Institute of Jewish Studies

Tony Kushner

Thursday March 16th

IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND

In May 1734 on Ditchling Common, Jacob Harris murdered Richard Miles, his wife Dorothy and a female servant. A few days later he was caught, brought back to Ditchling, and sent to gaol in Horsham. Harris was found guilty and hanged. His body was then sent back to the scene of the crime and gibbeted. The site became known as ‘Jacob’s Post’ and his body and the gibbet post were given magical properties through at least until the mid-nineteenth century. This lecture will ask at a very basic level who Jacob was and more deeply what place (if any) he, the murders and the memory of them have in Jewish studies.

Jacob's post, the spot where Harris was gibbeted

Tony Kushner is Professor in the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations and History Department at the University of Southampton.. His most recent book is The Battle of Britishness: Migrant Journeys since 1685 (Manchester University Press, 2012). He is currently working on a study of the construction of ethnicity in the British armed forces and two books relating to the Holocaust: Journeys from the Abyss: The Holocaust and Forced Migration and, with Dr Aimee Bunting, Co-Presents to the Holocaust. He is co-editor of the journal Patterns of Prejudice and deputy editor of Jewish Culture and History. 

Drinks reception from 6.30pm in the Gavin de Beer room, Anatomy Building

Lecture 7pm in the J.Z. Young lecture theatre

Anatomy and Medical Sciences Building, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

(entrances on Gower Street just south of UCL main gate)

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