When Jews Were Attacked and killed in Europe and In Palestine in the 1st and 2nd Crusades

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                       

                    The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule.  They were Europeans  attacking Arabs and Jews for they couldn't see the difference, if any, in those days.  No doubt they all wore the same clothing.   Mohammad was born in 570 and died in 632.  The Arabs were  Muslims.  However, the actual conquest did not begin until 634, two years after Muhammad's death. It was led by the first two Rashidun caliphs who succeeded Muhammad: Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab.  

40 Years Of Israeli Occupation. By 1516, the Ottoman Turks invaded and occupied Palestine, an occupation that lasted for 402 years (1516-1918), except for the 9 years between 1831 and 1840, when the Egyptian Governor Muhammad Ali sent his troops to capture Palestine under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha. The Ottoman Empire had taken over Palestine and held it for 400 years, giving it up only when they lost WWI as they had joined Germany's side in the war.  The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I, was around 40 million. There were 20 million deaths and 21 million wounded.

Syria had been under Roman rule for seven centuries prior to the Arab Muslim conquest and had been invaded by the Sassanid Persians on a number of occasions during the 3rd, 6th and 7th centuries; it had also been subject to raids by the Sassanids' Arab allies, the Lakhmids. During the Roman period, beginning after the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70, the entire region (Judea, Samaria, and the Galilee)in 132-135  was renamed Palaestina when Bar Kokhba, a Jewish general, had taken back Jerusalem and held it for those 3 years, causing the Romans to be enraged, subdivided into Diocese I and II. The Romans also renamed an area of land including the Negev, Sinai, and the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula as Palaestina Salutaris, sometimes called Palaestina III or Palaestina Tertia. Part of the area was ruled by the Arab vassal state of the Ghassanids' symmachos.                                                       

First Crusade. The First Crusade (1095–1099) refers to the activities from the Council of Clermont of 1095 through the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the battle of Ascalon in 1099.  The First Crusade was led by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Godfrey of Bouillon, Hugh of Vermandois, Bohemond of Otranto, and Robert of Flanders.  Thomas Asbridge's The First Crusade: A New History (2004) is among the standard references used today.

Raymond of Saint-Gilles (c. 1041 – 28 February 1105), also called Raymond IV of Toulouse or Raymond I of Tripoli, was the count of Toulouse,France;  duke of Narbonne, and margrave of Provence from 1094, and one of the leaders of the First Crusade from 1096 to 1099. He spent the last five years of his life establishing the County of Tripoli in the Near East

Godfrey of Bouillon, Belgium,  was a pre-eminent leader of the First Crusade, and the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100, although he avoided the title of king, preferring that of prince and Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri, or Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre.

Hugh, called the Great was the first count of Vermandois, France;   from the House of Capet. He is known primarily for being one of the leaders of the First Crusade.

Bohemond of Otranto, Italy :  1054 – 5 or 7 March 1111), also known as Bohemond of Taranto or Bohemond of Hauteville, was the prince of Taranto, Italy  from 1089 to 1111 and the prince of Antioch (Antioch on the Orontes was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. It was one of the greatest and most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period. The city served as the capital of the Seleucid Empire and later as regional capital to both the Roman and Byzantine Empire. from 1098 to 1111. He was a leader of the First Crusade, leading a contingent of Normans (Norman, member of those Vikings, or Norsemen, who settled in northern France (or the Frankish kingdom), together with their descendants. The Normans founded the duchy of Normandy and sent out expeditions of conquest and colonization to southern Italy and Sicily and to England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland on the quest eastward.

                                             

                                             

People's Crusade. The People's Crusade (1096) was a prelude to the First Crusade led by Peter the Hermit, the first of what is known as the Popular Crusades.  Peter the Hermit, also known as Little Peter, Peter of Amiens or Peter of Achères, was a Roman Catholic priest of Amiens and a key figure during the military expedition from France to Jerusalem, known as the People's Crusade. It is sometimes regarded as an integral part of the First Crusade, with the Princes' Crusade as the second part. What has become known as the People's Crusade passed through Germany and indulged in wide-ranging anti-Jewish activities, including the Rhineland massacres. On leaving Byzantine-controlled territory in Anatolia, they were annihilated in a Turkish ambush led by the Seljuk Kilij Arslan I at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096. The People's Crusade followed Peter the Hermit.Peter the Hermit, also known as Little Peter, Peter of Amiens or Peter of Achères, was a Roman Catholic priest of Amiens and a key figure during the military expedition from France to Jerusalem, known as the People's Crusade.

The Rhineland massacres, also known as the German Crusade of 1096 or Gzerot Tatnó (Hebrew: גזרות תתנ"ו, "Edicts of 4856"), were a series of mass murders of Jews perpetrated by mobs of French and German Christians of the People's Crusade in the year 1096, or 4856 according to the Hebrew calendar. These massacres are often seen as the first in a sequence of antisemitic events in Europe which culminated in the Holocaust.  As they had gathered together, they were attacking anyone in Europe that was Jewish.  This was anti-Semitism, pure and simple.They attacked women and children and the men, it made no difference to them.  

Prominent leaders of crusaders involved in the massacres included Peter the Hermit and especially Count Emicho. As part of this persecution, the destruction of Jewish communities in Speyer, Worms and Mainz was noted as the Hurban Shum (Destruction of Shum). These were new persecutions of the Jews in which peasant crusaders from France and Germany attacked Jewish communities. A number of historians have referred to the violence as "pogroms"; one of the  1st pogroms giving other countries ideas.  

These attacks are told about in the book, THE SOURCE, by James Michener.  

Robert II, Count of Flanders (region in Belgium)  (c. 1065 – 5 October 1111) was Count of Flanders from 1093 to 1111. He became known as Robert of Jerusalem (Robertus Hierosolimitanus) or Robert the Crusader after his exploits in the First Crusade. From 1085 to 1091 he was regent of the county while his father was away on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.   After becoming count in 1093, Robert joined the First Crusade, launched by Pope Urban II in 1095. He made his wife, Clementia of Burgundy, regent in Flanders, and formed the army of Robert the Crusader that followed the retinue of his kinsman Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine.

The Second Crusade (1147-1149 CE) was a military campaign organised by the Pope and European nobles to recapture the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia which had fallen in 1144 CE to the Muslim Seljuk Turks. The Seljuk Empire (1050–1300 AD) was a medieval Turkish Empire based in central Anatolia. The pastoralist Turks overtook Asia Minor during the 1070's and ruled until 1300. 

The Seljuks left a rich historical legacy. They brought Turkic culture and Islam into Anatolia, and later morphed into the Ottoman Empire.

Edessa (/ɪˈdɛsə/, ee-DESS-ə; Ancient Greek: Ἔδεσσα, romanized: Édessa) was an ancient city (polis) in Upper Mesopotamia, in what is now Urfa, Turkey. It was founded during the Hellenistic period by King Seleucus I Nicator (r. 305–281 BC), founder of the Seleucid Empire. It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, and continued as capital of the Roman province of Osroene. In Late Antiquity, it became a prominent center of Christian learning and seat of the Catechetical School of Edessa. During the Crusades, it was the capital of the County of Edessa.

The preaching of the First Crusade inspired an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence. In parts of France and Germany, Jews were perceived as just as much of an enemy as Muslims: they were held responsible for the crucifixion, and they were more immediately visible than the distant Muslims. Many people wondered why they should travel thousands of miles to fight non-believers when there were already non-believers closer to home.  

This could be the same motivation for the recent shootings of 3 Muslim Palestinian college men by a civilian of the town when they passed by him.Two of them were wearing Kaffiyas for identification.The young men had to be  aware of wearing thee large scarves would cause attention ever since October 7th.  Probably they did it just for that purpose.  They had their purpose in doing it.  They've been on TV garnering positive attention and hatred for the Jews.  

The Second Crusade was announced by Pope Eugene III, (Eugenius III, (born, near Pisa—died July 8, 1153, Tivoli, near Rome; beatified 1872), ; feast day July 8), pope from 1145 to 1153.) and was the first of the crusades to be led by European kings, namely Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, with help from a number of other European nobles.

 Pope Lucius II (died 15 February 1145), born Gherardo Caccianemici dal Orso, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1144 to his death in 1145.  Pope Lucius III (c. 1097 – 25 November 1185), born Ubaldo Allucingoli, reigned from 1 September 1181 to his death in 1185. Born of an aristocratic family of Lucca, prior to being elected pope, he had a long career as a papal diplomat. His papacy was marked by conflicts with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, his exile from Rome and the initial preparations for the Third Crusade.

The Second Crusade was headed by King Louis VII of France and Emperor Conrad III of Germany.   Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger, or the Young (French: le Jeune), was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI (hence the epithet "the Young") and married Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe.  During his march, as part of the Second Crusade in 1147, Louis stayed at the court of King Géza II of Hungary on the way to Jerusalem. During his stay in the Holy Land disagreements with his wife led to a deterioration in their marriage. She persuaded him to stay in Antioch but Louis instead wanted to fulfil his vows of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was later involved in the failed siege of Damascus and eventually returned to France in 1149.

Emperor Conrad III of Germany  was involved in the failed Second Crusade with Louis VII, where he would fight and lose at Doryleum and would later fall ill and return to Constantinople. 

After recuperating, he went to Jerusalem but would experience a string of failed sieges. Later returning from the Crusade, he was entangled in some conflicts with Welf VI's claim to the Duchy of Bavaria. On his deathbed, he designated his nephew Frederick Barbarossa as his successor instead of his son, Frederick IV, Duke of Swabia.The Duchy of Bavaria (German: Herzogtum Bayern) was a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom from the sixth through the eighth century. It was settled by Bavarian tribes and ruled by dukes (duces) under Frankish overlordship.

The Crusades kept going to the 5th one.  

Resource:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Crusades

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_the_Levant#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20actual%20conquest%20did,and%20Umar%20ibn%20al%2DKhattab.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhineland_massacres