In 1996 the world commemorates the 900th anniversary of the First Crusade or, more precisely, of the pogroms unleashed by the crusade upon the Jews of the Rhineland. In the Year 1096 ... presents a clear, highly readable chronicle of the events of 1096. Noted teacher and historian Robert Chazan brings readers to critical moments in Jewish history, illuminating the events themselves, their antecedents, and their far-reaching consequences. Equally important, his book assesses the significance of the events of 1096 within the larger framework of Jewish history, including both the scope of persecution and the record of Jewish resistance. He has created a dramatic portrait of the clash between three conflicting forces in medieval Europe: the German crusaders, the Rhineland burghers, and the Rhineland Jews. His book provides an extensive look at the Christian assaults and the intense Jewish responses, with much material translated directly from remarkable Hebrew narratives which are admirable for both the vividness of their description and the complexity of the portrait they provide. Chazan tells the story of 1096 in "grays," not blacks and whites; that is, he relates stories of Christian enemies, but also of Christian friends, and of Jewish martyrs, but also of Jewish negotiators and converts. The author devotes the second half of In the Year 1096 ... to tracing these events through the intervening nine centuries of Jewish history. In the second part he surveys the Jewish perception of 1096 over the ages, including both the neglect of these events in some quarters and their emphasis in others; he places 1096 within the lengthy history of anti-Jewish actions and thinking, and examines the unusual behaviors of the Rhineland Jews within the context of historic Jewish responses to persecution
How are martyrs made, and how do the memories of martyrs express, nourish, and mold the ideals of the community? Sanctifying the Name of God wrestles with these questions against the background of the massacres of Jews in the Rhineland during the outbreak of the First Crusade. Marking the first extensive wave of anti-Jewish violence in medieval Christian Europe, these "Persecutions of 1096" exerted a profound influence on the course of European Jewish history. When the crusaders demanded that Jews choose between Christianity and death, many opted for baptism. Many others, however, chose to die as Jews rather than to live as Christians, and of these, many actually inflicted death upon themselves and their loved ones. Stories of their self-sacrifice ushered the Jewish ideal of martyrdom—kiddush ha-Shem, the sanctification of God's holy name—into a new phase, conditioning the collective memory and mindset of Ashkenazic Jewry for centuries to come, during the Holocaust, and even today. The Jewish survivors of 1096 memorialized the victims as martyrs as they rebuilt their communities during the decades following the Crusade. Three twelfth-century Hebrew chronicles of the persecutions preserve their memories of martyrdom and self-sacrifice, tales fraught with symbolic meaning that constitute one of the earliest Jewish attempts at local, contemporary historiography. Reading and analyzing these stories through the prism of Jewish and Christian religious and literary traditions, Jeremy Cohen shows how these persecution chronicles reveal much more about the storytellers, the martyrologists, than about the martyrs themselves. While they extol the glorious heroism of the martyrs, they also air the doubts, guilt, and conflicts of those who, by submitting temporarily to the Christian crusaders, survived.
The unique emotional power of each chronicle may be felt in the translation. The Chronicle of Solomon bar Samson is a moving narrative concerning the Rhineland massacres. The second chronicle, that of Eliezer bar Nathan, interprets some of the same events in elegiac style and liturgical language while the third chronicle, the Mainz Anonymous though fragmented, is highly analytical in nature. The fourth chronicle, Sefer Zekhirah, is a personal description of the Second Crusade, full of poignant detail. Together, the chronicles present a moving human record of these events, of value not only to professional historians but to all who seek to broaden their understanding of the Jewish experience.
Closely focused on the Hebrew First-Crusade narratives, this text examines the three surviving accounts of the crusaders assaults on the Rhineland Jewish communities in 1096. These accounts are compared with earlier Jewish history writing and with contemporary crusade historiography.
Fifteen papers from a conference held at the University of Notre Dame in 1996 which explore the tensions that characterised the relationship between Jews and Christians across Europe during the 12th century. The movement of Jews into Slavic territories and into Anglo-Norman England also led to the creation of their own global language. Subjects include the Jewish Renaissance of the 12th century, changing perceptions of the Christian-Jewish conflict, conversion, expulsions, Christian and Jewish religious and secular texts, Jews in France and England.
The first encylopedic guide to the history of relations between Jews and Muslims around the world This is the first encyclopedic guide to the history of relations between Jews and Muslims around the world from the birth of Islam to today. Richly illustrated and beautifully produced, the book features more than 150 authoritative and accessible articles by an international team of leading experts in history, politics, literature, anthropology, and philosophy. Organized thematically and chronologically, this indispensable reference provides critical facts and balanced context for greater historical understanding and a more informed dialogue between Jews and Muslims. Part I covers the medieval period; Part II, the early modern period through the nineteenth century, in the Ottoman Empire, Africa, Asia, and Europe; Part III, the twentieth century, including the exile of Jews from the Muslim world, Jews and Muslims in Israel, and Jewish-Muslim politics; and Part IV, intersections between Jewish and Muslim origins, philosophy, scholarship, art, ritual, and beliefs. The main articles address major topics such as the Jews of Arabia at the origin of Islam; special profiles cover important individuals and places; and excerpts from primary sources provide contemporary views on historical events. Contributors include Mark R. Cohen, Alain Dieckhoff, Michael Laskier, Vera Moreen, Gordon D. Newby, Marina Rustow, Daniel Schroeter, Kirsten Schulze, Mark Tessler, John Tolan, Gilles Veinstein, and many more. Covers the history of relations between Jews and Muslims around the world from the birth of Islam to today Written by an international team of leading scholars Features in-depth articles on social, political, and cultural history Includes profiles of important people (Eliyahu Capsali, Joseph Nasi, Mohammed V, Martin Buber, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, Edward Said, Messali Hadj, Mahmoud Darwish) and places (Jerusalem, Alexandria, Baghdad) Presents passages from essential documents of each historical period, such as the Cairo Geniza, Al-Sira, and Judeo-Persian illuminated manuscripts Richly illustrated with more than 250 images, including maps and color photographs Includes extensive cross-references, bibliographies, and an index
"Seven Myths of the Crusades' rebuttal of the persistent and multifarious misconceptions associated with topics including the First Crusade, anti-Judaism and the Crusades, the crusader states, the Children's Crusade, the Templars and past and present Islamic-Christian relations proves, once and for all, that real history is far more fascinating than conspiracy theories, pseudo-history and myth-mongering. This book is a powerful witness to the dangers of the misappropriation and misinterpretation of the past and the false parallels so often drawn between the crusades and later historical events ranging from nineteenth-century colonialism to the protest movements of the 1960s to the events of 9/11. This volume's authors have venerable track records in teaching and researching the crusading movement, and anyone curious about the crusades would do well to start here." —Jessalynn Bird, Dominican University, co-Editor of Crusade and Christendom
Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī’s Treatise against the Jews offers rare and illuminating insight into Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations during the Crusader era, not from the perspective of western Crusaders, but from the frequently neglected viewpoint of the oriental orthodox tradition. Bar Ṣalībī, a distinguished hierarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church, lived in a turbulent time of heightened tensions in the Levant. The Treatise against the Jews, which forms part of the corpus of Syriac Polemical Works, investigates the prejudices of Christians and Jews towards each other during the 12 century AD.This edition and translation is based on all the available manuscripts of the text, accompanied by extensive introductions, notes and commentary as well as studies of its place in the field of Syriac Patristic Polemics.
In God's Battalions, award-winning author Rodney Stark takes on the long-held view that the Crusades were the first round of European colonialism, conducted for land, loot, and converts by barbarian Christians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. To the contrary, Stark argues that the Crusades were the first military response to unwarranted Muslim terrorist aggression. Stark reviews the history of the seven major Crusades from 1095 to 1291, demonstrating that the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations, centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West, and sudden attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places. Although the Crusades were initiated by a plea from the pope, Stark argues that this had nothing to do with any elaborate design of the Christian world to convert all Muslims to Christianity by force of arms. Given current tensions in the Middle East and terrorist attacks around the world, Stark's views are a thought-provoking contribution to our understanding and are sure to spark debate.