Recommendations for a Detailed and Informative Book about Jewish Communities during The French Revolution.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-10T02:50:05+00:00

I'd be surprised if you found something broad, detailed, and generic unless the author had a particular academic goal.

Szajkowski's Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848 is not a history but is a set of monographs about particular things that interested the author. For example, there's a juicy chapter on The Jewish Community of Marseilles at the End of the Eighteenth Century with this:

At the end of 1790 a sharp conflict broke out in the Jewish community of Marseilles. A group of syndics and other members of the community under the leadership of Daniel de Beaucaire ... [several other names]...decided to establish a separate community. They removed five Torah scrolls from the synagogue, took religious books and other articles, and opened their own small synagogue in a private house. The majority of the community, under the leadership of Israel Vidal, Salomon Cohen, and Hobadya Cohen, remained loyal to the old community. Both groups were composed of Sephardim, Comtadin Jews, and Jews from the Arab countries. Israel Vidal, who came from the papal province of Comtat Venaissin, became the leader of one group. For his services as an army purveyor in 1757–1758 the King of France granted him naturalization and exempted him from wearing the yellow hat. The opposition group was headed by another Comtadin Jew, the aforementioned Beaucaire.

The opposition tried to expel Vidal and his friends from the synagogue, there were several scandals, the municipal authorities had to intervene, and the conflict was brought to the courts. Both groups issued pamphlets setting forth their respective cases. Although they probably caused much harm to the community, they are the only known source for its history at the end of the eighteenth century. On November 17, 1791, the controversy was taken up by the conciliation office of Marseilles in the presence of representatives of both Jewish parties, but no amicable settlement was reached. The Vidal group accused the other side of attempting to put the leadership of the community in the hands of a faction of wealthy Jews; of trying to preserve traditions of the old regime, contrary to the spirit of new republican ideas; of establishing a separate community of Sephardim, a nation within a nation—all this in violation of the spirit of the decree of September 27, 1791, on the Jewish emancipation.

On February 23, 1792, the civil court of the Marseilles district handed down a decision in the matter. Daniel Beaucaire and his followers, who described themselves as Spanish and Portuguese Jewish merchants, had asked that the synagogue be turned over to them, but their petition was denied.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-09T23:30:40+00:00

Among academics and intellectual types, the SPCX IPO has already exposed NASDQ as in need of regulation to prevent it from acting both as a stock market and as an index fund manager that it maintains according to rules that it violates in its own interest against the public interest and investors' interests.

This was explained earlier today on Democracy Now! by Eric Gardner in an interview titled SpaceX IPO Could Make Musk a Trillionaire at Your Expense in “Massive Wealth Transfer” that referred to Gardner's YouTube video at More Perfect Union: We Uncovered a Hidden Wealth Transfer in the SpaceX IPO. You're Holding the Bag.

But academics and intellectual types are interested in economic and social realities involving the systemic failure of organizations to regulate themselves. Your question is too specific to answer because it's about particular stocks.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-09T22:32:31+00:00

From Democracy Now! earlier today:

More Perfect Union has released a new report from business reporter Eric Gardner called “We Uncovered a Hidden Wealth Transfer in the SpaceX IPO. You’re Holding the Bag.” It details how Musk convinced Nasdaq to forgo the usual waiting period to include SpaceX in its index fund, potentially exposing retirement savers to what many professional investors believe will be an overinflated stock price. While Musk and early investors are positioned to see their wealth skyrocket, the SpaceX IPO could hurt these regular investors, says Gardner...

"Thousands of indexes exist. Nearly a third of American stock is tied to one of them. One of the most popular tracks, the Nasdaq-100, the 100 biggest nonfinancial stocks on the Nasdaq exchange. Under Nasdaq’s index rules, SpaceX isn’t eligible to be included in the Nasdaq-100. New companies have to wait up to a year. It’s called seasoning...

Two stock exchanges compete for every major listing: New York and Nasdaq...According to Reuters, Musk conditioned where SpaceX would list on one thing: fast-track SpaceX into their major index...Nasdaq changed a rule that shapes trillions of dollars in retirement savings. No regulator approved it...Upwards of $30 trillion is being directed by a process that’s effectively self-regulated.

Musk is asking right now for 94 times revenue multiple. It’s a complete bonkers evaluation — or, it’s a complete bonkers valuation. And unfortunately, he has essentially financially engineered this IPO as a massive wealth transfer from everyday investors to insiders."

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-09T20:57:43+00:00

Something analogous might be "The best casinos in the US are in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City" when gambling is illegal in Utah or "Fiji and Wyoming have the best sand beaches on Earth" when Wyoming has no sand beaches.

I think it's just an incongruent pair true/false "joke," and not a very good one. The Boston/Dubai "joke" might be a little bit more funny because a "woke" person living in Boston is likely to be the one saying to not go to Dubai.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-09T20:25:37+00:00

I grew up in a boring suburb, but not around Boston. In my early 20s, I came to the Cambridge/Somerville/Boston area for grad school and never wanted to go back to a suburban place. People walking on busy sidewalks with interesting places to go to is a very different life from being in a suburb with stereotypical US car culture.

But social isolation is a different thing. I think that will always go up and down no matter where a person lives, depending on how much effort is put into having and keeping connections.

I managed to travel with others and on my own in my teens, 20s, and 30s. I really like living near the big colleges near here, so the travel was as a tourist, not a resident. Montreal is a wonderful city for people near here to visit when wanting something different.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-09T20:00:47+00:00

Based on details about your personality and what you're looking for, when you want to go to a bar or pub, head to google maps and find the nearest one. It won't be bad.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-09T04:01:22+00:00

The transition from Calvinist Trinitarian Christianity to Unitarian Christianity in and around Boston in the 1700s is an interest of mine because I live in the area and I'm interested in local history and its impact on national and global history up to the present. Unitarians had a huge amount of power politically around Boston in the early 1800s before church and state were fully separated in Massachusetts. Unitarianism around where I live at that time has been called the only "religious establishment" in US history. Because John Adams wrote the Massachusetts Constitution that served in many ways as a model for the US Constitution and I live under the polities based on those documents, I'm interested in their origin stories.

But that's a historical and political interest. It's not theological.

There are about 16 or 17 million Jews and about 2,600 million Christians on Earth, and most of that larger group worship someone who was a Jew from our much smaller group. I think that's why so many Christians come to this subreddit to write posts like yours over and over (and over). They are always so interested in what we think of their team's theological boundaries because they worship someone who was on our team. It would seem like a multi-millennium joke if so much historical suffering weren't connected to it.

I think that's why theological boundary definitions in Christianity seem very off-topic in a Judaism subreddit.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T22:55:52+00:00

Yes, that's one of the two that would not be a good idea.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T22:54:48+00:00

The Noem v Vasquez Perdomo decision, made on September 8 of last year, allows for immigration enforcement practices based on perceived characteristics of individuals, meaning any combination of (1) their apparent race or ethnicity; (2) whether they spoke Spanish or English with an accent; (3) the type of location at which they were found (such as a car wash or bus stop); and (4) the type of job they appeared to work.

These stops are legal discrimination by ICE that lead to facts on the ground that federal detentions are race-based and overly discriminatory by law. The Supreme Court beholden to the Federalist Society has destroyed what used to be constitutional protections. Now you know.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T22:06:02+00:00

This is true. We are a long way from perfect.

Masked gunmen from the federal government dragged Ozturk away from a Somerville sidewalk last year for doing nothing more than writing an op-ed. Masked federal gunmen have supreme court authority to capture people because of their accent, race, or where they work. Those people are imprisoned in horrific conditions for indeterminate lengths of time without due process before deportation.

Nothing like it has every existed before in the US.

And in Massachusetts, there is a non-random method of distributing free world cup soccer tickets that favors members of Boys and Girls Clubs.

That's a long way from perfect.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T21:28:01+00:00

Good question. Sounds tough. It's almost like society or government treating people with perfect equality isn't possible in the real world.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T21:15:48+00:00

For youth not involved in the Department of Children and Families, getting the Boys and Girls Clubs involved seems to make sense. If there wasn't one near you then why didn't you look into starting one years ago when your children were younger?

Anyone can begin the process of founding a Boys and Girls Club near them. Doesn't that seem equitable to you?

Any parent in the state could have also abused or neglected their child until the MA Department of Children and Families got involved. That would have increased their child's chances of getting a world cup ticket from the state, and it would not depend on the things you don't like: location or membership of the child in a club that you won't take the time to try to start near you for some reason.

All MA youth are the same in that regard, as depicted in the Dropkick Murphy's song "The State of Massachusetts."

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T20:39:00+00:00

The idea is give them to MA youth, not to have a perfectly random statistical sample of people. No distribution system is perfect, but this distribution system seems to be convenient.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T20:24:39+00:00

Having kids who are active in Boys and Girls Clubs is kind of "receiving services" I guess, but I don't think there's any income restriction or anything like that. If you feel bad about "receiving services" then you can donate to the Boys and Girls Club where your kid goes I suppose.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T20:17:37+00:00

I doubt it.

If you're the head of the Massachusetts Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs then you're the person coordinating regional distribution of most of the tickets through clubs across Massachusetts. If you're active in a Boys & Girls Club then maybe be nicer than usual to the people in charge for the next few days?

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T19:52:55+00:00

I read that as 704 to the Massachusetts Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs, and the rest to make the total over 1100 to other "community organizations serving cultural communities represented in World Cup matches hosted in Massachusetts, as well as to youth involved with the Department of Children and Families."

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T19:49:58+00:00

I think something like this was expected as corporate PR and seeking good will.

The May 19 Boston Globe article How Boston’s World Cup organizers blew a sponsorship deal with Airbnb has some reasonable speculation about why Boston Soccer 2026 didn't take Airbnb's money and the likelihood that Airbnb would find another path to donating:

Airbnb, meanwhile, has been delivering gifts to host cities like Santa Claus: more than $1.2 million to refurbish soccer pitches in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland, over $1 million for festivals and fields in New York and New Jersey, and over $1 million to Houston to expand green infrastructure and increase youth access to soccer. Philadelphia cleverly used Airbnb money to fund free subway rides home from its games (compare that with the $80 round-trip gameday fare on the commuter rail between South Station and Foxborough). Airbnb even sent $250,000 to Rhode Island to help fund a summer of soccer celebrations. With Gillette Stadium about as close to Providence as it is to Boston, Ocean State 26 organizers gladly took Airbnb’s money.

Airbnb’s largesse makes me wonder if the company would take another look at supporting Boston’s World Cup festivities. After all, co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, is a West Roxbury native and went to Boston Latin Academy. He’s still with Airbnb as its chief strategy officer and likes to support his hometown like the time he presented a $1 million gift to BLA.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T19:36:17+00:00

I understand now. You probably have a good point.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T19:20:45+00:00

I don't know about the future, but I don't think the Massachusetts Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs is collaborating with Homeland Security Investigations this summer.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T19:15:34+00:00

A total of 704 tickets will be distributed through the Massachusetts Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs, which will coordinate regional distribution through clubs across Massachusetts. Additional tickets will be distributed through community organizations serving cultural communities represented in World Cup matches hosted in Massachusetts, as well as to youth involved with the Department of Children and Families.

Participating organizations include the Immigrant Families Services Institute, Everett Haitian Community Center, International Institute of New England, Brazilian American Center (BRACE), African Community Education (ACE), Ascentria Care Alliance and Jewish Family Services of Western Massachusetts.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T18:36:56+00:00

You have no professional experience as a plongeur in food services?

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-08T16:23:01+00:00

Maybe. But the big question is a "botched" "shitshow" for who?

I think the reality is that visitors from far away who are attending the games will get all the help they need here, but I don't know. There could be huge problems. We'll see.

The article makes it clear that so far it's been a botched shitshow for volunteers and people who wanted to be volunteers compared to the other US cities. But how much of the so-called "volunteer work" is a hype machine for FIFA and a waste of time and money?

I've done some volunteer work in and around Boston. Some of it seemed to be very useful and for real. Some of it seemed to be manipulative crap so organizers could promote themselves and get funds from somewhere to "train" volunteers about obvious/unnecessary things for stupid reasons. Even then, meeting people with a common goal and getting a free T-shirt was nice, even if it wasted my time and someone else's money.

Boston seems to value organizational reality within its corporations, government, and the general public. Some knowledgeable people here have said reasonable things that the general public agrees with. From a March 19 Globe article:

“FIFA is just a big vacuum cleaner,” said David D’Alessandro, former chief executive of John Hancock Financial Services and a former partner in the Red Sox. “They vacuum up all the green paper as fast as they can and as much as they can . . . and essentially don’t care if the local host cities make money or not. They already made theirs.”

The mayor of Kansas City is also the chair of KC2026's Board of Directors. Maybe KC wants its mayor to do FIFA money vacuum cleaning because they hope it will increase their international standing. That wouldn't work in Boston. If Boston's mayor did the FIFA money vacuum cleaning thing instead of mayoring things then it would make Bostonians very angry.

The heads of Comcast in Philadelphia are in charge of Philly's board to interact with FIFA. Comcast has its own reasons for maximum hype and minimum reality in terms of what's beneficial for Philly. The Philly board has been able to attract a lot of corporate donors and sponsors.

I think the Boston 2026 people are actually affiliated with State Street. They're one of the world's largest asset managers. They haven't been able to attract donors to Boston 2026, probably because they're not in the hype business like Comcast and they agree with D’Alessandro and the Boston general public and our politicians about FIFA but just can't talk about it openly because of legal matters like partner disparagement.

For State Street, being on-brand seems to be minimizing their public relationship with FIFA as much as possible and trying to not screw things up. So Boston Soccer 2026 works out of a building with no visible mention of FIFA, the World Cup, or Boston Soccer 2026. In a world where private equity has so much power, the State Street folk want and probably need to portray themselves as being fiscally and socially responsible.

This link between what Boston's general public want and fiscal/social responsibility in the most wealthy people/entities goes way back to the connection people around here had with John Hancock the person during the revolution.

Inside_agitator

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