History & Area Studies / Thematic History / Social & Cultural History

Why the Catholic Inquisition Spared Every Practicing Jew

Jews on Trial: The Papal Inquisition in Modena, 1598–1638

Katherine Aron-Beller

Forget the iron maidens, damp dungeons, and fiery executions. In 17th-century Modena, the dreaded Catholic Inquisition acted less like a lethal death squad and far more like an aggressive, bureaucratic homeowners association. Despite hauling hundreds of practicing Jews into court, they did not execute a single one. Instead, courtrooms were flooded with bizarre neighborly feuds, panics over Christian wet nurses, balcony romances gone wrong, and bored teenagers building swings in their attics. Even more shocking, marginalized Jews routinely weaponized the Pope’s holy police against their own wealthy rivals. This breakdown explores the groundbreaking archival study 'Jews on Trial: The Papal Inquisition in Modena, 1598–1638' by Dr. Katherine Aron-Beller, a lecturer in Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an expert on early modern European ethnography. Her book meticulously dissects genuine Holy Office trial transcripts to dismantle centuries of gothic myths, revealing how ordinary people navigated institutional power and proved that natural human connection always outlasts dogmatic separation.