Document Type
Article
Department/Program
History
Journal Title
Australian Journal of Jewish Studies
Pub Date
2023
Publisher
H-Net
Volume
XXXVI
First Page
82
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This article tells the story of a Jewish army supplier in the French Revolution. Jacob Benjamin literally fed an army: the Army of the South (l’Armée du Midi), a vast force that spread from the Pyrenees to the Alps. He provided meat for every one of the army’s 30,000 soldiers for the second half of 1792. He sold goods to three of France’s four other armies (of the North, the Centre, and the Rhine). His shoes were probably on the feet of the soldiers who won the battle of Valmy, a battle that prevented France’s enemies from suppressing the Revolution. Though he profited from contracts with the army, he was a radical member of the sans-culottes assembly in his neighbourhood. He was arrested for allegedly gouging the army, but acquitted by the tribunal of Lyon. His story reveals the extent of Jewish provisioning and the surprising lack of antisemitism in the discourse surrounding his case. The article is based on more than 200 documents seized from Benjamin’s home following his arrest, court documents from Lyon, and an extraordinary open letter by his wife to the Convention.
Recommended Citation
Schechter, Ronald, The Jew Who Fed an Army: Jacob Benjamin and the French Revolution (2023). Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, XXXVI, 82-97.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/aspubs/2170
