Alice in Shandehland, scandal and scorn in the Edelson/Horowitz murder case, Monda Halpern
Type
Classification
1
Creator
1
Subject
9
- Triangles (Interpersonal relations) -- Ontario -- Ottawa -- Case studies
- Trials (Murder) -- Ontario -- Ottawa -- Case studies
- Horwitz, Jack, -1931 -- Death and burial
- Edelson, Alice
- Jewelers -- Ontario -- Ottawa -- Case studies
- Edelson, Ben -- Trials, litigation, etc
- Sex scandals -- Ontario -- Ottawa -- Case studies
- Jews -- Ontario -- Ottawa -- Case studies
- Adultery -- Ontario -- Ottawa -- Case studies
Content
1
Author
1
Other version
1
Mapped to
1
Label
Alice in Shandehland, scandal and scorn in the Edelson/Horowitz murder case, Monda Halpern
Language
eng
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-268) and index
Illustrations
illustrationsmaps
Index
index present
Literary form
non fiction
Main title
Alice in Shandehland
Nature of contents
bibliography
Oclc number
895338547
Responsibility statement
Monda Halpern
Series statement
McGill-Queen's studies in ethnic history. Series two, 37
Sub title
scandal and scorn in the Edelson/Horowitz murder case
Summary
By 1931, Ben and Alice Edelson had been married for two decades and had seven children, but for years Alice had been having an affair with the married Jack Horwitz. On the night of 24 November, Ben, Alice, and Jack met at Edelson Jewellers to settle the thing. Words flew, a brawl erupted, and Jack was shot and killed. The tragedy marked the start of a sensational legal case that captured Ottawa headlines, with the prominent jeweller facing the gallows. Through a detailed examination of newspaper coverage, interviews with family and community members, and evocative archival photographs, Monda Halpern's Alice in Shandehland reconstructs a long-silenced murder case in Depression-era Canada. Halpern contends that despite his crime, Ben Edelson was the object of far less contempt than his adulterous wife whose shandeh - Yiddish for shame or disgrace - seemed indefensible. While Alice endured the censure of both the Jewish community and the courtroom, Ben's middle-class respectability and the betrayal he suffered earned him favoured standing and, ultimately, legal exoneration. Revealing the tensions around ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and class, Alice in Shandehland explores the divergent reputations of Ben and Alice Edelson within a growing but insular and tenuous Jewish community, and within a dominant culture that embraced male success and valour during the emasculating 1930s
Table of contents
Introduction -- 1 "This terrible drama of humanity": An Affair, a Shooting, a Death, an Arrest -- 2 "A prominent Ottawa jeweller" and "the jeweller's comely young wife": The Rise of the Edelsons -- 3 "Startling evidence ... of a sensational character": The Inquest, and Respectability Challenged -- 4 "Her life was pure impulse without control": Trial by Jewry, Community Anxiety, and the Spurning of Alice -- 5 "In a court of British justice, sympathy has no place": Trial by Jury, Respectability and Honour, and the Acquittal of Ben -- 6 "A sudden silence fell": The Legacy of the Case -- Conclusion
Incoming Resources
- Has instance2