A Time Machine Looking Back At Jews and Vikings of Europe

 Nadene Goldfoot                                      

Looking  back in Europe, Rome was the site of emerging Christianity by the 300s CE.  They held a meeting citing Judaism was to be restricted completely as their emerging Christianity developed.  Since Rome felt that Jews were competitors, not only in their religion, as many Romans were converting to Judaism, but in commerce as well.              

The Romans, now called the Byzantine Empire with the capital moved to Constantinople,  was predominant and by 637 had taken over Palestine.  Emperor Justinian in 527 to 565 created elaborate anti-Jewish laws in his Code affecting synagogue services.  The very practice of Judaism was formally forbidden by successive emperors.   In 640 and Jews were being forcibly converted to Christianity.  It continued in 721 and 873 with campaigns and attacks.  Then where did the Jews go?               

The Norman Conquest occurred in 1066, a very important year.  Following William the Conqueror were a handful of Jewish financiers from the Continent of Europe.  The next generation saw cities such as London, York, Canterbury established.  The financiers traded, lent money to the baronage, and advanced funds for current needs on security of the revenue to the Crown who protected them.  The English then were a mixture of Vikings and Anglo-Saxons trying to live together, with some Vikings trying to keep their Norse beliefs, and Jews were then entering the scene, trying to keep to their beliefs.  

What were the 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.

Anglo-Saxon writers called them Danes, Norsemen, Northmen, the Great Army, sea rovers, sea wolves, or the heathen. From around 860 CE onwards, Vikings stayed, settled and prospered in Britain, becoming part of the mix of people who today make up the British nation.  Britain was very primitive then, and Vikings were very brutal and powerful. 

William the Conqueror  (1028--9 September 1087), descendant of Rollo who was a Viking who became the first ruler of Normandy, today a region in northern France.  So Willian was also  the former Duke of Normandy. 

The blue shading is the Viking (Danish, Norse land of Britain)

The final Viking invasion of England came in 1066, when Harald Hardrada sailed up the River Humber and marched to Stamford Bridge with his men. His battle banner was called Land-waster. The English king, Harold Godwinson, marched north with his army and defeated Hardrada in a long and bloody battle. The English had repelled the last invasion from Scandinavia.   (William’s army crossed the English Channel on the night of 27–28 September 1066, just as King Harold marched north to fight an invading force led by King Harald Hardrada of Norway (reigned 1046–1066) and  the English Harold Godwinson’s own brother, Tostig.)  What are the odds in 1066 that the 2 incumbents of England and Norway would be both named Harold? Both had Viking genes. Many of the English people today carry Viking genes. The latest news is that only 6% of English carry Viking genes.  This is compared with Sweden who only has 10%.  

In 1290 the Jews were expulsed from England and wouldn't be allowed back in for the next 365 years. until 1655.  

Vikings settled in and raided many places in what is today called Germany, mainly along the Rhein river, the North Sea coast, and the Scandinavian borderlands.  Jews lived in Worms, Germany. 

13th century forced costuming for German Jews below.

       

                       Jewish man in Worms in 16th Century-

A pre-Roman foundation, Worms is one of the oldest cities in northern Europe. It was the capital of the Kingdom of the Burgundians in the early 5th century, hence is the scene of the medieval legends referring to this period.

By the year, 1,000 Worms, Germany became most important to Jews as their center with rabbis meeting together and working on understanding the Torah. 

Worms was a  town in Rhein-Hesse, grand duchy of Hesse, Germany. Like Mayence and Cologne, it has one of the oldest Jewish communities in Germany. A legend relates that the Jews of Worms were descended from the Benjamites who had migrated from Palestine to Germany. It is possible that there was a congregation there in the time of the Romans, but the first historical reference is the statement that Jews from this city visited the fair at Cologne about the year 1000.  The earliest authentic information regarding the community, however, dates back only to 1034. On Jan. 18, 1074, Emperor Henry IV. granted the "Jews and other citizens of Worms" exemption from customs duties in the royal-customs ports of Frankfort, Boppard, Dortmund, Goslar, etc., as a reward for their fidelity.

In 1096 the Christian German Crusade managed to massacre Jews in European Jews on their way to Jerusalem. The massacre at Worms was one of a number of attacks against Jewish communities perpetrated during the First Crusade (1096–1099). Followers of Count Emicho arrived at Worms on May 18, 1096. Soon after his arrival, a rumor spread that the Jews had boiled a Christian alive, and used his corpse to contaminate water to poison the town's wells. The local populace later joined forces with Emicho and launched a savage attack on the town's Jews, who had been given sanctuary in Bishop Adalbert's palace, though others chose to remain outside its walls. They were the first to be massacred.               

3 years later in Jerusalem the Crusaders massacred the Jews who lived there. This was one time when Jews and Arabs were on the same side as the Crusaders couldn't differentiate between the two, and wanted to wipe out both as it was.  

Scandinavian settlements in Eastern Europe actually date back to at least A.D. 750. This is when pre-Viking-Age Scandinavians likely settled the NW Russian town of Staraya Ladoga (or “Old Ladoga”), across Lake Ladoga from what is now Finland. One of the artifacts archaeologists have unearthed from the city is a talisman with the face of Odin, the Norse god of war.

For four centuries, Vikings held sway over parts of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, with the greatest expansion happening under Prince Oleg the Prophet. The historical people known as Vikings, who hailed from Scandinavia in Northern Europe, are well-known today for their exploits in the west. The merchant-warriors also made their way into Eastern Europe, where they helped found a medieval federation in territory now known as Belarus, Ukraine and part of Russia. Their loose federation of principalities called Kievan Rus survived for nearly 400 years, finally collapsing during the 13th-century Mongol invasion.

          By the 12th century, there was a Jewish gate mentioned in Kiev, Russia, so some Jews had gone there to try their hand in trading.  There was even a Jewish Quarter that had been looted in 1113.  However, Russian clauses written with foreign powers  in 1550 in treaties prohibited Jews from visiting the country. Jews must have been allowed in afterwards as they were expelled in 1727, 1738 and 1742.  Then in 1753, no surprise now, 35,000 Jews were driven out of Russia.  Catherine II permitted all aliens to live there except the Jews.  Why?  Our religion was different;  it wasn't Christianity.  This was the situation wherever they tried to live.

Jews were living in France before 70 CE when Jerusalem was burned to the ground by the Romans.  The 8th century was a safe time for Jews who were under the protection of Charle-magne and his house.  By the 9th century, southern France was the main center of the Radanites, international traders.  They were Jewish merchants who traveled between southern France and China. 

In Autumn 845, the Vikings were raiding Bordeaux, France and Saintes. Count Seguin II marched on them but was captured and executed.  Although the port of Bordeaux was a buzzing trade center, the stability and success of the city was threatened by Viking and Norman incursions and political instability. The restoration of the Ramnulfid Dukes of Aquitaine under William IV and his successors (known as the House of Poitiers) brought continuity of government.

A map of Europe showing Viking settlements during the Viking Age. Areas subjected to Viking raids but had no Vikings living there are shown in green.  France and Spain are pictured.  

In 1306 the Christian's religious fever reached France who expulsed their Jews of the land.

  A Norse fleet with its blood red sails landed in Galicia after sacking Bordeaux, and proceeded to plunder the coastal villages until they were halted by the troops of King Ramiro I of Asturias near A Coruña on the northwestern coast of Galicia.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, banishing Jews The earliest Viking raid on Spain took place in the year 844.

Then in 1355, the Christian religious zeal and demands came to Spain and Jews were expulsed from there. They had lived in Spain since the 1st century CE, going there after 70CE's burning of Jerusalem and expulsion of their land.  1492 was the final expulsion date when they fled to Portugal, next door, only to find that door close to them in a few more years. 

 “The forced conversion and deportation of the Jews of Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century were a dramatic shock wave for the Jewish society people, as one of the main Jewish centers was wiped out almost overnight. Many Jews either escaped to other places or converted to Christianity and became new Christians. Some Jews chose to maintain their Jewish identity secretly – those were the “conversos”. 

Christianity wasn't allowing Jews to live anywhere while the Vikings had been invading everywhere.   

Resource:

facts about Israel, Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem

https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/16/six-percent-of-uk-population-have-viking-dna-new-study-finds-13283006/#:~:text='State%20of%20the%20art'%20DNA,compared%20to%2010%25%20in%20Sweden.

https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/3867/the-vikings-in-britain-a-brief-history#:~:text=Anglo%2DSaxon%20writers%20called%20them,make%20up%20the%20British%20nation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms,_Germany https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15013-worms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms_massacre_(1096)

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

https://www.bl.uk/people/william-the-conqueror#:~:text=William%2C%20Duke%20of%20Normandy%2C%20conquered%20England%20in%201066.

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordeauxhttps://theconversation.com/spains-little-known-viking-history-is-being-uncovered-165828#:~:text=The%20earliest%20Viking%20raid%20on,the%20northwestern%20coast%20of%20Galicia

https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/16/six-percent-of-uk-population-have-viking-dna-new-study-finds-13283006/#:~:text='State%20of%20the%20art'%20DNA,compared%20to%2010%25%20in%20Sweden.

https://www.anumuseum.org.il/the-expulsion-of-jews-from-spain/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=expulsion+from+spain&utm_campaign=g&device=c&gclid=Cj0KCQjwz7uRBhDRARIsAFqjulmzgvoBs-nzStXInjlRlQJWYmonIWORnB_7juRsnihHh9PyzmNO2t0aArNUEALw_wcB.

https://www.history.com/news/vikings-in-russia-kiev-rus-varangians-prince-oleg#:~:text=Dec%204%2C%202019-,For%20four%20centuries%2C%20Vikings%20held%20sway%20over%20parts%20of%20Russia,their%20exploits%20in%20the%20west.

Jews Who Loved To Hike and Wander About

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Jews were prompted to undertake long journeys from early in their history either by  the desire for travel and thirst for knowledge, or for commercial and political purposes.  Their dispersion over the whole populated world facilitated such travels.

In the 9th century, Jewish merchants, called RADANITES regularly undertook distant journeys from Europe to the Orient, from Franconia (southern France)  to China.  They are known mainly from a description by the early Arab geographer, Ibn Khordadbeh, (846 to 886) who stated that they spoke Arabic, Persian, Roman and the languages of the Franks, Andalusians, and Slavs.  He describes in detail 4 trade routes that they followed.  The 1st was via the Mediterranean to Alexandria, overland to the Red Sea, and via the Indian Ocean to the China Sea.  The 2nd route went overland via Damascus, Baghdad, and Basra and then continued as in the previous route.  The 3rd of the routes was entirely overland across North Africa to Palestine, Baghdad, and then into the interior of China, while the 4th went across central Europe.                  

Isaac the Jew

       Caliph Haroun al-Raschid

The emperor Charlemagne sent a deputation to the caliph, Haroun al-Raschid, which included a Jew, Isaac, who alone returned.  Charlemagne or Charles the Great was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans from 800. During the Early Middle Ages, Charlemagne united the majority of western and central Europe.

Eldad HA-DANI son of Mahli the Danite', living in 883,  a philologist (A philologist is someone who studies the history of languages, especially by looking closely at literature. If you're fascinated with the way English has changed over time, from Beowulf to Beloved, you might want to become a philologist. Linguistics is the study of language, and a philologist is a type of linguist.),  who made adventurous journeys, but the historical value of his reports is disputed.  He was a Jewish, Hebrew-writing merchant and traveler of the ninth century. He professed to be a citizen of an independent Jewish state in eastern Africa, probably Ethiopia,  inhabited by people claiming descent from the lost Tribes of Dan, Asher, Gad, and Naphtali. Eldad visited Babylonia, Kairouan, and Iberia, where he spread fanciful accounts of the Ten Lost Tribes and halakhot which he claimed he had brought from his native country.  "And a Jew, a Merchant from the tribe of Issachar, found me and bought me for 32 gold pieces and brought me back with him to his country. They live in the mountains of the seacoast and belong to the land of the Medes and Persians."

Eldad's Hebrew narrative, Sefer Eldad, established his reputation as a philologist whom leading medieval Jewish grammarians and lexicographers quoted as an authority on linguistic difficulties. His halakhot, which dealt with the laws of shechita, differ in many places from the Talmudic ordinances, and are introduced in the name of Joshua ben Nun, or, according to another version, of Othniel Ben Kenaz. Eldad's accounts soon spread, and, as usual in such cases, were remolded and amplified by copyists and editors. There are numerous differing versions in several languages, made adventurous journeys, but the historical value of his reports is disputed.  

Caliph of Cordova                                                  

                                       

                                        Ibrahim ibn Jakub

About 970, the caliph of Cordova, Spain sent a deputation to Germany, incorporating a Jew, Ibrahim ibn Jakub/ Ibrahim Ben Yacub al-Israili of the 10th century who wrote an account of his journey. His descriptions of his travels have only survived in quotations.  He started from Spain in about 965  and traveled through Central Europe, visiting the court of Otto 1st of Germany and reaching Stettin, Poland.                                       

The most famous Jewish traveler was BENJAMIN OF TUDELA Spain, who, about 1160 to 1173, visited about 300 places, journeyed from Spain to France, Italy, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia.  His account in 1543 gives much information about the Jewish communities visited.  Benjamin was interested not only in the Jewish communities but also in economic and political conditions generally, and collected information on many places which he did not himself visit.  

               Regensburg, Germany

Later (1178-1185) a German Jew, PETHAHIAH OF REGENSBURG, traveled through Poland, Russia, Crimea, the land of the Khazars, Armenia, Media, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine.  His travels served as material for a book. Petachiah of Regensburg, also known as Petachiah ben Yakov, Moses Petachiah, and Petachiah of Ratisbon, was a German rabbi of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries CE. At some point he left his place of birth, Regensburg in Bavaria, and settled in Prague.

Many Jews undertook journeys to Palestine and others went in search of the Lost ten tribes.  Other notable Israelites were Abraham Ibn Ezra 1089-1164-a scholar and poet from Spain until 1140 but from then on journeyed extensively.  He visited Italy, France, England, and perhaps Palestine.  His writings are in Hebrew, was also a Hebrew grammarian of importance, translating from the Arabic and writing several compositions.  He was also a scientist and author of several studies on astrology in which he firmly believed.  His son, Isaac, was also a poet who lived in the Near East and for a period, professed Islam; Judah Al-Harizi 1170-1235  Spanish Hebrew poet and translator.  He traveled widely through Mediterranean countries.  His wanderings are reflected in his writings, the most important of which is his Tahkemoni (Hebrew for "The Wise One").  The book is of historical importance as it describes the communities visited by Alharizi and gives appreciations of contemporary Hebrew poets.  He translated many books from Arabic into Hebrew, and from Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed. His style was light and humorous;  and Estori Ha-Psariji, who wandered through Palestine for 7 years and wrote a valuable book on the topography.  

In the 15th to 17th centuries, individual Jews played some part in the expeditions of the Portuguese and the English.  The crew of Christopher Columbus is known to have included at least one hidden Jew, eluding the Spanish Inquisition.

At the end of the 18th century, Samuel Romanelli of Mantua, described his travels from Gibraltar to Algiers and Morocco and in the 19th century, the missionary, Joseph Wolff, traveled to Bokhara.  Nathaniel Isaacs explored  Zululand and Natal.(KwaZulu-Natal, a coastal South African province, is known for its beaches, mountains and savannah populated by big game. The safari destination Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, in the northeast, is home to black and white rhinos, lions and giraffes. Durban is an Indian-influenced harbor city and a popular surfing spot. Cultural villages around the town of Eshowe showcase the traditions of the indigenous Zulu people.  Arminus Vambery penetrated to Central Asia, and Emin Pasha investigated Central Africa.  Eduard Glaser and Hermann Burchardt explored Arabia;  Aurel Stein explored Central Asia, Arminius Vambery explored Peris.  Other African explorers were Angelo Castelbolognesi, Eduard Foa, Louis Binger and Henry Aaron Stern.  The Artic explorers included Rudolf Samoilovich, Isaac Israel Hayes, and August Sontag.  

Jews have been most known for their contribution to exploring through providing maps and nautical instruments, but there were many who got involved in the exploration of the unknown places as well. 

 Gasper Da Gama was one from 1444 to 1510.  He was an interpreter ("Língua", in old Portuguese) and guide to several fleets of the Portuguese maritime explorations. He was of Jewish origin and was probably born in Poznań in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1498 he was taken captive aboard Vasco da Gama's fleet on its return voyage to Portugal from India. He was known to speak multiple languages including Hebrew and Chaldean, as well as a mixture of Italian and Spanish.  There are several versions of his life before meeting Vasco da Gama in India. 

Some of these were sourced at Gaspar da Gama himself, but he probably tried to hide some "inconvenient" facts about his own past. According to Gaspar's own account, he became a Jewish traveller, making his way to Jerusalem, and then Alexandria, where he was taken prisoner and sold as a slave in India.  In India he secured his freedom in the service of the ruler of Goa. 

The chronicler Gaspar Correia states that, when found by the Portuguese, Gaspar da Gama was Captain of the fleet of Yusuf Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, Arab governor of Goa in India. Damião de Góis says Gaspar da Gama was a Jew born in the city of Poznań in the Kingdom of Poland and that at that time he did not speak Spanish, but the Venetian language, the very language used in European based commercial centers in the East. Could that have been Yiddish? 

In 1502 Gaspar da Gama participated in another travel to India commanded by Vasco da Gama, and again in 1505 with the recently appointed viceroy Francisco de Almeida. During these trips, he learned a few African languages.

   Massai with donkeys in Africa

All this took place at a time when man's only available means of a faster transportation other than his feet, were donkeys and camels, then horses.   Horses were first domesticated around 3500 BC, near the steppes of southern Russia and Kazakhstan. At about 2300 BC, horses were brought to the ancient Near East, and by 2000 BC, they were used to pull carts, chariots, wagons, and riding. Even with donkeys they must have done plenty of hiking, themselves, possibly with packs on their backs.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldad_ha-Dani

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba

https://sites.google.com/site/historyofeastafrica/eldad-ha-dani

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_da_Gama- big article 

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

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

  

When Jews Came to Paris, Champagne and Toulouse, France

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

                                                              Paris
Jews have lived in Paris since Roman times.  We know that individual Jews lived in France before 70 CE when Jerusalem fell.   A settlement was recorded throughout the early Middle Ages.  Persecutions started in the 12th century.  The Jews were expelled in 1182-1198.  In 1240 the French held the Disputation of Paris which was followed by the public burning of the Talmud.  Like the rest of French Jews, they were banished in 1306 and 1394.  

By the 17th and 18th centuries, Jews came to live from Bourdeaux, Avignon, Alsace, and other places.  At the time of the French Revolution, there were 500 Jews in Paris.  Settling there from that time on was unrestricted.  By  1880 there were 40,000 Jews in Paris.  Many Jews became prominent in politics, literature, art, and theater.  From 1882 on, Jews from Russia came to live.  So did Jews from North Africa and the former Ottoman Empire.  This is where the Dreyfus Affair happened which stirred up the city at the end of the 19th century which showed that anti-Semitism existed.  Nevertheless, 70,000 Jews from eastern Europe settled in Paris between WWI and WWII.  Many German Jews had managed to arrive after 1933 as well. so that the total Jewish population was about 200,000 in 1939.  Many were taken away by the Nazis when they occupied Paris.  and at least 50,000 died in the death camps.  By 1990 the Jewish population was 300,000 and consisted of many from North Africa like Algeria.  There are many synagogues in Paris as well as communal institutions.  Today, anti-Semitism runs rampant there with the influx of Muslim immigrants.

Today France is one of the worst places for Jews with all the anti-Semitism going on there. Many have already made aliyah to Israel. "April 23, 2013 - Paris - A rabbi and his son were stabbed near the Beth-El synagogue by an Iranian man who had recently escaped a psychiatric hospital. The attacker stabbed the rabbi in the neck causing light injuries, while the rabbi's son was lightly cut when he came to his defense."  
                                                             

   Troyes

  Little do the French realize that according to legend, a Jewish community existed in in Vitry-en-Perthois in 279 CE.  Champagne is a region in NE France and used to have international fairs.  This had attracted Jews from an early date.  The international traders that came to this fair were the Radanites or Jewish merchants who, in the 9th century, traveled between southern France and China.  They spoke Arabic, Persian, Roman, and the languages of the Franks, Andalusians, and Slavs.  Jews were then excluded from trade and handicrafts being it was unwanted competition for the Christians that drove them into moneylending, which in Northern France became their economic stand-by.  The Christian church didn't allow their people to lend money, thinking it was a disgusting profession, so that was all that was open for the Jews.
                                                                           

By the 10th century, or 900 CE, there were many Jews living in the province, especially in its capital of Troyes, which was the capital and home of Rashi, the famous biblical commentator.  Rashi was born in 1040 and died in 1105.  "By 1000, Troyes had an organized Jewish community and collected taxes from its members, and Jews owned real estate, more particularly vineyards.  There were about 100 Jews living there at the time of Rashi.  Many of his pupils, the tosaphists, taught at various places in Champagne such as in Ramerupt, Dampierre, Vitry, and other cities.   Tosaphists are well known for their prayer-ritual which has been preserved and published in Budapest in 1905.  The tosaphot, or in Hebrew, addenda, were critical and explanatory notes on the Talmud by French and German scholars of the 12th to 14th centuries.  To start with they were added to Rashi's Talmud commentary, which they frequently criticized and modified.  They soon developed a new independent mode of Talmud study.  Rashi was the author of the monumental commentary on the Talmud and the Torah.   Rashi's  grave has never been found, but scholars believe he died there in about 1105. In 1940, the Champagne region around Troyes had as its prefect,  Rene Bousquet, who later headed the Vichy police and was responsible for numerous roundups of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France. In 2005, the city had a 900th anniversary of Rashi's birth since he was the most famous person from there. 

 "A well-kept, small, medieval city about 100 miles east of Paris, Troyes was once at the center of European trade routes located on the ancient Roman road connecting Milan in northern Italy with Boulogne-sur-mer on the English Channel.  Coupled with its proximity to Flanders and the cities of the Rhineland, this made the town one of the major trading hubs in Europe, an advantage seized upon by the Counts of Champagne, who instituted the twice-yearly Champagne fairs, where traders from across the continent would ply their wares."  Jews had learned about the city and followed the traders there being many were merchants themselves.  .  

By the 12th century, Jews were treated differently then as they continue to be today with anti-Semitism.. In 1182 there was the order of all Jews to be expulsed out of France. This had to do with the Christian Crusades in 1096 and 1099 and its effects on people of how they viewed Jews.  Before that, The Byzantine Empire had been forcibly trying to convert Jews to Christianity.   At that time, Champagne wasn't yet incorporated into the kingdom of France, so this was a safe place for them to live.   Then, they were subjected to severe taxation  by the counts.  "The counts of Champagne took the precaution of keeping in their own hands jurisdiction over the Jews in the charters of freedom granted to various towns."  However, by the 13th century, Jews enjoyed more royal protection and acted as financiers to the nobles, monasteries, as well as other places.

13 Jews were put to death in Troyes in 1288 on a Ritual Murder/Blood Libel charge:  2 elegies in Old French commemorate this episode. An elegy is something like a poem or song that laments sorrow for one who is dead.  If they are continuing to sing this today, it is done strictly as an anti-Semitic act.   This was a completely false allegation that Jews murdered Christians in order to get blood to put in the Passover matzos. Jews did not eat blood of any animal at all and went through great lengths to avoid this when eating the allowed meats, so certainly wouldn't want human blood in their food.  To take something so obvious about Jews and claim such a horrific thing showed that they knew nothing at all about Jews or Judaism.

The general French expulsion orders of 1306-1394 affected the Jews living in Champagne this time, so they were forced to leave the area and probably went up into eastern Europe.  After this expulsion in 1306, the community never again held their position, but some returned in  to Troyes the 14th century.

A few Jews returned in Champagne only in the 17th century and then in 1794 and there were about 80 families by 1930.  WWII caused half of the Jews of Troyes to be deported under the Nazi occupation, so probably all were killed in the Holocaust.  After the liberation, the community was reconstitued by those that lived through it all.   Lately, there are Jewish communities in Chalons, Rheims, Chaumont, Troyes, Epernay, and Vitry-le-Francois.  That is, if they haven't been driven out again by anti-Semitism.  The Jewish population in 1990 was under 1,000.  "The old, classical form of antisemitism, which we had hoped was long gone in Europe, continues to be resilient."  "During November, 2013, a new phenomenon had spread. Fans of the antisemitic comedian Dieudonné responded to his request and started to get pictures of themselves making the 'quenelle salute', a backwards Nazi salute, next to Jewish or Israeli places, or even next to a group of Jews.  How disgusting can they get with their anti-Semitism?  This caught on, of course, in other countries after the French started it.  

                                                           Toulouse
There had been Jews living in Toulouse, France in 1420 somehow, but the whole Jewish community was then annihilated, a mini Holocaust by the French.  Jews had lived here since the 8th century.  They had all left with the 1306 order but some had returned in 1315 but were killed in the Shepherds' Crusade of 1321.  Toulouse was a Marrano Center (Jews who had to pretend to be Catholic) in the 16th Century.

The modern community of Jews dates from the early 19th century which was reorganized in 1907.  It grew in population with the North African Jewish immigration in the 1950's and early 1960's because of the African countries rebelling against their Jewish population over the creation of Israel in 1948.  The Jewish population of Toulouse in 1990 was 18,000.
                                                                       

 In March 2012, a Muslim shot and killed people in a Jewish Day School in Toulouse.  Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, and his sons Arye 6, and Gabriel 3, along with the principal's daughter, Mirium Monsonigo 8, were shot and killed at their school, Ohr Hatorah  "The suspect pursued his last victim, an 8-year-old girl, into the concrete courtyard, seizing and stopping her by her hair, said Ms. Yardeni, who viewed surveillance footage of the killing.  His gun appeared to jam at that point, Ms. Yardeni said. Still holding the girl, the killer then changed weapons, from what police identified as a 9-millimeter pistol to the .45-caliber. He shot her in the head and left, never removing his motorcycle helmet. The killer was Mohammed Merah.   "On September 16, 2013, a 20-year-old French national of Moroccan origin,  called the Ohr Hatorah school in Toulouse and told a secretary, “I am Mohammed,  Merah’s cousin,  and I’m coming over tonight to kill you.” That threat was not the first one from this youngster, and he was arrested."  The 2012 attack was the worst France had seen against Jews in 30 years.  The killer was finally caught and killed when the police stormed his apartment on the 22nd of March..  " An Islamist extremist who is believed to have killed seven people in France died Thursday after a shootout with police, officials said. Interior Minister Claude Gueant said that Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old French citizen of Algerian origin who had allegedly confessed to killing three Jewish children and four adults, was hiding in a bathroom when special forces officers raided his ground-floor apartment."

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia: Champagne

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_04153.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0020_0_20063.html
http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=45034
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_21st-century_France
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/world/europe/jewish-school-shooting-in-france.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/03/22/10805444-jewish-school-slayings-suspect-dead-after-france-cops-storm-apartment-officials-say