The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom (Cursor Mundi) [Illustrated] 9782503525235, 2503525237

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THE WAYS OF JEWISH MARTYRDOM

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KATERN 1

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CURSOR MUNDI Editorial Board all members of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Christopher Baswell, General Editor Blair Sullivan, Executive Editor William Bodiford Peter Cowe Teofilo Ruiz Giulia Sissa Zrinka Stahuljak Advisory Board Michael D. Bailey Iowa State University István Bejczy Nijmegen Florin Curta University of Florida Elizabeth Freeman University of Tasmania Yitzhak Hen Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Geraldine Heng University of Texas at Austin Lauren Kassell Pembroke College, Cambridge David Lines University of Warwick Cary Nederman Texas A&M VOLUME 2

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THE WAYS OF JEWISH MARTYRDOM

by

Simha Goldin Translated from the Hebrew by Yigal Levin Translation edited by C. Michael Copeland

H

F

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Goldin, Simha The ways of Jewish martyrdom. - (Cursor mundi ; v. 2) 1. Martyrdom - Judaism I. Title 296.3'2 ISBN-13: 9782503525235

This volume benefited from the assistance of Eurologos-Herzila, Israel

© 2008 Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2008/0095/40 ISBN: 978-2-503-52523-5 Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper.

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CONTENTS

Preface

ix

List of Abbreviations List of Maps and Tables

xiii xv

Part One: The Idea of Martyrdom: Nine Hundred Years Chapter 1: April, May, June and July of the Year 1096

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Chapter 2: Christianity: the First Nine Hundred Years

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Who Were the Martyrs? What Was the Source of the Martyr’s Behaviour? The First Martyrs From Martyrs to Martyr-Warriors

Chapter 3: The Jews: The First Nine Hundred Years

During the Religious Persecutions of the Second Century of the Common Era The Death of Rabbi Akiba: ‘I Have Said, When Will I Have My Opportunity to Fulfil this Commandment?’ The Question of the Destruction and Suffering: ‘This is the Torah and this is its Reward?’ The Nations of the World and the Ultimate Sacrifice: ‘Who is Like You Among the Gods, O Lord’ The Halakhic Perspective: ‘Be Killed and Do Not Transgress’ Additional Heroes The Book of Josippon

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13 18 28 36

47 48 49 52 59 69 73 80

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Part Two: In the Face of the Victorious Sister: 1096–1348 Chapter 4: ‘We Were Silent and We Sat in Darkness Like the Dead

85

Chapter 5: ‘Death in Sanctification of God’s Name: Ritual, Myth, and Message

95

The Central Motifs Figures from the Past The Covenant at Mount Sinai The Sacrifice in the Temple Community and Family Behaviour and the Question of Leadership The Commandment to Die Heaven Women and Children The Concept of Being ‘Perfect’ Converts and Forced Converts

96 98 101 101 103 106 106 112 117 119

Chapter 6: Methods of Commemoration

123

Chapter 7: Methods of Education

163

Chapter 8: The Myth Becomes a Norm

179

Chapter 9: The Destruction of the Jewish Communities

213

Prayer Memorial Books Martyr Texts in Prose: The Chronicles The Story of Mainz Köln and Other Towns Prose and Poetry: The Writings of R. Eliezer bar Nathan

Circumcision The Ceremony upon Beginning Education

The Crusades of the Twelfth Century France England Germany

Introduction to Explusion and Destruction A Halakhic (Jewish Legal) Opinion: ‘Perhaps it is Like the Case of Saul’ Memorial Days

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124 129 130 137 144 150

167 174

179 193 202 209

213 223 240

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Part Three: Theology, Sociology, and Memory Chapter 10: Theology and Sociology of Christian Martyrs

247

Chapter 11: Theology and Sociology of Mekadshei Hashem (Those Who Died for Sanctification of God’s Name)

263

Use of the Term ‘Death for Sanctification of God’s Name’: Tradition or Innovation? Theological Aspects and their Application in Reality The Religious and the Practical Struggle

263 270 276 290

Chapter 12: Memory as Action

313

Chapter 13: Theology and Memory

325

Isaac, Father of Jewish Martyrs

325

Part Four: An End and a Beginning Chapter 14: An End and a Beginning

341

Postscript

363

Appendix A: The Sources for the Attacks on the Jews During the Crusades and their English Translation

369

Bibliography

375

Index

393

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PREFACE

T

he idea for this book was hatched one stormy night, during the most surrealistic situation in which I have ever found myself. It was during the Gulf War of 1991. Israel was under constant bombardment by Iraqi SKUD missiles. Citizens were required to carry gas masks wherever they went and to prepare airtight sealed rooms in their homes as protection against chemical and biological weapons. Two hours after the conclusion of the Sabbath, I left my wife, pregnant with twins, in the company of my eight-yearold son, and went out into the rainy night with my twelve-year-old daughter. Our mission was to get my wife some sort of software from a friend at the Technion. Equipped with the cardboard boxes, out of which grinned our hollow-eyed gas masks, we drove from Eshhar to Camon, two of the highest points in the wondrous hills of Galilee. We had to descend along a meandering and totally dark road from a height of 380 metres, cross the town of Carmiel and climb an equally twisting road to an altitude of 800 metres. As we were approaching the first white houses at the top of the Camon ridge, we heard the whisper ‘Poisonous Snake’, the code words broadcast on the radio when incoming missiles were detected, and were caught in the crossfire of two wails: the siren making its way up the mountain from Carmiel, and the siren mounted on the rooftop above us. Houses were bolted from within, families plunged into their sealed rooms, and we were stuck in an 1985 Fiesta that was far from secure. The rain became harder and the voice of IDF spokesman Nachman Shai silenced the newscasters’ babble. In my rear-view mirror I saw my daughter loosen her gas mask’s straps and fit it on her head as if born to it. I knew that the chemical agents were ineffective at that altitude and in that downpour, but my logic melted at the sight of my daughter’s eyes. I had to follow suit. We had a

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peaceful, lucent interval at the peak of the mountain in pouring rain as lightning tore holes through the sky and illuminated the valley below. I could see the houses, streets and gardens of Carmiel and even the distant lights of my own home above the town. Then the hole was shut, and the world again was drenched in torrents of water. Imprisoned in my mask, my worries wandered to my wife and son on the hill across the valley and of course to my unborn twins, safe in that womb within the sealed room. In the days before the outbreak of the Gulf War, before Saddam Hussein’s missiles, developed by the ‘Christian’ countries of the Democratic West, began pouring down on Israel and before the city of Tel Aviv retired into its sealed rooms, I taught a course at Tel Aviv University on the topic of Kiddush Hashem — dying in sanctification of God’s Name. During the course we read chronicles describing the behaviour of Jews during the first Crusade. My excellent group of students kept insisting on comparing this Jewish phenomenon with its Christian and Muslim equivalents, the ‘martyr’ and the shahid. The ahistorical arguments became more focused as Saddam began using the title shahid for his soldiers who were pillaging and raping in Kuwait — indicating that they would be prepared to die in their struggle against the Americans and their Zionist-Jewish allies. On one occasion we discussed the different ways in which each of the religions viewed the concept, and the students were asked to voice their opinions. I hurriedly noted their comments on the blank side of my course syllabus. In January the missiles started flying, the university closed down and I stopped making the journey from the relative safety of Galilee to dangerous Tel Aviv, the area hardest hit by Saddam’s missiles. Israelis began behaving in that typically Diaspora-Jewish fashion that I had heard mocked from the day I was born. One of the finest armies in the world had laid down its arms and let the Gentiles do its job for it. The staunch Israeli, who usually faces up to his enemy, plunged himself into his sealed room and hid behind nylon sheets and gas masks. Tel Aviv, known as the first modern Hebrew city, abandoned its posts. Israelis began praying once again, crying for help from the heavens and telling jokes into the bargain. These were timehonoured Jewish ways of coping with unendurable hardship. And I wondered time and again if it was not the time to investigate this behaviour of willful death for faith, and how this desperate defence mechanism has turned into uncompromising aggression. The experience of that night in 1991 on the Camon ridge created this book. As we know, since that time the shahids have not ceased their activities, and the question remains with us.

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Over the long journey that I have made since that time, there have been many to whom I owe thanks. First are the librarians who have helped me, people identified not by name but by their profession, and that is their mark of honour. I am especially grateful to the librarians at the Universities of Cambridge and of Oxford, who worked hard to find what I asked for, which was not always an easy task. I drew much wisdom from my friends and teachers Yehuda Radday and Magdalena Schultz. Yehuda Radday did not live to see this book published; he died on Sept 2001 and since then sits with King Solomon the Wise, discussing the book of Ecclesiastes. To friends who gave me continual help and support. Raya Cohen who brought up the idea of teaching a joint seminar on ‘The Sanctification of God’s Name’. Some of the ideas in this book are the fruit of my discussions with her. We all await her research on the idea on martyrdom in the ghettos, during the darkest hours of European Jewry. Hillay Zmora, who was forced to hear much more about martyrdom than he had planned, and whose ideas were always helpful. Yitzhak Hen who read, criticized, answered my every question, and shared his copious knowledge with me. Miri Rubin who gave much valuable advice and assisted me at Cambridge and at Oxford. Suzan Einbinder whose advice and letters were priceless. Anna Abulafia who allowed me access to a photocopy of an important manuscript, saving me a long journey. All of the scholars whom I pestered with questions and who always answered willingly and quickly. I wish to thank them all and to request that they do not hesitate to criticize what I have written here and to renew the important discussion on these issues. The Jewish community of Cambridge received my family and myself warmly and taught us a lesson in hospitality and communal concern. I originally intended to dedicate this book to my wife Leah and to my children Ayelet, Menahem, Hadar, and Tzur, but it would be impertinent to dedicate to them something that is theirs anyway. I dedicate this work to my students, who walked with me on the sorrowful path of those who died in sanctification of God’s Name. The Jews are marching in the crumbling fields And I walk alongside them and observe [. . .] I have forgotten my voice and my cry — And the Heavens themselves are like the remote fields of snow In the Kingdom of the Cross But — without the Gentile sword and the fear. From In the Heaven of Heavens, The Holy Communities on High, Uri Tzvi Greenb

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ABBREVIATIONS

AJS

American Journal of Sociology

AJS Review

Association of Jewish Studies Review

Arugat haBosem

Abraham bar Azriel, Arugat haBosem, ed. by E. Urbach, 4 vols (Jerusalem, 1939–63)

Habermann

Sefer gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Zarefat [Hebrew], ed. by A. M. Habermann (Jerusalem, 1945)

HTR

Harvard Theological Review

HUCA

Hebrew Union College Annual

JTS

Journal of Theological Studies

JQR

The Jewish Quarterly Review

Maharam, C.

Meir ben Baruch, Sefer She’elot uTeshuvot (Cremona, 1757; repr. Jerusalem, 1986)

Maharam, Cahana

Meir ben Baruch, Responsa, Rulings, and Customs, ed. by I. Z. Cahana, 3 vols (Jerusalem, 1957–62)

Maharam, Minhagim

Meir ben Baruch, Sefer Minhagim deBei Maharam ben Barukh meRotenburg, ed. by I. Elfenbein (New York, 1938)

Maharam, P.

Meir ben Baruch, Sefer Shut Maharam ben Barukh, ed. by M. A. Blakh (Budapest, 1895)

MGH

Monumenta Germaniae Historica

NRSV

New Revised Standard Version (Bible in English)

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xiv

Abbreviations

Or Zaru’a

Isaac b. Moses, Sefer Or Zaru’a, 4 vols (Zitomir, 1862)

PAAJR

Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research

Rashbam on Qoheleth

The Commentary of R. Samuel ben Meir Rashbam on Qoheleth, ed. by S. Japhet and R. B. Salters (Jerusalem, 1985)

REJ

Revue des études juives

RHC Occ

Recueil des historiens des croisades, historiens occidentaux, 5 vols (Paris, 1844–79)

SCH

Studies in Church History

Sefer Hasidim

Judah b. Samuel he-Hasid, Sefer Hasidim, ed. by J. Wistinetzki (Frankfurt a.M., 1924)

Tosefta

Tosefta, ed. by M. S. Zuckermandel (Pasewalk, 1880)

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MAPS AND TABLES

Table 1, p. 58. A Midrash on Psalm 50. 5 Map 1, p. 161. Jewish Settlements in Germany Map 2, p. 200. Jewish Settlements in Northern France Map 3, p. 208. Jewish Settlements in England 1066–1290 Map 4, p. 214. Rindfleisch Massacres of Jewish Communities (1298) Table 2, p. 371. Sources Table 3, p. 373. Translations

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Part One The Idea of Martyrdom: Nine Hundred Years

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Chapter 1

APRIL, MAY, JUNE, AND JULY OF THE YEAR 1096

T

he rumours that had spread throughout Europe in the early twelfth century of a Christian victory in the Orient had proven to be true: the holy city of Jerusalem had been captured from the heathen Saracens and the tomb of Christ had been redeemed. The rumours also told of the period that had preceded the fall of the city and the tomb to the Christian believers. For five long weeks, beginning on 7 July 1099, the crusaders looked down at the Holy City from the hill of Nebi Samwil, and on 15 July they stormed the city. It was told in Europe how a small army of Christian believers, just 1200 knights and 12,000 infantry, stood against the large and fortified city, defended by their most hated enemies, about 20,000 Muslims and Jews, who together denied them access to the goal of their three year journey — the church of the Holy Sepulchre. They also told of the crusaders’ hunger and thirst and their lack of weapons and ladders with which to attack the well-fed, strongly defended city and of the terrible ‘Greek Fire’, a burning mixture of oil and sulphur shot at them in clay shells. It was also told how they met a holy hermit on the Mount of Olives, who advised them to fast and to pray, which they did. On 8 July, after fasting and purifying themselves, the Christians began circling the walls of Jerusalem, just as Joshua had circled the walls of Jericho. The attack on the city began on the night of 14 July, but the heathens did not surrender. The Christians relayed that on the morrow at nine o’clock precisely, the hour of their Lord Jesus’s crucifixion, an army of heavenly saints appeared at their side. All witnessed how St George dressed as a knight and waving his shield, appeared on the summit of the Mount of Olives and gave his heavenly patronage to those fighting in the name of Christ. Finally the forces of Godfrey of Bouillon broke into the Jewish quarter through the Herod’s Gate. For two days, the soldiers of Jesus slaughtered Muslims and Jews, until the Holy City was covered in blood. They also told how they gathered at the church of the

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Resurrection, held ceremonies to celebrate their victory and established an everlasting Christian outpost in the heart of the Holy Land.1 What did the Jews of Europe think and how did they feel at hearing these reports? Jewish sources respond to the capture of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre with deafening silence. For Christians, the victory was the perfect demonstration that God and His Anointed were on their side. For the Jews, the Christian victory was a terrible blow to their hopes for their speedy redemption, the coming of the Messiah, the fall of Christendom and their return to their Land as God’s undisputed chosen people. At that time the Jews, especially those living in the Rhine Valley, were just recovering from the terrible blows they had been dealt by the crusaders when they had set out for the Orient in 1096. It had all begun in 1095, when Pope Urban II spoke at the Council of Clermont of raising a large Christian army that would travel to the East, defeat the Muslims, and redeem the Christian Holy Places.2 The Pope spent a few months in France but hurried back to Rome, where his adversary, Emperor Heinrich IV, had appointed an anti-pope. The Pope left his top aide, Adhemar of Monteil, Bishop of Le-Puy, in France. The Bishop hoped that by August 1096, after the harvest, he would stand at the head of a large army of fighters from southern France, veterans of war with the Muslims, and head eastward. However the moment the idea of a crusade to free the holy sites was made public, it was out of the organizers’ control. Groups and individuals immediately began to enlist for the journey eastward, responding to anyone who could bring them together. Local preachers, low-ranking nobles, visionaries, and all sorts of recruiters began moving troops throughout Europe in the name of this extraordinary idea. These troops set out on their journey in March 1096 and passed through the Rhine Valley in April, moving without regular supplies (the harvest was just beginning), organization, or coordination. Each group had its own leaders, with their own agenda, vision, and ideals.3 S. Runciman, A History of the Crusades, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1968), I, 265–314; J. Prawer, Histoire du royaume latin de Jérusalem (Paris, 1969), pp. 223–38; J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986), pp. 96–98, 107–17; L. Riley-Smith and J. Riley-Smith, The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095–1274 (London, 1981), pp. 12–15. 2 Prawer, pp. 177–208; S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols (Philadelphia, 1952–67), IV, 89–106; Riley-Smith and Riley Smith, The Crusades, pp. 10–15. 3 Riley-Smith, First Crusade, pp. 31–57. Jewish and Christian historiographers had an interest in presenting these masses as an unruly rabble, which, of course, they were not. See A. S. Abulafia, ‘The Interrelationship Between the Hebrew Chronicles on the First 1

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April, May, June, and July

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Both Christian and Jewish writers have left us detailed descriptions of these bands and their exploits. Some of these writers participated in the crusades and documented them first-hand, others wrote from hearsay. The chroniclers depicted this spontaneous march with a mixture of veneration and contempt, awe, and criticism. On one hand, they emphasized the great piety and faith of the simple people who had abandoned everything for the ideal of Jesus’s redemption. On the other, they did not hide the fact that many negative elements had joined the quest alongside the true faithful. Albert of Aachen, a Christian chronicler who lived during the first half of the twelfth century, wrote about the crusades in general and about the Rhine Valley Crusade in particular. He described the crusaders as unruly bands who raped and engaged in fornication, and behaved generally in an un-Christian way. Both Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre observed that such behaviour was unbecoming their holy mission.4 These elements were motivated to molest Jews, either by converting them or by killing them, before setting out to fight the Muslims: Whether driven by the will of God or by their own confused souls, they became caught up in a spirit of cruelty towards the Jews that were scattered among their cities and wreaked a terrible slaughter upon them, especially those in the land of Lotharingia. They claimed that this waging of war upon the enemies of Christianity was the first stage of their crusade and the fulfilment of their pledge.5 In the areas through which the crusaders marched, the Jews lived as communities within Christian cities. They enjoyed special writs of privilege and as other members of the urban population, fulfilled their civic duties and participated in the civic leadership. The city governors, who were responsible for them vis-à-vis the Imperial Court, were mostly bishops.6 The Jews recorded Crusade’, Journal of Semitic Studies, 27 (1982), 221–39; E. Siberry, Criticism of Crusading: 1095–1274 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 101–02; Riley-Smith, First Crusade; R. Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, 1987), pp. 50–84; J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders 1096–1131 (Cambridge, 1997); B. Z. Kedar, ‘Crusade Historians and the Massacres of 1096’, Jewish History, 12 (1998), 11–31. 4 Runciman, pp. 196, 295, 328–33; Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 38–40; J. RileySmith, ‘The First Crusade and the Persecution of the Jews’, in Persecution and Toleration, ed. by W. J. Sheils, SCH, 21 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 51–72. 5 Albert Aquensis (Aix) [Albert of Aachen], pro ereptione emuundatione Sanctae Hierosolymitanae ecclesiae, RHC Occ, IV, 271–713 (pp. 291–93). 6 G. Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany (Chicago, 1948), pp. 135–143; Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 16–37.

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the events in every manner at their disposal: they wrote ‘chronicles’ that contain a great deal of information about the Christians and their deeds and the reactions of the Jews to their deeds; they composed piyyutim — liturgical poems that immortalized the Jews’ behaviour; they created ‘memorial books’ that contain the names of the dead in each incident; and they responded to each event and to its ramifications on halakhah, or Jewish law. Jewish sources show that the Council of Clermont and the gathering in France triggered a warning light among French Jews, and they sent a letter forewarning the Jews of Germany, expressing their fear that the crusaders might march through the Rhine Valley. The German Jews, who already ‘excelled’ in their clear vision of the future, answered, ‘We are greatly concerned about your well-being. As for ourselves, there is no great cause for fear’.7 The heavy religious atmosphere and the fervour of faith which engulfed the crusaders are clearly reflected in Jewish sources, and it was they, they opine in their writings, which explain the Christian demand that the Jews be either baptized or put to death. According to the Jewish writers, the Christians demanded that the Jews accept the Christian truth and convert. Murder, pillaging, abuse, and persecution occurred only when the Jews denied the Christian truth. The Christians repeatedly presented the Jews’ ‘guilt’ of the murder and crucifixion of Jesus, and so it was only fitting that a crusade to liberate His tomb begin with doing justice to His murderers, unless they confessed and accepted Him as their Saviour: ‘And He [Jesus] said, there will come a day when my children will avenge My blood, and we, His children, must take vengeance upon you.’ This of course also reflects the fears of those who were about to set off on a long and dangerous campaign against the Muslims, and were not willing to leave the Jews, who they saw as a foreign and dangerous element, in their rear. The Jews had to be taken care of before the Muslims, since the Muslims were ‘there’, at the end of the journey, while the Jews were here, ‘living among us’. The Jewish rendition of this Christian ideology emphasizes the new world order that the crusaders intended to create — a Christian takeover of the entire world. The Jews were called upon to take part in the new order as Christians, or be destroyed. Christian theological rhetoric saw the new order as a sign that God was with the Christians, and so the Jews should now stop being obdurate and admit this.

7 Habermann, p. 93. For questions relating to Hebrew sources and translations see Appendix A.

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Where is the Promise to you? How can you be saved? [. . .] For you rebel and sin against Him. For your God has never been pleased with you and been beneficent towards you, for you have committed evil against Him. For this He has forsaken you and desires you no more, for you have been stiff-necked, so He has departed from you and enlightened us and taken us unto Him.

The bishops, leaders of the cities, at first protected the Jews and then withdrew their support and tried to convince them to convert, using theological arguments that were based on the reality of the situation. ‘I cannot save you, and your God has abandoned you and wishes no remnant of you to remain’, said the bishop according to a Jewish chronicler. Moreover, the bishops explained to the Jews who had been under their protection that their promise to protect them was only valid and binding up to that moment, but from then on the Jews were to disappear from the world: In truth I swore to preserve and to protect you as long as there was a single Jew left in the world, and so I did. From now on I cannot save you from these people, and now you must decide what you want to do.8

The Jewish account mentions several times the oath that the crusaders took before embarking on their journey. According to this oath they swore to kill Jews before leaving Europe for the Orient. In a letter sent to Emperor Heinrich IV, in Italy at the time, by Rabbi Kalonymus the Parnas, the Rabbi warns that Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the leaders of the crusade, had taken such an oath. The Emperor acknowledged the Jew’s letter and stated that this frightening trend must be stopped. And in fact, Godfrey swore that he had had no intention of harming the Jews, and when he did pass through Jewish populated areas he did not harm them, but imposed a heavy tax on them to fund his campaign.9 This story shows how the Jews attempted to understand the sudden change in the Christians’ attitude toward them at the end of the eleventh century. The story emphasizes how important the Jews of Germany considered the ‘Christian spirit’, aroused by the crusades, to be. They believed that their neighbours were undergoing a fundamental transformation, based on a deep

8

Habermann, pp. 24, 93, 27, 28, 41, 50, 54. Habermann, pp. 26–27. Guibert de Nogent relates a similar story: Guibert de Nogent, Autobiographie, ed. by E. R. Labande (Paris, 1981), p. 118. Both he and Richard of Poatie tell of real suffering inflicted on the Jews of France, for which we have no other source. 9

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religious awakening or revelation, which the Jews considered to be very dangerous to themselves.10 As mentioned, the Christian bands began moving eastward in March, 1096. One of these groups was that led by the monk, Pierre of Amiens, one of the remarkable figures of the First Crusade.11 This band arrived at Trier at the beginning of April and at Köln on 10 April. The group passed from France into Germany, through the Rhine Valley to Hungary, and from there to Byzantium. When passing through towns with Jewish communities, they would show them a letter from the Jews of France, in which they were instructed to supply the band’s needs in return for ‘A good word on behalf of Israel, for this man is a priest and his words are heard on high’. And indeed, these groups passed through the Rhine Valley in April and did not harm the Jews there. On the other hand, the rear guard, led by Polker (Volkmar), arriving in Prague in late May, gave the Jews there the choice of death or conversion. Another band, led by the Frenchmen Guillaume de Charpentier, the Viscount of Melun and Gâtinais, arrived at Speyer on 3 May, which was a Sabbath. This band attempted to convert the Jews and to kill those who refused. Jewish sources emphasize that Speyer was where Jews were first forced to convert, and that the Jews reacted by killing themselves al kiddush HaShem, ‘in sanctification of the Name (of God)’. These sources also state that the first to do so and to set an example for others to follow was a woman. 12 John, the city’s bishop, continued the tradition of protecting the Jews established by his predecessor Bishop Ridiger-Housman. He set out with an army against the Jews’ attackers and even punished some of them severely. The bands continued to Worms, and arrived there on 18 May. The bishop there, Adelburtus, who was at odds with the townsfolk, could not defend the Jews. Half the Jewish population hid at the bishop’s, while the other half was trapped in their homes. Once again, the Jews were ordered to convert and once again they reacted by killing themselves ‘in sanctification of God’s Name’. A 10

We find an echo of this tradition in an early-thirteenth-century forgery of the letter that set off the crusade, which included a command by Jesus to oppress the Jews and according to a thirteenth-century commentator, the plan to harm the Jews and to forcibly convert them was elemental to the First Crusade from its inception. See also Riley-Smith, First Crusade, pp. 54–56. 11 Prawer, pp. 152, 185–190; Riley-Smith, First Crusade, pp. 49–54, 71–74, 78–84; C. Morris, ‘Peter the Hermit and the Chroniclers’, in The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. by J. Phillips (Manchester, 1997), pp. 21–34. 12 Habermann, pp. 24, 72, 94.

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week later, the Christians violently chastised those Jews who had remained under the bishop’s protection. The majority refused to be baptized and killed themselves, or were killed, while a minority was forced to convert. A Jewish writer tells of 800 dead, whose bodies the Christians mutilated brutally.13 A week later the band reached Mainz, where the German nobleman Emicho (of Leiningen) was waiting with his 12,000 crusaders.14 Emicho claimed that a divine revelation had sent him on the crusade and had ordered him to either convert the Jews or kill them. This, as well as the presence of Emicho’s army at the city gates, moved the Jews to turn to Bishop Ruthard and plead for his assistance. The Bishop accepted the bribe they offered him and moved those families and their money into his citadel. On 27 May , the townsfolk of Mainz opened the city gates to Emicho and his men and the slaughter of the Jews began. Bribes were of no avail. The Bishop, who was afraid of confronting the crusaders, demanded that the Jews convert. One group, led by Rabbi Kalonymus, tried vainly to arm and defend itself, others chose to die in sanctification of God’s Name, while a few were converted. The Jewish writer tells of the slaughter of 900 or 1100 Jews in Mainz, most of whom killed themselves before the Christians could kill or convert them by force. This was called ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’ and was considered a glorious death, in which the Jews cursed Jesus and the Christian saints, and before killing themselves, shouted out ‘Shema Yisrael — Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is One’ (Deuteronomy 6. 4), considered to be the basic affirmation of Jewish faith, used as a confession before death, and recalled heroes of the past, such as Abraham sacrificing Isaac, Rabbi Akiba and others. The Christians wreaked severe damage on those things the Jews held holy in Mainz, destroyed the synagogue, rolled the Torah scrolls in the mud, and desecrated the dead bodies. They then continued eastward and did the same to the communities of Metz, Würzburg, and Nürnberg. On 10 June they forced the Jews of Regensburg to convert.15

13

Habermann, p. 25. S. Schwarzfuchs, ‘The Place of the Crusades in Jewish History’ [Hebrew], in Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, ed. by Menahem Ben-Sasson and others (Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 251–67. 14 Riley-Smith, First Crusade, pp. 50–57. 15 Habermann, pp. 29–41, 75, 50–52, 56–57. The sources emphasize that even those who ‘converted’ ate only kosher meat, never drank wine, rarely went to church, and observed the Jewish Sabbath.

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Köln was the crossroads where various groups (English, Flemish, and Lotharingian) gathered before leaving for Hungary. Archbishop Hermann III, tried to protect the Jews; at first he hid them; then he scattered them in villages around Köln, making the danger of exposure greater. The slaughter of the Jews of Köln began on 29 May, the eve of the festival of Shavuoth, the day on which the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, and continued ‘from the festival until 8 Tammuz’ (1 July) — over a full month. The bands in and around Köln attacked the Jews in the villages to which the Archbishop had sent them. On 24 June they attacked the Jews who were hiding in Neuss, the next day at Wevelinghofen, on 27 June at Xanten, a small town on the estuary of the Rhine northwest of Köln, and on 30 June at Mörs. After killing some 300 Jews who had hidden at Altenahr and at Karpen, a French band, which earlier had ravaged the Jews of Rouen and Metz, arrived at Köln.16 At Trier, the bishop at first sought to defend the Jews, but then decided that he was not willing to fight fellow-Christians because of Jews, and tried to convince them to convert. These Christian bands never did make it to the Holy Land, nor did they take part in the fight for its liberation. They were stopped and destroyed near Weisselburg on the River Danube by the Christian King Colomon of Hungary, who understood that these ravaging bands would wreak havoc in his land. In their description of the events surrounding the First Crusade the writers especially emphasized the way in which the Jews found their death — ‘in sanctification of God’s Name’. The Jews saw their choice of death over conversion for themselves and their children as a victory over Christianity. And so the Christians did not win over the Jews, neither in life nor in death. The expression ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’ is the Jewish designation for that intriguing, astonishing and moving phenomenon of people who are not willing to give up their beliefs, even at the cost of their lives. In the Christian world such death is called martyrdom, and the people who choose it martyrs. Studies of this phenomenon typically begin with either a tedious and analytical attempt to define it, or with an emotive description. I chose the latter in order to make manifest the powerful emotions I feel toward the topic of my research. I should add that I regard the term martyr as inadequate, and while it is the term mainly used, it is used in different ways and has changed meaning through history.17 Those scholars who attempt to define it narrowly deny one 16

Habermann, pp. 45–56, 77–80. About the Martyr definition see: D. A. Schlatter, Der Märtyrer in den Anfängen der Kirche (Gütersloh, 1915), pp. 10–12; H. A. Musurillo, Acts of the Pagan Martyrs (Oxford, 17

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of its more important characteristics: its ability to change its meaning in accordance with changing circumstances. The way in which the concept is constantly changing in Christianity and in Judaism bears witness to its special nature: a supreme expression of faith, which changes through time yet remains a constant in the lives of religions, nations, and groups. It would be easy to cling to the lexical definition of the Greek word that means ‘witness’, but even as far back as the second century CE when the term first appeared in Latin, it meant not only a witness to a great Truth, but a witness by death.18 Since then and throughout the history of religion and faith the term martyr has attracted more and more meanings, without losing any of its older ones. Testimony and death remain its most basic components. Since the advent of secularism the concept may have lost its connection to religion, replacing faith with secular ideals, but as long as people are willing to die for those ideals we shall continue to call them ‘martyrs’. So why did Jews at the end of the eleventh century choose this path? Were they, by doing so, preserving a tradition from the days of the Maccabees and the destruction of the Temple, or was this a new idea? The chroniclers state that the Jews who did so were emulating Abraham and Isaac who were willing to kill and be killed at God’s command, and the death of Rabbi Akiba. But it is impossible to ignore the differences: Abraham ended up not killing his son, Akiba emphasized that his choice should not be an example to others, and at this time the Romans were coercing the Jews, who were simply being killed passively. The behaviour of medieval Jews, then, clearly had new characteristics. It is also impossible to ignore the inter-religious tension that can be sensed in the Jewish sources, written in the wake of the crusade’s success. It is also impossible to ignore the question asked at the beginning of this chapter — what did a

1954), pp. 236–46; T. W. Manson, ‘Martyrs and Martyrdom’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 39 (1956–57), 463–84 (pp. 463–64); J. Dubois, Les martyrologes du Moyen Âge latin, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 26 (Turnhout, 1978), pp. 13–17 (a different view); T. Baumeister, Die Anfänge der Theologie des Martyriums (Münster, 1980), pp. 229–306; K. Gamber, Sie gaben Zeugnis (Regensburg, 1982), pp. 9– 12; C. Noce, Il Martirio (Roma, 1987), pp. 19–24; E. Weiner and A. Weiner, The Martyr’s Conviction: A Sociological Analysis (Atlanta, 1990), pp. 8–10; J. Coleman, Against the State: Studies in Sedition and Rebellion (London, 1990), pp. 33, 38; A. J. Droge and J. D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom Among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (San Francisco, 1992), pp. 156–58; G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 5–7. 18 Bowersock, pp. 5–7, notes 13–14, 20–22.

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German Jew, trying to rebuild his community, which had been destroyed by the ‘heroes’ of the First Crusade, actually feel?19 At the end of 1096, would the answer that God is on the Jews’ side, as proven by the fact that He has punished a Christian army for its misdeeds, be enough? That this Christian army was destroyed by another Christian army, and that this will be the fate of all who harm the Jews? In my opinion, this answer would not have been adequate in the early twelfth century. By then, Christians ruled the Temple Mount, encamped in the Valley of Jehosaphat, and tilled the fields of the Holy Land. They had also developed a new Messianic concept. At the beginning of the twelfth century, Jews and Christians in Europe lived in a ‘Martyrial’ atmosphere, which had 900 year-old roots, but its current image was decidedly medieval and was exceedingly complex. In order to understand the twelfth century, we must go back 900 years to the relationship of Judaism and Christianity to the idea of martyrdom. I have no intention of analysing the history of martyrdom over a whole millennium, but rather of addressing those motifs that appear later, and that can shed light on our investigation of the way that Christians and Jews in medieval times related to this question.

19 Shwarzfuchs, ‘Place of the Crusades’; H. Soloveitchik, ‘Catastrophe and Halakhic Creativity: Ashkenaz — 1096, 1242, 1306 and 1298’, Jewish History, 12 (1998), 71–85.

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CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST NINE HUNDRED YEARS

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he phenomenon of Christian martyrdom must be examined primarily against the background of the consolidation of Christian society as it saw itself and as it perceived the non-Christian world to see it. As we shall see, the phenomenon of martyrdom appears as a new hope in times of tumult or as a result of great despair in times of crisis.

Who Were the Martyrs? From the middle of the first century, when the disciples of Jesus began promulgating his doctrines, until the year 313, in which Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan and made Christianity the faith of the Empire, the Christian community was engaged in self-organization. The community grew and established itself, managed its own affairs (even though it was not officially recognized), attracted new members, strengthened its processes of internal socialization, created a network of intercommunication between its member churches, and, most of all, strove to prove to the surrounding pagan world that it had found the true faith. Christians were harassed throughout the Roman Empire, but until the middle of the third century there was no systematic persecution; the persecution that did occur was localized initiatives by provincial governors who insisted on shows of loyalty to the Empire or who reacted to the fears and anger of local pagans and Jews. During the first 300 years of its existence, Christianity had suffered several waves of persecution. The first was apparently in the year 64, when the Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome, but we have no solid information on the reasons for this persecution nor on the Christians’ reactions. The second wave was in 250, during the reign of the Emperor Decius, and the third was during the reign of Valerian, in the years 257–59. The final wave,

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known as the ‘Great Persecution’, took place during the reign of Diocletian, beginning in 303 and lasting for two years, partly in the western Empire but mostly in the east.1 The reasons for persecution differed according to both the time and the place. At first the Christians were harassed by pagans and Jews, who were suspicious of the new religion. According to Roman reports, from 112 on, the rulers suspected that the Christians were disloyal to the Roman Empire. They demanded that the Christians offer sacrifices to the gods as a test of loyalty to the Empire.2 The Christians’ refusal to fulfil even such a simple request served to strengthen the suspicions against them. What information the pagan populace had about the Christians only made them more wary: the Christians worshipped a god who is a man who was executed by the proconsul of Judaea for claiming to be ‘King of the Jews’. They spoke of the end of the world, regarded the Empire with indifference, and threatened to upset the delicate balance between man and the gods by denying their very existence. This conception of the Christians was responsible for a tendency to blame them for every disturbance that occurred in the Empire. True, the Jews behaved in a similar fashion and were also despised widely, but Judaism was an ancient and well-known religion, and the Jews had allowed a sacrifice for the Emperor’s well-being to be offered in their Temple. The Christians, however, not only refused to sacrifice, but also told whoever would listen that the Greek gods did not even exist. Most menacing of all was the fact that the Christians had come from inside pagan society and threatened to destroy the pagan communal religion from within. From the year 250, persecution became an imperial concern, because the emperors saw the Christians as a danger to the realm. As we have said, all that was asked was that they showed their loyalty. The local rulers did all they could to avoid executing Christians; they insisted on arguing with them, tried to understand their motives, and coerced only their leaders. As might have been foreseen, these limited ‘persecutions’ were totally unsuccessful.3 See the important work by Delehaye in the bibliography. D. W. Riddle, The Martyrs (Chicago, 1931), pp. 3–21; G. E. M. de Ste Croix, ‘Aspects of the “Great Persecution”’, HTR, 47 (1954), 75–113; G. E. M. de Ste Croix, ‘Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?’, Past and Present, 26 (1963), 6–38; R. L. Fox, Pagans and Christians (London, 1986), pp. 419–92, 749–59; P. Karpinski, Annua dies dormitionis (Frankfurt a.M., 1987), especially his bibliography pp. 300–14; R. Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco, 1997). See also Bowersock. 2 Ste Croix, ‘Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?’, p. 9 notes 20–23. 3 Ste Croix, ‘Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?’, pp. 15–27; R. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven, 1984), pp. 197–205; M. Sordi, The 1

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Until the middle of the third century, the Christian community in its main strongholds — Asia Minor, North Africa, Rome, and even the Holy Land — was absorbed in the revolutionary creation of a new religion, and had a need for heroes. Christian society at the time deliberately created its heroes — the martyrs. The nascent Christian communities of the second century realized that the Roman Empire could exterminate them. And so, during this early stage in their development they reacted with desperation to the local pagans’ attempts to ensure that they were no different from the general population. In a way, the idea of martyrdom as a response to invincible strength was typical of GrecoRoman thought, even if the Christians did regard Jesus as their model. Moreover, martyrdom was also an important internal expedient. The group used martyrdom as a value in its own internal education system in training and imbuing norms and as an instrument of social control. Had the Christians at this stage been willing to worship the Roman gods — even just outwardly — to preserve their own lives, Christianity would certainly have died out. It was precisely their insistence on complete faith and the use of the model of the martyr that prepared them for future trials. When, in 250, the emperor declared war on Christianity, it had already internalized the ideal of martyrdom as a strategy, and was thus able to survive until the time of Constantine. The new religion was ‘granted’ its first heroes as early as the beginning of the second century.4 Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was one such figure. He was arrested, taken to stand trial in Rome, and became a hero of the new faith. The mid-second-century The Martyrdom of St Polycarp tells of twelve Christians from Syria who died martyrs’ deaths. Though Antoninus Pius, the emperor at the time, had nothing to do with the case, the religion gained more heroes and the affair was presented as one of terrible “persecution”. So were the cases of martyrdom in Lyon and Vienna in the days of Marcus Aurelius; that of Justin Martyr in Rome; and the group in Carthage in North Africa in the early third century. This group had an interest in dying as martyrs and rejected opportunities they were given to stay alive. The people put to death became ‘martyrs’ immediately and the way they died set an example for the entire Christian community and was used to demonstrate how the pagans and the emperors were trying to wipe out Christianity. The Christian community Christians and the Roman Empire, trans. by A. Bedini (London, 1988), pp. 29–35, 108– 115, 122–131; T. D. Barnes, ‘Pagan Perceptions of Christianity’, in Early Christianity Origins and Evolution to AD 600, ed. by I. Hazlett (London, 1991), pp. 231–43. 4 See also Acts, 6–7 (Stephen).

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internalized the norms, and was prepared for reality of imperial persecution when it arrived. The emperors of the late third and early fourth centuries took the initiative against the Christians because they felt that the new faith had become too widespread and too self-confidant. Emperor Septimus Severus acted against the organization of churches, Decius attempted to stop Christianity altogether, and Valerian acted against the church leadership. Under Decius, those accused and brought to trial had two choices: to deny they were Christians and go free or to confess their Christianity and be punished. Those who confessed to being Christians were then asked questions hinting as to where their stubbornness would lead them. Some Christians denied their faith and swore allegiance to the Roman gods, while others bribed the Roman officials. Many fled and hid, though some chose to die the deaths of martyrs. The emperors then tried to strike at the Christian leadership, but failed. These ‘persecutions’ by the local populace, by representatives of the government, and sometimes by the emperors themselves, not only failed to undermine the new faith, but managed to strengthen the bonds between its adherents and succeeded in making it better known.5 In the world of the second to fourth centuries, these men and women, who, by confessing their Christianity usually sealed their own fates, were a novelty. By their conduct, which has come to be called ‘martyr behaviour’, they wished to demonstrate and to emphasize their rejection of the pagan gods of the Empire and their adherence to the monotheistic Christian faith. They died — as was usual in the Roman world — in the arena, in front of a cheering pagan crowd who enjoyed watching bloody spectacles, being fed to hungry animals or hunted down by gladiators.6 This phenomenon, which was common until the Empire itself adopted Christianity in the early fourth century, was widely documented by the 5

There are scholars who believe that the Roman Empire did not have a deliberate policy of persecution, see Ste Croix, ‘Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?’. 6 This book will not deal with the psychological aspects of the killers themselves, which has been studied widely. These people were often left with feelings of guilt, aggression, and with exhibitionist and destructive compulsions so powerful, that they were sometimes impelled to cloister themselves in monasteries years after the persecutions had ended. See Riddle, pp. 58–73; C. A. Mounteer, ‘Guilt, Martyrdom, and Monasticism’, The Journal of Psychohistory, 9 (1981), 145–71; D. W. Amundsen, ‘Suicide and Early Christian Values’, in Suicide and Euthanasia: Historical and Contemporary Themes, ed. by B. A. Brody (Dordrecht, 1989), pp. 77–154 (p. 79).

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government officials who were present in the arenas, by the surviving victims, and by their companions. These writings were reworked and rewritten over and over, and the terminology that they developed, since the second century, is used to this day. We have various types of sources that tell us about these martyrs. We have writings of people who experienced some part of the martyr-experience, or, as they saw it, the martyr-test; men and women whom, whether by choice or not, faced either confessing their faith and dying or escaping their fate by denying, running away, bribing, lying, and so on. These writings were persevered for so long due to the acclaim of later generations, who guarded them zealously and even refined and added to them.7 Another type of source is what martyrs’ companions in the martyr experience — near or distant relatives and those who had failed the test — wrote of them. These writings describe the arrests, tortures, suffering, and death. We also have plain, unembellished reports of the events written by Roman officials for their supervisors or for the records, and later writings that see the martyrs as models for future generations and show us how those future generations related to what had happened. Within this group of sources we find emotional letters, reports sent from one Christian community to another, and writing for posterity; after Christianity celebrated its victory over the Empire, the texts praised and glorified the Christians of old for their struggle against the pagans. As we have said, in all of these we find more than just descriptions — we find a feeling of responsibility toward the education and melding of future generations. In order to facilitate a distinction between the Christian messages and the historical events, scholars have suggested differentiating between the Roman legal reports, the acta, and the Passio, the Christian narrative that was written as a mechanism of memorializing and educating. Of course we must also distinguish between texts written close to the events by those about to die as martyrs, and those written later as a response to their deaths. In this study I will deal mostly with those sources that were used by Christians of all generations. Modern scholars do not cast too much doubt on their accuracy, which was influenced by the writers’ purposes. As Hippolyte Delehaye, the doyen of scholars of martyrdom, has established in his studies, these writings teach us not only about what happened during the second to 7

The article by F. Dolbeau, ‘La Passion des saints Lucius et Monatanus: Histoire et édition du texte’, Reveue des études Augustiniennes, 18 (1983), 39–82, did much to broaden my own understanding of critical work on texts concerning martyrdom.

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fourth centuries, but also about the development of the martyr cult and the way in which they were seen after the fourth century, when Christianity had triumphed and had been the faith of these cults for centuries.8

What Was the Source of the Martyr’s Behaviour? The amazing triumph of Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century triggered the faithful to attempt to understand why it had come about. Many answers (upon which we shall not expand here) were given, but it was clear that, whatever the case, the Empire’s new religion was not one that had sprung from any glorious victory. Rather, it was a doleful faith of miserable people, who had often been objects of the ridicule and scorn of the populace. The simple theological answer was that this had been God’s plan. But this answer was not enough, since it failed to explain why the victory had not occurred immediately after Jesus’s death and resurrection. Why had it been necessary for good and honest believers to go through centuries of torment? Writers of the fourth and fifth centuries give better answers. Eusebius of Caesarea explains that those centuries had been necessary. The Christian believers’ heroic struggle against the pagans had been needed in order to ensure the great triumph. The daily struggle had manifested itself in uncompromising faith, a Christian way of life, and insistence on every tenet of the Christian creed. At the pinnacle of this struggle stood the Christian martyrs.9 It is no wonder, then, that the martyrs were revered in the fourth century: their writings were read and contemplated, they were written about, their graves and relics venerated, and they were exalted with the halo of sainthood.10 The writings that the martyrs left behind as testimony to their deeds and as a guide to vital Christian behaviour, teach us that they viewed themselves not as innovators but as links in a long and unique chain, whose origins are in Israel’s H. Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires (Bruxelles, 1921), pp. 301–16; Manson, ‘Martyrs’, p. 478; T. D. Barnes, ‘Pre-Decian Acta Martyrum’, JTS, 19 (1968), 509–31; G. A. Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts of Martyrs and Commentarii (Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 3 –17; Bowersock, pp. 27–37. 9 G. W. H. Lampe, ‘Martyrdom and Inspiration’, in Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament, ed. by W. Horbury and B. McNeil (Cambridge 1981), pp. 118–35 (pp. 118–20); Coleman, Against the State, pp. 35–53. 10 This happened even though there was no more need for martyrs, and St Augustine asserted that such deeds were suicidal and thus forbidden. 8

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distant past. They associated themselves with a long line of people who had died because of their adherence to the monotheistic faith: the prophets of Israel who were persecuted for their message, Daniel, the Maccabees, John the Baptist, Jesus, the Apostles, and the martyrs themselves. Many scholars of this phenomenon see it, as did the martyrs themselves, as developing out of Judaism. These scholars view biblical allusions to the persecution and murder of prophets as attesting to martyrdom; thus also in the later book of Daniel and the group of apocalyptic books of the Apocrypha: Enoch, Wisdom, Jubilees, and the Qumran literature. The next group is the books of Maccabees (except for the third), Philo, and Josephus. This group precedes the appearance of Jesus, whom they consider the greatest martyr of all (despite theological difficulties); after him come the martyrs of the second to the fourth centuries.11 These scholars use history to prove Christian theological claims that Jesus, being the martyr who died willingly for all humanity, stands in the middle of this chain of martyrs. Those martyrs who came before Jesus foreran and predicted him, while those that came after followed in his footsteps. However, an opposing opinion, from as early as 1921, claims that the martyrdom of the second to fourth centuries was developed within the church, and not borrowed from the sister faith, Judaism.12 Compositions by and about the martyrs of the first centuries do not know of this debate. As far as they are concerned, anyone who died in order to demonstrate the truth did so in emulation of exemplary figures from the past: the prophets of Israel, the Maccabees, and Jesus. The Prophets of Israel Outside of a few verses in the Hebrew Bible, very few Jewish sources prior to the late first century describe the tribulations and death of prophets.13 We do find

11

Baumeister, especially his bibliography, pp. 314–25; B. E. Beck, ‘Imitatio Christi and the Lucan Passion Narrative’, in Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament, ed. by W. Horbury and B. McNeil (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 28–47 (pp. 29–30); Lampe, ‘Martyrdom and Inspiration’, pp. 118–20; W. H. C. Frend, ‘The Persecutions: Some Links between Judaism and the Early Church’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 9 (1958), 141–58 (pp. 142–49); W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford, 1965); Bowersock, pp. 7–12. 12 Delehaye, Passions; see also Bowersock. 13 About Elijah: ‘Because the Children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and

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this in early-Christian sources, as in the book Lives of the Prophets14 and very emphatically in the New Testament. There is no Jewish source that talks of the fate of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Amos, or Zachariah in the way the Epistle to the Hebrews describes it: ‘They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were slain by the sword’ (11. 37).15 In key passages within the New Testament, Jesus and others are quoted as asserting that Israel had always persecuted the prophets that God had sent to show them the divine truth. They were killed and crucified, whipped and chased from town to town. Jesus presented himself as one of these prophets, so that Israel not only ignored him, but harassed him to the death. This is made very clear in the Gospel of Luke: Woe unto you! For ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and consent to the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and prosecute,’ that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation. From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias who perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation (11. 47–51).16

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his disciples ‘prophets’: ‘Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you’ (Matthew 5. 12). In the Parable of the Vineyard (Mark 12. 1–5) the disciples are the prophets and the murdered son is Jesus.17 To the martyrs of the first centuries, these prophets were martyrs themselves. They had received a message from God and had been commanded to pass it on to the people of Israel, which they did without hesitation. And even if they were not heeded, they had been willing to die for their mission. 18 The specific proof of this — and its theological culmination — was to be found they seek my life, to take it away’ (I Kings 19. 14); and also ‘Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them’, Nehemiah 9. 26–31. and see also vv. 30, 32. 14 H. A. Fischel, ‘Martyr and Prophet’, JQR, 37 (1946–47), 265–80; D. Satran, Biblical Prophets in Byzantine Palestine (Leiden, 1995), pp. 25–29. 15 Satran, pp. 55–61. 16 Matthew 23. 34–39; Luke 13. 34; Satran, pp. 25–29, notes 75–78. 17 Luke 6. 23–24; Acts 7. 52; I Thessalonians 2. 15; Hebrews 11. 36–37. 18 Schlatter, pp. 18–22, see notes 37–53, pp. 67–72, especially note 45, pp. 69–70; E. Stauffer, New Testament Theology (London, 1955), pp. 98–100; Manson, ‘Martyrs’, pp. 465–75; Lampe, ‘Martyrdom’, pp. 124–33; Beck, ‘Imitatio Christi’, pp. 29–30.

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in the acts of Jesus. He too chose to spread the word of God, and he too chose to die as a martyr-prophet and in doing so to show the world a new way. The pharisees had warned him of Herod’s intention to have him killed, and he answered that he would go to Jerusalem regardless: ‘and the third day I shall be perfected [. . .] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest they that are sent unto thee’ (Luke 13. 34). This is how every act of persecution against those who bear God’s words should be seen and this is the proper way to react. In this sense, the martyrs saw themselves as the successors of Jesus, himself the heir to the prophets.19 The Maccabees Like the prophets, the Maccabees were also seen as preferred role models by the martyrs of the second century and later. The books of Maccabees were written at different times, and so the force of their ‘martyr message’ differs from book to book. First Maccabees, written close to the events,20 tells of a pagan king who attempted to defeat a monotheistic faith and persecute its adherents. He initiated public events in which the Jews were forced to deny their faith by offering pagan sacrifices to the king. The writer of I Maccabees was an historian who described the revolt, glorified the Hasmonean family, and celebrated the purification of the Temple. There is no trace of martyr-type behaviour in the book, except in the Jews’ willingness to wage war for their faith. The author of II Maccabees emphasized certain aspects of the war, especially the Jews’ willingness to pay with their lives for the faith of their ancestors. He told of Jews who hid in caves and refused to fight on the Sabbath, ‘for the honour and holiness of the day, they thought it wrong to fight for their lives’. He described at length the death of Eleazar the Elder, who refused to eat pork ( II Maccabees 6), and the story of the mother and her seven sons (II Maccabees 7). These people paid with their lives in order to prove to the pagans and their god-king that the true victor is the Jewish God, whose believers would not desert Him at any price. It is not clear when II Maccabees was written and scholars are unsure whether it was written right after the revolt, in the second century BCE, or 19

Lampe ‘Martyrdom’, pp. 126–29. E. Bickermann, Der Gott der Makkabäer (Berlin, 1937), pp. 27–31; U. Kellerman, Auferstanden in dem Himmel (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 109–12; G. W. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 114–21; Weiner and Weiner, pp. 29–37. 20

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centuries later, with some of its episodes being reworked to meet the needs of the hour.21 The author of IV Maccabees, whom most scholars date to the first century CE at the earliest,22 took these episodes from II Maccabees, expanded upon them and made them primary. Eleazar, the mother and sons are pivotal, and the Jews’ willingness to die for their monotheistic faith is central to the book. The martyr-style writing of IV Maccabees, then, is contemporaneous with that of the New Testament, and not earlier. It was not the Maccabees who created martyrdom as a behaviour, but later generations — mostly Christians — living during the first centuries CE.23 This is clear from the format of the book, written as a discourse which opens with the sentence: ‘As I am going to demonstrate a most philosophical proposition, namely, that religious reasoning is absolute master of the passions’.24 In any case, almost all of the martyrs of the first centuries mention Jesus, the prophets, and the Maccabees in the same breath and it is clear that the books of Maccabees, especially the fourth, influenced them greatly, even if the word ‘martyr’ does not appear in them. This influence can be seen in several ways, in the framework and in the paradigm given for martyrs’ behaviour: •

Eleazar the Elder, who stands up to tyranny; the mother who accepts the death of her children (whose ages are unknown), who are happy to give up their lives.

Bickermann, Der Gott der Makkabäer, pp. 32–35; Musurillo, pp. 238–39; J. Downing, ‘Jesus and Martyrdom’, JTS, 14 (1963), 279–93 (pp. 280–81); S. K. Williams, Jesus’ Death as Saving Event: The Origin of a Concept (Missoula, 1975), pp. 197–203; Kellerman; Nickelsburg, pp. 114–21;Weiner and Weiner, pp. 29–37; Bowersock, pp. 9–13. 22 Musurillo, pp. 238–39; Downing, ‘Jesus’, pp. 280–81; M. Hadas, The Third and Fourth Books of the Maccabees (New York, 1953), pp. 95–99; Nickelsburg, pp. 223–27, 230; D. Seeley, The Noble Death (Sheffield, 1990), pp. 80–82; A. DuPont-Sommer, Le quatrième livre des Machabées (Paris, 1939), pp. 75–76; Bowersock, pp. 9–13; Williams, pp. 197–202. 23 In this I differ from J. W. van Henten, ‘Das jüdische Selbstverstandnis im den ältesten Martyrien’, in Die Entstehung der jüdischen Martyrologie, ed. by J. W. van Henten (Leiden, 1989), pp. 127–61 pp. 127–61, who states that II Maccabees was the origin of Christian martyrdom. 24 In the opinion of Hadas, pp. 101, 113–15, the author had a Greek education and was influenced by the Stoic school. Musurillo, p. 239, note 2 also thinks that the author was a Syrian Jew who was influenced by the Stoics. 21

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The emphasis on the idea that suffering and death atone for the sins of others.25 The books of the Maccabees introduced the figures of Abraham and Isaac into the myth of martyrdom.26 The martyr is given eternal life, as stated by one of the sons: ‘And when he was at the last gasp, he said, “Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life”’ (II Maccabees 7. 9), and even receives ‘the crown of martyrdom’, which IV Maccabees 9. 8 calls ‘the diadem of triumph’. The martyr anticipates the future. God will bring speedy redemption because of the martyrs’ actions: But I, as my brethren, offer up my body and life for the laws of our fathers, beseeching God that he would speedily be merciful unto our nation; and that thou by torments and plagues mayest confess, that he alone is God ( II Maccabees 7. 37).27

Christian tradition remembered Eleazar, the mother, and the brothers as ‘Christian martyrs’. The Christians of Antioch thought these events to have occurred in their city, preserved the tombs of the dead, and even observed a special holiday in their honour every August. It is not clear whether the Jewish community preserved the memory of these events from the time of the Maccabees and in what way. It is possible that the date of their deaths and their burial places were preserved in Antioch. The sources do mention a synagogue built on the site of the brothers’ tomb.28 One scholar has surmised that the book of IV Maccabees was written by an Antiochian Jew as a speech for this memorial day.29 At the beginning of the fourth century, Antiochian Christians took over the synagogue and the tomb and created a ‘cult’ of the Christian

25 Hadas, pp. 121–22; Downing, ‘Jesus’, pp. 281–284; Droge and Tabor, pp. 71–75; see also Williams, pp. 165–82. 26 R. Daly, Christian Sacrifice: The Judaeo-Christian Background Before Origen (Washington, 1978) p. 149; IV Maccabees 12. 12, 15. 20. 27 Frend, Martyrdom, p. 72, note 76. 28 M. Schatkin, ‘The Maccabean Martyrs’, Vigilae Christianae, 28 (1974), 97–113 (pp. 98–104). 29 Hadas, pp. 103–11; R. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 10–16; Manson, ‘Martyrs’, pp. 482–83.

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Maccabean Martyrs.30 John Chrysostom delivered several sermons in honour of the Maccabean martyrs, whose burial place — bones were a powerful relic — became a site for pilgrimage. The preacher took pains to emphasize that the heroism of the brothers and the Maccabees belonged to the Christians and not to the Jews.31 This cult of the Maccabees remained and was known in Antioch, Cappadocia, and North Africa through the late fourth and early fifth centuries, and after the Persian conquest in the sixth century moved to Constantinople and to Rome.32 Jesus A question that any believing Christian must ask himself, is how the killing of the God-Messiah Jesus by mere humans was possible, and what does Jesus’s death mean. Can the simple answer, that Jesus died of his own will and that his death has deep significance for all human beings, especially for Christians, be enough? Such questions were asked by the authors of the New Testament in the Gospels and Epistles, particularly by Paul.33 One answer is that God died for the sake of humanity of His own will, and since then He is present in the midst of His believers. This idea, which is repeated often in the New Testament, directed and formulated the conduct of Jesus’s followers. They feel that he is with them, and as such do not hesitate to act as he would expect them to, even at times in which they are persecuted, disparaged, suffering, and even killed. As stated by the Gospel of John: ‘A servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you’ (15. 20), and as Peter, foremost among the Apostles, says in his first Epistle: ‘Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you: but rejoice, in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings’ (4.

30

Schatkin, ‘Maccabean Martyrs’, pp. 105–07. Schatkin, ‘Maccabean Martyrs’, pp. 104–08; Wilken, John Chrysostom, pp. 88–90. There was a church in Antioch dedicated to the memory of St Babylas, the city’s bishop in 237–50 who was killed in the persecutions of Decius. John Chrysostom also delivered a sermon and prayed in memory of the martyr St Drosis, a young woman who was burned in Antioch. The words of John themselves reveal how strong the Jewish claim was, since these martyrs had died as Jews. As Wilken said with some restraint: ‘Though the Christians had possession of the relics, the Jews had the better of the argument.’ 32 Schatkin, ‘Maccabean Martyrs’, pp. 108–13. 33 Lampe, ‘Martyrdom’, pp. 118–28; Droge and Tabor, pp. 113–28. 31

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12–13). Clearly, one of the reasons that Christianity seemed so strange to the pagans, was that the Christian god, Jesus, had died as a common criminal. No pagan god would have ever permitted himself to be caught by humans, to suffer, to be led, humiliated, and destitute, to a Roman execution site, and to be hanged and crucified like a criminal. The martyrs, however, used these very facts in order to duplicate the Lord’s actions and to bring His faith to all mankind. Just as Jesus was humiliated, so would the martyr be, and as Jesus was executed, so would the martyr be, and just like Jesus, so would he receive the crown of martyrdom and achieve everlasting life.34 These themes, borrowed from the New Testament Passion scenes, formed the associative background in which the second-century martyr operated. First, was the willingness to testify. When the Roman proconsul Pilate, while judging Jesus, asked him: ‘Art thou a king, then’, he answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end I was born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice (John 18. 37).

Like Jesus, the martyrs, too, saw themselves as ‘witnesses’. They, too, are willing to suffer to the death. They, too, are hated by the world, but are protected by God, who through their suffering will rule the world (Jesus’s promise in the Gospel of John 14. 1–5: ‘I go to prepare a place for you’). Their death for the Gospel is the ultimate proof of their way, which is His way, since he died despite his divine ability to save himself.35 The martyrs emphasized Jesus’s demand that his believers follow in his footsteps, especially his words according to Luke: ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me [. . .] And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple’ (9. 23, 14. 27).36 The idea to be understood by Jesus’s actions is that the Messiah suffered and died in order to expunge the sins of others, as Jesus himself said: ‘For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mark 10. 45), and Delehaye, Passions, p. 19; Downing, ‘Jesus’, pp. 280–92; Lampe, ‘Martyrdom’, 118– 21; Beck ‘Imitatio Christi’ pp. 29–34; J. P. M. Sweet, ‘Maintaining the Testimony of Jesus: The Suffering of Christians in the Revelation of John’, in Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament, ed. by W. Horbury and B. McNeil (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 101–17 (pp. 103–05); Bisbee, pp. 19–133; Amundsen, ‘Suicide’, pp. 86–92; Droge and Tabor, pp. 113–128. 35 Sweet, ‘Maintaining the Testimony of Jesus’, pp. 103–11. 36 Beck ‘Imitatio Christi’ pp. 33–47 (see Luke 23. 26). 34

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Paul repeated in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ (15. 3).37 The New Testament uses the term ‘martyr’ as a title for those who witnessed Jesus’s death and resurrection, whether or not they themselves died. Two who witnessed and died were Antipas (‘my faithful witness’ in Revelation 2. 13) and Stephen, whom Paul himself calls a ‘witness’ after seeing him stoned to death and testifying before the inquiring Sanhedrin about the rumours that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy the Temple and amend the Laws of Moses (Acts 22. 20). The first time that this term is used outside of Scripture to describe a person who testified to the death of his willing commitment to Jesus, is apparently in the case of Polycarp of Asia Minor, who was killed in the midsecond century. The sources that tell of his death use the term martyr as having the meaning ascribed to it in the New Testament. We know of resistance to persecution and tyranny at this time — the late first to mid-second centuries — and the Christians gave a Christian meaning to the Greek word.38 From the above one could deduce, that it was the Christianity of the first centuries, inspired by the death of Jesus and influenced by the Greco-Roman society that its believers were a part of, that created the phenomenon of the martyr’s death.39 Not only did the Greco-Roman world not negate the idea of suicide, it even advocated it under certain conditions. This was not just a philosophy of the elite schools of Epicureanism or Stoicism, but a basic idea that existed in the core of Greco-Roman everyday discourse.40 Socrates, as described 37

Downing, ‘Jesus’, pp. 281–84; see also the work of Williams. Bowersock, pp. 15–17, especially note 43. Musurillo believes that the term was adopted because it was already used in the society in which Christian martyrdom developed. One can see especially the influence of the Roman Stoics, who retold stories in which the central theme is that of Libertas. One should, however, note the comment by Daly, p. 381, that the martyrs’ willingness to die originates in their experience of Jesus and not from pure logic (my emphasis). 39 Though there are scholars who point to contemporary Jewish influence as well. Schlatter, pp. 14–18; Lampe, ‘Martyrdom’, pp. 118–20; Frend, ‘Persecutions’; Frend, Martyrdom, pp. 31–68; Downing, ‘Jesus’, continue the work of A. Buechler, Studies in Sin and Atonement in the Rabbinic Literature of the First Century (Oxford, 1928); Fischel, ‘Martyr’. 40 See in detail in M. T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford, 1976); Y. Grisé, Le suicide dans la Rome antique (Montreal, 1983), pp. 167–85, 283–89; A. van Hoff, From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-Killing in Classical Antiquity (London, 1990), p. 198 lists 960 cases of suicides: 884 individual suicides in which 854 people died and 76 cases of collective suicides in which 8785 people died, all together 9639 men and women 38

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by Plato, chose suicide because the gods had put him in a certain ‘situation’, but remained loyal to them nonetheless. Other schools developed or adapted this idea. The Cynic school taught that man should live a ‘worthy’ life, and that if his life is no longer such, it can be ended. The Epicureans saw suicide as an overcoming of the fear of pain and death. The Stoics and Seneca dismissed Socrates’ ‘situation’ and taught that if logic demands it, one may commit suicide.41 Second-century Christians fused these ideas with that of martyrdom, as formulated at the end of the first century in reaction to the death of Jesus. Socrates’ suicide and the other Greek instances lack the components of true martyrdom, such as persecution, the attack on society, or the hope that their deaths would contribute to the making of a better world. On the other hand there are martyrs and other Christian writers who do see Christian martyrdom in Socrates’ act and in certain other Greek suicides. This goes to prove the strong Greek influence on early-second-century Christian martyrdom.42 It is worth noting that most of the late-second-century Christian martyrs were residents of Asia Minor, and even the Christians of Lyon, who died in 177, had ties with Asia Minor. As opposed to the Christian Scriptures, which were influenced by both Jewish and Greek ideas, the acts of the martyrs were influenced by non-Jewish Greco-Roman society, mostly in Asia Minor, Greece, and North Africa.43 As I shall show in the next chapter, Jewish martyrdom followed an entirely different course of development, mostly after the first century CE.44

(the numbers are listed on p. 233, the methods of death on p. 235). See also M. Stern, ‘The Suicide of Eleazar ben Yair and his Men at Masada and the Fourth Philosophy’ [Hebrew], Zion, 47 (1982), 375–83; Droge and Tabor, pp. 17–35, notes 68–71. 41 One widely-discussed case is that of Cato of Utica. According to Cicero, Cato saw the victories of Caesar as a sign from the gods that put him in a terminal situation in which suicide was his only choice. This was a sort of receiving permission from the gods for his suicide. Seneca described suicide as Cato’s own free choice. See Grisé, pp. 180–84, 202–18. 42 Delehaye, Passions; Droge and Tabor, pp. 69–76. Bowersock, pp. 8–9. 43 Bowersock, pp. 17–19; C. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome During the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge, 1960). See also Musurillo. 44 There are Jewish sources that seem to have influenced the pre-New Testament Christian idea of martyrdom of the first century. Paul was influenced mainly by IV Maccabees, see Seeley; the idea of suffering is also from IV Maccabees, see Williams; the books that deal with them are also of Christian composition that have no Jewish ‘martyr precedent’. See R. Bauckham, ‘Martyrdom of Enoch and Elijah: Jewish or Christian?’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 95 (1976), 447–58.

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The First Martyrs Of all of the martyrs who lived during the second to fourth centuries, I have chosen four to represent the overall phenomenon, with a variety of motifs running though the sources that tell of them. Early in the second century — the year 107 or 108 — Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, after being tried and sentenced to death by wild animals in the arena, was transported to Rome. During his journey, he wrote to the Christian communities of Asia Minor and Rome, and pleaded that they should not intercede on his behalf nor do anything that would keep him from a martyr’s death. He looked forward to the tortures (fire and crucifixion) that he would have to undergo, and to the breaking and grinding of his bones by the beasts in the arena, to death and to the martyr’s crown: ‘I hope to be ground by the beasts’ teeth into the pure bread of Jesus.’ Such a death would elevate him to the level of a true disciple of Jesus, who had commanded all ‘whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me [. . .] but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it’. Ignatius emphasizes that he willingly chose death, in order to obtain a special reward: to be at Jesus’s side, to prosper with him, and to live a life of everlasting freedom. He looked forward to the pure light and immediate salvation that he would receive upon his death as a martyr, since he had faced Satan and prevailed. Besides Jesus, he referred to the figures of the biblical prophets and the Maccabees. They were his heroes not only because they adhered to their divine revelation to the death, but because their actions anticipated those of Jesus, whom he hoped to emulate.45 Our knowledge of the martyrdom of Polycarp in the mid-second century (149–50 or 155–56) comes from a letter sent from the Christians of Smyrna to those at the church of Philomelium in Phrygia, who had wished to know what became of him.46 This letter is important because of its orientation to educate towards martyrdom, in both its latent and avowed messages extolling emulation of this type of martyrdom. In Polycarp’s case, the local proconsul initiated an investigation, to make sure that the Christians under his authority were loyal to the Empire. The Christians who were caught faced the beasts in the arena and 45 Translation from The Apostolic Fathers, trans. by K. Lake, 2 vols, Loeb Classical Library, 24–25 (London, 1912–13), I, 165–278. Bisbee, pp. 133–35; Droge and Tabor, pp. 130–32; Bowersock, pp. 6–7. 46 Barnes, ‘Pre-Dacian Acta Martyrum’, pp. 510–14; Bisbee, pp. 119–21, notes 1–6.

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stood fast, not denying their belief in the Lord God Jesus. Polycarp, the town’s Bishop, a highly respected, eighty-six-year-old, was smuggled out of the city so as to save him. At that time, fleeing and not facing the authorities was still considered to be acceptable. While in hiding Polycarp experienced a vision of his pillow going up in flames, from which he understood that he too must testify and burn to death, making his escape unnecessary. One of the Christians caught had broken down and given away Polycarp’s hiding place, and so the Bishop was arrested and brought to the arena. The Roman system was to break the leader, whose punishment would then serve as an example to the others, and the letter did call Polycarp ‘teacher’ and ‘father of the Christians’. The long description in the letter, which was written as a sign of victory over the Romans and the pagans, teaches its readers that Christ is not to be denied, and that in the arena one should maintain a proud, uncompromising, and intrepid stance. Polycarp prayed to be received by Jesus, to be with his Apostles, and to achieve the crown of martyrdom, which would bring in turn the crowns of eternity and immortality. In his prayers and in his suffering he looks to paradise and thanks God for having brought him to the status of a martyr. The themes that appear in this letter became the basis for all Christian martyrdom, and indeed this is the first time in which we find the word ‘martyr’ used in a way which means more than just ‘witness’. The writer’s conclusion is that one should not run and hide from trial, but rather the opposite. The motif of ‘wilful death’ is very strong. It is emphasized that the martyr does nor suffer pain, because in the final moments he becomes spirit, rather than flesh. This theme appears again and again throughout history. The letter also emphasizes the connection between the martyr’s status and the death of Jesus. This connection is not just through Polycarp’s prayer nor through his personal plea, but primarily through the narrative, which mentions and recalls the details of Jesus’s betrayal and wilful death. It was one of Polycarp’s disciples, just like Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him, and like Jesus, he too was interrogated by the Roman governor and refused to deny his faith. ‘I am a Christian’, he declared, and a voice from heaven supported him. Since it was no longer possible to use animals in the arena, the proconsul threatened him with burning, at which point Polycarp understood the full significance of his heavenly vision. He stood, tied to the stake like a sacrifice, with no fear of the fire, which in fact did not harm him but wrapped him ‘like bread being baked in the oven, or silver and gold in the furnace’. One of the soldiers speared him, and his spilt blood extinguished the flames. When his body was burned, the onlookers smelled a pure and sweet aroma. The Christians wished to preserve his body,

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but the Jews (according to the letter, a main factor behind this persecution) advised against it, and the body was cremated. Thus, out of the ashes was born the martyr’s cult, which the letter requests be learned, remembered, and emulated.47 The main quality of this martyr-story is in its identification with Jesus, and its expectation that at the moment of death Jesus will be with him, at his side. This tangible certainty is a source of pleasure and joy, and so despite the tortures, the martyr feels no pain.48 The source reveals that Jesus’s death and the desire to emulate and to come close to him are the main reasons for their willingness to die a martyr’s death. The influence of IV Maccabees, where the author emphasized death as a consequence of logic over nature, is not visible in this case. The experience itself is central here. Like Jesus, the martyr must do battle with Satan in the guise of beasts and gladiators. Like Jesus’s death, so the martyr’s death atones for the sins of others, a sacrifice of atonement. This theme appears in all stories of martyrdom from Ignatius onwards, as do the key words: lamb, sacrifice, the body of the offering, bread, fragrance, and so on.49 Perpetua, a favourite character of generations of Christians (and researchers), died as a martyr in Carthage on 7 March 202 or 203. This was after the proclamation of the Emperor Septimius forbidding conversion to Christianity. But the source blames the martyr’s death on the inflexibility of the proconsul of Carthage, Scapula. This case of martyrdom is important for several reasons. We have a source written by Perpetua herself during the time between her sentencing and her death in the arena, and completed by one of her companions. Significantly this was a female martyr, and as we shall see, women would play a prominent part in martyrdom; but more importantly, we already have here a pattern of behaviour. Her story includes themes from prior accounts of martyrdom, which in turn would serve as a model for future accounts. This is especially true of the stories of the martyrs Lucius and Montanus, and of the source known as Sanctorum Mariani et Jacobi Passio (The Passion of Saints Marianus and James), which itself became an archetype for such accounts. What was special about Perpetua was that not just that the Roman rulers tried to convince her to recant, but also her father and family also tried to persuade Translation from Apostolic Fathers, I, 279–302. Barnes, ‘Pre-Dacian Acta Martyrum’; T. E. Pollard, ‘Martyrs and Resurrection in the New Testament’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 55 (1972), 240–51; Karpinski, pp. 40–64; Bisbee, pp. 129–32; Amundsen, ‘Suicide’, p. 103; Droge and Tabor, pp. 134–38; Bowersock, pp. 13–17. 48 Droge and Tabor, pp. 138–38. 49 Daly, pp. 320–23, 379–83; Lampe, ‘Martyrdom’ p. 120. 47

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her, reminding her that she was the mother of a young child; however, she preferred martyrdom to her family. The things she wrote show that while her profound faith did cause her pain and indecision, her indoctrination as a martyr prevailed at the end of the day. Perpetua was convinced of her ability to atone for the sins of others, even those who had wavered and had renounced their Christian faith. Her strength was revealed in her dreams, in which she saw Jesus, her brother suffering and dying of a disease, and herself as a man, fighting the disease and overcoming it with prayer. Perpetua was aware of the strength she drew from the knowledge that she would not break nor deny her faith, and she, too, said ‘I am a Christian’ as she was led into the arena. In the arena, she encouraged her fellow-martyrs, modestly covered her body and asked for a pin for her hair. The chronicler of her death tells that she took the gladiator’s hand and ‘helped’ him stab his sword into her throat, as if to emphasize her volunteering to die. Perpetua stressed her joy at having chosen this death. She identified the beasts in the arena with Satan and declared that she would fight him, the emissary of evil, and not the animals. For her, the martyr’s death symbolized life. She believed that after her death she would ascend to heaven accompanied by the angels, to the Throne of Glory and everlasting life.50 The cases of Perpetua and others show what central a role women played in the martyrdom of the first centuries, both in numbers and in merit. They appeared in mixed groups of men and women, as part of groups made up only of women, and as individuals, and emphasized the force of the sacrifice of martyrdom by their very presence. The Romans did not treat these women any better than they did the men. The only alleviation they received was that women who were pregnant were not tortured and executed until after they had given birth. We know of such a case in the account of the martyrs Felicitas and Eutychia; in the case of Carpus, Agathonicus and Papylos, the assembled crowd asked a woman about to throw herself into the fire to take pity on her son. Her answer, ‘he has God to take pity on him’, reminds us of Perpetua’s preference of martyrdom over her family. Many of the sources stress that the women were active in their acts of martyrdom and killed themselves. Foremost among the

50 Barnes, ‘Pre-Dacian Acta Martyrum’; Droge and Tabor, pp. 1–3; P. Schmitt Pantel, ‘The Woman’s Voice’, in A History of Women in the West I: From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints, ed. by P. Schmitt Pantel (Cambridge, MA, 1992), pp. 473–77; B. D. Shaw, ‘The Passion of Perpetua’, Past and Present, 139 (1993), 3–45; D. Potter, ‘Martyrdom as Spectacle’, in Theater and Society in the Classical World, ed. by R. Scodel (Ann Arbor, 1993), pp. 53–88; Bowersock, pp. 27–37.

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martyrs of Lyon was Balindina, who impressed everyone, even the animals, with her conduct. She encouraged others not to break and even proved that she felt no pain. Women’s strength stemmed from their profound faith and ability to withstand the act of martyrdom in the same way as a man. Women are predominant among those who did not die, but did confess their Christian faith, receiving the title ‘confessor’ which meant ‘witness to the Faith’. According to the Montanist (‘New Prophecy’) movement that appeared in Phrygia in Asia Minor during the late 160s, such confessors of faith, men and women alike, were to be accorded a central role in the community, since they had become close to Jesus and had the power to help others do the same and perhaps even achieve the power of prophecy. Women held a central place in this movement from its inception. Beside the leader Montanus stood two women, Maximilla and Priscilla; it was they who claimed divine inspiration for their prophecies, that they were God’s messengers to mankind. Since willingness to die was not a matter of gender, woman could achieve status in Christian groups that were usually dominated by men. This was the source of Perpetua’s confidence in her ability to help the downtrodden, the sick, and those who could not stand up to the test and denied their faith, and this was the source of her belief that her writings would have an influence on believers. In fact, this was a reflection of the demand by women for more power within the church, a demand that was possible until the decline of the Montanist movement and the rise of Catholicism.51 In the year 257, the Emperor Valerian first issued an edict forbidding Christian worship. In reaction, Cyprianus, Bishop of Carthage, left his city, but continued to direct the Church’s affairs from his place of exile. A year later, following a new decree sentencing to death any Christian clergy who refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods, he came out of hiding to stand trial and was executed. The Bishop’s decision shows his understanding that it was to be made as clear as possible that Christianity would not surrender to the Emperor. Cyprianus fully understood that while the first edict still left a possibility for the

51 C. Jones, ‘Women, Death, and the Law During the Christian Persecutions’, in Martyrs and Martyrologies, ed. by D. Wood, SCH, 30 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 23–34; S. G. Hall, ‘Women Among the Early Martyrs’, in Martyrs and Martyrologies, ed. by D. Wood, SCH, 30 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 1–22; F. Klawiter, ‘The Role of Martyrdom and Persecution in Developing the Priestly Authority of Women in Early Christianity: A Case Study of Montanism’, Church History, 49 (1980), 251–61; Delehaye, Passions.

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Church to continue functioning underground for the time being, the second forced the clergy to deny their Christianity and so compelled him to act as a martyr and show others the way, too. He hoped that his death would be as public as possible and have an effect on many people. The source recounts that not only pagans watched his death and were affected by it, but, and primarily, Christians. This was an act of desperation, meant mainly for internal consumption. The Christians had to understand that the only possible reaction to the edict was one of contrary behaviour, that of martyrdom.52 Like most of the martyrs, both Cyprianus the Bishop and Polycarp the ‘father’ and ‘master’ made use of the opportunity provided by the proconsuls to have their say. The Christians were martyred in the most conspicuous places in Roman public life, the stadium and the arena. The Romans, who considered public punishment to be an effective means of social control, adopted the arena as a site for executions. The audience would come to see public order restored, the guilty punished and the rulers’ representatives run the show according to a clear and unchanging protocol. The onlookers wanted to feel the power of the regime, and when the victims broke with protocol by unexpected behaviour, they would cry out: more blows, more torture, and would often express support for the actions of the government. The Roman style of execution was meant to turn the criminal into something less than human — a slave or an animal — in order to achieve maximum deterrence. In this atmosphere and at this place the martyrs put on their act. In theory, these were simple criminals who were humiliated in public, exhibited like animals, and killed like animals. In reality, the Church benefited greatly from these events. The martyrs were given a public platform from which they could speak, act in a way that commanded respect for themselves and their faith, and which would make them known far and wide and, most importantly, turn them into heroes that the Christian faithful could emulate. Just as the Greek heroes had come from pagan rites at the stadium, so did the new religion and its holy heroes, the martyrs. As opposed to death of the Greek heroes, the Christians saw the death of their own martyrs as a victory.53 Though few Christians managed to convert the ‘Roman’ happening into a ‘Christian’ one (far fewer that the Christian sources claim), the few who did were given the chance to participate in the major form of entertainment of the 52

Karpinski, pp. 117–47. I learned much about this subject from Coleman, Against the State as well as T. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London, 1992), pp. 79–86, 150–51, 165–80, and the bibliography there. 53

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times and to achieve wide publicity. The Christians in the arena made good use of the event: they endeavoured to invert the established rule by which the accused person, being executed, lost control of his own body and reverted to becoming ‘part of the law’. They turned their own execution into an exalted moment, ‘becoming, through their actions, the judges of their judges’ and using the audience to their advantage. Like the Maccabees, Eleazar, the mother, and her sons, they spread their Gospel. They exhibited their correct behaviour in public.54 A careful scrutiny of the sources shows that most of the martyrs actually created and looked for opportunities to die as soon as the persecutions began, rather than being willing to die for refusing to being coerced into participating in pagan sacrifice. As they understood it, living in denial of one’s faith was death, while dying a martyr’s death was life. This is especially true in the cases of Polycarp, Cyprianus, and an early-third-century group of martyrs in Carthage. The members of this group wished to die as martyrs, though they were given several opportunities to postpone their deaths.55 Scholars attribute this to the influence of the Montanist movement, whose leaders Montanus and the women, Maximilla and Priscilla, claimed to be transmitting messages from Jesus, and had made wilful death a central part of their thinking. We learn of these martyrs mainly from the writings of Tertullian, who wrote during the late second and early third centuries.56 He is important mainly on account of his description of the theological mood of the time, with its tension around the subject of martyrdom that reached its climax in the Montanist movement.57 The Church fought hard against the Donatists — a third- and fourthcentury group, named after Bishop Donatus — because of their belief that a person who had once refuted his Christian faith could no longer return to the fold. However, a person who had withstood torture and had held fast to his faith in Jesus, became a part of the leadership.58 The Donatists’ emphasis of death by choice continued to disturb the Church, but the ideal continued to remain popular due to the martyrs’ image as being educational figures with long lasting influence. In 304 a man named Euplus walked into a court of law 54

Manson, ‘Martyrs’ p. 484; Potter, ‘Martyrdom as Spectacle’; Bowersock, pp. 43–55. Ste Croix, ‘Aspects of the “Great Persecution”’; Droge and Tabor, pp. 134–138, 162. 56 D. T. Barnes, Tertullian (Oxford, 1971) pp. 130–42; Klawiter, ‘Role of Martyrdom’. 57 See chapter 10 below. 58 This was eventually rejected by the church council convened by Constantine at Arles in 314. 55

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shouting that he was a Christian. Eusebius tells of a rumour that spread in Caesarea in 305 that a Christian would be killed in the arena during the festival; six youths stopped the Procurator on his way to the arena and begged to be allowed to die with him (he had them arrested and beheaded).59 Many church leaders, fearing that the Church would eradicate itself, attempted to halt the fervour for martyrdom, drawing a distinction between those who had been persecuted and had suffered for their faith and those who had volunteered to die needlessly. They did not succeed in wiping out the phenomenon or in reducing the adulation for those who did die as martyrs. There were two well-known attempts to curb the swell of martyrs. In the early third century, Clement of Alexandria condemned those Christians who were eager to die. In his opinion, to be a Christian meant living as a Christian, not dying as one. His book was written after the persecutions of 202, and may have been influenced by the fact that he himself chose to flee and not to die as a martyr. In his Stromatis, he maintained that any believer whose soul is pure and who follows God’s laws is a martyr in word and in deed. By this Clement was trying to return the word ‘martyr’ to its original meaning of ‘witness for Christ’, not necessarily one who dies for his faith. For him, total commitment to serve God was as good as a willingness to die. He based his conviction on the words of Jesus: ‘Also I say unto you, whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God’ (Luke 12. 8), pointing out that ‘confession’ did not necessarily mean death. He felt that many Christians preferred to die with more passion than they showed for those very values that led to martyrdom in the first place.60 At the beginning of the fourth century, during the persecutions that took place in the reign of Diocletian, Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, left the city and fled into the Libyan desert. His position was filled by Melitus, who, as the community’s bishop, was careful to include only those who were prepared not to deny their Christianity. In 305, Peter returned to the episcopacy and attempted to reunite the Christian community. He accepted those who had bribed the Romans, those who had hidden, who had disguised themselves, and even those who had denied their faith and then repented. In reaction, Melitus founded ‘the Church of the Martyrs’, thus causing a rift within the local community. The problem was finally solved by the Emperor Maximinus Daia, 59

Ste Croix, ‘Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?’, pp. 21–22 (notes 114–16). J. Quasten, Patrology, 3 vols (Utrecht, 1950–60), II, 35–36; Daly, pp. 478–90; Droge and Tabor, pp. 141–44; Bowersock, pp. 67–72. 60

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who in 311 decided to solve the Christians’ problem by getting rid of their leaders. He sent agents to Egypt, who arrested Peter and beheaded him before he could flee. Thus, ironically, Peter, who had opposed the idea of martyrdom, became a holy martyr himself.61 Clement and Peter were unsuccessful in stopping the phenomenon. In theory, it was the great Augustine who laid down the rule: martyrdom had been proper in the past, when it had been ordained by God. However, now (from the beginning of the fourth century), anyone who voluntarily accepted martyrdom was wrong, was in fact committing suicide, and therefore murder.62 In fact, Augustine’s ‘success’ in halting the phenomenon was only partial. Augustine’s ruling came after Christianity had triumphed: the Emperor was a Christian and Christians were no longer persecuted. The situation had changed vastly, and it was the reality of the situation that had stopped the phenomenon and the great theologian had merely affirmed this new reality. Moreover, as I shall show, the motif of martyrdom, with its strong emotions and tenacious values did not disappear from the Christian stage with the triumph of Christianity. It merely altered its shape.

From Martyrs to Martyr-Warriors Beginning with the fourth century, Christianity had taken over the Empire and had turned it into ‘Christian Europe’. The entire population of Europe, excepting Jews and Muslims, gradually converted to Christianity. Christianity decided to tolerate the Jews as a minority, while Islam, which appeared on its western borders in the eighth century, was defined as an enemy. In theory, there was no longer a need for the ideal of martyrdom, nor for people who were willing to perform acts of martyrdom. Christianity had won, the pagans had been defeated, and St Augustine had ruled that anyone who became a martyr in his time was guilty of suicide and hence of murder. But the ideal of martyrdom did not disappear, because human beings are not so readily willing to give up a way to become so close to God, even if by proxy. From now on, martyrs would appear in any place that Christianity would set its front lines. Christian missionaries sent to convert pagan tribes, supporters of the Church against Barnes, Tertullian; Quasten, II, 130–42. Droge and Tabor, pp. 167–184; Amundsen, ‘Suicide’, pp. 123–41; Bowersock, p. 74, 59–65, 167–84. 61

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those who opposed it from within, those who set out to repel invaders from without or to invade new lands in the name of Christianity by power of the sword, those who were sent to stop the heresies that threatened the ship of Christianity, and more, all would define and consider themselves to be martyrs.63 The martyrs held a place of honour in the cult of the saints that developed from the fourth century on, and which became one of the main foci of Christian identification in the Middle Ages.64 The Christian cult of saints was a result of the belief that God wished to influence His faithful in this poor and sinful world and of the belief in the resurrection of the flesh. Though at first glance this cult seems like a direct continuation of the hero-worship of the ancient world (the Christian saints were even called ‘heroes’), a closer look reveals that the components and the need for this cult originated from within the values of the Christian world. Worship of the body of a pagan hero is unlike that of a Christian martyr, since the hero cannot directly influence this world after his death, while the martyr, who has become so close to God, can and does. Also, according to divine promise, the martyr will also not remain dead forever like the pagan hero, and so it is advantageous to cherish and to worship him. The pagan tradition of hero-worship did influence the first centuries of Christian cult, but from the third century this was a purely Christian creation. While the martyr (or saint) is in heaven, his remains are buried in this world and so he can perform miracles here as well. Adulation of a martyr is most efficacious, since the martyr has suffered the most, emulated Jesus, and come closest to God, and as such has the greatest power. And so, in the sixth and seventh centuries, the cult of martyrs, their relics and tombs developed and strengthened. Like the worship of saints in general, this was at first mostly a local affair. Except for a few saints that were known to all, most of these cults

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P. Delooz, ‘Towards a Sociological Study of Canonized Sainthood in the Catholic Church’, in Saints and their Cult, ed. by S. Wilson (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 189–216; D. Weinstein and R. Bell, Saints and Society (Chicago, 1982), pp. 158–63. 64 The topic of martyrdom and sainthood in the Middle Ages is a very large one. I refer the reader mainly to those sources that deal with martyrs, within the wider subject of sainthood. See mainly P. Brown, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago, 1981); Weinstein and Bell. See also S. Wilson, ‘Introduction’, in Saints and their Cult, ed. by S. Wilson (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 1–53 and S. Wilson, ‘Annotated Bibliography’, in Saints and their Cult, ed. by S. Wilson (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 309–417; A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Late Middle Ages, trans. by J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1997) (La Sainteté en occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge (Rome, 1981)), pp. 158–83. and many others.

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were based on the shared experience of the local people. The anniversaries of the martyrs’ deaths became days of public worship at their tombs, mass was celebrated and prayers were recited, including supplication to the saint in whose honour the ceremony was held. The ceremonies included readings relating to the lives of the saint or martyr, and became an annual event, that eventually entered the calendar, once the saint became well known (not just locally). In the fourth century this multiplicity of saints’ days caused the creation special calendars, which cited the days and sites that were connected with the various martyrs and saints. Familial intimacy was added by the custom, which later became canonical, of naming children after saints. These were usually either the saints on whose day the child was born, or in whose town the child was born, or a saint with whom the family had some traditional ties.65 This cult of martyrs and saints was adopted by the Merovingian and the Carolingian societies (two Frankish dynasties who ruled from the fifth through the mid-ninth centuries). Stories of the martyrs’ deeds, passiones, were recited during holiday prayers, which shows the extent to which the strong feelings expressed by these stories had been assimilated.66 The martyrs’ cult not only served to strengthen Christian solidarity within the kingdom, but also became a political tool in the hands of the Frankish kings. Such political use of the Frankish martyrs’ connection was first used in the ceremony appointing Clovis to the consulate at Tours in the sixth century, and then again in the days of Pippin I, the major domos of Austrasia. This connection was based on the deep empathy Gregory, Bishop of Tours (b. 540, bishop 573–94) had for martyrdom. In his writings, especially in a work entitled In Praise of Martyrdom, the Bishop placed martyrdom, the martyrs, their tombs and monuments at the centre of Christian faith and feeling. The opening passage of the Frankish law, or Lex Salica, written in the mid-eighth century, emphasized these ties:

65 One such popular saint was St Agnes, whose day was celebrated on 21 January. She was a girl of twelve or thirteen who was martyred in 350 and buried near the Via Nomentata. She was praised by all, and her name appears in some of the earliest expanded prayer rituals. Delehaye, Passions, pp. 24–49; P. J. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1978), pp. 33–50; Wilson, ‘Introduction’; Brown, pp. 7–18, 78–79; T. Klauser, A Short History of the Western Liturgy (London, 1969), pp. 85–93. 66 H. Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints, trans. by D. Attwater (London, 1962), pp. 12–48; Brown, pp. 79–84.

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the bodies of the holy martyrs, which the Romans had buried in fire, desecrated with the sword, and ripped to pieces when throwing them to the wild beasts — these bodies were found by the Franks and preserved among precious stones.67

As Gregory of Tours makes clear, these traditions were not just for peasants. They reflect the deepest beliefs and ideals of the Frankish clergy and nobility, which emphasized the reverence of martyrs, saints, and their relics. In this tradition, they considered themselves heirs to the sixth-century Merovingians. Gregory of Tours tells how in 542 the Merovingian king, Childebert I, robbed the remains of a martyr from Saragosa and had them brought to the monastery at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which remained a centre for holy relics for centuries to come.68 During the ninth century, the interest in and exploiting of, the cult of the martyrs spread. As in the preceding period, the martyrs’ relics were used for the dedication of altars, for the strengthening of vows, for proving piety, and for setting out on pilgrimages. In the Frankish parts of Europe there were few martyrs, and so various means were used to acquire ‘martyr patronage’. In those towns whose history stretched back to the days of the martyrs of old, the martyr

G. de Nie, Views from a Many-Windowed Tower (Amsterdam, 1987), pp. 68–69, 94–96, 176–81, 204–11, 217–26, 253–54; J. L. Nelson, ‘The Franks, the Martyrology of Usuard, and the Martyrs of Córdoba’, in Martyrs and Martyrologies, ed. by D. Wood, SCH, 30 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 67–80 (p. 67); I. N. Wood, Gregory of Tours (Bangor, 1994); Y. Hen ‘Gregorio di Tours’, in Patrologia, IV, ed. by A. di Bernardino, Padri latini, secoli, 5–7 (Roma, 1996), pp. 304–14. I follow Yitzhak Hen’s opinion that the Salic Law was written by Clovis in the sixth century. The longer opening was apparently written in the days of Pippin I. 68 Nelson, ‘Franks’, shows the effort made to write a history of the martyrs: four ‘martyrs’ tales’ that were created between 838–55 in the land of the Franks during the time of Louis le Pieux and Lothar I. The most important are Hrabanus and Ado. Hrabanus Maurus wrote approximately between the years 840–54. Among his sources are the Venerable Bede, whose martyrology was composed of 114 ‘historical points’. Hrabanus Maurus wrote his list as a calendar with a saint or martyr for each day, which was meant to help readers get to heaven. Dom Henri Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1908), pp. 466–681; Dubois, Martyrologes, pp. 42–45, 56–60; J. A. McGuckin, ‘Hrabanus Maurus’ Martyrology: The Method of Composition’, Sacris Erudiri, 23 (1978–9), 417–61; J. M. McCulloh, ‘Historical Martyrologies in the Benedictine Cultural Tradition’, in Benedictine Culture 759–1050, ed. by W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (Leuven, 1983), pp. 114–31; J. Dunbabin, ‘The Maccabees as Exemplars in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, in The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley, ed. by K. Walsh and D. Wood, SCH, subsidia 4 (1985), pp. 31–42. 67

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would appear in a dream or a vision to the priest or monk and tell him where his remains were buried. Another method was to import such remains from Rome or from Muslim Spain, which were rich with the traditions of the martyrs. The transportation of bodies and remains of martyrs became so common that the 813 Synod of Mainz prohibited such transferral of remains without the permission of a prince, bishop, or ecclesiastic council.69 Such massive use of this cult teaches us of religious devotion and of a belief that the dead have the power to improve the lot of their faithful, in a world in which life was neither secure nor taken for granted. The Frankish kings used the cult of the martyrs not only to increase the Christian cohesiveness of their kingdoms, but also to expand their realms. Such ‘political’ use of martyrs was made by Charles le Chauve (840–77). His father had brought the remains of the saints Peter and Marcellinus and strengthened his ties with the monastery of Saint-Denis. Charles was crowned king in the church of St Stephen and supported the concentrated efforts of Usuard and of monks from SaintGermain-des-Prés in Paris to build up the cult of the martyrs deliberately. Usuard’s book of martyrs, written and dedicated to the King, is actually an expanded calendar that includes the saints’ days. Besides summarizing the stories of previous martyrs, this book became an instrument for all those who wished to adopt the cult of the saints and the martyrs. This caused the martyr to be identified with a place, with the leadership, and with the populace that venerated him.70 The activities of the monks of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and of Usuard in Spain were also connected with Charles le Chauve’s political aspirations. These monks returned from Córdoba in 858, told of the Muslims’ persecution of the Christian faithful who committed acts of martyrdom like the martyrs of old, brought back the remains of martyrs, and reported on the miracles that these remains effected on their journey.71 69 The transfer of the remains of St Sebastianus from Rome to the monastery of SaintMédard in Soissons in the year 826 caused mass pilgrimage to the monastery/church. Within 100 years the remains of about thirty bodies were moved from place to place. 70 Quentin, pp. 682; J. Dubois, Le martyrologe d’Usuard: text et commentaire (Bruxelles, 1965), pp. 75–94; Dubois, Martyrologes, pp. 45–55; R. McKitterick, ‘Charles the Bald (823–877) and his Library: The Patronage of Learning’, The English Historical Review, 95 (1980), 28–47 (p. 34); Nelson, ‘Franks’ pp. 70–78. J. Dubois, Sources et méthodes de l’hagiographie médiévale (Paris, 1993), pp. 103–22. 71 B. de Gaiffier, ‘Les notices hispaniques dans le martyrologe d’Usuard’, Analecta Bollandiana, 55 (1937), 268–83 (pp. 271–83); J. Waltz, ‘The Significance of the Voluntary Martyrs of Ninth-Century Córdoba’, Muslim World, 60 (1970), 143–59, 226–

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We should pay special attention to the case of the martyrs of Córdoba in the ninth century. This was the first time in 500 years that members of a Christian minority died as martyrs, claiming persecution by the Muslim majority. Most scholars believe that the Muslims of Córdoba were quite tolerant of the Christians who lived in their midst; they were allowed to take part in civic life and to hold certain public offices. The situation was so good, that Christian sources even reported with alarm that Christians were gradually being assimilated into Muslim society.72 The sudden change in the Christians’ behaviour occurred in the year 850. Between 850 and 859, the Muslim government of Córdoba had forty-six Christians executed. Clergy, monks, and children of mixed parentage, who had until now kept their Christianity hidden, made public declarations that were quite clearly punishable by death. These Christians actually invited their own deaths: they proselytized in public, even disparaged Mohammed before the Qadi, calling him a liar, an adulterer, and a sorcerer, and declaring that those who believed in him would wind up in hell. The government tried to deal with the phenomenon by executing them, attempting to keep Christians from taking the bodies of those who had been executed, raising taxes, closing churches, and dismissing Christians from public office. Most of the Christian sources relating these events were written by a priest from Córdoba named Eulogius, who described the death of every martyr. He was himself martyred in 859, and the task of writing was completed by his brother, Paulus Albarus.73 Relations between Christians and Muslims in Córdoba improved during the following century, after this movement had almost disappeared. The phenomenon of the martyrs of Córdoba started with a Christian named Isaac, who had been an official in the emir’s court, left his job for an unknown reason, secluded himself for three years in the monastery of Tabanos, and then returned to Córdoba in order to die willingly as a martyr. Isaac berated Mohammed before the Qadi and was executed on 3 July 851. This deed 36; Geary, p. 49; J. A. Coope, The Martyrs of Córdoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion (Lincoln, NE, 1995), pp. 53-54. 72 Waltz, ‘Significance of the Voluntary Martyrs’, pp. 151–56; Coope; Nelson, ‘Franks’; K. B. Wolf, Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain (Cambridge, 1988). For a different view, A. Cutler, ‘The Ninth-Century Spanish Martyrs’ Movement and the Origins of Western Christian Mission to the Muslims’, Muslim World, 55 (1965), 321– 39 (pp. 322–24). 73 Waltz, ‘Significance of the Voluntary Martyrs’, pp. 226–30; Wolf, pp. 24–35, 77– 97; Coope, pp. 1–11.

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encouraged other Christians to perform similar acts.74 Eulogius depicts his heroes like the martyrs of old, especially the mid-third century martyrs from Córdoba, Acilus, and Vitoria. However in the ninth century, Christians were not being put to death by pagans, but by monotheistic Muslims. The Muslims did not persecute the Christians and allowed them to practise their religion. It was forbidden for a Muslim to harm or to torture a Christian, even if the latter had desecrated the memory of Mohammed. Muslim law prohibited torturing a person who had been sentenced to death. Thus, not only were there no pagans, no persecution, nor forced denial of faith, there was not even any suffering.75 Most of these martyrs performed their acts after spending some time in one of the small and isolated monasteries in the vicinity of Córdoba, in which monks and nuns sought redemption through asceticism, fasting, and the like. Some apparently joined in order to atone for past sins, and feared that nothing could atone for their sins other than martyrdom, which cleanses all sin.76 The source, written in a heavy polemic style, reveals the desperation of its writer, Eulogius. He mainly attacks Christians, who imitate the behaviour of the Muslims for economic gain, serve the Muslim government, and become too familiar with Muslims, even to the extent of being willing to circumcise themselves. Other Christians had chosen Islam because of their belief in its superiority — an expression of their growing disillusion with the truth of Christianity. To the faithful Christians, this strengthening of Islam seemed to be a test, which necessitated extreme measures. They believed that such acts of martyrdom and Christian piety would shock those Christians who had drawn too close to Muslims and would have an influence on them.77 Scholars are divided over the importance of this movement. Was this a very marginal phenomenon, which simply left its mark on the Frankish martyrs’ book and on the collection of holy relics in the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (through the activities of Usuard)? Or was its effect more important, causing a

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Eulogius attempted to show (in my opinion with no basis) that the Córdoba martyrdom began in 820 with the death of two brothers, by citing a martyrial speech made by one of them before his death. Coope, pp. 16–17, 39–45. 75 Wolf, pp. 77–97. 76 Wolf, pp. 108–19; Coope, pp. 71–75; (the story of Flora pp. 24–34). 77 Wolf, p. 97; Coope, pp. 55–79. According to Cutler, ‘Ninth-Century Spanish Martyrs’ Movement’, the Christian community was gripped by messianic-apocalyptic feelings that caused this behaviour. The idea is interesting, but seems to lack evidence in the sources.

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change in Christian thought, which would henceforth consider those whom would fall in battle against the Muslims to be martyrs? Perhaps its main importance was in its effect on the monks of Cluny, amongst whom there developed a concept that linked the martyr to the soldier of the Church. One of those educated at Cluny would be the monk who would call for the First Crusade at the end of the eleventh century. This would be the war that would define the new type of martyr: the warrior-martyr.78 Usage of the term ‘martyr’ became more widespread in the tenth century, and even more so in the eleventh. In the year 1085, Bishop Bonizo wrote of the great importance of Christians emulating Jesus, as is written: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them [. . .] take up their cross daily and follow me’ (Luke 9. 23); ‘Whoever does not bear his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14. 27). Just as Jesus and his Apostles suffered humiliation affliction and death in this world, and after their death blossomed at the side of God, so must Christians in his day do the same. He described the Apostles as imitating Jesus, with a white-robed army of martyrs following them. In his opinion, the thirty-three popes that held office from the days of the Apostles until the conversion of Constantine all died as martyrs.79 The connection between the faithful and the martyrs in heaven was achieved through holy relics, monuments, and tombs, which were traditional sites of pilgrimage, such as the tombs of James of Compostella and of St Peter and St Paul in Rome. In the eleventh century, the ties to the martyrs were strengthened through use of liturgical poems, sermons, and festivals in their honour.80 The monks and the knights were the most influenced by these stories. The monks were subjected to a daily sermon in which martyrdom was equated with a new baptism, a baptism

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Waltz, ‘Significance of the Voluntary Martyrs’, pp. 234–36. According to H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom and the First Crusade’, in Crusade and Settlement, ed. by P. W. Edbury (Cardiff, 1985), pp. 46–56 (p. 46, notes 4–6), the ancient poem Te Deum laudamus, which tells of a saintly hierarchy with martyrial motifs, influenced this bishop and the eleventh-century view of martyrs in general. In is worth noting that according to the chroniclers, this was the song that Crusaders sang upon their entrance to Jerusalem. 80 H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Two Studies in Cluniac History, 1049–1126’, Studi Gregoriani, 11 (1978), 13–298 (pp. 164–66); Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom’, p. 4. Father Hugo of Cluny preached at a festival in honour of the martyr Bishop Marcellus. The Bishop was martyred in 178, when he fled Lyon and was caught near Chalon-sur-Saône, tortured, buried to his neck, and left to starve to death. The festival in his honour was on 4 September. 79

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in blood.81 The knights developed the ethos of the warrior-martyr, which was the most significant change in the image of the martyr throughout the Middle Ages. Christian warriors had been important in wars against pagans and Muslims before the eleventh century. The chronicles that described the wars of Charlemagne do not mention martyrs directly, but the wars are described as wars for Jesus and Christianity. Two ninth-century popes — Leo IV (847–55) who attempted to block the Muslim advance in Italy, and John VIII in 878 — promised Frankish bishops that fighters dying in combat against non-believers would be assured of everlasting life. Pope Leo IX (1049–54), whose army was defeated by the Normans in northern Italy, had a vision of the fallen and described them as martyrs — they had died for Jesus.82 The tenth century saw the beginning of what would become an eleventh-century phenomenon, heroic poetry about the lives of martyrs. The famous Chanson de Roland and the Life of St Edmund — written in the late tenth century and disseminated in the eleventh — are packed with motifs connected with martyrdom. Kings who were killed in battle were turned into martyrs and equated with the holy martyrs.83 It is possible to measure the influence of such rhetoric on the events of the eleventh century; the term ‘martyr’ changed from referring to a passive saint who was willing to give his life for his beliefs, to meaning an active warrior, willing to fight and to die for one of the goals of Christianity. At this stage the language developed and the connection between the martyr and the warrior was coined in the term ‘warrior-martyr’. It should not be taken for granted that the Christian Church considers fighting and killing to be positive activities, even when they are carried out in a ‘just’ cause. While Augustine had mentioned the idea of ‘just warfare’, most church leaders continued to view fighting, and especially killing, as evil conduct, fraught with sin. Even in the eleventh century, preachers taught that

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Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom’, p. 48. Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom’, p. 48; C. Morris, ‘Martyrs on the Field of Battle Before and During the First Crusade’, in Martyrs and Martyrologies, ed. by D. Wood, SCH, 30 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 93–104 (pp. 93–97, notes 22–25). 83 St Edmund died as a ‘martyr’. Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom’, pp. 47–48; P. A. Hayward, ‘The Idea of Innocent Martyrdom in Late Tenth and Eleventh Century English Hagiology’, Martyrs and Martyrologies, ed. by D. Wood, SCH, 30 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 81– 92 examines six cases from England in the years 1050–1130. 82

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killing was a sin that must be atoned for by self-denial and by pilgrimage. 84 The man who managed to influence the ecclesiastical establishment to change its attitude and even to introduce new ideas to the aristocratic classes was Gregory VII. He held the post of Archdeacon of Rome in the mid-eleventh century, and was Pope in the years 1073–85, and through these positions defined the new idea: combat could become a welcome tool in bringing the ‘true Christian order’ to society. Under Gregory VII this idea spread throughout Europe. The effort included bringing ‘God’s Peace’ to Europe and purging and strengthening the Church, making it all-powerful — more even than the Empire — and giving it a central role in all aspects of life. 85 Gregory VII’s use of the term miltia Christi is interesting and ironic; coined originally by Paul ‘accept the bad like a soldier in the army of Jesus Christ’, the term had previously been used in connection with the struggle of the Spirit, or, in connection with the martyrs, who actually reacted passively to attacks by the powerful. Gregory used motifs borrowed from Augustine in order to sanctify those who fought for Christianity, turning them into martyrs — motifs which Augustine had used in his dispute with the Donatists and the martyrs. According to Gregory, from the mid-eleventh century on, the miltia Christi could be a real army for Christianity that the Church would give such missions to as enforcing the peace in a Christian land, fighting the Muslims, or against those who opposed the Pope. In his conflict with Heinrich IV the Pope called upon the German nobility to give up their arms for Christ and the Church. There had been soldier-martyrs before Gregory VII, but they had been martyrs despite their having been soldiers. After his papacy a new type of The Decretum of Burchard of Worms at the beginning of the eleventh century. After the battle of Hastings of 1066, in which the Normans, sent by the pope, won, they were given penance of self-denial by the papal legates: for killing (a year), and for wounding (forty days). As Yitzhak Hen noted, this is a return to an ancient tradition of punishment as expressed by the early-medieval libri poenitentiales. Cf. H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘The Genesis of the Crusades: The Springs of Western Ideas of Holy War’, in The Holy War, ed. by T. P. Murphy (Columbus, 1974), pp. 9–32 (p. 31, notes 12–14). 85 I. S. Robinson, ‘Gregory VII and the Soldiers of Christ’, History, 58 (1973), 169–92; C. Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. by M. W. Baldwin and W. Goffart (Princeton, 1977), pp. 57–94, 148–81, 201–15; H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘The Peace and Truce of God in the Eleventh Century’, Past and Present, 46 (1970), 42–67; Cowdrey, ‘Genesis’; H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Pope Gregory VII’s “Crusading” Plans of 1074’, in Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem, Presented to Joshua Prawer, ed. by B. Z. Kedar, H. E. Mayer, and R. C. Smail (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 27–40; See also articles in The Peace of God, ed. by T. Head (New York, 1992). 84

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warrior, who could be a martyr because he was a soldier, was created. Various scholars have pointed out that, only after such a basic change had occurred in the late eleventh century, was it possible for the idea of a Crusade to the East to be realized.86

86

Robinson, ‘Gregory VII’; Cowdrey, ‘Genesis’. Erdmann, pp. 208–10; F. H. Russel, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 35–36; E. O. Blake, ‘The Formation of the Crusade Idea’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 21 (1970), 11–31 (pp. 12–13).

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THE JEWS: THE FIRST NINE HUNDRED YEARS

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uring the century that followed the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish people faced forbidding challenges. Without the Temple, which had been the nation’s central religious and political symbol, there was now a need to reshape Jewish life and character and, of course, to explain the theological significance of the Chosen People’s falling prey to a pagan nation. The first Christians, also monotheistic, appeared, and claimed that it was they who held the key to divine understanding and were the successors to Judaism. Besides these formidable theological problems, it was necessary to rebuild the Jewish nation after two major catastrophes. The Zealot’s Rebellion had ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the Bar-Kokhba Revolt had brought about the collapse of the economic infrastructure in other parts of the country, causing many Jews to leave the Land of Israel. Those responsible for the reforming of Jewish life without the Temple and supplying answers to the questions faced by Jewish believers were the Sages, from the contemporaries of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciples of the first century, until Rabbi Judah the Prince at the end of the second century. In the middle of this period, during Hadrian’s decrees of the 130s and 140s, the Dor Hashmad — the generation that underwent these religious persecutions and the Roman attempt to uproot and destroy Judaism — laid the foundations for the concept of ‘Death in sanctification of God’s Name’. We can follow these attitudes through the sources written during this period, the literature of the Mishna, the Talmud, and the midrashim.

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During the Religious Persecutions of the Second Century of the Common Era This literature, which was composed in order to formulate the nation’s character in face of the challenges that it now had to confront, is both multi-layered and multi-faceted. The historical narrative, with its message, forms the foundation on which successive rows of bricks were laid: each brick relating and expanding the message of the previous rows. The Tanaim passed on what their teachers had taught. The Amoraim passed on what their teachers and the Tanaim had taught them. The disciples of the generation that had experienced Hadrian’s decrees, that aimed at crushing the Jewish religion, passed their experiences on to the midsecond century; their students passed them to the late second century; the second and third century Amoraim of the Land of Israel further developed the story, while seeing Christians being executed by the same pagan nation that had persecuted their own ancestors; Amoraim in Babylonia drew their conclusions in the fifth century; the authors of the midrashim followed them and so on. Generation after generation reacted to the past in the present tense. These Tanaim and Amoraim were not historians, and their purpose was not a precise examination of the past. They dealt with the existential questions of Jewish survival as a people of believers fulfilling the divine commandments so as to be ‘Holy unto God’. The upshot therefore was that through their writings their messages, primarily ethical in nature, were transmitted within the Jewish people from generation to generation.1 The midrashim, which are our Jewish sources for this period, are mostly based on exegesis and expansion on scriptural passages. By using the passages themselves, contrasting them with other passages and elaborating the stories over and over, we see a continuous development of the message-bearing mythos, constantly conforming to the writers’ conception of his generation’s experiences and needs. This technique, as recognized by many scholars, was refined to an art.2 Alongside the stories created around a verse or a group of verses, a method

S. J. D. Cohen, ‘The Destruction: From Scripture to Midrash’, Prooftexts, 2 (1982), 18–39; A. Mintz, Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature (New York, 1984), especially pp. 50–83; D. G. Roskies, Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastophe in Modern Jewish Culture (Cambridge, MA, 1984), pp. 15–41. 2 E. L. Greenstein, ‘Mixing Memory and Design Reading Psalm 78’, Prooftexts, 10 (1990), 197–218; M. Fishbane, The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism (Washington, 1994). 1

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of applying the writer’s knowledge of other verses and exegeses was developed. This type of cross-referencing often created a new way of understanding the stories and especially their messages. This chapter will follow the development of the Jewish midrashic myths that inspired Jewish writing of the Middle Ages, so as to shed light on their influence on the ideas that led to the ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’. The main mythos that will be examined is that of Rabbi Akiba, along with other heroes: Abraham and Isaac, the Mother and her Sons, the Ten Martyrs (Rabbinic Sages who died at the hands of the Romans), and others.

The Death of Rabbi Akiba: ‘I Have Said, When Will I Have My Opportunity to Fulfil this Commandment?’ The story of the death of Rabbi Akiba, as recounted from the second century on, gives us an invaluable opportunity to examine the development of the treatment of death in sanctification of God’s Name. The basic story, which appears in the Jerusalem Talmud, places Rabbi Akiba in confrontation with the representative of ‘evil’, the Governor presenting the pagan Roman government, Tonus Trufus. When the time for the twice-daily reading of the Shema (the passage in Deuteronomy 6, recited morning and evening, which begins ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One’ and continues: ‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might’) came, Rabbi Akiba began to pray and to laugh. Said the Roman governor: ‘Old man, you are either a sorcerer or oblivious to pain’. Rabbi Akiba answered: Curse that man’s spirit! I am neither a sorcerer nor oblivious to pain, but all my life I have been reciting the verse: ‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6. 5). I have loved Him with all my heart and with all my possessions, but have never tested all my soul. Now I have the opportunity to test all my soul and the time to recite the Shema has arrived and I have not transgressed by omitting to recite it, and so I recite and I laugh.3

3 Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 20c, Berckhot 14b; I. Konovitz, Rabbi Akiva (Jerusalem, 1956), pp. 37–38; S. Safrai, Rabbi Akiba: His Life and Writings (Jerusalem, 1970); S. Safrai, ‘Kiddush Ha-Shem in the Teachings of the Tannaim’ [Hebrew], in Yitzhak Baer Memorial Volume, ed. by H. Beinart and others (Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 28–42 (pp. 36– 38); A. Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life and Martyrdom After the Bar-Kokhba Revolt’ [Hebrew], in Sanctity of Life and Martyrdom: Studies in Memory of Amir Yekutiel, ed. by

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In this version, Rabbi Akiba does not present himself as preaching nor does he claim to be showing an example of proper Jewish behaviour but quite the opposite. The idea of ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ does not appear, and Rabbi Akiba emphasizes that his actions are based on his personal relationship with God, which is one of love to the extent of willingness to die. However, his behaviour was interpreted differently by the following generations: his disciples, their disciples, the Amoraim, and the writers of the midrashim. They expanded on the story and turned Rabbi Akiba into the first martyr in sanctification of God’s Name. This change already appears in the parallel version in the Jerusalem Talmud tractate Berakhot, in which there are two significant additions to the story. The first is an addition to Rabbi Akiba’s words, ‘and I had been regretful and had said: when will I have the opportunity to do all three?’. This transforms Rabbi Akiba from a believer who wonders if he will be able to withstand the test, to one who invites the opportunity to die for his faith. The second addition connects his prayer to his death with the sentence ‘he did not finish reciting it before his soul departed’.4 An examination of the expanded versions of the story in various sources enables us to learn about the development of the idea of death in sanctification of God’s Name as seen by the following generations. The version related in the Babylonian Talmud recounts the story differently. Rabbi Akiba was caught, imprisoned for a long time, and tortured because he taught the Torah in public.5 His sentence was death by having his flesh scraped with iron combs. The hour of his execution was the time to recite the ‘Shema’, which he did despite his being tortured. In the Babylonian Talmud, the evil judge is replaced by Rabbi Akiba’s own disciples, who witnessed the torture and begged him to stop praying. Their question, ‘Master, thus far?’ we can understand only as referring to the principle of preserving life, which allows prayers to be postponed in order to save a life. Rabbi Akiba’s answer, in all of the versions, is based on the verse from the Shema: ‘And you shall love the Lord your God

I. M. Gafni and A. Ravitzky (Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 85–98 (pp. 89–91); Fishbane, pp. 66–70. 4 Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’, pp. 89–91. 5 Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 61b. In the opinion of M. D. Herr, ‘Persecutions and Martyrdom in Hadrian’s Days’, Scripta Hierosolymitana, 23 (1972), 85–125, he was incarcerated for a long time because of his participation in the rebellion. See in Erubin 21b, Pesahim 112a, Yebamot 108b, Sanhedrin 12a; Konovitz, pp. 35–36; Safrai, Rabbi Akiba; Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’, p. 91, note 28.

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with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might’ — and here ‘your soul’ means ‘even should He take your soul’.6 The introspective tone of his answer in the Jerusalem Talmud, ‘but have never tested [. . .]’, is replaced in the Babylonian by the more assured, ‘I have said, when will I have my opportunity to fulfil this commandment?’7 According to this version Rabbi Akiba understood the verse in this way and even taught his disciples to insist on love of God and keeping His commandments even in the face of death. The answer to ‘thus far?’ is ‘until He takes your soul’. In the Babylonian version a heavenly voice emphasizes the message of Rabbi Akiba’s death. The voice made two pronouncements: ‘Be joyful Rabbi Akiba that your soul departed while pronouncing [the word in the Shema] “one”’; and ‘Be joyful Rabbi Akiba that you are ready for life in the world to come’. From this point on, the recital of the Shema became the battle cry of those willing to die for the commandments of the Jewish God, understanding their reward to be life in the world to come. The editor of the Babylonian Talmud prefaced this story with a report of a dialogue between Paphos and Rabbi Akiba. Paphos ben Yehuda is pictured as a sage who taught that one must respect the government while being wary of it. Paphos asked: ‘Akiba, don’t you fear the government?’, to which Akiba answered with a parable about the fox who convinced fish to come onto the shore to escape the humans’ nets. The simile is to the Jewish people that, without its Torah and its study of the Torah, is as dead as a fish out of water. And so teaching Torah despite the government’s decree is not a senseless act and neither can it be seen as endangering life, since not learning the Torah is certain death whatever the case. This message is spelt out in the story itself; Paphos is imprisoned like Rabbi Akiba, at which point the sceptic understood the lesson of the parable and admitted: ‘Be joyful Rabbi Akiba that you were caught for studying Torah. Woe to Paphos who was caught for worthless things’. This is the message that the Dor Hashmad (the second-century generation that had suffered persecution under the Romans) passed on to succeeding generations: the most important thing is Torah study that brings one to ‘love the Lord with all your heart and all your might and all your soul’.

6

The answer is attributed to either Rabbi Akiba or his disciple Rabbi Meir: Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’, p. 91, note 28, Mishnah Berakhot, 9. 5, Tosefta Berakhot, 7. 7. 7 D Boyarin, ‘“Language, Inscribed by History on the Bodies of Living Beings”: Midrash and Martyrdom’, Representation, 25 (1989), 139–51 (p. 148).

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Without it, the Jewish People is like a fish on dry land.8 This message was passed from generation to generation in the way described above. In the Midrash Tanhuma (whose origins are in the fifth century CE), Rabbi Hanina bar Papa, a third-generation Tana from the Land of Israel, sharpened the message by inserting a verse from Psalm 17. 14: ‘from men — by your hand, O Lord — from men whose portion in life is in this world; May their bellies be filled with what you have stored up for them’). The Hebrew word for ‘men’ used here is spelled almost identically to the word for ‘the dead’, leading to this interpretation of the verse). Rabbi Akiba, and others like him, are those who had died for Torah, ‘giving up their lives for the words of Torah and for the sanctification of God’s Name’, and so their place in the next world is assured.9

The Question of the Destruction and Suffering: ‘This is the Torah and this is its Reward?’ Rabbi Hanina ben Tradion was caught by the Roman authorities while ‘he was sitting and studying Torah, and congregating the masses with a Torah scroll in his lap’. As was their custom, the Romans punished him and his family very harshly. His wife was sentenced to death; his daughter to become a prostitute, and he himself was to be burned to death. His body was wrapped in the Torah scroll and he was burned alive, and ‘woollen sponges’ were put over his heart in order to prolong his suffering. However, Rabbi Hanina ben Tradion never lost his faith in God and in the Torah. When his daughter asked, ‘This is the Torah and this is its Reward?’ he answered that he was happy to die in the Roman’s fire and not in the fires of Hell. He was even unwilling to shorten his suffering by inhaling the smoke, because it is God who determines the moment of death, and ‘it is better that He who gave life should take it, rather than a person damage himself”.10 These moral message-bearing stories about Rabbi Akiba and others of the Dor Hashmad who allowed themselves to be killed for the Torah and for the

E Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1994), p. 228, note 117, p. 625. 9 Berakhot 61b, Tanhuma (Jerusalem, 1970), Ki Tabo 4. 10 Abodah Zara 18a, Semahot 8. 12. I have expanded on the example of Rabbi Akiba, since it is he, and not Rabbi Hanina ben Tardion, who was cited as a model by the Jews of medieval Ashkenaz, who are the focus of our study. 8

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sanctification of God’s Name were meant to supply an answer to the difficult and complex theological question about the present status of the Jewish People in God’s eyes. The problem originated after the destruction of the Temple and became acute after the Bar-Kokhba Revolt. The problem is easy to describe in theological terms, but it has crucial consequences for the future of Judaism, perhaps even for its very existence. From a theological point of view, there are three issues, not of equal importance. The first, not directly related to our investigation here, is that of the victorious empire. How is one to explain the triumph of a nation that is the very symbol of idolatry and licentiousness — a nation that had burned the Holy Temple and defiled it in the most loathsome manner?11 The two other issues are more directly related to our discussion: the meaning of Israel’s suffering and its status among the nations of the world. Obviously Israel had been punished by its God, but what does the punishment mean? Is it still a punishment for sin? If so, why is it the most righteous who suffer the most, dying painfully while grasping the Torah and keeping its commandments? Moreover, what is the status of Israel vis-à-vis ‘the nations of the world’, which now include not only pagans, but also a monotheistic group that is, or tries to be, similar to Judaism and is attempting to steal its standing as the first-born and chosen people? The old view, that suffering, death and destruction are punishment for sin, was strengthened by the sages who defined it for themselves. They declared that God is especially uncompromising with the righteous. Thus, the sources tell of several sages being executed, while trying to comprehend what sin they had committed that deserved such a harsh punishment. They almost always tried to justify God’s action by discovering some sin or transgression and accepting their punishment willingly. One example is a dialogue between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Shimon, who were executed and searched for the reason in the violation of some commandment, in inattentiveness to those who had needed them, or in arrogance as a result of their position. In their eyes, the Romans and the historical events that occurred around them, were not the main cause of their death but a secondary one, only the means. This method of justifying God would have a major role in the future development of the nation and its relationship with God.12 However, because of the enormity of the events and 11 Sifre Deuteronomy, ed by L. Finkelstein (Berlin, 1939; repr. New York, 1969), 328. 35; Cohen, ‘Destruction’, pp. 30–33. 12 Semahot 8. 8; Mekhilta de R. Ishmael, ed. by H. S. Horowitz and I. A. Rabin (Jerusalem, 1960), Mishpatim 18; Abot de Rabbi Nathan, ed. by S. Schechter (Vienna,

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the stature of those who were executed by the Romans, we also find a second point of view, one exemplified by the case of Rabbi Akiba. To him, suffering is not to be seen as a punishment for some sin or transgression, but rather as proof of piety and closeness to God.13 In all of the versions (outside of the Tosefta), Rabbi Akiba emphasized that he had accepted death as his way of understanding and keeping the commandment ‘And you shall love the Lord your God [. . .] with all your soul’: ‘And now when I have arrived at “with all my soul”, and it has come at the hour of the reading of the Shema, and I have not opposed it, I read the Shema and am joyful.’ This view is accentuated by a source that is later than the Tannaic Period, in which Rabbi Hanina ben Tradion, the great (and perhaps only) martyr, and Rabbi Judah ben Bava, upon hearing of the death of Rabbi Akiba, comment, ‘We have heard. Rabbi Akiba was not killed for stealing or for not putting all his might into the Torah. Rabbi Akiba was killed as an example.’14 Rather than a case of personal soul-searching by an individual believer (‘all of my days [. . .] when will I have my opportunity’), Rabbi Akiba had become an ‘example’ for all, a role model to be emulated. Another stage in this process is found in Midrash Sifrei to Deuteronomy that was edited in the late third or early fourth century, which comments on the famous verse of the Shema ‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6. 5). The explanation of ‘with all your heart’ is logical and simple: ‘with all your heart — with both your good inclination and your evil inclination’, or, ‘with all your heart — with all the heart that is within you, that your heart should not question God’. However what does ‘with all your soul’ mean? What has the soul to do with loving God, and why the repetition? The writer formed his explanation of this difficult verse in Deuteronomy by quoting an equally problematic passage from Psalms: ‘with all your soul — even should he take your soul, as is written, “For 1887; repr. Hildesheim, 1979), A, chap. 38, B, chap. 41; Safra, ed. by L. Finkelstein (New York, 1984), Emor 8. 13 E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (Jerusalem, 1969), pp. 367–70, 38–96. Urbach feels that it was Rabbi Akiba who changed this view. In my opinion, both views coexisted even before Rabbi Akiba’s time. E. R. Sandres, ‘R. Akiba’s View of Suffering’, JQR, 63 (1972–73), 332–51. 14 Tractate Semahot 88. 9. According to scholars, tractate Semahot, or ‘the Great Mourning’ was edited in the eighth century, but is based on earlier materials: G. Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, ed. and trans. by M. Bockmueh, 2nd edn (Edinburgh, 1996), pp. 228–29.

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your sake we are killed all day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter’” (Psalms 44. 23 [NRSV 22]). This problematic verse, attached to the Shema, eventually became a cornerstone in the discussion of death in sanctification of God’s Name. While Rabbi Shimon ben Mansi attempted to downplay its significance with a typically ‘minimalist’ interpretation: ‘For how can a man be killed every day? The Holy One Blessed He credits the righteous as if they had been killed every day’,15 the other sages understand the words ‘with all your soul’ as referring to life, rather than to its cessation: ‘Shimon ben Azai said, “with all your soul, love Him to the soul’s end”’.16 This source even expands on the matter by adding things attributed to Rabbi Akiba: Rabbi Akiba says: ‘If it says with all your soul, then with all your might should be obvious. What does ‘with all your might’ mean to teach us? It means: with each and every attribute that He has bestowed on you, whether good or bad.’

Rabbi Akiba explains the words ‘with all your might’ as meaning that one should love God when He is good to you and in the same way in times of tragedy. In support, he cites two biblical characters, King David and Job. In Psalm 116, King David uses the phrase ‘and I will call on the Name of the Lord’ twice: in times of ‘trouble and sorrow’ (verse 3) and in times of success, ‘I will take the cup of salvation and I will call in the Name of the Lord’ (verse 13). From this we learn that we must give thanks for both the good and the bad. Job said: The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord. (Job 1. 21). In other words, if God is blessed for the good that happens, then he should certainly be blessed for the bad. What did his wife say to him? ‘Do you still retain your integrity? Bless God and die!’ But he said to her: ‘You speak as one of the impious women speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God but not receive evil?’ (2. 9–10).

15

Rabbi Shimon ben Mansi, a disciple of Rabbi Meir, was one of the leaders (together with Yosei ben Hameshulam) of a Jerusalem group ‘that cut itself off [from the common people] and lived in purity, laboured in the fields together and dedicated themselves to Torah and prayer’. 16 ‘Rabbi Eliezer says, “if it says with all your soul why does it say with all your might, and if it says with all your might why does it say with all your soul? There are those who value their selves more than their possessions, for them it says with all your soul, and there are those who value their possessions more than their selves, for them it says with all your might.”’

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In the phrase ‘Bless God and die!’ the Hebrew word for ‘bless’ is barekh, that is usually understood here euphemistically, and most English translations have ‘curse’. In this case, however, it is clear that the midrash assumes a literal understanding of the word. The use made of this midrash by Rabbi Akiba is curious, since both we and the author of the midrash know how Job came to be afflicted. Rabbi Akiba hints that those sages who searched their own sins in order to comprehend or to justify their punishment, think like Job’s wife and friends: if you have been punished and are suffering you must have sinned, ‘Bless God and die’ — bear your punishment silently. Job, himself, according to Rabbi Akiba in this source, does not think so. He considers the acceptance of suffering to be the epitome of faith, since that is God’s choice. The conclusions Rabbi Akiba draws from this are very significant: ‘And furthermore, a man should be better pleased by suffering than by good, since a man who has only good all his days is never forgiven his sins, which are forgiven by suffering.’ The message is the same as the one given at the end of the description of Rabbi Akiba’s death in the Babylonian Talmud. The heavenly voice that expressed the message for all generations proclaimed that Rabbi Akiba had died in agony with the Shema on his lips, and would be welcome in the next world. According to Rabbi Akiba in this source, suffering is an exalted form of faith that creates a heightened closeness to God and assures entry to the next world. Suffering is to be accepted happily, because it purges one’s sins. Among his disciples, this philosophy was to be intensified. Midrash Sifrei quotes a group of first- and second-generation disciples of Rabbi Akiba, who accept his view in favour of suffering: Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob, Rabbi Yose bar Judah, Rabbi Nathan bar Joseph, and Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai. Rabbi Nehemiah (a third-generation Tanna, 130–60 CE) continues Rabbi Akiba’s investigation of Job in order to prove that ‘suffering appeases [God] more than sacrifices’. Rabbi Meir (Rabbi Akiba’s chief disciple) says explicitly, that ‘you and your heart know your deeds and the suffering that I have brought upon you, that I have not brought it upon you for your deeds’. And he also creates a connection between that verse in the Shema and the nation’s patriarchs, in words that were to resound forever in association with ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’: ‘With all your heart — like Abraham, with all

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your soul — like Isaac who bound himself to the altar, and with all your might — like Jacob.’17 Rabbi Akiba’s great importance in the manner of death in sanctification of God’s Name is in that it was he who made the connection between this type of death and the love that is assumed to be the basis for the relationship between the people of Israel and their God. This message is already present in the core story of Rabbi Akiba’s death, and even more so in the literary expansions that were recalled by his disciples and his disciples’ disciples, the Tanaim, the Amoraim, and the authors of the Midrashim. The Tanna Rabbi Nathan, who immigrated to the Land of Israel from Babylon after the Bar-Kokhba revolt, interpreted the phrase in the Ten Commandments ‘to those who love me and keep my commandments’ by asking: ‘Who are those who love God and keep His commandments?’, giving the answer: ‘Israel — in giving up their souls in order to keep God’s commandments’. Moreover, he uses the prophecy of Zechariah, ‘I was wounded in the house of my friends’ (13. 6), to emphasize the motif of love of God — ‘these wounds caused me to love my Father in heaven’.(The Hebrew word used for ‘friends’ in the verse is the same as that used for ‘love’ in the midrash). Willingness to accept blows, to give up one’s soul and to die for the commandments proves the mutual love between the believer and his God.18 A powerful midrash on this topic is attributed to Rabbi Joshua ben Korha (a third-generation Tanna) based on the passage in Psalm 50. 5 ‘Gather my righteous unto me; those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice’.

Sifre Deuteronomy, ed. Finkelstein, p. 32; Tosefta Berakhot, 6. 7; A. Goldberg, ‘All Base Themselves Upon the Teaching of Rabbi Aqiva’ [Hebrew], Tarbiz, 38 (1969), 231– 54 (pp. 232–33); Fishbane, pp. 6–9, Rabbi Nehemiah says: ‘Suffering is gratifying, since just as sacrifices appease, so does suffering appease’. 18 Safrai, ‘Kiddush Ha-Shem’, pp. 32-36. Mekhilta de R. Ishmael, ed. by Horowitz and Rabin, Yitro 6. 227; Leviticus Rabbah, Midrash Wayyikra Rabbah, ed. by M. Margules (New York, 1893), p. 32; Tobiah ben Eliezer, Leqah Tob, ed. by S. Buber (Vilna, 1880; repr. Jerusalem, 1986), Exodus 20. 6; Midrash on Psalms, Midrasch Tehillim, ed. by S. Buber (Vilna, 1892; repr. Jerusalem, 1966), p. 12. 17

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Table 1: A Midrash on Psalm 50. 5 Tosefta Sanhedrin 13. 1 R. Joshua b. Korha These words were said for the following generations Gather my righteous — because they have done me kindness Made a covenant with me — because they were cut off by me (In Hebrew a covenant is ‘cut’ and ‘to be cut off’ is understood as a euphemism for death by heaven) By sacrifice — because they raised me and were sacrificed by me

Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 29c R. Shimon b. Mansia

Gather my righteous — the righteous who have done me kindness Made a covenant with me — they were cut off by me

By sacrifice — because they raised me and were sacrificed for my name

Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 110b R. Joshua b. Korha The verse was said for the following generations Gather my righteous — the righteous of every generation Made a covenant with me — these are Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah who threw themselves into the fiery furnace By sacrifice — R. Akiba and comrades who gave themselves to be slaughtered for the Torah

In the development of this midrash in the Babylonian Talmud a differentiation is made between Hanania, Mishael, and Azariah, who ‘offered themselves’ and are considered to be ‘those who have made a covenant with me’, and Rabbi Akiba and his companions, who ‘offered themselves for slaughter’ and are considered to be ‘sacrifices’. That is to say, they are thought to have really been sacrificed for the Torah and its commandments.19

19

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The Nations of the World and the Ultimate Sacrifice, ‘Who is Like You among the Gods, O Lord’ During the second century, the question of appropriate behaviour was given a three-part answer: God is to be worshipped to the death; He is to be worshipped lovingly; and He is to be worshipped in the sight of ‘the nations of the world’. This view is expressed in the Mekhilta, in a comment on the verse ‘The Lord has avouched you this day’ (Deuteronomy 26. 18):20 ‘All the nations of the world praise the Holy One Blessed He, but my praise is more pleasant and fitting to Him than theirs.’ These nations of the world that ‘praise the Holy One Blessed He’ are not just the pagan Greeks, but also the new Jewish-Christian group, that claimed to have a better explanation of events. The dialogue that follows, between Israel and the Holy Spirit, also exemplifies the polemical view that while God can be a comfort to any person in the world, the people of Israel have a special status: Israel says: Hear O Israel And the Holy Spirit shouts from heaven: Who like Your people Israel is one nation on earth. Israel says: Who is like You among the gods, O Lord And the Holy Spirit shouts from heaven: Be joyful, Israel, who is like you. Israel says: Who is like the Lord our God, whenever we call to Him And the Holy Spirit shouts from heaven: For who is a great nation, whose God is close to him. Israel says: For You are the glory of their might And the Holy Spirit shouts from heaven: Israel, in which I am glorified [. . .] is my salvation.

In this dialogue, ‘Israel’ glorifies God, and ‘the Holy Spirit’ emphasizes Israel’s unique closeness to God. The climax is in the conclusion of the dialogue: ‘“Is my salvation”: You are the salvation for all who live on earth, but most of all for me, as you were in the past and will be in the future.’

20 Mekhilta deSidra Beshallah, ed. by H. S. Horowitz and I. A. Rabin (Jerusalem, 1970), 3. 127; Mekhilta de Simeon b. Yohai, ed. by Y. N. Epstein (Jerusalem, 1979), 79. Safrai, ‘Kiddush Ha-Shem’. pp. 32–33, notes 21–23. Safrai has correctly commented that the idea of ‘death in Sanctification of God’s Name’ appears in various sources before Rabbi Akiba, but nowhere is the motif of love of God linked to Sanctification of God’s Name. See Fishbane, pp. 61–71.

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The rest of the midrash supplies additional proof of Israel’s unique status in the eyes of the Creator. The peak of this closeness of Israel to God was in the Exodus, with the splitting of the Red Sea. Then every member of the nation of Israel (‘even the maidservant by the sea’) could see a vision of God that no one has seen since. They saw Him up close and identified Him with the words ‘This is my God!’ Even the prophets never got so close. The prophet Ezekiel himself says, ‘I saw visions of God’, with the word ‘visions’ being in the plural. He saw God with His hosts, like a king of flesh and blood, accompanied by many troops, so that it is difficult to see Him among them, whereas at the parting of the sea, the People of Israel saw God Himself. They sang: ‘This is my God’, meaning He was alone and discernible. Through Rabbi Ishmael, the midrash challenges the rest of the verse from the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15. 2), ‘This is my God and I will please Him’ — ‘Can flesh and blood be pleasing to his Creator?’ Rabbi Ishmael understands the verb ‘please’ as referring to fulfilling the commandments in a pleasing manner — a pleasing lulav and sukkah on the festival of Sukkot, pleasing tzitzit, prayer that is pleasing. Only a people who have achieved such closeness perform the commandments, and only they can be pleasurable to God. Rabbi Jose ben Hadmoraskit believes that since the Bible occasionally calls the Temple ‘pleasant’, the verse means ‘make a pleasant Temple for Him’. Abba Shaul understands the word as meaning ‘I will be like Him’. But Rabbi Jose and Rabbi Akiba continue the earlier theme concerning the condition of Israel in their time compared to that of ‘the nations of the world’ and understand ‘please’ as meaning that the Lord must be glorified before ‘the nations of the world’. Rabbi Akiba’s view can be understood from the way in which he continues the dialogue between the nations and Israel. Israel is special not just because they observe the commandments, build a Temple, and liken themselves to God, but because they are willing to die for His name. In order to prove this, the author of the midrash brings his art to its peak by correlating verses from the Psalms with verses from the Song of Songs and creating an astonishing message, which combines love and faith to the death with the central personality of Rabbi Akiba, the ‘model’: As the nations of the world ask Israel: ‘What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you have so charged us?’ (Song of Songs 5. 9), that you die for Him and are killed for Him, as it is said: — ‘Therefore You are loved to the death’ (Song

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of Songs 1. 3), as is written, ‘for You we are killed all the day’ (Psalms 44. 23), for you are pleasant, you are brave, come be with us.21

The actual verse in Song of Songs 1. 3 reads ‘Therefore do the maidens love you’: but a play on the word alamot, the Hebrew for ‘maidens’ gives al-mot meaning ‘unto death’ which changes the meaning of the verse to — ‘Therefore through death You are loved’. When the People of Israel show the nations of the world some of God’s glory, the nations of the world wish to join Israel: ‘We will walk with you, as it says, “where has your beloved gone, most beautiful of women, where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you’”. However it is Rabbi Akiba’s concluding sentence that is the most telling: ‘Israel says, you have no part in Him, but rather, “my beloved is mine and I am my beloved’s”’. 22 The People of Israel alone are God’s chosen, being very close to Him (his beloved), and this is all due to their willingness to die for His word. Despite the conclusion of this midrash about the willingness to die that forms the close connection between God and His believers, all those who study the midrashim and the talmudic literature must agree that in the Dor Hashmad, in the days of Hadrian’s decrees, the sages attempted to observe the commandments and to stay alive, and did not rush and volunteer to die. We hear of sages trying to avoid confrontation with the Roman government and even resorting to deceit in order to save themselves. According to the testimony of Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Akiba’s foremost disciple, Rabbi Akiba himself was not eager to cause others to risk death in sanctification of God’s Name: ‘Once we were sitting in the study hall before Rabbi Akiba, and we were reading the Shema and not reciting it out loud for fear of the soldier who was standing by the door’. Rabbi Akiba believed that the attempt to resist Roman rule was his own personal trial, due to his own relationship with God. For this reason he did not convince others to endanger themselves, and in the famous story risked only his own life. As a modern scholar put it: ‘We learn from the sources that the most common reaction to the decrees was not sanctification of God’s Name, but rather to try to observe the commandments albeit with certain changes’.23 21

J. Hacker, ‘“If We have Forgotten the Name of Our God” (Psalms 44. 21): Interpretation in Light of the Realities in Medieval Spain’ [Hebrew], Zion, 57 (1992), 247–74 (pp. 250–53). 22 Safrai, ‘Kiddush Ha-Shem’, p. 34. 23 Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’, pp. 91–93. See the long story in tractate Aboda Zara 16b–18b; Tosefta Berakhot, 2. 13.

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Apart from Rabbi Akiba, the only person described in the sources as a classic ‘martyr’ is Rabbi Hanina ben Tradion.24 He also acted on his own, and nothing in his actions was meant as a call to others to emulate him. He risked his life by teaching Torah in public, and when berated by Rabbi Jose ben Kisma for doing so he said, ‘Heaven will have mercy’. When investigated by the Romans for teaching Torah he explained that he was doing ‘as the Lord my God has commanded me’. He saw all of his actions as a personal consequence of his own relationship with God. This message appears again when he is punished most cruelly, by slow burning. At the stake he acted like a martyr: happy to be burned with a Torah scroll, steadfast in the extra observances that he had adopted, refusing to breath the smoke in order to hasten his death.25 It is the third- and fourth-century sources that turn the actions of these people into an example of ‘giving up the soul’. In my opinion, this concentrated effort was made in reaction to the development of the Christian ideal of martyrdom. The Christian martyrs formulated their religious identity and their self-definition by their willingness to die. The Jewish reaction was to emphasize: we did it before you, and more vigorously.26 For this reason Rabbi Akiba became the foremost ‘example’ of dedication to the concept of dying for God’s commandments, because of his centrality in the world of Jewish law and legend in general, and because of the connection of his death with the ‘Shema’, which had become the Jews’ battle cry against those who would force them to abandon their religion in particular. Rabbi Akiba’s disciples of the third and fourth centuries cultivated this image. The sages of this period struggled with the Christian claims that their devotion to the death was the ultimate proof of the truth of their special monotheistic faith. The Judaism of the third and fourth centuries could not remain oblivious to this challenge, which it saw as directed towards it, even though it was meant mainly for the Roman world.27 Baer, a distinguished

24

Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’, pp. 92–93. Abodah Zarah 16b–18b; S. Lieberman, ‘The Martyrs of Caesarea’, Annuaire de l’Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales et slaves, 7 (1939–44), 395–446 (pp. 419, 429–32, 443–45); A. Agus, The Binding of Isaac and Messiah (New York, 1988), pp. 121–35. 26 I learned these ideas from Lieberman’s articles. See also D. Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford, 1999), pp. 93–126. 27 M. Hirshman, Mikra and Midrash: A Comparison of Rabbinics and Patristics (TelAviv, 1992), pp. 13–20. Even as early as the time of the Jerusalem Talmud Christianity was challenged in the manner of, ‘they are not Israel; we are Israel’. 25

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scholar of the period, assumed that ‘the ideal of sanctification of God’s Name existed throughout all the generations, and there is no break, in this respect between the classic Dor Hashmad and the Crusades, and the time of the Muslim Almohadas’ and so he took the trouble to describe a theoretical wave of persecution of Jews at this time in the Land of Israel, especially in Caesarea, against the background of the Roman emperors’ persecution of Christians.28 However despite his efforts, we do not have evidence of such a persecution, nor of Jews dying in sanctification of God’s Name, at least not enough to create such a literary trend as this one. In my opinion the Jewish reaction, which saw ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’ as proof of the relationship between Jews and God, was aimed first and foremost at Christianity. This was a Jewish answer to the phenomenon of Christian martyrdom, which developed in the Roman world in the midsecond century and appeared in the Land of Israel in the same hundred years (the years 250–350), mainly in Caesarea. The descriptions of Hadrian’s decrees in the writings of the Amoraim of this period are very similar to the descriptions of the deaths of Christian martyrs in general, and of those who died in Caesarea during this period in particular. For example, the reports of the death of Rabbi Akiba and his burial in Caesarea are very similar to Eusebius’s narration of the death of Pamphilus, who was martyred in 310: their arrest, the time they spent in prison, their debates with the authorities, the times of their deaths, and the fact of their burial in Caesarea.29 It would seem that the Jews of the fourth century, in the Land of Israel in general and in Caesarea in particular felt a need to set a Jewish example of ‘giving up the soul’ to match the profound Christian piety and so rewrote the history of those who had ‘sanctified the Divine Name’ in the days of Hadrian. The many examples of Jewish writing about martyrs show that there was a powerful need for such educational literary revision of Jewish conduct, so that the Christians would not remain the only ones who had acted out of love of God. These examples are found in the sources: the midrashim of the Land of Israel that were consolidated in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, the Tosefta, the Jerusalem Talmud, and the echoes that reached the Babylonian Jews and became the basis for their views on death in sanctification of God’s Name. This development, vis-à-vis the evolving Christian idea of martyrdom, added more heroes to the list of Jewish ‘martyrs’:

28 29

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Lieberman, ‘Martyrs of Caesarea’. Lieberman, ‘Martyrs of Caesarea’, pp. 421–33.

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Abraham and Isaac, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, the mother and her seven sons, and others. At this time it was explained that Abraham’s descent into the fiery furnace had been an act of willingness to die. In the Midrash Genesis Rabba, Rabbi Aha, a late-third- and early-fourth-century amora from the Land of Israel, takes the place names literally and so explains the verse ‘to En-mishpat which is Kadesh’ (Genesis 14. 7) as, ‘to the spring of justice which is holy’, meaning that the kings’ purpose had been to fight Abraham, ‘who had sanctified the Name of the Holy-One-Blessed-He in the fiery furnace’. Here the connection between ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ and martyrdom is made clear, by tying Abraham, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and the Dor Hashmad together.30 This view is strengthened as the midrashim develop. In Midrash Tanhuma, Abraham, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and the generation of Hanina ben Tradion are depicted as a sequence, whose purpose was that ‘they shall give up their souls for the sanctity of Your Name’. During the first half of the fourth century, Rabbi Berakhiah (Hakohen), an amora from the Land of Israel, firmly established the view of Abraham as a definitive proto-martyr by attaching to each verse of the eighth chapter of the Song of Songs a description of Abraham before his descent to the furnace: ‘We have a sister’ — Abraham, who healed the world ‘little’ — Whom God had not yet done miracles for ‘and she has no breasts’ — Who yet has no sons ‘What shall we do for our sister on the day she shall be spoken of?’ — The day Nimrod said to throw him into the fiery furnace ‘If she be a wall’ — His soul is like a wall [. . .] and will give itself up so as to sanctify the Divine Name ‘we will build upon her a palace of silver — This is Israel ‘And if she be a door’ — If he be too weak to give up his soul for sanctification of God’s Name ‘We will enclose her with boards of cedar, I am a wall’ — Said Abraham, I am the wall to give his soul in sanctification of God’s Name ‘and my breasts like towers’ — His sons’ sons Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and the generation of Hanina ben Tradion and his companions who will give their souls in sanctification of God’s Name

30 Genesis Rabbah, Midrash Bereshit Rabba, ed. by J. Theodor and C. Albeck (Jerusalem, 1965), 41 (around 400 see Stemberger, p. 279).

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‘Then I was in his eyes as one who found peace’ — That he will come out of the furnace in peace.31

The author of this midrash already had an ideology, according to which Israel’s task is to show adherence to God and to give up its soul in sanctification of His Name. Rabbi Hiya bar Abba, a third generation amora, who beheld Christians who were willing to die for Jesus and for monotheism, had to take a position on the significance of this phenomenon for the idea of Israel as the chosen people. Their deeds are no big deal, he said, ‘If I be asked to give my soul for the sanctification of God’s Name, I will’. On the other hand he highlighted the Jewish dead of the past, during the period of the persecutions, Rabbi Akiba, Hanina ben Tradion, and their contemporaries. Their strength came not only from their willingness to die, but also from their ability to withstand great tortures, which he and others (the Christians of his own day) could not — ‘as long as they kill me immediately, but I could not stand what they in the Dor Hashmad could’.32 Later midrashim (on Lamentations, Psalms, and the Song of Songs) emphasized the connection between love, death and the dispute with ‘the nations of the world’. In third- and fourth-century sources, sayings attributed to Rabbi Akiba combine motifs from the Song of Songs with verses from the Psalms to create a picture of love unto the death. The author of the Midrash on Song of Songs33 combines the ideas of love and of death. For example, the verse from Psalms 44. 23, ‘For You we are killed all the day’, creates ‘love unto death’. The verse ‘Therefore do the maidens love you’34 is explained: ‘this is the Dor Hashmad, as it says, “For You we are killed all the day, thought of as sheep for the slaughter’”. The verse ‘I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field, that ye awaken not, nor stir up love, until it please’. (Song of Songs 2. 7) speaks of the future daughters of Jerusalem swearing to awaken love. By what did they swear? Tanhuma, Lekh lekha 2. Pesiqta de Rav Kahana, ed. by B. Mendelbaum (New York, 1962), 11. 14; Song of Songs Rabbah, Midrash Shir ha-Shirim Rabbati, ed. by S. Dunski (Jerusalem, 1980), 2; Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 16. 33 Composed in the late seventh century, and perhaps re-edited in the second half of the eight. Stemberger, pp. 315-316. Lieberman concluded that the midrash on the Song of Songs and the Sefer Shi’ur Komah are closely interrelated. 34 To see the way the word ‘maidens’ was interpreted, see page 60–61 above. 31 32

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They swore by the Dor Hashmad, by the hosts that did My bidding in the world and I did My bidding for them. Or by the hinds of the field whose blood is spilt for the sanctification of God’s Name like the blood of the deer and the gazelle, as is written: ‘for You we are killed all the day’.

The Dor Hashmad is God’s army on Earth, a generation willing to die in sanctification of His Name, to spill its blood ‘like the blood of the deer and the gazelle’. The Song of Songs mentions deer and gazelles that are willing to love to the death, strengthened by the verse from Psalms that determines that ‘for You we are killed all the day’. The statement attributed to the Dor Hashmad, ‘that they did My bidding in the world and I did My bidding for them’, teaches more than anything about the bilateral and everlasting nature of the relationship between God and Israel, who are willing to keep on dying for the sanctification of God’s Name. The verse from the Song of Songs, ‘As powerful as death is love’ is proof of this combination of love and death: ‘The love that the Dor Hashmad had for the Holy-One-Blessed-He, as is said, “for You we are killed all the day”’.35 One could easily presume that the Midrash on the Song of Songs is a Jewish polemic reaction to Christian interpretations of the book.36 However, even if the book does not evidence an intimate knowledge of Christian ideas, it does stress the concept that the Jews’ willingness to die is, among other things, proof of their continued status as God’s chosen: they and no others. The polemic between Jews and Christians is not always focused, but rather deals with general differences between the two religions. For instance, in the Midrash on Song of Songs there is a lengthy discourse on the struggle between Jacob and the angel. Rabbi Hanina ben Isaac recounts a conversation between God and the angel who is to fight Jacob: He will come to you with five charms in hand, his own merit, his father’s merit, his mother’s merit, his grandfather’s merit, his grandmother’s merit. Measure up and see that you cannot match even his own merit, see immediately that you cannot overcome him.

Is there not more than a hint here to Jesus’s five wounds when on the cross, wounds which Christians claimed gave Jesus’s followers the title of ‘God’s Chosen’? In the midrash, Jacob struggles with the angel, who is also called Song of Songs Rabbah, ed. by Dunski, 1. 2; 2. 7; 8. 4; Safrai, ‘Kiddush Ha-Shem’, p. 34. E. E. Urbach, ‘Rabbinic Exegesis and Origenes’ Commentaries on the Song of Songs and Jewish-Christian Polemics’ [Hebrew], Tarbiz, 30 (1961), 148–70; J. Maier, Jüdische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Christentum in der Antike (Darmstadt, 1982), pp. 193, 261. 35

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‘Esau’s captain’, and overcomes him with the help of five ‘charms’, five merits. The midrash continues to relate, that when the angel realized that he could not defeat Jacob, he touched ‘the hollow of Jacob’s thigh’, and by doing so wished to harm ‘the righteous men and women, the prophets and prophetesses that would be born to him and his sons, and who are they? They are the Dor Hashmad’.37 This midrash is attributed to Rabbi Levi, an Amora who came to the Land of Israel from Babylon at the end of the third century, and reflects a reaction to Christian ideas about God’s chosen people and about the acts of the martyrs of the period. This aspect continued through the following centuries, in later midrashim, as a literary motif even without an immediate connection to an extant dispute with Christians. The Midrash on Psalms, apparently edited during the Gaonic Period (though it undoubtedly includes earlier material), includes themes relating to the sanctification of God’s Name. In order to prove Israel’s devotion and readiness to die, the author combined passages of love from the Song of Songs with verses about death from Psalm 44, creating an impressive literary culmination.38 And so said Solomon: ‘I charge you daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? That I am sick with love’ (Song of Songs 5. 8). And what sickness is this? Neither illness of the head, nor illness of the intestines, of what am I sick? Of the love of the Holy-One-Blessed-He, as it is said: ‘For I am sick with love’ (Song of Songs 2. 5). And not just illness, but even to the death, to dying, as it is said: ‘Your ointments have a goodly fragrance; Your name is as ointment poured forth; therefore do the maidens love You’. (Song of Songs 1. 3) That they loved to die for You, as it is said: ‘For You we are killed all the day’ (Psalms 44. 23). There is no other nation whom the Holy-One-Blessed-He told, ‘Go down into the sea’ and they did, as this nation that gave up its soul for its God. [Again, the play on the word ‘maidens’ in Song of Songs 1. 3 to mean ‘through death’.]

In order to further emphasize this theme, the author of the midrash offers the words of King David the Psalmist himself: ‘How far does the son love the father? Until he gives up his life for his honour’. This evidence changes the way in which we are to see the act of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Daniel 3). In his opinion, they were prepared to descend into the furnace, even though they were not sure that God would rescue them. David’s conclusion is:

37 38

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Song of Songs Rabbah, ed. by Dunski, 3. Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 9. 46a, 17.

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They did not give their souls in order to be rescued, but to burn. Why? Because ‘Love is as strong as death’ (Song of Songs 8. 6), see how far Your son loves You, this is ‘To the chief Musician upon a son’s death, a Psalm of David’.39

In the Midrash on Psalms, the motifs of suffering and ‘sadness’, that testify to God’s choice of His people, are intensified when ‘the nations of the world’ wish to share with Israel in the goodness that awaits them in the next world. The writer stresses that it is ‘the killings that we accepted for the sanctification of God’s Name’ that gives the nation the right to the next world.40 Rabbi Levi, whom we mentioned before, taught that: ‘There are three portions of suffering: one was taken by the founders of the world and all generations, one by the Dor Hashmad, and one by the generation of the King Messiah’ In these words, too, we can feel the mood of polemic against the Christians, who boasted in their sufferings. He even mentions Rabbi Hiya’s description of the tortures that were endured by the Dor Hashmad and concludes: ‘For this thing they died in sanctification of God’s Name.’41 That is, the nation of Israel was, is and always will be God’s son. An additional theme that is developed by the Midrash on Psalms is the use of a verse from the Shema. The verse from Psalms, ‘Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation’ (5. 2 [NRSV 5. 1]) is understood by Rabbi Judah as referring to ‘the four kingdoms’: ‘Give ear to my words’ is Babylon, ‘consider my meditation’ is Media, ‘Hearken unto the voice of my cry’ is Greece, and ‘For You I will pray’ is Edom, meaning Rome. This formula explains the connection between ‘Edom’ and prayer. Edom is the conqueror and oppressor of the day who wishes to cut the ties between the nation and its God. ‘How many destructions and evil decrees did they impose upon us in order to annul Your rule and Your mastery over us, and they did not’. And the proof: ‘However each day we come to the synagogues and study-halls and crown Your divine majesty over us twice each day and say, Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One’. The connection between God and His people is not severed despite the

Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 9: Most English translations of Psalm 9 render ‘al mut la-ben’ as a proper name, ‘upon Muthlabben’. The midrash understands it literally as ‘upon the death of the son’. This Psalm honours the son who is willing to die for the sanctification of God’s Name, contradicting the notions raised by some commentators of a connection between this Psalm by David and Laban from the book of Genesis. 40 Several passages in the midrash on Psalms claim or hint that those who die in Sanctification of God’s Name will be rewarded in the world to come, for example, Psalm 4. 10. 41 Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 4. 39

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conquerors’ wishes. The proof of this is that the Jews continue to recite that prayer of God’s unity, the same prayer for which Rabbi Akiba was put to death. The conclusion of the midrash once again connects the books of Psalms and the Song of Songs: ‘You do for us and we are Your servants, as it says, “My Beloved is mine and I am His” (Song of Songs 2. 16)’.42

The Halakhic Perspective: ‘Be Killed and Do Not Transgress’ The halakhic boundaries of ‘be killed and do not transgress’, that is, the occasions on which a person should insist on observing any of the commandments to the death, were set at Bet-Netaza. The basic idea that appears in all the versions is: ‘If a Gentile tells an Israelite to transgress one or all of the commandments of the Torah, excepting idol worship, incestuous relations and the spilling of innocent blood, he should transgress the commandment and not be killed’.43 This tradition is brought by Rabbi Yohanan, a second-generation amora, quoting Rabbi Simon ben Yehozadak, of the second generation of Amoraim in the Land of Israel. This makes this tradition one passed on from the early third century. We do not know when this assembly convened nor what influence it had. There are two logical possibilities: one, that it convened before or during Hadrian’s decrees in order to formulate a reaction, hence ‘Bet-Netaza’ at Lydda.44 A second possibility is that this ‘meeting’, whose participants remain unnamed for a reason, was convened after the persecutions. It also could have been convened before the decrees were abrogated by the new dynasty that occupied the Emperor’s throne in 138. More likely it happened after the second generation of the rebellion came of age, when the dimensions of the devastation of the Jewish population of the Land of Israel had become clear, during the second half of the second century or the early third century. This is also the time of Rabbi Simon ben Yehozadak, in whose name the decision is publicized.45 This continues the discussion of what risks one may, Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 5. 6; 25. 1; 36. 8; 53; 68. 8, 16. Jerusalem Talmud Shebiit 4. 35a, Sanhedrin 3. 21a; Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 74a; Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’, pp. 86–87 44 Bet-Netaza is mentioned in connection with Lydda before the rebellion, which brings Oppenheimer to date this to the period between the Diaspora Revolt and the BarKokhba Revolt. Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’; Roskies, pp. 20–41. 45 I. Gruenwald, ‘Kiddush ha-Shem’, Molad, 1 (1968), 476–84 (p. 482); Herr, ‘Persecutions’, p. 84; Safrai, ‘Kiddush Ha-Shem’, p. 39; Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’, pp. 86-87. The Babylonian Talmud Pesahim 53b cites the case of the frogs in Egypt in 42 43

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should, and must take in order to observe the commandments. The sages based their discussion on traditions about the dangers that Jews undertook as far back as First Temple times, when the authorities prohibited the Temple service.46 The authorities posted guards on the road to Jerusalem in order to hinder the bringing of first-fruit offerings or of wood for the sacrifices, but the Jews managed to fool them by trickery and disguise. Although not an act of ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’, there was an element of self-endangerment, and there is a concept that anyone who endangers himself in order to observe the commandments of Judaism in the face of pagan opposition is ‘fit and fearful of sin’. This tradition is expressed in the reports of the Dor Hashmad and the ways by which those people continued to keep the commandments despite the decrees, some of them once again by concealment and deceit. Elisha of the Wings wore tefillin despite the edict, and when the guard came close he hid them in his hand. When asked: ‘what’s in your hands?’ he answered ‘doves’ wings’, which were exactly what was found when he was ordered to open his hands.47 Elisha endangered himself, though unlike an act of ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’, he also used deceit and concealment. In sources from the time of the Mishnah there is a long list of acts of Jewish self-endangerment. The commandments for which Jews generally risked themselves were circumcision, the Sabbath, the eating of matzah, building a succah, waving the lulav, wearing tzitzit and tefillin, and learning the Torah, all positive commandments and none appearing on the ‘Be-killed-and-do-not-transgress’ list.48 The message passed down in the name of such important Tanaim from the first century on as Rabban Simon ben Gamaliel, Rabbi Simon ben Eliezer and Rabbi Natan, was that those commandments that Jews were willing to die for would be preserved, while those they were not willing to die for would be forgotten.49 This conditional reasoning teaches us that Jews tended to risk their lives for the commandments, which caused the sages of more difficult times to

order to explain the legitimacy of the act of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who had no strict justification for endangering their own lives. 46 Ta’anit 28a. 47 Shabbat 130a. 48 Leviticus Rabbah, ed. by Margules, p. 32; Mekhilta de R. Ishmael, ed. by Horowitz and Rabin, Yitro 6, Tissa 1; S. Lieberman, ‘Roman Legal Institutions in Early Rabbinics and in Acta Martyrum’, JQR, 35 (1944), 1–58; Oppenheimer, ‘Sanctity of Life’, pp. 8788; See about Yehudah b. Baba in Sanhedrin 13b–14a, Aboda Zara 8b, 49 Sifre Deuteronomy, ed. by Finkelstein, 76; Shabbat 130b.

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reduce the number of commandments for which it was permissible to risk one’s life.50 In other words, the decision attributed to Bet-Netaza came after the persecutions and was a reaction to those who were quick to imperil their lives. The decision was connected to King David: ‘The words of King David, who had learned them in the court of Samuel the Ramathite: Anyone who gives his life for words of the Torah, halakha is not told in his name’. This extreme view was meant to root out the view that one should be willing to die for any issue of Torah. The role of King David is crucial: he was the author of the Psalms, which include many passages that had been understood as calling for willingness to die for the commandments, and as such he can also be a voice for caution. Moreover David is the one whom tradition credits with refusing to drink the water brought by the three brave warriors precisely because they had risked their lives to fetch it. David was also the one who, according to the Jerusalem Talmud, discovered that famine and drought are brought upon Israel because of three sins: idol worship, incestuous relations, and the spilling of innocent blood. On account of this, David was recruited to check and to counter those who would die for any of the commandments, and to limit them to these three prohibitions.51 It is difficult to understand why these three sins were defined as ‘be killed and do not transgress’. In my opinion, the medieval authors of Tosafot gave the correct explanation in their commentary on the parallel passage in tractate Shevu’ot: ‘It does not mean true impurity, but only uses the language of impurity’. Meaning that every time such a prohibition is mentioned in the Torah, it is accompanied by a reference to impurity. They wished to imply that the impurity referred to in these cases is unlike the impurities connected with the Temple service, but is rather what might be called ‘moral impurity’. As Rabbi Juda ben Pazi is reported to have said: ‘Anyone who fences himself off from unchastity is called holy’ (Leviticus Rabba, 24).52 This can be explained as follows: if holiness is an extension of God’s name, impurity is defilement, a subtraction from God’s name. And thus behave, according to sources from that time, the cursed among the ‘nations of the world’. For example, the people of Urbach, Sages, pp. 309, 312–15. See (for example) the Midrashim on Psalms 25. 1 in Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber; Pesiqta de Rav Kahana ed. by Mendelbaum, 11. 14, and Song of Songs Rabbah, ed. by Dunksi, 2. See also Baba Qamma 61a; Jerusalem Talmud 6. 23d. 52 Tosafot Shebu’ot 7b Yesh; Safra, ed. by Finkelstein, Ahre Mot 3; Leviticus Rabbah, ed. by Margules, p. 24. 50 51

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Sodom: ‘The people of Sodom were very evil and sinful to the Lord’. “Evil” — towards each other, “sinful” — by incestuous acts, “to the Lord” — by idolatry, “very” — by spilling of innocent blood’.53 In this way, the sages who determined this halakhah not only limited the instances of death in sanctification of God’s Name, but restricted it to these certain known and notorious prohibitions. The editor of the Talmud followed the decision of the sages at Bet Netaza with the words of Rabbi Ishmael, who stressed that transgression of the commandments is forbidden only when one is forced to do so in public, but in private it is not punishable. It is not clear whether Rabbi Ishmael’s words were really said in reaction to the sages, or whether the editor simply combined two passages that dealt with the same issue. In their discussion of Rabbi Ishmael’s statement, the Amoraim emptied the Bet Netaza decision of its modifying content. The issue was taken up by two fourth-generation Amoraim, Rabbi Dimi and Rabbin, who testify to the words of Rabbi Yohanan, the second-generation amora from the Land of Israel (Rabbi Yohanan was the one who cited the Bet Netaza decision in the name of Simon ben Yehozadak). In the opinion of Rabbi Dimi, that decision was meant only for what he defined as ‘a time without royal edicts’. During times of edicts every commandment, ‘even light commandments’, cannot be transgressed, even on pain of death. Rabbin, quoting Rabbi Yohanan, explains the issue of public and private transgressions in connection with ‘times of royal edicts’. In his opinion, even in times without royal edicts, if forced to transgress in public, one must die rather than transgress. 54 Rabba bar Isaac, a third-generation Babylonian amora, quotes Rav, of the first generation, as stating that ‘a light commandment’ includes even ‘changing the way one ties his shoe’. 55 And so the decision was reversed once again. The sages’ decision to minimize the cases of ‘be killed and do not transgress’ to three specific situations was emptied of its content once it was associated with ‘a time of royal edicts’. It is not clear if Rabbi Yohanan’s position was influenced by the large number of Christian Genesis Rabbah, ed. by Theodor and Albeck, 41; Tosefta Sanhedrin, 13 8. Sanhedrin 74a and Aboda Zara 27b. 55 Rashi understood this to refer to the way in which one tie his shoe, Tosafot assumed that the change is in the colour of the lace which Jews wore. However Lieberman showed (Tosefta Ki-Fshutah Shabbat, ed. by S. Lieberman (New York, 1992), 15, p. 263) that the reference is to Jews doing things that would look like their compliance with the authorities’ demands, such as a Jew kneeling to tie his shoe and to seem like he was bowing down, so as to please everyone. As in the case of the mother and her children, or that of Lulianus and Papos: drinking water in a red-coloured cup to make it look like wine. 53

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martyrs in this time, the first half of the third century, but Rabbi Aha’s words on the matter are very clear. Rabbi Aha, a late-third- and early-fourth-century amora from the Land of Israel, explains Abraham’s behaviour as ‘death for the sanctification of God’s Name’, that is as a martyr. He is also the most adamant about the behaviour of Jews in the manner of saving lives: There is nothing that takes precedent over saving lives except idolatry and incestuous relationships and the spilling of innocent blood. When does this refer to? Not to times of persecution, as in times of persecution one should die for even the lightest of the commandments, as is written: ‘You shall not desecrate My holy Name’ (Leviticus 22. 33), and it says: ‘The Lord created all things for His purpose’ (Proverbs 16. 4).

Rabbi Aha does not mention Rabbi Ishmael but supplements the words of Rabbi Dimi. He changes the definitions of time from ‘a time of royal edicts’ to ‘times of persecution’ and Rabbi Dimi’s ‘light commandments’ are turned into ‘the lightest of the commandments’. He also adds the verse from Proverbs, ‘The Lord created all things for His Purpose’ (16. 4), which must be understood in this context as an explanation of Rabbi Aha’s opinion of those who ‘give up their souls’ for the commandments. ‘For Himself — “witnessing” that human life is in honour of God and the sanctity of His Name, and when necessary, is also to be “given up”’.56

Additional Heroes Sources from the Land of Israel that were written in the fourth century expanded the term ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ in the sense of martyrdom and included additional heroes into the complex structure of the value of resisting to the death. Abraham and Isaac The Midrash Tanhuma57 connects the character of Abraham with ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ because he willingly descended into Nimrod’s fiery furnace. The

As brought in Tosefta Shabbat at the end of chapter 15. In my opinion these are the words of Rabbi Aha who calls Abraham’s descent into the furnace ‘Sanctification of God’s Holy Name’. It seems to me that Rabbi Aha, a third- or fourth-generation amora of the Land of Israel, could have learned this from the Christians around him. 57 It would seem that this Midrash was first edited in the fifth century and continued to develop, according to some (Zunz) as late as the ninth century: Stemberger, pp. 302–06. 56

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midrash stresses that Abraham’s act was designed to glorify God in the eyes of those who did not believe in Him. The expression ‘for the sanctity of My Name’ in this midrash does not indicate a willingness to die, but rather the confidence that Abraham had in his God. He was convinced that God would prove His existence by saving him.58 The sources of the period added additional characteristics to Abraham’s personality; he is not only confident that God will save him and thus descends into the fiery furnace; he is also the man who leads his son to be sacrificed. ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ in the furnace story, meant to glorify God in the eyes of the world, is changed to ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ by being willing to die. God made a covenant with Abraham and with his descendants, choosing them to keep His commandments. Christians view the binding of Isaac as symbolic of the crucifixion of Jesus, but Jewish sources expound that there is no connection between Abraham’s act and Christianity.59 During the second half of the second century, the disciples of Rabbi Akiba used Abraham as a source for their master’s teaching: ‘with all your soul — even if He takes your soul’, which Abraham had proved by the binding of Isaac. Rabbi Shimon ben Johai emphasizes the words of God to Abraham: ‘By your life, I deem that had I asked you to slaughter your soul, you would not have waited, for My Name, and you would have listened and been slaughtered for My Name’.60 Isaac, who ended up not being sacrificed, is included in the concept of ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ because of his willingness to die. In a dialogue between Isaac and Ishmael the latter boasts that his willingness to suffer is greater than Isaac’s, since Isaac was circumcised while ‘you did not know pain’, while Ishmael was circumcised at the age of thirteen, knew pain and ‘I suffered the pain’. Isaac answers: ‘Had the Holy-One-Blessed-He said to my father slaughter your son Isaac, I would not have delayed’. The term ‘slaughter’, which usually refers to the proper ritual killing of animals, is used here for the first time in connection with Abraham and Isaac’s act of willingness to sanctify the Divine Name.61

Tanhuma, Lekh lekha 2, Leviticus Rabbah, ed. by Margules, 11. 7. S. Spiegel, The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice, trans. by J. Goldin (Philadelphia, 1967); S. Spiegel, ‘In Monte Dominus Videbitur: The Martyrs of Blois and Early Accusations of Ritual Murder’ [Hebrew] in The Mordecai Kaplain Jubilee Volume, ed. by M. Davis (New York, 1953), 267–87. See also chapter 13 below. 60 Tanhuma, Shelah 27; ‘Numbers Rabbah’, in Midrash Rabbah (Vilna, 1878), 17. 61 See also Tanhuma, Wa-yera 18, Beha’alotkha 24; Sanhedrin 110b; Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 68; ‘Numbers Rabbah ’ , 15. 58 59

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The Mother and Her Seven Sons The best known of the Jewish stories of martyrs originally appeared in II Maccabees 7 as an event dated to the reign of Antiochus, probably in the year 166/7 BCE. However, from the end of the second century, all of the sources connect the story to Hadrian’s decrees, apparently due to the development of the general attitude towards the concept of ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ through the first centuries.62 These sources show that in the second century, or slightly later, the story from the Hasmonean Period was reworked and supplemented with features of the Roman Period, in order to underscore the Jews’ resistance in that period (all of the versions now include an emperor).63 When we compare the development of this story to that of the Christian martyrs’ stories of the same period (second through fourth centuries), we see that the genre of martyrs’ tales, whose purpose is to forge an intimate identification with the ideal and beyond that to prepare the coming generations to emulate such behaviour, is almost totally identical.64 We are dealing with the development of a tale with a moral, designed to establish behavioural norms, by presenting a model to be imitated. According to the story, the Emperor himself catches the woman, Miriam bat Tanhum, and her seven sons. Each one is interrogated separately with a view to convince them to worship the gods of the Empire and even resort to deceit, which would make it seem as if they had worshipped idols and renounced their God. Each of the sons refuses, responds with a passage from Scripture and is executed. The climax of the story is the youngest son. The Emperor tries to entice him, the child replies at length, and the mother gets to bid her son farewell. As scholars have proven, the story is similar to both reports from Roman literature of tribunals and dealings with heretics in the Empire, and to the stories of Christian martyrs of the period.65 The talmudic sources recount three versions of the story. 66 In the Babylonian Talmud (Gittin 57b) the story is part of a collection of accounts of the destruction of the Temple, brought in chronological order of their recounting: Amoraim Gittin 57b; Pesiqta Rabbati (Warsaw, 1893), 43. Agus, pp. 11–32. J. Gutmann, ‘Ha-m ve-Shivat Baneha ba-Aggadah uve-Sifre Hashmonaim 2 ve 4’, Commentationes iudaico-hellenisticae in memoriam Iohannis Lewy, ed. by M. Schwabe and J. Gutmann (Jerusalem, 1949), pp. 25–37. 64 Lieberman, ‘Martyrs of Caesarea’. 65 Lieberman, ‘Martyrs of Caesarea’; Lieberman, ‘Roman Legal Institutions’. 66 Agus, pp. 256–57, note 9. 62

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quoting Tanaim, Amoraim quoting earlier Amoraim, Amoraim quoting themselves. Rabbi Judah gives his own rendition of the Hasmonean story.67 The times are times of persecution by the Romans, and the persecutor is ‘Caesar’ who demands that each of the sons worship idols. Each child refuses while quoting a verse that stresses the connection between God and Israel. The verses are listed in order of their appearance in the Bible (Exodus 20. 2, Exodus 20. 3, Exodus 22. 19, Exodus 34. 14, Deuteronomy 4. 39, Deuteronomy 6. 4, Deuteronomy 26. 17) and they summarize and emphasize the covenant between God and the people of Israel throughout the Bible. The verses become more and more dramatic, until the climax in the verse that the youngest child quotes and explains: ‘“And the Lord has avouched you today to be His particular people (Deuteronomy 26. 18)” — We have sworn that we will never exchange the Holy-One-Blessed-He for any other god, and He swore never to exchange us for an-other nation’. The second part of the sentence has nothing to do with a Roman emperor, and so must be a part of the Jewish-Christian debate of the second or third century. From a literary point of view the child’s statement is central to the story. He is the only one who could have saved himself by deceit but resists the temptation, chides the Emperor, and receives a kiss from his mother and a message for the Patriarch Abraham. The mother’s name is not mentioned, making her character subordinate to her youngest son. Her importance in this story is in the message that she articulates for future generations. She kisses her son, a distinctly maternal act, and sends him with a message for ‘your ancestor Abraham’: ‘You bound one altar and I bound seven altars’. She then takes her own life and a voice from heaven pronounces: ‘The mother of sons is joyful’. Stylistically this quote from Psalms (113. 9) concludes the narrative that began with a quote from Psalms (44. 23): ‘For You we are killed all the day, thought of as sheep for the slaughter’. The two quotes bring home the story’s message: first, the Jews are sacrificed to God, when they insist on remaining loyal to their faith even at the cost of their lives. Second, it is the task of the Jewish mother to prepare her children for the day on which they would be called to the test.68 A second version, refined from the story in the Babylonian Talmud, is found in the Lamentations Rabba Midrash.69 The story is one of a series of martyr’s On the same page, this Rabbi Judah quotes Rav and Shmuel, so he must be an amora of the second generation onward, that is from the mid-third century. 68 Agus, pp. 22–23. 69 Lamentations Rabbah, Midrash Echah Rabbati, ed. by S. Buber (Vilna, 1899), 1; Yassif, Hebrew Folktale, pp. 109–12; G. Hasan-Rokem, The Web of Life — Folklore in 67

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tales from the destruction of the Temple, all about women named Miriam, about all of whom the Holy Spirit proclaims, quoting Lamentations: ‘For these I weep’ (1. 16). The ‘rulers’ try to trick the brothers into bowing to an idol (‘as your brothers have done’), but do not succeed. The details of the story fit the Babylonian version, here translated into Hebrew. In the final part, this version digresses into a sub-plot, in which the youngest child (whom the sages figured to have been aged six and a half) enters into a theological debate with the Emperor, the topic of which is the description of God’s body. The descriptions in Lamentations Rabba are more powerful than in the Babylonian version; the mother’s farewell kiss is turned into her breast-feeding him. The message to Abraham is expanded: ‘You built one altar and did not sacrifice your son, I built seven altars and sacrificed my sons. Moreover yours was temptation and mine was actual’. Even though the story is ostensibly about the Jewish-pagan debate, it includes blunt allusions to the polemic with the Christians. First of all the expression ‘the bosom of Abraham’ is common to the Christian martyrs.70 Second, the editor of the midrash collected all of the stories of distressed women and gave them all the name ‘Miriam’, in my opinion from the word mara, referring to Naomi’s words in the book of Ruth, ‘Call me not Naomi, call me Mara (‘bitter’), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me’ (1. 20). But it is impossible to ignore the Christian association of Mary (which is Miriam in Hebrew) mother of Jesus; the picture of her mourning her son is contrasted with that of a Jewish mother encouraging her children to die.71 The third version is brought in the Pesiqta Rabbati, and includes two new elements. The first is the torture of the children to force them to comply with the rulers’ orders. The second is the mother having been barren before bearing seven sons. This motif of the barren woman is emphasized by spelling out several verses about the barren Hannah, who bears her son and consecrates him to God. Indeed, from here on the woman will be called ‘Hannah’.72

Rabbinic Literature [Hebrew] (Tel-Aviv, 1996), pp. 128–35. 70 Lieberman, ‘Martyrs of Caesarea’, pp. 443–45; Agus, p. 14. 71 Hasan-Rokem, p. 135; p. 246, note 29. 72 Pesiqta Rabbati, 43; Hasan-Rokem, p. 244, note 17.

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‘The Ten Martyrs of the Regime’ While the term Dor Hashmad, which appears in sources of the third through the fifth centuries, applies to the whole of that generation, most of the cases of ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ are distinguished individuals, leaders, and heads of the generation (the mother and her sons, and other anonymous martyrs are the exception). Later sources mention a group of ten sages who protect the Jews, known as ‘the Ten Martyrs of the Regime’. In the Lamentations Rabba Midrash and in the Midrash on Psalms they appear as a distinct and elect group (as opposed to such phrases as ‘all Israel’; ‘all those who were killed in the days of the Destruction’; and ‘all who were killed in sanctification of My Name’).73 These heroes appear in the Midrash that promises God’s vengeance on those who harm Israel. The source of the Midrash is the verse in Psalms, ‘When He requests blood He remembers them; He forgets not the cry of the humble’ (9. 13 [NRSV 9. 12]). Rabbi Abahu quotes Rabbi Eleazar as stating that God will not only avenge the blood of those who had been murdered, but will also judge the murderers of His people according to the sentence, ‘He shall judge among the nations full of bodies’ (Psalms 110. 6). That is, every righteous person killed by gentiles is noted on God’s Porpira, the purple cloak that surrounds Him. When, in the future, the gentiles will deny their guilt, this mantle will be brought as evidence and it will be possible to judge them.74 This passage includes the theme of revenge, typical of much of the midrashic writing, which scholars, out of apologetic concerns, have ignored until now. It is impossible that the ‘nations of the world’ should go unpunished, and here punishment is guaranteed from heaven.75 The material is totally literary and a-historical. In the extant mishnaic and talmudic sources there is no mention of ten such

73 Lamentations Rabbah, ed. by Buber, 2. 2; Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 9. 13; L. Finkelstein, ‘The Ten Martyrs’, in Essays and Studies in Memory of Linda R. Miller, ed. by I. Davidson (New York, 1938), pp. 29–55 (p. 29); S. Zeitlin, ‘The Legend of the Ten Martyrs and its Apocalyptic Origins’, JQR, 36 (1945–46), 1–16; I. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (Leiden, 1980), pp. 157–58; Die Geschichte von den zehn Märtyren, ed. by G. Reeg (Tübingen, 1985). 74 Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 9. 13. 75 I. J. Yuval, ‘Vengeance and Damnation, Blood and Defamation: From Jewish Martyrdom to Blood Libel Accusations’ [Hebrew], Zion, 58 (1993), 33–90; I. J. Yuval, ‘“The Lord will take Vengeance, Vengeance for his Temple” — Historis sine ira et studio’ [Hebrew], Zion, 59 (1994), 351–414.

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sages or of the authorities executing sages as a group. With the exception of Rabbi Hanina ben Tradion, whose execution matches descriptions of official executions, we have no evidence for anyone else. Rabbi Akiba died while being tortured; Rabbi Judah ben Bava was killed while being chased by soldiers (if we take the passage at its word); Rabbi Simon ben Gamaliel and Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, though mentioned as killed ‘by the sword’, lived before the destruction of the Temple and historically were not part of the generation of Hadrian’s decrees; the Talmud does not actually state that Rabbi Hutzpit the translator and Rabbi Judah were executed, but rather that their tongue ‘licked the dust’ and was ‘in the dog’s mouth’.76 By bringing people from different periods together, the writers of the midrash made it clear that they did not consider their writing to be ‘historical’.77 Different versions have different beginnings to the story. One starts by telling of the excessive hubris of the sages, who said after the destruction of the Temple: ‘What have we lost by the destruction of the Temple? We have among us scholars who lead the world in Torah and the commandments’. In another version, ‘the Quality of Justice’ complains to God that Israel had not yet been punished for the sale of Joseph.78 In this version the Roman emperor decides to execute a group of sages. Rabbi Ishmael ascends to heaven to discover the reason for this punishment and if it had truly been decreed by the Throne of Glory.79 It turned out that God had indeed decreed that those ten sages would pay the price for the sin of the sons of Jacob, who had sold Joseph off to Egypt. This new tradition gave the ‘Ten Martyrs of the Regime’ additional tasks. The first, was to annul the evil decree against Israel (besides revenge against the gentiles); the second, the very burdensome challenge of Justifying God in the face of a reality in which Jews are harmed despite — or because of — their observance of God’s commandments. A strong element of self-awareness is evident in these sources. The angel Gabriel announces to Rabbi Ishmael that this group of ten are superior even to the angels: ‘Be joyful, sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that the Holy-OneBlessed-He has shown to you what He has not shown even the angels of heaven’. The reason for their being chosen for this punishment: ‘Since the day on which

Tosefta Sota, 13. 4; Babylonian Talmud Hullin 142a; Zeitlin,’Legend’, p. 3. Zeitlin, ‘Legend’. 78 Beit ha-Midrash, ed. by A. Jellinek, 6 parts in 2 vols (Leipzig, 1853–78; repr. Jerusalem, 1967), II, 64. 79 Yuval, ‘Vengeance and Damnation’; Yuval, ‘The Lord will take Vengeance’. 76

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the brothers sold Joseph, the Holy-One-Blessed-He could not find ten men as righteous and pious as the brothers in one generation, and thus the Holy-OneBlessed-He demands it from you’.80 Even so, all of the sages’ efforts go towards justifying God. The Emperor, who tortures the sages, asks each one of them: ‘Do you still trust in your God?’ The answer is total justification of God’s acts by each in his own way: ‘though I be killed I do not complain’, ‘Just is the Lord, the Rock’s acts are pure’, and so on.81 It is not clear just when these stories were composed. The sources that are connected to the mystical circles of the Hekhalot and Merkava that were written during the Talmudic and Gaonic Periods include such elements as that welldeveloped self-awareness of an intellectual elite that considered itself responsible for the Jewish people. On the other hand the continued reference to the sale of Joseph by the brothers is undoubtedly connected to a Christian atmosphere that saw the story as a prototype of offensive Jewish behaviour, like that of Judas Iscariot who sold Jesus out and the Jews who brought about his crucifixion and death.82 It is possible that these stories reached their complete form in Byzantium or were completed in southern Italy.

The Book of Josippon The Book of Josippon was composed in southern Italy during the late ninth or tenth centuries. The author says of himself: ‘I have collated things from the book of Joseph ben Gurion and from the writings of other authors who wrote about the deeds of our fathers’ (Chapter 35, 7–8). ‘Other authors’ are Latin translations of ‘The Jewish War’ and ‘The Jewish Antiquities’ and mostly the book of the convert to Christianity, Hegesippus.83 This book was to have a huge influence on Midrash Ele Ezkera in Bet ha-Midrasch, ed. by Jellinek, II, 65. See E. Schweid, To Declare that God is Upright — Theodicy in Jewish Thought (Bat Yam, 1994). The discussion is philosophical-theological, and not historical. 82 H. J. Zimmels, ‘The Historical Background of the Midrash Eleh Ezkerah’, in Semitic Studies in Memory of Immanuel Low, ed. by A. Scheiber (Budapest, 1947), 334–38, has tried to find a historical background for the phenomenon of Midrash. See also I. G. Marcus, ‘Qiddush haShem in Ashkenaz and the Story of R. Amnon of Mainz’[Hebrew], in Sanctity of Life and Martyrdom: Studies in Memory of Amir Yekutiel, ed. by I. M. Gafni and A. Ravitzky (Jerusalem, 1992), 131–47 (pp. 137–38). 83 Flusser dates the main version of this book to the year 953. S. Bowman, ‘Sefer Yosippon: History and Midrash’, in The Midrashic Imagination: Exegesis, Thought, and 80

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medieval Jews, and Rabbenu Gershom, the ‘Light of the Diaspora’ (who died in 1028) made a copy of it. It is interesting to note that this book is a Jewish expansion of a book written by a Jewish apostate, who describes Jewish history in such a way as to advance his new religion. The book includes some interesting themes on the subject of the sanctification of God’s Name. The author was familiar with several versions of the story of the mother and her seven children, but chose to use the style of the book of Maccabees. He mainly describes the children’s torture and their watching the horrors being perpetuated on their brothers. One of the versions of Josippon borrowed the ending of the Pesiqta Rabbati and implanted the name ‘Hannah’ in the minds of medieval Jews. It is not clear if he was influenced by the figure of the barren woman whose loss of her long hoped-for child is all that more tragic, or simply wished to avoid confrontation with the powerful Christianity of the Middle Ages and obfuscate the name ‘Miriam’, reminiscent of the mother of Jesus.84 The book of Josippon also includes the story of the mass suicide at Masada. This story, which originally appeared in the writings of Josephus Flavius, is not known from any other Jewish source of the period. The author of Josippon was very impressed by these descriptions (the men killing their wives and children, and then fighting to the death). The Greco-Roman author Josephus supported the Greco-Roman historian when he composed the stories of masssuicide. Besides Masada, Josephus also mentions mass-suicide at Gamla, Jotapta and other places. The idea of suicide is a heroic motif in Greco-Roman culture.85 This act of suicide left no impression on Jewish sources of the first centuries, until the appearance of the book of Josippon. The version that appeared in this book was influenced by the apostate Hegesippus; the defenders heard a speech by Eleazar ben Ananias, who suggested that they kill their wives and children and then fight to the death. He gives them examples of such behaviour: Abraham who sacrificed his son Isaac; the righteous King Josiah who ‘tired of living in this world of vanity’ and fell into the hands of ‘the evil Pharaoh’; Abel who was murdered by Cain. He stresses the idea of freeing the soul from its bodily prison and goes on to mourn the destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. All this serves his purposes in the message he wants to convey: there is no reason to live after the destruction of the Temple, when the women are desecrated and the children made into slaves. They History, ed. by M. Fishbane (New York, 1993), pp. 280–94 (pp. 282, 293). 84 Josippon [Josephus Gorionides], ed. by D. Flusser (Jerusalem, 1978), pp. 70–75. 85 M. Stern, ‘The Suicide of Eleazar ben Yair and his Men at Masada and the Fourth Philosophy’ [Hebrew], Zion, 47 (1982), 375–83.

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should kill their children ‘and they will be considered as a burnt-offering to the Lord, and the holy offering will not be desecrated by the impurity of the gentiles’. Then they must fight and die. Thus ends the story: the killing of the women and children, war to the death, and a lament.86 The book includes many motifs that may be connected to the sanctification of God’s Name in the Middle Ages. For example: the phrase ‘great light’, taken from Isaiah (9. 1 [NRSV 9. 2]), appears several times in Josippon, meaning the reward that the righteous will receive in heaven; and also, comparing those who die in sanctification of God’s Name to offerings to the Lord. It is difficult to know whether this is originally a Jewish theme, or whether it was borrowed from Christian theology, in which the dead Jesus is considered to be a sacrifice. As pointed out by Flusser, at this point the author Josippon is generally very close to his Latin source, with its general Christian orientation.87

Josippon, ed. by Flusser, 89, pp. 423–31. Josippon, ed. by Flusser, 65, p. 26. See in Josspion, ed. by Flusser, pp. 165–67, notes 474–77. I agree with Flusser, that while it is true that Josippon influenced the Jews of Ashkenaz and their writing about the Crusades. However, the author did not attempt to influence people to commit suicide for the Sanctification of God’s Name. 86

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Part Two In the Face of the Victorious Sister: 1096–1348

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Chapter 4

‘WE WERE SILENT AND WE SAT IN DARKNESS LIKE THE DEAD’

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n 16 March 1190, about a century after the first Crusade, a catastrophe befell the Jews of York. It was during ‘the Great Sabbath’, the Sabbath preceding the Passover holiday, during which Jews begin their preparations for the celebration of their great liberation from slavery in Egypt. Having sought refuge in the royal castle at the entrance to the city from an angry mob of Christian citizenry, the Jews found themselves besieged in Clifford’s Tower, the castle’s keep, and watched as the mob prepared to break into the citadel. At the exhortation of Rabbi Yom-Tov of Joigny, a recentlyarrived French savant, the Jews decided to kill themselves. The men killed the women and children and then each other. Christian witnesses reported that the Jews refused to convert and preferred to die at their own hands and not by uncircumcised gentiles. This Jewish ‘victory’ was won according to the standards set in the Rhine Valley a hundred years previously, at the end of the eleventh century. The prevalent message here was that of opposition to conversion, even at cost of death. The attack on the Jews of York was not necessarily motivated by the Christians’ missionary impulses. Several months previously, during the coronation of Richard the Lionheart (3 September 1189), Christians assaulted the Jews of London. Despite an announcement by the King opposing such acts, the attacks spread throughout England. A group of knights from York and the surrounding area, who were heavily indebted to the city’s Jews and were preparing to join Richard the Lionheart on his Crusade, decided to ravage the Jews before departing for the north of France. This was more an attack on the promissory notes that the Jews possessed than it was an attack on their religion. According to the knights’ healthy logic, destroying these notes would annul the debts. They torched the Jews’ houses and possessions, and then organized to

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burn the promissory notes, which were stored in the cathedral of York. The fact that these noblemen, en route to their holy crusade, organized a ‘festive bonfire’ at their most sacred site in order to rid themselves of these debts is proof that their purposes were not Christian-theological. The Jews in the citadel understood the events around them theologically, not in their criminaleconomical context. The way they saw it, the enemy’s purpose was to force them to convert from Judaism to Christianity, and thus they felt that they must kill themselves ‘in sanctification of God’s Name’, in order to win their struggle against Christianity. Their actions are proof that these twelfth-century Jews had internalized the behaviour of their ancestors during the First Crusade. In this section, I will analyse the three-generation progress, during which the Jews internalized the idea of Jewish martyrdom, the idea of suicide ‘in sanctification of God’s Name’. The twelfth century was a special time in Europe. Because of the cultural, artistic and philosophical activity that typified it, scholars of the nineteenth century dubbed it, ‘the twelfth century renaissance’.1 The immense energy of the period brought about important changes throughout Europe. The papacy solidified and grew, and by the end of the century it had become the central power in European Christendom, able to control, coordinate, and forge alliances all over the continent. The Jews were aware of the power held by the head of the Church and assessed him accordingly. So much so that when, in the thirteenth century, the Talmud was confiscated and burnt it was he the Jews turned to, to request it be returned. At the same time and in opposition to this power, principalities and duchies prospered, and the rule of kings grew and struggled with the restrictions it imposed. Europe prospered economically, and its cities grew and became a central power. All of the cities’ institutions took part in this growth, including the Jewish groups; the strengthening of the Jewish community matched the economic progress of all Europe during the twelfth century. Rigord, the biographer of King Philippe-Auguste, tells of the Jews’ economic success during the late 1170s. In his exaggerated account, the Jews

1 See C. H. Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1927) and Renissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. by R. L. Benson and G. Constable with C. D. Lanham (Toronto, 1982); J. Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. by A. Goldhammer (Chicago, 1986), pp. 130–32; A. Grossman, The Early Sages of France (Jerusalem, 1995), pp. 21–23.

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owned half of the houses in Paris and controlled the city and its inhabitants by means of the debts and interest owed to them.2 The Jewish communities that had suffered heavy damage during the First Crusade were rebuilt very quickly.3 At the beginning of the twelfth century, it seemed as if the Christians’ adamant and sometimes violent impulse to convert the Jews had been constrained. The Christians admitted that the First Crusade’s attempt at forced conversion had failed. ‘Only a few were baptized, more from fear of death than out of love for the Christian religion’. These few later attempted to return to their faith, and Christianity was not to benefit from this forced conversion.4 Imperial law freed those Jews who had been forced to convert, despite the objections of the Church and its head, Pope Clement III. Jews entered the circle of imperial protection that had been defined in 1103.5 Schools of study that had been founded before the crisis, flourished in northern France and Germany under charismatic teachers.6 However, the twelfth century did present the Jews with a continuing challenge. The Christians’ success was seen as indicating the truth of their religion, as proof that God was on their side. This was not just a minor theological doctrine, but rather part of a continuous attempt to threaten and pressure the Jews. The connection between God and His faithful is at the heart of both Christianity and Judaism. The Jews took an interest in what was going on around them, were aware of the developments mentioned and formed their own opinions on every subject. Many felt that the Jews had been weakened.

R. W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (London, 1982), pp. 34–44, 100–06; S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews (Toronto, 1991), pp. 304–07; Schwarzfuchs, ‘Place of the Crusades’, pp. 263–76; S. Goldin, Uniqueness and Togetherness: The Enigma of the Survival of the Jews in the Middle Ages (Tel-Aviv, 1997), pp. 34–35, 185, note 60; W. C. Jordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philadelphia, 1989), pp. 3–38. 3 Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 137–48, 192–210; Schwarzfuchs, ‘Place of the Crusades’. Although the speed of their recovery does not reflect the depth of the damage, as evidenced today, sixty years after the Holocaust of the Jews of Europe. 4 Albert Aquensis [Albert of Aachen], p. 293; J. Aronius, Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden im fränkischen und deutschen Reiche bis zum Jahre 1273 (Berlin, 1902), nos 203, 204; See Cosmas Pragensis, Chronica Boemorum. Die Chronik de Böhmen des Cosmas von Prag, ed. by Bertold Bretholz, MGH, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum nova series, 2 (Berlin, 1923), pp. 164–66, 222. 5 Aronius, nos 102, 204, 223, 771; Goldin, Uniqueness, pp. 25–30. 6 Soloveitchik, ‘Catastrophe’. 2

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They pointed out that Jews were succumbing to pressure and converting, rather than being forced physically, under persecution. Rabbi Jacob ben Meir ‘Rabbeinu Tam’ from Ramerupt in northern France (who died in 1171) was asked which name should be written on a convert’s writ of divorce: just his Jewish name, or his new Christian name as well. Rabbi Jacob ben Meir ‘Tam’ answered that both names should be written. He treated conversion as a fact of life and related that ‘more than twenty divorce-writs have been written for converted Jews in Paris and in France’. In his answer, he mentions by the way two well-known Jews from different places who had changed their religion. His answer reveals that there were converts from important families, that he knew of such cases in Germany as well, and that the popular reaction to such conversions included calling them by a derogatory name, in order to avoid using their new Christian name. Twenty writs is a significant number, especially considering that this was the number of those men whose wives did not convert with them, and who were willing to release them from their marriage. The number was probably larger, since there were also men who refused to divorce their wives, and there were whole families who converted together. In any case, in small communities such as those under discussion here, twenty was a large number and proof of a widespread, if not common phenomenon.7 As we know, the political, legal and economic status of the Jews of northern France and Germany declined steadily from the early twelfth century until their expulsion from England in 1290 and from France (twice in the fourteenth century) and their being pushed eastward in Germany during the second half of the fourteenth century.8 Various sources tell us of Jews leaving their religion during these 250 years. In Christian sources, this phenomenon is reflected in Jacob b. Meir (Tam), Sefer haYashar leRabbenu Tam (Responsa), ed. by S. F. Rosental (Berlin, 1898), nos 25–26, pp. 42–45; Jacob b. Meir (Tam), Sefer haYashar leRabbenu Tam (News), ed. by S. S. Schlesinger (Jerusalem, 1959), pp. 448–49; Tosafot Gittin 34b veho; J. Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (New York, 1961), 75–76; F. J. Pegues, The Lawyers of the Last Capetians (Princeton, 1962); Grossman, Early Sages of France, p. 503; S. Goldin, ‘Juifs et juifs convertis au Moyen Âge “Es-tu encore mon frère?”’, Annales: histoire, sciences sociales, 40 (1999), 851–74. 8 Baron, IX, X (esp. pp. 52–116), XI; R. Chazan, Medieval Jewry in Northern France: A Political and Social History (Baltimore, 1973); S. Grayzel, ‘Popes, Jews, and Inquisition, from “Sicut” to “Torbato corde”’, in Essays on the Occasion of the Seventieth Anniversary of the Dropsie University, ed. by A. Katsch and L. Nemoy (Philadelphia, 1977), pp. 151–88; G. Langmuir, ‘Tanquam Servi: The Change in Jewish Status in French Law about 1200’, in Les juifs dans l’histoire de France, ed. by M. Yardeni (Leiden, 1980), 24–54; see also Jordan. 7

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stories of Jews who converted, either willingly or by force: in imperial legislation allowing them to return to Judaism; papal writings following up on Jews who had converted; theological discussions of the issue; royal decrees, and so on. These sources do not teach us about the scope of the phenomenon or of a deliberate Christian decision to focus on missionary activities towards the Jews before the thirteenth century.9 The Jews, on the other hand, had made up their minds right after the First Crusade. They felt that the Christians were using physical threats, economic temptations and theological arguments to convert them, and that this must be fought off at any cost, including that of their lives. These fears are expressed clearly in the sources describing the violent confrontations between Christians and Jews during the First Crusade. According to these sources, written by Jews in the generation after the First Crusade, the primary goal of the Christians — bishops, crusaders, and commoners — was to convince the Jews to convert. Only after it became clear that they would not convert did the Christians attempt to kill them. These sources were couched in language to convince their twelfth-century readers that they should not be lured by the Christians’ ‘correct’ and protective behaviour, since their purpose was one: to convert Jews to Christianity. This is also emphasized in the piyyutim — the Jewish liturgical poems. The twelfth century composers warned against Christian behaviour by using the imagery of traps and snares. Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan describes how Christians laid traps for Jews, and how if the Jews managed to escape from them, they were killed. Rabbi Kalonymus bar Judah claimed that Christians were trying to convince Jews with words, but their words and promises are a trap: ‘They hide a trap designed to convert them to idol worship’. This imagery is taken from Jeremiah (5. 26): ‘For among my people are found wicked men; they lay in wait, as he that sets snares; they set a trap, they catch men’. Rashi explains, ‘like a trap set for deer in the forest, when its foot goes inside and it grips its foot and catches it, called piege (from pied)’.10

9 Goldin, ‘Juifs et juifs convertis’; Innocent III decreed that the status of the ‘new Christians’ was to be made equal to that of the rest of the faithful, and carried out this policy in the decisions of the Fourth Lateran Council. See also S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (Philadelphia, 1938), p. 296; Pegues, pp. 12–140; Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 146–47; Grayzel, ‘Popes, Jews, and Inquisition’; W. J. Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews (Eblesbach, 1988) pp. 315–17; Jordan, pp. 138–39, 149–50; Simonsohn, Apostolic See, pp. 238–62. 10 Habermann, pp. 24,39,41, 44, 46, 53, 97.

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In the eyes of the twelfth-century Jews, the Christians’ attempts to convert them were aimed primarily at their children. They usually tried to receive imperial protection against forced baptism, and were careful to have these promises written into their writs of privilege. In the ninth century it had been Charles the Bald who had foiled the attempts of Agobard and the church councils to take the Jews’ children; in the eleventh century it was Heinrich IV; in the twelfth — Friedrich I. Jewish sources that describe the events of the First Crusade tell of Jewish parents who killed their own children in order to foil Christian designs to raise them as Christians. This fear is also evident in the way the Jews of northern France and Germany raised and educated their children in the twelfth century. The Jews, in their fear, anticipated the theological-legal discussion held by the Christians in the thirteenth century.11 The source of their attitude was in the behaviour of the Christians in such disputes as the 1171 Blois affair (which will be discussed below). Only adult Jews, accused of harming Christians, were burned at the stake, while the children were raised as Christians. The Jews used all of their direct and indirect influence on the Capetian noble family in order to release these children and to thwart this possibility. ‘Death in sanctification of God’s Name’, meaning a preference of death over conversion to Christianity, was the Jewish answer to the attempts to convert them by force. The theological blow that the Jews suffered with the success of the First Crusade and the Christian capture of Jerusalem in 1099 is evident in the Jewish sources, which describe the Christian claims toward them: Your God’s anger toward you has never abated, as He promised to benefit you, and you did evil before Him. And for this He has forgotten you and wants you no more [. . .] and He departed from you and shined on us and took us as his part.

And the Jews’ reaction was: ‘And when we heard, our hearts were filled with fear and leaped in their place and we were silent, we sat in darkness like the dead, until the Lord will look down from heaven’.12 It would seem that such existential fears have no remedy other than formulating a suicidal behaviour, which would become a normative value. 11

Habermann, pp. 33-35, 37, 55-56, 95. See Grayzel, ‘Popes, Jews and Inquisition’, pp. 159–61; Pakter, pp. 321–31; Simonsohn, Apostolic See, pp. 253–57; R. Chazan, ‘The Blois Incident of 1171: A Study in Jewish Intercommunal Organization’, PAAJR, 36 (1968), 13–31; S. Goldin, ‘Jewish Society Under Pressure: The Concept of Childhood’, in Youth in the Middle Ages, ed. by P. J. P. Goldberg and F. Riddy (York, 2004), pp. 25–43. 12 Habermann, p. 27.

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At the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth centuries, such Jewish martyrdom, ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’ in its medieval form, was still an innovation and much effort had to go into its dissemination.13 The sources are intended to preserve the memory of the event, the heroes and the way they died, and of course to serve as an example for Jews in the future. These sources were written to be used in the synagogue prayers on the days that commemorate those martyrs and in the places where those martyrs died. During the twelfth century, three types of sources were written: prose, poetry and memorial books; each of these had its role to play in the regular process of socialization that occurred within the communities.14 During the twelfth century, the Jewish communities of Germany and France attempted to create a model of a memorial ceremony that could compete with the Christian model. The Christian model was clear: a day in memory of the martyr on the day that he was martyred (or was saved by a miracle), on which the martyr’s ceremonies would be held. During the mass, an account of his deeds would be read, poems in his honour recited (the martyr was also a saint), and prayers, mostly comprised of verses from the Psalms, would be said.15 The question of the influence this Christian model had on the Jews is a complex one and must be treated with care. In his classic paper on Sefer Hasidim six decades ago, Yitzhak Baer attempted to typify the relationship between the Jewish group and Christian society. In his opinion, the Jews ‘assimilated’ Christian ideas and behaviours in three stages. First, by identifying behaviours that were in competition with Jewish ideas of the day. Second, by looking for similar ideas in the Jewish tradition. Finally, a Jewish version appeared, defined as a Jewish answer and challenge to the Christian behaviour. As stated recently by Marcus, the medieval Jews assimilated within their Judaism aspects of Christian culture, in the form of polemical-social rejection’.16 The Jewish sources must be studied in light of the kind of influence that Christianity had upon Judaism in the first

13

I. G. Marcus, ‘From Politics to Martyrdom — Shifting Paradigms in the Hebrew Narratives of the 1096 Crusade Riots’, Prooftexts, 2 (1982), 40–52. 14 Goldin, Uniqueness; S. Goldin, ‘The Socialization for Kidush ha–Shem among Medieval Jews’, Journal of Medieval History, 23 (1997), 117–38; Goldin, ‘Juifs et juifs convertis’. 15 M. McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints — Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France (Ithaca, 1994); see also Vauchez. 16 Y. Baer, ‘The Religious-Social Tendency of Sepher Hassidim’ [Hebrew], Zion, 3 (1938), 1–50; I. G. Marcus, Rituals of Childhood (New Haven, 1996), pp. 12–13.

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half of the twelfth century, especially in light of Jewish attempts to create methods of commemoration that could compete with Christian commemoration, which had an enormous influence in terms of both social space and on shared social memory. For this reason, I see these various Jewish methods of commemoration as a way of creating a Jewish ‘martyrs’ group’, whose memory could serve as an internalizing agent for the specific messages of the Jewish group of the twelfth century.17 The generation that survived destruction by the crusaders in 1096, felt duty bound to not only commemorate itself, but also to assure that future generations would be able to use its experiences in order to create a path for themselves. If successful, the martyrs would win everlasting fame and would be emulated in the future. In order to achieve this goal, these Jews had to ensure at least two things: the first was to record true examples from their knowledge of the recent past; the second was to reach back and to root out these events in the traditions of the distant past. The examples had to be credible and include known people, places and events. The stories were meant for the survivors of the events or those who had heard first-hand accounts; they heard, they remembered, they knew the families involved. The examples were meant to create an “educational story”, in fact, a mode of behaviour. The Jews of the twelfth century also created a new kind of ‘martyr’s story’, which will be examined below. They wrote in a way that was expressly their own, to serve their own needs. This writing included use of biblical verses, in the style of the familiar midrashim. The stories are constructed as midrashim. They include a basic story, built on an historic account on one hand, and a message connected to the group’s basic traditions on the other. To make the message and its connection to the story clear, the message is based on biblical verses that are connected to it by association, creating a story full of imagery and with a clear message; a new message-bearing midrash, based on the verses, which show the events to be part of a familiar pattern. The pattern is concluded by a prayer, made up once again of verses and connecting passages that create the message. The martyr’s role is suspended between the stories of the recent past and the myths of the distant past. The familiar people of the past generation acted just as had Rabbi Akiba. The prayer, composed in prose, the poem of lament ‘in memoriam’ and of repentance are the bearers of the message for future generations.

17

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This is how Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn wrote his book in the first half of the twelfth century; this is how the composition of prayers written at the end of the twelfth century was understood; and this is how the message-bearing piyyutim of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were written. The reasons given by scholars of the past 100 years for the composition of the Jewish ‘Chronicles’ (commemoration, dispute with Christianity, emphasis of martyrdom over ‘politics’, and a wish to hasten revenge on the Gentiles18) are of course correct. However, the primary reason for this type of writing was to allow Jews to deal with their fear of the triumph of Christianity.

18

Yuval, ‘The Lord will take Vengeance’, p. 66: ‘This approach, which sees in the death of martyrs a chance to hasten the redemption, would explain the logic of most of the stories included in the chronicles of 1096’.

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Chapter 5

‘DEATH IN SANCTIFICATION OF GOD’S NAME’: RITUAL, MYTH, AND MESSAGE

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he term Kiddush hashem ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’, as used by Jews in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, means the taking of one’s own life, or that of anyone, including children and whole families, about to fall into Christian hands, as a sublime expression of faith in the God of the Jews.1 This is the way it is defined by Jews and described by Christians. The Christian chronicler Albert of Aachen tells of the First Crusade: When the Jews saw that their Christian enemies were attacking them and their children with no mercy for anyone, they each rose upon his brother, children, wives, mothers and sisters, each dying at the hand of his fellow. Mothers — terrible to say it — slitting their own suckling children’s throats and stabbing others, preferring that they die by their own hand and not by the weapons of the uncircumcised.2

This behaviour was new to the Jews. This was not the same ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’ as in Antiquity — a willingness to accept a death decreed upon keepers of the Torah and its commandments by their enemies. At the end of the eleventh century we see an extreme and demonstrative behaviour. After trying to bribe the Christians, after losing hope of being saved by the emperor, the town governor, or other townsfolk, after realizing that God did not hear their prayers and after despairing of prayer, of fasting, and of their own attempts to

1

Habermann, pp. 25, 31, 32, 35. Albert of Aquensis [Albert of Aachen], p. 293; Chazan, European Jewry, p. 106; A. Grabois, ‘Jews and Israel in the Crusades Chronography of the 12th Century’ [Hebrew], in Studies in Historiography, ed. by J. Salmon and others (Jerusalem, 1987), pp. 85–100, esp. p. 97. 2

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fight, they ‘justified the heavenly edict’ and adopted a ritual martyr’s conduct with certain standard features. At first, the town governors tended to try to protect them by collecting them in a fortified place or stronghold, and the Jews found themselves facing the approaching Christians as a group. This communal gathering gave rise to the creation of a ritual, in which the leadership’s representatives would commence with a speech or a prayer, all would prepare to die, wrap themselves in their prayer shawls, pray together, cry out the Jewish death call, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one’, kill the children and the elderly, and finally themselves. The Jewish sources of the period stress that the Christians’ purpose was to convert the Jews, not necessarily to cause them physical harm. The Christians did all they could to convince the Jews to convert. The injury and murder came after the Jews demonstratively refused to convert. ‘They admonished us and said that we must either turn to their abhorrent ways or be destroyed from babe to suckling’.3 When the Christians broke in, they understood that they had failed; they could not convert the Jews by force, they could not take the children, they could not kill the Jews who refused to convert and turn them into unwilling Christians, and even the physical victory was taken from them. This view is typical of the Jewish sources of the period: ‘Both great and small said: Let us die by God’s hand, rather than by God’s enemies’. The source says that in Mainz, when they could not perform this ritual, the women threw money and jewellery at them ‘so that they would be busy collecting the spoils and be delayed a little, until they managed to kill their sons and daughters’.4

The Central Motifs The sources that have come down to us: prayers, ‘chronicles’, liturgical poems, and memorial books, describe these deaths in detail.5 This is the way that the occurrences at Mainz on 27 May1096 are described: When the people of the Sacred Covenant saw that the Heavenly decree had been issued and that the enemy had defeated them and were entering the courtyard,

3

Habermann, pp. 24, 38, 93. Habermann, pp. 28, 33. 5 I shall expand on these sources, their purposes and the time in which they were written in the next chapter. 4

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they all cried out together — old and young, maidens and children, menservants and maids — to their Father in Heaven. They wept for themselves and for their lives and proclaimed the justness of the Heavenly judgement, and they said to one another: ‘Let us be of good courage and bear the yoke of the Holy Creed, for now the enemy can only slay us by the sword, and death by the sword is the lightest of the four deaths. We shall then merit eternal life, and our souls will abide in the Garden of Eden in the presence of the great luminous speculum forever’. All of them declared willingly and wholeheartedly, ‘After all things, there is no questioning the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He and blessed be His Name, Who has given us His Torah and has commanded us to allow ourselves to be killed and slain in witness to the Oneness of His Holy Name. Happy are we if we fulfil His will, and happy is he who is slain or slaughtered and who dies attesting the Oneness of His Name. Such a one is destined for the World-to-Come, where he will sit in the realm of the saints — Rabbi Akiba and his companions, pillars of the universe, who were killed in witness to His Name. Moreover — for such a one a world of darkness is exchanged for a world of light, a world of sorrow for one of joy, a transitory world for an eternal world’. Then in a great voice they all cried out as one: ‘We need tarry no longer, for the enemy is already upon us. Let us hasten and offer ourselves as a sacrifice before God. Anyone possessing a knife should examine it to see that it is not defective, and let him then proceed to slaughter us in sanctification of the Unique and Eternal One, then slaying himself — either cutting his throat or thrusting the knife into his stomach’. Upon entering the courtyard, the enemy encountered some of perfect piety, including Rabbi Isaac, son of Rabbi Moses, uprooter of mountains. He extended his neck and was the first to be decapitated. The others wrapped themselves in their fringed prayer shawls and sat in the courtyard waiting to expedite the will of their Creator, not wishing to flee within the chambers just to be saved for temporal life, for lovingly they accepted Heaven’s judgement. The foe hurled stones and arrows at them, but they did not scurry to flee; the enemy smote all whom they found there with their swords, causing slaughter and destruction. Those Jews in the chambers, seeing what the enemy had inflicted upon the saints, all cried out: ‘There is none like our God unto whom it would be better to offer our lives’. The women girded their loins with strength and slew their own sons and daughters, and then themselves. Many men also mustered their strength and slaughtered their wives and children and infants. The most gentle and tender of women slaughtered the child of her delight. They all arose, men and women alike, and slew one another. The young maidens, the brides, and the bridegrooms looked out through the windows and cried out in a great voice: ‘Look and behold, O Lord, what we are doing to sanctify Thy Great Name, in order not to exchange You for a crucified scion who was despised, abominated, and held in contempt in his own generation, a bastard son conceived by a menstruating and wanton mother’. Thus the precious children of Zion, the people of Mainz, were tested with ten trials as was our Father Abraham, and as Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were. They, too, bound their children in sacrifice, as Abraham did his son Isaac, and

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willingly accepted upon themselves the yoke of fear of Heaven, of the King of Kings, the Blessed Holy One. Refusing to gainsay their faith and replace the fear of the King with an abominable stock, bastard son of a menstruating and wanton mother, they extended their necks for slaughter and offered up their pure souls to their Father in Heaven. The saintly and pious women acted in a similar manner, extending their necks to each other in willing sacrifice in witness to the Oneness of God’s Name — and each man likewise to his son and brother, brother to sister, mother to son and daughter, neighbour to neighbour and friend, bridegroom to bride, fiancé to his betrothed: each first sacrificed the other and then in turn yielded to be sacrificed, until the streams of blood touched and mingled, and the blood of husbands joined with that of their wives, the blood of fathers with that of their sons, the blood of brothers with that of their sisters, the blood of teachers with that of their pupils, the blood of bridegrooms with that of their brides, the blood of community deacons with that of their scribes, the blood of babes and sucklings with that of their mothers — all killed and slaughtered in witness to the Oneness of the Venerated and Awesome Name. Let the ears hearing this and its like be seared, for who has heard or seen the likes of it? Inquire and seek: was there ever such a mass sacrificial offering since the time of Adam? Did it ever occur that there were one thousand and one hundred offerings on one single day — all of them comparable to the sacrifice of Isaac, the son of Abraham?6

This passage includes the most important of the messages that are contained in this type of literature, written in the twelfth century.

Figures from the Past The idea of ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’ needed support from characters from the past, in order to bring home the message that Jews had already performed such acts in the past, when it had been necessary to prove their deepest and ultimate faith or in confrontation with other religions. Such past figures, presented as agents of this type of behaviour, include Abraham and Isaac, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the woman (Hannah) and her sons, Rabbi Akiba, and the Ten Martyrs.7 The character of Rabbi Akiba was used primarily in order to emphasize the biblical verse that became the battle cry of the Jewish martyrs. He is the person who most expresses the willingness to die in sanctification of God’s Name, and as such he is the one chosen to sit at the 6

I have chosen one passage as an example: Habermann, pp. 31–33. Conspicuous by their absence are Saul and Samson, the Maccabees, and the heroes of Masada. 7

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side of God’s throne in Heaven. And so the image of Heaven, which developed at that time, included a picture of Rabbi Akiba and his ‘companions’, who receive those who had died in sanctification of God’s Name into Heaven. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who had refused to bow to the king’s idol and had volunteered to descend into the fiery furnace, were likewise honoured. These represent three different types of martyrs. While Rabbi Akiba and ‘his companions the pillars of the Earth, who died for His Name’ represent adherence to Judaism to the death, and while Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah represent the taking a stand against a repressive government, in the mind of the twelfth-century Jew from northern France or Germany, it was the myth of Abraham and Isaac’s supreme test of faith that best approximated to his own experiences. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, and that’s exactly what he did. God commanded him to do it, because he was the best there was in the world. Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, and the act itself, are recounted over and over in Jewish sources. Identification with Abraham is one of the greatest virtues. They, like Abraham, had been commanded to sacrifice themselves and their children, and, like him, they had passed the test, like him, they ‘were in full acceptance’ and did not hesitate. In their own words: Thus the precious children of Zion, the people of Mainz, were tested with ten trials as was our Father Abraham, and as Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were [. . .] Let the ears hearing this and its like be seared, for who has heard or seen the likes of it? Inquire and seek: was there ever such a mass sacrificial offering since the time of Adam? Did it ever occur that there were one thousand and one hundred offerings on one single day — all of them comparable to the sacrifice of Isaac, the son of Abraham?

Did they not perceive the essential difference between their own behaviour and that which was immortalized in Genesis 22? The biblical Abraham never harmed his son Isaac. How, then, could 1100 killed in one day be compared to the Akedah (binding) of Isaac? The Jews of medieval Ashkenaz expanded on some of the midrashim about the Akedah and about the characters of Abraham and Isaac and created a new midrash, with emphases that suited their circumstances.8 The writers of the midrashim noted that Isaac is missing from the end of the story in Genesis 22. After sacrificing the ram, the story says that ‘Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went’ (Genesis 22. 19). The midrash immediately asks, ‘and where was Isaac?’ Isaac is also missing from the story of his beloved 8

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mother’s death and the purchase of her burial site. He is also absent when his father sends his servant to bring him a wife from afar. His return to the narrative is as wondrous as his disappearance. At the end of her long journey, Rebecca sees him at a distance, ‘and Isaac came back from the way of the well Lahai-roi’. His figure was so strange and wonderful, that she fell off her camel upon seeing him. Most midrashim explain that Isaac had been in another place since the Akedah. Some claim that his long absence was due to his father harming him on the altar. Abraham did not just bind his son, pull out the knife, was stopped by the angel and sacrificed the ram — he also sacrificed his son, really harmed him.9 The midrashim stress that the angel called to Abraham twice in order to stop him, and conclude that this was necessary because he did not listen at first, and actually did begin slaughtering his son. By using the words taken from Genesis 22, the writers of the midrashim managed to draw a comparison between the myth of the Akedah and the reality of the late eleventh century. The implement with which they killed each other is the Maakhelet, the knife used by Abraham. The verbs used in Genesis 22 are copied by the medieval sources. The parents use the language of Scripture when they call to their children ‘my son, my son, lie in the bosom of Abraham’. They call their action of slaughter Akedah, even though the word means ‘to bind’. The tying up of Isaac in Genesis 22 becomes actual killing with a knife in the medieval sources. Among those who fled the city of Köln were Rabbi Shmuel the Pious and his son, Yehiel. According to one version, Yehiel unsuccessfully tried to drown himself in a river. Then the father shouted: Yehiel, my son, my son, stretch out your neck before your father and I will offer you as a sacrifice to God. I will recite the benediction of Ritual Slaughter and you will respond ‘Amen’. Samuel, the Pious man, did as he had spoken, slaying his son with his sword in the water.

Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan added: Behold, all ye mortals, the great valour of the son who, though not bound, submitted himself to slaughter, and how great was the fortitude of the father, who was not softened by pity for so pleasant and handsome a youth. Who will hear and not weep?10

9 There are countless midrashim about the Akedah: Abot de Rabbi Nathan, ed. by Schechter, p. 94; Leviticus Rabbah, ed. by Margules, 20. 2; ‘Numbers Rabbah’ 120; Tanhuma, Vayera 20–23, pp. 75–79 and Agus, pp. 63–68. 10 Habermann, pp. 45, 77.

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This story, of family martyrdom, is reminiscent of the Akedah story in Genesis: the father’s willingness to kill his son; the double call ‘my son, my son’; the word for ‘knife’; and the expression ‘a sacrifice before the Lord’. Abraham contributed the act and Rabbi Akiba contributed the call that became the rallying cry of Judaism: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one’.

The Covenant at Mount Sinai In every case of a Jewish community being molested by Christians, their anger at the Jews’ Torah scrolls is also mentioned. As in every fierce inter-religious conflict, each side did its best to harm the other’s most important symbol. The Christians considered the Torah scroll to be Judaism’s central symbol. The sentence, ‘and there was also a Torah scroll in the room, and the transgressors entered the room and found it, and tore it into many pieces’ is constantly repeated, in one form or another. They did not see the connection between the Jewish Torah, the scroll of parchment they tore up, sullied, and desecrated, and the ‘Old Testament’ that was holy to them, too. They saw the Torah scroll as a Jewish symbol that protected the Jews, and wished to wound and subdue the heart of Judaism. For this reason, the ‘religious time’ in which these events occurred is very important: the first days of the Hebrew month of Sivan, the days leading up to the festival of Shavu’ot, celebrating the covenant between God and His people. The sources mention this Sinai Covenant time and time again. Let the Christians say and do what they will, the very existence of the Torah is the ultimate proof of the covenant. In a world in which people were ready to kill themselves as proof of their convictions, the date on which these events occurred, close to the date of the Sinai Covenant, had special significance. The sight of the Torah scroll defiled in the mud did not convince the Jews that they had been defeated, but rather encouraged them to die in sanctification of God’s Name, in order to keep the covenant. Their reward would be in heaven.

The Sacrifice in the Temple We should note the way that the Jews viewed their suicide and the killing of their children. Those killing themselves are seen as sacrifices being offered at the Temple: ‘Let us go quickly and sacrifice ourselves before the Lord’. The idea of sacrificial offerings was copied over to the realm of human beings. The killing of

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oneself and of others is described in the language of animal and meal offerings, libations of water, oil and wine, and even as incense. They defined themselves as that portion of the offering reserved for the priests.11 They called themselves ‘peace offerings’, of which the blood was burned on the altar, the thigh and the breast was given to the priests, and the rest was eaten by the person who had brought the offering. The commentator Rashi, who lived at that time, defined the peace offering (called shelamim in Hebrew), in his commentary on Exodus: ‘Meaning perfection (shelemut), perfect in all. Scripture teaches that it brings peace (shalom) to the altar, to he who officiates, and to he who makes the offering’ (29. 22). The writer calls those Jews who had killed themselves by the names of the ‘regular’ sacrifices (the peoples’ offering, the boiled offering, the pleasant fragrance, a pure offering, the raised breast and thigh), and most commonly emphasized are the burnt offerings and daily sacrifices: ‘the totally burnt’, ‘the daily evening offering’, and ‘the daily morning offering’; these are the most choice sacrifices, burned totally on the altar and no one, not even the high priest, could benefit from them.12 What is the meaning of this myth? The underlying assumption is that sacrifices are the thing that God likes best, and that only Jews can offer them. Not everyone can be a sacrifice to God, only the best, only those who are whole. Here the Jews sacrifice themselves and symbolize their connection to God. The eleventh-century martyrs were seen by the twelfth-century writers as people who had attained the highest level a human being could possibly reach. The use of sacrificial language establishes the connection with the Temple and, of course, with Jerusalem. The use of the animal and vegetable sacrifices relates to the taking of the ideal of the Holy City and the Temple that stood in it to the Jewish communities of Europe. We can see the formation of a deep polemic against the Christians’ feeling of victory and pride. It was claimed that the capture of Jerusalem by the Christians could not be a sign that God had abandoned the Jews. The task of Jerusalem was to be the place of God’s residence among man, serving as a link between them, and sacrifices are an exclusive link between God and the Jews. After the Christians had captured Jerusalem, made it their capital and turned the site of the Temple into a church to their messiah, the true Temple was transferred to any place in which a Jew proved that he had not lost his faith. The Jews’ exclusive prerogative to offer sacrifices to God had not been abrogated. The sacrifices were the Jews 11 12

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themselves; the Temple and Jerusalem had been transferred from the orient to Europe. The conquerors who had ravished Jerusalem and maltreated the Jews continued to do so, as they had in each generation. Therefore the Crusaders who had conquered Jerusalem were not seen as the Jews’ monotheistic successors, but as those of the pagan idol worshippers, who had destroyed Jerusalem in each generation, and had become no closer to God.13

Community and Family Behaviour, and the Question of Leadership One of the central motifs in the sources is the way in which ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’ was accomplished. This could be called ‘communal behaviour’; the sources emphasize that the community as a whole acted in unison and died together. However, one should note, that after the general description and the use of such words as ‘them’ and ‘men and women’, the language changes from that describing a ‘community’ death to one of ‘family’ deaths. The groupings change to family groupings: ‘men to their wives’, ‘fathers to their sons’, ‘brothers to their sisters’, ‘bridegrooms to their brides’, ‘infants and suckling babes to their mothers’, ‘father with son and mother with daughter’, servants with masters, maidservant with mistress. This trend is intensified when the writer describes specific cases. The children are almost always pictured beside the women or the men, amplifying the feeling of a family executing itself. Beyond the constant emphasis on the Jewish community’s standing as a unit, we see the internalization of the idea of death in sanctification of God’s Name through the family.14 At the head of a community stand its leaders. This theme is repeated throughout the sources and sketches a picture of a community working as one. The leaders known as Parnasim, men who hobnob with emperors and bishops, men with much property, Kohanim (descendants of the High Priest), cantors and well-known personages — all stood at the head of the community and were the first to present the killing of self and family as ‘death in sanctification of the Y. Baer, ‘The Decree of 1096’ [Hebrew], in Studies and Essays in the History of the Jewish People, 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1985), II, 147–61 (first publ. in Sefer Asaf, ed. by M. Kasotu Mand and others (Jerusalem, 1953), pp. 126–40); Marcus, ‘From Politics to Martyrdom’. 14 Habermann, pp. 25, 31, 32, 43, 45; Roskies has claimed that in Second Temple sources, the phenomenon is seen as ‘national’, in the Middle Ages it is ‘communal’, and during the Holocaust it is seen as ‘personal’. In my opinion (on which I shall expand elsewhere), the medieval view is very much that of ‘family’. 13

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name’. The outstanding example is Rabbi Kalonymus ben Meshulam, the Parnas, from Mainz, the man who had called the Emperor to protect the Jews. Kalonymus is pictured as a paragon, and he is known as ‘mender of fences, model of the generation, God fearing, bound to an inner altar’. Such epithets serve to strengthen his character and his actions, especially his volunteering to protect his community and becoming a perfect example of death in sanctification of God’s Name.15 The figure of Rabbi Kalonymus stands in perfect contrast to the Christian leaders: Graf Emich and the Bishop. In the first part of the story, the conflict is military; Rabbi Kalonymus stands at the head of fifty-three Jewish fighters, facing a Christian army commanded by Emich. The Jewish group, armed with swords but weak from fasting, at first stood by the gate and then fled into the Bishop’s house. Thus was the leader separated from his people, as he found refuge in the inner stronghold and was saved. The source defines the place as ‘the dressingroom of idolatry, the strongroom where it is stored for cutting’. What ‘dressingroom’ means in this medieval context is explained by Rashi: ‘There is no prohibition against borrowing the clothes that [Christian] priests wear while they perform their idolatry.’16 That is to say, the place in which the Bishop kept 15

Habermann, pp. 26, 40–46. Jeremy Cohen shows in two papers that the figure of Kalonymus was designed as a model of a man who cannot decide whether to kill himself or not, and shows a certain amount of Christian influence. I do not accept this as proof of seditious writing. It is often not the writing that is seditious, but the modern interpretation of that writing. See J. Cohen, ‘The Hebrew Crusade Chronicles in their Christian Cultural Context’, in Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge, ed. by A. Haverkamp (Sigmaringen, 1999), pp. 17– 34; ‘Between Martyrdom and Apostasy: Doubt and Self-Definition in the TwelfthCentury Ashkenaz’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 29 (1999), 431–71 and Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade (Philadelphia, 2004). Cohen attempts, by intertextual reading, to show Kalonymus as a ‘waverer’ or one who admits to some Christian ideas. Any proof that he uses can be explained otherwise. The ceremonial robes worn by a Christian priest might be considered objects of idolatrous worship and be forbidden for use by Jews. The commentator Rashi explains that they are not, using the same Hebrew word for ‘dressing-room’, showing what the word means in this context. (See Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi), Responsa Rashi, ed. by I. Elfenbein (New York, 1943), no. 364, p. 365.) In my view, the picture of the Kalonymus group sitting in a small, narrow room, surrounded by the bishop’s ceremonial robes that he wears while performing the mass, was reason enough for them to feel that they were ‘besieged and troubled’ and to remain silent. Especially since they had left behind hundreds of people who undoubtedly needed their help. Also see below. 16

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his precious ceremonial robes. The Bishop and his soldiers managed to get the group out and escort them to the village of Rudesheim across the Rhine. The community, meanwhile, performed the suicide ritual in the courtyard, and there they all died (according to the source, 1100 Jews). 17 Is the author stating his criticism of Rabbi Kalonymus, who preferred military confrontation and then hiding, to the ritual of death in sanctification of God’s Name? Did Rabbi Kalonymus harbour thoughts of fleeing or seeming to convert while he was hidden in that narrow room, ironically protected by ‘the clothes that priests wear while they perform their idolatry’? The writer does not tell us, but does emphasize that after the group was transferred to the village of Rudesheim across the Rhine, Rabbi Kalonymus prevailed in another confrontation, this time against the Bishop. Not a cruel and delusion-filled warrior like Graf Emich, but the Christian Bishop, who presents Rabbi Kalonymus with his view, by which the events prove that the Jews should convert to Christianity. I cannot save you, for your God has turned away from you and does not wish to allow any of your group to survive. From now on it is no longer in my power to save or help you; now you and your associates must choose between accepting our faith and paying for the iniquity of your forefathers.

After this confrontation between the two leaders, Rabbi Kalonymus reached a decision; he requested ‘give me until tomorrow to answer’, went back to his companions and they decided to kill themselves. Rabbi Kalonymus killed his son Yoseph and was then killed with the others. Just how he died is not clear. Since all were killed with him, the writer does not know how he died and presents us with three stories that circulated at the time. Rabbi Kalonymus tried to kill the Bishop and was killed; he killed himself like King Saul, ‘took his sword and fell upon the earth and ran it through his stomach’; the Christians killed him en-route.18 To the writer, the conclusion is clear, and he emphasizes it in his story: Whatever the facts about his death, this we know with certainty — that the Exilarch was slain bearing witness to the Oneness of the Name of the King of Kings, the Blessed Holy One, and that he was perfect and wholehearted with the Lord God of Israel; and there the saint fell, slain together with his congregation.

17

Schwarzfuchs, ‘Place of the Crusades’. Habermann, p. 41. One should not see in this comparison of Rabbi Kalonymus’ suicide to Saul’s as meaning that such suicide is halakhically permitted, though it is tempting to think so. 18

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Rabbi Kalonymus did as all other Jewish leaders had done. In the end he killed himself as an example of the proper way to behave, just like the rest of the community. The story of Rabbi Kalonymus, the Parnas, is just one of many examples of a leader setting an example of death in sanctification of God’s Name. According to the source, the leadership behaved like the others. Some pericopes stress the passive behaviour of the leaders: wrapped in their prayer shawls, they ‘stick out their necks’ and wait for the Christian to kill them. In others, they ask all who have a sword to check it and kill them, that is, they demand the active killing of each other. All of this is described against a background of others, leaders, and laymen, who were quick to kill their families and themselves.

The Commandment to Die An additional theme is that of the Jews’ seeing ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’ as a divine commandment: ‘who has given us the Torah and commanded us to die’. The writers disregard the discussions in the Mishnah and the Talmud, the masters of Jewish law, in which the question of whether one should be willing to die when forced to worship idols is not given a final answer. The sources do not mention the fact that the Talmud labels anyone who kills another as a murderer whatever the case, and whatever route the discussion takes, apart from this ‘eruption’ of martyrdom.19

Heaven One of the main elements in the Jewish conception of martyrdom of the period was the promise that those who sanctified God’s Name would be rewarded by eternal life in Heaven. This theme first appears as a major issue in the twelfth century Jewish sources with which we are dealing.20 Those who die in sanctification of God’s Name live on, exchanging a temporary, dark and impure world for one that is permanent, pure and illuminated with divine light. Their

19 H. Soloveichik, ‘Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazic Example’, AJS Review, 12 (1987), 205–21. I will return to this theme in the chapter on the theology and sociology of martyrs. 20 S. Shepkaru, ‘From After Death to Afterlife’, AJS Review, 24 (1999), 1–44.

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reward is their closeness to the nation’s heroes, Abraham, Rabbi Akiba, and others who had given their lives in sanctification of God’s Name, even to God Himself. This theme is repeated again and again in the sources of the period. Let us be of good courage and bear the yoke of the Holy Creed, for now the enemy can only slay us by the sword, and death by the sword is the lightest of the four deaths. We shall then merit eternal life, and our souls will abide in the Garden of Eden in the presence of the great luminous speculum forever.

In the city of Trier, one Asher bar Rabbi Yoseph the gabbai was threatened with baptism or death. He told the assembled crowd that he was off to a better world: One who desires to receive and welcome the Divine Presence — and in that world which lavishes an abundance of goodness in the space of a few moments?, and a young lad asked him to wait for him: ‘Wait I desire to accompany you to the World-that-is-All-Light, and with you I will bear witness to the Oneness of the One, Venerable, and Awesome Name — wholeheartedly and willingly’.

In Mainz, one Moshe bar Halbo asked his sons, if the gates of Hell and of Heaven were opened, ‘through which would you now want to enter?’ They answered that they wished to enter Heaven. After they are killed, the writer concludes: ‘And the enemy massacred them, father and sons, their souls be in Heaven in the divine light’.21 One of the most impressive statements of this motif appears in a clear description of the suicide ceremony performed by the community of Xanten, in the region of Düsseldorf.22 In happened on the Sabbath eve, at a communal Sabbath dinner, at the end of which the eldest Kohen (one of the descendants of Aaron, the High Priest, who are often honoured by being asked to lead the prayers) while leading the grace after the meal, called on the community to choose ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’. Let us recite the Grace-after-Meals to the Living God, to our Father in Heaven, for the table is now arranged before us in place of the altar. Let us arise and hurry to the House of the Lord to fulfil the wish of our Creator. The enemy has come upon us today so that each man may slaughter — on the Sabbath — his son, his daughter, and his brothers, and so we may thereby be blessed. Let no man have mercy on himself or his friend. The last survivor shall slaughter himself with his knife at his throat, or shall thrust his sword into his stomach, so that the impure ones and the hands of wickedness will not be able to defile us with their

21 22

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abominations. We shall offer ourselves as a sacrifice to the Lord, as a whole-burntoffering to the Most High One, a sacrifice upon the altar of God. Then we shall enter the World-that-is-All-Day, the Garden of Eden, the great luminous speculum, and we shall behold the countenance of the Lord in its actual Glory and Greatness. Every person will have a diadem of gold set with precious stones and pearls upon his head. We shall sit there amongst the pillars of the world and dine in the company of the righteous in the Garden of Eden, and we shall be in the company of Rabbi Akiba and his companions. We shall sit on a golden chair under the Tree of Life, and each of us will point with his finger and declare: ‘Lo, this is our God, for Whom we have waited [ . . .] Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation’.

The Kohen’s speech was intended to convince the assembly to perform the ritual of suicide, because ‘the enemy had arrived’. In order to avoid being defiled by the enemy’s attempt to convert them, they must slaughter ‘every man his son and daughter and brother [. . .] and the last shall slaughter himself’, and by this they will arrive in Heaven. As I have said previously, the Jews had transferred the Temple from Jerusalem to Europe, and they were within it as part of their special status in God’s eyes. Only they were allowed to offer sacrifices in the Temple, and now they themselves were the sacrifices. They ‘go up’ to ‘the House of God’, sacrifice themselves in order to head off their enemies, and they are the sacrifices that God wants. The Jew who kills himself is not just any sacrifice, he is the highest form of offering, ‘a total high burnt offering’. Just as the burnt offering is totally consumed on the altar and only God benefits from it, so is the man who sacrifices himself and his family to God. He gets to enter Heaven, to pass into a world of goodness, to see the glory of God Himself, receives a special halo ‘of gold inlaid with diamonds and jewels’, and ascends to the elevation of the saints who dwell in Heaven: Abraham and Rabbi Akiba. All will sit together under the tree of life, so close to God that they will be able to point to him with their finger. This description of Heaven was woven in the twelfth century out of the few talmudic, midrashic and biblical passages that refer to Heaven. The people of the Middle Ages used these passages in order to give deeper meaning to the transferral of those who had died in sanctification of God’s Name from earth to Heaven. The verse from Isaiah (25. 9) that is quoted by the medieval writer, agrees with the Talmud, in tractate Ta’anit (31a): Said Rabbi Eleazar: the Holy One Blessed He will cause the righteous to dance in a circle, and He will sit among them in Heaven, and each and every one will point with his finger, as is written, ‘And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God;

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we have waited for Him and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we shall be glad and rejoice in His salvation’.23

Those who had died in sanctification of God’s Name had replaced the righteous, and now sit in the most central spot in Heaven. Indeed, the writer who describes what happened in Xanten after the Kohen’s speech, emphasizes the martyrs’ joyful passage into Heaven: On the Eve of the Sabbath, at twilight, they offered themselves as a sacrifice before God, in place of the daily burnt-offering, and they themselves became as the morning burnt-offering. As a man rejoices when he finds booty, and as [one feels] the joy of the harvest, so were they joyful and elated to perform the service of our God and to sanctify His Great and Holy Name. And they all came, happily and joyfully, before the High and Mighty God. Concerning the likes of them it is stated: ‘[He is] as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; and rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course’. So did they rejoice to run and to enter into the innermost chambers of the Garden of Eden. It is of them that the Prophet declared: ‘Neither hath the eye seen a God beside Thee, Who worketh for him that waiteth for Him’.

The story ends with another verse from Isaiah (64. 3 [NRSV 4]), also part of the corpus that is quoted by the Talmud and the midrashim that describe the righteous in Heaven, seeing God and partaking in His banquet.24 The verse also serves to remind the readers of, or listeners to, the midrash of those righteous who had refused to partake of Ahasuerus’ feast, refusing to transgress God’s commandments even at the order of such a powerful king as Ahasuerus, and were rewarded in Heaven.25 The Midrash Tanhuma tells how Rabbi Abahu addressed his disciples before his death and said that he saw thirteen rivers of balsam oil were to be his reward for his teaching the Torah, and he quotes the verse from Isaiah, ‘neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside you, what He hath prepared for him that waits for Him’.26 The Christians of the town of Mors thought that one ‘righteous’ Jew by the name of Shemariah might agree to convert, and so they spared his life and the lives of his family. That night, Shemariah slaughtered his wife and three sons and unsuccessfully tried to kill himself. The Christians offered to save him if he 23 Ta’anit 31a; Exodus Rabbah, Midrash Shemot Rabbah, ed. by A. Shinan (Jerusalem, 1984), 23; Tanhuma, Zav 16. 24 Berakhot 34b; Shabbat 63a; Sanhedrin 99a; Exodus Rabbah, ed. by Shinan, 45. 6; Tanhuma, Ki Tissa 26. 25 Esther Rabbah, in Midrash Rabbah (Vilna, 1878), 2. 4–5. 26 Tanhuma, Bereshit 1, p. 13.

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would convert, but he answered that he had waited all his life to die in sanctification of God’s Name. The Christians buried him alive with the bodies of his wife and children, and after some time tried to convince him to convert and be saved. He refused and died. The writer used a collection of verses and midrashim in order to create a medieval midrash about his death and ascent to Heaven.27 It is of him and the likes of him that it is written: ‘They that love Him are as the sun when it goeth forth in its might.’ Now work it out: Just as the sun is more intense in the season of Tammuz than it is all the other days of the year, in the World-to-Come the righteous will be above all the nations. And they will be in that group which is dearer to God than all others, and they are destined to stand and abide in the shade of the Blessed Holy One and to stand at His right hand, as it is written: ‘At His right hand was a fiery law unto them.’ It is of them that Scripture states: ‘In Thy presence is fullness of joy, in Thy right hand bliss forevermore.’ Do not read ‘fullness’ but rather ‘seven,’ and this refers to the seven groups of the righteous, each higher than the next, their faces resembling the sun and the moon. Regarding them, it is said: ‘Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart’.

Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan, the Ra’aban (on whom I shall expand in the next chapter), wrote about these events in prose and in poetry, emphasizing the entry of the martyrs into Heaven. He referred to Heaven as ‘The King’s Palace’ and called the martyrs ‘Those who came into the King’s Palace’ or ‘Those who had the strength and courage to stand in His Palace’. 28 He ends his opus with a passage that describes the place in Heaven occupied by those who had killed themselves during the First Crusade in sanctification of God’s Name. It was all at one time, from the month of Iyar till the month of Tammuz, that they ascended to God in sanctity and purity. These were the potters, who dwelt among plantations; there they dwelt, occupied in the work of the King for Whose sake they gave their lives. May He requite their deeds unto them and provide them with their reward according to the work of their hands. Their souls are bound in the bond of life in the King’s sanctuary. Each of them is garbed in the eight vestments of clouds of glory; each crowned with two diadems, one of precious stones and pearls and one of fine gold; and each bearing eight myrtles in his hand. Each is the object of adulation, being told: ‘Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy’. This is all expounded in the midrash on the verse: ‘Oh how abundant is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee’. 29

27

Habermann, p. 52. Habermann, pp. 73–74, 82. 29 Habermann, p. 82. 28

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The men, women, and children who had died as sacrifices — ‘had been sanctified and purified to ascend to their God’ — immediately become a band of souls, beloved by God above all others, who sit on His right side with the other righteous and advise Him on such cosmic matters as the creation of the world and of mankind. The motif of seven bands of souls who sit in Heaven, their faces radiating with the great light reminds one of the midrashim based on the verse, ‘In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore’ (Psalms 16. 11).30 The combination of this verse with another from Psalms, ‘Oh how great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee; which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee’ (31.20 [NRSV 19]) and with the verse, ‘These are the potters and those who dwelt among the plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king’ (I Chronicles 4. 23) serves to strengthen the connection to many of the midrashim that deal with Heaven. Most outstanding of these is the Tanhuma: How do we know that the righteous are partners of God when He creates creations, as it says, ‘These are the potters [in Hebrew also ‘creators’] who dwelt among the plants’, that they are partners of God in every creation, as it says, ‘there they dwelt with the king in his work’, with the King of Kings, the Holy One Blessed Be He, they sit and create. Said the Holy One Blessed Be He, not only do I do nothing without their consent, but everything I do in this world and in the ne– xt is done for them, as David said: ‘Oh how great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee’.31

Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan places those who had died in sanctification of God’s Name with the righteous referred to by the midrash or in their place. As mentioned, Heaven is called ‘The King’s Palace’, following Daniel 1. 4, ‘Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans’, meaning Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah who stood up to temptation and could enter the King’s palace. The Jewish martyrs are adorned with two crowns, one of precious stones and one of gold, wear eight garments (like the high priest) of clouds of glory and hold eight myrtles. When the martyr’s soul reaches the gate of Heaven, it is received by

Leviticus Rabbah, ed. by Margules, 30; Pesiqta de Rav Kahana ed. by Mendelbaum, 27. Tanhuma, Toldot 11; Genesis Rabbah, ed. by Theodor and Albeck, 8; ‘Ruth Rabbah’ in Midrash Rabbah (Vilna, 1878), 2; Yalqut Shimoni, 2 vols (Thessaloniki, 1526; repr. Jerusalem, 1968–73), I, Bereshit 13. 30

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God and by the souls of the righteous reciting a verse from Ecclesiastes, ‘Go eat thy bread with joy’ (9. 7). According to the midrash, this was the verse that was recited to Abraham when he had returned from the Akedah, after having passed all of the tests. Now Abraham is in Heaven, receiving those who had sacrificed themselves and their children, and telling them what God had told him: ‘you have passed the test’. Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan, who wrote the passage, states that his picture of martyrs in Heaven was taken from the midrash; apparently he was referring to the Midrash of Heaven that appears in all its glory in the Mahzor Vitry, the prayer book of medieval Ashkenazi Jewry. This book includes a long, detailed description of Heaven, as described by Rabbi Joshua ben Levi. Rabbi Eliezer borrowed this description for his own use and placed those who had killed themselves in sanctification of God’s Name at its centre. ‘The Heaven Chapter’ describes seven groups of residents of Heaven. The first is ‘the first group of martyrs of the government, such as Rabbi Akiba and his comrades’. As far as Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan was concerned, this ‘group’ includes all Jewish martyrs.32

Women and Children As we know from cases of extreme religious conviction of other groups, the role of women is critical.33 We would emphasize especially, that the very first act of death in sanctification of God’s Name was performed by a woman in the city of Speyer. ‘There was a distinguished, pious woman there who slaughtered herself in sanctification of God’s Name. She was the first among all the communities of those who were slaughtered’.34 The most prominent characteristic attributed to women in connection to ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’ is that of cognizance. They are the first Sanhedrin 93b; Genesis Rabbah, ed. by Theodor and Albeck, 97. 8; ‘Deuteronomy Rabbah’, in Midrash Rabbah (Vilna, 1878), 1; Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber 114. 5. The eight garments refer of course to those worn by the high priest in Exodus 28. 42; Yoma 5a; Sanhedrin 103b; Abot de Rabbi Nathan, ed. by Schecter, chap. 33; Leviticus Rabbah, ed. by Margules, 20; ‘Numbers Rabbah’, 17; Mahzor Vitry, ed. by S. Horowitz (Nürnberg, 1892), no. 532. 33 Aronius, p. 81; S. Noble, ‘The Jewish Woman in medieval Martyrology’, in Studies in Jewish Bibliography History and Literature in Honour of I. E. Kiev, ed. by C. Berlin (New York, 1971), pp. 347–55. 34 Habermann, p. 25. 32

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to kill themselves and they know that the children must also be killed, in the source’s words, ‘and the hands of merciful women slaughtered their children, doing the will of their Creator’. They know what their Creator’s will is. When they realize that the group will not have enough time to perform the suicide ritual, they toss money and jewellery outside in order to delay the Christians. The writer stresses that it is their reaction at the sight of the torn Torah scroll that drives the men into action.35 And the holy and pure women, daughters of kings, saw that the Torah had been torn, they called in a loud voice to their husbands: ‘Look, see, the Holy Torah, the delight of our eyes, to which we used to bow in the synagogue, honouring it. How has it now fallen into the hands of these impure uncircumcised ones?’

In the story of the community of Trier, the Jewish writer states that in the Christians’ view, it was the women who were ‘to blame’ for encouraging the men in the stronghold to remain loyal and not to convert. It was the women, ‘who led their men astray to rebel against the Crucified One’. The Christians were careful to separate the women from the children, and even sealed the castle well in order to keep them from drowning the children.36 The women were described using explicitly masculine terms and contexts: ‘holy’, ‘pious’, ‘important’, ‘righteous’, ‘pure’, ‘daughters of the King’, ‘merciful’, and more. When the author described their actions of ‘Sanctification of God’s Name’, he wrote, ‘the women gird their loins with courage’, referring to a verse that emphasizes a clearly masculine attribute: ‘Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty’ (Psalm 45. 4 [NRSV 3]) or, ‘Gird up thy loins’ ( II Kings 4. 29). The writer also used the description of Abraham at the Akedah, ‘and she took the knife to slaughter her son’ (Genesis 22.20). The term ‘cut up’, usually reserved

35

Habermann, p. 35. Habermann, p. 55–56. One of the sources used in the twelfth century to educate and to justify ‘death in Sanctification of God’s Name’ is the midrash quoted in the Talmud Gittin 57, about two ships sailing from Israel to Rome after the destruction of the Temple. In the ships are Jewish girls and boys, condemned to lives of prostitution in Roman. The girls ask the boys if their drowning themselves in the sea instead of living lives of shame would not keep them from Heaven? The boys answered that it would not, justifying this by quoting the verse from the Psalms, ‘Thus said the Lord: from Bashan I will return them, I will return from the depths of the sea.’ The girls immediately jump ship and drown themselves in the sea. The boys learn from the girls’ action and also kill themselves. Men and women in the Middle Ages were aware of this story and of the leading role of women in the martyrology. The two girls from Köln kill themselves by jumping in the river and justify it by quoting the same verse. 36

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for men wounded in battle and for the ‘ten martyrs of the Regime’, is here also used of women.37 The corpus of general expressions that were used by the writers to describe acts of martyrdom was taken mainly from the Bible, mostly from descriptions of the Chastisement, the Prophecies of Wrath and the Book of Lamentations. In their use of women, the writers turned the biblical descriptions on their heads. In the Chastisement and Lamentations, the image of women eating their own children because of hunger and despair is used in order to emphasize the low point to which Jewish society had reached because of God’s punishment. According to the description of the Chastisement in Deuteronomy, Israel’s punishment for not following God’s commandments will be ‘The tender and delicate woman among you [. . .] her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward her young one [. . .] for she shall eat them for want of all things’ (Deuteronomy 28. 56– 57). In the twelfth century, the same images and expressions were used conversely to accentuate the high point of Jewish martyrdom. The expression ‘the tender and delicate woman slaughtered her favoured child’ described the supreme devotion of the Jewish woman and mother to the Jewish God. The mother’s expression of utter sorrow at the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in Lamentations became, in the twelfth century, proof of the Jewish mother’s faith and devotion.38 The women are described as a separate group, who died their own special kind of death. There were also many women there who sanctified the Name of their Creator to their last breath, not giving Him up for the crucified bastard. One of them was Mistress Rachel, the spouse of our late master Rabbi Eleazar, who had been the colleague of Rabbi Judah, son of Rabbi Isaac; Rabbi Judah, a famed scholar, had also been slain in sanctification of God’s Name. There were other saintly women with them who also sanctified God’s Name. These pure souls were brought before the churchyard, where the enemy attempted to persuade them to submit to baptism.

37 In the prayer ‘Father of Mercy’, women and men were included together. Habermann, pp. 31, 34, 78. see in the Midrashim Lamentations Rabbah, ed. by Buber, 3; Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 9. 38 Habermann, pp. 31, 34–35. The same use is made of verses from Psalms, such as ‘The mother of children is joyous’, and also ‘Mother upon children was dashed to pieces’ (Hosea 10. 14). Hosea adds ‘was dashed to pieces’ in order to underscore the prophecy of wrath against Ephraim. See also Leviticus Rabbah, ed. by Margules, 27; Lamentations Rabbah, ed. by Buber, 1.

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When they arrived at the temple of their pagan cult, the women refused to enter the edifice of idolatry, rooting their feet on the threshold, unwilling to enter and inhale the odour of the offensive incense. When the errant ones saw that the women stood firm against the abomination, and, what is more, that they remained true with all their heart to the living God, they fell upon them with axes and smote them. Thus the saintly women were slain in sanctification of God’s Name. There were two other pious women: Mistress Guta, wife of our master, Rabbi Isaac, son of Rabbi Moses, who had been slain earlier, and Mistress Skolester, the wife of Isaac, who had perished in the flames in sanctification of God’s Name. These women also sanctified the Name of the Holy One, the Only One, Whose Oneness is on the lips of all living creatures, at the time that the martyred men were slain in the courtyard of the bishop. The women had found sanctuary in the courtyard of a burgher, and the enemy came and drove them from the house, and the errant ones and the burghers surrounded them and demanded that they defile themselves with their evil water. But the women placed their trust in the Holy One of Israel and extended their throats, and the errant ones slew them without mercy. There the saintly women were slain in sanctification of God’s One and Venerated Name.39

The women appeared at the men’s side and performed the same acts. This is expressed in prose: ‘They were killed, and with them the daughters of Israel, all were killed and slaughtered for the unity of the Name of the God of Israel’, and in the poem ‘women, as men, were fit to serve in the priesthood’.40 The writers took more note of the women’s role and their deeds than of the men’s. The most important pericope about women and their children in the sources is the story of the woman Rachel and her children and the way they died. Who has seen or heard of an act like the deed of the righteous and pious young Mistress Rachel, daughter of Isaac, son of Asher, and wife of Judah? She said to her friends: ‘Four children have I. Have no mercy on them either, lest those uncircumcised ones come and seize them alive and raise them in their ways of error. In my children, too, shall you sanctify the Holy Name of God’. One of her friends came and took the knife to slaughter her son. When the ‘mother of the sons’ saw the knife, she cried loudly and bitterly and smote her face and breast, and said: ‘Where is Your grace, O Lord?’ With an embittered heart she [the mother] said to her companions: ‘Do not slaughter Isaac before his brother Aaron, so that he [Aaron] will not see the death of his brother and flee’. A friend took the boy and slew him. A delightful little child he was. The mother spread her sleeves to receive the blood, according to the practice in the ancient Temple sacrificial rite. The lad Aaron, upon seeing that his brother had been slaughtered, cried: ‘Mother, do not slaughter me’, and fled, hiding under a box.

39 40

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She also had left two daughters, Bella and Madrona, modest and beautiful maidens. The maidens took the knife and sharpened it, so that it would have no notch. They extended their throats, and the mother sacrificed them to the Lord, God of Hosts, Who commanded us not to depart from His pure doctrine, and to remain wholehearted with Him, as it is written: ‘Thou shalt be wholehearted with the Lord thy God’. When this pious woman had completed sacrificing her three children to their Creator, she raised her voice and called to her son: ‘Aaron, Aaron, where are you? I will not spare you either, or have mercy on you’. She drew him out by his feet from under the box where he had hidden and slaughtered him before the Exalted and Lofty God. Then she placed them all on her arms, two children on one side and two on the other, beside her stomach, and they quivered beside her, until finally the enemy captured the chamber and found her sitting and lamenting over them. They said to her: ‘Show us the money you have in your sleeves’; but when they saw the slaughtered children, they smote and killed her upon them, and her pure soul expired. It is of her that it was said: ‘The mother was dashed in pieces with her children’. 41

This shocking story clearly shows that those roles that had previously belonged to men were now being taken over or shared by women. It is the woman who decides on death and its form. It is the woman who slaughters the children. The ritual that emulates the Temple sacrifices is performed by women, unlike in the Temple itself. The sentence ‘and the mother would spread her hands to receive the blood, would receive the blood in her wings into the vessel of blood’, describes the duties of the high priest, only now it is a priestess.42 As noted, she now takes on the role of Abraham, and even speaks in the style of Genesis 22, like the double name: ‘Aaron, Aaron’. The description of the mother’s deeds are spread over twenty midrash-connected sentences, while the father gets only one: ‘And the father yelled and cried upon seeing the death of his four beautiful sons, and he went and fell on the sword that was in his hand, and his intestines spilled out and he rolled with the dead’.43 In another story, a girl takes on the role of Isaac: Mar Juda bar Rabbi Abraham, the Parnas, sacrifices the bride of his son Abraham, and while killing her says, ‘lie in the bosom of our father, Abraham’.44 The powerful emotions evoked by Rachel’s actions are caused by her struggle with herself and her 41

Habermann, p. 34. Habermann, pp. 44, 48, 55, 56. 43 Habermann p. 34. 44 Habermann p. 46–47. Tanhuma, Shoftim 9; Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 11; Lamentations Rabbah, ed. by Buber, 1. 42

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feelings. This is not the story of a zealous and harsh mother, who has no second thoughts about sacrificing her children. She listens to them, is hurt by the necessity of killing them, complains to God and struggles with herself and with her children in order to kill them. And so her reasoning, ‘lest the gentiles come and capture them and keep them for their pleasure’ sounds real. And so, Rachel and her children are not a literary creation, her name appears in the memorial book: ‘the lady Rachel and her four children who were slaughtered, lady Bila and Madrona, Aaron and Isaac’.45 The final sentence of the passage serves to validate the important status of women. Once again, this mother, like others, is part of the tradition of ‘the pious woman and her seven sons, about whom it is written, “the mother of sons is joyous’”.

The Concept of Being ‘Perfect’ The phenomenon of Jews killing themselves, or, as the medieval Jews called it, ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’, is not self-evident. Other forms of Jewish behaviour are possible and are mentioned in the sources. Conversion to Christianity under coercion and then returning to Judaism could be a possibility; Jewish law does not dictate punishment for acts clearly committed under coercion.46 The Jewish sources make it clear that there were Jews who did so, but the clear message is that this behaviour was unthinkable. 47 The Jew must be perfect and flawless, and any behaviour that belies these qualities was unacceptable. The model recommended is that of Abraham sacrificing his son without qualifications, excuses or questions. The chroniclers reject the possibility of even just seeming to convert, as a matter of ideology. The admission of willingness to convert, just to escape from death, is rejected totally. This rejection is evident from the widespread use that the writers and poets made of the terms ‘perfect’ and ‘flawless’: ‘All with a perfect heart accepted the judgement of heaven, and shouted with their perfect soul to their Creator [. . .] gave their pure soul wholly to their Father in Heaven’. The term ‘perfect/whole’ in its different forms enabled the writers to stress that those who had killed themselves did so with no second thoughts: ‘with a whole heart and a willing soul’, ‘they did not wish to commit heresy and to exchange the fear of our King S. Salfeld, Das Martyrlogium des Nürnberger Memorbuches (Berlin, 1938), p. 12. Soloveitchik, ‘Religious Law’. 47 Goldin, ‘Juifs et juifs convertis’.

45

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[. . .] their pure soul was wholly given to our Father in Heaven’, ‘their heart was wholly given to their Creator’.48 These people’s pure flawlessness is accentuated by the fact that they do not even wish to flee. It is said of the first martyrs in Worms: ‘and they did not wish to flee into the room and live for the hour’. Isaac bar Eliakim was killed ‘because he did not wish to flee on account of it being a holiday, and because he was happy to accept the judgement of Heaven’. Rabbi Yekutiel bar Rabbi Meshulam and his son-in-law returned to Mainz from their hiding place and were killed on the road from Mainz to Rudesheim: ‘For they wished to return to Mainz so that the enemy would kill them there and bury them there, in the cemetery together with their pious and flawless brethren’.49 The story of Rachel who sacrificed her sons uses the adjective ‘flawless’ to accentuate the connection to God, and the verb ‘to make whole’, which makes us more aware of her sacrifice (a peace offering — the Hebrew for ‘peace’, ‘complete’ and ‘whole’, which is also used for the name of the ‘peace offering’, is ‘Shalem’): ‘For He has commanded us not to substitute His pure faith and to be flawless with Him, as is written: “You shall be flawless before the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 18. 13), and when the righteous woman had completed her sacrifice [. . .] her complete soul went up to Heaven’. By using these terms, the writer could form a connection between these dead in sanctification of God’s Name and the sacrifices offered in the Temple, also called shelamim (whole/peace offerings), which may only be offered when they are whole and flawless (as described in Deuteronomy 12. 16– 17, 15. 22).50 This motif reaches a climax in the story describing the death of Rabbi Isaac bar Rabbi David, the Parnas, who at first converted outwardly and then recanted and killed himself extravagantly, along with his two sons, while burning down the synagogue. His refutation of Christianity is worded: ‘“He thought: I shall repent and be flawless and whole before the Lord God of Israel, until my soul is complete and in His hands shall I fall’.

Habermann, pp. 25, 30-34, 44, 54, 74–75, 78, 96–103. See in the piyyut in Habermann, pp. 89–92. 49 Habermann, pp. 31, 75, 42, 44, 77. 50 Habermann, pp. 43, 45, 37, 55. 48

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Converts and Forced Converts As I stated in the previous chapter, the problem of Jewish converts to Christianity was one over which twelfth-century Judaism had to deal with on the level of a theological debate with Christianity. The chroniclers could not hide the fact that not a few Jews did convert during the ‘decrees’ of the First Crusade, as they were writing at a time when the events were still fresh in memory. They could, however, fashion the message: the message that is seen in the chronicles’ arrangement and in their content, was that unconditional ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’. Those who chose to convert are depicted as a minority. The superlatives glorify those who died, and trivialize those who converted, even those forced to convert. The former are referred to as ‘all’, ‘as one’, ‘women, elders, brides, and grooms’; the converts are called ‘a drop’, ‘pebbles’.51 In the story itself there are three themes that strengthen this view: that of force, of the complete soul, and that of glorious death. The first theme is the fact that the converts really were forced. They converted unwillingly, were surprised or suffered from madness: ‘only a small drop of them remained and they were forced, taken by surprise and dunked unwillingly in their smelly water’. It was these ‘forced’ converts who had escaped and returned to Judaism, who informed the chroniclers about what had happened to the communities. The most notable cases of conversion were at Regensburg and at Metz. At Regensburg, masses of Jews were pushed into the river and made the sign of the cross. These forced converts were not to be disparaged: And now I will tell you of the forced converts’ praise. They endangered their lives for every thing that they ate and drank. They would slaughter their meat and drain the fat and check the meat as ordained by the sages. And they did not drink the sacramental wine, and they did not go to their houses of cult, except occasionally, and when they did, it was through fear and with troubled spirits.

In Metz, twenty-two people were killed, and the rest: ‘Most were forced through sin and guilt, until the days of fury should pass, and then they would return to God with all their heart, and the Lord will accept their repentance and atone the sins of His people’.52 51

Habermann, pp. 25, 74, 77-78. Habermann, pp. 25, 36, 73–74, 76, 56–57, 95–96. Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan stresses that the forced converts ‘end proves their glory, since at the end they considered their fear to be plaster and faeces’. 52

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The second theme is the eventual glorious death of the converts. According to the Jewish sources, all of those who converted did so for noble purposes. All discovered what a small deviation from the norm this was, and all planned a death far more glorious than the norm. The conversion and death of Rabbi Isaac bar Rabbi David, the Parnas, are a good example of this.53 The story has three parts: the conversion, which was either forced or undertaken under threat of death; Isaac’s discourse with himself, in which he numbers the reasons for his conversion; and his glorious death with his mother and children. The writer lists a number of reasons for Isaac’s conversion: worry about his property, his home, and synagogue, his wish to save his mother from death, and most of all — his wish to remain with his children, whom the Christians had taken and planned to raise as Christians. Despite these ‘good’ reasons, the man preferred, in the end, to kill himself, his children, and his mother. The explanation for this is the most important statement in the pericope, which emphasizes the theme of the whole and flawless sacrifice that I presented above: I shall repent and be flawless and whole before the Lord God of Israel, until my soul is complete and in His hands I shall fall, perhaps He shall act with mercy and I shall yet be with my friends, be in their presence.

The message here is: there are no good reasons for converting to Christianity. Perfection is more important than force, than honouring one’s parents, and even one’s wish to protect the children who had been captured by Christians. The only reaction to force is perfect, flawless behaviour, without reservation or designs. Those who had died without question in sanctification of God’s Name were proof of this, but those who had been caught by Christianity would eventually understand this too. Self-sacrifice would indeed come, and it would be depicted as a guilt-offering; slaughter, letting of the blood, complete burning on the altar. This motif is also present in the story of Rabbi Isaac Halevi, who was baptized after being beaten, ‘they defiled him without his knowledge, and because of the beatings he knew not’. Three days later, when he understood

53

Two of my colleagues have dealt with this. Israel Yuval (Yuval, ‘Vengeance and Damnation’; Yuval, ‘The Lord will take Vengeance’), emphasizes the man’s death as a ritual of sacrifice, meant to hasten the revengeful redemption, based on the typology of the priests’ leaping into the flames of the burning Temple. Jeremy Cohen in ‘The Persecution of 1096. From Martyrdom to Martyrology: The Sociocultural Context of the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles’, Zion, 59 (1994), 169–208 interprets the story culturallyallegorically.

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what had happened, he returned to his home in Köln, waited a while, and then went out to the Rhine and drowned himself. Why did he wait three days? Did he wish to re-enact Abraham’s journey to Mount Moriah? Why did he choose to kill himself by drowning? Did he wish to use the water to wash off the memory of the water that had made him a Christian? In any case, Isaac ended this stage in the twelfth century with a most meaningful statement: ‘About him and those like him it says, “From Bashan I shall return, I shall return from the depths of the sea’”. This is reminiscent of an important Second Temple period midrash, which promises that those who drown themselves in order not to defile their Judaism will reach the next world.54 Rabbi Isaac’s body floated down the Rhine until it reached the village of Neuss, where it came ashore aside the body of Rabbi Samuel bar Rabbi Asher, known as ‘the pious’, who was killed at the riverside with his two sons. The story ends with the words: ‘And they buried the two pious men there on the bank of the river in the sand in one grave, and they sanctified the Name of Heaven in sight of the sun’.55 Rabbi Isaac, who had converted for seemingly justified reasons, atoned for his act by a glorious death and thus achieved his place among the martyrs. The writer stressed this by quoting a verse from Psalms, which reminds us of a well-known midrash and connects us to the events of the Middle Ages. The verse ‘a praise-offering glorifies me’ (Psalms 50. 23) teaches that the convert has repented and returned to his Judaism and his God, as Rashi, in that period, gave the following interpretation: ‘Praise-offering — he who brings me an offering of repentance and admission of sin, he shall glorify me’. In this source, which teaches about martyrdom, the repentant Jews felt that it was their duty to offer themselves as ‘an offering of repentance and admission of sin’!56 A central section in these sources, written in the past tense, emphasizes exactly the points that I analysed above. The section is written mostly as a polemic against Christianity, meant to encourage the Jews in their difficult

Gittin 57b. Habermann, pp. 44–46; A. Grossman, ‘The Roots of Kidush ha-Shem in Early Ashkenaz’ [Hebrew], in Sanctity of Life and Martyrdom, ed. by I. M. Gafni and A. Ravitzky (Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 99–130; Yuval, ‘Vengeance and Damnation’, pp. 84–86; Yuval, ‘The Lord will take Vengeance’, pp. 402–04. 55 Habermann, pp. 44, 78. 56 Genesis Rabbah, ed. by Theodor and Albeck, 97. 54

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situation. It is my suggestion that its second part be read as a polemic against Jews who had converted to Christianity Then will they comprehend, understand, and take to heart, that in folly they have cast our bodies to the ground, and for falsehood have they slain our saints; that they have spilled the blood of righteous women because of a putrid corpse, and over the teachings of an agitator and misleader have they shed the blood of sucklings; that his teachings are folly and that they do not know their Creator, nor walk on a virtuous path or an upright way; that they were not wise and did not take to heart Who it is that made the ocean and the dry land; and that in all their actions they were fools and simpletons: good sense forsook them, and they placed their trust in folly, neither recognizing nor declaring the Name of the living God, King of the Universe, Who is Eternal and Everlasting. May the blood of His devoted ones stand us in good stead and be an atonement for us and for our posterity after us, and our children’s children eternally, like the Akedah of our Father Isaac when our Father Abraham bound him upon the altar. These saints did not say to one another: ‘Have mercy on yourselves’, but rather: ‘Let us cast our blood like water on the ground and may it be considered before the Blessed Holy One as the blood of the gazelle and of the hart’. It is written in the Torah: ‘[Sow or ewe,] ye shall not kill it and its young both in one day’; but here father and son, mother and daughter, were slain in one day. And let not the reader of this narrative think that these were the only individuals who sanctified the Name of the God of Heaven; those whom we have not specified by name or manner of death also sanctified the Holy and Revered Name. Thus have attested those few survivors who were forcibly converted. They heard with their own ears and saw with their own eyes the actions of these saints and their utterances at the time of their slaughter and murder. May their merit, their righteousness, their piety, their wholeheartedness, and their sacrifice be a good advocate for us before the Most High; and may He deliver us from the exile of wicked Edom speedily in our day, and may our Messiah come, Amen, speedily in our day.57

The message is to oppose conversion without compromise, mitigation, or deviation, to remain Jewish or to die with the entire family. This message is meant for the entire community, lest they be faced with religious coercion, and for anyone who wavers between Judaism and Christianity. This is can be seen in a prayer for revenge which Rabbi Moshe Hacohen of the town of Xanten added to the grace he recited after the meal he ate just before killing himself.58

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ur knowledge of the ways in which the events of the twelfth century were commemorated is drawn from the admirable writings of Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn. He had an observant eye and his writings express his emotional involvement and his pain. He was a court judge, gave rulings in halakhah, was a commentator on the holy works and a poet, and is the source for much of our information on the later half of the twelfth century.1 In his ‘Book of Zekhirah (Book of Remembrance)’, Rabbi Ephraim passionately tells the following story. In the year 1186, a mentally disturbed Jew killed a Christian girl in Neuss, Germany. The Christians buried the killer alive, killed seven other Jews, and forced a mother and her three daughters to convert. The bodies of the dead Jews were tied to wagon wheels and displayed by the city gates for forty days. Rabbi Ephraim himself was living in Neuss at the time, but happened to have left for Köln three days before the murder. The tone of abhorrence in his report is understandable. He recounts that the Jews who took the bodies off the wheels quickly transferred them by boat to Xanten, because they wished to bury them ‘by the graves of the righteous who were buried there in the events of 1096’. In order to commemorate the event, it was decided to recite penitential prayers in the synagogues.2 According to this testimony from the 1180s, such harsh events were commemorated by burying the dead in a 1 Born in Bonn in 1132, apparently died in the early thirteenth century. E. E. Urbach, Arugat haBosem, Prolegomena et Indices Adiecit, 4 vols (Jerusalem, 1963), IV, 39–72; Ephraim of Bonn, Sefer Zekhirah, ed. by A. Habermann (Jerusalem, 1970), Introduction pp. 7–12; R. Chazan, ‘The Timebound and the Timeless Jewish Narration of Events’, History & Memory, 6 (1994), 5–34. 2 The Book of Zekhirah was written in the early thirteenth (or late twelfth) century. The latest event mentioned in the book occurred in 1197, when he was sixty-five years old (pp. 40–41); Habermann, pp. 130–31.

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place already identified with the death of martyrs and to note the anniversary of their death in the synagogue by prayer, recital of religious poetry or other texts: basically, a memorial day ceremony.

Prayer Towards the end of twelfth century, the Jews composed a prayer for the memory of the martyrs of 1096 — the prayer known by its opening words ‘Father of Mercy’. On the Sabbaths between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot, after the reading of the Torah, with the Torah scroll rolled up on the table, the names of the dead were recited, the prayer ‘Happy are those who dwell in Your house’ was said, and was then followed by this new, recently composed prayer, ‘Father of Mercy’:3 May the Father of mercy who dwells on high, in His infinite compassion, remember those saintly, upright and blameless souls, the holy communities who laid down their lives in sanctification of God’s Name. They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death were not divided; swifter than eagles and stronger than lions to do the will of their Master and the desire of their Stronghold. May our God remember them favourably with the other righteous of the world and avenge in our days before our eyes4 the blood of His servants which has been shed, as is written in the Torah of Moses, man of God: ‘Rejoice, O Nations, with His people joyful: For He shall avenge the blood of His servants, render retribution to His foes, and provide atonement for His land and His people’ (Deuteronomy 32. 43). And by thy servants, the prophets, it is written: ‘I will avenge their blood and will not clear the guilty, for the Lord dwells in Zion’ (Joel 4. 21 [NRSV 3. 21]). And in the holy writings it is said: ‘Why should the nations say, where is their God; Let the vengeance for thy servants’ blood that is shed be made known among the nations in our sight’ (Psalms 79. 10). And it is said: ‘The avenger of bloodshed remembers them, he does not forget the cry of the humble’ (Psalms 9. 13 [NRSV 9. 12]). And it is said: ‘He will execute judgement upon the nations, the land is filled with corpses: He will shatter heads over the

3 This prayer ‘grew’ over a period of three generations until its final form was completed, in my opinion, at the beginning of the thirteenth century (not as Urbach, Arugat haBosem, IV, 49 thinks). The prayer does not appear in Rashi’s prayer book or in the Mahzor Vitry, nor in the prayer book attributed to the late-thirteenth-century Rabbi Eliezer of Worms. It would seem that the prayer spread through the communities of the Rhine during the twelfth but only entered the prayer book in the late thirteenth century. S. Glick, A Light Unto the Mourner (Jerusalem, 1991), pp. 138–141. 4 The phrase ‘in our days before our eyes’ was later deleted.

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wide earth. He will drink from the brook on the wayside, therefore shall he will lift up his head’. (Psalms 110. 6–7).

We do not know who, in the generations after the First Crusade, composed this prayer, but even today, 900 years later, we can still feel its power. What is so special about it? How is it styled? To whom did it speak? The prayer’s composition, special form, and the verses that hold it together are based on the midrash. The writer trusted the midrashic memory of those who would hear the prayer and relate the verses included in it with the midrashim associated with them. In their words: They sanctified God’s Name, not for nothing, for they based themselves on the midrash on the words ‘Maidens love you’ — meaning ‘through death they love the Holy One Blessed Be He, until the soul is completed with Him’. Also, the ‘Maidens love you’ midrash is the Dor Hashmad, and this midrash was used by our rabbis, may they rest in Heaven, to commemorate all those who sanctified God’s Name, and so we beseech the Father of mercy that He remember all those who sanctified God’s Name, who were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death were not divided from His love, which is the meaning of ‘through death they love You’.5

According to this passage, the prayer was based on the midrash in Song of Songs Rabbah (1. 3), which is given medieval guise in the Yalkut Shimoni: If you find my beloved, what will you say to him? — that I am ill with love, and illness that is not an illness of the innards, nor an ache in the head, nor a pain of the eyes. Of what am I ill? Of love. Not for love, but through death shall maidens love you. What nation is there in the world, that the Holy One Blessed Be He told them to go into the sea, and they went? What nation went into the fire like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah?6

The midrash highlights the bond of love between God and those who had died for Him. The wonderful expression of love from the Song of Songs ‘For maidens love you’ (1. 3) is understood to mean ‘through death they love you’. The Jewish people are ‘lovesick’ for their God and are willing to die because of that love. Love serves as the basis for the relationship between God and those who die for His Name. Because of that love we are victorious and ask that ‘the Father of mercy The thirteenth-century book Arugot Habosem both tells us about the prayer and explains it for us. The medieval author stresses that the basis for the prayer is the midrash. The writer of Arugot Habosem thus solves a riddle that has been puzzling historians for a century. The connection to the midrash is what determined the prayer’s composition, character, and of course its use of verses. Urbach, Arugat haBosem, IV, 49. 6 Yalqut Shimoni, II, Song of Songs, 988. 5

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remember, in His infinite compassion, those saints who laid down their lives in sanctification of God’s Name’. This theme of love will remain an essential part of the relationship between God and those who die for His Name.7 The prayer begins by beseeching God as ‘Father of mercy’. This term is taken from the addition made to the daily Shmoneh Esreh prayer during the ‘Ten days of Penitence’ observed from Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement: ‘Who is like You, Father of mercy, who mercifully remembers His creations for life’. However, in the Shmoneh Esreh the term ‘Father of mercy’ refers to God’s mercy on the living; in the new prayer the term has a gruesome meaning: God is asked to remember those who had been granted life and had chosen to die, ‘laid down their lives in sanctification of God’s Name’. The writer justified their death by calling them ‘saintly, upright and blameless’, and by comparing them to Saul and Jonathan by quoting David’s eulogy after their death: ‘they were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death were not divided. They were swifter than eagles and stronger than lions’. To this was added Rashi’s comment on the verse: what were they ‘swifter and stronger’ for? In order to ‘do the will of their Master and the desire of their Stronghold’. The absolute will of God is that saintly, upright, and blameless people die for the sanctification of God’s Name.8 The prayer sends a specific message to its audience. The writer used biblical verses, with the assumption that the audience is familiar with their associated midrashim. Thus he managed, by quoting the verses without commentary to create, base, and convey well-defined messages. From a distance of hundreds of years we will have to explain them at length. The first verse in the prayer is from Psalms, ‘may He revenge before our eyes the blood of His servants which has been shed’ (79. 10), distinctly a verse of vengeance. But the second verse shows that the message is much more complex than simply that of revenge. This verse is taken from Deuteronomy, ‘O Nations, make His people joyful! He avenges the blood of His servants, renders retribution to His foes, provides atonement for His land and His people’ (32. 43).9 The verse has three parts; the first discusses Israel’s place among the See J. Riley-Smith, ‘Crusading as an Act of Love’, History, 65 (1980), 177–92 as to the Christians Crusaders. 8 The verse: ‘they were lovely and pleasant’ is from David’s eulogy for Saul and Jonathan in II Samuel 1. 23. See also Sanhedrin 42a. 9 Had he wished to stress only revenge, he would have chosen one of the two more extreme verses in the Prayer of Moses, Deuteronomy 32. 41 or 42. 7

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nations, the second is a song of praise for God’s coming revenge, and the third praises the Land of Israel as atoning for sins. The opening, ‘O Nations, make His people joyful!’ teaches about Israel’s position of theological pre-eminence among the nations, which is supported by midrashim that are tied to this verse. For example: The nations of the world sing a hymn to the Holy One Blessed Be He, as it says: ‘All nations clap hands’ (Psalms 47. 2). Says the Holy One Blessed Be He to them, you sing a hymn to me? Go sing one to Israel, for if not for them the world would not exist even one hour, as it says, ‘O Nations, make His people joyful’ (Deuteronomy 32. 43).10

The second part of the verse is a statement of vengeance: ‘He avenges the blood of His servants, renders retribution to His foes’, but the ending is difficult: ‘provides atonement for His land and His people’. This passage is cited in sources and midrashim known in the Middle Ages and is understood to mean that anyone who is buried in the Land of Israel is absolved of all his sins, since the Land atones — as it is written, ‘provides atonement for His land and His people’.11 Why stress this theme in medieval Christian Europe, whose fighting representatives were conquering and dying in the Land of Israel at that time? The answer is to be found in the midrashim on this verse that emphasize the connection to the Jews of the Diaspora: Said Rabbi Zebida: What happens to all of the righteous who died outside of the Land? It is said that the Land of Israel atones for its dead (‘provides atonement for His land and His people’), but in the future, the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He will command the angels to bring the righteous from outside the Land through tunnels.12

This is also the key to understanding the next verse in the prayer, which is based on this theme: ‘I will avenge their blood which I have not yet avenged, the Lord dwells in Zion’ (Joel 4. 21). This verse comes at the conclusion of a prophecy about God’s redemption of his people in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and the midrash uses it in order to describe God’s vengeance upon the Gentiles who harmed the righteous such as Rabbi Akiba: ‘What will they bring (to atone) for Rabbi Akiba and his comrades? About them it says, “I will avenge their blood Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 2 (17). Ketubbot 111a; Genesis Rabbah, ed. by Theodor and Albeck, 97; Pesiqta Rabbati, 1; Midrash on Proverbs, Midrash Mishle, ed. by S. Buber (Vilna, 1893), 10; Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 85. 2; Tanhuma, Va-yehi. 12 Midrash on Proverbs, ed. by Buber, 17a. 10 11

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which I have not yet avenged’”. In the Middle Ages, when those who died in sanctification of God’s Name are likened to Rabbi Akiba, this verse and its midrash said a great deal, as Rashi also explained: ‘If I come to absolve the Gentile of his other sins — I shall not absolve them of the blood of Israel’.13 The prayer concludes with three verses from Psalms: ‘Why should the nations say, where is their God; Let the vengeance for thy servants’ blood that is shed be made known among the nations in our sight’ (79. 10); ‘The avenger of bloodshed remembers them, he does not forget the cry of the humble’ (9. 13 [NRSV 9. 12]); ‘He will execute judgement upon the nations, filled with bodies, shatter heads over the wide earth; From the brook on the wayside he will drink, and then he will lift up his head’ (110. 6–7). This combination of verses, which presents the problem and its solution, is to be found in several midrashim and proves the extent to which the medieval authors drew their ideas from the midrashim and how certain they were that their readers would understand the midrashic associations.14 The verse ‘The avenger of bloodshed remembers them, he does not forget the cry of the humble’ is firmly connected to the midrashim about the ten martyrs killed by the Romans and the fact that God remembers every righteous Jew killed by the Gentiles, as He has written their names and the remembrance of their revenge on His garment.15 But again, these verses are not only about revenge. They are about the theological argument with the Gentiles; they are about justifying the deeds done by the Jews commemorated in the prayer; they are an answer to the theological debate with the Christians in their time. As a counter to the Christian victory in the Land of Israel, the Jews created a prayer that stated that God was He who ‘dwelt in Heaven’, — not the Christian invention of a semi-man, semi-god incarnate, who descended to earth, was killed and crucified, ‘that one’ whose tomb had just been liberated by his followers. The prayer stated that God ‘provides atonement for His land and His people’, that is, that there is a tie between His people, the Jews, and His land — the Land of Israel. The fact that Christians are fighting and dying in the Land of Israel does not change this reality. The prophecy of Joel is quoted in order to stress that the redemption will not come because of the Gentiles’ liberation of some tomb from the Muslims, but when God’s presence will return to Zion, and then God will take revenge on those who had spilled Jewish blood. We can see that the Jewish sources do not only request revenge. They always include Rosh ha-Shanah 23a; Rashi to Rosh ha-Shanah 23a, Tanhuma, Beshallah 5. 5. Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 149. 6. 15 Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 9. 13, 111. 13

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theological arguments with the Gentiles, justification of the Jews’ actions, and additional matters.16

Memorial Books The prayer ‘Father of Mercy’ was included in prayer books in Germany towards the end of the thirteenth century. The late-thirteenth-century Rabbi Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg (known as ‘the Maharam’) and the late-fourteenthcentury Jacob ben Moses Moellin (known as ‘the Maharil’) tell us that the prayer was recited in ceremonies commemorating the martyrs of the Crusade. The memorial ceremony included poems, memorial prayers, and the ‘Father of Mercy’ prayer.17 The recitation of the martyrs’ names was an integral part of the ceremony from the early twelfth century. Towards the end of the century, lists appeared, which became memorial books (the Memorbuch), written in order to immortalize the ‘memory of the martyrs’. The time of the martyrs’ death was listed beside their names, and they were commemorated publicly in the synagogue on the appropriate Sabbath.18 The memorial books include three kinds of entries: lists of communities and their destruction listed by month; lists of individuals and the communities from which they came; lists of towns where the Jews had been attacked in the following years.19 These memorial books were a medieval, and especially a twelfth-century innovation. In earlier eras, those who had been killed by Gentiles were not commemorated, except exemplary figures such as Rabbi Akiba, Judah ben Bava, or Hananiah ben Tradion — sages whose stories had become a ‘model’ in the public mind. The twelfth century brought many changes to Europe, and a new emphasis on the individual appeared, and here too the individualistic aspect is apparent.20 People were 16

Yuval, ‘Vengeance and Damnation’, pp. 34–90. Glick, 138–41; Schwarzfuchs, ‘Place of the Crusades’, pp. 260–61, 265; E. Zimmer, ‘The Persecutions of 1096 as Reflected in Medieval and Modern Minhag Books’[Hebrew], in Facing the Cross: The Persecutions of 1096 in History and Historiography, ed. by Yom Tov Asis and others (Jerusalem, 2001), pp. 157–70. 18 S. Freehof, ‘Hazkarat Neshamot’, HUCA, 36 (1965), 179–90 (pp. 183–84). 19 Salfeld, p. xix. 20 Yehuda ben haRosh, Zichron Yehoda (Berlin, 1846), no. 92, p. 46. In testimony from the Würzburg pogrom used in support of ‘releasing’ an Agunah (a woman whose husband is presumed to be dead, to allow her to remarry), there is a passing mention of the dead ‘whose souls were remembered in all communities with the rest of the martyrs’. 17

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commemorated as individuals, as members of families, as members of a community. These lists, which became memorial books, also had an important role in the communities’ social system at the end of the twelfth and during the thirteenth century.

Martyr Texts in Prose: The Chronicles Another type of source from the same period, commemorating those who died in sanctification of God’s Name, is ‘The Chronicles of 1096’. These are three accounts of the events in those Jewish communities that the Christians encountered on their way to the Land of Israel during the First Crusade.21 These sources were dubbed ‘chronicles’ by the chief scholars of Jewish sources of the past century, because of their similarity to the Christian chronicles relating to the First Crusade.22 They call our attention to similar and identical features in both Jewish and Christian writings: the Hebrew texts are arranged in a similar order to the Christian ones. Christians and Jews use similar expressions. The expression ‘Abraham’s bosom’ appears both in the Gesta Treverorum and in Jewish sources. Guibert de Nogent mentioned both the story of the gentile woman that used a goose to lead the Crusaders and the verse from Proverbs ‘The locusts have no king’ (30. 27) when describing their appearance. Both expressions appear in Jewish sources, but in different contexts than those used by the afflicted monk. Guibert compared the Christians to locusts because he was awed at their spontaneous volunteering for the journey and because they seemed to advance by force of their own will, without a leader. The Jewish writer found a way to use the goose as a simile for the Christians’ foolishness and compared their mass madness to that of locusts.23 Since Baer called our attention to the fact, many have drawn comparisons between the Jewish and Christian chronicles of the Crusades in order to show

21

See Appendix A. R. Eliezer bar Nathan (Ra’aban) text was published by Jellinek in 1854; the Chronicles of Ephraim of Bonn in 1858; ‘The short’ was published in 1877; and the three chronicles were published together by A. Neubauer and M. Stern, Hebräische Berichte über die Judenverfolgungen während der Kreuzzüge (Berlin, 1892) and by Habermann in 1947. See R. Chazan, God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First Crusade Narratives (California, 2000), pp. 217–21. 22 Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom’, pp. 49–56. 23 Habermann, pp. 28, 46, 96; Baer, ‘Decree of 1096’, pp. 127–30.

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that Jews and Christians were familiar with and influenced by each other.24 But the majority of the Christian chroniclers barely mention the attacks on the Jewish communities of the Rhine Valley. Albert of Aachen did mention the attacks on the Jews, but his writings in Europe were based on what he had heard and on letters that he had received from the east. He mentioned the attacks on the Jews in reference to what he considered to be unsavoury elements that had joined the groups led by Pierre of Amiens and Gottschalk the German. He also mentioned that some considered these deeds to be first stage of fulfilling their vow to liberate their Messiah’s tomb from the Muslims. The only Christian chronicle that mentions the Jews is that of Ekkehard of Aura, who left for the Holy Land only after the Crusade, apparently in 1101, and chronicled the stories of the different groups that had participated in the First Crusade.25 It is reasonable to assume that the Jews were familiar with the twelfth-century Christian writings and were influenced by them, but this is far from the claim that the Jews copied the Christian writings when describing the massive injury that they, the Christians, had inflicted on them.26 There are three Hebrew sources that tell of the First Crusade: the Long Source, the writings of R. Eliezer bar Nathan (the Ra’aban), and the Short Source. Most scholars who have examined these sources have concluded that they were written during the middle of the twelfth century, before the Second Crusade. The condition of the manuscripts does not allow a higher degree of certainty.27 Neither do the dates and names mentioned in the sources enable us Baer, ‘Decree of 1096’; The most prominent of these is Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 45–59; R. Chazan, ‘The Facticity of Medieval Narrative: A Case Study of the Hebrew First Crusade Narrative’, AJS Review, 16 (1991), 31–56; Chazan, God. 25 Albert of Aquensis [Albert of Aachen], pp. 272, 291–93; Ekkehard von Aura, Hierosolymita, ed. by Paul Rinat, RHC Occ, V, 1–40; Runciman, pp. 328–33; Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom’, pp. 49–50; Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 39–40; Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God, pp. 31–54. 26 R. Chazan, ‘The Deeds of the Jewish Community of Cologne’, Journal of Jewish Studies, 35(1984), 185–95; I. G. Marcus, ‘Review — R. Chazan, European Jewry [. . .]’ Speculum, 64 (1989), 685–88; Chazan, ‘Facticity’; Chazan, God; Cohen, ‘Hebrew Crusade Chronicles’; Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God. 27 I. Elbogen, ‘Zu den hebräischen Berichten über die Judenverfolgungen im Jahre 1096’, in Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag M. Philippsons, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Juden, ed. by Vorstande der Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaft des Judentums (Leipzig, 1916), pp. 1–22; Abulafia, ‘Interrelationship Between the Herbrew Chronicles’, pp. 221–32; Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 40–49; I. G. Marcus, ‘History, Story and Collective Memory: Narrativity in Early Ashkenazic Culture’, 24

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to determine precisely when each one was written; nor can we rule on the relationship between the various versions. Some scholars believe that all three are based on an original that has been lost; others assume mutual influence. Baer thought that a basic story, based on primary material such a letters or a testimony, was composed very soon after the events and that this lost, original story was the basis for the three extant versions. Others assumed that R. Eliezer bar Nathan wrote a synopsis of the Long Source, while the Short Source was either independent or somehow influenced by the other two.28 The similarities between the three sources are clear. All three describe the events of spring 1096; all three employ frequent shifts from first to third person, and all three cite witnesses who saw or heard the events. All three convey exceeding partiality towards the actions of the Jews and a deep enmity towards the Christians. All three have gone through what to me seems to be a process of meticulous editing, which serves not only literary purposes, but also the distinct messages of the culture of twelfth-century Jewish martyrdom. One remarkable aspect is that the stories are always based on a specific locale — a specific Jewish community in a well-defined Christian city. Then comes the literary plot, built on a theme of death in sanctification of God’s Name; at first of a group, and then describing the acts of individuals. The story usually ends with a sort of prayer or requiem. Marcus has identified five distinct parts created by the editors of the Long Source: a liturgical opening, a ‘political’ narrative, a liturgical segment, a narrative about martyrdom, a liturgical ending. He believes this literary arrangement to have an explicit contextual message. The first narrative describes a political solution to the situation: turning to the Gentile rulers, asking the bishops for help in fighting and in escaping. This political solution always meets with failure. The second narrative suggests a martyr’s solution, which the writer sees as being the will of God. Each of these narratives is isolated by two liturgical segments, which convey identical messages. While Marcus’ assertions are imprecise, his notion that the texts were deliberately edited in order to inculcate a specific message is important. It was the twelfthcentury editors who determined the content of the written texts. Their form,

Prooftexts, 10 (1990), 365–88; Chazan, ‘Facticity’; Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God, pp. 31–54. 28 As Elbogen (‘Zu den hebräischen Berichten über’, p. 22) and others have shown, these sentences cannot always prove the date of the source, but only that of a particular piece within the source. Baer, ‘Decree of 1096’; R. Chazan, ‘The Hebrew First Crusade Chronicles’, REJ, 133 (1974), 235–54 (p. 236); Chazan, God, pp. 217–21.

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structure, and style all serve the writer’s objectives. The writer’s purpose is not only to describe the events, but rather to underscore the fact that death in sanctification of God’s Name is the only course of action. In my opinion, these sources are unequivocally didactic texts whose main purpose is in the sphere of socialization: preparing a group to behave ‘appropriately’ in the future when forced to choose between conversions to Christianity or dying as Jews.29 This is especially apparent in those passages in which the narrator voices his own opinion. And let not the reader of this narrative think that these were the only individuals who sanctified the Name of the God of Heaven; those whom we have not specified by name or manner of death also sanctified the Holy and Revered Name. Thus have attested those few survivors who were forcibly converted. They heard with their own ears and saw with their own eyes the actions of these saints and their utterances at the time of their slaughter and murder. 30

From this point on I shall call this type of writing by its purpose: ‘martyrial writing’. This type of writing developed during the first half of the twelfth century, and has several characteristics: the ideal of self-killing is at the story’s centre and at the root of the messages it delivers. The model of martyrdom is local-communal. The specific place is emphasized, as it is the community that will preserve the memory and the heritage of the victims. The dramatic presentation within the sources emphasizes the public aspect of the martyr’s deed: public rituals, public speeches and public killings. On the theological level of martyrdom we will almost always find a ‘religious time’ and the building up of the imagery of the martyr’s act. The events occur at a ‘religious time’ that is significant to the life of the group (holidays and memorial days) and the act itself is reminiscent of myths in the group’s experience (the Akedah of Isaac, the sacrifice of offerings at the Temple in Jerusalem). Besides the depiction of the martyr’s act as a communal ritual or ceremony, we also find detailed accounts of the deeds of individuals and families, most of which were known to the next generation by name or by deed. The next generation commemorates the events and attempts to internalize the messages that arise from the text.

29 Abulafia, ‘Interrelationship Between the Hebrew Chronicles’; Baer, ‘Decree of 1096’; Marcus, ‘From Politics to Martyrdom’, pp. 41–45; Chazan, ‘Facticity’, pp. 31–56; Goldin, ‘Socialization’; Goldin, Uniqueness. 30 Habermann, pp. 43, 69.

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Central sections of the source material were written as prayers or laments, and this source and its like were used in synagogue memorial services on the days commemorating these events. One example of this type of writing can be found in the passage that introduces the story of the community of Mainz. But the Lord did as He declared, for we had sinned before Him, and He forsook the sanctuary of Shiloh — the Temple-in-Miniature — which He had placed among His people who dwelt in the midst of alien nations. His wrath was kindled and He drew the sword against them, until they remained but as the flagstaff upon the mountaintop and as the ensign on the hill (Isaiah 30. 17), and He gave over His nation into captivity and trampled them underfoot (Psalms 78. 61). See, O Lord, and consider to whom Thou hast done thus (Lamentations 2. 20): to Israel, a nation despised and pillaged, Your chosen portion (Jeremiah 49. 15; Micha 2. 5) Why have You uplifted the shield of its enemies, and why have they gained in strength? (Psalms 89. 43) Let all hear, for I cry out in anguish; the ears of all that hear me shall be seared (Jeremiah 19. 4): How has the staff of might been broken, the rod of glory (Jeremiah, 48. 17) — the sainted community comparable to fine gold (Lamentations 4. 2), the community of Mainz! It was caused by the Lord to test those that fear Him, to have them endure the yoke of His pure fear. May their merit, their righteousness, their piety, their wholeheartedness, and their sacrifice be a good advocate for us before the Most High; and may He deliver us from the exile of wicked Edom speedily in our day, and may our Messiah come, Amen, speedily in our day.31

From a literary point of view this composition is a lament in prose, that is based on verses from the biblical Lamentations and the prophets. The lament opens with a sentence (which is not a quotation) about the evil that the people have done and the punishment brought on them by God. The list of verses that follows describes the difficult situation in which the people find themselves at the present and the calamity which befalls them. The sentence that concludes the lament (which is also not a quotation) presents the opposite expression of what we might have thought. Unlike our first impression, God did not desert His people. On the contrary, He found a special and holy community and put it to the test. Like the other prose-laments that appear in this source, this passage has several roles. From a literary point of view they separate the different parts

31

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of the story. As far as the message is concerned, as I shall show, these sections express clear and explicit messages. In light of these assumptions, I shall now examine the Long Source.32 The story is a description of the First Crusade, made up of segments taken from local commemorations and testimonies of some of the families. These segments were inserted into the framework of a well-edited plot, with impressive opening and closing sections, between which are long segments which have specific roles: The Opening And now I will tell how the decree was also carried out in other communities that were put to death for His Special Name and how they adhered to the Lord God of their fathers and loved him until their souls were fulfilled.33

This sentence was probably preceded by a list of the dead who were commemorated in a prayer or by a local memorial day, as related by Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn. This list would have immortalized the martyrs whose memories were prayed for, gave the whole composition its local-martyr’s message, and eventually became a communal memorial book, a memorbuch.34 The Conclusion While the concluding segment does describe an historical event, the destruction of the Crusader force on Hungarian soil, it has a well-defined message of martyrdom.35 The way in which the Christians died is proof that they were 32

See Appendix A. The Long Source is a single manuscript whose beginning is missing, and includes several stories: the pogroms during the First Crusade, the pogrom at Blois in 1171, and a segment about the community of Speyer. This last segment seems to tell of the founding of the Speyer community in 1084 and the erection of the synagogue there in 1104, and has nothing to do with 1096. 33 Habermann, p. 24. 34 Zenah’s ideas about short stories are without foundation: I. Sonne, ‘Critical Annotations to Solomon bar Simson’s Record of the Edicts of 1096, Including a Fragment of this Text in Judaeo-German’ [Hebrew], The Abraham Weiss Jubilee Volume (New York, 1964), pp. 385–405. 35 The story ends with the demise of the Crusaders and not with the rebuilding of the synagogue.

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wrong. Those who had considered themselves to be martyrs had been punished by dying ignominiously at the hand of their fellow-believers before reaching their goal. Their quest had failed. The Jewish martyrs were the true martyrs. The Jewish writer ended his description there and not at the end of the Christians’ journey — the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in July 1099. This was not because the writer did not know about the Christian victory, but because he was aware of it. He had to emphasize the painful failure and not the Christians’ embarrassing theological victory, celebrating the crossing of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the conquest of the Holy City, and the liberation of the Temple Mount. In order to accentuate the message of the Christian failure, he ends his book with their débâcle accompanied by divine warning, a solar eclipse, and then a sort of prayer of comfort: At that time there was an eclipse of the sun; on that day the Lord shattered the pride of our enemies, and their name was uprooted. But the enemies still did not give up their evil designs, and daily they set out for Jerusalem. ‘Render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom’. Thou wilt render unto them a recompense, O Lord, according to the work of their hands. Thou wilt give them hardness of heart; Thy curse unto them. Thou wilt pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.36

Prefaces The first section of the source is the prefaces.37 They include all of the factors that perpetuated the tension, the enmity, and the theological rage between Jews and Christians in early-twelfth-century Europe; the conditions that led to the crusade, the story of the Council of Clermont, and the Pope’s call for the crusade, the Christians who embarked on their journey and their reasons for attacking the Jews. The source describes the messianic spirit (‘a spirit of harlotry’) that appeared to the Christians and commanded them to leave for the Holy Land, and also ordered them to turn the Jews into Christians or to do away with them as a punishment for killing Jesus.38 However the preface is more than this. It is an important commencement of a theological discussion of the Jewish issue; a clear presentation of the ideal of Christian martyrdom, the 36

Habermann, p. 59. This is the end of the Long Source manuscript. Habermann, pp. 24–29. 38 The example given is Geoffroy de Bouillon, who announces publicly that before departing on his journey he must harm Jews: Habermann, p. 26. 37

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Christians’ reasons for embarking on the martyr’s journey, and for attacking the Jews. All this was written and presented in detail prior to the events themselves. The Jews’ answer to the Christian martyrs’ challenge will be given in the central part of the source — the actions of the Jews of Mainz, Köln, and their environs.39 The story of the Jews of these communities is the central fulcrum of the opus, an explicitly written martyr’s tale that includes the characteristics described above. All the rest of the stories are stories within a story, allowing a local view of the event of sanctification of God’s Name. From here on the literary structure of the source is clear: there is a sub-story for each community, and each sub-story has an opening that defines the religious time, followed by the martyr’s story. The story has two parts, a community-group description and the description of individual acts. They are separated by a prayer or a speech. At the end is a liturgical piece that sounds like a lament.

The Story of Mainz The arrangement • • • • • • •

Opening — religious time (Habermann, p. 29). Literary divider/liturgical piece (Habermann, pp. 29–30) Description of death in sanctification of God’s Name, the communitygroup act (Habermann, pp. 30–32) Literary divider/liturgical piece (Habermann, 32–33) Literary divider/speech (Habermann, p. 33) Description of death in sanctification of God’s Name, the individual acts (Habermann, pp. 33–42) Conclusion: lament (Habermann, pp. 42–43).

39 I view the stories about Speyer and Worms as a sort of introduction to the central event at Mainz. I think this was also the writer’s intention.

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The Opening — the Religious Time (Habermann, p. 29)40 On a mythical plane, we are in the midst of the preparations for the Sinai episode in the book of Exodus (19. 15). For three days the Children of Israel sanctified and purified themselves in preparation for entering into the Covenant with God and the receiving of the Torah. These were the three days before the festival of Shavu’ot, the traditional anniversary of the receiving of the Torah at Sinai. In reality, it was the third day of the month of Sivan, the day on which it became apparent that prayer, fasting, pleading, bribing, or the Christian authorities would not stop Graf Emich and his cohorts, together with the citizens of Mainz, from either turning the town’s Jews into Christians or killing them. The writer combined the different planes, and used the religious time in order to create a complex but clear image of the situation of the Jews on the third day of Sivan, 1096: ‘They were all sanctified to ascend to God together’, ‘were destroyed like the people of Jerusalem in their destruction’.41 The transferral of imagery takes us from the sacrifices offered at the Temple in Jerusalem to the people of Mainz in 1096 and from the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem to the destruction of the community of Mainz. The true victors are not the Christians celebrating their victory in the Holy Land’s Jerusalem, but the Jews of Mainz, who sacrificed themselves in Europe. It is not the city of Jerusalem in the Holy Land in the 1099th year after the death of the Christian messiah that is proof of God’s election of its conquerors, but rather the massacred Jewish community of Mainz, in the 4856th year after the Creation according to Jewish reckoning. This message is wrapped in several layers of literary formulae and serves as a framework for the act of martyrdom itself, which is the act that created the situation. Literary Divider/Liturgical Piece (Habermann, pp. 29–30) The short segment is an introduction to the tragedy of the Mainz community and focuses on describing the community as it was before its destruction. The connection with the destruction of Jerusalem is clear, both from the use of the expression ‘principals of the flock’ taken from Jeremiah’s description of the destruction (25. 34) and explicitly:

40 41

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And the daughter of Zion was shorn of all her splendour — this refers to Mainz. Silenced were the voices of the leaders of the flock, ‘those who wage war’ (Isaiah 28. 6), they that sway the many of righteousness; and silenced was the city of praise, the metropolis of joy, which had generously distributed great sums of money to the poor.

Description of the communal death in Sanctification of God’s Name (Habermann, pp. 30–32) In between the two liturgical sections is the description of martyrdom ‘in sanctification of God’s Name’, depicted at length and in detail as an ornate community ritual.42 The pericope as a whole (which appears in the previous chapter) describes the communal behaviour of death in sanctification of God’s Name: the suicide of whole families, in which the wives encourage the men and children and kill themselves. The men kill their families and then themselves. These acts are set up as a group and family ritual, in which the above-mentioned motifs — sacrifice, the Temple, Isaac and Rabbi Akiba, the destruction of Jerusalem, and more — are present in connection with the family and the group, and not in connection with the individual. The expressions used all teach about the group: women, one woman to her sister, brothers, fathers. Literary divider/liturgical piece (Habermann, pp. 32–33) This group description ends with a solemn lament that is meant to complete the picture and its message as presented in the opening. However, now that the details of the act of martyrdom are clear, the liturgical piece becomes more powerful, its messages more explicit. The imagery is that of the book of Lamentations, continuing the allegoric comparison of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple to the community of Mainz, that ‘from the day the Second Temple was destroyed, there were none like them in Israel’. The lament begins by quoting Lamentations, and then describes the events in Mainz in detail.43 That day the diadem of Israel fell, the students of the Torah fell, and the outstanding scholars passed away. The glory of the Torah fell, as it is written: ‘He

42 43

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hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the splendour of Israel’. Gone were the sin-fearers, gone were the men of virtuous deed; ended were the radiance of wisdom and purity, and abstinence; [ended was] the glory of the priesthood and of the men of perfect faith — repairers of the breach, nullifiers of evil decrees, and placaters of the wrath of their Creator; diminished were the ranks of those who give charity in secret. Gone was truth; gone were the explicators of the Word and the Law; fallen were the people of eminence and the sage — all on this day, on which so many sorrows befell us and we could turn neither to the right nor to the left from the fury of the oppressor. ‘And He hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and moaning’. The enemy arose against them, killing little children and women, youth and old men — all on one day. The priests were not accorded honour nor the elders grace; the enemy showed no mercy for babes and sucklings, no pity for women about to give birth. They left no survivor but a dried date and two or three pits. For all of them had been eager to sanctify the Name of their Creator.

The section then ends with what would become the battle cry of the Jews from then on: ‘Hear O Israel’. Literary divider/speech (Habermann, p. 33) Between the section describing communal martyrdom and that describing the acts of individuals and families who killed themselves, the author inserted a literary divider — a speech that is in fact a dialogue between the speaker, Rabbi Menahem bar Rabbi Judah, who asks questions, and the audience that gives the answers and calls out the battle cry. Just as our father Isaac produced a defect, so perhaps I, too, have been found to have a defect? All answered: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And when our fathers received the Torah on Mount Sinai at this season, they said: We shall do and obey, And declared in a great voice: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Thus shall you do this day. And they wholeheartedly affirmed the Oneness of God, doing as the great sage had told them, crying out with one mouth and one heart: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our Lord is our God, the Lord is one.

The community is presented as a united group, whose commitment to martyrdom continues to grow. At first they ‘answered’ the Shema (Hear O Israel), then they ‘answered loudly’, and finally they ‘all shouted it together — one mouth and one heart’. After this dialogue, the writer depicts the community as a collection of individuals and describes in detail the behaviour of the

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women, men, children, elders and families who participated in the ritual of selfkilling ‘in sanctification of God’s Name’.44 Description of individual acts (Habermann, pp. 33–42) At this stage the writer describes the actions of specific people, individuals, or families. The description is not of a group, but of individuals. Even when groups are described, the writer immediately breaks the story down into individual acts and creates a fascinating series of characters, each extraordinary in its own way. New characters now join those with whom we have already met: Rachel, the mother who sacrificed her sons; Isaac son of Rabbi David the Parnas who first converted and then burnt himself alive; Moshe bar Rabbi Halbo who shows his sons the gates to Paradise and to Hell and asks: ‘Into which do you now wish to enter?’; Jacob bar Rabbi Sulam, ‘whose mother was not from Israel’, and who now uses the moment to announce to the community: ‘Until now you‘ve disparaged me. Now see what I do’ and killed himself before all; Samuel bar Rabbi Mordechai, the elder, who stabs himself to death in the stomach; David bar Rabbi Nathaniel, the gabbai, who used the occasion to show his faith in front of the Christians; Samuel bar Rabbi Isaac, who preferred to die even though the Christians allowed him to convert; and of course Rabbi Kalonymus the Parnas.45 The writer managed to create a tapestry of characters, each different from the others in personality, vocation, and lifestyle. All end up performing the act of sanctification of God’s Name. The message of this part of the source is inescapable. The group part emphasized the communal aspect of death; this part breaks the group down into individuals. The righteous, the convert to Judaism, the nobleman, the frightened, the convert to Christianity, the mother of children, the father, the grown child, the anxious child, the fleeing child, and others — all eventually conclude that if all else fails, they must perform the act of suicide ‘in sanctification of God’s Name’.46

44

Habermann, pp. 33–42. Habermann, pp. 33, 35, 36, 39, 40–41. The writer describes the group of women who resisted the Christians, as he had done previously in the ‘group’ part, and immediately sets Rachel aside. He describes the group of women and men who lamented the desecration of the Torah and immediately set aside Rabbi David bar Rabbi Menahem. 46 Seeing the individual, and not the group, as the central factor. See Goldin, Uniqueness, pp. 138–44. 45

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Conclusion: The Lament (Habermann, pp. 42–43) The story of Mainz concludes with a prayer in the form of a lament. This prayer contains three central motifs: a description and justification of the act of martyrdom, a plea for revenge upon the gentiles and a theological debate with Christianity.47 This lament is a prayer in prose that is strongly reminiscent of the prayer ‘Father of Mercy’. All of the verses quoted there appear here as well.48 From a literary point of view, it is constructed from a combination of verses with very little commentary. The verses are taken from the books of Lamentations, the Prophets and Psalms, which create an atmosphere both of calamity and of sublimity. This literary form is very important. By calling on verses from the holy books that lie at the very base of the community’s faith, any atmosphere or plea can be effectively formulated. The segment that was created has an atmosphere of holiness, being taken from the Holy Scriptures, and is intimately understandable because of its midrashic character. As I have shown regarding ‘Father of Mercy’, the verses’ midrash and context contribute to understanding the message in the present. The act of martyrdom is described through verses from Lamentations. The plea for vengeance is articulated through verses from Psalms, which are highlighted in all of the prayers that are worked into medieval Jewish sources. The next part of the lament is the writer’s theological debate with the Christian arguments that were presented in the ‘opening’. The writer took the trouble to present them aided by biblical citations. The Christian views presented in the ‘opening’ are made up of ideological statements and the Crusader ideals and descriptions of the difficulty of the journey. The Jewish presentation is very reliable and similar to the descriptions of the Christian chroniclers. It includes the Pope’s call for the Crusade: ‘And Satan came, that Papius of evil Rome, and sent his message through all the nations who believed in the bastard son, the children of Seir, that they should come together and ascend to 47

Habermann, pp. 42–43. In my opinion the lament begins on p. 40 and continues on p. 42, and was split by a later editor in order to insert the story of Kalonymus in the middle. 48 It is very possible that the ‘Father of Mercy’ was chosen and survived as one of these segments of ‘a lament in prose’ that were recited by different communities on memorial days during the twelfth century. This fact also proves that the ‘Father of Mercy’ was placed in the prayer book only during the twelfth century, probably towards its end.

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Jerusalem and capture the city for themselves, a path set for sinners. And they went to the tomb of their idol, who they took for a god over them.’ and the difficulties that lie ahead: ‘Here we go on a long journey to do battle with the kings of the land, risking our lives in order to kill and enslave all kingdoms who do not believe’. Then appears the main Christian theological argument, that God had turned from the Jews because they had rejected Jesus and even crucified him, and He now sided with the Christians: You are the children of those who killed our veneration and hanged him on a tree, and he said that there will come a day when my children will avenge my blood, and we are his children and must avenge him, for you are the apostates and sinners. And your God’s anger towards you has never cooled, for you have sinned before Him. And for this He has forsaken you and wants you no more, for you have been stiff-necked, and He has departed from you and enlightened us and taken us as His inheritance.49

As was his habit, the Jewish writer summarized the Christian claims with three verses from Psalms: ‘Those who said: Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession’ (83. 13 [NRSV 12]); ‘They have said: Come, let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more’ (83. 5 [NRSV 4]); ‘Yet they say: The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it’ (94. 7).50 The Jewish theological answer refutes the three Christian arguments. As to the conquest of Jerusalem, the answer is simple: ‘They do not go on a goodly path nor on a straight road’. The whole idea is a mistake.51 As far as the Christian plan to eradicate Judaism, ‘let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more’, the writer states, ‘for the sake of Your Name that is upon us’. God will not allow the eradication of His people. After solving these two theological problems, the writer turns to the main Christian argument, that God abandoned His people after they had refused to recognize Jesus as the true messiah. In order to counter this argument, accentuated by the daily realities of life in northern France and Germany in the early twelfth century, the Jews had to offer a strong and clear statement. The Jewish answer here presents Christianity as idolatry and attacks it with the weapons provided by the prophecies of Jeremiah (in chapters 10 and 49

Habermann, pp. 27, 24, 93. Habermann, p. 42. 51 A clever answer, considering the fact that the Christians called their campaign ‘The King’s journey to Jerusalem’. 50

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51).52 As pagan victories over Israel in the past did not prove their truth or justify their idols, neither did it now. The Christian faith is one of idolatrous nothingness, the pagans’ present position of strength does not prove their belief, and the conclusions drawn by the Crusaders from the situation are absurd and mistaken. The lament concludes, once again, with the description of the martyrs’ act, which is the heart of the Jewish answer, since only the act itself is proof of all that was said in the lament. The experience of martyrdom — the Jews’ willingness to put themselves and their families to death in sanctification of God’s Name — is the answer. ‘Let the blood of His righteous stand to our credit and atone for us and our posterity after us, our children’s children for ever, like the Akedah of Isaac, who was bound by our father Abraham on the altar’.

Köln and Other Towns The literary format that we have described — an opening, description of a group ritual, liturgical section, description of individual acts, liturgy — is repeated again and again almost in its entirety throughout the Long Source. The Jewish communities of Köln and the nearby towns of Xanten, Mirs, Trier, and Metz are each described in similar manner, with similar pericopes that could be used as prayers at memorial ceremonies after the reading of the names of those who died in sanctification of God’s Name. The story of the community of Köln begins by defining the tragic religious time: the fifth day of Sivan, the eve of Shavuot, the holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. On the mythical plane we are at the giving of the Torah at Sinai: ‘And it was on the third day at morning, and noises were heard’ (Exodus 19. 16). On the plane of reality we are on the third of Sivan. On the morning of the third day, the noises were those of the Christian enemy, destroying houses, taking plunder, demolishing the synagogue, taking out the Torah scrolls, defiling them, stamping on them in the streets. The huge shock of the destruction of the synagogue and desecration of the Torah scrolls by the Christians was intensified to extremes by the date on which it was happening. According to the source: ‘On the day of its giving, on which the earth shook and 52 ‘Thus said the Lord: Do not learn to go the way of the nations, And do not be dismayed by portents in the sky; Let the nations be dismayed by them’ (10. 1), and so on.

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its pillars were splintered, and now it was torn and burnt and trampled by depraved evildoers, who plundered and violated it’.53 The Jews of Köln were scattered to different towns, and there they killed themselves by the ritual ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’. The theological response to this problematic situation is given in the lament that ends the section about these Jews. This lament is composed of fragments of verses: ‘Will Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Lord?’, ‘go forth as a mighty man’, ‘O Nations, make His people joyful! He avenges the blood of His servants’. The first two are taken from the book of Isaiah: ‘Will Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Lord? Will Thou hold Thy peace, and afflict us very sore?’ (64. 11 [NRSV 12]). ‘The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war; He shall cry, yea, roar; He shall prevail against His enemies’ (42. 13), and the third verse from the Song of Moses, ‘O Nations, make His people joyful! He avenges the blood of His servants, renders retribution to His foes, provides atonement for His land and His people’ (Deuteronomy 32. 43).54 The combination of these three verses is not accidental, and it creates an interesting structure, unique in its time. The message is understood by perceiving the combined midrashic contexts of the verses. The verse from Isaiah, ‘Will Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Lord? Will Thou hold Thy peace, and afflict us very sore?’ is used often in Jewish writings in which God is asked to explain the tragedies that afflict His people, and is combined in the midrashim with the verse from Deuteronomy. For example, the Midrash on Psalms asked, why God was silent while His Temple was being destroyed?55 In the midrash, the question is based on a verse from Psalms, and the acts of the gentiles, on verses from Isaiah and Deuteronomy from the Song of Moses (Genesis 32). The question: ‘To the Musician a Psalm of David: For Thee silence is praise, O God in Zion’ (Psalms 65. 1–2). Why is silence a praise for God? Why was God silent when the Temple in Jerusalem was damaged, when the gentiles ‘gave their voice in the house of the Lord’ ‘and said: our hand is raised!?’56 God’s answer in the midrash is that the measure of justice compels Him to desist, and thus He

53

Habermann, pp. 43–44. Habermann, p. 46. 55 Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 65. 56 This expression is reminiscent of the Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 121. 54

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refrainsd from releasing His ‘anger’, ‘wrath’ and angels of destruction to avenge and demolish: He said to them, ‘Fury is not in me’ (Isaiah 27. 4), I cannot act, the measure of judgement forces me to be silent, so it says ‘For Thee silence is praise’, You can be silent and all give praise that You were silent about what was done to You at Zion.

In the source that we are dealing with, the medieval author constructed a renewed midrash based on ‘God’s silence’, also based on the prophecy of Isaiah. It is still based on the verse from Isaiah ‘Will Thou refrain Thyself for these things?’ but the answer is bereft of any silence or restraint. The answer is based on another verse from Isaiah 42, ‘go forth as a mighty man’, as it says, ‘Therefore He hath poured upon him the fury of His anger and the strength of His battle, and it has set him on fire round about and he knew not, and it burned’ (25). After this, the ingenious medieval author once again inserts a verse from the Song of Moses. But where the original midrash chose those verses from the Song of Moses that reflect God’s passivity and restraint, the medieval author chose a verse that is all about revenge: ‘O Nations, make His people joyful! He avenges the blood of His servants’. This was the method by which the new midrash was created. The story of the community of Xanten that was recounted in the previous chapter was also styled as an exposition of martyrdom. In this story, it is the speeches that carry most of the message for the future.57 The religious time is that of twilight on the Sabbath eve, hinting at the Akedah of Isaac. According to the midrash, the ram that was sacrificed by Abraham was created at twilight on the first Sabbath of Creation.58 The Sabbath dinner was eaten by the whole community together. ‘At the hour of the sanctification of the day and they sat down to eat, and recited the Kiddush and the blessing over the bread’. After they had eaten just the bread, three speeches were given. The first was given by ‘the head of all of them’, the leader of the community. The other two were delivered by ‘the son of Aaron the Priest, the priest who was greater than his brothers’.59 Then came an introduction to the grace after meals and the grace itself, then special blessings for the occasion and another speech to prepare for ‘death in sanctification of God’s Name’, which was duly performed by the community. I have already dealt with this story in my discussion of Heaven, but here I wish to

57

Habermann, pp. 48–49. ‘Numbers Rabbah’, 17; Tanhuma, Va-yera 23, Shelah 14; Yalqut Shimoni, I, Va-Year 98, 101. 59 Salfeld, p. 18. 58

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stress the importance of the speech as a medium for getting the message across directly and publicly. The speakers at the rituals of martyrdom are very important. This has been pointed out in connection with the sources about Christian martyrdom in late antiquity. The speech focuses and drives home the messages that the writer wishes to pass on to his readers, allowing them to identify with the audience who heard the speech, emphasizing the public nature of the act of martyrdom in particular. All of these features are included in the story of the Xanten community. This is a very public event. The entire community is present together, a one-time opportunity. Such an inclusive audience is not even to be found in the synagogue. The speeches are given by the leadership of the community. The first speech was given by the leader of the community, ‘the head of all of them’. They had not yet begun to eat, only broken bread, and their leader said: ‘Son of Aaron the Priest, you are worthy of greatness. Woe to those who are departed and cannot be found. Therefore is my harp turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of them that weep.’ All who heard his voice when he prayed said: ‘This voice is as a harp, a pipe, a drum, and a flute’. His prayers went up before the throne of Him Who dwells On High, to the Presence of the Everlasting One, and became a crown and a diadem on the head of the Most High God, the King of Kings, the Blessed Holy One. But the decree had been passed and it was as if a copper griddle had been placed between us and our Father in Heaven, shutting out our prayers, and we could not find even one good advocate among a thousand. For God had come to test this generation and to demonstrate their love for Him to all, including the Host of Heaven. Thus did King David declare: ‘Therefore do the maidens love thee’ — through death do they love you! In a similar manner he stated, ‘For Thy sake are we killed all the day; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter’.

Then the Kohen took his place and used his status as leader in the grace after the meal to pass on the messages.60 This pious, faithful man, the priest that is highest among his brethren, then said to the congregation assembled at his table: ‘Let us recite the Grace-after-Meals to the Living God, to our Father in Heaven, for the table is now arranged before us in place of the altar. Let us arise and hurry to the House of the Lord to fulfil the wish of our Creator.

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The enemy has come upon us today so that each man may slaughter — on the Sabbath — his son, his daughter, and his brothers, and so we may thereby be blessed. Let no man have mercy on himself or his friend. The last survivor shall slaughter himself with his knife at his throat, or shall thrust his sword into his stomach, so that the impure ones and the hands of wickedness will not be able to defile us with their abominations. We shall offer ourselves as a sacrifice to the Lord, as a whole-burnt-offering to the Most High One, a sacrifice upon the altar of God. Then we shall enter the World-that-is-All-Day, the Garden of Eden, the great luminous speculum, and we shall behold the countenance of the Lord in its actual Glory and Greatness. Every person will have a diadem of gold set with precious stones and pearls upon his head. We shall sit there amongst the pillars of the world and dine in the company of the righteous in the Garden of Eden, and we shall be in the company of Rabbi Akiba and his companions. We shall sit on a golden chair under the Tree of Life, and each of us will point with his finger and declare: “Lo, this is our God, for Whom we have waited [. . .] Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation”. And there we will observe all the Sabbaths, for here, in this world of darkness, we are unable to rest and observe the Sabbath properly.’

The first speaker stressed the value of the Jewish community. Though the reason for the great predicament is not clear, they are to act as expected of Jews, that is, to die in sanctification of God’s Name. The Jews’ task is to live as Jews, to pray to ‘He who lives forever’ and to observe the Sabbaths according to Jewish law. If they cannot do these things, they are obliged to kill themselves and the others, and then they will arrive in Heaven, sit at God’s side, and observe the Sabbath properly. The speaker uses a harsh image in order to describe the lack of communication between the people and their God: ‘But a decree has befallen us, and a kind of bronze pan has been placed between us and our Father In Heaven and has blocked our prayers, and not one in a thousand will plead for us’. This image is taken from the midrashim on the destruction of the Temple, that the people were familiar with. However the image here totally ignores the reasons for that destruction and focuses on the comparison between the destruction of the Temple and the killing and ruin of the Jewish communities. 61 Thus, right after the verse from the prophecy of Ezekiel that says that God does not hear their prayers comes a verse from Psalms, also based on a midrash, that promises God’s victory over His enemies. The verse, ‘And he as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing like a mighty man to run a race’ (19. 6 [NRSV 5]) is supposed to remind them of an important midrash, which fits

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both the summer season in which the events occurred and the feeling of vengeance which they felt: Hot like the sun, on the kingdom of Greece, she was Sandrios mother of Helios the sun, and the sun is called a mighty man, as it says, ‘rejoicing like a mighty man to run a race’. In the summer season none can stand the sun and all flee from him, as it says (Psalms 19. 7 [NRSV 6]), ‘and none can hide from his heat’, thus it was with the kingdom of Greece. All fled from it and Matthias the Priest and his sons stood fast in their faith in the Holy One Blessed Be He, and the people of Greece fled from them and were all killed, about which the prophet said ‘neither has the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what He has prepared for those who wait for Him’ (Isaiah 64. 3 [NRSV 4]).62

Like the midrash, the paragraph that the Kohen at Xanten added to the grace after the meal refers to vengeance: ‘May the Merciful One save us from wicked men, from forced conversion, and from idolatry, from the defilement of the nations and from their abominations’. The Long Source is a collection of stories about different places that were compiled by a careful editor who attempted to create a ‘martyr’s literature’. We do not know who that editor was, since he chose to remain anonymous. His work is usually well arranged, but he sometimes included pieces that were preedited. The story of the tragedy that befell the Jews of Trier is arranged differently than the above, and whoever included it in the collection wisely chose to retain its special format and not to model it like the stories of the other cities.63 The additional source as well, the Short Source, known by scholars as ‘The Anonymous One’ or by its opening ‘A Tale of old Decrees’, is formed almost entirely as the story of three towns: Speyer, Worms, and especially Mainz. This source is also designed according to the plan described above, a narrative framed by liturgical sections, which may be used in memorial ceremonies. However the most important source for our purposes is the

Exodus Rabbah, ed. by Shinan, 15. 6. R. Chazan, ‘The Trier Unit of the Lengthy Hebrew First Crusade Narrative’, in Between History and Literature Studies in Honor of Isaac Barzilay, ed. by S. Nash (TelAviv, 1997), pp. 37–49. E. Haverkamp, ‘“Persecutio” und “Gezerah” in Trier während des Ersten Kreuzzugs’, Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge, ed. by A. Haverkamp (Sigmaringen, 1999), pp. 35–71, explains that this source was written by someone who was closely familiar with Trier of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries and that it is very reliable. 62

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writings of R. Eliezer bar Nathan, which used both the Long and Short sources to create the main vehicle of preservation of the tragedy’s memory and messages.

Prose and Poetry: The Writings of R. Eliezer bar Nathan The most important source about the Jews who died in sanctification of God’s Name was written by Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan, known as the Ra’aban, who was born in Mainz in the 1090s.64 Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan’s narrative is the most complete, both from a literary-content point of view and in terms of the manuscripts being preserved intact.65 It has a celebratory beginning, alternating prose and poetry, and a sublime ending — a prayer in memory of the martyrs. Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan edited the Long Source and, by breaking the narrative into local stories and adding a poem of lament for each community, created a narrative of local martyrdom. Like the Long Source, the narrative keeps to the structure of religious time, group actions and individual deeds. But where the Long Source included a prayer composed of combined biblical verses, Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan composed and inserted a true liturgical poem of lament, creating a ritual prayer.66 Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan created a prayer of martyrdom, that would be used in the synagogues in memorial ceremonies for those who had died in sanctification of God’s Name, beginning with the First Crusade.67 This source’s great importance is in the fact that it introduces the liturgical poem to the memorial ceremonies as a powerful vessel in the socialization process. Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan narratives are structured as follows: The story of the community of Speyer, followed by a liturgical poem of lament • The story of the community of Worms, followed by a liturgical poem of lament •

64 E. E. Urbach, The Tosaphists: Their History, Writings, and Methods (Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 182–83. 65 Neubauer and Stern, pp. vii–ix; Habermann, pp. 72–82. 66 Raaban created a structure that was unique in his day, imitated only by Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn in his Sefer Zekhira. 67 Baer, ‘Decree of 1096’, p. 134; Urbach, Arugat haBosem, IV, 24.

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The story of the community of Köln and its neighbours, followed by a liturgical poem of lament

The conclusion, the climax — a description of the martyrs’ entrance into Heaven

Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan achieves the connection of the originally separate narratives by the opening of the individual liturgical poems, all based on a single verse in the book of Micah, from a prophecy of wrath against Samaria: ‘For this I will lament and wail; I will go barefoot and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals and mourning like the ostriches’ (1. 8). The first city mentioned after the introduction is Speyer. At first glance, Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan’s story is identical to the Long Source. In fact, he made an important change. Where the other sources tell of eleven martyrs in Speyer, Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan tells of ten.68 This is no mistake. The use of the ten martyrs enabled the Ra’aban to include the myth of the Ten Martyrs of the Regime in the message of the martyrs of the crusades and to give those who had killed themselves an additional distinction.69 In a poem that is tied to prose, he calls them, ‘My God, the special community, who sanctified their Rock like the Ten Martyrs of the Regime’. Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan actually erased all of the sentences in the long source, that mentioned the Jews’ weakness or their being abandoned by God. He left only those passages that compared the martyrs of his generation to the Ten Martyrs of the Regime: And this was the generation that had been chosen by Him to be His portion, for they had the strength and the fortitude to stand in His sanctuary, and fulfil His word, and sanctify His Great Name in His world.

To this passage he attached the verse from Psalms, Bless the Lord, ye His angels, that excel in strength, that do His commandments (103. 20). According to the midrash, ‘that excel in strength’ are the people of Israel (‘that do His commandments’) who when receiving the Torah said ‘we shall do (observe it) and (then) we shall hear (it)’.70 And so he connected the generation that received the Torah to the generation that sanctified God’s Name ‘who were chosen as His special portion’. The term ‘decree’ — that appears in part of the prose — as representing disaster, is used in the midrashim about the Ten

68

Habermann, pp. 25, 94; Salfeld, pp. 101–02. Baer, ‘Decree of 1096’, p. 135, note 38. 70 Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 104. 1. 69

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Martyrs of the Regime. In the liturgical poem ‘These I Remember’, Rabbi Ishmael ascends to Heaven ‘to find out if the decree had been decreed by God. And so the decree had been decreed on ten of Israel’s sages’. Another theme that appears there is the ‘sealing’ of the heavens against the passage of prayers for mercy.71 As we recall, the midrash of the Ten Martyrs of the Regime pointed out the highest sages of the finest generation. These sages were chosen to die in order to atone for an ancient sin of the nation of Israel, and thus saved the whole nation. In the Middle Ages, the decree came to test just such an excellent generation and see if they would stand to the standards of the Ten Martyrs of the Regime. According to Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan, the people of Speyer, also ten in number and led by a woman proved that they could stand to that standard. The liturgical poem accentuated and immortalized this point. Lament, The special community, Who sanctified their Rock Like the Ten Martyrs of the Regime.72 Of one heart And shoulder to shoulder They stood guard As they stretched out their necks. You were beautiful in Heaven And down below Fellowship of Speyer Beautiful patrimony Joyful community Always ready to do His will Intended for atonement Guardian of the vineyards. A holy pair In the month of Ziv United in honor To be inscribed in the book of life. Written And sealed

Beit haMidrash, ed. by Jellinek, II, 64–65 and in the introduction pp. xxiv–xxviii; Baer, ‘Decree of 1096’. 72 Abot de Rabi Nathan, ed. by Schechter, chap. 20. 71

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Beautifully bound Hedged in with the King.73

It is important to note the titles used for the community of Speyer. The designation ‘guardian’ (‘They stood guard’ and ‘guardian of the vineyards’) is based on the verse from the Song of Songs (1. 6) and its midrash, which explains that, ‘guardian of the vineyards – these are the people of Israel who were exiled to Babylon’. According to the poem, the Jews of Speyer are the guardians of Israel and sacrifice themselves for its sake, just like the Ten Martyrs of the Regime did in the past. This is further reinforced by the word ‘hedge’, taken from I Chronicles: ‘These were the potters and those that dwelt among the plantations and hedges; there they dwelt occupied with the king’s work’ (4. 23). The designations in the verse — potters and those among the plantations and hedges — are the pious souls who dwell with God, ‘that He was enthroned over them and created the world’, like the righteous Ten Martyrs of the Regime who ascend to God and wish to understand the decree. In other words, the ten martyrs of Speyer are the first to be killed in sanctification of God’s Name to be included with the pious souls that are at God’s side.74 The second section tells of the community of Worms. The prose section says that they were martyred during the month of Sivan. The main motif of the poem is ‘the arrival of Israel at Sinai to receive the Torah’.75 I lament and mourn and wail For that excellent commune My heart cries out Because of the blow I have received. Clothed in fear The last refugee From their heads they lost A great golden crown. Friends and companions The destroyers feasted My evil neighbours Who touch the inheritance.

Compare translation to The Jews and the Crusaders, ed. and trans. by S. Eidelberg (Wisconsin, 1977), pp. 80–81. 74 Habermann, pp. 73–74. 75 Pesiqta Rabbati, 29. 73

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For these I cry For I was horrified And my eyes wept tears And I cried day and night. A shout of dismay I scream For sons who have come to dread Dismay upon dismay Utter destruction has been irrevocably resolved. Washed and purified before You Like those who received your word at Sinai Those who call on your Name, O Lord, Through the sound of clamour. Among many in every district They sanctified God the King. Set in the King’s Palace In joy and happiness. The strength of their merit And also their piety Will be counted for their remnants Forever, Selah.76

This poem is a lament that is modelled on the chapters in Jeremiah (12, 14) that describe the deep crisis that gripped the people of Israel after the destruction of the First Temple. In chapter 12, Jeremiah describes the neighbours: ‘Thus said the Lord against all my evil neighbours that touch the inheritance that I have given My people Israel to inherit’ (14). In chapter 14, he depicts Israel’s terrible plight at the time of the destruction and God’s unwillingness to turn to them, to help them or even to allow the prophet to appeal for mercy. The twelfth-century poem overturns this meaning. The terrible images, described in terms of that destruction, are the starting point for the community’s elevation and its present unique status. The community is called a ‘crown’ and an ‘inheritance’, God’s inheritance. The sentence, ‘And my eyes wept tears, and I cried day and night’ is connected to the prophet’s words in the same chapter, ‘You shall say to them this word: let my eyes run down with tears night and day’. According to the midrash, it is God who mourns, as

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no human could cry night and day without rest. The poem teaches that God mourns for the destruction of the community of Worms.77 The focus of the poem is the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The religious time is the three days of purification, during which the Jews purified themselves in preparation for the receiving of the Torah: ‘Washed and purified before You, like those who received your word at Sinai’. The covenant that was sealed between God and the people of Israel at Mount Sinai is stressed in the poem. At the sound of God’s voice at Mount Sinai (the word ‘clamour’ is taken from Ezekiel’s vision of God’s chariot), the Jews called out His Name and agreed to the covenant. Now, in Christian Europe, they do it again. They call out His Name before all and are willing to die in order to prove that they have not abandoned their faith: ‘Among many in every district, they sanctified God the King’. Because of this deed they are ‘set in the King’s Palace’, a phrase borrowed from the book of Daniel’s description of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah which teaches of their perfection, their qualities and of course their passing the test — their descent into the fiery furnace. The third story, also identical to the Long Source, tells of the community of Mainz.78 The lament that Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan composed for this community focuses on the enormity of the community’s destruction in comparison to the learning and teaching for which it had been famous: ‘This Torah, who will chant it? For your teachers have gone from my ears’. The people of the Mainz community are called, ‘Dwellers at Jabez, the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and Suchathites are gone because of my iniquity, understanding of the times, wisdom, and knowledge to understand me’. According to the midrashim, the people of Jabez were known for their total and compulsive devotion to the study of the Torah.79 The lament concludes, as usual, with a request for vengeance with the familiar verses: ‘I will avenge their blood which I have not yet avenged, the Lord dwells in Zion’ (Joel 4. 21) and ‘I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, that it should not be covered’ (Ezekiel 24. 8). As he is wont, Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan concludes his description of ‘death for the sanctification of God’s Name’ at Köln with a long and stirring liturgical

77

Habermann p. 78. Sifrei Zutta, ed. by S. Lieberman (New York, 1968), 10. 29 79 Habermann, pp. 81–83.

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poem about this community and the communal character of its act of ‘death for the sanctification of God’s Name’.80 He calls it a ‘holy community’: For it has given its soul and taken hold of its Maker’s fear And its blood is congealed like the wine that comes from Senir and Hermon And they sanctified the Name of the holy who dwells on high.

This phrase ‘who dwells on high’ (‘their deeds were just in the eyes of He who dwells on high’), also appears in liturgy and was taken from two verses in Deuteronomy: The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms; and He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee and shall say: “Destroy them! Israel shall dwell in safety alone, the fountain of Jacob shall dwell upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew” (33. 27–28).

In the Middle Ages this became an epithet of God which was used in prayer and in everyday language. Once more we can see the importance of the liturgical poetry to the processes that I am describing. The expressions in the poems, taken from the language of the Bible along with their midrashic messages, formulate the dialogue with God in prayer and pervade everyday speech. The poem’s main task is to immortalize the act and to accentuate the group message, here — the way they died in sanctification of God’s Name. The motifs I described above appear clearly and sharply in Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan’s poems. Special emphasis is placed on the role of women who killed their children: ‘With the souls of the flower of my protégé’s youth, bound as a sacrifice, the hands of merciful women, binding in tears, like the binding of Moriah’ (referring to the Akedah, which took place at Mount Moriah). The dead are called, ‘those who gave their souls’, ‘gave themselves for the sanctification of God’s Name’, and ‘sanctified the Holy Name’. The dead in sanctification of God’s Name are likened to the sacrifices in the Temple, and thus their death is seen as being for the sake of those who survived, ‘and for us their death will be forgiveness and atonement’, a theme suggested by Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan at the beginning of his source, about the ten martyrs of Speyer, the Ten Martyrs of the Regime. The source I have analysed above is not Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan’s only contribution to the internalization of the idea of sanctification of God’s Name.

80 Tanhuma, Va-yesev 1; Genesis Rabbah, ed. by Theodor and Albeck, 68. 11; Pesiqta Rabbati, 21; Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 10.

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We have two additional liturgical poems (a Zulat and a Selihah — named after their intended place in the prayer service) that describe the events of the First Crusade, and another, ghastly poem written after the Second Crusade. These poems show that Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan persisted in his efforts to have such poems included in the prayer book for holidays or for the Days of Awe, in order to deepen the message that he had created and promoted for the memorial days. The zulat poem, ‘God, we heard with our ears’, employs the themes with which we are already familiar, as well as that of dealing with unfulfilled messianic hope.81 The messianic hopes from before the First Crusade are described as being based on calculating the date of the end of days: Time after time our souls awaited The end-time tarried and no remedy came Counting Jacob’s 256 we waited for the time of salvation82 Hoping for peace and no good comes, for healing and there is only hurt. We hoped for good but found darkness and evil For a cycle of eleven years of 25683 Together the bold-faced foes took council For the pernicious waters have passed over our souls.

Against the background of such great disappointment, the Christian enemy is characterized as being cruel and evil — and especially its intention of converting the Jews and destroying the Jewish religion, thus ‘winning’ and forcing Christianity on all: ‘From the disparaging and abusive voices of the vengeful enemy / To be far from You, our prayers make their twisted ways’

81

Habermann, pp. 82–84. This is a reference to Jeremiah (31. 6 [NRSV 7]) ‘Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob’ that was regarded as a Messianic prophecy of Redemption at the End of Days because of its closing words: ‘The Lord has saved his People, the remnant of Israel’. All that had to be done was to break the code of the first word in the verse (‘Ranu’ in Hebrew = ‘Sing aloud’) and we would immediately know when the Redemption would occur. The numeric value (gematria) of the word ‘Ranu’ is 256. 83 A cycle of nineteen lunar years, seven of them with thirteen months, had been adopted by the Jews to synchronize the lunar and solar calendars. The end of the 255th cycle of nineteen years (255x19) brought us to the year 4845 (1085). The addition of eleven years of the 256th cycle thus yielded the year 1096. The ‘hope for good’ was the hope of salvation, and the messianic expectations of the era. See Jews and Crusaders, ed. and trans. by Eidelberg, p. 142, note. 3. 82

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The Jews’ behaviour is highlighted. The messianic hopes had been disappointed. It had been a long time since God had intervened on behalf of His people: For You, God, have forgotten and abandoned us For more than a thousand years of suffering and anguish Our souls are abandoned in breaking and screaming For You we are killed all day, we are like sheep for the slaughter.

Despite all of that, the people of Israel have not given up their faith and are still willing to die for its Name. This will is expressed by verses from the Psalms, such as ‘For You we are killed all day, we are like sheep for the slaughter’. Pleas for aid and vengeance come together, rooted in common historical experience from ancient times and from the bondage in Egypt. An additional liturgical poem composed by Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan, a selihah,84 was meant not only to commemorate the events of the First Crusade, but rather to describe the excellent qualities of the martyrs of that age. Their death was an atonement for the sins of Israel, who read the poem while standing in judgement before the Creator, during the Days of Awe. For this reason, the poem emphasizes the Christians’ tempting of the Jews, and the Jews’ general resistance to that temptation. And the evil foreigners, the idol-worshippers, thought And insisted and requested artifice and deceit And gave their hand to ruin the house of Jacob by craft By saying, the Lord does not see: ‘Ye abandoned, why do you hope for aid and repair Your King has left you to be hunted through the nations Do this and live — worship the falsehood’ Remember this, O Lord, about our enemies.

The Jews’ resistance to Christianity is a general one, ‘“God forbid, forbid”, acclaimed the clean of hands’. All volunteer to die for the sanctification of God’s Name, ‘Babes and women, youth and elder’, ‘brides and bridegrooms’. The poet mostly stresses the children and their mothers, and this emphasis is central and clear. They are highlighted much more than the men. The children volunteered to die, the mothers did not hesitate to put to death, and the poet, as a rabbi, wishes to pass that on to the next generations. He uses the myth of

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Isaac’s Akedah to show these children’s advantage, even over their ancestor Isaac. The children ask their parents, especially their mothers, to sacrifice them. He who did not kick, so as not to ruin his own slaughter We, without binding, will be slaughtered for His love Our souls rejoice in the Lord, happy in His salvation.

Even Isaac, though he agreed to the sacrifice, asked his father to bind him so that he would not squirm during the slaughter, since he might be injured and invalidate the sacrifice. The children of the 1096 generation were willing to be slaughtered without being bound. They were so happy to die in this way that there was no fear that they might move and so no need to tie them. The poem describes these children’s ascent and entry into Heaven. We have already discussed the importance of Heaven to Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan. This is what the poet writes: I justify justice by remembering their esteem The great hidden good that is their payment Eight garments of glory and two tiaras are their crowns A necklace of gold to their necks [. . .] Their souls are led with joy and happiness and song They come to the King’s chambers within the palace They are seated together with the Group of Seven85 The fragrance of their resting-place is myrrh and spice and cinnamon.

Vengeance is not forgotten either, and appears as the porpirion, the red garment that reminds God of every oppressor of His Jewish subjects, and with it He wreaks His revenge. But revenge is not the main theme, but rather the description of the communal, family, and personal acts of sanctification of God’s Name and the request in the selihah that during the Days of Awe, these acts be remembered as atonement for the sins of Israel in the twelfth century. The purpose of the vengeance theme is that of bringing comfort and encouragement. Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan composed a second selihah after the Second Crusade, one in which he expressed his terrible pain over the wound wrought upon Israel for a second time.86 Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan worked the central phrases from the penitential prayers into his poem: ‘The God King who sits 85 86

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upon the throne of mercy’, ‘I shall forgive your sin’, ‘thirteen’ and ‘the book of memories is open before You’. However this poem abandons the request for vengeance upon the Christians and does not detail acts of death in sanctification of God’s Name. The poet brings his God to account for not keeping His promise to Abraham, who sacrificed his only son. The Jews keep the covenant, sacrifice themselves and their children like offerings in the Temple and refuse to abandon their religion. In the days of penitence before the New Year, the man of Jewish Law and learning, Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan, adds the sacrifices of the Jews in 1146 to those of 1096, as atonement for the sins of Israel: They are now too many to count The Akedah’s of the years 1096 and 1146 And if in one You found compassion All these should atone for sins. Remember, their souls passed into death Killed and slaughtered to keep Your word See, their fat was offered and burned Behold their blood poured on the base of the altar: Pure of eyes discern their Akedah As food in your house see their offering May their sacrifice always be accepted before You May they be redemption for their nation.

The poet creates a superb blend of the motifs of the penitential prayers and the descriptions of acts of martyrdom. As a faithful Jew, he seeks the fulfilment of divine promises, which he believes should have been fulfilled after the First Crusade. Another generation has passed, absolution has not arrived, and new troubles have occurred.

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s impressive as it may be, the commemorative process alone is insufficient to ensure the handing down of the message of ‘death for kiddush Hashem’. How does one educate towards a norm of killing oneself and others as a reaction to Christian attempts at proselytizing? How are these values and messages, which are described at length in prose and poetry, to be expressed in educational terms? Are the myths adequate in forging the message and establishing a norm in the days following the First Crusade? In this section, I shall show that all of the themes, messages, and emphases that are to be found in the prose, poetry, and prayer appeared as myths during the educational process and in the system of rituals responsible for the process of socialization within the Jewish community. In his book on the Middle Ages, Jacob Katz wrote: The initiation of every Jew into the knowledge of Jewish tradition may be said to have been simultaneously a preparation for possible martyrdom. The tradition contained special elements which aimed at including into individual the need to remain faithful to Judaism even at the cost of his life.1

What, however, are the tools used in the ‘knowledge’ of every Jew, that would prepare him for a situation in which he may have to kill himself and his family? Were all of the men, women, and even children in the community prepared for this test? Could this sort of ‘knowledge’ possibly be given — educating towards behaviour such as killing self and family? The process of passing the values and messages to current and new members of a community (children and converts) is known as socialization. During this process, the group informs its new members about its rules and norms and the 1

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Katz, Exclusiveness, pp. 84–85.

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penalties incurred by those who violate them. This process attempts to forestall deviant behaviour. A person who does not abide by the norms is seen as a malefactor, one who strays from social conventions, someone deserving of social penalization. The systems responsible for learning, as part of the educational system, make the rules, norms, and limitations clear to all: both the rewards for keeping the rules and the penalties for breaking them. Most societies develop their own institutions of social control, not necessarily in order to use them, but rather to imbue the individual with a sense of self-control, that is meant to minimize social deviation and the need to employ social penalties.2 Modern research has put much effort into unravelling the complexity behind the way societies act in the field of education, because scholars have realized that the straightforward messages that a society manifests to its members do not always meet that society’s goals. The rules and regulations that are passed down through the educational system cannot by themselves encourage certain types of behaviour and discourage others. After his statements about educating towards kiddush Hashem, Jacob Katz wrote briefly about certain poems in the prayer book and about legends and stories relating to spiritual giants, such as Hannah and her seven sons, Rabbi Akiba, and the Ten Martyrs of the Regime. But by what media were these messages transferred, and how? Is the educational system that teaches the Jewish religion and its commandments responsible for transferring these messages? The uniqueness of the Jewish community in its Christian environment stems from its self-definition. The basis of this definition is the idea of the Jews as the chosen people, and its foundation stones are the fulfilment of the commandments. As stated by Katz: The biblical account of Israel’s election was an accepted fact which accounted also for the contemporary separatism of the Jewish community. The fact of being chosen by God for His service meant that Israel had been singled out from the ranks of the other nations and had been assigned a position sui generis.3

The purpose of the process of socialization is to pass on this message, to cause it to be very deeply internalized, and ensure that the individual’s identification with the concept is complete. This process was of vital importance for a Jewish

2 3

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Goldin, Uniqueness, pp. 42–66. Katz, Exclusiveness, p. 13.

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minority living within a Christian majority that wished to absorb it by means of economic incentives, theological argument and even direct threat.4 The internalizing of the idea of being unique and chosen is, however, not enough. This study follows the development of the norms that society demanded of its members: loyalty to the death and the putting of that demand into practice. How is such an ideal taught and internalized? The education for such an ideal is a complex subject and a particularly difficult one for historical inquiry, but must not be ignored. Obviously, the more the Jewish group is defined as one of unique value and the external Christian group seen as vastly inferior, the easier the internalization process becomes. The Jewish group educated its members to believe that they were unique and different from those around them because God had chosen them. The message behind all this was that the Jewish people had not lost its covenant with God, while the Christian majority had an idolatrous competing religion. This educational preparation made it clear that the group expected that none of its members would break the communal bounds and go over to the Christian majority. While we can describe the process by which the group’s members arrive at devotion to Judaism and abhorrence of conversion to Christianity, how do we define the point at which the devotion and the abhorrence become a willingness to die, to kill oneself and one’s family? The definition of Judaism to its adherents took several forms. First of all, it is connected to the subjects studied during the first stages of learning to read. Secondly, the synagogue was a most important educational institution, within which most of the textual activity connected to prayer, the holidays, and so on took place. Third, a system of rituals created an extensive network of messages for the members of the group. The medieval Jewish group emphasized the value of learning, made it possible for its members to acquire knowledge and even encouraged and rewarded the best among the learners.5 The knowledge that this group wished to pass on to its members dealt entirely with the things that made them unique and different from their Christian neighbours. This system included the commandments special to the Jews, the learning of a holy language which they had in common and was different from that of their neighbours, and a whole network of commandments and customs connected to all aspects of life. The members’ ability to read in their own language was a major component in this, 4 5

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Goldin, ‘Socialization’; Goldin, Uniqueness. Tosafot Megila 23b, Vein.

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since most of the group’s values, including the commandments, could be learned by reading. At least until the mid-twelfth century, a person who was ‘called up’ to read the Torah in the synagogue was expected to read the passage for which he was called himself. This means that it was expected that he knew how to read from the Torah in Hebrew.6 Rabbi Eleazar of Worms described the learning process in his book Sefer Harokeah, at the beginning of a section entitled, ‘The root of the Torah is to deepen knowledge and learning’: ‘He should first learn to recognize the letters and then to combine them into words, and then verses and the portions and then the Mishnah and then the Talmud’.7 That is to say, that basic reading was taught by learning the weekly Torah portions and the Talmud. Several sources tell of learning the Bible by studying the weekly Torah portions. This study was almost certainly accompanied by the study of commentaries, just like the study of Talmud is aided by its commentators, Rashi and the Tosafot.8 Recent studies have shown that what was considered the proper Jewish interpretation of the Bible was in fact a reaction to Christian exegesis that attacked Judaism. The two societies, Jewish and Christian, not only competed in the Middle Ages over the Divine Truth, but both used the same book to prove their respective truths. For this reason, learning the proper interpretation of the Bible was an educational goal of primary importance.9 While the learning process used the Bible and the Talmud to demonstrate the concept of the Chosen People, the purpose of the ritual system was to present the group with myths that would be realistic to emulate. The educational system taught about the Akedah of Isaac, but only the experience of this myth through such rituals as circumcision could cause one to internalize the values that the group attached to the Akedah. The contents that were

6 Goldin, Uniqueness, pp. 104–05. The later custom, practised to this day, is that the person who is ‘called up’ only recites the blessing, while the passage itself is read by a more knowledgeable reader who has prepared the reading in advance. 7 Eleazar of Worms, Sefer ha-Roqeah (Fano, 1505; repr. Warsaw, 1880), p. 11; E. Kanarfogel, Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages (Detroit, 1992), pp. 15–32. 8 It is not clear if the weekly portions were learned together with their specificallywritten commentaries. Isaac b. Moses, Sefer Or Zaru’a, 4 vols (Zitomir, 1862), I, Hilcut Kriat Shema 12, p. 22. Sefer Hasidim, no. 1339. 9 Grossman, Early Sages of France, pp. 457–506.

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learned were the bricks of which the basic ideal of the Chosen People and its practical commandments were built. The world of ritual acts helped internalize these values and was responsible for transferring the values, messages, and norms. In the Middle Ages, all members of the community participated in the rituals and their part in the process of socialization was immense. Onlookers had tasks that turned them into active participants. This ensured the group members’ awareness of the nuances of the rituals and of course of the messages they conveyed. The ritual was an act that recreated a common myth from the group’s shared life experience and as such effected several results. It created cohesion among those performing the ritual as a select group, distinct from outsiders who did not participate in the ritual and could not understand it. It roused the collective memory, so that the group members repeatedly defined themselves as bearers of a certain tradition and to which they were irrevocably committed. It was used as an efficient tool for conveying messages and establishing a normative behaviour based on those messages. In this way, the ritual became a ‘living polemic’ with the outside. That is to say, that the symbols used in the ritual, the words spoken, and the actions taken were not only part of the ceremony, but also a part of the debate between the Jews and their surroundings. The symbols that were used were not only specifically Jewish symbols, but those that competed, opposed, and disputed Christian symbols. The slogans that were recited were not just traditional mantras, but had rather taken on new meanings to befit the contemporary situation.10

Circumcision Circumcision is one of the most significant rituals, for the family and the community, as it defines the newborn as a Jew, presents him to the community and makes him a part of it. Since the baby is not aware of what is being done, the ritual focuses on the society. The society undergoes a process of socialization, and the messages are understood better. Our knowledge of the medieval ceremony is taken from halakhic sources, the most important of which is a book written in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by a father and son, Jacob the

10

S. Goldin, ‘The Role of Ceremonies in the Socialization Process: The Case of Jewish Communities of Northern France and Germany in the Middle Ages’, Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 95 (1996), 163–78; Marcus, Rituals, pp. 18–34, 74–101.

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Cutter and his son Gershom, both professional mohalim (circumcisers), known as ‘cutters’.11 According the medieval source, the circumcision ritual is a reenactment of the ceremony that Abraham performed for his son Isaac in the book of Genesis, ‘And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac at the age of eight days, as God had commanded him’ (21. 4). From the point of view of the medieval father and the viewers, every father is Abraham, and every son is Isaac. Abraham’s circumcision of Isaac was seen as an important landmark on the way to the election of Isaac and his descendants, the people of Israel. Though Abraham already had a son, Ishmael, who was also circumcised, he was born while Abraham was uncircumcised; Abraham circumcised Ishmael at the age of thirteen. Conversely, when Abraham had Isaac he was already circumcised, and Isaac was the first child born to a circumcised father and circumcised at eight days, as God had commanded (Genesis 21. 4). Rabbi Jacob and his son Rabbi Gershom raise this point when they ask why God had not commanded Abraham to circumcise himself during the Covenant of the Pieces (in Genesis 15) — before the birth of Ishmael — but instead commanded him years later (before the birth of Isaac). The answer they gave is: ‘So that Isaac would be born of a holy and pure drop, Abraham’s circumcision was one year before Isaac’s birth, to teach that Isaac was born from a holy drop but not Ishmael.’ The medieval Jews considered themselves special since as descendants of Isaac, they renewed the ancient ceremony with every newborn, and like Abraham they cut the covenant with God. The mohalim describe the ceremony as follows: On the day before the circumcision the father and the members of his household immerse themselves [. . .] in honour of the mitzvah (performance of a commandment), and the community wash with them in honour of the circumcision. On the morrow, the day of the circumcision, they and their wives dress in nice clothes, as they have been privileged to bring the boy into the covenant of Abraham. The mohel himself must also wear fine clothes in honour of the mitzvah, and in some places the community also dressed up to honour the mitzvah and rightly so. Even the baby would be dressed and washed, even on the Sabbath, and would be clad in fine clothes, a robe of cloth and a jacket and the hood of the cloak over his head as on his wedding day.

The stress on special washing and finery are a part of the ritual, but one must note how similar the dress of the eight-day-old baby is to that of the High Priest 11 Jacob and Gershom the Circumcisers, Sefer Zikhron Brit, ed. by Jacob Glassberg (Berlin, 1892), pp. vii–xi.

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in the Temple. This is a hint at the medieval notion that ties the circumcision to the Temple. The ‘Cutters’ express this explicitly: And when Isaac was eight days old he was presented for circumcision, as it says, ‘And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac at the age of eight days, as God had commanded him’. From this we learn that anyone who presents his son to be circumcised is just like one who sacrifices his offering and his libation upon the altar.12

The ceremony is performed in the synagogue, in which the congregation was assembled for the morning prayer or afterwards. The ceremony is a rite of passage. The mother takes the infant out of the home and brings him to the synagogue, where the father comes out of the assembly of men, takes him from her hands, and brings him into the synagogue, into the men’s section. The congregation stands, receives the infant with a blessing, and a dialogue ensues between the father and the congregation: And the wife of the circumciser13 carries him in splendour to the synagogue directly after the prayer, and the man goes out and accepts him from her hand, and brings him into the synagogue in splendour to be circumcised, and the congregation stand facing him and say ‘welcome’, and he who brings him in says ‘in the name of the Lord’.

Besides its being a re-enactment of the circumcision of Isaac, the medieval ritual also recollected another myth — the story of the Akedah. The father who brought his son to be circumcised is compared to Abraham bringing his son to the Akedah. The infant is compared to Isaac, not only because Isaac was the first to be circumcised, but because Isaac was sacrificed upon the altar. While there would not seem to be a connection between circumcision and the Akedah, the people of the Middle Ages continued the talmudic midrashim that connected the two events. The connection was made because of the time of day in which circumcisions were performed and because of the necessity of performing circumcisions in the presence of a minyan, a quorum of ten adult men: Our ancestors were accustomed to rise for early prayer on the eighth day of circumcision, and circumcise early, as the swift arise early to perform mitzvot. How do we know? From our father Abraham [. . .] as we found that Abraham was swift to do his work, as it says, ‘and Abraham arose in the morning and saddled his ass and bound Isaac his son’, and just as we saw that Abraham arose Jacob and Gershom, Sefer Zikhron Brit, ed. by Glassberg, pp. 80–88. Literally ‘circumcision-master’, refers not to the mohel but to the father, whose obligation it is to circumcise his son. 12 13

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in the morning to bind his son, so Abraham arose in the morning to circumcise Isaac his son. And since circumcision is called a ‘Sign’, ten men must be invited there, so that the circumcision and blessing can be in front of them, so that the trial of Abraham and the ‘Sign’ that Abraham was given be publicized, it must be done before ten men.14 In the Middle Ages, this connection was expressed by re-enacting the circumcision ceremony that was performed on Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. In his book Or Zaru’a, Rabbi Isaac of Vienna explained why a circumcision ceremony that is held on Rosh Hashanah should be conducted before the blowing of the shofar, the ram’s horn: In order that the mitzvah of circumcision be performed prior to the blowing of the shofar, so that the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He remembers the Covenant of Abraham and the Akedah of Isaac. Clear proof of this is that we say ‘remember the covenant of Abraham and the Akedah of Isaac for his descendants today, bless you Lord, who remembers the Covenant’, and then we recall the shofar and complete the prayer with ‘who hears the shofar’.15

The sentence that Rabbi Isaac of Vienna refers to is part of a liturgical poem, attributed to Rabbi Gershom ‘Light of the Diaspora’, which begins with the words: Remember the covenant of Abraham and the Akedah of Isaac And return the habitation of the tents of Jacob And save us for the sake of Your Name.16

Another testimony is the book by Rabbi Gershom ben Jacob the Cutter: Once there was a circumcision on the day of Rosh Hashanah, and when the hazzan [cantor or prayer leader] reached the words ‘to be your God, I am the Lord’ in the Musaf prayer, he began the first verse of ‘Remember the covenant’ before completing the blessing of remembrance, and then completed the blessing ‘who remembers all’ as far as ‘remembers the covenant’. The congregation all praised him for intending to raise our favourable memory by merit of the blood of this Jacob and Gershom, Sefer Zikhron Brit, ed. by Glassberg, pp. 57–58, Pesahim 4a; Yoma 28b (Leviticus 12, Genesis 22). 15 These quotations are taken from the prayer for Rosh Hashanah: Isaac b. Moses, Sefer Or Zaru’a, II, 96. 1 16 This sentence from the poem attributed to Rabbi Gershom ‘Light of the Diaspora’ was used in many prayers as a guiding verse, which is followed by various poems. Leket Piyyute Selichoth. (Preces Poenitententiales quae Selichoth vocantur a poetis Germanicis et Francogallicis conscripatae) [Hebrew], ed. by A. Fraenkel, 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1993), I, 102, 206, 234, 325, 428; II, 520, 544, 580, 598. 14

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circumcision together with that of the blood of our ancestors’ covenant and the merit of Isaac’s Akedah, on this, the Day of Judgement.17

Beyond the hazzan’s impressive ability to improvise his prayers in order to emphasize messages that would become traditions, the action described here is one that belongs to the historical memory of the group. The congregation was assembled ‘to stand judgement’ on Rosh Hashanah, the day on which a shofar made of a ram’s horn is blown in memory of Abraham’s successfully withstanding the test of the Akedah. Since a circumcision was being held in the synagogue on this day (as a circumcision is never postponed from the eighth day after birth, unless it would endanger the infant), the ritual of circumcision was linked to the symbolic act of the Akedah (blowing the shofar), and trouble was taken to strengthen the connection with a contemporary poem. The piyyut expresses the connection of the myths, and from this point on, circumcision and the Akedah will be connected in the congregation’s minds. The circumcision ceremony had other symbols and myths to attached it, each sending its message to the community participating in the ceremony. The blessing recited by the mohel in the father’s stead is: Blessed are You, Lord our God King of the universe, who has sanctified his beloved one from the womb, impressing his statutes in his flesh and marking his descendants with the mark of the holy covenant. For this, in reward, the living God, our inheritance and stronghold, has commanded that we deliver our beloved from destruction, for the sake of the covenant that He put on our flesh. Blessed be You the Lord, who establishes the covenant.

The expression ‘who has sanctified his beloved from the womb’ usually refers to Jacob, as the pregnant Rebecca had been told: ‘There are two nations in your womb’ (Genesis 25. 23), and because, according to tradition, Jacob was born circumcised. In the Middle Ages this expression was shifted from Jacob to Isaac (and sometimes to Abraham). Rashi notes that when God spoke to Abraham about Isaac, He refers to him as the one ‘whom you love’, and so the title ‘beloved’ fits him. Other commentators remarked that it is said of Isaac, ‘And my covenant I shall establish with Isaac’ (Genesis 17. 21), and the Hebrew letters that spell the word ‘establish’ are also an acronym for the blessing ‘who has sanctified his beloved from the womb’.18 To the medieval mohalim, Isaac was the ‘beloved’:

17 18

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Jacob and Gershom, Sefer Zikhron Brit, ed. by Glassberg, p. 123. Rashi Shabbat 137b Asher; Tosafot Shabbat, Yadid; Menahot 53b Ben Yadid.

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‘Who has sanctified his beloved from the womb’. Our rabbi explained that the beloved from the womb is Isaac, as did Rabbeinu Tam in Sefer Hayashar, beloved from the womb is Isaac, as it says, ‘I loved Isaac from the womb’, since he was sanctified for this mitzvah from before birth, ‘and Sarah your wife will have a boy and you shall call his name Isaac’, ‘and my covenant I shall establish’ is the covenant of circumcision, ‘establish’ is the acronym of ‘who has sanctified his beloved from the womb’.19

Even the bandaging of the infant’s feet, which was done in the Middle Ages to ensure that he would not injure himself, was explained: ‘The baby’s feet are tied, hinting at the binding of our father Isaac’. The phrase ‘living God, our inheritance’ in the blessing stresses the reward that the Jews will receive, for circumcision saves the Jew from Hell and prepares him for Heaven. The words ‘living God’ are meant as a polemic against Christianity that is part of the blessing and the ritual. The Christians, who abolished circumcision, believe in a dead god, while the Jews, who continue the Divine covenant through circumcision, receive God’s protection and closeness. This theme is emphasized with every sentence of the blessing.20 Another important theme in the ritual is that of blood. The dialogue between the mohel (who represents the father) and the congregation concludes with the mohel’s saying: ‘Live in your blood, live in your blood’, and the congregation says: ‘Praise the Lord for He is good, for His mercy is forever’. The words ‘live in your blood’ refer to two bloods, on account of which God will have mercy on His people: the blood of circumcision and the blood of the Passover.21 However in the Middle Ages the combination of the two bloods was given a new meaning that was connected to the Jewish custom of that time, of hanging the cloths on which the mohel had wiped the blood from his hands by the door of the synagogue, across from the mezuzah: And they bring the cloth on which the mohel had wiped the blood from his hands and mouth. And why did they have this custom of spreading the cloth on the entrance to the synagogue? I heard from my uncle Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn, of blessed memory, that the sages said that the Children of Israel exited Egypt by merit of two bloods, the blood of the Passover and the blood of circumcision, and Israel took the blood from the threshold and put it on the doorposts of their homes as a sign so that the destroyer would not be allowed in to kill, and to

Jacob and Gershom, Sefer Zikhron Brit, ed. by Glassberg, p. 89; Urbach, Arugat haBosem, IV, 152–54; III, 204. 20 Jacob and Gershom, Sefer Zikhron Brit, ed. by Glassberg, p. 90. 21 Sefer KulBo (Jerusalem, 1997), 51; Tanumha Va-Year 4. 19

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proclaim the miracle. For this reason they put the cloth on the entrance to display it as a sign of the circumcision, to publicize the mitzvah, as it says, ‘and it is a sign between Me and you’.22

An additional symbol in the Middle Ages was the connection between circumcision, Isaac, and sacrifice at the Temple. Their common denominator is the eight days. A sacrifice must be at least eight days old for it to be fit for sacrifice, as is written in Leviticus, ‘from the eighth day onwards, it shall be accepted as an offering’ (22. 27), and neither may the newborn be circumcised before his eighth day. This created identification between the circumcised baby, the Patriarch Isaac, and the Temple sacrifice. Isaac, the first infant to be circumcised, is described as an offering sacrificed by his father. The synagogue is the Temple, the congregation is the people in the Temple courtyard, the father and the mohel are the priests, and the baby is the sacrifice, as it says, ‘as he sacrificed his blood during the morning sacrifice, for the sake of His great Name’. The clothes worn by the baby are a precise imitation of the vestments worn by the high priest on the Day of Atonement.23 In his words that close the ceremony, the mohel also compared the infant to a sacrifice: He blesses the baby by name, little Isaac will grow big, and as he has entered the covenant, so may he enter the learning of Torah, the wedding canopy, and good deeds, and as this is a time at which prayers are accepted, as he has sacrificed his blood at the hour of the morning sacrifice, for the sake of His great Name may he be blessed and healed, and all the people answer ‘amen’, and all answer amen.24

The circumcision ceremony not only converted the child from the status of uncircumcised and thus not yet Jewish to that of circumcised and Jewish, but also introduced him to the society of Jewish men who are obligated by the commandments, and to the synagogue. While he is not yet obligated to fulfil the commandments because he does not yet have the ability, he has received the potential ability to fulfil the commandments, and thus entered the world of Judaism. This was aided by the fact that the ceremony was performed in the synagogue, in front of the Holy Ark. The term ‘mark of the holy covenant’ that is used in the blessing hints most of all at the covenant that was made between God and His children at Mount Sinai, the place at which God passed the Torah and His commandments to His children.

Jacob and Gershom, Sefer Zikhron Brit, ed. by Glassberg, p. 61. Goldin, Uniqueness, pp. 44–49. 24 Jacob and Gershom, Sefer Zikhron Brit, ed. by Glassberg, p. 103.

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As far as the experience went, the father who performs a circumcision on his son is imitating not only the experience of Abraham’s circumcision of Isaac, but also the act of the Akedah. That is to say, the message that emanates from the identification with the nation’s ancestor is that complete and total adherence to God’s commandments is the basis of the Jewish experience. Moreover, the message of the ceremony is that circumcision is like an offering to God, and the infant, identified with the bound Isaac, is that offering. The image of Isaac is the most powerful in this mélange of rituals. He is the first child, born of a circumcised father, to be circumcised, he is the offering on the altar and he is the child who is willing to die as a sacrifice.

The Ceremony upon Beginning Education Just as the circumcision ceremony reflected the renewal of the covenant between God and every Jewish child that joined the group by re-enacting an ancient ceremony, so did the ceremony upon beginning education, the first day of school, re-enact the second covenant between the nation of Israel and God, the covenant at Mount Sinai and the receiving of the Torah. The ceremony was held on the child’s first day at school.25 Rabbi Eleazar of Worms described this ceremony as a re-enactment of the story of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The ceremony was held on Shavuot, the festival commemorating the giving of the Torah. On that morning the child was taken by a prominent person, who wrapped him in a talit (prayer shawl), to the synagogue or study hall, which fulfilled the role of Mount Sinai during the giving of the Torah. In the synagogue, the child was set on the teacher’s lap, they were brought a board on which verses and letters were written, the rabbi read them and the child repeated after him. Honey was poured on the board, which the child licked, as well as a honey cake and eggs with verses written on them. They read an incantation against the ‘Potah - prince of forgetfulness’, and finally they brought the child to the river and described ‘the Sea of Halakhah’ to him.26 The river, which symbolizes ‘the Sea of Halakhah’ is part of the polemic against Christianity. The Christians claimed that by immersion one became pure and Christian. A well-known Christian argument against the Jews, was that the people of Israel had been saved twice by water; once upon leaving Egypt 25 26

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Goldin, Uniqueness, pp. 49–51; Goldin, ‘Role of Ceremonies’; Marcus, Rituals. Marcus, Rituals, pp. 25–46, Mahzor Vitry, ed. by Horowitz pp. 628–30.

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and passing from servitude to freedom, and again when crossing the Jordan while entering the Land of Israel. The Christians equate these crossings with baptism. The leaders of these crossings/baptisms were Moses and Joshua (Jesus). The river motif in the Commencement of Education Ceremony provides the Jewish answer. Judaism defends itself from the water of baptism with the river that symbolizes ‘the Sea of Halakhah’, which makes it possible to defeat any Christian threat. This is important to us, because the Christians forcibly baptized Jews in the rivers.27 The central motif of this ceremony is that of the Mount Sinai event, commemorated on the festival of the giving of the Torah. The Jews of Germany remembered the tragedy of the First Crusade, and the communities of Mainz and Worms memorialized their tragedies just in the days right before and after the holiday. The main Christian argument in the First Crusade was that God had abandoned Israel when Jesus appeared and spread his gospel. The Jewish people had not then joined the true faith that complemented that of Moses, were punished. During the First Crusade, the Christians invited the Jews to save themselves by converting and repairing the malfeasance of their ancestors. The Jewish answer, death for kiddush Hashem, was restated annually in that ceremony held on that date. The ‘new’ child who enters the circle of learners is brought in by a prominent member of the community, who represents Moses, the man who gave the Torah to the people of Israel on Shavuot. He carried him in his arms, taught him his first words of Scripture, and led him to the Sea of Halakhah. The message reflected by these acts is that no man had replaced Moses and the truth of the Torah, and certainly not Jesus. While the connection between the child and the Torah is clear, the most prominent image of the child in this ritual is that which depicts him as a sacrifice. The sources repeat this over and over again. The child begins to learn to read from the difficult book of Leviticus. The reasons for this have been explained in Jewish history. The usual explanation is that given by Rabbi Asi: ‘Children are pure and offerings are pure, let the pure study the pure’. This explanation for beginning to learn from the difficult and problematic book of Leviticus is connected to the destruction of the Temple. After the Bar-Kokhba rebellion, when there was a fear that the Temple and its sacrifices would be forgotten by the people, it was decided to begin learning with the book of Leviticus. Rabbi Asi elaborated on this reason in a pleasing and convincing way, and the people of the Middle Ages added their own reasons: ‘I count you as if 27

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you had sacrificed an offering before me’, and in the Sefer Hasidim: ‘When he comes to learn at the age of five, they start him with the book of Leviticus, “should a man of you bring a sacrifice”, “of you” means my portion, Israel, and not that of the other nations’. This is another polemic element, which emphasizes that only a Jew, of the people of Israel, may sacrifice at the Temple. Preserving the ritual and persevering the study of the Torah ensure the continuity of the differences between Israel and the Gentiles and strengthen the group’s ability to endure. After the child learns to read, he completes this initiation ceremony by reading publicly before the congregation. The section that was chosen for his test was from Leviticus 3, which ends with the words: ‘It shall be a perpetual statute for all your generations in all your dwellings, that you shall eat neither fat nor blood’. The people of the time explained this in connection to the circumcision: ‘For children whose fat and blood were reduced for the words of Torah, I consider them to be sacrifices before me [. . .] for this reason, the day of circumcision, when his blood is spilt, should be a day of festivity’.28 Both rituals that I have analysed involve the transmission of messages. These rituals reminded the Jews of a series of promises about the Jewish religion and its place in the world. According to Geertz, religion is a system of symbols, whose practice imbues people with intense, deep, and long-lasting attitudes and motivations through the stating of conceptions about the world order and dressing it in such a realistic guise, that the attitudes and motivations seem to match reality itself.29 The combination of symbols that are seen in the medieval Jewish rituals verify this definition. The rituals that I have described enhanced the Jews’ feeling that their covenant with God had not ended, say their enemies what they will, and the proof of this is in the messages that the rituals transmit. The stronger the enemy became in the eyes of the Jews, the more effort was put into building the walls, be they walls of hope or of despair. The themes that are stressed in the rituals that I have described are also manifest in the descriptions of death for Kiddush Hashem. The religious time is the festival of the giving of the Torah, the central heroes are Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. The main points are the Temple, the bringing of sacrifices to Jerusalem, the uniqueness of the Jewish people, and suchlike. The rituals reenact these myths to assure the cohesion and uniqueness of the group, but they also carry the message of adherence to these values to the death. Both the 28 29

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Mahzor Vitry, ed. by Horowitz, pp. 628–30. C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York, 1973), pp. 87–125.

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circumcised infant and the child who learns the secret of reading are equated again and again with a sacrifice, just like those who had died for Kiddush Hashem in the prose and poetry of the twelfth century. The synagogue had a central role in the process of the group’s identifying with the specifically Jewish symbols.30 And in fact, it was the synagogues and the Torah Scrolls that the Christians first attacked, as specifically Jewish symbols, to be desecrated and destroyed. In the rituals, the Torah Scrolls became the essence of Judaism, to be protected at all costs; the synagogue became Mount Sinai, on which the Torah was given. These messages are encompassed in the idea of death for Kiddush Hashem. One of the central sections of the Sabbath service is that of reading the Torah, which begins by the Hazzan’s removing the Torah Scroll from the ark, circulating it among the people, and then remaining with it on the bemah, or Cathedra. The children came up and kissed the scroll, ‘a nice custom to teach the children and hasten them to mitzvot’.31 The sources that describe death for Kiddush Hashem tell of Jewish women who see the Christians inflicting damage on the Torah Scrolls: And they called their husbands in a loud voice: look, look at the Holy Torah, the beautiful, the apple of our eye, that we would bow to in the synagogue, that our little sons would kiss and that we would honour, how it has now fallen into the hands of these foul uncircumcised.32

The act ends with death for Kiddush Hashem, the mothers killing their children and then themselves. The status of these rituals in the process of socialization can explain the people’s willingness to act in accordance with the messages they promulgate.

Goldin, Uniqueness. Isaac b. Moses, Sefer Or Zaru’a, II, no. 42 p. 19; Goldin, Uniqueness, pp. 105, 203. 32 Habermann, p. 35. 30 31

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uring the twelfth century, the Christians in the Holy Land suffered two defeats at the hands of the Muslims. Each defeat influenced Europe, and give rise to a new eastward crusade. From the Jews’ point of view, each Muslim victory was a theological assurance, hinting that the Christians’ pride at God having taken their side was a fantasy. The Christians’ victories in the Holy Land were temporary, and so was their theological theory concerning their being God’s chosen people. However, each time the Jews heard the bells calling for a new crusade, they could expect a new disaster. The Christian armies declared in the name of their vengeful God, that the Jews must recognize him as a symbol of victory at home, before they could set out abroad. However, their education for death for kiddush Hashem had prepared the entire community for its struggle against this development, and had given them the means to resist conversion even when not forced. The twelfth century, with atmosphere of armed martyrdom, caused the Jews to internalize this norm.

The Crusades of the Twelfth Century The fervour of a crusade to the Holy Land rose once again in Europe in 1145, when a delegation of crusaders arrived at the court of Pope Eugenius III (1145– 53). This delegation described the fall of the Christian principality of Edessa to the Seljuk Amad ed-Din Zangi during the previous year, and begged for assistance from Europe. As in the First Crusade, the first step was taken by the Pope. In December of that year, the Pope issued an important bull about the undertaking of a crusade. In this bull Eugenius, like his predecessor, promised a freeze on debt and cancellation of interest for those who participated in the crusade. But Eugenius went further by declaring the crusade itself to be a penitential sacrament. This innovation freed the participant from guilt for his

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sins and nullified his punishment in this world and in the next.1 Surprisingly, two central European figures rallied to the crusader flag. The first was King Louis VII of France. He hoped that by doing so he would atone for his war on the Count of Champagne and for his burning of the church at Vitri with all its occupants. From a political point of view he correctly identified the connection between the consolidation of his kingdom and his appearance as a proper Christian king, who creates a precedent of a monarch taking the lead of a crusade. The second was the central religious figure of his time, a monk who was known as a ‘prophet’ or even an ‘apostle’, the head of the Cistercian Order, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–53).2 Bernard developed his own view of the crusader idea, at the centre of which was a religious zeal that could include selfsacrifice. Up until March of 1146, Bernard was concerned with the monks in Europe and their spiritual sensibilities. He wished to direct religious fervour to the monasteries, which he saw as the true Holy Land and Jerusalem. Even when he altered his ways and joined in the composition of the charter for the Templar order, it was in order to emphasize what he saw as the main issue: the willingness of these warrior-monks to die in the name of Jesus. 3 Now, with the coming of bad news, he turned the full strength of his preaching towards the Holy Land. The monk in him found a rare opportunity to give every ordinary Christian the chance to approach the true religious zeal, usually available only to monks living in monasteries.4 For him, the crusade was an act of pilgrimage that every Christian must undertake. It is the journey that is important, as well as the willingness to fight the infidels. The Pope was happy at his success at drafting the French king (who agreed against the advice of his counsellors) for the crusade, and hoped that this one would be orderly and controlled. Bernard managed to convince the German emperor, who was busy both at home and in Italy, to join the crusade, and brought in the masses. In 1146, Bernard passed through northern France,

1

Prawer, pp. 343–76; Baron, IV, 116–23. G. R. Evans, The Mind of Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford, 1983); J. Cohen, ‘“Witnesses of Our Redemption”: The Jews in the Crusading Theology of Bernard of Clairvaux’, in Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman, ed. by B. Albert and others (Ramat-Gan, 1995), pp. 67–81; J. Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley, 1999), pp. 219–45. 3 Prawer, pp. 347–66; Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘De laude novae militiae’, in Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. by J. Leclercq and others, 8 vols (Rome, 1957–77), III, 214–15. 4 Prawer, pp. 350. 2

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Lotharingia and Flanders, crossed the Rhine and preached in Germany, and managed to get many to rally to his flag. The promotion of the Second Crusade in France and Germany was accompanied by harsh complaints against the Jews. Peter, the Abbot of Cluny and one of the leading figures of the times, who was called ‘the Venerable’ and even considered a saint, suggested that King Louis VII fund the crusade from Jewish property. According to his detailed letter, this property had been gained treacherously or illegally. For this reason, it should be confiscated for use in the noble cause. This proposal was important, even if it was not implemented in full, because embarking on a crusade did demand a considerable fiscal effort from all who participated. This was a lesson from earlier campaigns. Moreover, the Pope’s willingness to grant a moratorium on debts or cancel them completely created a connection between the crusade and the economic interests of those who were dependent on Jewish money.5 In Germany, a lone Cistercian monk named Rudolph called for the forced conversion of the Jews, and the expulsion or killing of those who refused. Bernard de Clairvaux attempted to stop these processes; in a letter he sent to the rulers of German towns he stated that the divine plan that was unfolding in the events of the time forbade harming the Jews. He quoted the old Augustinian claim, based on Psalm 59, that the Jews are testimony of the truth of Christianity. Their dispersion throughout the world and their sad state as ‘captives of Christian princes’ are the proof of the truth of Christianity. The divine plan calls for their wilful acceptance of Christianity, and so they must not be harmed.6 Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn, who described the events of the second half of the twelfth century, praised Bernard for his stance. He writes in wonderment: And the Lord heard our groans, and turned toward us and had great mercy and kindness upon us, and sent, after that Belial (Rudolph), another, honest, priest, greater than all the priests [. . .] and all the people hold this priest to be one of their saints, and we did not find him taking bribes for speaking favourably about Israel.7

Following the medieval Jewish historian, modern historians were also impressed with Bernard’s behaviour towards the Jews. Most found in Bernard’s behaviour confirmation of the theory of the Jews’ being protected under Goldin, ‘Socialization’. Goldin, Uniqueness and Togetherness, p. 34; G. I. Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, 1990), pp. 197–208; Simonsohn, Apostolic See, pp. 15–17; Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 187–89; Cohen, Letters, pp. 245–70. 6 Cohen, ‘Witnesses of our redemption’, pp. 69–81. 7 Habermann, p. 116; Ephraim of Bonn, Sefer Zekhirah, ed. by Habermann, p. 18. 5

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Augustine’s dictum.8 It is very tempting to see the medieval Christians’ behaviour toward the Jews as being based on a theological theory about the Jews, or on the lack of such a theory. In practice, the case before us shows that the Christian public’s attitude towards the Jews was not guided by theological positions but by its education and mentality. The monk Rudolph was stopped more by the Emperor Conrad III than by Bernard. In the Emperor’s absence, the Christians did not remember Bernard’s citations of Augustine’s words.9 Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn does, however, recognize Bernard’s influence. As soon as they heard his words, he tells us,’Many desisted from attacking and killing us’. But Rabbi Ephraim, who wrote his book years later, was only thirteen years old at the time of the actual events. His childhood memories of this period were less of the monk who came to help, than his family’s flight from Köln to the castle by the town of Wolkenburg. This was a formidable fortress, which the Jews’ bribery money allowed them to escape into and where they could enclose themselves and survive. Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov’s acute assessment of the events of 1146 was that the Jews could survive as long as they could bribe the rulers and receive their protection. In his opinion, the attack on the Jews happened because ‘in those days Israel had no king and judge, King Conrad himself being hated and leaving for Jerusalem’. Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn did indeed describe the Jews’ difficult situation during those two years, but stressed in his book that the sovereign usually tried to protect the Jews and preserve order, and could be counted on. The German chronicler Otto Frisingensis, who describes the crusade, tells of the monk Rudolph and says that his call to the crusade included a call to kill the Jews, because they were the enemies of Christianity. According to him, Rudolph preached in France and in Germany and many responded by attacking Jews. Otto also told of the Emperor’s protection of the Jews until his departure on the crusade.10 The funds that the Jews offered, be they bribes or grants, played their part. While they were enclosed in Wolkenburg castle, two brothers, Abraham and Samuel, were murdered. The community bribed the bishop and the murderer was caught, his eyes cut out, and a few days later he was executed; Rabbi Yaakov Simonsohn, Apostolic See, pp. 3–37; Cohen, ‘Destruction’; Cohen, Letters, pp. 219–45. D. Nirenberg, Communities of Violence (New Jersey, 1996), esp. p. 229 10 Otto was the half-brother of Emperor Conrad III and accompanied him on the crusade. His comments here (and later) show that it was the Emperor’s interests that led him to protect the Jews, and not some papal theory. 8

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Tam was saved from Christians who wished to injure him by a ‘great lord’; the Jews of England were protected by King Stephen. When Rabbi Ephraim tells of monks or priests like Bernard helping the Jews, he does not hide his amazement at the strangeness of the act. He mentions Jews who were forced to convert and saved by a priest, who took them to another part of France where they could return to Judaism without hindrance. Rabbi Ephraim does not know the name of the priest or the place to which he took them, and relates that ‘he would not take silver of gold for this deed’.11 In his ‘Book of Remembrance’, Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn describes the events of the Second Crusade.12 He is very much aware that he is continuing the tradition of writing and commemoration of the Jews of past generations. This is apparent in his style and in the messages that are stressed in his narratives. Both the content and form of his writing are clearly influenced by his relative, Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan (Ra’aban). He too places more emphasis on the motif of death for kiddush Hashem than on anything else. He also tells the stories of individual towns, divided by short poems relating to local experiences. He tells of the attacks on the Jews in Germany in the towns of Köln, Mainz, Bacharach, Aschaffenburg, and Würzburg (accompanied by a blood libel); and in northern France: Ham, the districts of Sully and Eure, Carentan in Normandy, and in Rameru. Most of Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn’s efforts were put into the strengthening of Jewish memory. As a diligent composer of liturgical poems, he knew that at the time, during the latter half of the twelfth century, events and their messages were commemorated in prayer by these poems, and so he composed many such poems, that eventually made their way into the prayer book. However, as a ‘historian’, he also felt a need to immortalize the events in prose. He seems to have used material from memorial days for the First Crusade that we are aware of from our sources to create readings for later memorial ceremonies. In the opening passage of his book, he explains why: I shall write a book of memories, Telling of the events Evil and troubled that occurred To the remnant that remained

11 Habermann, pp. 115–23. it was one of the ancestors of André Trocmé who saved the Jews and took them to Chambon-sur-Lignon in the Sur region 12 Chazan, ‘Timebound’; R. Chazan, ‘Ephraim ben Jacob’s Compilation of TwelfthCentury Persecutions’, JQR, 84 (1994), 397–416.

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From the first bitter occurrence. Bless God, we shall say For He has preserved us as a reminder In His mercy he shall avenge us quickly On those who spilled our blood in misery And will build the Chosen House in Zion town.

Jewish survival, victory and revenge depended on remembrance. The memory of ‘the first bitter occurrence’, the attacks of the Jews during the First Crusade, was preserved by ‘the remnant that remained’, that made sure to keep in mind that ‘Bless God, we shall say’. The act of commemoration will bring about God’s vengeance and salvation. The connection between the events of the First and Second Crusades also clarifies the common message: the need to keep the faith at any price — ‘death for sanctification of God’s Name’. Even if the First Crusade’s picture of forced conversion no longer fits, Rabbi Ephraim focused his stories again and again on confrontations between crusaders and Jews and on the religious violence wreaked on them. That is to say, he stressed the centrality of Jewish death as martyrs, as a reaction to Christian attempts to convert them by force. Rabbi Simon the Pious from Köln, the lady Mina from Speyer, lady Gotthalla of Aschaffenburg, the sister of Rabbi Simon bar Yitzhak from Würzburg, Rabbi Yaakov ben Meir ‘Tam’ in Rameru — all were ordered to convert to Christianity or die. All refused. They did not kill themselves, but the way in which they were killed says it all. The Christians beheaded Rabbi Simon the Pious, chopped off lady Mina’s ear and fingers, tortured and wounded the sister of Rabbi Simon bar Yitzhak, and inflicted five wounds on Rabbi Yaakov Tam, like those inflicted on Jesus. There can be no doubt that such actions on the Christians’ part show just how intense was the religious struggle between them and the Jews. In reaction to this religious intensity, Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov stressed their willingness to die for sanctification of God’s Name by using the same First Crusade motifs that I have expanded on in previous chapters: the Akeda of Isaac, Rabbi Akiba, the theme of sacrifice, and the midrashim about the reception of martyrs into Heaven. There is no doubt that he had either these or similar sources before him.13 Only a few liturgical poems have survived from the time of the Second Crusade, two of which are unique and add to the extant poetic collection. The 13 Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn mentions the midrashim Lekah Tov and Sekhel Tov which he had before him. See Stemberger, pp. 356–57.

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poet Rabbi Isaac bar Shalom composed a zulat called ‘There is none like You among the mute’.14 The poem deals with a confrontation during the Second Crusade and it is unique in reproducing a debate between Christians who wished to convert Jews and Jews who wished to retain their faith at all cost. The debate is a full dialogue between Christians and Jews, in which the poet answers every Christian question with an intimate Jewish answer, touching upon the most delicate and painful points. The basic view of Christians in the poem is that they were pagans, idol worshippers who enslaved the people of Israel. The Christians ask the Jews, ‘where is your King?’, demanding that they recognize the fact that God had forsaken them and advising them to come over to Christianity: Take you advice Lest you be infamous, Both in dispute and in strife For if you be like us Turn to the hated son And we be one nation.

The Christian claims are well known to the Jews. In their answer in the poem they also reply to Bernard, who said that the Jews must not be harmed not only because they serve as testimony of the Christian truth, but also because it was prophesied that in the future, they would convert ‘in the evening they shall return’ (Psalms 59. 15). The Jewish reply was very clear: We shall not return and not worship him We shall detest and desist from him Our Saviour is the Living One Him we shall worship and adore He is our salvation in times of trouble.

Like their ancestors in 1096, these Jews answer with the slogan of martyrdom, ‘Hear O Israel’ and kill their children, their wives, and their children. The language stresses the motif sacrifices and of the Akeda: Prepare to slaughter the children Bless the offering ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, The Lord is one’ and worship Him only Die for the sanctity of His Name 14 Habermann, pp. 114–15. Sefer ha-Dmaout, ed. by S. Barenfeld, 3 vols (Berlin, 1924), I, 217–21.

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Our wives and children fall by the sword Do not be silent! Kohanim (Priests) offered as their sacrifice Children and their mothers bound to the altar And their skin burned with fire. To toss the blood of sisters and brothers And to burn the sweet-smelling animals Their head and best cuts.

This poem makes two main theological points. It begins with the sentence ‘There is none like You among the mute’, and the refrain, that is repeated like a chorus is: ‘Do not be silent’. These two sentences underscore God’s silence relative to what was being done to His people: There is none like You among the mute Immobile and silent to the troublemakers Our many enemies arise.

The religious time that the poet referred to was the twentieth day of Nisan, the first month in the Torah, the traditional date of the parting of the Red Sea. The new mythic character here is: the end of the saintly Nahshon the enemy has touched him on the twentieth of the first month.

The reference is to Nahshon son Amminadab, who risked his life and leaped first into the sea before it parted. Here, in the first stanza of the poem, his act is called kiddush, sanctification. After crossing the sea, the Israelites sang ‘the Song of the Sea’, including ‘Who is like You among the mighty, O Lord?’ (Exodus 15. 11). Now in the Middle Ages, the poet changed this phrase to ‘There is none like You among the mute’, based on a quotation by Rabbi Ishamel in the midrash. The midrash in tractate Gittin (56b), describes Titus, after the destruction of the Second Temple, leading a whore into the Holy of Holies, defiling a Torah scroll with her, and stabbing the bleeding curtain there with his sword. In view of such behaviour by a human and the lack of divine response, Rabbi Ishmael said painfully, ‘Who is like You among the mighty, O Lord — who is like you among the mute’. The medieval poet repeats these words in pain and defiance. The theme in the refrain ‘Do not be silent’ is taken from the Psalm: ‘Keep not thy silence O God; hold not thy peace and be not still, O God’ (83. 2 [NRSV 1]). Rashi had already explained this verse in connection with Christian attacks on

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the Jews in the late eleventh century: ‘Keep not thy silence — don’t reply with quietude to the evil that our enemies wreak on us’. During the Middle Ages it was customary to recite Psalm 83 and this poem during the Passover holiday. ‘On the first day of Passover, “Praise the Name of the Lord”, and some say, “Keep not thy silence, O God”, and so during the Intermediate Days’.15 This poem’s message is similar to that of the midrashim that are based on this Psalm: the righteous can influence and even guide the actions of God.16 Thus, the liturgical poems continued to be a major medium for commemoration and the passing on of messages after the Second Crusade. A similar system of commemoration is seen in another poem for Passover from this period, ‘For which we give thanks’: They suddenly fell upon the holy communities On the fifth of the Omer, the twentieth of the month In 1147 especially the killed and burned and pulverized Until the twenty-first of the month

Arise and go, they say, stricken for life.17

Another poet who dealt with what happened to the Jews during the Second Crusade, Rabbi Joel ben Isaac Halevy, who died around 1200, and left us a lament and six penitential prayers.18 Rabbi Joel mentioned the Second Crusade in his poems. In ‘God will show him’ he stressed the Jews’ struggle against Christianity and its theological temptations, and especially their wish to die for the sanctification of God’s Name: A new god they rebuffed because his worship is in vain And adhered to their Creator and spit at theirs And each one completed his spirit and body And is no more, for God has taken him.19

The poem ‘The angels of peace will weep bitter’ describes events at Köln and apparently at Würzburg as well. Besides the attacks on the Jews, there was a

Mahazor Vitry, ed. by Horowitz, no. 527. Midrash on Psalms, ed. by Buber, 83. 1. 17 Jerusalem, Schocken Institute, MS 24100 Mahazor Nurnberg, Shoken 128b. 18 A. Aptowitzer, Introduction to Sefer Ra’aviah (Jerusalem, 1938), pp. 37–38; Urbach, Tosaphists, pp. 209–10) I. Davidson, Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry, 4 vols (New York, 1924; repr. 1970), I, 953. 2, p. 46; II, 152. 3, p. 356; I, 4738. 4, p. 217; I, 3284. 5, p. 154; I, 3393. 6, p. 152; I, 5992, p. 273. 19 Davidson, I, 4738, p. 217. 15 16

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blood libel as well.20 City records show that the crusades forced the Jews to be baptized and killed those who refused. The Christian writer is angry that the Jews who were converted by force only pretended to convert and returned to Judaism after their baptism. Conversely, the Jewish poet depicts the terrible killing, the rape of women, the murder of children, and the brutal torture of being ‘bound to the wheel while the soul was yet alive’. Once again the writer’s conclusion and message of the poem are: ‘And with all this, we did not deny You in our bitterness and distress’. The Third Crusade, forty years later, began in similar fashion. From 4 July until 2 October 1187, Saladin had basically destroyed the Christian presence in the Holy Land. At the Horns of Hattin the crusaders lost their most sacred relic, the ‘Holy Cross’, as well as the bishops of Acre and Lydda who were responsible for it. The 15,000-strong Christian army lost much more — it was wiped out. Most of the knights, especially from the Templar and Hospitaller units, were killed. Before the Christians could recover and adopt a defence based on their fortresses, the Muslim army had spread throughout the land, promising to preserve the lives and property of those who would abandon those fortresses. Within four months, Tiberias and its forts and Acre had fallen. The Muslims, ignoring the Christian miracle literature, captured Nazareth and slaughtered the Christians that had taken refuge in the Church of the Annunciation. From the Nazareth hills they descended into the Jezreel Valley and took over the area as far as Nablus. Another column marched through the Jordan Valley, taking Beisan and Jericho, and ascended to Jerusalem. Saladin wisely chose to capture the northern coastal plain, bypassed the well-fortified Tyre, and conquered Sidon and Beyrut. Another Muslim column simultaneously went south to Askelon and to Gaza. All the columns then went up to Jerusalem, which surrendered on 2 October, and on Friday, 9 October, Saladin worshipped at what had been the Templum Domini, now once again the El-Aqsa Mosque.21 The reaction in the Christian world was instantaneous. The first papal letters were sent out in late October, together with special legates for new papal crusader promotion. Just as the First and Second Crusades reflected the challenges of their times, and those who answered the call were the products of their times, so it was with the Third Crusade. The political powers that had coalesced in Europe now rose to the challenge. Friedrich I Barbarossa, Henry II 20 21

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of England, his rebellious son and heir, Richard the Lionheart, Philippe II Auguste of France — all advertised that it was their intention to set forth and re-conquer the Holy Land. During the recruitment for the Third Crusade, the attacks on the Jews lessened, even when compared to the Second. We do not hear of attacks on the Jews of France at all, obviously due to the orderly rule of Philippe II and his counts. In Germany, Friedrich I managed to stop any violent anti-Jewish behaviour either before it began or shortly after. The only place in which Jews suffered much was England. There, too, the Jews were under the king’s protection, but as usual, Richard the Lionheart was missing when most needed. We hear about Germany at the end of the twelfth century from Rabbi Eleazar of Worms. The experienced Jews had learned to flee the towns in times of trouble and take refuge in the fortresses. They depended on the emperor and his local representatives to aid and protect them, not to abandon them to their own defences within the fortresses: thus did the Jews of Mainz, Speyer, Strasburg, Worms, Würzburg, and others. Rabbi Eleazar himself had fled with the Jews of Mainz to the castle of Munzenburg and stayed there from about March until April 26, 1188. Not all the Jews fled. Some of the Jews of Mainz, including Rabbi Eleazar’s brother-in-law Rabbi Moshe bar Rabbi Eleazar Hakohen the Hazzan, stayed in the town and told the Jews in the castle about the great convention that was held in Mainz, in advance of Friedrich’s departure on the crusade. This event, known as the Curia Christi, that began on 27 March, was intended to bring about reconciliation between the German church and the Emperor, who was at odds with the Pope about the crusade. At this meeting Friedrich II accepted the Cross and declared that his journey would begin within the year. Rabbi Moshe reported to Rabbi Eleazar that at this convention and through the auspices of the benefactor Rabbi Moshe Hakohen, the Jews received an official promise from the Emperor and the heads of the Church, that the Jews would not be harmed in any way. Rabbi Moshe reports: ‘All who touch a Jew and injure him, his hand shall be chopped off, and all who kill will be killed. And the bishops excommunicated all who attacked Jews, and no creed would avail’. This formula of a promise by the Emperor and the heads of the Church is similar to injunctions and laws that were issued by heads of state on their way to the Holy Land; it refers to keeping of public order, and threatens to annul the indulgences (writs of pardon) that the Church had issued in advance to the crusaders. The letter arrived at the castle on 1 April, but the Jews left the castle only after Passover, on 26 April, apparently because they wished to remain there

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until after Easter, a holiday often accompanied by trouble. Even then, Rabbi Eleazar describes the many crusaders who were all over the town: ‘they came upon us in their hundreds, with their abominations and their flags and banged on the wagons’. But they obeyed the command of the Emperor and his representatives and did not harm the Jews; ‘and the officers imagined to themselves, saying: How much the King likes the Jews’. The reports reflect the Jews’ strange feeling of security. On one hand, the written sources enumerate a litany of attacks and even near-disasters and use language that signifies heavy disasters. On the other hand, they emphasize that the government protects and aids them. There is less of a need for martyrdom, except when renewed by occasional Christian acts. On one Friday (apparently 17 March), a group of Christians fell upon a Jewish lad who was on his way to purchase loaves for the Sabbath, and threatened to stab him with a knife unless he converted. He refused, was wounded, and fled. Of all places, he chose to run into the church, and ‘the priests did not allow them to harm him’. When he fled from the church, he was rescued by a knight.22 Despite the Jews’ understanding that the rulers and their armies were set to protect them,23 the theological threat dictated the implementation of the norm of dying for sanctification of God’s Name. The reasons for this behaviour had not disappeared. The theological challenge was there, the Holy Land was held by the Christians, and their armies were fighting for it and were willing to die in that war. Christianity and the Christians still wished to convert the Jews any way possible. From a theological point of view, the Christian defeats of 1146 and 1187 proved to the Jews that they had been correct in their theological assumption that the Christians’ victories in the Holy Land were temporary. The Jews had retained their place in the divine plan, as the chosen and preferred people. The Christian successes in conquering the Holy Land had almost disappeared, and the theological sigh of relief can be heard in the writings of the two writers with whom we have already dealt: Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn, who wrote about the Second Crusade at the end of the first part of his book and about the

22

Habermann, pp. 163–64; R. Chazan, ‘Emperor Frederick I, the Third Crusade, and the Jews’, Viator, 8 (1977), 83–93; Prawer, pp. 188–214. 23 Rabbi Ephraim ben Yaakov of Bonn clearly states that Jewish money bought protection from the rulers: the emperor, the king, or the bishop in his ‘secular’ guise. This is stressed in all his descriptions of France, Germany, and England.

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Third Crusade at the end of the second part, and Rabbi Eleazar bar Rabbi Yehudah of Worms, author of the halakhic tract Sefer Harokah.24 Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn described the end of the Second Crusade in great joy. In the literary tradition of the Middle Ages, a cosmic event was divine proof, and for the crusades it was always a solar eclipse. 25 On the first of the month of Kislev, 26 October 1148, there was an eclipse of the sun for an hour in the middle of the day. The shape of a wagon wheel, coloured in red, green and black, was seen over the face of the sun. On that very day, the French army in the Holy Land, led by King Louis VII, began its retreat from the Seljuk archers, famine, and pestilence. A similar fate befell the two German camps. As reported by Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn: Most did not return home and were not seen by their home towns. Some died of hunger, some from pestilence, some by the sword, and some tired and died crossing the sea. And the hand of God was on each evil man who had laid a hand on a Jew. And a tiny part of the murderers, one in one hundred, ever returned to his land.26

In similar manner, Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn told in 1192 of the capture of Jerusalem from the Christians, of the failure of the Third Crusade, and of the Muslim victories of the following five years: Blessed be the Eternal, Blessed be He, Blessed be He who performs miracles for His people. Bless Him, that each and every day our enemies stand over us to destroy us and He saves us from them. See what the non-believers intended to do to Israel in this land, when a fight broke out among the people of Edom [a euphemism for Christians] who are in Jerusalem, and jealousy and hatred increased among them until they gave the Land to the ‘ruler of justice’ [a play in Hebrew on the name Selah-ed-Din, Saladin] and King of Ishmael [a euphemism for Muslims]. And he took Jerusalem and the whole Land, a three-day’s journey all the way to Acre. And he took the place upon which Jesus worshipped and burned it and took the gold that was there. And when the rumour came to the land of Edom, the people of Jesus, they turned upon the people of God to ruin and destroy. And God had mercy on His people and made their captors have pity on them. And he put in the heart King Friedrich to take some of their money, but not much. And he commanded the priests and the monks not to speak badly of the Jews, and he protected them to his fullest ability with the aid of the Shield of Abraham their ancestor and protected them from their enemies and did not touch the Jews in a bad way. And still Jerusalem and all of that Land has been in the hand of the King of Ishmael for these five years. Blessed be He who takes mercy on His

Urbach, Tosaphists, pp. 388–411. Before the crusaders’ attack during the First Crusade as well: Habermann, p. 59. 26 Prawer, pp. 371–75.

24

25

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people. Thus may He have mercy on them and comfort them and avenge the righteous and return them to the Land of their fathers. Amen, speedily, Amen sela.27

Rabbi Eleazar of Worms provides us with the cosmic proof, once more a solar eclipse, of the Christians’ failure and downfall in the Holy Land. On the Jewish New Year in 1186, there occurred an amazing eclipse of the sun: The sun was as small as a half-moon and it was very dark, and then became red, and the entire earth looked green, and after a third of the day the sun was full. And after the holiday and before Hanukkah we heard that the Ishmaelites had left their place and conquered Acre and killed all the people there, and took all of the places around Jerusalem from Acre and Ekron to Jerusalem. And on the eve of the New Year, on the day that the sun was eclipsed, the Ishmaelites killed more than four thousand German warriors. And they took the abomination on which Jesus of Nazareth, may his bones be crushed, had been crucified, and took the abomination with them to the land of Ishmael. And they captured the pit after Hanukkah and killed all who were in Jerusalem. And they took out the grave of the cursed name of the hanged one and turned all of the dirt that was in the pit.

The triumphant report of the two Jews is not precise in every detail, but the knowledge that they did have proves that they wrote based on rumours that were told in their surroundings. Rabbis Ephraim and Eleazar tell of the Muslim conquests in the Holy Land, including that of Acre and Jerusalem; know the name of the Muslim leader ‘ruler of justice’; that the Muslims took the Christians’ holy relic; and that the Christian army lost thousands of men. Rabbi Eleazar, for the sake of the theological triumph, stresses the fact that Jerusalem had been conquered and that the Muslims had desecrated the tomb of Jesus. Even if these facts were not altogether accurate, there may have been rumours to that effect in Europe, and more importantly for the Jewish writer, God proved that He was not on the Christians’ side. The Jews’ reaction to the Christians’ attempts at forced conversion had proven itself. God had avenged and triumphed. This also justified those who had died for sanctification of God’s Name.28 The Jewish educational approach to suicide, that had grown out of the events of the First Crusade and had solidified before the Second Crusade in the mid-twelfth century, was expressed in two events, one in France in the early 70s of the twelfth century and the other in England during the recruitment for the Third Crusade, during the early 90s. 27 28

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France On 26 May 1171, in the town of Blois in northern France, some thirty Jews were executed by burning. The Jewish community was accused of crucifying and killing a Christian boy and drowning him in the river.29 The Jewish source reports, that a servant or arms bearer who watered his horse in the river saw Isaac bar Eleazar as he attempted to rid himself of the body of a Christian boy in the waters of the river Loire. He hastened to tell his master, who, due to his hatred and envy of the Jewess Pucellina, told the count. The entire Jewish community was accused of the act and was arrested by the Count of Blois, Thibault le Bon. The Jews, while offering a bribe, claimed that the whole accusation was a libel, that there was no body of a missing boy. The witness had seen Isaac bar Eleazar carrying untreated animal hides, one of which had fallen into the river and had frightened the Christian’s horse so that it refused to drink the river water. The Jews were confident in their assertions, in their offer of bribery, and in the relationship between the Count and the Jewess Pucellina.30 But Pucellina was not allowed to speak with the Count, and the writer hints that his wife, Jezebel, also made sure that they would not meet. The sum of money did not meet the demand, and the suggestion of an Augustinian monk to try the Christian by water only served to worsen Christian public opinion against the Jews. The trial by water proved that the Christian had spoken the truth, and despite their being no body or missing boy, the Jews were condemned to death by burning. The Jews were led into a wooden building, and the Christians put it to the torch. The Christians allowed any Jew who wished, to convert and be saved, but none of the Jews agreed, and they sang the prayer ‘It is our duty to praise the Master of all’ while burning. The burning proved that they were holy, since it killed them, but did not harm their bodies. The fire did not touch three Jews who had been tied to a pillar, the devout Rabbi Yehiel bar Rabbi David Hakohen, the pious Rabbi Yekutiel bar Rabbi Yehudah Hakohen, and Rabbi Yehudah bar Rabbi Aaron. They escaped from the fire and got out, but the Christians put them back inside. After they came out again, the Christians killed them and threw their bodies into the fire.31

29

Habermann, pp. 124–26, 142–46; Salfeld, pp. 16–17, 134–137; Speigel, ‘In Monte Dominus Videbitur’; Chazan, ‘Blois Incident’. 30 S. L. Einbinder, ‘Pucellina of Blois: Romantic Myths and Narrative Conventions’, Jewish History, 12 (1998), 29–46 (pp. 34–35, 39). 31 The number of dead is unknown (thirty? thirty-six?), see Habermann, p. 144; Chazan, ‘Blois Incident’; Salfeld, pp. 16–17.

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The reports of the affair are many and varied. Robert de Torigni, a Christian chronicler of the period (he died in 1186) told of the affair and reported on Jews killing Christian children. The Jewish leadership of northern France, headed by Rabbi Yaakov Tam, requested reports and explanations of the events, as well as reports of the failed attempts to save Jews and of the successes at freeing Jewish prisoners and children who had been baptized against their will. Four letters of report were sent by people who had investigated events at cities in the vicinity of Blois: Orléans, Paris, and Troyes. There is also a letter that describes the event for those who had not heard of it, two entries in memorial books, a chronicle written by Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn, and seven liturgical poems, six composed by German Jews and one by Rabbi Joseph bar Isaac of Orléans, the Bible commentator known as the Bekhor Shor.32 As we have said, the Jews’ reports were written at the instruction of Rabbi Yaakov Tam, and their purpose is clear. The Jewish leadership wished to know what was happening in order to take the necessary steps in order to protect the Jews. They were trying to understand if the Jews of northern France were now in a new situation. Many factors seemed very threatening: the blood libels, government support of the libels, the trial of Jews based on the testimony of one Christian who had undergone an ordeal of water, the killing of the accused and of course the Jews’ failure to use bribery to free the condemned. The Jews’ letters are testimony to a group of communities with a resourceful and confidant leadership that knew how to pull the political strings and to use its economic power effectively and vigorously. The report sent from Orléans was very detailed and precise. The writer based his account on the testimony of ‘our townspeople and acquaintances who were actually there’, and on the testimony of Baruch bar Rabbi David Hakohen, one of the two people who had offered the Count money in exchange for saving the Jews. Even after Baruch bar David had failed in his efforts, he remained in Blois and reported on the burning. Another report was that of the Paris leadership to Rabbi Yom-Tov, the representative of Rabbi Yaakov Tam. They described their political efforts to protect the Jews. A delegation of the heads of the Paris community approached King Louis VII upon his return from Flanders. King Louis VII (1137–80) was the father of Alix (whom the Jews called ‘Jezebel’), wife of Count Thibault of Blois, by his first wife, Eleanor of 32

Habermann 124–26, 133–46; Speigel, ‘In Monte Dominus Videbitur’; Chazan, ‘Blois Incident’; Jordan; E. Taitz, The Jews of Medieval France (Westport, 1994), pp. 142– 43; Einbinder, ‘Pucellina of Blois’.

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Aquitaine. As we know, Louis VII divorced two of his wives because they did not give him a male heir to continue his Capetian line. In 1171 he was married to his third wife Adela, sister of Count Thibault of Blois, who had given birth to Philip six years before this event. The Jews also turned to William, Bishop of Sens and another brother of Thibault, in hope that he would convince him. They also approached Thibault’s eldest brother, Henri I Le Libéral, count of Champagne (who was married to Marie, Alix’s sister).33 The Jews did not manage to prevent the trial and execution, but they did have other successes. They effected the release of the prisoners, were given back the children who had been converted by force and received permission to return them to Judaism, and even managed to obtain an official announcement from the King and the Bishop, stating that Jews did not murder children for ritual purposes. There were more and more blood libels against the Jews at that time and in that area. The King mentioned the two libels at Pontoise and Janville and proclaimed that he did not believe that the Jews had killed Richard, the child who became a saint.34 The purpose of the Jews’ political efforts was clear: an attempt to deal with the new phenomenon of Jews being accused of harming Christian children. They were surely also horrified that the regime tried the accused according to Christian standards, and that the sentence was executed literally, by burning at the stake! They believed that the protection of the King and the high Church officials, with a public declaration of their innocence, would prevent the spread of the phenomenon. However, the main effort, as expressed by the language of the reports, was against Christianity itself. The Jews tried as they might to save the prisoners and those converted by force, especially the children, and to return them to Judaism, and made a great effort to commemorate the way in which the Jews of Blois died. The available sources enable us to follow this effort in northern France and its offshoots in Germany. Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn describes the event in northern France through a letter he received from the community of Orléans. He also tells of the directive of Rabbi Yaakov ben Meir Tam, to make the date of the burning, 20 Sivan, into a day of fasting in the communities of France, England, and Germany. As he writes in the ‘Book of Remembrance’:

33 Speigel, ‘In Monte Dominus Videbitur’, esp. note 25; E. M. Hallam, Capetian France 987–1328 (London, 1980), pp. 45–47. 34 Robert of Torigni, Chronicon in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. by R. Howlett, 4 vols, Rolls Series, 82 (London, 1884–89), IV, 251.

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For it is fitting to make it a day of fasting for all of our people, and this fast will be greater than the fast of Gedaliah ben Ahikam, ‘for it is a day of atonement.’ This is what our Rabbi wrote, and the Jews accepted it. And the poem ‘We have sinned, our Stronghold’ is based on this, as it includes every evil occurrence, and above is written about the decree of Blois. And may the righteousness of all those who gave themselves for the uniqueness of God’s Name be counted in our favour, Selah.35

A day of fasting was a new way to commemorate the event and those who died for sanctification of God’s Name. As I have shown, Rabbi Ephraim stresses the Memorial Day and the ceremony, which is connected to prayers and liturgical poems composed for the occasion. Fasting, together with prayer, was usually used as a way of beseeching God to save His people from catastrophe. Rabbi Yaakov ben Meir Tam’s innovation is in returning the fast’s commemorative purpose, like the four fast days that commemorate the destruction of the Temple and especially the assassination of Gedaliah ben Ahikam. The letter of Obadiah bar Machir, which emphasizes awareness of commemoration, has a similar purpose even though it does not mention the demand for a day of fasting (it may have been written before the decision had been made). The letter was written with the explicit aim of telling the Jewish communities about the death of the Jews of Blois for sanctification of God’s Name. The letter mentions the way they died, the commemoration of their deeds, and the wish to take revenge on Count Thibault, whom it compares to Haman and Titus and wishes him a similar end. The letter does not mention the blood libel, but is rather entirely a song of praise of the way they died, whole and with no denial. It stresses its purpose: To tell in every place, in writing and by speaking, before any honest being, words of truth, engraved on the walls of the hearts to the last generation in all towns of Israel to keep the day of their final action [. . .] for this the mighty heroes will learn these things between them, each in his language, in every town and country, and their memory will not fade from their descendants.36

In these letters, in the prose of Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn, and in poetry, we find the themes familiar to us from the First Crusade. The Christians allowed any Jew who was willing to convert, to be exonerated in trial, and to retain his life. This Christian behaviour is described in the sources about

Habermann, pp. 125–26; Ephraim of Bonn, Sefer Zekhirah, ed. by Habermann, pp. 32–33. 36 Spiegel, ‘In Monte Dominus Videbitur’, pp. 285–87. 35

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the First Crusade, and here, too, it was an inseparable part of the phenomenon of sanctification of God’s Name. So also the Jews’ answer: ‘No, for we adhere to our God, the God of Israel, who we shall fear with all our heart and with all our soul’. Like then, here too the Jews show that they wish to adhere to God to the death, at any time that the true God is opposed by a false idolatry, that is to say, Christianity. But there are a few new themes or emphases here. The main characters in the Jewish source are priests (kohanim), and the subject of the priesthood is emphasized. The writer chose to hint at a famous midrash about the sons of Aaron who died during the dedication of the sanctuary. The letter from the Orléans community begins with the words: ‘And the Name [of God] will be sanctified by those close to Him’. These words are meant to call the reader’s attention to the midrashim that investigate the story of Aaron’s sons being burned to death during the dedication of the sanctuary in the wilderness. The midrash point out, that directly after the death of the sons of Aaron, Moses (their uncle) comforts their father (who is also his brother) with a very strange sentence, while the father’s silence is equally strange. ‘And Moses said unto Aaron, this is the word which the Lord has said, I will be sanctified by those close to me, and I will be honoured over the entire people, and Aaron was silent’ (Leviticus 10. 3). Tractate Zevahim in the Talmud comments on this simply: ‘Aaron my brother, your sons died in order to sanctify the Name of God’ (115b), but the Midrash Safra expands upon this. Moses had already understood at Sinai that someone would pay for the sanctification of God’s Name with his life, as it said, ‘And I will be seen there by the Children of Israel and my Name will be Sanctified’ (Exodus 29. 43). Moreover, in the midrash Moses says: At Sinai I was told that I would sanctify this House with a great man, I was sure that the House would be sanctified by either you or me. Now your sons have been found to be greater than me or you, and the House has been sanctified by them.

From Moses’ answer and Aaron’s silence it is understood that the sanctuary of God had to be sanctified with somebody’s death, and the more famous and respected that person was, the more glory he gave God. This was also the understanding of Rabbi Jonathan, a second-generation amora from the Land of Israel, in whose name Rabbi Hiya bar Abba of the next generation explained the verse in Psalms 68: ‘“Terrible is God from His sanctuary” — For “sanctuary” read “your sanctified” [. . .] When the Holy One Blessed He judges His sanctified, He is feared and exalted and glorified’. All of the ceremonies and offerings brought on the day of the dedication of the sanctuary were not enough. A respected person had to give his life in order to sanctify the sanctuary

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and dedicate it, and by doing so to sanctify God’s Name in whose honour the sanctuary was built. This is not about God judging two sinners who had abused the holiness and in whose death that holiness was completed, but rather about a sacrifice that was necessary in order to complete that holiness.37 The writer of the letter about the Jews of Blois used this theme of dedication of the sanctuary by the martyrs’ deaths. Certainly the way in which they were killed, by burning, makes us more sensitive to their similarity to the sacrifices in the Temple. This motif, of those who died for sanctification of God’s Name as sacrifices in the Temple, was not new and had already appeared during the First Crusade.38 In the case of the community of Blois, in which the Jews were burned and were unwilling to save themselves and convert to Christianity, the sacrifice motifs took centre stage. The similarity to the burnt offering was not imagery, but an outcome of reality. Just as the Temple sacrifices were chosen, so were they: ‘on this day we have been chosen’. Just as the sacrifices atoned for the sins of Israel, so they: that our death be atonement for all our sins, these being the sins and misdeeds of the community for which all Israel will be atoned, for the sacrifices of the Lord, the bread of their God, they sacrifice and are sacred.39

In prose, the author emphasizes two themes. One is that the Jews had volunteered to die in this manner and not to convert to Christianity. The second is the fact that the fire that killed them did not harm their bodies, which was miraculous proof that God had accepted their sacrifice and that He was on their side, to which even the Christians were forced to concede: And they said to the servants of the adversary: Behold, the flame does not rule us, why should we not go. And they said to them: Beware your souls if you leave here. And they left by strength, and they returned them to the house of burning. And they left again, and they caught a gentile to take with them to the house of burning. And when they approached the flame, and the uncircumcised overcame them and took the gentile away from them. And they killed them there by the sword and threw them into the flame and they and all of them were not burnt, thirty-one souls, just their souls were burnt and the bodies remained.

Safra, ed. by Finkelstein, Shemini 1; Gruenwald, ‘Kiddush ha-Shem’, pp. 480–81. Baer, ‘Decree of 1096’; Marcus, ‘From Politics to Martyrdom’; Chazan, ‘Timebound’; Yuval, ‘Vengeance and Damnation’; Yuval, ‘The Lord will take Vengeance’. 39 Habermann, p. 142. 37 38

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And the uncircumcised saw and wondered and said to each other: These must be saints.40

The importance of the event is expressed in the many liturgical poems that were composed about it. The reports and letters were sent to Germany, with the demand to observe a day of fasting on 20 Sivan. Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn wrote about the incident, commemorated it, and composed harrowing poems about it. So also did other poets from the communities of Germany, such as his brother Rabbi Hillel ben Yaakov of Bonn, Gershom bar Yitzhak, and Rabbi Baruch bar Rabbi Shmuel.41 French poets as well, closer to Blois, also composed poems that expressed their terrible shock. Rabbi Joseph bar Isaac of Orléans, the Bible commentator known as the Bekhor Shor and a disciple of Rabbi Jacob ben Meir Tam, wrote a poem about the incident at Blois and reconstructed the details of the event and the greatness of the martyrs: In abhorrence and disgust I have been set and with defilement The oppressors rush to break my youths Men of loveliness who teach Your Torah Burnt out like a fire in a field. My face is hidden, like one who is in hiding I was like a wild ox in a trap The enemy brought it to water and chill And the hearth burns before it.42

The most important poem about the burning of the Jews at Blois is that composed by Rabbi Yom-Tov of Joigny, whose poem names the two Jews who died for sanctification of God’s Name and for whom the miracle was performed, Yehiel and Yekutiel. The poem stresses the individual: At a time of bravery When they refused to betray you They detested other gods And became like briers and thorns

40

Habermann, p. 125. Habermann, pp. 133–41; Leket Piyyute Selichoth, ed. by Fraenkel, I, 137–43; piyyute Baruch bar Shmuel of Mainz, ‘Liturgical Poems by Baruch bar Shmuel of Mainz [Hebrew]’, ed. by A. M. Habermann, Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem, 6 (1945), 48–160 (pp. 133–40). 42 Urbach, Tosaphists, pp. 132–142; Leket Piyute Selichoth, ed. by Fraenkel, I, 263–74. 41

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Map 2: Jewish Settlements

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in Northern France.

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Covered by steam and vapour Like a torch of fire on a haystack Their flesh and fat was melted To pronounce the glory of Your Name Their spirits and souls destroyed Turned to a tiny nightingale’s voice Trying my enemies And made their hearts hard Remember Yehiel, the man of your faith Who fought a mighty fight.43

When Rabbi Yom-Tov of Joigny composed this poem, he had no idea that within less than twenty years, he himself would be forced to undergo a similar trial, in the city of York.

England The events in England, ‘the Isles of the Sea’, as it was called by the Jewish writers, began with the coronation ceremony of King Richard the Lionheart on 3 September 1189 and continued for the next six months or so.44 This was the first time that such a confrontation had broken out in England. The Jews of England had not been harmed during the First Crusade, the king had protected them during the second, and the harm inflicted during the blood libels of the twelfth century was limited.45 The Jewish sources at our disposal reflect shock at what had happened, but seem detached from the events themselves.46 Conversely, Christian chroniclers who witnessed the events give us an important chance to see the behaviour of Jewish martyrs through Christian eyes. These chroniclers vary in character, style, and in their regard for the Jews. None of them liked the Jews, but there were differences between the critical and realistic view of William of Newburgh (1136–98), the theological view of Ralph

43

H. Schirmann, ‘Persecution Laments from the Land of Israel, Africa, Spain, Ashkenaz, and France’ [Hebrew], Qovetz al yad, 3 (1939), 25–74 (pp. 35–37). 44 C. Roth, A History of the Jews in England (Oxford, 1964), pp. 18–26. 45 R. C. Stacey, ‘Crusades, Martyrdoms, and the Jews of Norman England, 1096– 1190’, Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge, ed. by A. Haverkamp (Sigmaringen, 1999), pp. 233–52 (p. 236). 46 We have an imprecise report by Rabbi Ephraim ben Yaakov of Bonn.

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de Diceto (1125–1202), who held a high office at St Paul’s Cathedral, and the burning hatred of Richard of Devizes, a monk from Winchester.47 Due to a fear of witchcraft, it was decreed that no Jew be allowed in the city of London on the day of Richard the Lionheart’s coronation ceremony.48 The rumour that spread said that the King had allowed Jews to be killed, and Christians began to attack the Jews of London, including the delegations of dignitaries that had come to seek an audience with the Lionheart. The Christian writers attributed this behaviour to the Jews’ intransigence, their eyecatching wealth, and the religious fervour that gripped London, where many participants in the crusade had gathered. The Jewish chronicler, Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn, tells that among the dead in London was Rabbi Yaakov of Orléans, an important Jew and a disciple of Rabbi Jacob ben Meir Tam (some even called him Rabbi Tam of Orléans or Yaakov the Holy), and that he died ‘for sanctification of God’s Name’, together with about thirty other Jews, ‘some of whom slaughtered themselves and their children’.49 Though the King opposed these attacks on the Jews, a wave of attacks ensued, which Richard of Devizes happily describes: ‘after this act of faith by the people of London, other towns in the area took strength and just as devoutly sent the blood-suckers bloodily to Hell’. There were several factors behind these Christian attacks, the most important of which was the economic one. The will to participate in the crusade was widespread, and was based on an education towards pilgrimage, an acknowledgement of world Christian power, and acute religious feelings. However, the cost of embarking on a crusade was very high. The Pope’s freezing the debts of those who participated in the crusades was based on solid Christian belief that saw in taking interest a basically evil and corrupt act, certainly in comparison with the noble act of going to defend the Holy Land and the tomb of Jesus. The feeling that the Jews should give some of their money to finance such a crusade fits in well with the idea of the crusade from the start. In England, the Jews’ lending at interest had always been connected to the king and had been under his protection. This situation had been reinforced after the death, in 1186, of Aaron of Lincoln, the wealthy Jewish banker, whose financial estate was taken R. B. Dobson, The Jews of Medieval York and The Massacre of March 1190, Borthwick Papers, 45 (York, 1976), pp. 26–32. 48 Roth, History of the Jews, p. 19; Dobson. 49 Habermann, p. 127. 47

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over by King Henry II. Neither Henry II nor his son Richard thought to grant a moratorium or alleviate the debts owed to Jews during the crusade. But this is what the English populace had been waiting for all along. When reading the chroniclers’ accounts of the events in London, one gets the impression that as soon as the Jews were denied access to Westminster Abbey during the coronation and to the royal hall where the King held audiences after the coronation, the attacks on the Jews began. The attackers had concluded that the King had released the leash. And while on the morrow the King did announce his displeasure at what had transpired and commanded that the Jews be protected, only three of the marauding Londoners were hanged, and that only because they had damaged, and even burned, mostly Christian property. Richard did not change his main approach; he did not harm the Jews, did not change his father’s policy, and continued collecting the interest that the nobles owed to Aaron of Lincoln. This was the background for the attacks on the Jews, which became more widespread after the King departed for France. The knights were gathered in preparation for the crusade, and the religious time kindled the flame. The churchman Ralph voiced his opinion as a theologian against the attacks on the Jews, which is counter to the command of Augustine, who quoted Psalm 59. 12 [NRSV 11]: ‘Slay them not, lest my people forget’. He, too, describes the armies gathering and attacking the Jews. On 6 February, the Jews of King’s Lynn and Norwich were slaughtered. ‘Many’ were killed on market day, 7 March, at Stamford. On 16 March, about ‘five hundred men’ were killed in York, on 18 March, Palm Sunday, fifty-seven were killed at Bury St Edmunds and at Lincoln. During these months Jews were also attacked in Colchester, Thetford, and Ospringe in Kent.50 The fullest account of the York affair was written by William of Newburgh. He was a local resident, born not far from there and was staying at the time in the Newburgh monastery. He described what he saw or heard in his close vicinity.51 The derogatory epithets that he used for them show that he did not like the Jews. However his reports are exemplary in their unbiased analysis of the situation. He understood the kind of atmosphere that led to the events: Christian warriors departing for the crusade and assuming that their debts to the Jews would be cancelled. William of Newburgh describes how violence toward the Jews built up energy and swept up more and more of the townsfolk. 50 51

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The numbers seem to be exaggerated: Dobson, pp. 15, 25. Dobson, pp. 23–24.

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According to his report, the violence began with the nobility, who had mortgaged their estates to the Jews and owed them vast sums of money. The threat by the King’s financial officials to support the lenders drove the debtors to violence. Some of those who intended to depart on the crusade felt that they would be immune from investigation and that they could rob the Jews to finance their long journey to the Holy Land.52 This group broke into the Jews’ houses, robbed them, and then burned them, together with the certificates of debt. The Jews fled to the royal fortress, a sign that their property could be damaged with impunity. From that moment, other elements in the town joined the defaulting nobles. Craftsmen from town and youths joined villagers who wished to take revenge on the Jews in the fortress, and these were joined by military and clergymen, led by a monk who aroused the crowd with his fierce oration. The Jews inside understood that their time had arrived, and when they saw that the Christians were about to break through the walls they decided to kill themselves. William does say that while the Jews were besieged in the fortress, the Christians caught some of them and gave them the choice of conversion or death. The crowd’s violent action towards the Jews was accompanied by a demand to convert, and a Jew who agreed to even seem to convert, could have been saved. Few used the opportunity and most were killed because they did not. We do not know if the besieged Jews were aware of the possibility, but the events inside the fortress are clear to the writer. One of the important Jews, Rabbi Yom-Tov of Joigny, who had come from overseas to teach Torah in England, made a speech to the effect that the Jews must kill themselves. William attributed to this Jew, ‘honoured by all, obeyed by all, who seemed as if he were one of the prophets’, a speech modelled on that of Eleazar ben Yair in the writings of Josephus Flavius. William does mention this book in its Jewish context: ‘Whoever has read the history of Josephus Flavius on the Jewish War, understands that this madness that we see in our day is but a reincarnation of an ancient Jewish superstition’. The situation of Rabbi YomTov of Joigny’s speech and the speech itself prove that William of Newburgh was familiar with ‘The Jewish War’ and modelled this speech on that of Eleazar ben Yair in book VII, chapter 8 of that book.53 William almost certainly composed the old Jew’s speech in accordance with what he thought that he would say. However it is possible that he heard some of the themes from Jewish

52 53

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Stacey, ‘Crusades, Martyrdom’. Dobson, p. 27, note 86.

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refugees in Yorkshire, since the speech has themes that are unique to Jewish martyrdom. Especially the final sentence: God, whom no one tells ‘what to do’, commands us to die for His Torah. And you see with your eyes that death awaits us, unless you think, God forbid, that it would be better to abandon our holy Torah for short life in this world, and to choose a life of detested apostasy that our foreign enemies with allow you, a life harder than death for good and brave people. And if we prefer a death of honour to a life of shame, we must choose the method of death that is most honourable and easiest. If we will fall in the enemy’s hand, we will die in shame at their discretion. If the Creator Himself demands that we return the life that He gave us, let us give it willingly and voluntarily [. . .] As well we know, many of our people have done this in many times of trouble, and it was to their honour. They have shown us the written path as well.

After this, the Jews burned or defiled their precious property, set the fortress on fire, and slaughtered each other and their wives and children. William stresses the madness that gripped the Jews and attributed it to an old Jewish norm, which is aroused ‘when trouble comes on them’. William of Newburgh concludes his story with harsh criticism of the Christians, whom he calls ‘plotters’. They killed the Jews that fled the mass suicide and begged to be accepted as converts, they burnt the copies of the Jews’ bills of debt, that the King’s representatives stored in the holy cathedral of York, and then they turned their attentions to the crusade ahead of them. According to William’s report, the leader of the nobles, Richard Malebisse, fled to Scotland, because on 3 May the King’s representative arrived in York, punished the Mayor and the Commander of the fortress, and arrested some hundred townsmen in order to ensure better behaviour of the people of the town and surroundings in the future. Further action would have to wait until 1194, by which time the brave King would have managed to go to the Holy Land, fight, be taken prisoner in Germany, be released in exchange for a heavy ransom, and return to his country. Since this incident was also an economic disaster for the Jews and the Royal Treasury, it served to strengthen the English Treasury’s bear hug on the Jews; and after a century of protection, it would bring about their end. As in the case of Blois, news of what had happened in York quickly reached the Jewish communities of northern France and Germany and, of course, the relations of those who had died. Some, especially those who wrote in Germany, included the York incident along with the other late-twelfth-century cases of martyrdom. The poet Rabbi Menahem bar Rabbi Yaakov, who died at Worms in 1203, wrote the lament ‘Woe is to me, for they have come’. In this lament he

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also immortalized other events, such as the incident at the city of Boppard in 1178. He called the York incident the affair of ‘the lords of the sea’, the trauma of an attack on the Jews of the island of the north, who had been thought of as wealthy and honoured: In the bosom of their mothers, children spread their necks And fathers blessed the sacrifice and slaughtered right away. Their masters fell upon the rocks Their coats and woven clothing they stripped.54

A unique poem was composed by Rabbi Joseph of Chartres: ‘God we have been mastered by lords besides you’.55 This poem takes God to task, in harsh language, for not having prevented these deaths. It supports what William of Newburgh told of the final speech and the Jews’ intentions: Your servants, O Terrible, stood for trials Fathers and sons together to be slaughtered They accepted their Creator’s judgement and did not throw off His yoke They justified the Righteous, the Rock whose work is whole And in the House of Glory all recite ‘Let us fall in the hand of God, and not in the hand of man’.

The poem commemorates the families by mentioning the names of the people involved: Benjamin, Asher, Yom-Tov, Yaakov, Moshe, Joseph, and Eliah. All are worked into the poem and are given personal honorary titles. The poem also expresses great anger at the rulers of the island, and uses the curse that was directed at Mount Gilboa to curse the place. Rabbi Joseph connects the attack that occurred on Richard I’s Coronation Day with the other attacks on the Jews of England, especially those of York. He also calls upon the Jews to leave the country for ever.

54 55

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Habermann, pp. 147–51; Leket Piyyute Selichoth, ed. by Fraenkel, I, 406–30. Habermann, pp. 152–54; H. Gross, Gallia Judaica (Paris, 1897), pp. 603–04.

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Map 3: Jewish settlements in England 1066–1290.

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Germany In the year 1180, some Christians who were on a boat near Boppard saw the body of a Christian woman floating on the Rhine, and blamed her death on some Jews from Köln who were sailing by. The Christians’ anger broke out and they killed the Jews and desecrated their bodies. The Jews called on the representatives of the emperor and of the archbishop, who with the aid of a hefty sum — 500 pieces of silver for the emperor and forty-two for the archbishop — saved them. The Jewish writer concludes the story: ‘And they beseeched them to leave the living God and to follow a dead one, and they refused and sanctified God’s Name’.56 The treatment of any Jew who was killed or injured by Christians as one who had died for sanctification of God’s Name had already begun in the second half of the twelfth century, and was mainly emphasized by Jewish writers in Germany. The writers pointed out that in all cases of violence against Jews, the Christians gave them the chance to convert and save themselves. According to this Jewish view, the Christian theological factor came up in every case of violence against Jews. This was not just a Christian attack on Jews, but another stage in the religious war between the two faiths. For this reason, the Christian religion always allows the Jews to convert and be saved, and the Jews must always refuse to do so. Death for sanctification of God’s Name is therefore the only possible reaction. The 1186 incident I have described in Neuss is an example of this. The Jew who murdered the Christian girl at Neuss was mentally ill, but the Christians punished his family and the entire group. They buried the killer’s mother alive, killed seven other Jews, and forced Christianity on a women and her three daughters. The refusal to accept the Jews’ explanations and to allow them to bury the bodies, and their display at the town’s gate, show best of all that Judaism was seen as an enemy that had to be combated to the end. The Jews turned this on the Christians; the Jews who were tortured, killed, and desecrated were turned into Jews who died for their faith and were buried, as related by Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn, ‘by the graves of the righteous who were buried there in the events of 1096’. In order to immortalize the event, it was decided to recite penitential prayers and the ‘We have sinned’ prayer in the synagogue. The writer notes their names, and by that of Rabbi Yitzhak bar Rabbi Shimshon he writes that he ‘was greatly devoted to 56 Habermann, p. 127; piyyute Baruch bar Shmuel, ‘Liturgical Poems’, ed. by Habermann, pp. 133–40.

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God’. In other words, even if the story itself does not state that the Jews were given the opportunity to convert; this is made clear from the conclusion. 57 Even an act of violence by Christian townsfolk toward Jews in Austria in 1196 was understood as a deep enmity between Jews and Christians. The riot began when a Christian stole from a Jew and was caught. On a Christian holiday, while the crusade was being organized, a simple thief (it is possible that he was one of those preparing to leave) managed to incite a severe riot against the Jews, and sixteen of them were killed. The Jews defined the harsh damage as ‘death for sanctification of God’s Name’, especially since it occurred during their ‘religious time’ of the month of Tammuz, one hundred years after the First Crusade. They also used the same expressions in order to describe the incident. The victims were seen as having died for sanctification of God’s Name, and were thus memorialized in poetry, prayer and memorial books.58 A similar incident occurred in the same year, 1196, in Speyer. The body of a Christian woman was found near the town and the Christians blamed the Jews for her death. They took out the body of the daughter of Rabbi Isaac bar Rabbi Asher the Younger, who had died that week, and desecrated her body: ‘And they hung her naked in the marketplace, with a mouse hanging from the braids of her hair’. In exchange for a bribe, her father managed to redeem her body and bury her, but then he was murdered, together with eight other Jews. The other Jews managed to hide, but the Christians destroyed their homes, burned the synagogue, and tossed the Torah scrolls into the river. 59 The brother of Friederich I, the duke, rushed in with the army and punished the bishop and the townsfolk. The Emperor punished the killers with fines, paid to himself and to the Jews, and with the rebuilding of the synagogue. Seven days later, on a Saturday night, Christians attacked the Jews of Boppard, killing Rabbi Shlomo the Cantor and seven others. Once again the duke and his brother the Emperor punished the perpetrators, had two of them executed and compensated the Jews. At the end of the twelfth century, the Christians no longer gave the Jews the option of conversion, and attacked them because they were Jews. Despite this, the writer, Rabbi Ephraim bar Yaakov of Bonn, considers them to have died for sanctification of God’s Name. This approach can be seen in the poem ‘How can I have seen’, that was written by Rabbi Baruch bar Ephraim of Bonn, Sefer Zehkira, ed. by Habermann pp. 40–41; Habermann, pp. 130–31. 58 Habermann, p. 131. 59 Habermann, p. 131; Urbach, Tosaphists, pp. 367–68. 57

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Rabbi Shmuel of Mainz, which describes the Christians violating the Torah scrolls, burning the synagogue, and stabbing the cantor with their sword. This description sharpens the image of Martyrdom.60

60 Habermann, pp. 131–32; piyyute Baruch bar Shmuel, ‘Liturgical Poems’, ed. by Habermann, pp. 133–40.

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