The Truth About "Jewish Lightning"
Rabbi Jeff Marx has written a new book, Jewish Firebugs: Arson and Antisemitism from the Civil War to World War I, and he does something almost nobody has tried before. He tells the story behind the charge that Jews deliberately set fires in order to collect insurance money – “Jewish lightning.”
In fact, there were real Jewish arsonists who operated in American cities for roughly sixty years, and Jeff tells those stories. He begins with the 1867 "Jew risks" affair, when major fire insurance companies instructed their agents to deny policies to Jews outright. He follows the stereotype through…
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