The hostility and restrictions Glückel experienced were nothing new. As an educated woman, she would have been aware of the long history of assaults on Europe’s Jews. She would have known, for example, that the Crusades, while a symbol of faith for many Christians, were nothing short of catastrophic for Europe’s Jews. As armies of Crusaders moved through Europe in the late eleventh century, they joined with local Christians in horrific attacks on Jewish communities. This account of anti-Jewish violence by an anonymous Jewish resident of Mainz, a German city in which more than 1,000 Jews were killed, provides a sense of the ferocity of the attacks. As you read it, think about what it tells you about the position of Jews in medieval Europe. What means of defense, if any, did they have against the hostility of their Christian neighbors? Given an opportunity to read this account, what similarities might Glückel have noted between her own experiences and those of the author?

I shall begin the account with the former persecution. May the Lord protect us and all Israel from persecution.

It came to pass in the year one thousand twenty-eight after the destruction of the Temple that this evil befell Israel. There first arose the princes and nobles and common folk in France, who took counsel and set plans to ascend and “to rise up like eagles” and to do battle and “to clear a way” for journeying to Jerusalem, the Holy City, and for reaching the sepulcher of the Crucified, “a trampled corpse” “who cannot profit and cannot save for he is worthless.” They said to one another: “Behold we travel to a distant land to do battle with the kings of that land. ‘We take our souls in our hands’ in order to kill and to subjugate all those kingdoms that do not believe in the Crucified. How much more so [should we kill and subjugate] the Jews, who killed and crucified him.” They taunted us from every direction. They took counsel, ordering that either we turn to their abominable faith or they would destroy us “from infant to suckling.” They — both princes and common folk — placed an evil sign upon their garments, a cross, and helmets upon their heads.

When the [Jewish] communities in France heard, they were seized by consternation, fear, and trembling. . . . They wrote letters and sent emissaries to all the [Jewish] communities along the Rhine River, [asking that they] fast and deprive themselves and seek mercy from [God “who dwells on high,” so that he deliver them [the Jews] from their [the crusaders’] hands. When the letters reached the saintly ones who were in that land, they — those men of God, “pillars of the universe,” who were in Mainz — wrote in reply to France. Thus was it written in them [their letters]: “All the [Jewish] communities have decreed a fast. We have done our part. May God save us and save you from ‘all distress and hardship.’ We are greatly fearful for you. We, however, have less reason to fear [for ourselves], for we have heard not even a rumor [of such developments].” Indeed we did not hear that a decree had been issued and that “a sword was to afflict us mortally.”

When the crusaders began to reach this land, they sought funds with which to purchase bread. We gave them, considering ourselves to be fulfilling the verse: “Serve the king of Babylon, and live.” All this, however, was of no avail, for our sins brought it about that the burghers in every city to which the crusaders came were hostile to us, for their [the burghers’] hands were also with them [the crusaders] to destroy vine and stock all along the way to Jerusalem.

It came to pass that, when the crusaders came, battalion after battalion, like the army of Sennacherib, some of the princes in the empire said: “Why do we sit thus? Let us also go with them. For every man who sets forth on this journey and undertakes to ascend to the impure sepulcher dedicated to the Crucified will be assured paradise.” Then the crusaders along with them [the princes] gathered from all the provinces until they became as numerous “as the sands of the sea,” including both princes and common folk. They circulated a report . . . “Anyone who kills a single Jew will have all his sins absolved.” Indeed there was a certain nobleman, Ditmar, by name, who announced that he would not depart from this empire until he would kill one Jew — then he would depart. Now when the holy community in Mainz heard this, they decreed a fast. “They cried out mightily to the Lord,” and they passed night and day in fasting. Likewise they recited dirges both morning and evening, both small and great. Nonetheless our God “did not turn away from his awesome wrath” against us. For the crusaders with their insignia came, with their standards before our houses. When they saw one of us, they ran after him and pierced him with a spear, to the point that we were afraid even to cross our thresholds.

Source: Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 225–227. Reproduced with permission of the University of California Press in the format Republish in a book via Copyright Clearance Center.

Questions to Consider