From http://middleeastfacts.com/Articles/history-of-jews-in-arab-countries.php
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN SYRIA BEFORE 1948
The last Jews who wanted to leave Syria departed with the chief rabbi in October 1994. Prior to 1947, there were some 30,000 Jews made up of three distinct communities, each with its own traditions: the Kurdish-speaking Jews of Kamishli, the Jews of Aleppo with roots in Spain, and the original eastern Jews of Damascus, called Must'arab. Today only a tiny remnant of these communities remains.
The Jewish presence in Syria dates back to biblical times and is intertwined with the history of Jews in neighboring Eretz Israel. With the advent of Christianity, restrictions were imposed on the community. The Arab conquest in 636 A.D, however, greatly improved the lot of the Jews. Unrest in neighboring Iraq in the 10th century resulted in Jewish migration to Syria and brought about a boom in commerce, banking, and crafts. During the reign of the Fatimids, the Jew Menashe Ibrahim El-Kazzaz ran the Syrian administration, and he granted Jews positions in the government.
Syrian Jewry supported the aspirations of the Arab nationalists and Zionism, and Syrian Jews believed that the two parties could be reconciled and that the conflict in Palestine could be resolved. However, following Syrian independence from France in 1946, attacks against Jews and their property increased, culminating in the pogroms of 1947, which left all shops and synagogues in Aleppo in ruins. Thousands of Jews fled the country, and their homes and property were taken over by the local Muslims.
For the next decades, Syrian Jews were, in effect, hostages of a hostile regime. They could leave Syria only on the condition that they leave members of their family behind. Thus the community lived under siege, constantly under fearful surveillance of the secret police. This much was allowed due to an international effort to secure the human rights of the Jews, the changing world order, and the Syrian need for Western support; so the conditions of the Jews improved somewhat.
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN EGYPT PRIOR TO 1948
Jews have lived in Egypt since Biblical times, and the conditions of the community have constantly fluctuated with the political situation of the land. Israelite tribes first moved to the Land of Goshen (the northeastern edge of the Nile Delta) during the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1375-1358 B.C).
During the reign of Ramses II (1298-1232 B.C), they were enslaved for the Pharaoh's building projects. His successor, Merneptah, continued the same anti-Jewish policies, and around the year 1220 B.C, the Jews revolted and escaped across the Sinai to Canaan. This is the biblical Exodus commemorated in the holiday of Passover. Over the years, many Jews in Eretz Israel who were not deported to Babylon sought shelter in Egypt, among them the prophet Jeremiah. By 1897 there were more than 25,000 Jews in Egypt, concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria. In 1937 the population reached a peak of 63,500.
Friedman wrote in "The Myth of Arab Tolerance", "One Caliph, Al-Hakem of the Fatimids devised particularly insidious humiliations for the Jews in his attempt to perform what he deemed his role as "Redeemer of Mankind". First the Jews were forced to wear miniature golden calf images around their necks, as though they still worshipped the golden calf, but the Jews refused to convert. Next they wore bells, and after that six pound wooden blocks were hung around their necks. In fury at his failure, the Caliph had the Cairo Jewish quarter destroyed, along with it's Jewish residence, in".
In 1945, with the rise of Egyptian nationalism and the cultivation of anti-Western and anti-Jewish sentiment, riots erupted. In the violence, 10 Jews were killed, 350 injured, and a synagogue, a Jewish hospital, and an old-age home were burned down. The establishment of the State of Israel led to still further anti-Jewish feeling: Between June and November 1948, bombs set off in the Jewish Quarter killed more than 70 Jews and wounded nearly 200. 2,000 Jews were arrested and many had their property confiscated.
Rioting over the next few months resulted in many more Jewish deaths. Between June and November 1948, bombs set off in the Jewish Quarter killed more than 70 Jews and wounded nearly 200.
Jews In 1956: The Egyptian government used the Sinai Campaign as a pretext for expelling almost 25,000 Egyptian Jews and confiscating their property.
Approximately 1,000 more Jews were sent to prisons and detention camps. On November 23, 1956, a proclamation signed by the Minister of Religious Affairs, and read aloud in mosques throughout Egypt, declared that "all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state," and promised that they would be soon expelled.
Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country. They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations "donating" their property to the Egyptian government. Foreign observers reported that members of Jewish families were taken hostage, apparently to insure that those forced to leave did not speak out against the Egyptian government. AP, (November 26 and 29th 1956; New York World Telegram).
In 1979, the Egyptian Jewish community became the first in the Arab world to establish official contact with Israel. Israel now has an embassy in Cairo and a consulate general in Alexandria. At present, the few remaining Jews are free to practice Judaism without any restrictions or harassment. Shaar Hashamayim is the only functioning synagogue in Cairo. Of the many synagogues in Alexandria only the Eliahu Hanabi is open for worship.
By 1957 it had fallen to 15,000. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, there was a renewed wave of persecution, and the community dropped to 2,500. By the 1970s, after the remaining Jews were given permission to leave the country, the community dwindled to a few families. Jewish rights were finally restored in 1979 after President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with Israel. Only then was the community allowed to establish ties with Israel and with world Jewry. The majority of Jews reside in Cairo, but there are still a handful in Alexandria. In addition there are about 15 Karaites in the community. Nearly all the Jews are elderly, and the community is on the verge of extinction.
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN IRAQ PRIOR TO 1948
The Iraqi Jews took pride in their distinguished Jewish community, with it's history of scholarship and dignity. Jews had prospered in what was then Babylonia for 1200 years before the Muslim conquest in AD 634; it was not until the 9th century that Dhimmi laws such as the yellow patch, heavy head tax, and residence restriction were enforced. Capricious and extreme oppression under some Arab caliphs and Momlukes brought taxation amounting to expropriation in AD 1000, and 1333 the persecution culminated in pillage and destruction of the Bagdad Sanctuary. In 1776, there was a slaughter of Jews at Bosra, and in bitterness of anti-Jewish measures taken by Turkish Muslim rulers in the 18th century caused many Jews to flee. The Iraqi Jewish community is one of the oldest in the world and has a great history of learning and scholarship. Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, was born in Ur of the Chaldees, in southern Iraq, around 2,000 A.D.
The community traces its history back to 6th century A.D, when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judea and sent most of the population into exile in Babylonia.
The community also maintained strong ties with the Land of Israel and, with the aid of rabbis from Israel, succeeded in establishing many prominent rabbinical academies. By the 3rd century, Babylonia became the center of Jewish scholarship, as is attested to by the community's most influential creation, the Babylonian Talmud. Under Muslim rule, beginning in the 7th century, the situation of the community fluctuated. Many Jews held high positions in government or prospered in commerce and trade. At the same time, Jews were subjected to special taxes, restrictions on their professional activity, and anti-Jewish incitement among the masses. Under British rule, which began in 1917, Jews fared well economically, and many were elected to government posts. This traditionally observant community was also allowed to found Zionist organizations and to pursue Hebrew studies.
All of this progress ended when Iraq gained independence in 1932. In June 1941, the Mufti-inspired, pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali sparked rioting and a pogrom in Baghdad. Armed Iraqi mobs, with the complicity of the police and the army, murdered 180 Jews and wounded almost 1,000.
Although emigration was prohibited, many Jews made their way to Israel during this period with the aid of an underground movement. In 1950 the Iraqi parliament finally legalized emigration to Israel, and between May 1950 and August 1951, the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government succeeded in airlifting approximately 110,000 Jews to Israel in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah. This figure includes 18,000 Kurdish Jews, who have many distinct traditions. Thus a community that had reached a peak of 150,000 in 1947 dwindled to a mere 6,000 after 1951.
Additional outbreaks of anti-Jewish rioting occurred between 1946-49. After the establishment of Israel in 1948, Zionism became a capital crime.
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN IRAQ AFTER 1948
In 1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year provided they forfeited their citizenship. A year later, however, the property of Jews who emigrated was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on Jews who chose to remain in the country. From 1949 to 1951, 104,000 Jews were evacuated from Iraq in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah; another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran. In 1952, Iraq's government barred Jews from emigrating and publicly hanged two Jews after falsely charging them with hurling a bomb at the Baghdad office of the U.S. Information Agency.
With the rise of competing Ba'ath factions in 1963, additional restrictions were placed on the remaining Iraqi Jews. The sale of property was forbidden and all Jews were forced to carry yellow identity cards. After the Six-Day War, more repressive measures were imposed: Jewish property was expropriated; Jewish bank accounts were frozen; Jews were dismissed from public posts; businesses were shut; trading permits were cancelled; telephones were disconnected. Jews were placed under house arrest for long periods of time or restricted to the cities.
Persecution was at its worst at the end of 1968. Scores were jailed upon the discovery of a local "spy ring" composed of Jewish businessmen. Fourteen men-eleven of them Jews-were sentenced to death in staged trials and hanged in the public squares of Baghdad; others died of torture. On January 27, 1969, Baghdad Radio called upon Iraqis to "come and enjoy the feast." Some 500,000 men, women and children paraded and danced past the scaffolds where the bodies of the hanged Jews swung; the mob rhythmically chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to all traitors." This display brought a world-wide public outcry that Radio Baghdad dismissed by declaring: "We hanged spies, but the Jews crucified Christ." (Judith Miller and Laurie Mylroie, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, p. 34).
Jews remained under constant surveillance by the Iraqi government. Max Sawadayee, in "All Waiting to be Hanged" writes a testimony of an Iraqi Jew (who later escaped): "The dehumanization of the Jewish personality resulting from continuous humiliation and torment...have dragged us down to the lowest level of our physical and mental faculties, and deprived us of the power to recover.".
In response to international pressure, the Baghdad government quietly allowed most of the remaining Jews to emigrate in the early 1970's, even while leaving other restrictions in force. Most of Iraq's remaining Jews are now too old to leave. They have been pressured by the government to turn over title, without compensation, to more than $200 million worth of Jewish community property. (New York Times, February 18, 1973).
Only one synagogue continues to function in Iraq, "a crumbling buff-colored building tucked away in an alleyway" in Baghdad. According to the synagogue's administrator, "there are few children to be bar-mitzvahed, or couples to be married. Jews can practice their religion but are not allowed to hold jobs in state enterprises or join the army." (New York Times Magazine, February 3, 1985).
In 1991, prior to the Gulf War, the State Department said "there is no recent evidence of overt persecution of Jews, but the regime restricts travel, (particularly to Israel) and contacts with Jewish groups abroad.".
Persecutions continued, especially after the Six-Day War in 1967, when many of the remaining 3,000 Jews were arrested and dismissed from their jobs.
Finally in Iraq all the Jews were forced to leave between 1948 and 1952 and leave everything behind. Jews were publicly hanged in the center of Baghdad with enthusiastic mobs as audiences.
The Jews were persecuted throughout the centuries in all the Arabic speaking countries. One time, Baghdad was one-fifth Jewish and other communities had first been established 2,500 years ago. Today, approximately 61 Jews are left in Baghdad and another 200 or so are in Kurdish areas in the north. Only one synagogue remains in Bataween, - once Baghdad's main Jewish neighborhood.-
The rabbi died in 1996 and none of the remaining Jews can perform the liturgy and only a couple know Hebrew. (Associated Press, March 28, 1998).
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN ALGERIA PRIOR TO 1948
Jewish settlement in present-day Algeria can be traced back to the first centuries of the Common Era. In the 14th century, with the deterioration of conditions in Spain, many Spanish Jews moved to Algeria. Among them were a number of outstanding scholars, including the Ribash and the Rashbatz.
After the French occupation of the country in 1830, Jews gradually adopted French culture and were granted French citizenship.
On the eve of the civil war that gripped the country in the late 1950s, there were some 130,000 Jews in Algeria, approximately 30,000 of whom lived in the capital. Nearly all Algerian Jews fled the country shortly after it gained independence from France in 1962. Most of the remaining Jews live in Algiers, but there are individual Jews in Oran and Blida. A single synagogue functions in Algiers, although there is no resident rabbi. All other synagogues have been taken over for use as mosques.
In 1934, a Nazi-incited pogrom in Constantine left 25 Jews dead and scores injured. After being granted independence in 1962, the Algerian government harassed the Jewish community and deprived Jews of their principle economic rights. As a result, almost 130,000 Algerian Jews immigrated to France. Since 1948, 25,681 Algerian Jews have emigrated to Israel.
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN YEMEN PRIOR TO 1948
In Yemen from the seventh century on the Jewish populations suffered the severest possible interpretation of the Charter of Omar. For about 4 centuries, the Jews suffered under the fierce fanatical edict of the most intolerant Islamic sects. The Yemen Epistle by Rambam in which he commiserated with Yemen's Jewry and besought them to keep the faith, and in 1724 fanatical rulers ordered synagogues destroyed, and Jewish public prayers were forbidden. The Jews were exiled, many died from starvation and the survivors were ordered to settle in Mausa, but later, this order was annulled by a decree in 1781 due to the need of their skilled craftsmen. Jacob Sappir a Jerusalem writer describes Yemeni Jews in Yemen in 1886: "The Arab natives have always considered the Jew unclean, but his blood for them was not considered unclean. They lay claims to all his belongings, and if he is unwilling, they employ force...The Jews live outside the town in dark dwellings like prison cells or caves out of
fear...for the least offense, he is sentenced to outrageous fines, which he is quite unable to pay. In case of non-payment, he is put in chains and cruelly beaten every day. Before the punishment is inflicted, the Cadi[judge] addresses him in gentle tones and urges him to change his faith and obtain a share of all the glory of this world and of the world beyond. His refusal is again regarded as penal obstinacy. On the other hand, it is not open to the Jew to prosecute a Muslim, as the Muslim by right of law can dispose of the life and the property of the Jew, and it is only to be regarded as an act of magnanimity if the Jews are allowed to live. The Jew is not admissible as a witness, nor has his oath any validity.".
Danish-German explorer Garsten Neibuhr visited Yemen in 1762 described Jewish life in Yemen: "By day they work in their shops in San'a, but by night they must withdraw to their isolated dwellings, shortly before my arrival, 12 of the 14 synagogues of the Jews were torn down, and all their beautiful houses wrecked".
The Jews did not improve until the establishment of the French Protectorate in 1912, when they were given equality and religious autonomy. However, during World War II, when France was ruled by the anti-Semitic Vichy government, King Muhammed V prevented the deportation of Jews from Morocco. In 1922, the government of Yemen reintroduced an ancient Islamic law that decreed that Jewish orphans under age 12 were to be forcibly converted to Islam.
In 1947, after the partition vote, Muslim rioters, joined by the local police force, engaged in a bloody pogrom in Aden that killed 82 Jews and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes. Aden's Jewish community was economically paralyzed, as most of the Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed. Early in 1948, looting occurred after six Jews were falsely accused of the ritual murder of two Arab girls. (Howard Sachar, A History of Israel). By 1948 there were some 270,000 Jews in Morocco. In an atmosphere of uncertainty and grinding poverty, many Jews elected to leave for Israel, France, the United States, and Canada.
Finally, nearly 50,000 traditionally religious Yemeni Jews, who had never seen a plane, were airlifted to Israel in 1949 and in 1950 in Operation "Magic Carpet.". Since the Book of Isaiah promised, "They shall mount up with wings, as eagles". The Jewish community bordered "The Eagles" contentedly; to the pilots consternation some of them lit a bon fire aboard, to cook their food.
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN MOROCCO PRIOR TO 1948
The Jewish community of present-day Morocco dates back more than 2,000 years. There were Jews living there, before it became a Roman province. in 1032 AD, 6000 Jews were murdered. Indeed the greatest persecution by the Arabs towards the Jews was in Fez, Morocco, nothing was worse than the slaughter of 120,000 Jews in 1146 and before that In 1160 Maimonides in his Epistle concerning apostasy writes his fellow Jews: "Now we are asked to render the active homage to heathenism but only to recite an empty formula which the Moslems themselves knew we utter insincerely in order to circumvent the bigot ... indeed, any Jew who, after uttering the Muslim formula, wishes to observe the whole 613 precepts in the privacy of his home, may do so without hindrance. Nevertheless, if, even under circumstances, a Jew surrenders his life for the sanctification of the name of God before men, he has done nobly and his reward is great before the Lord. But if a man asked me, "shall I be slain or utter the formula of Islam?" I answer, "utter the formula and live ... "". In 1391 a wave of Jewish refugees expelled from Spain brought new life to the community, as did new arrivals from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1497. From 1438, the Jews of Fez were forced to live in special quarters called mellahs, a name derived from the Arabic word for salt because the Jews in Morocco were forced to carry out the job of salting the heads of executed prisoners prior to their public display. Chouraqui sums it up when he wrote: "such restriction and humiliation as to exceed anything in Europe". Charles de Foucauld in 1883 who was not generally sympathetic to Jews writes of the Jews: "They are the most unfortunate of men, every Jew belongs body and soul to his seigneur, the sid[Arab master]". Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN MOROCCO AFTER 1948
In June 1948, bloody riots in Oujda and Djerada killed 44 Jews and wounded scores more. That same year, an unofficial economic boycott was instigated against Moroccan Jews.
In 1956, Morocco declared its independence, and Jewish emigration to Israel was suspended. In 1963, emigration resumed, allowing more than 100,000 Moroccan Jews to reach Israel. In 1965, Moroccan writer Said Ghallab described the attitude of his fellow Muslims toward their Jewish neighbors: The worst insult that a Moroccan could possibly offer was to treat someone as a Jew....My childhood friends have remained anti-Jewish. They hide their virulent anti-Semitism by contending that the State of Israel was the creature of Western imperialism....A whole Hitlerite myth is being cultivated among the populace. The massacres of the Jews by Hitler are exalted ecstatically. It is even credited that Hitler is not dead, but alive and well, and his arrival is awaited to deliver the Arabs from Israel. (Said Ghallab, "Les Juifs sont en enfer," in Les Temps Modernes, (April 1965), pp. 2247-2251. ).
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN TUNISIA PRIOR TO 1948
The first documented evidence of Jews in this area dates back to 200 A.D and demonstrates the existence of a community in Latin Carthage under Roman rule. Latin Carthage contained a significant Jewish presence, and
several sages mentioned in the Talmud lived in this area from the 2nd to the 4th centuries. During the Byzantine period, the condition of the community took a turn for the worse. An edict issued by Justinian in 535 excluded Jews from public office, prohibited Jewish practice, and resulted in the transformation of synagogues into churches. Many fled to the Berber communities in the mountains and in the desert.
After the Arab conquest of Tunisia in the 7th century, Jews lived under satisfactory conditions, despite discriminatory measures such as a poll tax. From 7th century Arab conquest down through the Almahdiyeen
atrocities, Tunisia fared little better than its neighbors. The complete expulsion of Jews from Kairouan near Tunis occurred after years of hardship, in the 13th century when Kairouan was anointed as a holy city of Islam. ~ In the 16th century, the "hated and despised" Jews of Tunis were periodically attacked by violence and they were subjected to "vehement anti-Jewish policy" during the various political struggles of the period. In 1869 Muslims butchered many Jews in the defenseless ghetto.
Conditions worsened during the Spanish invasions of 1535-1574, resulting in the flight of Jews from the coastal areas. The situation of the community improved once more under Ottoman rule. During this period, the community also split due to strong cultural differences between the Touransa (native Tunisians) and the Grana (those adhering to Spanish or Italian customs). Improvements in the condition of the community occurred during the reign of Ahmed Bey, which began in 1837. He and his successors implemented liberal legislation, and a large number of Jews rose to positions of political power during this reign. Under French rule, Jews were gradually emancipated. However, beginning in November 1940, when the country was ruled by the Vichy authorities, Jews were subject to anti-Semitic laws. From November 1942 until May 1943, the country was occupied by German forces. During that time, the condition of the Jews deteriorated further, and many were deported to labor camps and had their property seized. Jews suffered once more in 1956, when the country achieved independence. The rabbinical tribunal was abolished in 1957, and a year later, Jewish community councils were dissolved. In addition, the Jewish quarter of Tunis was destroyed by the government. Anti-Jewish rioting followed the outbreak of the Six-Day War; Muslims burned down the Great Synagogue of Tunis. While the community was compensated for the damage, these events increased the steady stream of emigration.
THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN LIBYA PRIOR TO 1948
The Jewish community of Libya traces its origin back to the 3rd century B.C Under Roman rule, where Jews prospered.
In 73 A.D, a zealot from Israel, Jonathan the Weaver, incited the poor of the community in Cyrene to revolt. The Romans reacted with swift vengeance, murdering him and his followers and executing other wealthy Jews in the community. This revolt foreshadowed that of 115 A.D, which broke out not only in Cyrene, but in Egypt and Cyprus as well. In 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews. With the Italian occupation of Libya in 1911, the situation remained good and the Jews made great strides in education. At that time, there were about 21,000 Jews in the country, the majority in Tripoli. In the late 1930s, Fascist anti-Jewish laws were gradually enforced, and Jews were subject to terrible repression. Still, by 1941, the Jews accounted for a quarter of the population of Tripoli and maintained 44 synagogues. In 1942 the Germans occupied the Jewish quarter of Benghazi, plundered shops, and deported more than 2,000 Jews across the desert, where more than one-fifth of them perished. Many Jews from Tripoli were also sent to forced labor camps. Conditions did not greatly improve following the liberation. During the British occupation, there was a series of pogroms, the worst of which, in 1945, resulted in the deaths of more than 100 Jews in Tripoli and other towns and the destruction of five synagogues. The establishment of the State of Israel, led many Jews to leave the country. A savage pogrom occurred in Tripoli on November 5, 1945 where more than 140 Jews were massacred and almost every synagogue looted. (Howard Sachar, A History of Israel). In June 1948, rioters murdered another 12 Jews and destroyed 280 Jewish homes. Thousands of Jews fled the country after Libya was granted independence and membership in the Arab League in 1951. (Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times). After the Six-Day War, the Jewish population of 7,000 was again subjected to pogroms in which 18 were killed, and many more injured, sparking a near-total exodus that left fewer than 100 Jews in Libya. When Col. Qaddafi came to power in 1969, all Jewish property was confiscated and all debts to Jews cancelled. Today, no Jews are believed to live in Libya. Although emigration was illegal, more than 3,000 Jews succeeded to leave to Israel. When the British legalized emigration in 1949, more than 30,000 Jews fled Libya. At the time of Colonel Qaddafi's coup in 1969, some 500 Jews remained in Libya. Qaddafi subsequently confiscated all Jewish property and cancelled all debts owed to Jews. By 1974 there were no more than 20 Jews, and it is believed that the Jewish presence has passed out of existence.
Copyright © 1999-2000. Historical Society of Jews From Egypt
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Christian myths against Jews 1144 CE
From http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_blib2.htm
Blood libel accusations against Jews:
In 1144 CE, an unfounded rumor began in eastern England, that Jews had kidnapped a Christian child, tied him to a cross, stabbed his head to simulate Jesus' crown of thorns, killed him, drained his body completely of blood, and mixed the blood into matzos (unleavened bread) at time of Passover. The rumor was started by a former Jew, Theobald, who had become a Christian monk. He said that Jewish representatives gathered each year in Narbonne, France. They decided in which city a Christian child would be sacrificed.
The boy involved in the year 1144 hoax became known as St. William of Norwich. Many people made pilgrimages to his tomb and claimed that miracles had resulted from appeals to St. William. The myth shows a complete lack of understanding of mainline Judaism. Aside from the prohibition of killing innocent persons, the Torah specifically forbids the drinking or eating of any form of blood in any quantity. However, reality never has had much of an impact on blood libel myths. This rumor lasted for many centuries; even today it has not completely disappeared. 1
Pope Innocent IV ordered a study in 1247 CE. His investigators found that the myth was a Christian invention used to justify persecution of the Jews. At least 4 other popes subsequently vindicated the Jews. However, the accusations, trials and executions continued. In 1817, Czar Alexander I of Russia declared that the blood libel was a myth. Even that did not stop the accusations against Jews in that country.
"Holy shrines were erected to honor innocent Christian victims, and well into the twentieth century, churches throughout Europe displayed knives and other instruments that Jews purportedly used for these rituals. Caricatures of hunchbacked Jews with horns and fangs were depicted in works of art and carved into stone decorating bridges. Proclaimed by parish priests to be the gospel truth, each recurrence of the blood libel charge added to its credence, thus prompting yet more accusations. This vicious cycle continued to spiral." 7
Nicholl reports that "there are 150 recorded cases of the charge of ritual murder, and many led to massacres of the Jews of the place." 2
Some of the incidents were:
1144 CE: Jews in Norwich, England were accused of the ritual murder. This is believed to be the first recorded case of the "blood libel" myth. Jewish leaders in the area were executed.
1171: Jews in Blois, France were accused of ritual murder. All of the Jews in that town (34 men, 16 or 17 women) were "dragged to a wooden tower where they were given the option of baptism or death. None chose the former." 7 They were burned alive. A second source says that 31 were killed.
1181: More accusations at Bury, St. Edmund, England
1181: Three Christian boys disappeared after playing on a frozen river in Vienna, Austrai. Several "witnesses" swore that Jews had slaughtered the boys. Three hundred Jews were burned at the stake. After the spring thaw, the bodies of the boys were recovered. They had drowned, and were otherwise unharmed. 7
1183: More accusations in Bristol, England
1192: More accusations in Winchester, England
1199: More accusations and Jewish executions in Erfurt, Bischofsheim.
1235: More accusations and Jewish executions in Lauda, Fulda.
1244: London Jews were accused of ritual murder and fined heavily.
1250: Jews in Saragossa, Spain, were accused of ritually killing a child, San Domenichino de Val.
1255: The body of a little boy, Hugh, was found in a cesspool near the house of a Jew in Lincoln, England. The latter was tortured, confessed that he had engaged in ritual murder, dragged through the streets, and finally hung. 100 Jews were transported to London and charged with ritual murder. One was acquitted; 2 were pardoned; the rest were hanged, either with or without a trial. One source states that 19 Jews were hung without benefit of trial.
1263: A Dominican monk published a theory that God had inflicted Jews with a terrible disease because they had murdeed Yeshua. He reasoned that the only cure was to kill an innocent Christian child and consume its blood.
1283-5: Following a series of ritual murder charges, 10 Jews were murdered by a mob in Mainz; 26 were executed in Bacharach, 40 in Oberwellil, and 180 in Munich.
1431: After ritual murder charges, several Jewish communities were destroyed in southern Germany: Ravensburg, Uberlingen and Lindau. 7
1451: Pope Nicholas V appointed John of Capistrano to organize the Inquisition of the Jews. John repeated the old charges of ritual murder and host desecration.
1475: A few days before Easter, Samuel, a Jew in Trent, Italy, found the body of a Christian infant named Simon. He had apparently drowned in a nearby river. A number of Jews were arrested and tortured. All confessed to murdering the infant. They were burned at the stake. Stories spread of miraculous cures which were believed to have been caused by contacting Simon's bones. Simon was canonized as a holy martyr by Pope Gregory XIII. Simon's beatification was reversed in 1965. 7
1492: Tomas de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition engineered a blood libel case in La Guardia, Spain. Jews who had converted to Christianity were accused and tortured. They confessed to helping the chief rabbi to abuse and crucify a Christian child. 7
1541: John Eck, a Roman Catholic writer, wrote a pamphlet "Refutation of a Jewish Book." He repeated the ritual murder and host desecration myths.
1840: An elderly Italian monk-priest, Padre Tommaso, and his servant disappeared in Damascus, Syria, after having visited the Jewish quarter in the city. A French consol to the Ottoman Empire, Ratti-Menton, promoted a groundless theory of ritual murder that the local Muslim government largely accepted. Jewish leaders were arrested and tortured. Sixty of their children were held hostage and starved to pressure their parents into confessing. One source said that four adults died from the mistreatment; another states that two died and some were permanently disabled. 7 Most of the rest confessed involvement in a ritual murder. 3 Yhe consul then requested permission from the Syrian government to murder the rest of his suspects. As a result of widespread protests from Sir Moses, Montefiore, Adolphe Cremieux, Solomon Munk, and others, the lives of the survivors were spared.
This event introduced the blood libel myth to the Arab world, where it is still circulating. It also led to an organized effort by Jews in Europe and the Middle East to protect themselves. This affair spurred early Zionist writers like Hess to promote the Zionist cause. 13,14
1853: Two Jews of Saratov, Russia, were convicted of ritually murdering two Christian children. 7
1870's: "With the rise of the modern antisemitic movement in the late 1870s, the traditional blood accusation merged easily with the new scientific racial arguments, serving as a lowest common denominator to unite its secular (and often anti-Christian), Catholic, and Protestant members." 3 Roman Catholic Bishop Martin of Pederborn, Germany, wrote that Jews ritually murdered Christian children.
1881: A Roman Catholic journal, Civilta Cattolica, started a series of articles which attempted to prove that ritual murder was an integral element of the Jewish religion. They argued that the ritual murders occurred at Purim rather than Passover. "It is in vain that Jews seek to slough off the weight of argument against them: the mystery has become known to all." (Not quite all. Historians have rejected the stories of blood libel as myth.) 3
1911-3: The Beilis case, an accusation of ritual murder of a boy by the name of Andriusha Yustchinsky, surfaced in Kiev, Russia. At first, his mother looked like a possible suspect. Although the boy had disappeared eight days before his body was found, she had not notified the police. She showed no emotion when her son's body was discovered. Upon his death, she inherited 500 rubles, which had been held in trust. Suspicion later fell on Vera Tchebiraik who was involved with a gang of thieves. Andriusha was a schoolmate of her son, and would often stay overnight in her home. The boy might have heard about or seen some criminal act by the gang and been murdered to assure his silence. However, this was a time of great unrest in the country, and widespread anti-Jewish sentiment. Soon, the blood libel myth surfaced. "Mendel Beilis was a Jew arrested in 1911 by the Czarist secret police in Kiev and accused of ritually murdering a Christian boy to use his blood in baking matzoh. He was jailed for almost two and one-half years, under horrible conditions, while awaiting trial. In 1913, after a dramatic trial, he was [unanimously] acquitted by an all Christian jury." 6,7,8,12
1920s: Mendel Beilis emigrated to the U.S. and wrote his autobiography, called "The Story of My Sufferings." 6
1960s: Bernard Malamud wrote a novel called "The Fixer." He received both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Although he claimed that this was an original story, some analysts believe that Malamud took most of the events and details from Beilis' book. 6
1930's +: Hitler re-used the blood-libel myth as justification for the Holocaust. The Nazi periodical, Der Stürmer, often published special issues devoted to allegations of ritual murder by Jews. Hitler had asked that a propaganda film be made of the 1840 Damascus case. World War II ended before it could be made.
2000's: The Jewish blood-libel myth continues to circulate among many Muslim countries. Egyptian film producer is making a movie about the Syrian case in 1840, called "The Matzoh of Zion." Director Albert Maysles is making a film about the Beilis case.
2007: Ariel Toaff, an Israeli historian of Italian origin, published a book that has revived the blood libel story. It is titled: "Bloody Passovers: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders." Toaff suggests that several crucifixions of Christian children occurred from 1100 to about 1500 CE. He wrote:
"My research shows that in the Middle Ages, a group of fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical prohibition and used blood for healing. It is just one group of Jews, who belonged to the communities that suffered the severest persecution during the Crusades. From this trauma came a passion for revenge that in some cases led to responses, among them ritual murder of Christian children."
He bases his book on the testimony given under torture. Twelve of Italy's chief rabbis issued a press release stating:
"It is totally inappropriate to utilize declarations extorted under torture centuries ago to reconstruct bizarre and devious historical theses. ... The only blood spilled in these stories was that of so many innocent Jews, massacred on account of unjust and infamous accusations."
Sergio Luzzatto, in an article in the Corriere della Serra wrote:
"Even if the author should manage to prove that a deviant sect existed for centuries...clearly it could never be identified as a Jewish group, or as part of a Jewish community. This would be comparable to saying that the rabbis who were present at [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's Holocaust Denial Conference in Teheran represent mainstream Judaism." 15
Host desecration accusations against Jews:
The host is a wafer used during the Roman Catholic mass. At a certain point during the ritual, the church teaches that it is converted into the actual body of Jesus Christ, just as the wine becomes Jesus' actual blood. These elements of the mass are then eaten by the believers. This belief is not shared by Protestants, who believe that the bread and wine symbolize -- but do not become -- Jesus' body and blood.
A variation of the blood libel myth developed in Europe early in the 11th century. Instead of accusing the Jews of killing an innocent child, they were accused of desecrating the host. Sometimes they were accused stabbing pins into the host, or of stepping on it. Other times, they were accused of stabbing the host with a knife until Jesus' blood leaked out. Sometimes, they were accused of nailing the host, in a symbolic replay of the crucifixion.
Like the blood libel myth, host desecration makes no logical sense. Being Jews, they would not believe in the Christian doctrine of transubstantiation - that the host during mass becomes the actual body of Jesus. To them, the host is just a simple wafer with no religious significance.
Nicholl reports that "100 instances of the charge have been recorded, in many cases leading to massacres." Some of the incidents were: 2
1021: Rome suffered through both an earthquake and hurricane on Good Friday of that year. Some Jews were charged with having caused the disaster driving a nail through a stolen host. They were tortured until they confessed; they were then burned alive.
1215: The Fourth Lateran Council in Rome declared the belief in transubstantiation. This established the theological basis for the host desecration myth.
1243: All Jews in Berlitz, Germany were burned alive for allegedly torturing a stolen host. 4
1308: The Bishop of Strasbourg charged Jews in Sulzmatt and Rufach with host desecration. They were burned alive.
1370: Jews in Brabant, Belgium, were accused of defiling the host and were burned alive. 5
1389: Jews in Prague were accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer. All of the Jews in the city were offered the choice of conversion to Christianity or death. They were all killed. 4
1399: A rabbi and 13 elders in Posen, Poland, were charged with stabbing the host and tossing it into a pit. They were slowly roasted to death. Some townspeople believed that the host had bled.
Unlike the basic Blood Libel myth, rumors of host desecration by Jews appear to have died out in the Middle Ages. It has surfaced recently, during the mid-1990's. In at least two Roman Catholic cathedrals (one in Ontario, Canada and another in Mississippi) some parishioners believed that Satanists were masquerading as church members, attending mass but not swallowing the host. They believed that it was later taken from the cathedral and used in Satanic rituals.
References:
M.I. Dimont, "Jews, God and History," Mentor Books, Revised edition, (1994), Page 235. You can buy this book from Amazon.com bookstore
William Nichol, "Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate," Aronson, (1995).
Jonathan Frankel, "'Ritual Murder' in the Modern Era: The Damascus Affair of 1840," Jewish Social Studies Volume 3, Number 2, at: http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/journals/jss-art3.html#r4
Wildwoman, at: http://www.loop.com/~bramble/
Edward Vanhoutte, "Importance and unimportance of the Jews of Belgium from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment," at: http://pcger17.uia.ac.be/JEWS.html
"Family of Mendel Beilis: A martyr for his people," at: http://www.mendelbeilis.com/
Shari Schwartz, "Editor's Preface: The Making of a Martyr," at: http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/
"A boy is murdered," at: http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/
Salo W. Baron, "The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets"
S. M. Dubnow, "History of the Jews in Russia and Poland"
Alexander B. Tager, "The Decay of Czarism: The Beilis Trial"
"A government blood libel: The Beilis affair," The history of Jews in Russia, (1995). at: http://www.friends-partners.org/
Ronald Florence, "Blood Libel : The Damascus Affair of 1840," University of Wisconsin Press, (2004). Read reviews or order this book
Jonathan Frankel, "The Damascus Affair : 'Ritual Murder', Politics, and the Jews in 1840," Cambridge University Press, (1997). Read reviews or order this book
Lisa Palmieri-Billig, "Historian gives credence to blood libel," The Jerusalem Post, 2007-FEB-07, at: http://www.jpost.com/
Copyright 2003 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2007-AUG-15
Author: B.A. Robinson
Blood libel accusations against Jews:
In 1144 CE, an unfounded rumor began in eastern England, that Jews had kidnapped a Christian child, tied him to a cross, stabbed his head to simulate Jesus' crown of thorns, killed him, drained his body completely of blood, and mixed the blood into matzos (unleavened bread) at time of Passover. The rumor was started by a former Jew, Theobald, who had become a Christian monk. He said that Jewish representatives gathered each year in Narbonne, France. They decided in which city a Christian child would be sacrificed.
The boy involved in the year 1144 hoax became known as St. William of Norwich. Many people made pilgrimages to his tomb and claimed that miracles had resulted from appeals to St. William. The myth shows a complete lack of understanding of mainline Judaism. Aside from the prohibition of killing innocent persons, the Torah specifically forbids the drinking or eating of any form of blood in any quantity. However, reality never has had much of an impact on blood libel myths. This rumor lasted for many centuries; even today it has not completely disappeared. 1
Pope Innocent IV ordered a study in 1247 CE. His investigators found that the myth was a Christian invention used to justify persecution of the Jews. At least 4 other popes subsequently vindicated the Jews. However, the accusations, trials and executions continued. In 1817, Czar Alexander I of Russia declared that the blood libel was a myth. Even that did not stop the accusations against Jews in that country.
"Holy shrines were erected to honor innocent Christian victims, and well into the twentieth century, churches throughout Europe displayed knives and other instruments that Jews purportedly used for these rituals. Caricatures of hunchbacked Jews with horns and fangs were depicted in works of art and carved into stone decorating bridges. Proclaimed by parish priests to be the gospel truth, each recurrence of the blood libel charge added to its credence, thus prompting yet more accusations. This vicious cycle continued to spiral." 7
Nicholl reports that "there are 150 recorded cases of the charge of ritual murder, and many led to massacres of the Jews of the place." 2
Some of the incidents were:
1144 CE: Jews in Norwich, England were accused of the ritual murder. This is believed to be the first recorded case of the "blood libel" myth. Jewish leaders in the area were executed.
1171: Jews in Blois, France were accused of ritual murder. All of the Jews in that town (34 men, 16 or 17 women) were "dragged to a wooden tower where they were given the option of baptism or death. None chose the former." 7 They were burned alive. A second source says that 31 were killed.
1181: More accusations at Bury, St. Edmund, England
1181: Three Christian boys disappeared after playing on a frozen river in Vienna, Austrai. Several "witnesses" swore that Jews had slaughtered the boys. Three hundred Jews were burned at the stake. After the spring thaw, the bodies of the boys were recovered. They had drowned, and were otherwise unharmed. 7
1183: More accusations in Bristol, England
1192: More accusations in Winchester, England
1199: More accusations and Jewish executions in Erfurt, Bischofsheim.
1235: More accusations and Jewish executions in Lauda, Fulda.
1244: London Jews were accused of ritual murder and fined heavily.
1250: Jews in Saragossa, Spain, were accused of ritually killing a child, San Domenichino de Val.
1255: The body of a little boy, Hugh, was found in a cesspool near the house of a Jew in Lincoln, England. The latter was tortured, confessed that he had engaged in ritual murder, dragged through the streets, and finally hung. 100 Jews were transported to London and charged with ritual murder. One was acquitted; 2 were pardoned; the rest were hanged, either with or without a trial. One source states that 19 Jews were hung without benefit of trial.
1263: A Dominican monk published a theory that God had inflicted Jews with a terrible disease because they had murdeed Yeshua. He reasoned that the only cure was to kill an innocent Christian child and consume its blood.
1283-5: Following a series of ritual murder charges, 10 Jews were murdered by a mob in Mainz; 26 were executed in Bacharach, 40 in Oberwellil, and 180 in Munich.
1431: After ritual murder charges, several Jewish communities were destroyed in southern Germany: Ravensburg, Uberlingen and Lindau. 7
1451: Pope Nicholas V appointed John of Capistrano to organize the Inquisition of the Jews. John repeated the old charges of ritual murder and host desecration.
1475: A few days before Easter, Samuel, a Jew in Trent, Italy, found the body of a Christian infant named Simon. He had apparently drowned in a nearby river. A number of Jews were arrested and tortured. All confessed to murdering the infant. They were burned at the stake. Stories spread of miraculous cures which were believed to have been caused by contacting Simon's bones. Simon was canonized as a holy martyr by Pope Gregory XIII. Simon's beatification was reversed in 1965. 7
1492: Tomas de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition engineered a blood libel case in La Guardia, Spain. Jews who had converted to Christianity were accused and tortured. They confessed to helping the chief rabbi to abuse and crucify a Christian child. 7
1541: John Eck, a Roman Catholic writer, wrote a pamphlet "Refutation of a Jewish Book." He repeated the ritual murder and host desecration myths.
1840: An elderly Italian monk-priest, Padre Tommaso, and his servant disappeared in Damascus, Syria, after having visited the Jewish quarter in the city. A French consol to the Ottoman Empire, Ratti-Menton, promoted a groundless theory of ritual murder that the local Muslim government largely accepted. Jewish leaders were arrested and tortured. Sixty of their children were held hostage and starved to pressure their parents into confessing. One source said that four adults died from the mistreatment; another states that two died and some were permanently disabled. 7 Most of the rest confessed involvement in a ritual murder. 3 Yhe consul then requested permission from the Syrian government to murder the rest of his suspects. As a result of widespread protests from Sir Moses, Montefiore, Adolphe Cremieux, Solomon Munk, and others, the lives of the survivors were spared.
This event introduced the blood libel myth to the Arab world, where it is still circulating. It also led to an organized effort by Jews in Europe and the Middle East to protect themselves. This affair spurred early Zionist writers like Hess to promote the Zionist cause. 13,14
1853: Two Jews of Saratov, Russia, were convicted of ritually murdering two Christian children. 7
1870's: "With the rise of the modern antisemitic movement in the late 1870s, the traditional blood accusation merged easily with the new scientific racial arguments, serving as a lowest common denominator to unite its secular (and often anti-Christian), Catholic, and Protestant members." 3 Roman Catholic Bishop Martin of Pederborn, Germany, wrote that Jews ritually murdered Christian children.
1881: A Roman Catholic journal, Civilta Cattolica, started a series of articles which attempted to prove that ritual murder was an integral element of the Jewish religion. They argued that the ritual murders occurred at Purim rather than Passover. "It is in vain that Jews seek to slough off the weight of argument against them: the mystery has become known to all." (Not quite all. Historians have rejected the stories of blood libel as myth.) 3
1911-3: The Beilis case, an accusation of ritual murder of a boy by the name of Andriusha Yustchinsky, surfaced in Kiev, Russia. At first, his mother looked like a possible suspect. Although the boy had disappeared eight days before his body was found, she had not notified the police. She showed no emotion when her son's body was discovered. Upon his death, she inherited 500 rubles, which had been held in trust. Suspicion later fell on Vera Tchebiraik who was involved with a gang of thieves. Andriusha was a schoolmate of her son, and would often stay overnight in her home. The boy might have heard about or seen some criminal act by the gang and been murdered to assure his silence. However, this was a time of great unrest in the country, and widespread anti-Jewish sentiment. Soon, the blood libel myth surfaced. "Mendel Beilis was a Jew arrested in 1911 by the Czarist secret police in Kiev and accused of ritually murdering a Christian boy to use his blood in baking matzoh. He was jailed for almost two and one-half years, under horrible conditions, while awaiting trial. In 1913, after a dramatic trial, he was [unanimously] acquitted by an all Christian jury." 6,7,8,12
1920s: Mendel Beilis emigrated to the U.S. and wrote his autobiography, called "The Story of My Sufferings." 6
1960s: Bernard Malamud wrote a novel called "The Fixer." He received both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Although he claimed that this was an original story, some analysts believe that Malamud took most of the events and details from Beilis' book. 6
1930's +: Hitler re-used the blood-libel myth as justification for the Holocaust. The Nazi periodical, Der Stürmer, often published special issues devoted to allegations of ritual murder by Jews. Hitler had asked that a propaganda film be made of the 1840 Damascus case. World War II ended before it could be made.
2000's: The Jewish blood-libel myth continues to circulate among many Muslim countries. Egyptian film producer is making a movie about the Syrian case in 1840, called "The Matzoh of Zion." Director Albert Maysles is making a film about the Beilis case.
2007: Ariel Toaff, an Israeli historian of Italian origin, published a book that has revived the blood libel story. It is titled: "Bloody Passovers: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders." Toaff suggests that several crucifixions of Christian children occurred from 1100 to about 1500 CE. He wrote:
"My research shows that in the Middle Ages, a group of fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical prohibition and used blood for healing. It is just one group of Jews, who belonged to the communities that suffered the severest persecution during the Crusades. From this trauma came a passion for revenge that in some cases led to responses, among them ritual murder of Christian children."
He bases his book on the testimony given under torture. Twelve of Italy's chief rabbis issued a press release stating:
"It is totally inappropriate to utilize declarations extorted under torture centuries ago to reconstruct bizarre and devious historical theses. ... The only blood spilled in these stories was that of so many innocent Jews, massacred on account of unjust and infamous accusations."
Sergio Luzzatto, in an article in the Corriere della Serra wrote:
"Even if the author should manage to prove that a deviant sect existed for centuries...clearly it could never be identified as a Jewish group, or as part of a Jewish community. This would be comparable to saying that the rabbis who were present at [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's Holocaust Denial Conference in Teheran represent mainstream Judaism." 15
Host desecration accusations against Jews:
The host is a wafer used during the Roman Catholic mass. At a certain point during the ritual, the church teaches that it is converted into the actual body of Jesus Christ, just as the wine becomes Jesus' actual blood. These elements of the mass are then eaten by the believers. This belief is not shared by Protestants, who believe that the bread and wine symbolize -- but do not become -- Jesus' body and blood.
A variation of the blood libel myth developed in Europe early in the 11th century. Instead of accusing the Jews of killing an innocent child, they were accused of desecrating the host. Sometimes they were accused stabbing pins into the host, or of stepping on it. Other times, they were accused of stabbing the host with a knife until Jesus' blood leaked out. Sometimes, they were accused of nailing the host, in a symbolic replay of the crucifixion.
Like the blood libel myth, host desecration makes no logical sense. Being Jews, they would not believe in the Christian doctrine of transubstantiation - that the host during mass becomes the actual body of Jesus. To them, the host is just a simple wafer with no religious significance.
Nicholl reports that "100 instances of the charge have been recorded, in many cases leading to massacres." Some of the incidents were: 2
1021: Rome suffered through both an earthquake and hurricane on Good Friday of that year. Some Jews were charged with having caused the disaster driving a nail through a stolen host. They were tortured until they confessed; they were then burned alive.
1215: The Fourth Lateran Council in Rome declared the belief in transubstantiation. This established the theological basis for the host desecration myth.
1243: All Jews in Berlitz, Germany were burned alive for allegedly torturing a stolen host. 4
1308: The Bishop of Strasbourg charged Jews in Sulzmatt and Rufach with host desecration. They were burned alive.
1370: Jews in Brabant, Belgium, were accused of defiling the host and were burned alive. 5
1389: Jews in Prague were accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer. All of the Jews in the city were offered the choice of conversion to Christianity or death. They were all killed. 4
1399: A rabbi and 13 elders in Posen, Poland, were charged with stabbing the host and tossing it into a pit. They were slowly roasted to death. Some townspeople believed that the host had bled.
Unlike the basic Blood Libel myth, rumors of host desecration by Jews appear to have died out in the Middle Ages. It has surfaced recently, during the mid-1990's. In at least two Roman Catholic cathedrals (one in Ontario, Canada and another in Mississippi) some parishioners believed that Satanists were masquerading as church members, attending mass but not swallowing the host. They believed that it was later taken from the cathedral and used in Satanic rituals.
References:
M.I. Dimont, "Jews, God and History," Mentor Books, Revised edition, (1994), Page 235. You can buy this book from Amazon.com bookstore
William Nichol, "Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate," Aronson, (1995).
Jonathan Frankel, "'Ritual Murder' in the Modern Era: The Damascus Affair of 1840," Jewish Social Studies Volume 3, Number 2, at: http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/journals/jss-art3.html#r4
Wildwoman, at: http://www.loop.com/~bramble/
Edward Vanhoutte, "Importance and unimportance of the Jews of Belgium from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment," at: http://pcger17.uia.ac.be/JEWS.html
"Family of Mendel Beilis: A martyr for his people," at: http://www.mendelbeilis.com/
Shari Schwartz, "Editor's Preface: The Making of a Martyr," at: http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/
"A boy is murdered," at: http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/
Salo W. Baron, "The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets"
S. M. Dubnow, "History of the Jews in Russia and Poland"
Alexander B. Tager, "The Decay of Czarism: The Beilis Trial"
"A government blood libel: The Beilis affair," The history of Jews in Russia, (1995). at: http://www.friends-partners.org/
Ronald Florence, "Blood Libel : The Damascus Affair of 1840," University of Wisconsin Press, (2004). Read reviews or order this book
Jonathan Frankel, "The Damascus Affair : 'Ritual Murder', Politics, and the Jews in 1840," Cambridge University Press, (1997). Read reviews or order this book
Lisa Palmieri-Billig, "Historian gives credence to blood libel," The Jerusalem Post, 2007-FEB-07, at: http://www.jpost.com/
Copyright 2003 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2007-AUG-15
Author: B.A. Robinson
Anti-Judaism: 70 TO 1200 CE
From http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_pers1.htm
Persecution of Jews by Roman Pagans:
70: The Roman Army destroyed Jerusalem, killed over 1 million Jews, took about 100,000 into slavery and captivity, and scattered many from Palestine to other locations in the Roman Empire.
Circa 115 -117: Jews in Cyprus, Cyrene, Egypt and parts of Mesopotamia revolted against the Roman Empire in what is known as the Kitos War. This caused the death of several hundreds of thousands of Romans and Jews. The Roman Legions eventually crushed the rebellions. 1
132: Bar Kochba led a hopeless three-year revolt against the Roman Empire. Many Jews had accepted him as the Messiah. About a half-million Jews were killed; thousands were sold into slavery or taken into captivity. The rest were exiled from Palestine and scattered throughout the known world, adding to what is now called the "Diaspora." Judaism was no longer recognized as a legal religion. 2
135: Serious Roman persecution of the Jews began. They were forbidden, upon pain of death, from practicing circumcision, reading the Torah, eating unleavened bread at Passover, etc. A temple dedicated to the Roman pagan god Jupiter was erected on temple mountain in Jerusalem. A temple of Venus was built on Golgotha, just outside the city.
200: Roman Emperor Severus forbade religious conversions to Judaism.
Persecution of Jews by Christians:
Initial persecution of Jews was along religious lines. Persecution would cease if the person converted to Christianity.
306: The church Synod of Elvira banned marriages, sexual intercourse and community contacts between Christians and Jews. 3,4
315: Constantine published the Edict of Milan which extended religious tolerance to Christians. Jews lost many rights with this edict. They were no longer permitted to live in Jerusalem, or to proselytize.
325: The Council of Nicea decided to separate the celebration of Easter from the Jewish Passover. They stated: "For it is unbecoming beyond measure that on this holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews. Henceforth let us have nothing in common with this odious people...We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews...our worship follows a...more convenient course...we desire dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews...How, then, could we follow these Jews, who are almost certainly blinded."
337: Christian Emperor Constantius created a law which made the marriage of a Jewish man to a Christian punishable by death.
339: Converting to Judaism became a criminal offense.
343-381: The Laodicean Synod approved Cannon XXXVIII: "It is not lawful [for Christians] to receive unleavened bread from the Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety." 5
367 - 376: St. Hilary of Poitiers referred to Jews as a perverse people who God has cursed forever. St. Ephroem refers to synagogues as brothels.
379-395: Emperor Theodosius the Great permitted the destruction of synagogues if it served a religious purpose. Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire at this time.
380: The bishop of Milan was responsible for the burning of a synagogue; he referred to it as "an act pleasing to God."
415: The Bishop of Alexandria, St. Cyril, expelled the Jews from that Egyptian city.
415: St. Augustine wrote "The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."
418: St. Jerome, who created the Vulgate translation of the Bible wrote of a synagogue: "If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil's refuge, Satan's fortress, a place to deprave the soul, an abyss of every conceivable disaster or whatever you will, you are still saying less than it deserves."
489 - 519: Christian mobs destroyed the synagogues in Antioch, Daphne (near Antioch) and Ravenna.
528: Emperor Justinian (527-564) passed the Justinian Code. It prohibited Jews from building synagogues, reading the Bible in Hebrew, assemble in public, celebrate Passover before Easter, and testify against Christians in court. 3
535: The "Synod of Claremont decreed that Jews could not hold public office or have authority over Christians." 3
538: The 3rd and 4th Councils of Orleans prohibited Jews from appearing in public during the Easter season. Canon XXX decreed that "From the Thursday before Easter for four days, Jews may not appear in the company of Christians." 5 Marriages between Christians and Jews were prohibited. Christians were prohibited from converting to Judaism. 4
561: The bishop of Uzes expelled Jews from his diocese in France.
612: Jews were not allowed to own land, to be farmers or enter certain trades.
613: Very serious persecution began in Spain. Jews were given the options of either leaving Spain or converting to Christianity. Jewish children over 6 years of age were taken from their parents and given a Christian education
692: Cannnon II of the Quinisext Council stated: "Let no one in the priestly order nor any layman eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiar intercourse with them, nor summon them in illness, nor receive medicines from them, nor bathe with them; but if anyone shall take in hand to do so, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, but if a layman, let him be cut off." 5
694: The 17th Church Council of Toledo, Spain defined Jews as the serfs of the prince. This was based, in part, on the beliefs by Chrysostom, Origen, Jerome, and other Church Fathers that God punished the Jews with perpetual slavery because of their alleged responsibility for the execution of Jesus. 5
722: Leo III outlawed Judaism. Jews were baptized against their will.
855: Jews were exiled from Italy.
1050: The Synod of Narbonne prohibited Christians from living in the homes of Jews.
1078: "Pope Gregory VII decreed that Jews could not hold office or be superiors to Christians." 6
1078: The Synod of Gerona forced Jews to pay church taxes.
1096: The First Crusade was launched in this year. Although the prime goal of the crusades was to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims, Jews were a second target. As the soldiers passed through Europe on the way to the Holy Land, large numbers of Jews were challenged: "Christ-killers, embrace the Cross or die!" 12,000 Jews in the Rhine Valley alone were killed in the first Crusade. This behavior continued for 8 additional crusades until the 9th in 1272.
1099: The Crusaders forced all of the Jews of Jerusalem into a central synagogue and set it on fire. Those who tried to escape were forced back into the burning building.
1121: Jews were exiled from Flanders (now part of present-day Belgium)
1130: Some Jews in London allegedly killed a sick man. The Jewish people in the city were required to pay 1 million marks as compensation.
1146: The Second Crusade began. A French Monk, Rudolf, called for the destruction of the Jews.
1179: Canon 24 of the Third Lateran Council stated: "Jews should be slaves to Christians and at the same time treated kindly due of humanitarian considerations." Canon 26 stated that "the testimony of Christians against Jews is to be preferred in all causes where they use their own witnesses against Christians." 7
1180: The French King of France, Philip Augustus, arbitrarily seized all Jewish property and expelled the Jews from the country. There was no legal justification for this action. They were allowed to sell all movable possessions, but their land and houses were stolen by the king.
1189: Jews were persecuted in England. The Crown claimed all Jewish possessions. Most of their houses were burned.
References:
"Kitos War," Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/
Randy Felton, "Anti-Semitism and the Church," at: http://www.haydid.org/
Fritz B. Voll, "A Short Review of a Troubled History," at: http://www.jcrelations.com/
"Classical and Christian Anti-Semitism," at http://www.virtualjerusalem.co.il/
Max Solbrekken, "The Jews & Jesus: Mistreatment of Jews: Christian shame," at: http://www.mswm.org/
Fritz B. Voll, "A Short Review of a Troubled History," at: http://www.jcrelations.com/
Bob Michael, "Jews as Serfs," at: http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/
Persecution of Jews by Roman Pagans:
70: The Roman Army destroyed Jerusalem, killed over 1 million Jews, took about 100,000 into slavery and captivity, and scattered many from Palestine to other locations in the Roman Empire.
Circa 115 -117: Jews in Cyprus, Cyrene, Egypt and parts of Mesopotamia revolted against the Roman Empire in what is known as the Kitos War. This caused the death of several hundreds of thousands of Romans and Jews. The Roman Legions eventually crushed the rebellions. 1
132: Bar Kochba led a hopeless three-year revolt against the Roman Empire. Many Jews had accepted him as the Messiah. About a half-million Jews were killed; thousands were sold into slavery or taken into captivity. The rest were exiled from Palestine and scattered throughout the known world, adding to what is now called the "Diaspora." Judaism was no longer recognized as a legal religion. 2
135: Serious Roman persecution of the Jews began. They were forbidden, upon pain of death, from practicing circumcision, reading the Torah, eating unleavened bread at Passover, etc. A temple dedicated to the Roman pagan god Jupiter was erected on temple mountain in Jerusalem. A temple of Venus was built on Golgotha, just outside the city.
200: Roman Emperor Severus forbade religious conversions to Judaism.
Persecution of Jews by Christians:
Initial persecution of Jews was along religious lines. Persecution would cease if the person converted to Christianity.
306: The church Synod of Elvira banned marriages, sexual intercourse and community contacts between Christians and Jews. 3,4
315: Constantine published the Edict of Milan which extended religious tolerance to Christians. Jews lost many rights with this edict. They were no longer permitted to live in Jerusalem, or to proselytize.
325: The Council of Nicea decided to separate the celebration of Easter from the Jewish Passover. They stated: "For it is unbecoming beyond measure that on this holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews. Henceforth let us have nothing in common with this odious people...We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews...our worship follows a...more convenient course...we desire dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews...How, then, could we follow these Jews, who are almost certainly blinded."
337: Christian Emperor Constantius created a law which made the marriage of a Jewish man to a Christian punishable by death.
339: Converting to Judaism became a criminal offense.
343-381: The Laodicean Synod approved Cannon XXXVIII: "It is not lawful [for Christians] to receive unleavened bread from the Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety." 5
367 - 376: St. Hilary of Poitiers referred to Jews as a perverse people who God has cursed forever. St. Ephroem refers to synagogues as brothels.
379-395: Emperor Theodosius the Great permitted the destruction of synagogues if it served a religious purpose. Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire at this time.
380: The bishop of Milan was responsible for the burning of a synagogue; he referred to it as "an act pleasing to God."
415: The Bishop of Alexandria, St. Cyril, expelled the Jews from that Egyptian city.
415: St. Augustine wrote "The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."
418: St. Jerome, who created the Vulgate translation of the Bible wrote of a synagogue: "If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil's refuge, Satan's fortress, a place to deprave the soul, an abyss of every conceivable disaster or whatever you will, you are still saying less than it deserves."
489 - 519: Christian mobs destroyed the synagogues in Antioch, Daphne (near Antioch) and Ravenna.
528: Emperor Justinian (527-564) passed the Justinian Code. It prohibited Jews from building synagogues, reading the Bible in Hebrew, assemble in public, celebrate Passover before Easter, and testify against Christians in court. 3
535: The "Synod of Claremont decreed that Jews could not hold public office or have authority over Christians." 3
538: The 3rd and 4th Councils of Orleans prohibited Jews from appearing in public during the Easter season. Canon XXX decreed that "From the Thursday before Easter for four days, Jews may not appear in the company of Christians." 5 Marriages between Christians and Jews were prohibited. Christians were prohibited from converting to Judaism. 4
561: The bishop of Uzes expelled Jews from his diocese in France.
612: Jews were not allowed to own land, to be farmers or enter certain trades.
613: Very serious persecution began in Spain. Jews were given the options of either leaving Spain or converting to Christianity. Jewish children over 6 years of age were taken from their parents and given a Christian education
692: Cannnon II of the Quinisext Council stated: "Let no one in the priestly order nor any layman eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiar intercourse with them, nor summon them in illness, nor receive medicines from them, nor bathe with them; but if anyone shall take in hand to do so, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, but if a layman, let him be cut off." 5
694: The 17th Church Council of Toledo, Spain defined Jews as the serfs of the prince. This was based, in part, on the beliefs by Chrysostom, Origen, Jerome, and other Church Fathers that God punished the Jews with perpetual slavery because of their alleged responsibility for the execution of Jesus. 5
722: Leo III outlawed Judaism. Jews were baptized against their will.
855: Jews were exiled from Italy.
1050: The Synod of Narbonne prohibited Christians from living in the homes of Jews.
1078: "Pope Gregory VII decreed that Jews could not hold office or be superiors to Christians." 6
1078: The Synod of Gerona forced Jews to pay church taxes.
1096: The First Crusade was launched in this year. Although the prime goal of the crusades was to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims, Jews were a second target. As the soldiers passed through Europe on the way to the Holy Land, large numbers of Jews were challenged: "Christ-killers, embrace the Cross or die!" 12,000 Jews in the Rhine Valley alone were killed in the first Crusade. This behavior continued for 8 additional crusades until the 9th in 1272.
1099: The Crusaders forced all of the Jews of Jerusalem into a central synagogue and set it on fire. Those who tried to escape were forced back into the burning building.
1121: Jews were exiled from Flanders (now part of present-day Belgium)
1130: Some Jews in London allegedly killed a sick man. The Jewish people in the city were required to pay 1 million marks as compensation.
1146: The Second Crusade began. A French Monk, Rudolf, called for the destruction of the Jews.
1179: Canon 24 of the Third Lateran Council stated: "Jews should be slaves to Christians and at the same time treated kindly due of humanitarian considerations." Canon 26 stated that "the testimony of Christians against Jews is to be preferred in all causes where they use their own witnesses against Christians." 7
1180: The French King of France, Philip Augustus, arbitrarily seized all Jewish property and expelled the Jews from the country. There was no legal justification for this action. They were allowed to sell all movable possessions, but their land and houses were stolen by the king.
1189: Jews were persecuted in England. The Crown claimed all Jewish possessions. Most of their houses were burned.
References:
"Kitos War," Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/
Randy Felton, "Anti-Semitism and the Church," at: http://www.haydid.org/
Fritz B. Voll, "A Short Review of a Troubled History," at: http://www.jcrelations.com/
"Classical and Christian Anti-Semitism," at http://www.virtualjerusalem.co.il/
Max Solbrekken, "The Jews & Jesus: Mistreatment of Jews: Christian shame," at: http://www.mswm.org/
Fritz B. Voll, "A Short Review of a Troubled History," at: http://www.jcrelations.com/
Bob Michael, "Jews as Serfs," at: http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/
Anti-Judaism: 1201 to 1800
From http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_pers3.htm
1205: Pope Innocent III wrote to the archbishops of Sens and Paris that "the Jews, by their own guilt, are consigned to perpetual servitude because they crucified the Lord...As slaves rejected by God, in whose death they wickedly conspire, they shall by the effect of this very action, recognize themselves as the slaves of those whom Christ's death set free..."
1215: The Fourth Lateran Council approved canon laws requiring that "Jews and Muslims shall wear a special dress." They also had to wear a badge in the form of a ring. This was to enable them to be easily distinguished from Christians. This practice later spread to other countries.
1227: The Synod of Narbonne required Jews to wear an oval badge. This requirement was reinstalled during the 1930's by Hitler, who changed the oval badge to a Star of David.
1229: The Spanish inquisition starts. Later, in 1252, Pope Innocent IV authorizes the use of torture by the Inquisitors.
1236: Pope Gregory ordered that church leaders in England, France, Portugal and Spain confiscate Jewish books on the first Saturday of Lent. 1
1259: A "synod of the archdiocese in Mainz ordered Jews to wear yellow badges." 1
1261: Duke Henry III of Brabant, Belgium, stated in his will that "Jews...must be expelled from Brabant and totally annihilated so that not a single one remains, except those who are willing to trade, like all other tradesmen, without money-lending and usury." 2
1267: The Synod of Vienna ordered Jews to wear horned hats. Thomas Aquinas said that Jews should live in perpetual servitude.
1290: Jews are exiled from England. About 16,000 left the country.
1298: Jews were persecuted in Austria, Bavaria and Franconia. 140 Jewish communities were destroyed; more than 100,000 Jews were killed over a 6 month period.
1306: 100,000 Jews are exiled from France. They left with only the clothes on their backs, and food for only one day.
1320: 40,000 French shepherds went to Palestine on the Shepherd Crusade. On the way, 140 Jewish communities were destroyed.
1321: In Guienne, France, Jews were accused of having incited criminals to poison wells. 5,000 Jews were burned alive, at the stake.
1338: The councilors of Freiburg banned the performance of anti-Jewish scenes from the town's passion play because of the lethal bloody reactions against Jews which followed the performances. 9
1347 +: The Black Death originated in the Far East. China, Mongolia, India, central Asia, and southern Russia have all been suggested as the source. 10 Mongol invaders brought it to Caffa in the Crimea (modern-day Fedodosiya). Defenders from the city later spread the disease throughout many Mediterranean ports. 11 Rats initially carried the Black Death; their fleas spread the disease from the rats to humans. As the plague worsened, the germs spread from human to human. In five years, the death toll had reached 25 million. In England, two centuries passed before its population levels recovered from the plague. People searched for someone to blame. They noted that a smaller percentage of Jews than Christians caught the disease. This was undoubtedly due to the Jewish sanitary and dietary laws, which had been preserved from Old Testament times. Rumors circulated that Satan was protecting the Jews and that they were paying back the Devil by poisoning wells used by Christians. The solution was to torture, murder and burn the Jews. "In Bavaria...12,000 Jews...perished; in the small town of Erfurt...3,000; Rue Brul�e...2,000 Jews; near Tours, an immense trench was dug, filled with blazing wood and in a single day 160 Jews were burned." 5 In Strausberg 2,000 Jews were burned. In Maintz 6,000 were killed...; in Worms 400..." 3
1354: 12,000 Jews were executed in Toledo.
1374: An epidemic of possession broke out in the lower Rhine region of what is now Germany. People were seen "dancing, jumping and [engaging in] wild raving." This was triggered by enthusiastic revels on St. John's Day - an Christianized version of an ancient Pagan seasonal day of celebration which was still observed by the populace. The epidemic spread throughout the Rhine and in much of the Netherlands and Germany. Crowds of 500 or more dancers would be overcome together. Exorcisms were tried, but failed. Pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Vitus were tried, but this only seemed to exacerbate the problem. Finally, the rumor spread that God was angry because Christians had been excessively tolerant towards the Jews. God had cursed Europe as He did Saul when he showed mercy towards God's enemies in the Old Testament. Jews "were plundered, tortured and murdered by tens of thousands." The epidemic finally burned itself out two centuries later, in the late 16th century. 4
1391 : Jewish persecutions begin in Seville and in 70 other Jewish communities throughout Spain.
1394 : Jews were exiled, for the second time, from France.
1431 +: The Council of Basel "forbade Jews to go to universities, prohibited them from acting as agents in the conclusion of contracts between Christians, and required that they attend church sermons." 5
1434: "Jewish men in Augsburg had to sew yellow buttons to their clothes. Across Europe, Jews were forced to wear a long undergarment, an overcoat with a yellow patch, bells and tall pointed yellow hats with a large button on them." 1
1453 : The Franciscan monk, Capistrano, persuaded the King of Poland to terminate all Jewish civil rights.
1478: Spanish Jews had been heavily persecuted from the 14th century. Many had converted to Christianity. The Spanish Inquisition was set up by the Church in order to detect insincere conversions. Laws were passed that prohibited the descendants of Jews or Muslims from attending university, joining religious orders, holding public office, or entering any of a long list of professions.
1492 : Jews were given the choice of being baptized as Christians or be banished from Spain. 300,000 left Spain penniless. Many migrated to Turkey, where they found tolerance among the Muslims. Others converted to Christianity but often continued to practice Judaism in secret.
1497: Jews were banished from Portugal. 20 thousand left the country rather than be baptized as Christians.
1516: The Governor of the Republic of Venice decided that Jews would be permitted to live only in one area of the city. It was located in the South Girolamo parish and was called the "Ghetto Novo." This was the first ghetto in Europe. Hitler made use of the concept in the 1930's.
1523: Martin Luther distributed his essay "That Jesus Was Born a Jew. " He hoped that large numbers of Jews would convert to Christianity. They didn't, and he began to write and preach hatred against them. Luther has been condemned in recent years for being extremely antisemitic. The charge has some merit; however he was probably typical of most Christians during his era.
1539: A passion play was forbidden in Rome because it prompted violent attacks against the city's Jewish residents. 9
1540: Jews were exiled from Naples.
1543: In his 20's, Martin Luther, had expected Jews to convert to Christianity in large numbers. Distressed by their reluctance, he developed a hatred for Jews, as expressed in his letters to Rev. Spalatin in 1514, when he was 31 years of age. He wrote:
"I have come to the conclusion that the Jews will always curse and blaspheme God and his King Christ, as all the prophets have predicted....For they are thus given over by the wrath of God to reprobation, that they may become incorrigible, as Ecclesiastes says, for every one who is incorrigible is rendered worse rather than better by correction." 6
In 1543, he wrote "On the Jews and their lies, On Shem Hamphoras" :
"...eject them forever from this country. For, as we have heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!...What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews?
First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire,...
Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed... They ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like Gypsies.
Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught.
Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more...
Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews...
Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury. All their cash and valuables of silver and gold ought to be taken from them and put aside for safe keeping...
Seventhly, let the young and strong Jews and Jewesses be given the flail, the axe, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and spindle and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses as in enjoined upon Adam's children...
To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden - the Jews." 7
1550: Jews were exiled from Genoa and Venice.
1555-JUL-12: A Roman Catholic Papal bull, "Cum nimis absurdum," required Jews to wear badges, and live in ghettos. They were not allowed to own property outside the ghetto. Living conditions were dreadful: over 3,000 people were forced to live in about 8 acres of land. Women had to wear a yellow veil or scarf; men had to wear a piece of yellow cloth on their hat. 8
1582: Jews were expelled from Holland.
1648-9: Chmielnicki Bogdan led an uprising against Polish rule in the Ukraine. The secondary goal of Bogdan and his followers was to exterminate all Jews in the country. The massacre began with the slaughter of about 6,000 Jews in Nemirov. Other major mass murders occurred in Tulchin, Polonnoye, Volhynia, Bar, Lvov, etc. Jewish records estimate that a total of 100,000 Jews were murdered and 300 communities destroyed.
Persecution of Jewish Physicians by the Church:
Medicine in Europe during the Middle Ages found itself restricted by the Christian Church. The church taught that it was irreligious to seek a natural cure from a physician when one could obtain supernatural help from a priest. Some church leaders criticized medical schools because they taught that diseases and disorders came from natural means and not from the evil efforts of Satan.
With medicine in such ill repute among Christians, much of the leadership by the 10th century was provided by Jews and Muslim scholars. Jews were largely responsible for founding the medical Schools at Salerno and Montpellier in the 10th century.
Pope Eugene IV, Nicholas V and Calixtus III forbade Christians from using the services of a Jewish physician. The Trullanean Council in the 8th century; B�ziers Council & Alby Council in the 13th century; Avignon council & Salamanca Council in the 14th century, the Synod of Bamberg in the 15th century; the Council of Avignon in the 16th century, etc. also ordered Christians to not seek healing from Jewish physicians and surgeons. This continued even into the 17th century when the city of Hall in W�rtemberg (in what is now Germany) granted some privileges to a Jewish physician "on account of his admirable experience and skill." The clergy of Hall complained that "it were better to die with Christ than to be cured by a Jew doctor aided by the devil."
References:
Max Solbrekken, "The Jews & Jesus: Mistreatment of Jews: Christian shame," at: http://www.mswm.org/jews.htm
Edward Vanhoutte, "Importance and unimportance of the Jews of Belgium from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment," at: http://pcger17.uia.ac.be/JEWS.html
"A Calendar of Jewish Persecution," at "HearNow," a Messianic Judaism web site. See: http://www.hearnow.org/caljp.htm
A.D. White, "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom," Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, (Reprinted: 1993), Volume II, Pages 137-140.
"Classical and Christian Anti-Semitism," at: http://www.virtualjerusalem.co.il/
"Modern History Sourcebook: Luther Before 1517: Letters to Spalatin," http://www.fordham.edu/
"Medieval Sourcebook: Martin Luther (1483-1546): The Jews and Their Lies, excerpts (1543)," at: http://www.fordham.edu/
"Curious and unusual: Rome's ghetto: The old Jewish quarter," at: http://www.geocities.com/
A. James Rudin, "A Jewish View of Gibson's 'Passion.' The film may transmit negative attitudes, stereotypes and caricatures about Jews." Beliefnet, 2004, at: http://www.beliefnet.com
Mark Wheelis, "Historical Review: Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa," CDC, at: http://www.cdc.gov/
"The Black Death: Scourge of Medieval Europe," Awake! magazine, 2000-FEB-08, at: http://www.watchtower.org/
1205: Pope Innocent III wrote to the archbishops of Sens and Paris that "the Jews, by their own guilt, are consigned to perpetual servitude because they crucified the Lord...As slaves rejected by God, in whose death they wickedly conspire, they shall by the effect of this very action, recognize themselves as the slaves of those whom Christ's death set free..."
1215: The Fourth Lateran Council approved canon laws requiring that "Jews and Muslims shall wear a special dress." They also had to wear a badge in the form of a ring. This was to enable them to be easily distinguished from Christians. This practice later spread to other countries.
1227: The Synod of Narbonne required Jews to wear an oval badge. This requirement was reinstalled during the 1930's by Hitler, who changed the oval badge to a Star of David.
1229: The Spanish inquisition starts. Later, in 1252, Pope Innocent IV authorizes the use of torture by the Inquisitors.
1236: Pope Gregory ordered that church leaders in England, France, Portugal and Spain confiscate Jewish books on the first Saturday of Lent. 1
1259: A "synod of the archdiocese in Mainz ordered Jews to wear yellow badges." 1
1261: Duke Henry III of Brabant, Belgium, stated in his will that "Jews...must be expelled from Brabant and totally annihilated so that not a single one remains, except those who are willing to trade, like all other tradesmen, without money-lending and usury." 2
1267: The Synod of Vienna ordered Jews to wear horned hats. Thomas Aquinas said that Jews should live in perpetual servitude.
1290: Jews are exiled from England. About 16,000 left the country.
1298: Jews were persecuted in Austria, Bavaria and Franconia. 140 Jewish communities were destroyed; more than 100,000 Jews were killed over a 6 month period.
1306: 100,000 Jews are exiled from France. They left with only the clothes on their backs, and food for only one day.
1320: 40,000 French shepherds went to Palestine on the Shepherd Crusade. On the way, 140 Jewish communities were destroyed.
1321: In Guienne, France, Jews were accused of having incited criminals to poison wells. 5,000 Jews were burned alive, at the stake.
1338: The councilors of Freiburg banned the performance of anti-Jewish scenes from the town's passion play because of the lethal bloody reactions against Jews which followed the performances. 9
1347 +: The Black Death originated in the Far East. China, Mongolia, India, central Asia, and southern Russia have all been suggested as the source. 10 Mongol invaders brought it to Caffa in the Crimea (modern-day Fedodosiya). Defenders from the city later spread the disease throughout many Mediterranean ports. 11 Rats initially carried the Black Death; their fleas spread the disease from the rats to humans. As the plague worsened, the germs spread from human to human. In five years, the death toll had reached 25 million. In England, two centuries passed before its population levels recovered from the plague. People searched for someone to blame. They noted that a smaller percentage of Jews than Christians caught the disease. This was undoubtedly due to the Jewish sanitary and dietary laws, which had been preserved from Old Testament times. Rumors circulated that Satan was protecting the Jews and that they were paying back the Devil by poisoning wells used by Christians. The solution was to torture, murder and burn the Jews. "In Bavaria...12,000 Jews...perished; in the small town of Erfurt...3,000; Rue Brul�e...2,000 Jews; near Tours, an immense trench was dug, filled with blazing wood and in a single day 160 Jews were burned." 5 In Strausberg 2,000 Jews were burned. In Maintz 6,000 were killed...; in Worms 400..." 3
1354: 12,000 Jews were executed in Toledo.
1374: An epidemic of possession broke out in the lower Rhine region of what is now Germany. People were seen "dancing, jumping and [engaging in] wild raving." This was triggered by enthusiastic revels on St. John's Day - an Christianized version of an ancient Pagan seasonal day of celebration which was still observed by the populace. The epidemic spread throughout the Rhine and in much of the Netherlands and Germany. Crowds of 500 or more dancers would be overcome together. Exorcisms were tried, but failed. Pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Vitus were tried, but this only seemed to exacerbate the problem. Finally, the rumor spread that God was angry because Christians had been excessively tolerant towards the Jews. God had cursed Europe as He did Saul when he showed mercy towards God's enemies in the Old Testament. Jews "were plundered, tortured and murdered by tens of thousands." The epidemic finally burned itself out two centuries later, in the late 16th century. 4
1391 : Jewish persecutions begin in Seville and in 70 other Jewish communities throughout Spain.
1394 : Jews were exiled, for the second time, from France.
1431 +: The Council of Basel "forbade Jews to go to universities, prohibited them from acting as agents in the conclusion of contracts between Christians, and required that they attend church sermons." 5
1434: "Jewish men in Augsburg had to sew yellow buttons to their clothes. Across Europe, Jews were forced to wear a long undergarment, an overcoat with a yellow patch, bells and tall pointed yellow hats with a large button on them." 1
1453 : The Franciscan monk, Capistrano, persuaded the King of Poland to terminate all Jewish civil rights.
1478: Spanish Jews had been heavily persecuted from the 14th century. Many had converted to Christianity. The Spanish Inquisition was set up by the Church in order to detect insincere conversions. Laws were passed that prohibited the descendants of Jews or Muslims from attending university, joining religious orders, holding public office, or entering any of a long list of professions.
1492 : Jews were given the choice of being baptized as Christians or be banished from Spain. 300,000 left Spain penniless. Many migrated to Turkey, where they found tolerance among the Muslims. Others converted to Christianity but often continued to practice Judaism in secret.
1497: Jews were banished from Portugal. 20 thousand left the country rather than be baptized as Christians.
1516: The Governor of the Republic of Venice decided that Jews would be permitted to live only in one area of the city. It was located in the South Girolamo parish and was called the "Ghetto Novo." This was the first ghetto in Europe. Hitler made use of the concept in the 1930's.
1523: Martin Luther distributed his essay "That Jesus Was Born a Jew. " He hoped that large numbers of Jews would convert to Christianity. They didn't, and he began to write and preach hatred against them. Luther has been condemned in recent years for being extremely antisemitic. The charge has some merit; however he was probably typical of most Christians during his era.
1539: A passion play was forbidden in Rome because it prompted violent attacks against the city's Jewish residents. 9
1540: Jews were exiled from Naples.
1543: In his 20's, Martin Luther, had expected Jews to convert to Christianity in large numbers. Distressed by their reluctance, he developed a hatred for Jews, as expressed in his letters to Rev. Spalatin in 1514, when he was 31 years of age. He wrote:
"I have come to the conclusion that the Jews will always curse and blaspheme God and his King Christ, as all the prophets have predicted....For they are thus given over by the wrath of God to reprobation, that they may become incorrigible, as Ecclesiastes says, for every one who is incorrigible is rendered worse rather than better by correction." 6
In 1543, he wrote "On the Jews and their lies, On Shem Hamphoras" :
"...eject them forever from this country. For, as we have heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!...What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews?
First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire,...
Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed... They ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like Gypsies.
Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught.
Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more...
Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews...
Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury. All their cash and valuables of silver and gold ought to be taken from them and put aside for safe keeping...
Seventhly, let the young and strong Jews and Jewesses be given the flail, the axe, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and spindle and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses as in enjoined upon Adam's children...
To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden - the Jews." 7
1550: Jews were exiled from Genoa and Venice.
1555-JUL-12: A Roman Catholic Papal bull, "Cum nimis absurdum," required Jews to wear badges, and live in ghettos. They were not allowed to own property outside the ghetto. Living conditions were dreadful: over 3,000 people were forced to live in about 8 acres of land. Women had to wear a yellow veil or scarf; men had to wear a piece of yellow cloth on their hat. 8
1582: Jews were expelled from Holland.
1648-9: Chmielnicki Bogdan led an uprising against Polish rule in the Ukraine. The secondary goal of Bogdan and his followers was to exterminate all Jews in the country. The massacre began with the slaughter of about 6,000 Jews in Nemirov. Other major mass murders occurred in Tulchin, Polonnoye, Volhynia, Bar, Lvov, etc. Jewish records estimate that a total of 100,000 Jews were murdered and 300 communities destroyed.
Persecution of Jewish Physicians by the Church:
Medicine in Europe during the Middle Ages found itself restricted by the Christian Church. The church taught that it was irreligious to seek a natural cure from a physician when one could obtain supernatural help from a priest. Some church leaders criticized medical schools because they taught that diseases and disorders came from natural means and not from the evil efforts of Satan.
With medicine in such ill repute among Christians, much of the leadership by the 10th century was provided by Jews and Muslim scholars. Jews were largely responsible for founding the medical Schools at Salerno and Montpellier in the 10th century.
Pope Eugene IV, Nicholas V and Calixtus III forbade Christians from using the services of a Jewish physician. The Trullanean Council in the 8th century; B�ziers Council & Alby Council in the 13th century; Avignon council & Salamanca Council in the 14th century, the Synod of Bamberg in the 15th century; the Council of Avignon in the 16th century, etc. also ordered Christians to not seek healing from Jewish physicians and surgeons. This continued even into the 17th century when the city of Hall in W�rtemberg (in what is now Germany) granted some privileges to a Jewish physician "on account of his admirable experience and skill." The clergy of Hall complained that "it were better to die with Christ than to be cured by a Jew doctor aided by the devil."
References:
Max Solbrekken, "The Jews & Jesus: Mistreatment of Jews: Christian shame," at: http://www.mswm.org/jews.htm
Edward Vanhoutte, "Importance and unimportance of the Jews of Belgium from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment," at: http://pcger17.uia.ac.be/JEWS.html
"A Calendar of Jewish Persecution," at "HearNow," a Messianic Judaism web site. See: http://www.hearnow.org/caljp.htm
A.D. White, "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom," Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, (Reprinted: 1993), Volume II, Pages 137-140.
"Classical and Christian Anti-Semitism," at: http://www.virtualjerusalem.co.il/
"Modern History Sourcebook: Luther Before 1517: Letters to Spalatin," http://www.fordham.edu/
"Medieval Sourcebook: Martin Luther (1483-1546): The Jews and Their Lies, excerpts (1543)," at: http://www.fordham.edu/
"Curious and unusual: Rome's ghetto: The old Jewish quarter," at: http://www.geocities.com/
A. James Rudin, "A Jewish View of Gibson's 'Passion.' The film may transmit negative attitudes, stereotypes and caricatures about Jews." Beliefnet, 2004, at: http://www.beliefnet.com
Mark Wheelis, "Historical Review: Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa," CDC, at: http://www.cdc.gov/
"The Black Death: Scourge of Medieval Europe," Awake! magazine, 2000-FEB-08, at: http://www.watchtower.org/
Black Death and the Jews, 1348-1349
Jew-Hatred existed long before 1967 and 1948. The Jewish people have had a very painful History before Zionism existed. This blog will outline some of the many persecutions. From http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_pers4.htm
Introduction:
In 1348 CE there appeared in Europe a devastating plague which is reported to have killed off ultimately twenty-five million people. By the fall of that year the rumor was current that these deaths were due to an international conspiracy of Jewry to poison Christendom. It was reported that the leaders in the Jewish metropolis of Toledo had initiated the plot and that one of the chief conspirators was a Rabbi Peyret who had his headquarters in Chambéry, Savoy, whence he dispatched his poisoners to France, Switzerland, and Italy.
By authority of Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, a number of the Jews who lived on the shores of Lake Geneva, having been arrested and put to the torture, naturally confessed anything their inquisitors suggested. These Jews, under torture, incriminated others. Records of their confessions were sent from one town to another in Switzerland and down the Rhine River into Germany, and as a result, thousands of Jews, in at least two hundred towns and hamlets, were butchered and burnt. The sheer loss of numbers, the disappearance of their wealth, and the growing hatred of the Christians brought German Jewry to a catastrophic downfall. It began to decline and did not again play an important part in German life till the seventeenth century.
The first account that follows is a translation from the Latin of a confession made under torture by Agimet, a Jew, who was arrested at Chatel, on Lake Geneva. It is typical of the confessions extorted and forwarded to other towns.
The second account describes the Black Death in general and treats specifically of the destruction of the Jewish community in Strasbourg. In this city the authorities, who attempted to save the Jews, were overthrown by a fear-stricken mob led by the butchers' and tanners' guilds and by the nobles who were determined to do away with the Jews who were their economic competitors and to whom they were indebted for loans. Thus in this city, at least, it was not merely religious bigotry and fear of the plague, but economic resentment that fired the craftsmen and the nobles to their work of extermination. Those people of Strasbourg, who had thus far escaped the plague and who thought that by killing off the Jews they would insure themselves against it in the future, were doomed to disappointment, for the pest soon struck the city and, it is said, took a toll of sixteen thousand lives.
The confession of Agimet is found in the Appendix to Johann S. Schilter's 1698 edition of the Middle High German chronicle of the Strasbourg historian, Jacob von Königshofen (1346-1420). The second selection is taken from the body of Königshofen's history. This account merits credence, not only because Königshofen was an archivist and lived close to the events of which he writes, but also because he incorporated considerable material from his Strasbourg predecessor, the historian F. Closener, who was probably an eyewitness of the tragedy. The third selection is an epitaph of an otherwise unknown Jew who died a victim of the plague in 1349. Obviously, Jews, too, were not spared by this dread disease. The epitaph in the original Hebrew is in poetical form.
I. The Confession of Agimet of Geneva, Châtel, October 20, 1348
The year of our Lord 1348.
On Friday, the 10th of the month of October, at Châtel, in the castle thereof, there occurred the judicial inquiry which was made by order of the court of the illustrious Prince, our lord, Amadeus, Count of Savoy, and his subjects against the Jews of both sexes who were there imprisoned, each one separately. [Jews were sometimes imprisoned separately to prevent suicide.] This was done after public rumor had become current and a strong clamor had arisen because of the poison put by them into the wells, springs, and other things which the Christians use-demanding that they die, that they are able to be found guilty and, therefore, that they should be punished. Hence this their confession made in the presence of a great many trustworthy persons.
Agimet the Jew, who lived at Geneva and was arrested at Châtel, was there put to the torture a little and then he was released from it. And after a long time, having been subjected again to torture a little, he confessed in the presence of a great many trustworthy persons, who are later mentioned. To begin with it is clear that at the Lent just passed Pultus Clesis de Ranz had sent this very Jew to Venice to buy silks and other things for him. When this came to the notice of Rabbi Peyret, a Jew of Chamb6ry who was a teacher of their law, he sent for this Agimet, for whom he had searched, and when he had come before him he said: "We have been informed that you are going to Venice to buy silk and other wares. Here I am giving you a little package of half a span in size which contains some prepared poison and venom in a thin, sewed leather-bag. Distribute it among the wells, cisterns, and springs about Venice and the other places to which you go, in order to poison the people who use the water of the aforesaid wells that will have been poisoned by you, namely, the wells in which the poison will have been placed."
Agimet took this package full of poison and carried it with him to Venice, and when he came there he threw and scattered a portion of it into the well or cistern of fresh water which was there near the German House, in order to poison the people who use the water of that cistern. And he says that this is the only cistern of sweet water in the city. He also says that the mentioned Rabbi Peyret promised to give him whatever he wanted for his troubles in this business. Of his own accord Agimet confessed further that after this had been done he left at once in order that he should not be captured by the citizens or others, and that he went personally to Calabria and Apulia and threw the above mentioned poison into many wells. He confesses also that he put some of this same poison in the well of the streets of the city of Ballet.
He confesses further that he put some of this poison into the public fountain of the city of Toulouse and in the wells that are near the [Mediterranean] sea. Asked if at the time that he scattered the venom and poisoned the wells, above mentioned, any people had died, he said that he did not know inasmuch as he had left everyone of the above mentioned places in a hurry. Asked if any of the Jews of those places were guilty in the above mentioned matter, he answered that he did not know. And now by all that which is contained in the five books of Moses and the scroll of the Jews, he declared that this was true, and that he was in no wise lying, no matter what might happen to him. [This Jew does not seem to know that the books of Moses and the scroll of the Jews are identical!]
II. The Cremation of Strasbourg Jewry St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1349
In the year 1349 there occurred the greatest epidemic that ever happened. Death went from one end of the earth to the other, on that side and this side of the sea, and it was greater among the Saracens than among the Christians. In some lands everyone died so that no one was left. Ships were also found on the sea laden with wares; the crew had all died and no one guided the ship. The Bishop of Marseilles and priests and monks and more than half of all the people there died with them. In other kingdoms and cities so many people perished that it would be horrible to describe. The pope at Avignon stopped all sessions of court, locked himself in a room, allowed no one to approach him and had a fire burning before him all the time. [This last was probably intended as some sort of disinfectant.] And from what this epidemic came, all wise teachers and physicians could only say that it was God's will. And as the plague was now here, so was it in other places, and lasted more than a whole year. This epidemic also came to Strasbourg in the summer of the above mentioned year, and it is estimated that about sixteen thousand people died.
In the matter of this plague the Jews throughout the world were reviled and accused in all lands of having caused it through the poison which they are said to have put into the water and the wells-that is what they were accused of-and for this reason the Jews were burnt all the way from the Mediterranean into Germany, but not in Avignon, for the pope protected them there.
Nevertheless they tortured a number of Jews in Berne and Zofingen [Switzerland] who then admitted that they had put poison into many wells, and they also found the poison in the wells. Thereupon they burnt the Jews in many towns and wrote of this affair to Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Basel in order that they too should burn their Jews. But the leaders in these three cities in whose hands the government lay did not believe that anything ought to be done to the Jews. However in Basel the citizens marched to the city-hall and compelled the council to take an oath that they would burn the Jews, and that they would allow no Jew to enter the city for the next two hundred years. Thereupon the Jews were arrested in all these places and a conference was arranged to meet at Benfeld rAlsace, February 8, 13491. The Bishop of Strasbourg [Berthold II], all the feudal lords of Alsace, and representatives of the three above mentioned cities came there. The deputies of the city of Strasbourg were asked what they were going to do with their Jews. Thev answered and said that they knew no evil of them. Then they asked the Strasbourgers why they had closed the wells and put away the buckets, and there was a great indignation and clamor against the deputies from Strasbourg. So finally the Bishop and the lords and the Imperial Cities agreed to do away with the Jews. The result was that they were burnt in many cities, and wherever they were expelled they were caught by the peasants and stabbed to death or drowned. . . .
[The town-council of Strasbourg which wanted to save the Jews was deposed on the 9th-10th of February, and the new council gave in to the mob, who then arrested the Jews on Friday, the 13th.]
The Jews are burnt:
On Saturday - that was St. Valentine's Day-they burnt the Jews on a wooden platform in their cemetery. There were about two thousand people of them. Those who wanted to baptize themselves were spared. [Some say that about a thousand accepted baptism.] Many small children were taken out of the fire and baptized against the will of their fathers and mothers. And everything that was owed to the Jews was cancelled, and the Jews had to surrender all pledges and notes that they had taken for debts. The council, however, took the cash that the Jews possessed and divided it among the working-men proportionately. The money was indeed the thing that killed the Jews. If they had been poor and if the feudal lords had not been in debt to them, they would not have been burnt. After this wealth was divided among the artisans some gave their share to the Cathedral or to the Church on the advice of their confessors.
Thus were the Jews burnt at Strasbourg, and in the same year in all the cities of the Rhine, whether Free Cities or Imperial Cities or cities belonging to the lords. In some towns they burnt the Jews after a trial, in others, without a trial. In some cities the Jews themselves set fire to their houses and cremated themselves.
The Jews return to Strasbourg:
It was decided in Strasbourg that no Jew should enter the city for a hundred years, but before twenty years had passed, the council and magistrates agreed that they ought to admit the Jews again into the city for twenty years. And so the Jews came back again to Strasbourg iii the year 1368 after the birth of our Lord.
III. The Epitaph of Asher aben Turiel, Toledo, Spain, 1349
This stone is a memorial
That a later generation may know
That 'neath it lies hidden a pleasant bud,
A cherished child.
Perfect in knowledge,
A reader of the Bible,
A student of the Mishnah and Gemara.
Had learned from his father
What his father learned from his teachers:
The statutes of God and his laws.
Though only fifteen years in age,
He was like a man of eighty in knowledge.
More blessed than all sons: Asher-may he rest in Paradise -
The son of Joseph ben Turiel-may God comfort him,
He died of the plague, in the month of Tam muz, in the year 109 [June or July, 1349].
But a few days before his death
He established his home;
But yesternight the joyous voice of the bride and groom
Was turned to the voice of wailing.
[Apparently he had just been married.]
And the father is left, sad and aching.
May the God of heaven
Grant him comfort.
And send another child
To restore his soul.
Bibliography:
Reference to textbooks: Elbogen, pp. 108-109; Roth, pp. 213fF.; Sachar, pp. 200-203.
Readings for advanced students:
Graetz, IV, pp. 100-135; Graetz-Rhine, IV, pp. 35-54; Margolis and Marx, pp. 402-412.
Nohl, J., The Black Death, pp. 181-196.
JE, "Black Death"; "Strasburg."
Additional source materials in English:
Nohl, J., The Black Death, pp. 196-202. Contains further correspondence on the seizure of Jews who were accused of responsibility for the plague.
Source:
Jacob Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315-1791, (New York: JPS, 1938), 43-48
Later printings of this text (e.g. by Atheneum, 1969, 1972, 1978) do not indicate that the copyright was renewed)
Introduction:
In 1348 CE there appeared in Europe a devastating plague which is reported to have killed off ultimately twenty-five million people. By the fall of that year the rumor was current that these deaths were due to an international conspiracy of Jewry to poison Christendom. It was reported that the leaders in the Jewish metropolis of Toledo had initiated the plot and that one of the chief conspirators was a Rabbi Peyret who had his headquarters in Chambéry, Savoy, whence he dispatched his poisoners to France, Switzerland, and Italy.
By authority of Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, a number of the Jews who lived on the shores of Lake Geneva, having been arrested and put to the torture, naturally confessed anything their inquisitors suggested. These Jews, under torture, incriminated others. Records of their confessions were sent from one town to another in Switzerland and down the Rhine River into Germany, and as a result, thousands of Jews, in at least two hundred towns and hamlets, were butchered and burnt. The sheer loss of numbers, the disappearance of their wealth, and the growing hatred of the Christians brought German Jewry to a catastrophic downfall. It began to decline and did not again play an important part in German life till the seventeenth century.
The first account that follows is a translation from the Latin of a confession made under torture by Agimet, a Jew, who was arrested at Chatel, on Lake Geneva. It is typical of the confessions extorted and forwarded to other towns.
The second account describes the Black Death in general and treats specifically of the destruction of the Jewish community in Strasbourg. In this city the authorities, who attempted to save the Jews, were overthrown by a fear-stricken mob led by the butchers' and tanners' guilds and by the nobles who were determined to do away with the Jews who were their economic competitors and to whom they were indebted for loans. Thus in this city, at least, it was not merely religious bigotry and fear of the plague, but economic resentment that fired the craftsmen and the nobles to their work of extermination. Those people of Strasbourg, who had thus far escaped the plague and who thought that by killing off the Jews they would insure themselves against it in the future, were doomed to disappointment, for the pest soon struck the city and, it is said, took a toll of sixteen thousand lives.
The confession of Agimet is found in the Appendix to Johann S. Schilter's 1698 edition of the Middle High German chronicle of the Strasbourg historian, Jacob von Königshofen (1346-1420). The second selection is taken from the body of Königshofen's history. This account merits credence, not only because Königshofen was an archivist and lived close to the events of which he writes, but also because he incorporated considerable material from his Strasbourg predecessor, the historian F. Closener, who was probably an eyewitness of the tragedy. The third selection is an epitaph of an otherwise unknown Jew who died a victim of the plague in 1349. Obviously, Jews, too, were not spared by this dread disease. The epitaph in the original Hebrew is in poetical form.
I. The Confession of Agimet of Geneva, Châtel, October 20, 1348
The year of our Lord 1348.
On Friday, the 10th of the month of October, at Châtel, in the castle thereof, there occurred the judicial inquiry which was made by order of the court of the illustrious Prince, our lord, Amadeus, Count of Savoy, and his subjects against the Jews of both sexes who were there imprisoned, each one separately. [Jews were sometimes imprisoned separately to prevent suicide.] This was done after public rumor had become current and a strong clamor had arisen because of the poison put by them into the wells, springs, and other things which the Christians use-demanding that they die, that they are able to be found guilty and, therefore, that they should be punished. Hence this their confession made in the presence of a great many trustworthy persons.
Agimet the Jew, who lived at Geneva and was arrested at Châtel, was there put to the torture a little and then he was released from it. And after a long time, having been subjected again to torture a little, he confessed in the presence of a great many trustworthy persons, who are later mentioned. To begin with it is clear that at the Lent just passed Pultus Clesis de Ranz had sent this very Jew to Venice to buy silks and other things for him. When this came to the notice of Rabbi Peyret, a Jew of Chamb6ry who was a teacher of their law, he sent for this Agimet, for whom he had searched, and when he had come before him he said: "We have been informed that you are going to Venice to buy silk and other wares. Here I am giving you a little package of half a span in size which contains some prepared poison and venom in a thin, sewed leather-bag. Distribute it among the wells, cisterns, and springs about Venice and the other places to which you go, in order to poison the people who use the water of the aforesaid wells that will have been poisoned by you, namely, the wells in which the poison will have been placed."
Agimet took this package full of poison and carried it with him to Venice, and when he came there he threw and scattered a portion of it into the well or cistern of fresh water which was there near the German House, in order to poison the people who use the water of that cistern. And he says that this is the only cistern of sweet water in the city. He also says that the mentioned Rabbi Peyret promised to give him whatever he wanted for his troubles in this business. Of his own accord Agimet confessed further that after this had been done he left at once in order that he should not be captured by the citizens or others, and that he went personally to Calabria and Apulia and threw the above mentioned poison into many wells. He confesses also that he put some of this same poison in the well of the streets of the city of Ballet.
He confesses further that he put some of this poison into the public fountain of the city of Toulouse and in the wells that are near the [Mediterranean] sea. Asked if at the time that he scattered the venom and poisoned the wells, above mentioned, any people had died, he said that he did not know inasmuch as he had left everyone of the above mentioned places in a hurry. Asked if any of the Jews of those places were guilty in the above mentioned matter, he answered that he did not know. And now by all that which is contained in the five books of Moses and the scroll of the Jews, he declared that this was true, and that he was in no wise lying, no matter what might happen to him. [This Jew does not seem to know that the books of Moses and the scroll of the Jews are identical!]
II. The Cremation of Strasbourg Jewry St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1349
In the year 1349 there occurred the greatest epidemic that ever happened. Death went from one end of the earth to the other, on that side and this side of the sea, and it was greater among the Saracens than among the Christians. In some lands everyone died so that no one was left. Ships were also found on the sea laden with wares; the crew had all died and no one guided the ship. The Bishop of Marseilles and priests and monks and more than half of all the people there died with them. In other kingdoms and cities so many people perished that it would be horrible to describe. The pope at Avignon stopped all sessions of court, locked himself in a room, allowed no one to approach him and had a fire burning before him all the time. [This last was probably intended as some sort of disinfectant.] And from what this epidemic came, all wise teachers and physicians could only say that it was God's will. And as the plague was now here, so was it in other places, and lasted more than a whole year. This epidemic also came to Strasbourg in the summer of the above mentioned year, and it is estimated that about sixteen thousand people died.
In the matter of this plague the Jews throughout the world were reviled and accused in all lands of having caused it through the poison which they are said to have put into the water and the wells-that is what they were accused of-and for this reason the Jews were burnt all the way from the Mediterranean into Germany, but not in Avignon, for the pope protected them there.
Nevertheless they tortured a number of Jews in Berne and Zofingen [Switzerland] who then admitted that they had put poison into many wells, and they also found the poison in the wells. Thereupon they burnt the Jews in many towns and wrote of this affair to Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Basel in order that they too should burn their Jews. But the leaders in these three cities in whose hands the government lay did not believe that anything ought to be done to the Jews. However in Basel the citizens marched to the city-hall and compelled the council to take an oath that they would burn the Jews, and that they would allow no Jew to enter the city for the next two hundred years. Thereupon the Jews were arrested in all these places and a conference was arranged to meet at Benfeld rAlsace, February 8, 13491. The Bishop of Strasbourg [Berthold II], all the feudal lords of Alsace, and representatives of the three above mentioned cities came there. The deputies of the city of Strasbourg were asked what they were going to do with their Jews. Thev answered and said that they knew no evil of them. Then they asked the Strasbourgers why they had closed the wells and put away the buckets, and there was a great indignation and clamor against the deputies from Strasbourg. So finally the Bishop and the lords and the Imperial Cities agreed to do away with the Jews. The result was that they were burnt in many cities, and wherever they were expelled they were caught by the peasants and stabbed to death or drowned. . . .
[The town-council of Strasbourg which wanted to save the Jews was deposed on the 9th-10th of February, and the new council gave in to the mob, who then arrested the Jews on Friday, the 13th.]
The Jews are burnt:
On Saturday - that was St. Valentine's Day-they burnt the Jews on a wooden platform in their cemetery. There were about two thousand people of them. Those who wanted to baptize themselves were spared. [Some say that about a thousand accepted baptism.] Many small children were taken out of the fire and baptized against the will of their fathers and mothers. And everything that was owed to the Jews was cancelled, and the Jews had to surrender all pledges and notes that they had taken for debts. The council, however, took the cash that the Jews possessed and divided it among the working-men proportionately. The money was indeed the thing that killed the Jews. If they had been poor and if the feudal lords had not been in debt to them, they would not have been burnt. After this wealth was divided among the artisans some gave their share to the Cathedral or to the Church on the advice of their confessors.
Thus were the Jews burnt at Strasbourg, and in the same year in all the cities of the Rhine, whether Free Cities or Imperial Cities or cities belonging to the lords. In some towns they burnt the Jews after a trial, in others, without a trial. In some cities the Jews themselves set fire to their houses and cremated themselves.
The Jews return to Strasbourg:
It was decided in Strasbourg that no Jew should enter the city for a hundred years, but before twenty years had passed, the council and magistrates agreed that they ought to admit the Jews again into the city for twenty years. And so the Jews came back again to Strasbourg iii the year 1368 after the birth of our Lord.
III. The Epitaph of Asher aben Turiel, Toledo, Spain, 1349
This stone is a memorial
That a later generation may know
That 'neath it lies hidden a pleasant bud,
A cherished child.
Perfect in knowledge,
A reader of the Bible,
A student of the Mishnah and Gemara.
Had learned from his father
What his father learned from his teachers:
The statutes of God and his laws.
Though only fifteen years in age,
He was like a man of eighty in knowledge.
More blessed than all sons: Asher-may he rest in Paradise -
The son of Joseph ben Turiel-may God comfort him,
He died of the plague, in the month of Tam muz, in the year 109 [June or July, 1349].
But a few days before his death
He established his home;
But yesternight the joyous voice of the bride and groom
Was turned to the voice of wailing.
[Apparently he had just been married.]
And the father is left, sad and aching.
May the God of heaven
Grant him comfort.
And send another child
To restore his soul.
Bibliography:
Reference to textbooks: Elbogen, pp. 108-109; Roth, pp. 213fF.; Sachar, pp. 200-203.
Readings for advanced students:
Graetz, IV, pp. 100-135; Graetz-Rhine, IV, pp. 35-54; Margolis and Marx, pp. 402-412.
Nohl, J., The Black Death, pp. 181-196.
JE, "Black Death"; "Strasburg."
Additional source materials in English:
Nohl, J., The Black Death, pp. 196-202. Contains further correspondence on the seizure of Jews who were accused of responsibility for the plague.
Source:
Jacob Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315-1791, (New York: JPS, 1938), 43-48
Later printings of this text (e.g. by Atheneum, 1969, 1972, 1978) do not indicate that the copyright was renewed)
Racially-Based Persecution of Jews: 1800 to 1946
Two millennia of Jewish persecution
These are just some of the persecutions taken from the web site: http://www.religioustolerance.org
1806: A French Jesuit Priest, Abbe Barruel, had written a treatise blaming the Masonic Order for the French Revolution. He later issued a letter alleging that Jews, not the Masons were the guilty party. This triggered a belief in an international Jewish conspiracy in Germany, Poland and some other European countries later in the 19th century.
1819: During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, many European Jews lobbied their governments for emancipation. They sought citizenship as well as the same rights and treatment as were enjoyed by non-Jews. This appears to have provoked sporadic anti-semites to engage in anti-Jewish violence. The rioters cried "Hep! Hep!." The origin(s) of this cry are not clear. Jews and their property were attacked first in Wuerzburg, Germany during 1819-AUG. The rioting spread across Germany and eventually reached as far as Denmark and Poland. 17
1840: A rumor spread in Syria that some Jews were responsible for the ritual killing of a Roman Catholic monk and his servant. As a result of horrendous treatment, some local Jews confessed to a crime that they did not commit. This "Damascus Affair" spurred early Zionist writers like Hess to promote the Zionist cause. 17 More details.
1846 - 1878: Pope Pius IX restored all of the previous restrictions against the Jews within the Vatican state. All Jews under Papal control were confined to Rome's ghetto - the last one in Europe until the Nazi era restored the church's practice. On 2000-SEP-3, Pope John Paul II beatified Pius IX; this is the last step before sainthood. He explained: "Beatifying a son of the church does not celebrate particular historic choices that he has made, but rather points him out for imitation and for veneration for his virtue."
1858: Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped, at the age of six, from his Jewish family by Roman Catholic officials after they found out that a maid had secretly baptized him. He was not returned to his family but was raised a Catholic. He eventually became a priest.
1873: The term "antisemitism" is first used in a pamphlet by Wilhelm Marr called "Jewry's Victory over Teutonism."
1881: Alexander II of Russia was assassinated by radicals. The Jews were blamed. About 200 individual pogroms against the Jews followed. ("Pogrom" is a Russian word meaning "devastation" or "riot." In Russia, a pogrom was typically a mob riot against Jewish individuals, shops, homes or businesses. They were often supported and even organized by the government.) Thousands of Jews became homeless and impoverished. The few who were charged with offenses generally received very light sentences. 1
1893: "...anti-Semitic parties won sixteen seats in the German Reichstag." 2
1894: Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an officer on the French general staff, was convicted of treason. The evidence against him consisted of a piece of paper from his wastebasket with another person's handwriting, and papers forged by antisemitic officers. He received a life sentence on Devil's Island, off the coast of South America. The French government was aware that a Major Esterhazy was actually guilty. 3 The church, government and army united to suppress the truth. Writer Emile Zola and politician Jean Jaur? fought for justice and human rights. After 10 years, the French government fell and Drefus was declared totally innocent. The Dreyfus Affair was world-wide news for years. It motivated Journalist Theodor Herzl to write a book in 1896: "The Jewish State: A Modern Solution to the Jewish Question." The book led to the founding of the Zionist movement which fought for a Jewish Homeland. A half century later, the state of Israel was born.
1903: At Easter, government agents organized an anti-Jewish pogrom in Kishinev, Moldova, Russia. The local newspaper published a series of inflammatory articles. A Christian child was discovered murdered and a young Christian woman at the Jewish Hospital committed suicide. Jews were blamed for the deaths. Violence ensured. The 5,000 soldiers in the town did nothing. When the smoke cleared, 49 Jews had been killed, 500 were injured; 700 homes looted and destroyed, 600 businesses and shops looted, 2,000 families left homeless. Later, it was discovered that the child had been murdered by its relatives and the suicide was unrelated to the Jews. 4
1905: The Okhrana, the Russian secret police in the reign of Czar Nicholas II, converted an earlier antisemitic novel into a document called the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." 16 It was published privately in 1897. A Russian Orthodox priest, Sergius Nilus, published them publicly in 1905. It was promoted as the record of "secret rabbinical conferences whose aim was to subjugate and exterminate the Christians." 5 The Protocols were used by the Okhrana in a propaganda campaign that was associated with massacres of the Jews. These were the Czarist Pogroms of 1905.
1915: 600,000 Jews were forcibly moved from the western borders of Russia towards the interior. About 100,000 died of exposure or starvation.
1917: "In the civil war following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the reactionary White Armies made extensive use of the Protocols to incite widespread slaughters of Jews." 5 Two hundred thousand Jews were murdered in the Ukraine alone.
1920: The Protocols reach England and the United States. They are exposed as a forgery, but are widely circulated. Henry Ford sponsored a study of international activities of Jews. This led to a series of antisemitic articles in the Dearborn Independent, which were published in a book, "The International Jew." The Protocols were sold on Wal-Mart's online bookstore until they were removed on 2004-SEP-21.
1920: The defeat of Germany in World War I and the continuing economic difficulties were blamed in that country on the "Jewish influence." One antisemitic poster has been preserved from that era. 6 It shows a German, presumably Christian woman, a male Jew with distorted facial features, a coffin and the word "Deutschland" (Germany).
These are just some of the persecutions taken from the web site: http://www.religioustolerance.org
1806: A French Jesuit Priest, Abbe Barruel, had written a treatise blaming the Masonic Order for the French Revolution. He later issued a letter alleging that Jews, not the Masons were the guilty party. This triggered a belief in an international Jewish conspiracy in Germany, Poland and some other European countries later in the 19th century.
1819: During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, many European Jews lobbied their governments for emancipation. They sought citizenship as well as the same rights and treatment as were enjoyed by non-Jews. This appears to have provoked sporadic anti-semites to engage in anti-Jewish violence. The rioters cried "Hep! Hep!." The origin(s) of this cry are not clear. Jews and their property were attacked first in Wuerzburg, Germany during 1819-AUG. The rioting spread across Germany and eventually reached as far as Denmark and Poland. 17
1840: A rumor spread in Syria that some Jews were responsible for the ritual killing of a Roman Catholic monk and his servant. As a result of horrendous treatment, some local Jews confessed to a crime that they did not commit. This "Damascus Affair" spurred early Zionist writers like Hess to promote the Zionist cause. 17 More details.
1846 - 1878: Pope Pius IX restored all of the previous restrictions against the Jews within the Vatican state. All Jews under Papal control were confined to Rome's ghetto - the last one in Europe until the Nazi era restored the church's practice. On 2000-SEP-3, Pope John Paul II beatified Pius IX; this is the last step before sainthood. He explained: "Beatifying a son of the church does not celebrate particular historic choices that he has made, but rather points him out for imitation and for veneration for his virtue."
1858: Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped, at the age of six, from his Jewish family by Roman Catholic officials after they found out that a maid had secretly baptized him. He was not returned to his family but was raised a Catholic. He eventually became a priest.
1873: The term "antisemitism" is first used in a pamphlet by Wilhelm Marr called "Jewry's Victory over Teutonism."
1881: Alexander II of Russia was assassinated by radicals. The Jews were blamed. About 200 individual pogroms against the Jews followed. ("Pogrom" is a Russian word meaning "devastation" or "riot." In Russia, a pogrom was typically a mob riot against Jewish individuals, shops, homes or businesses. They were often supported and even organized by the government.) Thousands of Jews became homeless and impoverished. The few who were charged with offenses generally received very light sentences. 1
1893: "...anti-Semitic parties won sixteen seats in the German Reichstag." 2
1894: Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an officer on the French general staff, was convicted of treason. The evidence against him consisted of a piece of paper from his wastebasket with another person's handwriting, and papers forged by antisemitic officers. He received a life sentence on Devil's Island, off the coast of South America. The French government was aware that a Major Esterhazy was actually guilty. 3 The church, government and army united to suppress the truth. Writer Emile Zola and politician Jean Jaur? fought for justice and human rights. After 10 years, the French government fell and Drefus was declared totally innocent. The Dreyfus Affair was world-wide news for years. It motivated Journalist Theodor Herzl to write a book in 1896: "The Jewish State: A Modern Solution to the Jewish Question." The book led to the founding of the Zionist movement which fought for a Jewish Homeland. A half century later, the state of Israel was born.
1903: At Easter, government agents organized an anti-Jewish pogrom in Kishinev, Moldova, Russia. The local newspaper published a series of inflammatory articles. A Christian child was discovered murdered and a young Christian woman at the Jewish Hospital committed suicide. Jews were blamed for the deaths. Violence ensured. The 5,000 soldiers in the town did nothing. When the smoke cleared, 49 Jews had been killed, 500 were injured; 700 homes looted and destroyed, 600 businesses and shops looted, 2,000 families left homeless. Later, it was discovered that the child had been murdered by its relatives and the suicide was unrelated to the Jews. 4
1905: The Okhrana, the Russian secret police in the reign of Czar Nicholas II, converted an earlier antisemitic novel into a document called the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." 16 It was published privately in 1897. A Russian Orthodox priest, Sergius Nilus, published them publicly in 1905. It was promoted as the record of "secret rabbinical conferences whose aim was to subjugate and exterminate the Christians." 5 The Protocols were used by the Okhrana in a propaganda campaign that was associated with massacres of the Jews. These were the Czarist Pogroms of 1905.
1915: 600,000 Jews were forcibly moved from the western borders of Russia towards the interior. About 100,000 died of exposure or starvation.
1917: "In the civil war following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the reactionary White Armies made extensive use of the Protocols to incite widespread slaughters of Jews." 5 Two hundred thousand Jews were murdered in the Ukraine alone.
1920: The Protocols reach England and the United States. They are exposed as a forgery, but are widely circulated. Henry Ford sponsored a study of international activities of Jews. This led to a series of antisemitic articles in the Dearborn Independent, which were published in a book, "The International Jew." The Protocols were sold on Wal-Mart's online bookstore until they were removed on 2004-SEP-21.
1920: The defeat of Germany in World War I and the continuing economic difficulties were blamed in that country on the "Jewish influence." One antisemitic poster has been preserved from that era. 6 It shows a German, presumably Christian woman, a male Jew with distorted facial features, a coffin and the word "Deutschland" (Germany).
Israel And The Jewish Land
Why does the world say that Jews cannot live in parts of the land of Israel? They say that according to international law, settlements are illegal. It's like saying that Italians cannot build in parts of Italy.
We have come back to this land after being evicted by the Romans 2000 years ago. We are the original inhabitants of the land. The Romans destroyed the second Temple around 70 AD. We have come back because of unbearable persecutions in Europe, Arab countries, Russia and other places. Why is this Illegal?
It would be outrageous to say the Jews cannot live in Florida or Brazil, but it's OK to say that Jews cannot legally live in the Biblical lands of Israel. Why is that?
It's time for people to say the truth about the land of Israel. We did not take this land by force, it was granted to our forefather Abraham by God in the original Testament, the Torah, thousands of years ago. I cannot believe that educated people around the world have never read the Bible?
Why can't the nations just let us live in Peace after all that we have suffered thoughgout history. Why are we one of the only nations on earth that cannot have it's only holy place, the Temple Mount? Christianity and Islam are both based on our Torah, so they must admit that there were 2 Jewish Temples here. The Holy Temple is considered a "House to all Nations". Where on earth can you find a place where all nations can pray together to the one God in one voice?
This blog will outline Jewish persecutions in modern history so that the world can see that Jew-bashing existed prior to 1967 and 1948 and that Anti-Zionism is a politically-correct method of hating Jews in the modern era.
I welcome your comments, but please keep it clean and be nice!
We have come back to this land after being evicted by the Romans 2000 years ago. We are the original inhabitants of the land. The Romans destroyed the second Temple around 70 AD. We have come back because of unbearable persecutions in Europe, Arab countries, Russia and other places. Why is this Illegal?
It would be outrageous to say the Jews cannot live in Florida or Brazil, but it's OK to say that Jews cannot legally live in the Biblical lands of Israel. Why is that?
It's time for people to say the truth about the land of Israel. We did not take this land by force, it was granted to our forefather Abraham by God in the original Testament, the Torah, thousands of years ago. I cannot believe that educated people around the world have never read the Bible?
Why can't the nations just let us live in Peace after all that we have suffered thoughgout history. Why are we one of the only nations on earth that cannot have it's only holy place, the Temple Mount? Christianity and Islam are both based on our Torah, so they must admit that there were 2 Jewish Temples here. The Holy Temple is considered a "House to all Nations". Where on earth can you find a place where all nations can pray together to the one God in one voice?
This blog will outline Jewish persecutions in modern history so that the world can see that Jew-bashing existed prior to 1967 and 1948 and that Anti-Zionism is a politically-correct method of hating Jews in the modern era.
I welcome your comments, but please keep it clean and be nice!
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