The Crusades in Mainz, 1096

Mainz
1096

Mainz was one of the three major European Jewish communities that was destroyed during the First Crusade. The community's fate was chronicled by Shlomo ben Shimon a generation after it occurred.

Among the many accounts, he tells of Yitzchak the Hassid, who survived the initial wave of attacks by converting, but then had remorse. He decided that in order to atone he had to give himself up and die sanctifying the name of God.

Yitzchak tells his mother "I have decided to bring a sin offering to God." He takes his son and daughter to the synagogue, stands before the Ark and cuts their throats. As he watches their blood spurt onto the ark he cries out "Let there blood be an atonement for my sins!"

He returns home, burns his house down (with his mother inside), then returns to the synagogue and does the same, beseeching God from within the flames. Another Jew, Ori, decides to join him in the flames, and the two perish.

The synagogue is saved from becoming a church (by its destruction) and the Jews are saved from Christianity (by their death).

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