A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism (13 page)

The Muslims had conquered Jerusalem and its holy sites in 638. Why did church leaders wait more than 450 years to call for a holy war? One reason was that invasions from the north and east had weakened the Roman church and much of Europe between 638 and 1000. In fact, Muslims were responsible for several of those invasions. By 732, they controlled Spain and were threatening France. That year, Abd-er Rahman, the Muslim governor of Spain, led an army across the western Pyrenees toward the Loire River in France. He and his men were defeated outside the city of Tours by Charles Martel, the ruler of the Franks (the people from whom France gets its name). That defeat ended Muslim expansion into western and northern Europe. But Christians in Europe were not yet strong enough to force the Muslims out of Spain, let alone invade the Holy Land and take control of Jerusalem.

By the end of the eleventh century, however, Europe was changing. The church was now more powerful and more willing to respond when Muslim rulers vowed to destroy Christian holy sites. Muslims were also threatening the Byzantine Empire. Months before the pope’s speech at Clermont in November 1095, the Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus,
who was also the head of the Eastern or Greek Orthodox Church, had asked Pope Urban II for soldiers to help defend Constantinople, his capital. By coming to his aid, Urban II hoped to expand the power and influence of the Roman church.

As Urban’s speech suggests, he also wanted Christians in Europe to stop fighting among themselves and unite against a common enemy—in this case, Muslims. It was not a new idea. Since the 700s, Christian soldiers had been struggling to regain control of Spain. Christians had also fought Muslims in other places, including a number of cities along the Italian coast.

However, none of these earlier wars captured the imagination of Europeans the way the pope’s call to arms in 1095 did. Urban was surprised by the enthusiasm. He had imagined that a few powerful rulers would send soldiers to fight in an army under the church’s leadership. Several such armies were in fact organized, and they did conquer Jerusalem in 1099 and establish four Christian states in the region. However, the pope’s speech also ignited a series of events that he neither expected nor wanted.

By the spring of 1096, hundreds of dukes, counts, barons, and knights were ready to join the crusade. They were motivated by religious zeal, a sense of adventure, and sometimes greed. The pope’s call to arms also attracted tens of thousands of ordinary people. They had learned about the holy war from charismatic speakers who carried the pope’s message across northern France through what is now Germany. One of the most famous was a preacher known only as Peter the Hermit. Throughout the spring of 1096, his words held audiences spellbound. His preaching inspired men, women, and even children of every social class to leave their homes and head for Jerusalem. The group Peter led consisted of about 10,000 knights, nobles, and foot soldiers as well as hundreds of ordinary people.

For the most part, these armies headed for the Middle East with little or no preparation. Instead of bringing supplies, many scavenged for food and other goods along the way. In a number of places, villagers and townspeople—both Christians and Jews—offered help in order to protect their communities from looting. Most, however, could barely feed their own families, let alone tens of thousands of hungry strangers. As a result, frequent raids on farms, villages, and towns were carried out along the way by the crusaders—as the warriors in this new holy war were called.

A number of rulers closed their borders. The Christian rulers of Hungary attacked crusaders who tried to pass through their territory. Although the crusade was at least in part a response to a call for help by
the Byzantine emperor, even he was horrified by the huge, unruly armies that poured into his territory.

Many crusaders were eager to fight for their faith because of a reform movement in the Catholic Church in the eleventh century. It changed the way many Christians felt about their religion. As part of that movement, hundreds of churches were built in villages and towns throughout Europe, and in those churches, Christians came to a new understanding of their faith. Earlier, they had seen Jesus primarily as a distant figure whom they respected and viewed with awe—an all-powerful deity who had risen from death. Now many priests focused their teachings on Jesus’s suffering and his dual role as a figure both human and divine. As a result, people in northern Europe came to view Jesus as a man who identified with the poor and the powerless, a man who died painfully on the cross at the hands of his enemy—and that enemy was, in their minds, “the Jews.” It was at this time that the “deicide charge” took root in Christianity. A growing number of Christians now believed that Jews as a people were collectively guilty for the crucifixion of Jesus.

The church reinforced that belief. It was the theme of many statues and other art found in most churches. It was also expressed in the sermons and teachings not only of priests and bishops but also of charismatic speakers like Peter the Hermit. Not surprisingly, a number of crusaders and the pilgrims who accompanied them decided that it was “preposterous to set out on a long journey to kill God’s enemies far away, while God’s worst enemies, the Jews, are dwelling in ease close at hand.”

In the fourth century, in ancient cities like Antioch and Alexandria, few Christians had paid much attention to preachers who claimed that “the Jews” had murdered Jesus. They lived among Jews and knew them as neighbors, relatives, and coworkers. As citizens of the Roman Empire, they also knew that it was Roman soldiers who had placed Jesus on the cross. However, in the eleventh century in northern Europe, most people knew little or nothing about Rome or its empire. Its history was, at best, a very distant memory.

The Jews of France were the first to realize that this so-called holy war was something new and very dangerous to them and to other Jews. They listened to the fiery speeches and watched the armies gather. They also heard the cries for revenge on “God’s enemies.”

French Jews were no strangers to violence. Attacks were commonplace. Most were triggered by a local problem—an injustice or a dispute within a community. Still, once the matter was settled, calm returned and life continued as usual. But Jews in France now sensed that a different kind of violence was coming.

J
EWISH
C
OMMUNITIES
A
TTACKED BY
C
RUSADERS
(1096–1149)

The map shows that most of the attacks on European Jews during the first and second crusades took place within the German Empire.

In December 1095, leaders of Jewish communities in France sent urgent letters to Jewish communities in the Rhineland. French Jews expressed fears for their own safety and warned that crusaders might soon be headed east. In the end, however, it was not the Jews of France but the Jews of Germany who were in grave danger. In 1095, France was divided into regions, each controlled by a powerful duke or count. These rulers had no intention of allowing any army to attack their villages and towns, and they were strong enough to keep order. In Germany, however, only the Holy Roman emperor had that much power, and he was in Italy when the crusaders set out on their journey. In the meantime, dozens
of barons and knights put together their own armies and set out to fight “God’s enemies.”

One of those nobles was a landowner known as Count Emicho. In May and June of 1096, he and his followers systematically attacked Jewish communities in the Rhineland. In almost every community, they gave Jews a choice: conversion to Christianity or death. These crusaders insisted that forced conversions were the will of God. Not surprisingly, Jews had a different view. They believed that the choice before them was a supreme test of their commitment to God.

On the morning of May 3, 1096, a Saturday, Emicho led a surprise attack on the synagogue in Speyer. When he and his men burst into the building, they found it empty. Someone had warned the Jews. Outraged, the soldiers searched the town with the help of a number of burghers. In the end, they found and killed 11 Jews.

Where were the others? The current bishop, Johann, was determined to live up to the charter written by his predecessor, Bishop Rudiger. He used his own army to escort the Jews of Speyer to a safe place in the countryside. Then, after the crusaders left town, Bishop Johann tried and punished all of the burghers who had taken part in killing the 11 Jews. Justice prevailed in Speyer.

Jews in other cities were not as fortunate. After hearing what had happened in Speyer, Jews in Worms debated what to do. According to a chronicler, they could not agree on a plan of action. Some sought refuge with the bishop of Worms, while others remained in their homes. In the end, neither group survived. The first Jews to be assaulted were those who stayed home. The chronicler wrote:

[Enemies of the Jews] plotted craftily against them. They took a trampled corpse of theirs, that had been buried thirty days earlier, and carried it through the city, saying: “Behold what the Jews have done to our comrade. They took a gentile and boiled him in water. They then poured the water into our wells in order to kill us.” When the crusaders and burghers heard this, they cried out and gathered—all who bore and unsheathed [a sword], from great to small—saying: “Behold, the time has come to avenge him who was crucified, whom their ancestors slew. Now let not a remnant or a residue escape; even an infant… in the cradle.
⁵

The mob killed almost every Jew who had chosen to remain in town. Two weeks later, Emicho turned his attention to those who had found refuge
in the bishop’s towers. As free men, Jews were allowed to have weapons, and many now used their swords and knives to defend themselves and their families. Their wives and children joined in the fight by hurling stones at their attackers. They were, however, hopelessly outnumbered.

By nightfall the battle was over. Many of the Jews who survived killed themselves and their children rather than allow the crusaders to do so. Jewish chroniclers would later refer to these acts as “the sanctification of the Name of God”—
Kiddush ha-Shem
in Hebrew. These Jews were seen as martyrs—individuals who had chosen to give up their lives rather than renounce their religion.

Next, Count Emicho turned his attention to Mainz, which was home to the largest Jewish community in the Rhineland. When the army reached the city, Mainz’s burghers opened the gates. Once inside, the soldiers and the burghers headed for the archbishop’s compound, where most Jews had found refuge. The Jews prepared to defend themselves, expecting support from the archbishop’s knights. A chronicler later wrote:

They [the Jews] all then drew near to the gate to do battle with the crusaders and with the burghers…. The enemy overcame them and captured the gate. The men of the archbishop, who had promised to assist, fled immediately, in order to turn them over to the enemy, for they are splintered reeds.
⁶

The crusaders gave the Jews of Mainz the same choice they had offered Jews in the other communities: death or Christianity. Almost everyone chose death. Some simply waited for the crusaders to kill them. A few tried to escape, only to be captured and killed. Others—including women and children—took their own lives.

The crusaders then targeted the Jews who had hidden in the walled courtyard of a local ruler. Once they had been dealt with, soldiers went from house to house searching for any Jew who remained in the city. More than a thousand Jews were murdered that day. Emicho and his men then moved on to other cities and towns.

How do we know what happened? Men in the various crusader armies wrote eyewitness accounts that mention the attacks on Jews and Jewish resistance but provide few details. Most of the details have come from Jewish sources—particularly three chronicles that describe the events of the spring of 1096. In these accounts, the victims are the heroes. Many are mentioned by name, and their deeds are described at length. It is as if the authors wanted readers to know that this tragedy did not happen to nameless, faceless people but to real men, women, and
children—individuals willing to fight for their religion and, if necessary, die for it.

For example, one chronicle tells of a young man named Simchah the
kohen
. (A
kohen
is a male member of the Jewish priestly class, a descendent of Moses’s brother Aaron, according to Jewish tradition.) Crusaders surrounded Simchah in Worms, dragged him into a church, and demanded that he convert to Christianity on the spot or die. He promised to “fulfill their desire” but said he wanted to see the bishop first. Once in the bishop’s chamber, Simchah pulled out a knife and attacked the crusaders. He killed three men before he himself was murdered.

In Mainz, David the
gabbai
(a synagogue official) used his last moments to confront the crusaders and their followers by publicly challenging their beliefs and defending his own. As he surely expected, his words enraged the mob and he and his family were promptly killed.