Wednesday, July 29, 2026 at 10:15 AM
Skylight Books, Los Angeles
 CLICK HERE TO RSVP _**RSVP is recommended but not required. Entry and seating are first-come, first-served. RSVPs do not guarantee entry to a full event.**_ Following the Civil War, prominent fire insurance companies in the United States issued instructions to their agents to deny Jews fire insurance policies because of their alleged proclivity to arson. In the years that followed, the stereotype of the Jewish arsonist spread throughout the United States, appearing in fire insurance manuals, cartoons, songs, and silent films. _Jewish Firebugs_ presents the first detailed exploration of both the accusations and the realities of Jewish arson from the late 1800s to the early 1920s. Drawing on such diverse records as fire department reports, insurance records, newspapers, trial transcripts, and humor journals, Jeffrey Marx delves into the social forces that created and then sensationalized the caricature of the Jewish arsonist, investigating how and why Jews became the only racial/ethnic group to be targeted this way in the United States. The book critically assesses how these antisemitic representations were solidified in the American imagination–from the spread of jokes and cartoons, to vaudeville performances across the country. In addition, Marx also investigates the various factors that led to arson criminal activity in Jewish neighborhoods, the unique way that Jewish “arson gangs” were organized, and how the fire insurance companies actively supported their efforts. _Jewish Firebugs_ illustrates the socioeconomic realities of Jewish immigrant life at the turn of the nineteenth century, and details what the Jewish arsonist trope reveals about the dynamics of antisemitism in the United States. **Jeffrey A. Marx** is an Independent Scholar and the author of Smoothing the Jew: Abie the Agent and Ethnic Caricature in the Progressive Era.