Nadene Goldfoot
The Crusades era started as a movement of European kings to take over Jerusalem from the Moslems, and ended with Europe attempting to put an end to Judaism. The First Crusade took place from 1096 to 1099 by the King of France, St. Louis, and attacks against Jews living in Northern France were made first before they ever got to Jerusalem to make battle with the Muslims, telling me that the fight was also against the Jews for not converting to Christianity. When they got to Jerusalem they couldn't tell the difference between the Moslems and the Jews, so they killed both when they could. One family story I have is of a Rabbi's home being invaded by a mounted Crusader who slaughtered his wife and daughters in front of him but left the rabbi.
Beginning in the 11th century, Christians in Jerusalem were increasingly persecuted by the city’s Islamic rulers, especially when control of the holy city passed from the relatively tolerant Egyptians to the Seljuk Turks in 1071. Late in the century, Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comenus, also threatened by the Seljuk Turks, appealed to the West for aid. In 1095, Pope Urban II publicly called for a crusade to aid Eastern Christians and recover the holy lands. The response by Western Europeans was immediate."
At the time, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Turks. The Christian world was new, being run by the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, who called for help in fighting the Turks who were Moslims. So the COUNCIL OF PLACENZA sent ambassadors for the Byzantine Emperor to fight.
Jews lived in the Rhineland nearby as well, and they also became victims to the Crusaders. The cities with Jewish populations were Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Cologne, etc.
Jews had settled in Worms by the 1000s, probably arriving a bit earlier. " Worms (German: [vɔʁms]) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south-southwest of Frankfurt-am-Main".Emperor Henry IV had used them for his financial assistance, and so rewarded them with substantial privileges for Jews in 1074 and again in 1090, granting them freedom of commerce-rare for Jews. They were also granted security of property and imperial protection. These were all not the rule for Jews, but granted privileges for doing work for the Emperor. Jews then were less than 2nd class citizens. The community was annihilated in the FIRST CRUSADE. Because of its importance to the Jews who had lived and worked there, Jews did return shortly afterwards. They were destroyed again in the BLACK DEATH OUTBREAKS of 1349.
My cousin mentioned studying about Worms in a history class being a very important city of the Middle Ages. He was right. "Worms has been a Roman Catholic bishopric since at least 614, and was an important palatinate of Charlemagne. Worms Cathedral is one of the Imperial Cathedrals and among the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in Germany. Worms prospered in the High Middle Ages as an Imperial Free City. Among more than a hundred Imperial Diets held at Worms, the Diet of 1521 (commonly known as the Diet of Worms) ended with the Edict of Worms in which Martin Luther was declared a heretic. (Here, a diet is a national legislature.) In other words, the government met here. Jews chose to live there because of being a free city.
RASHI 1040-1105, our famous biblical commentator whose comments are still read to this day in our Jewish prayer books, was born in 1040 in Troyes, France. He studied in the Rhineland, where all the important Jewish Biblical studying went on.
Mainz was the main center for the diffusion of rabbinic learning. Jews had probably lived there during the Roman period but evidence dates back to the 900s. This community was the principal Jewish community of northern Europe. In 1012 Jews were expelled from Mainz but soon returned. Protection also came to Mainz Jews from the Arch-bishop on the advent of the Crusaders but in 1096 hundreds were murdered.
In 1209, 113 years later, the emperor conceded to the archbishop his rights over the Jews. When the Black Death struck, there was a further series of massacres against the Jews as well.!
Speyer/Spire was a Rhenish town. The 1st Jewish community here was from 1070. Jews were free to practice commerce under the protection of Bishop Rodiger who regarded them as valuable subjects and had invited them to settle there coming from Mainz/Mayence. A Jewish judge was allowed to exercise jurisdiction, and the Jews defended their quarter in times of siege. In 1096 the bishop of Spire protected the Jews from the crusaders! Some were killed anyway. This town had also been the center of Jewish scholarship and was associated with Worms and Mainz/ Mayaence in rabbinical synods.
Cologne, Germany had a Jewish community that was known about way back during the Roman era. In 321, Constantine canceled the Jewish exemption from the membership in the city council which was responsible for taxation. At that time the community was already well-organized. By the era of Crusaders, Jews lived there under the protection of the archbishop and had their own quarter and synagogue. By 1096, they were decimated by rioters who plundered their property and desecrated the synagogue. The community was refounded later. Some of the people lived in a special quarter of the city, and an adjacent gate called the Jews' Gate was entrusted to their supervision in 1106. This sounds like a ghetto to me where Jews were locked in. By 1331 Jews received a charter of rights. Being granted broad juridical autonomy, they were obligated to pay heavy taxes, more than other Germans. What they were granted were automatic rights for the Christian Germans. 1096 was the year of German Crusade massacres to Jews in European towns. By 1099 in Jerusalem, the Jewish community was also massacred by the Crusaders. It was the start of many future expellings of Jews from their countries as well.
Until the end of the 13th century, Jews engaged in trade and participated in the local fairs but, later, their work activity was limited to money lending only. During the BLACK DEATH (Plague) , the town council tried to protect the Jews from mob violence against them that amounted to massacres of 1349, but the mobs grew out of hand and the entire community was destroyed. Because Jews may have suffered less, keeping kosher the laws of cleanliness practiced before PASSOVER, they were blamed for the outbreak. "The so-called Black Death, or pandemic of the Middle Ages, began in China and made its way to Europe, causing the death of 60% of the entire population."
Some Jews returned in 1372. They were later expelled in 1394 and their synagogue was turned into a church. A new community sprung up in nearly Deutz. Settlement in Cologne was only resumed much much later in 1798 and there were 14,816 Jews living in Cologne by 1933, the cusp of WWII. The Nazis destroyed them all. By 1990 there were 1,300 Jews living in this city.
These cities in Germany were the origins of our Ashkenazi ancestors. "After the Crusades of which there were 5 movements,
1st Crusade: 1096-1099, won Jerusalem, then lost it.
2nd Crusade: 1147-1149 failed attempt
3rd Crusade: 1189-1192
4th-9th Crusades: 1320 mercenaries.
"In consequence of this resolve there assembled an immense number of warlike pilgrims from Germany, France, Spain, Britain, and Italy, composing a mass of all sorts of men, who all hastened to the East in a pious and holy rage,--others, indeed, for the mere love of plunder,--to take part in the holy war; wherein, therefore, it was quite natural that the pious and holy priests should play a principal part. This, however, was a terrible and tragical period for all the Jews residing in the above-named countries; since these pious pilgrims had, at present, the best opportunity to give full vent to their hatred and fury against our poor and helpless people, and to enrich themselves at the same time with their wealth and possessions."
"Especially in Germany an innumerable host of Jews, entire congregations, both little and great, both old and young, were butchered in cold blood, and their earthly possessions confiscated by the saints. Only those who would consent to join Christianity, the only saving church, could remain unmolested; but few, indeed, availed themselves of this dishonourable means of saving their lives! These are the persecutions of 4856 (1096), called among us גזרות תתנ״ו; but it is not my province to speak of them more circumstantially. A complete account of these dreadful events is found in the book of Chronicles of Rabbi Joseph, the priest, a native of Italy, known as דברי הימים לר׳ יוסף הכהן."
"The number of these warlike pilgrims was about 600,000 men; they took their journey by seven different routes (Deut. 28:25). They were led by Godfrey of Lorraine, and many distinguished princes. They pursued their difficult and dangerous route through Constantinople, Anatolia, Antiochia, Trablus, Beirut, Zidon, Zur, and Akko. Their near approach produced a panic and frightful terror among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The Egyptian Calif, who had but recently only taken it from the Tartars, commanded to place the city in a state of defence, to strengthen the wall of the city, and to supply it with brave troops, and with everything requisite, with arms no less than with an ample store of provisions." from Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine by Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, 1850, History of Palestine: 1096-1520 CE, from the Reign of the Europeans to Suian Seliman
.
Ashkenazi Jews tended to migrate to eastern European countries assimilating those whom they found there and thence passing at a later period to western Europe and then to the Americas. Their Hebrew pronounciation differs from that of the Sephardim, and, in some things, their ritual is distinctive, being closer to the ancient Palestinian tradition. That's because so many went from Jerusalem to Rome as slaves, carrying with them the rituals.
Until the 20th century, the overwhelming majority of Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish, a combination of Hebrew and German, Loez which is a combination of Old French and Old italian, and Slavic. My great aunt and uncle Alice and Max Turn/ Turshinsky could tell where a Jew came from by his Yiddish. Equal or perhaps inferior in number to the Sephardim in the Middle Ages, they constituted before 1933 some 9/10 of the Jewish people which was about 15,000,000 out of 16,500,000. Owing to the massacres of 1939 to 1945 when we lost 6 million, the proportion was lowered to 9,500,000 out of 111,500,000. "
Resource: Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.medicinenet.com/plague_facts/article.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms%2C_Germany
https://www.reference.com/history/many-crusades-were-1b6f048dc4ddca87
 |
| First Crusade remembered in art 1096-1099 Led by Peter the Hermit , a French Priest launched by Pope Urban II with the French King St. Louis |
Beginning in the 11th century, Christians in Jerusalem were increasingly persecuted by the city’s Islamic rulers, especially when control of the holy city passed from the relatively tolerant Egyptians to the Seljuk Turks in 1071. Late in the century, Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comenus, also threatened by the Seljuk Turks, appealed to the West for aid. In 1095, Pope Urban II publicly called for a crusade to aid Eastern Christians and recover the holy lands. The response by Western Europeans was immediate."
At the time, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Turks. The Christian world was new, being run by the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, who called for help in fighting the Turks who were Moslims. So the COUNCIL OF PLACENZA sent ambassadors for the Byzantine Emperor to fight.
Jews lived in the Rhineland nearby as well, and they also became victims to the Crusaders. The cities with Jewish populations were Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Cologne, etc.
Jews had settled in Worms by the 1000s, probably arriving a bit earlier. " Worms (German: [vɔʁms]) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south-southwest of Frankfurt-am-Main".Emperor Henry IV had used them for his financial assistance, and so rewarded them with substantial privileges for Jews in 1074 and again in 1090, granting them freedom of commerce-rare for Jews. They were also granted security of property and imperial protection. These were all not the rule for Jews, but granted privileges for doing work for the Emperor. Jews then were less than 2nd class citizens. The community was annihilated in the FIRST CRUSADE. Because of its importance to the Jews who had lived and worked there, Jews did return shortly afterwards. They were destroyed again in the BLACK DEATH OUTBREAKS of 1349.
My cousin mentioned studying about Worms in a history class being a very important city of the Middle Ages. He was right. "Worms has been a Roman Catholic bishopric since at least 614, and was an important palatinate of Charlemagne. Worms Cathedral is one of the Imperial Cathedrals and among the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in Germany. Worms prospered in the High Middle Ages as an Imperial Free City. Among more than a hundred Imperial Diets held at Worms, the Diet of 1521 (commonly known as the Diet of Worms) ended with the Edict of Worms in which Martin Luther was declared a heretic. (Here, a diet is a national legislature.) In other words, the government met here. Jews chose to live there because of being a free city.
Mainz was the main center for the diffusion of rabbinic learning. Jews had probably lived there during the Roman period but evidence dates back to the 900s. This community was the principal Jewish community of northern Europe. In 1012 Jews were expelled from Mainz but soon returned. Protection also came to Mainz Jews from the Arch-bishop on the advent of the Crusaders but in 1096 hundreds were murdered.
In 1209, 113 years later, the emperor conceded to the archbishop his rights over the Jews. When the Black Death struck, there was a further series of massacres against the Jews as well.!
Speyer/Spire was a Rhenish town. The 1st Jewish community here was from 1070. Jews were free to practice commerce under the protection of Bishop Rodiger who regarded them as valuable subjects and had invited them to settle there coming from Mainz/Mayence. A Jewish judge was allowed to exercise jurisdiction, and the Jews defended their quarter in times of siege. In 1096 the bishop of Spire protected the Jews from the crusaders! Some were killed anyway. This town had also been the center of Jewish scholarship and was associated with Worms and Mainz/ Mayaence in rabbinical synods.
 |
| Rioters in Germany of Today, could easily be in 1096 |
Until the end of the 13th century, Jews engaged in trade and participated in the local fairs but, later, their work activity was limited to money lending only. During the BLACK DEATH (Plague) , the town council tried to protect the Jews from mob violence against them that amounted to massacres of 1349, but the mobs grew out of hand and the entire community was destroyed. Because Jews may have suffered less, keeping kosher the laws of cleanliness practiced before PASSOVER, they were blamed for the outbreak. "The so-called Black Death, or pandemic of the Middle Ages, began in China and made its way to Europe, causing the death of 60% of the entire population."
Some Jews returned in 1372. They were later expelled in 1394 and their synagogue was turned into a church. A new community sprung up in nearly Deutz. Settlement in Cologne was only resumed much much later in 1798 and there were 14,816 Jews living in Cologne by 1933, the cusp of WWII. The Nazis destroyed them all. By 1990 there were 1,300 Jews living in this city.
These cities in Germany were the origins of our Ashkenazi ancestors. "After the Crusades of which there were 5 movements,
1st Crusade: 1096-1099, won Jerusalem, then lost it.
2nd Crusade: 1147-1149 failed attempt
3rd Crusade: 1189-1192
4th-9th Crusades: 1320 mercenaries.
"In consequence of this resolve there assembled an immense number of warlike pilgrims from Germany, France, Spain, Britain, and Italy, composing a mass of all sorts of men, who all hastened to the East in a pious and holy rage,--others, indeed, for the mere love of plunder,--to take part in the holy war; wherein, therefore, it was quite natural that the pious and holy priests should play a principal part. This, however, was a terrible and tragical period for all the Jews residing in the above-named countries; since these pious pilgrims had, at present, the best opportunity to give full vent to their hatred and fury against our poor and helpless people, and to enrich themselves at the same time with their wealth and possessions."
"Especially in Germany an innumerable host of Jews, entire congregations, both little and great, both old and young, were butchered in cold blood, and their earthly possessions confiscated by the saints. Only those who would consent to join Christianity, the only saving church, could remain unmolested; but few, indeed, availed themselves of this dishonourable means of saving their lives! These are the persecutions of 4856 (1096), called among us גזרות תתנ״ו; but it is not my province to speak of them more circumstantially. A complete account of these dreadful events is found in the book of Chronicles of Rabbi Joseph, the priest, a native of Italy, known as דברי הימים לר׳ יוסף הכהן."
 |
| Godfrey of Lorraine, France He became king of Jerusalem. On July 15, 1099 Crussaders had slaughter Moslimes, Jews and even Christians that they came to liberate in their zeal to kill. |
"The number of these warlike pilgrims was about 600,000 men; they took their journey by seven different routes (Deut. 28:25). They were led by Godfrey of Lorraine, and many distinguished princes. They pursued their difficult and dangerous route through Constantinople, Anatolia, Antiochia, Trablus, Beirut, Zidon, Zur, and Akko. Their near approach produced a panic and frightful terror among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The Egyptian Calif, who had but recently only taken it from the Tartars, commanded to place the city in a state of defence, to strengthen the wall of the city, and to supply it with brave troops, and with everything requisite, with arms no less than with an ample store of provisions." from Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine by Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, 1850, History of Palestine: 1096-1520 CE, from the Reign of the Europeans to Suian Seliman
.
Ashkenazi Jews tended to migrate to eastern European countries assimilating those whom they found there and thence passing at a later period to western Europe and then to the Americas. Their Hebrew pronounciation differs from that of the Sephardim, and, in some things, their ritual is distinctive, being closer to the ancient Palestinian tradition. That's because so many went from Jerusalem to Rome as slaves, carrying with them the rituals.
Until the 20th century, the overwhelming majority of Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish, a combination of Hebrew and German, Loez which is a combination of Old French and Old italian, and Slavic. My great aunt and uncle Alice and Max Turn/ Turshinsky could tell where a Jew came from by his Yiddish. Equal or perhaps inferior in number to the Sephardim in the Middle Ages, they constituted before 1933 some 9/10 of the Jewish people which was about 15,000,000 out of 16,500,000. Owing to the massacres of 1939 to 1945 when we lost 6 million, the proportion was lowered to 9,500,000 out of 111,500,000. "
 |
| A French Jew today making Aliyah to Israel He'll have lots of company of French speakers in learning conversational Hebrew No Yiddish spoken in Israel. |
Resource: Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.medicinenet.com/plague_facts/article.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms%2C_Germany
https://www.reference.com/history/many-crusades-were-1b6f048dc4ddca87
