Parchment Burning

Rouen, Gaul 1096 The massacre of the Jews of Rouen is recorded in an autobiography by abbot Guibert of Nogent. He relates that Crusaders from Rouen had an epiphany: Before they traveled all the way to Jerusalem to kill Jews, they should take care of business at home. "We want to attack the enemies of God in the east after traveling great distances, while before our eyes are the Jews, of all races God's greatest enemy." They took up their weapons and forced the Jews into the synagogue and slaughtered everyone who would not convert. (Norman Golb,  The Jews in Medieval Normandy 117-118 )

Jerusalem 1099 The events of the first crusade were extremely influential in terms of how Ashkenazi Jews viewed martyrdom. In particular, when it comes to martyrdom in synagogues, the story of Yitzchak the Hassid in Mainz was widely disseminated and has already been covered on this blog. However, another major synagogue massacre occurred once the crusaders arrived in the Holy Land. The Crusaders reached Jerusalem on June 7, 1099. They put the city under siege and set about looking for wood to build ladders and siege engines. They eventually disassembled a ship in the port of Jaffa for the planks. On July 14 the assault began and the city was breached. Once inside Jerusalem, the Crusaders brutally massacred the city's inhabitants, in a manner that exceeded even the bloody norms of the time. Jews had fought alongside the Muslim soldiers who defended the city. The city's Muslim population was slaughtered on the Temple Mount, while the Jews retreated to the synagogue and pr...

1096 Monieux, France In 1931, a letter was published from the Cairo Geniza which described a medieval pogrom in the French commune of Monieux. In the letter, Yehoshua ben Ovadia testifies about the righteousness of a local convert to Judaism who had a married a Jewish man and resettled in Monieux to avoid detection by her family. During the first crusade the village was on the route of Raymond of St-Gilles' Provencal army through the Alps. (Norman Golb, The Jews in Medieval Normandy , 127) When the French crusaders entered the town they attacked the Jews. The letter relates that the woman's husband was killed in the synagogue, while two of her children were kidnapped. The impoverished Jewish community could not support her in her plight, so writer was asking that another Jewish community take her in. As it was discovered in Cairo, the assumption is that she had to travel extensively to find a new home. (See also a later article by Norman Golb , in which he considers altern...