threat as primarily one of attacks upon synagogues. In 2024, for example, SPCJ counted 192 antisemitic acts in educational settings that resulted in complaints, while noting that Education Ministry figures were far higher because many school incidents never result in police complaints.

CST and SPCJ represent a significant development in postwar Jewish history: neither conventional police agencies nor vigilante organizations, but organized communal security bodies occupying an intermediate space between civil society, private security, hate-crime monitoring and state law enforcement. Both organizations had been built over decades in response to terrorism and antisemitism; after October 7, the infrastructure was suddenly required on a scale for which it had never previously been used. The French figures—436 incidents in 2022 → 1,676 in 2023 → 1,570 in 2024 → 1,320 in 2025—show why SPCJ has become a continuing security institution rather than an emergency response organization. – ChatGPT

8.3.2.5 France: Sammy Ghozlan (1942–2023)

He was a Jewish French career police officer who rose to commissaire de police, worked extensively in the difficult Paris suburbs, became involved in terrorism investigations, and after retiring transferred his police experience into organized Jewish crime prevention and anti-antisemitism work. His Jewish identity is explicitly documented in mainstream French sources.

He was born into a Jewish family in Constantine, French Algeria, in 1942 and moved to metropolitan France after Algerian independence. His father had been a senior police detective in Constantine, making Ghozlan part of a two-generation French policing family. He eventually became a senior officer in the Police nationale in Paris.

Belleret, Robert, “Jours de fièvre chez les juifs de France.” Le Monde, 31 May 2002 [print ed., 1 June 2002], p. 17. [One of the best concise profiles of Sammy Ghozlan. It describes him as a Jew from Constantine, a retired police commissioner who had worked successfully in difficult housing estates in Pantin and Aulnay-sous-Bois and had undertaken a special mission following the 1982 rue des Rosiers terrorist attack. This is particularly useful for demonstrating that Ghozlan was not primarily a “Jewish security activist who happened once to have been a policeman.” He had a substantial ordinary French policing career first. – ChatGPT]

France, Assemblée nationale, Commission d'enquête chargée de rechercher d'éventuels dysfonctionnements de la justice et de la police dans l'affaire dite Sarah Halimi. Compte rendu no. 12, audition de Sammy Ghozlan, October 26, 2021. [Ghozlan’s parliamentary testimony at the inquiry into the Sarah Halimi murder case introduces him as a retired commissaire de police; a specialist in difficult suburban policing; an expert in community/neighborhood policing; a policeman mobilized to assist investigators after the rue des Rosiers attack; and as the founder of the Bureau national de vigilance contre l'antisémitisme (BNVCA). He evaluates the Sarah Halimi police response explicitly as a former professional police officer, discussing intervention doctrine, duty to protect life and investigative failures.

Langewiesche, William, “Paris en flammes” / “Paris Is Burning,” Vanity Fair, July 2015. [This is probably the richest journalistic portrait of Ghozlan. Langewiesche reconstructs his policing career in considerable detail. Ghozlan worked in rough multicultural suburbs, dealt with juvenile delinquency and became involved in antiterrorism; after retirement he created the Bureau National de Vigilance Contre l'Antisémitisme (BNVCA). There is also a fascinating family detail: Langewiesche reports that Ghozlan's father had been a senior detective in Constantine and influenced Sammy's own direct investigative style. The article also shows how Ghozlan's second career effectively adapted police methods to Jewish communal protection: collecting reports, checking evidence, dealing with victims, pressing police and prosecutors to recognize antisemitic motivation, and transmitting information to authorities.

8.3.2.6 Prominent Post-War French-Jewish Legal Personalities

Robert Badinter (1928–2024) — lawyer, Minister of Justice, constitutional judge

[Born into a Jewish family of Bessarabi an origin; his father was deported and murdered at Sobibor. Badinter became one of France's leading criminal lawyers, especially associated with opposition to the death penalty. As Garde des Sceaux/Minister of Justice, 1981–1986, he secured abolition of capital punishment in 1981 and promoted major reforms affecting prisons, criminal justice and civil liberties. He subsequently served as President of the Conseil constitutionnel, 1986–1995.

Principal works by Robert Badinter

L'Exécution, Paris: Grasset, 1973 [His classic account of the Buffet-Bontems case and of representing Roger Bontems, whose execution profoundly shaped Badinter's abolitionist campaign. Later editions include Paris: Fayard, 1998]

L'Abolition, Paris: Fayard, 2000 [Probably the single most useful Badinter book for a law-enforcement bibliography: memoir/history of the struggle culminating in the abolition of the death penalty in 1981.]

Contre la peine de mort: écrits 1970–2006. Paris: Fayard, 2006. 330 pp. ISBN 978-2-213-63052-6 [Speeches, essays and interventions documenting decades of abolitionist work]

ed., Une autre justice, 1789–1799: Contributions à l'histoire de la justice sous la Révolution française, Paris: Fayard, 1989. 408 pp. ISBN 978-2-213-02428-8.

La Prison républicaine, 1871–1914, Paris: Fayard, 1992 [Important for Badinter's thinking about imprisonment and the relationship between republican ideals and penal institutions]

Un antisémitisme ordinaire: Vichy et les avocats juifs, 1940–1944, Paris: Fayard, 1997.
[directly links Jewish history and the legal profession, examining exclusion of Jewish lawyers under Vichy]

Les Épines et les roses, Paris: Fayard, 2011 [Political/legal memoir covering his years as Minister of Justice]

Idiss, Paris: Fayard, 2018 [Family memoir centred on his Jewish grandmother; useful for understanding the Jewish background underlying Badinter's republican and human-rights commitments]

Cassia, Paul, (Robert Badinter: un juriste en politique), Paris: Fayard, 2009. 547 pp. + plates. ISBN 978-2-213-65139-2 [- best serious study of Badinter as a jurist; covers the lawyer, professor, Minister of Justice, constitutional judge and senator rather than merely the abolition campaign.]

Dreyfus, Pauline, (Robert Badinter: l'épreuve de la justice), Boulogne-Billancourt: Éditions du Toucan, 2009. 364 pp.

Missika, Dominique & Maurice Szafran, (Robert Badinter: l'homme juste) Paris: Tallandier, 2021. 269 pp. + 8 pp. plates.

Lyon-Caen, Antoine & Jean-Marc Sauvé, eds. (Robert Badinter: l'œuvre d'un juste) Paris: LexisNexis, 2025. 377 pp. [Particularly valuable for assessing his legal legacy.]

Pierre Drai (1926–2013) — one of the outstanding post-war French judges

[Drai deserves much more attention than he usually receives in accounts of French Jewry. Born in Constantine into a Sephardi Jewish family, he pursued an almost entirely judicial career and became First President of the Cour de cassation, 1988–1996—in effect France's highest-ranking ordinary-court judge. Before that he headed the Paris Tribunal and the Paris Court of Appeal. Drai was particularly associated with the dignity and ethical responsibilities of the judge, access to justice, judicial efficiency and the humanization of legal institutions. Contemporary assessments describe him as one of the defining magistrates of his generation.

Guinchard, Serge & Gérard Pluyette, eds., (Le juge entre deux millénaires: Mélanges offerts à Pierre Drai), Paris: Dalloz, 2000. xx + 708 pp. ISBN 2-247-03629-5. (This is the essential scholarly volume. It includes a bibliography of Drai's writings and essays on judging, criminal procedure, judicial ethics, relations between judges and lawyers, and the administration of justice.]

Johannès, Franck, “Pierre Drai, grand magistrat et ancien président de la Cour de cassation, est mort.” Le Monde, 18 April 2013; updated 21 April 2013.

Benhamou, Yves, “Hommage d'un juge à Pierre Drai: En manière d'exercice d'admiration.” Gazette du Palais, no. 134, 14 May 2013, ref. Gaz. Pal. 2013, no. 130h6.

Myriam Ezratty (1929–2017) — magistrate, prisons and juvenile justice

Born Myriam Bader into an Alsatian Jewish family, she survived the Vichy period in hiding. She entered the magistracy soon after it was opened to women. She was:

• Director of Éducation surveillée, 1981–1983;
• first woman to become Director of the French Prison Administration, 1983–1986;
• First President of the Paris Court of Appeal, 1988–1996—the first woman to hold the position.

At the prison administration she promoted rehabilitation, health and education in prisons and experimented with family-visiting facilities. Unlike Badinter or Kiejman, Ezratty did not leave a large corpus of books, so the bibliography consists chiefly of institutional and historical material.

Ministère de la Justice, “Décès de Myriam Ezratty.” Communiqué de presse, 11 September 2017. [An authoritative concise account of her work in juvenile justice, prisons and the Paris Court of Appeal]

“Myriam Ezratty, première directrice de l'administration pénitentiaire, première Première présidente de la cour d'appel de Paris.” Journal Spécial des Sociétés, 4 April 2020.

Yvorel, Jean-Jacques, Sylvie Humbert, Gisèle Fiche, Odile Maillard, Nathalie Le Louarn, Jean-Pierre Jurmand, Marc Brzégowy, and Sylvie Perdriolle, Pour l'histoire: Bulletin de l'Association pour l'histoire de la protection judiciaire des mineurs, no. 76 (Winter 2017).
Includes an homage to Ezratty and material on the history of Éducation surveillée.

Ezratty is particularly notable on law-enforcement, because she actually administered the prison system, rather than merely practising law. – ChatGPT]

Simone Veil (1927–2017) - magistrate and justice administrator before becoming a political figure. Veil is remembered chiefly for the Holocaust, the abortion law and European politics, but her first major career was in the Ministry of Justice. She entered the magistracy in the 1950s and worked in the Administration pénitentiaire from 1957 to 1964, inspecting prisons and advocating improved conditions, especially for women. She later worked on civil-law reform and became Secretary-General of the Conseil supérieur de la magistrature.

Veil, Simone, (Une vie), Paris: Stock, 2007. 397 pp. ISBN 978-2-234-05817-0. [Her autobiography contains valuable material on her years in the magistracy and prison administration as well as on her Jewish identity, deportation and subsequent public life.]

Georges Kiejman (1932–2023) — major criminal and civil-liberties advocate

[One of France's great post-war avocats. Born in Paris to impoverished Polish Jewish immigrant parents; his father was murdered at Auschwitz. Kiejman entered the Paris bar in 1953 and .

Kiejman, Georges, with Vanessa Schneider (L'homme qui voulait être aimé), Paris: Grasset, 2021. 256 pp. ISBN 978-2-246-82858-7. [The indispensable autobiographical source. It covers his Jewish childhood, the murder of his father at Auschwitz, rise at the Paris bar, the Goldman case and his involvement in major criminal and political trials]

Kiejman, Georges and Richard Malka, [Éloge de l'irrévérence), Paris: Grasset, 2019. [Dialogue between two generations of Jewish French advocates, focused especially on freedom of expression, secularism and the lawyer's role.]

Serge Klarsfeld (b. 1935) — lawyer, investigator and prosecutor of crimes against humanity

[Klarsfeld is unusual because he operated at the boundary of lawyer, historical investigator, activist and “Nazi hunter.” Born in Bucharest, he lost his father in the Holocaust. As an attorney and researcher, with his wife Beate, he played a decisive role in bringing attention and legal pressure to bear on Klaus Barbie, René Bousquet, Jean Leguay, Paul Touvier and Maurice Papon. His work helped transform French judicial treatment of crimes against humanity, Vichy collaboration and Holocaust-related prosecutions.]

Klarsfeld, Serge, (Le Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France). Paris: Association des Fils et Filles des Déportés Juifs de France, 1978; subsequent revised editions. [Foundational documentary work identifying deportees]

Klarsfeld, Serge, (Vichy-Auschwitz: Le rôle de Vichy dans la solution finale de la question juive en France) 2 vols. Paris: Fayard, 1983–1985.

Klarsfeld, Serge, (Klaus Barbie: un procès pour mémoire) Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1994.
[Directly relevant to the relationship between historical investigation and criminal prosecution.]

Klarsfeld, Serge, La Shoah en France. 4 vols. Paris: Fayard, 2001. [The mature synthesis of his documentary research.]

Klarsfeld, Beate, and Serge Klarsfeld. Mémoires. Paris: Flammarion, 2015; Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 2016. [Essential autobiographical account of their investigations, campaigns and judicial battles.]

Alain Jakubowicz (b. 1953) — criminal lawyer, Holocaust trials and LICRA

[Born near Lyon to parents who were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Austria, Jakubowicz became an important criminal advocate and later president of LICRA (Ligue internationale contre le racisme et l'antisémitisme). His strongest relevance lies in his participation, representing Jewish interests and civil parties, in the historic trials of: Klaus Barbie, 1987; Paul Touvier, 1994; and Maurice Papon, 1997–98. He has also defended defendants in major contemporary criminal cases, including Nordahl Lelandais, making him interesting as someone who moved between memory/antisemitism cases and ordinary high-profile criminal defense. – ChatGPT]

Jakubowicz, Alain & René Raffin, (Touvier: histoire du procès), Paris: Julliard, 1995. [ - an advocate's account of one of France's central crimes-against-humanity trials.]

Jakubowicz, Alain, [Soit je gagne, soit j'apprends] Paris: Plon, 2019 [Autobiographical reflections on his legal career and major cases]

Francis Szpiner (b. 1954) — criminal lawyer and terrorism specialist

[Szpiner is especially relevant to “law-enforcement” rather than simply Jewish legal history. Born to Polish Jewish parents, he studied at Panthéon-Assas and the Institut de criminologie and has practised at the Paris bar since 1975. His career has included major criminal trials and extensive work involving terrorism. He represented victims of Carlos and Action Directe, families of murdered DST officers, terrorism victims and the family of Ilan Halimi. He also helped shape French thinking about the centralization of terrorism prosecutions.]

Books by Szpiner

Szpiner, Francis, (Une affaire de femmes - Paris 1943, exécution d'une avorteuse. Paris: Balland, 1986. [Historical-judicial reconstruction of the Marie-Louise Giraud case and Vichy penal justice]

Szpiner, Francis, (Mat d'échec) Paris: Balland, 1990.

Szpiner, Francis, (Fantôme de papier) Paris: La Table Ronde, 2006.

Szpiner, Francis, (Les Moutons de Panurge: contre les sondages) Paris: Plon, 2015.

Szpiner, Francis, (Une affaire si facile) Paris: Le Cherche Midi, 2020.

Richard Malka (b. 1968) — free-expression and terrorism-era lawyer

[Malka represents the younger generation. Born in Paris to a Sephardi Jewish family from Meknes, Morocco, he trained in Georges Kiejman's office and became closely identified with Charlie Hebdo, eventually representing the newspaper in major freedom-of-expression cases and in litigation arising from the 2015 terrorist attacks. He is relevant less for conventional criminal defense than for the intersection of law, terrorism, blasphemy, antisemitism, secularism and freedom of expression.

Malka, Richard & Catherine Meurisse, (La Vie de palais: Il était une fois les avocats…) Paris: Marabout, 2014.

Malka, Richard, and Georges Kiejman, (Éloge de l'irrévérence) Paris: Grasset, 2019.

Malka, Richard, (Le droit d'emmerder Dieu) Paris: Grasset, 2021. 92 pp. [His celebrated courtroom plea associated with the Charlie Hebdo controversy and defence of freedom of expression]

Malka, Richard, (Traité sur l'intolérance) Paris: Grasset, 2023. 96 pp.

Malka, Richard, (Après Dieu) Paris: Stock, 2025. 213 pp.
Meditation on freedom, secularism and religious intolerance.

Malka, Richard, (Passion antisémite) Paris: Grasset, 2025. 144 pp. - ChatGPT

8.3.3 Argentina-Uruguay

Glickman, Nora, (The Jewish White Slave Trade & the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman [Routledge]) [hc, 1999] 978-0815333005 [pb, 2015] 978-1138864443

Miller, Carina J., “Protecting the Argentine Jewish Community and Jewish Identity in Times of Crisis: Local Efforts, Global Community, and Foreign Support.” Florida Journal of International Law 16, no. 3 (2004), Article 11. [A useful complement to Raanan Rein’s articles. It studies the protective response of the Argentine Jewish community, especially in the shadow of the Israeli Embassy bombing of 1992 and AMIA bombing of 1994, and the relationships among local Jewish institutions, international Jewish organizations and outside governmental support.]

Rein, Raanan, (Jewish Self-Defense in South America: Facing Anti-Semitism with a Club in Hand. [Translated by Erna von der Walde, hc, Routledge, 2022] 978-0367724887 [pb, Routledge, 2024] 978-0367724894 [Rein examines the Jewish self-defense networks created in Argentina and Uruguay during the 1960s, particularly following the Mossad's capture of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960. Eichmann's abduction produced a nationalist and antisemitic backlash, including attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions. The 1965 killing of Latvian Nazi war criminal Herberts Cukurs in Montevideo produced further tensions.

Jewish young people therefore organized clandestine or semi-clandestine security formations—variously called Irgun, Bitachon, Misgeret, or simply La Orga. They guarded synagogues, schools and communal institutions, gathered intelligence about antisemitic organizations, trained in physical combat and sometimes retaliated against attackers.

Especially interesting is Rein's treatment of the relationship between communal security and the Israeli state: Israeli diplomats, Mossad personnel and security specialists helped train and organize some of these groups. Rein bases the book on archival research and more than 120 interviews with activists, diplomats and former Mossad personnel.]

Raanan Rein and David M. K. Sheinin, eds., (Armed Jews in the Americas [hc, Brill, 2021] 978-9004462533 [This collection has a broad scope, including the United States and Canada, as well as South America, but it is an important collection for understanding the general phenomenon of Jews taking responsibility for security, weapons and law-and-order functions. The editors deliberately challenge the stereotype of Jews as either passive victims or people historically detached from weapons and physical security. – ChatGPT]

Raanan Rein, “‘We Had Our Own Problems and So We Had Our Own Bitachon’: Jewish Self-Defense in Uruguay, 1960–1987” in Rein and Sheinin, eds., Armed Jews in the Americas, Chapter 8. [A concentrated study of Jewish communal policing/security in Uruguay. Rein follows three phases: the repercussions of the Eichmann capture; the Mossad operation against Cukurs in 1965; and the expansion of Jewish security concerns after the 1967 Six-Day War. The organization guarded Jewish schools, synagogues and events, conducted surveillance and intelligence gathering, and maintained links with Israeli security personnel. This comes unusually close to a privately organized Jewish crime-prevention and protective-security service, rather than simply a political militia.]

Rein, Raanan, “An Anti-Fascist Struggle Conditioned by Ethnic Concerns: Jewish Self-Defense Groups in 1960s South America,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 48, no. 3 (2023): 453–470. DOI 10.1080/08263663.2023.2223878. [ - compares Argentina and Uruguay and argues that these organizations should be understood not merely as Zionist groups but as an ethnic minority's response to the perceived inability—or unwillingness—of ordinary state law-enforcement institutions to provide adequate protection.]

Stavans, Ilan, “Normal Jews?” Latin American Research Review 57, no. 3 (September 2022): 695–707. DOI 10.1017/lar.2022.37. [This is a long review essay rather than a primary historical study, but it is useful because Stavans discusses the emerging scholarship on armed Jews in Latin America and gives an unusually thoughtful consideration of why minority communities create their own security structures when they distrust the police. He discusses Raanan Rein's Uruguay research at length and even recalls his own youthful participation in Bitachon in Mexico.]

Vincent, Isabel. (Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas [hc, William Morrow, 2005] 978-0060090234 [pb, Harper Perennial, 2006] 978-0060090241

Yarfitz, Mir, (Impure Migration: Jews and Sex Work in Golden Age Argentina [hc, Rutgers UP, 2019]) 978-0813598154 [ - investigates the period from the 1890s until the 1930s, when prostitution was a legal institution in Argentina and the international community knew its capital city Buenos Aires as the center of the sex industry. At the same time, pogroms and anti-Semitic discrimination left thousands of Eastern European Jewish people displaced, without the resources required to immigrate. For many Jewish women, participation in prostitution was one of very few ways they could escape the limited options in their home countries, and Jewish men facilitate their transit and the organization of their work and social lives. Instead of marginalizing this story or reading it as a degrading chapter in Latin American Jewish history, Impure Migration interrogates a complicated social landscape to reveal that sex work is in fact a critical part of the histories of migration, labor, race, and sexuality. – Amazon]

8.3.3.1 Alberto Nisman (1963–2015)

Perednik, Gustavo D., (Matar sin que se note: El ataque de los ayatolás a la Argentina, el encubrimiento del caso AMIA y el fiscal) Buenos Aires: Planeta, 2009. 324 pp. ISBN 978-950-49-2091-5. A revised/expanded edition appeared in 2015; the Uruguayan Planeta edition carries ISBN 978-9974-729-08-7. [Perednik knew Nisman personally, and the original edition appeared six years before Nisman's death. It reconstructs the AMIA investigation, Iranian/Hezbollah involvement as argued by the prosecution, and Nisman himself. Perednik describes it as a “crónica novelada”—nonfiction presented with literary techniques. Nisman assisted Perednik with sources while it was being written.]

Perednik, Gustavo D, (Morir por la Argentina. 2017) [This is effectively the sequel to Matar sin que se note, concentrating on the Iran memorandum, Nisman's final investigation and accusation, and his death. Perednik was a close personal friend and presents Nisman in strongly sympathetic—indeed heroic—terms. The two Perednik books are particularly useful because Perednik places Nisman within the broader AMIA/Iran/antisemitic-terrorism context rather than treating his death simply as an Argentine political scandal.

Pastor, Facundo, (Nisman: ¿Crimen o suicidio? ¿Héroe o espía?) Buenos Aires: Planeta, 2015. 200 pp. ISBN 978-950-49-4871-1. [An important counterweight to Perednik. Journalist and lawyer Facundo Pastor reconstructs Nisman's career, intelligence connections, relationship with Jaime Stiuso, FBI contacts, reported contacts with Israeli intelligence, and his final days. It is much less hagiographic and asks how far Nisman became entangled with Argentina's intelligence establishment.]

Santoro, Daniel, (Nisman debe morir: La trama secreta de Cristina Kirchner, el pacto con Irán y la muerte violenta del fiscal) Buenos Aires: Ediciones B, 2015. ISBN 978-9876279925. [Investigative journalism, strongly critical of the Kirchner government. Useful especially for the intersection of prosecution, intelligence services, Iranian terrorism, and Argentine politics, but its thesis should be read alongside opposing accounts.]

Duggan, Pablo, (¿Quién mató a Nisman?) Buenos Aires: Planeta, 2019. 564 pp. ISBN 978-950-49-6521-3 [A large-scale investigation into the circumstances of the death. Duggan challenges the dominant murder narrative and is therefore another useful counterweight to Santoro and Perednik. The book covers Nisman's biography as well as the forensic and judicial investigations.]

Filkins, Dexter, (“Death of a Prosecutor.” The New Yorker, July 20, 2015. [This is probably the best English-language magazine treatment. Filkins provides an unusually detailed reconstruction of the AMIA bombing, Nisman's investigation, his relations with Argentine intelligence, the Iran accusations, the Kirchner government and the circumstances of his death.]

Rotella, Sebastian, “Alberto Nisman and Argentina’s History of Assassinations and Suspicious Suicides.” ProPublica, February 11, 2015 [Rotella had interviewed Nisman before his death and had considerable prior experience reporting on the AMIA investigation. Shorter than Filkins but useful because of the author's direct contact with Nisman.]

Perednik, Gustavo D., “Iranian Terror and Argentinian Justice: The Case of Alberto Nisman, the Prosecutor Who Knew Too Much.” Jewish Political Studies Review, 27, nos. 3–4 (Fall 2016) [Perednik discusses Nisman as a prosecutor confronting Iranian-sponsored terrorism and explicitly presents him as a legal and moral figure. Because Perednik was his friend, it is simultaneously valuable testimony and a partisan/sympathetic account.]

Sinay, Javier. “AMIA, 29 años. La era de Nisman y una causa que se muerde la cola.” La Nación, July 29, 2023. [This is an edited extract from Sinay's longer “The AMIA Bombing” in Jewish Quarterly. It is particularly useful for placing Nisman back into the history of the AMIA investigation rather than concentrating exclusively on the mystery of his death. Sinay, by the way, is one of the authors in our International bibliography.]

Works by Nisman himself – the central document

Nisman, Alberto, et al., (Requerimiento de instrucción / AMIA indictment, Unidad Fiscal de Investigación del Atentado contra la AMIA, 25 October 2006) [The massive prosecutorial report laid out the case that senior Iranian officials had ordered the AMIA attack and Hezbollah had executed it. The full indictment and an English-language opinion summary are preserved online.

Also essential is Nisman's January 14, 2015 criminal complaint accusing President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman and others of attempting to cover up Iranian responsibility through the Argentina-Iran Memorandum. This was the complaint he was scheduled to explain before Congress immediately after the weekend on which he died.]

8.3.4 Australia

Historical Works

“Israel Chapman (1794–1868), Australia's First Police Detective and Noel Chapman, Chief Constable.” Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal 6, no. 7 (1969): 392–410 [author unidentified]

Kaplan, Robert M., “The Last Peruvian: The Jewish Criminal Links to Abraham Gilbert Saffron,” Australian Jewish Historical Society 19 (2008) [- analyzes the history of Jewish criminal involvement in Australia, tracing a lineage from early convicts like, Ikey Solomon and Edward Davis to notorious Sydney figure Abraham Gilbert (Abe) Saffron. The paper highlights Saffron, or "Mr. Sin," as the culmination of this era, building an empire on vice through systemic corruption before his tax fraud conviction. Saffron was a prominent figure in organized crime in Australia during the 1950s and 60s. The article chronicles his early convictions, his establishment in the nightlife and liquor business, and his reputation being tarnished by associations with various scandals, including the death of Juanita Neilsen. – ChatGPT]

Levi, John S. & George F. J. Bergman, (Australian Genesis: Jewish Convicts and Settlers, 1788–1850), Adelaide: Rigby, 1974. Second ed., Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002. [The Australian Jewish story literally begins with Jewish convicts and the criminal-justice/transportation system. It contains substantial material on Jewish offenders, transportation, courts, punishment and the emergence of the free Jewish community.]

Levi, John S., (The Forefathers: A Dictionary of Biography of the Jews of Australia, 1788–1830) Sydney: Australian Jewish Historical Society, 1976. ISBN 0-9599959-1-9.

Rubinstein, Hilary L. & William D. Rubinstein, (The Jews in Australia: A Thematic History) 2 vols. Melbourne: William Heinemann Australia, 1991. [Probably the major general reference work. It should be mined for lawyers, judges, political/legal emancipation, antisemitism and Jewish relations with government.]

Levey, Geoffrey Brahm, and Philip Mendes, eds., (Jews and Australian Politics) Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2004. [Especially useful for the intersection of Australian Jewry with government, public policy, civil rights and state institutions.]

Bergman, George F. J., "Edward Davis: Life and Death of an Australian Bushranger," Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal and Proceedings 4, pt. 5 (1956): 205–240. [Davis—also known as George Wilkinson—was the Jewish convict who became leader of the so-called "Jewboy Gang." Bergman explicitly places Davis within the history of Jewish criminality, transportation, policing and bushranging.]

Australian Jewish lawyers, prosecutors and judges

One particularly striking figure is Sir Albert Asher Wolff (1899–1977). He was from an Orthodox Jewish family, became Crown Prosecutor in Western Australia in 1926, later a Supreme Court justice and ultimately Chief Justice of Western Australia. The authoritative biographical entry is:

Birman, Wendy, "Wolff, Sir Albert Asher (1899–1977)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplementary Volume. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005. [His career runs directly from criminal prosecution into the senior judiciary.]

Another is Trevor George Rapke (1909–1978), apparently the first Jewish judge in Victoria. He became a County Court judge in 1958 and was particularly outspoken about sentencing, prison discipline, juvenile detention and criminal justice.

"Rapke, Trevor George (1909–1978)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 16. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002. [The biography is valuable because Rapke was not merely a judge who happened to be Jewish: his career involved unusually strong engagement with criminal justice, prisons, sentencing and civil liberties.]

William Kaye (1919–2012) was the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court of Victoria (1972). He had substantial experience in criminal law before appointment and was active in the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.

Falk, Barbara. "Rosanove, Joan Mavis (1896–1974)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 16, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002. [Rosanove, born Joan Lazarus to non-practising Jewish parents, became a pioneering Victorian barrister.]

There is also a valuable new research stream on Jewish refugee jurists. Katherine Biber, Sara Dehm, Ana Vrdoljak and Eloise Chandler at UTS have been studying the roughly 300 European-trained jurists who arrived in Australia between 1930 and 1960, many of them Jewish refugees. Their work covers professional exclusion, admission to the bar, legal education, restitution and human-rights law. For the period before Bondi, the indispensable continuing source is:

Executive Council of Australian Jewry, (Report on Antisemitism in Australia. Sydney: ECAJ, annual, 1990). The 2025 report is especially important:

Executive Council of Australian Jewry, ECAJ Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia 2025, Sydney: Executive Council of Australian Jewry, 2025 [It covers the twelve months ending 30 September 2025 and categorizes assaults, vandalism, abuse, threats/messages, graffiti and other incidents. The ECAJ methodology distinguishes incidents involving threats requiring referral to police, making these reports a longitudinal record of Jewish victimization and interaction with law enforcement. Another important document immediately preceding Bondi is:

Segal, Jillian, (Plan to Combat Antisemitism. Canberra: Office of the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, July 2025 [Its recommendations include law reform, enforcement and institutional responses. The government's subsequent response specifically addresses law reform, training and enforcement, hate-crime legislation, extremist organizations and counter-terrorism measures.]

The issue of law-enforcement and Australian Jewry was dramatically highlighted by the Bondi Beach Chanukah massacre of Dec. 14, 2025, in which 15 people were killed and about 40 wounded. The resulting Royal Commission is explicitly examining whether police/intelligence agencies performed effectively, information-sharing, protection of Jewish institutions and events, police training concerning antisemitism, and cooperation with Jewish Community Security Groups (CSGs).

Australia. Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, (Interim Report) Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 30 April 2026. [This is not merely a report on antisemitism. Large portions concern: the relationship between Australian Jews, communal security, police, intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies following the Bondi massacre.

Chapter 4 is actually titled "Community Security Groups, intelligence and law enforcement agencies." It discusses the Australian CSGs and compares the model with organizations such as Britain's CST and France's SPCJ. The Commission made 14 interim recommendations, including changes intended to strengthen counter-terrorism capability.

Community Security Group Australia, (From Hate to Violence: A National CSG Assessment of Antisemitism and Security Threats in Australia in 2025. 2026)

CSG describes the 2025 development as a transition from antisemitic hostility and isolated hate incidents toward a sustained security threat, culminating in the Bondi attack.

What has changed after Bondi?

Quite dramatically. Before December 2025 the Australian model was already based on close cooperation between Jewish Community Security Groups (CSGs) and state police. Since the massacre, the question has become whether that relationship is adequate.

The Royal Commission found enough problems to recommend that NSW Police's special Operation Jewish High Holy Days procedures be extended to other high-risk Jewish festivals and public events. Evidence also showed that CSG had warned police of heightened terrorism risk before the Chanukah event, while the ASIO holiday assessment did not specifically identify an elevated Hanukkah threat.

A major controversy now concerns armed Jewish communal security. Steven Lowy argued before the Commission that armed CSG protection could have reduced the Bondi death toll; senior NSW Police officials have expressed substantial reservations about giving a communal organization special armed-security powers. As recently as July, the Commission was still taking evidence about armed private security at Jewish events.

Meanwhile police deployments around Jewish institutions have greatly increased. Victoria Police testified in July 2026 that it had deployed substantially more resources for Jewish-community protection after October 7, and still more after Bondi. In NSW, CSG and police have operated together under Operation Shelter, with increased patrols and physical security at Jewish sites.

There is also a significant legislative dimension: the post-Bondi Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism legislation addressed hate/extremism offences, immigration, extremist material and firearms regulation.

8.3.5 The Netherlands

Rädecker, Tsila, (Voor vrouw en kind: Dina Sanson, de eerste politievrouw) (1868–1929). Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2025. 280 pp. ISBN 978-94-6456-517-1. [Dina Sanson (1868–1929) was Jewish and in 1911 became the first woman employed by a Dutch police force with investigative authority. She joined the Rotterdam municipal police as a politieassistente. The authoritative Dutch Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon explicitly identifies her as the first Dutch policewoman with opsporingsbevoegdheid—power to investigate offenses.

Rädecker's biography is not simply a women's-history book. It places Sanson's police work within Jewish Rotterdam, social reform, feminism, poverty, prostitution, child protection and crime prevention. Sanson came from a prosperous Jewish family and had already been active in Jewish charitable organizations before entering the police. Her police work concentrated particularly on: endangered or abused children; young women regarded as vulnerable to prostitution; illegal or dangerously negligent foster-care arrangements; the notorious engeltjesmakerij (“angel-making”) system in which infants placed with paid foster mothers suffered neglect and sometimes died; investigation and prevention rather than merely punishment. Her policing work is credited with helping end the engeltjesmakerijen.

What makes Sanson especially interesting is that her Jewishness was not incidental. She had deep connections with Jewish social welfare, including Jewish children's and women's organizations, and Rädecker devotes substantial attention to the Jewish bourgeois environment from which she emerged.- ChatGPT]

Ruis, Edwin, “Dina Sanson, de eerste Nederlandse politievrouw.” Historiek, April 7, 2025. [A substantial review/biographical essay prompted by Rädecker's book. It gives a particularly useful summary of Sanson's actual crime-prevention philosophy. Rotterdam's progressive police chief believed traditional repression was ineffective when dealing with endangered girls and prostitution; a woman could establish relationships with victims and potential offenders that male officers could not. Sanson therefore represented an early conception of policing based on prevention, social intervention and victim protection.

Ruis also notes an intriguing international connection: one of Sanson's models was Henriette Arendt, the Jewish German policewoman and aunt of Hannah Arendt. That suggests a wider European Jewish-police connection worth following separately.]

The modern Dutch police

Voet, Esther, “‘Je voelt je weleens een roepende in de woestijn’ [‘Sometimes You Feel Like a Voice Crying in the Wilderness’].” Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad (NIW), September 29, 2024. [This is probably the best article presently available on Jewish police officers collectively in the Netherlands. It is an extended interview with veteran police officers Marcel de Weerd and Michel Theeboom, then leaders of the Joods Politie Netwerk (JPN—Jewish Police Network). Both had long police careers. They explicitly describe themselves not as Jewish communal guards but as ordinary professional Dutch police officers who also provide the force with expertise concerning Jewish communities. In 2024 they attracted attention by reporting that some Dutch police colleagues were objecting to assignments protecting Jewish institutions and events.

Their activities include: advising police commanders on demonstrations and public order; educating fellow officers about Judaism and Jewish communal concerns; acting as a resource for Jewish police employees; improving police relations with the Jewish community; providing operational cultural knowledge; advising colleagues about antisemitism and the reporting of hate

The Joods Politie Netwerk as an official police employees' network : The JPN is not merely an informal Jewish association outside the police. Dutch National Police documentation lists the Joods Politie Netwerk among the nationally operating police employee networks within the Netwerk Divers Vakmanschap. The same documentation identifies it as one of four nationally organized networks that receive particularly substantial operational inquiries, together with the Caribbean, Indo-Moluccan and LGBT police networks.

Max Engelander, a former Dutch police inspector and founder of the Joods Politie Netwerk. By 2025 he was retired, but he continued participating publicly in debates concerning police neutrality, antisemitism and Jewish officers. See:

“Hetze tegen Joodse agent.” Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, April 3, 2018. [It describes an online campaign directed against Engelander specifically as a Jewish police officer, including insinuations that he belonged to an “Israeli police force” operating in Amsterdam. Police Amsterdam-Amstelland treated the Jewish dimension of the harassment as potentially relevant to discrimination procedures. Engelander provides a well-documented contemporary example of a Dutch policeman whose Jewish identity was public and professionally relevant].

Gischler, Ruben, “‘We hebben geen zin meer in politiek’ [‘We Don't Want Politics Any More’].” Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, August 20, 2025. [This article is valuable because it supplies the JPN's leadership succession: founders/earlier leaders included Max Engelander; later leaders included Marcel de Weerd and Michel Theeboom; by 2025 Patricia Galit Bakker was chair of the JPN. It also contains the Dutch National Police leadership's own characterization of the network: the police value the JPN both for its professional expertise and for maintaining police contact and trust with the Jewish community. – ChatGPT]

8.3.6 Germany/Austria

Kord, T.S., (Lovable Crooks and Loathsome Jews: Antisemitism in German and Austrian Crime Writing Before the World Wars [pb, McFarland & Co., 2018] 978-1476670126 [In the years leading up to the World Wars, Germany and Austria saw an unprecedented increase in the study and depiction of the criminal. Science, journalism and crime fiction were obsessed with delinquents while ignoring the social causes of crime. As criminologists measured criminals’ heads and debated biological predestination, court reporters and crime writers wrote side-splitting or heart-rending stories featuring one of the most popular characters ever created--the hilarious or piteous crook. The author examines the figure of the crook and notions of “Jewish” criminality in a range of antisemitic writing, from Nazi propaganda to court reporting to forgotten classics of crime fiction. - Amazon]

Vyleta, Daniel, (Crime, Jews and News: Vienna, 1895–1914 [Bergahn Books])  [hc, 2007] 978-1845451813 [pb, 2011] 978-0857455932

8.3.6.1 Dr. Bernhard Weiss, Senior Berlin Policeman

Rott, Joachim, (Ich gehe meinen Weg ungehindert geradeaus“: Dr. Bernhard Weiß (1880–1951). Polizeivizepräsident in Berlin. Leben und Wirken. Aus Religion und Recht, vol. 16. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2010. 224 pp. ISBN 978-3-86596-307-9. [Bernhard Weiss (1880–1951) was a lawyer, decorated German army officer, head of Berlin's Political Police, chief of the Criminal Police (Kriminalpolizei), and from 1927 to 1932 vice-president of the Berlin Police. He was openly Jewish and active in liberal Jewish organizations. Rott gives detailed attention to Weiss as a professional policeman rather than merely as a Jewish victim of Nazism. He was involved in criminal investigation, political policing, public-order questions and modernization of the Berlin police. He became one of Joseph Goebbels's favorite targets; Goebbels repeatedly called him “Isidor” in an effort to turn the Jewish police official into a symbol of the allegedly “Jewish” Weimar Republic.]

Bering, Dietz, (Kampf um Namen: Bernhard Weiß gegen Joseph Goebbels) Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1991. ISBN 3-608-91350-5. [This is more narrowly focused than Rott. Bering examines the extraordinary propaganda duel between Goebbels and Weiss and particularly the campaign to undermine Weiss through antisemitic naming and ridicule.Weiss's Jewish identity became inseparable from his position as a senior law-enforcement official. The Nazis were not merely attacking a Jew; they were attacking a Jew who exercised legitimate police power over Nazis and could order arrests and investigations against them].

Weigel, Björn, “Bernhard Weiß.” In Wolfgang Benz, ed., Handbuch des Antisemitismus: Judenfeindschaft in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 2, Personen, pp. 880–882. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter/Saur, 2009. ISBN 978-3-598-24072-0. [A concise scholarly biographical entry. Useful as a short authoritative reference for Weiss's career and the antisemitic campaign against him.]

Berger, Michael, “Dr. Bernhard Weiß. Sein Kampf für Demokratie und Rechtsstaat in der Weimarer Republik,” in Berger, Eisernes Kreuz – Doppeladler – Davidstern: Juden in deutschen und österreichisch-ungarischen Armeen. Berlin: trafo Verlag, 2010, pp. 146–150. ISBN 978-3-89626-962-1. [Brief, but useful because it explicitly presents Weiß as a Jewish German patriot, soldier and defender of the constitutional state.]

See also the fictional portrayals of Jewish or partially Jewish-German police officers in the novels of four authors in the International bibliography (chapter 8): Philip Kerr, Jonathan Rabb, Paul Grossman and Harald Gilbers.

8.3.7 Yiddishland/Pale of Settlement/Russia/Ukraine

Cohen, Nathan. “Sherlock Holmes in the Pale of Settlement: Yiddish Crime Stories 1860–1914.” In Leket: Yidishe Shtudyes Haynt / Jiddistik heute / Yiddish Studies Today, edited by Marion Aptroot, Efrat Gal-Ed, Roland Gruschka, and Simon Neuberg, pp. 253–278. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf), 2012. ISBN 978-3-943460-09-4. ISSN 2194-8879.

Goldis, Mikhail, (Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney from Soviet Ukraine [Academic Studies Press, 2024, translated from the Russian by Marat Grinberg]) [h c] 979-8887195896 [pb] 979-8887195902

8.3.7.1 Eddy Portnoy, Bad Rabbi

Portnoy, Eddy, (Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press [hc, Stanford UP, 2017]) 978-0804797610 [pb, Stanford UP, 2017] 978-1503604117 [- a collection of historical essays drawn from the the Yiddish-language press from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Rather than presenting the familiar narrative of Jewish intellectuals, religious leaders, or victims of persecution, Portnoy uncovers the colorful, scandalous, and frequently humorous underside of Jewish life. The book demonstrates that Jews, like every other people, have always had their share of criminals, eccentrics, con artists, sexual scandals, political radicals, gangsters, and corrupt rabbis. By mining thousands of forgotten newspaper stories, Portnoy challenges the sanitized image of traditional Jewish society. His central argument is that the Yiddish press recorded the full spectrum of Jewish experience—much of which has been ignored because it conflicted with idealized communal self-images.

The book consists of approximately three dozen short essays, each built around one or more authentic newspaper stories including fraudulent rabbis, murder cases, Jewish gangsters, prostitution and white slavery, counterfeiters, sexual scandals, bizarre lawsuits, religious fraud, failed messiahs, political extremists, circus performers and strongmen, unusual deaths, eccentric inventors and impostors.

One of the book’s strongest contributions is its documentation of ordinary and organized crime among Jews, including burglary, forgery, embezzlement, murder, confidence schemes, gang activity, insurance fraud and smuggling. Portnoy shows that Jewish newspapers reported these crimes openly, often in remarkable detail. He offers numerous accounts of misbehaving rabbis, sexual crimes, dramas posed by the challenges of immigration and modernization, and humorous misadventures of everyday life. The book demonstrates how Jewish communities represented and debated crime in their own newspapers rather than suppressing it; illuminates the interaction between crime, migration, poverty, urbanization, and modernization; and highlights the diversity of Jewish social experience beyond elite intellectual and religious histories. Portnoy’s work occupies a distinctive place in modern Jewish social history. Rather than presenting Jews solely as victims or moral exemplars, he reconstructs the ordinary, messy realities of Jewish life as reflected in the daily press. His approach aligns with the “history from below” tradition, using newspapers to recover voices and incidents largely absent from official communal records.

Bad Rabbi is an excellent sourcebook of primary material and a corrective to idealized narratives. It does not argue that Jews were unusually criminal; rather, it demonstrates that Jewish communities experienced—and publicly discussed—the same range of crime, scandal, and human frailty found in other societies, making it a valuable resource for understanding how crime functioned within modern Jewish history. – ChatGPT]

Sylvester, Roshanna, (Tales of Old Odessa: Crime and Civility in a City of Thieves [hc, Northern Illinois UP, 2005] 978-0875803463

Tanny, Jarrod, (City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia’s Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa [pb, Indiana UP, 2011]) 978-0253223289