Author Tony Kushner recently visited Manchester Jewish Museum’s former synagogue to discuss his latest book – a story of a brutal triple murder in a Sussex pub in the 1700s which became shrouded in obscurity and mythology.
Hi Tony, how did you come across this story for the book ‘The Jewish Pedlar’?
I was interested in Jewish peddlers, who’ve been neglected despite being probably the most common Jewish occupation until WWII. A colleague in Sussex had seen the story of Jacob Harris, who murdered three people in 1734, on a pub website and nagged me to research it. I delayed, then did a day’s research, got fascinated, and ten years later the book came out.
Initially, we wondered if this was a miscarriage of justice – was his Jewishness relevant? The punishment wasn’t unusual for murder, but it was brutal: he was hanged, then gibbeted at the crime scene for months. I quickly realised there was no mystery about his guilt, but I was intrigued by what he was doing in Sussex, where there was no Jewish community.
This was a period with a very small Jewish community in the UK – about 1,000 people. My analysis is that he was of German Jewish background, a tiny minority within a minority at the time.
What made researching Jacob challenging?
He doesn’t speak one word in the archive, so you have to be creative to contextualise him. What we have is how he names himself: Jacob Harris, Herschel Hirsch (very German Jewish), and James Daves (a medieval English name). This ability to disguise himself gives a sense of his multiple identities.
It seems he was part of a smuggling fraternity in Sussex. Smuggling was common – people liked smugglers who provided cheap goods. Harris was useful because he had London connections for both Sussex and London markets.
The first victim, Richard Miles, was the publican and also a smuggler. There must have been a falling out. Harris didn’t realise Miles survived long enough to describe him and write his will – which is quite a lot to manage with a slit throat!
Did his memory change over time?
What surprised me is that he becomes a folk hero rather than a devil figure. You’d expect antisemitism, and possibly ritual murder accusations, especially as two victims were female. But he becomes celebrated. The place where he was gibbeted is still known as Jacob’s Post. This is one reason the government stopped gibbeting – it didn’t deter people and actually glorified perpetrators. Like many gibbeted people, his body became a source of magic and medicine. Women touched his hand for fertility, and bits of the gibbet post allegedly cured toothache.
The courts were neutral about his Jewishness until the late 18th century. He becomes problematic in the mid-19th century when antiquarian scholars – mostly vicars — reinvented the story, making him a “bad Jew” outsider.
What does this reveal about Jewish peddlers?
Peddling was always on the edge of criminality because you had goods, some stolen. The peddler could be seen as respectable, bringing goods and news, but there was something not quite ‘kosher’ about them.
Almost any Jewish family had peddling connections. Most peddlers didn’t make it. There was this idea that they all started small and grew into successful shopkeepers, but the majority ended in obscurity and poverty.
Is there a contemporary relevance here?
There’s relevance in how we approach minority history and those of migrant origin today. Most people writing on Jewish criminality get told: “Don’t write this – we get enough bad press.” But it tells stories that humanise people.
The government is releasing national origin of criminals under pressure from the right-wing press, which feeds anti-migrant sentiment. But these people are human with all their flaws. The idea that antisemitism is always the norm is queried by this story. Yes, there were moments of antisemitism, but it’s wrong to say this is always present. It takes particular moments of crisis that reflect broader anxieties.
How do you balance complexity without romanticising?
There’s always a danger of romanticising Jacob Harris. I see myself doing it – wondering if he was a highwayman, when highwaymen were brutal people with romantic images. He dressed like a highwayman, and 18th-century dress codes indicated class and status.
But I’ve tried to avoid romanticising. I start by saying this would have been an absolute bloodbath – slitting three people’s throats and botching it completely. The wife was ill in bed and the maid ran away with her throat slit and a chest wound.
That’s the danger of having heroes who become fictional. We shouldn’t have history for minorities as ethnic cheerleading. It doesn’t allow us to see people as flesh and blood human beings with complexities and flaws.
The Jewish Pedlar is available now from Manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk