Dancing to the Court Jew's Tune: Joseph "Jud" Süss Oppenheimer and the Politics of the Ballroom

Joseph "Jud" Süß Oppenheimer was the most famous eighteenth-century court Jew, and one of the most prominent Jewish figures in German literary history. This article argues that the many literary and film adaptations of Süß's life use masquerade ball scenes to convey his privileged yet vulnerable position at the Württemberg court. Süß's participation in these court festivities blurs the social boundaries between himself and Christian elites, and reveals Süß's perceived complicity with the darker side of these entertainments. Ball scenes are a much more pivotal plot element of texts about Süß than has previously been acknowledged, which reveal anxieties about Jewish male sexuality and use of power.