Hep-Hep riots

The Hep-Hep riots from August to October 1819 were pogroms against Ashkenazi Jews, beginning in the Kingdom of Bavaria, during the period of Jewish emancipation in the German Confederation. The antisemitic communal violence began on August 2, 1819 in Würzburg and soon reached the outer regions of the German Confederation. Many Jews were killed and much Jewish property was destroyed.

The riots took place in a period of heightened political and social tension, shortly following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the great famine of 1816-17, and on the eve of the repressive Carlsbad Decrees. In many German cities, emancipation of the Jews had only begun in recent years, after centuries of living in the countries of Central Europe as non-citizens with restricted rights. The status of Jews varied throughout the 36 independent German states and free cities; some had revoked the recent Napoleonic era emancipation edicts, others maintained them officially but ignored them in practice. In most German territories, Jews were excluded from posts in public administration and the army and forbidden to hold teaching positions in schools and universities.

Jewish representatives formally demanded emancipation at the Congress of Vienna (1815), and German academics and politicians alike responded with vicious opposition. The Jews were portrayed to the public as "upstarts" who were attempting to take control of the economy, particularly the financial sector. Antisemitic publications became common in the German press. Influenced by the Haskalah, as well as the French Revolution with its Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and other advancements in civil rights, many Jews and equal rights activists began to demand citizenship and equal treatment. As Jewish Emancipation progressed, German Jews were becoming competitors for Christian guilds in the economy. Immediately before the riots began, the Bavarian Diet had completed a debate on further emancipation of the Jews throughout the Kingdom. Amos Elon writes in his 2002 book The Pity of It All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 1743–1933:

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