Rhineland massacres

The Rhineland massacres, or the German Crusade of 1096, were a series of massacres committed against Jews across the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) in 1096 AD.^[1] Cities where Jews were killed included Mainz^[2] and Speyer^[1] ‒ both centers of Jewish cultural life.^[1] Historians described the massacres as pogroms or genocidal massacres.^[1]

Jews started living in German land in 321 AD under the Roman Empire.^[3][4] They formed the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews (Hebrew: יהדות אשכנז) in the Middle Ages,^[5][6] who survived centuries of pogroms^[7][8] and expulsions into the 20th century.^[9]

Under the Germanic Frankish Merovingian dynasty between the 5th and 8th century, Jews were banned from working as public servants.^[10] A succession of ecumenical councils also banned Jews from socializing with Christians or observing the shabbat over the baseless fear that Judaism (the Jewish ethnoreligion) would influence Christians.^[10]

Systematic persecutions of Jews intensified in the 11th century under the Capetian dynasty, when King Robert the Pious tried to kill all Jews who rejected Christian conversion.^[10] Jews across the German land were assaulted, tortured or burned at stakes.^[1][10]

The persecutions coincided with the destruction of the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in 1009, which was exploited by Benedictine monk Rodulfus Glaber to spread rumors about Jewish "involvement" in the destruction.^[11] These happened over the decades until the Rhineland massacres.^[1][11]

The first massacres happened in Germanic Frankish land.^[12] Jewish historian Solomon bar Simson stated in the Hebrew Chronicles that Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the First Crusade's Catholic leaders, made their intention clear:^[12]

[...] to go on this journey only after avenging the blood of the crucified one by shedding Jewish blood and completely eradicating any trace of those bearing the name 'Jew', thus assuaging his own burning wrath.

A piece of anonymous work about the first massacres wrote:^[13]

There first arose the officers, nobles, and common people who were in the land of France [Sarefat] who took counsel together and plotted [...] to make clear the way to go toward Jerusalem [. ... Jewish] communities [...] wrote letters and sent messengers to all the communities around about the River Rhine that they should fast [...] and seek mercy from Him who dwells on high, that He might save them from their hands.

The massacres also came with looting of Jewish food and property by the Catholic Crusaders,^[14] with the Jews subject to attempts of forced conversion to Catholicism.^[14] Some Catholic Crusaders, including the Peter the Hermit, got what they wanted by extorting the Jews,^[12] some of whom barely survived the massacres by accepting forced baptism.^[12]

Instances of forced baptism were reported in Regensburg,^[12] where some Catholic Crusaders forced the Jews into the river Danube for the baptism.^[12] American historian David Nirenberg (b. 1964), specialized in the history of antisemitism, wrote:^[15]

[The Rhineland massacres] occupy a significant place in modern Jewish historiography and are often presented as the first instance of an antisemitism that would henceforth never be forgotten and whose climax was the Holocaust.

Other massacres happened in Cologne, Saxony and Prague in Bohemia, ruled by the HRE back then.^[16] Some historians claimed that the Roman Catholic Church tried to stop the Crusaders from killing Jews,^[16] though the level of opposition to the massacres was unclear^[16][17] – due to widespread antisemitism in society.^[1][17]

Catholic historiography tends to emphasize individual clergy attempts to stop the massacres.^[17] The Catholic Crusaders continued killing as they believed that those who asked them to stop had been bribed by the Jews.^[16][17] Hugo of Flavigny, a Benedictine monk, reportedly wrote:^[16]

It certainly seems amazing that on a single day in many different places, moved in unison by a violent inspiration, such massacres should have taken place, despite their widespread disapproval and their condemnation as contrary to religion.

Albert of Aachen (c. 1100), a priest and the guardian of the church of Aachen, described the horror of the massacres of Jews in Cologne and Mainz:^[17][18]

This slaughter of Jews was done first by citizens of Cologne [...] wounded and killed many [...] destroyed the houses and synagogues of the Jews [...] about 200 in the silence of the night began flight by boat to Neuss. The pilgrims and crusaders discovered them, and after taking away all their possessions, inflicted on them similar slaughter, leaving not even one alive [. ... Crusaders in Mainz] attacked the Jews in the hall [of the local Bishop's palace] with arrows and lances [. ...] killed the Jews, about 700 in number, who in vain resisted the force and attack of so many thousands.

Albert of Aachen also noted that many Jews killed themselves,^[17][18] while the local Bishop fled without fulfilling his promise to protect the Jews as he blamed the Jews for his danger.^[17][18] Albert's narrative was shared by Jewish historian Solomon Bar Samson.^[17][19] Solomon Bar Samson wrote that the massacres happened before the Jews were even offered conversion.^[17][19]

The local Bishop sent a messenger to the survivors, including Kalonymos ben Meshullam,^[17][19] and blamed them for their own suffering by repeating the claim that the Jews killed Jesus,^[17][19] asking them to convert to Christianity.^[17][19]

Some Jews committed mass suicide instead of converting to Christianity,^[17][19] while some did so after forced baptism and the end of the massacres.^[17][19] The scale of the mass suicide remains unclear.^[17]

When the Catholic Crusaders took over the Muslim-ruled Jerusalem,^[20] most Jews were slaughtered.^[20] Many Jews were burned alive in synagogues by Crusaders who knew that they were inside.^[20] The minority of Jewish survivors were either expelled or taken hostage.^[20]

The Letter of the Karaite Elders of Ascalon from the Cairo Geniza states that some important Jews kidnapped by the Catholic Crusaders were let go when Ascalon's Karaite Jews paid the cash ransom (Pidyon shevuyim).^[21]

The Hebrew Chronicles stated that the massacres of Jews were pre-planned by Count Emicho of Flonheim:^[17]

Emicho the wicked, enemy of the Jews, came with his whole army against the city gate [of Mainz, Germany ...] enemies of the Lord said to each other: "Look! They have opened up the gate for us. Now let us avenge the blood of 'the hanged one'."

However, other primary and secondary sources contradicted the claim,^[17] arguing that the massacres happened in chaos.^[17] Despite Roman Catholic Church's historical policy of converting Jews to Christianity,^[22] which was not officially stopped until 1965 AD,^[23] some historians claimed that Albert of Aachen opposed the massacres.^[17][18] Albert of Aachen is said to have written:^[17][18]

[t]he hand of the Lord is believed to have been against the pilgrim who had sinned by excessive impurity and fornication, and who had slaughtered the exiled Jews [...] The Lord is a just judge and orders no one unwillingly, or under compulsion, to come under the yoke of the Catholic faith.

The said historians also claimed that the Crusades were not antisemitic in nature by pointing to the lack of mentions of the Rhineland massacres in church historians' writings,^[17][18] despite unclear correlations between the two.

• Babi Yar
• Iași pogrom
• Odessa massacre
• Antisemitism in Europe
• The Holocaust in Croatia