The Persecution of Jews during the Crusades

The Crusades inaugurated a cycle of anti-Jewish violence of unprecedented scale in Western Europe. In the spring of 1096, during the First Crusade, armed bands making their way to the Holy Land carried out massacres in Jewish communities of the Rhine valley, notably in Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, demanding that Jews convert or die. Faced with this choice, many chose martyrdom (kiddush ha-Shem, the "sanctification of the Name"), sometimes going so far as to take their own lives rather than apostatize—a gesture that left a deep mark on Ashkenazic collective consciousness. These pogroms recurred during subsequent Crusades and prepared a lasting climate of hostility, from which the ritual murder accusation and the diabolization of the Jew would later emerge. Survivors and witnesses composed chronicles and elegies (kinot), moving accounts of martyrdom that were incorporated into the liturgy and constitute a major historical and literary source on these foundational traumas.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• Jewish Virtual Library ↗