The City without Jews

6/6/2022

It is somewhat ironically apposite to watch this now in the UK where we are still having politically charged conversations about anti-Semitism. This silent film is a wonderfully satiric rendition of the Bettauer story about the citizens of a city who fear that it is steadily being taken over by the Jews. Via a series of regulations and eventually law the Jewish are persecuted then ultimately banished. Thereupon, their chickens come home to roost; their city collapses into chaos and the Jews are invited to return - very much on their own terms. The futility and short-sightedness of a "blame culture" is writ large. Personally, I didn't see this as a precursor of the Holocaust; though I can see how the polarised vision of Jewish faith and ethics could certainly provide the oxygen ultimately r