In the Year 1096: The First Crusade and the Jews (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: The First, Rabbi Moses, First Crusade (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A plodding study of the background, dynamics, and historical treatments of the Rhineland massacre of Jews in the First Crusade. Chazan (Hebrew and Judaic Studies/New York Univ.) turns a potentially compelling article into an overly long book, with needless repetition and analysis, and too many awkward sentences like the following: ``The foregoing survey of the destruction of the Jewish communities of Worms, Mainz, and Cologne has served to concretize this sense of an unanticipated crisis seemingly erupting overnight.'' What does emerge are some insights into a uniquely gory and (possibly) glorious chapter of diaspora Jewish history from nine hundred years ago. We learn that the pope-inspired crusade was taken over by out-of-control German peasant mobs, aided by local burghers who wanted Jews eliminated as competitors rather than killed in Christ's honor. To avoid torture and forcible conversion by the towns' bloodthirsty mob, almost the entire Jewish population of 3,000 opted for suicide. While the sketchy records of this unique bloodbath are liturgical in style, elegiac in tone, and written 36 years after the fact, Chazan analyzes them as though they were scripture. He quotes Maimonides in pointing out the problems of Jewish law involved with parents slaughtering their children, but there are other occasions where Chazan seems to have little grasp of basic Jewish theology. He does not, for instance, see antimaterial and antisexual passages as aberrant. As Chazan views the events of 1096 in historical perspective, he sees the political struggle of Masada eclipsing the religious conflict of the Rhineland as the modern paradigm of extreme Jewish resistance in the face of imminent destruction. Given its limitations, the book will chiefly be of interest to students of medieval Jewish history. (History Book Club selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Description

In the Year 1096 . . . presents a clear, highly readable chronicle of the events in 1096, the First Crusade, or more precisely, the programs unleased by the crusade upon the Jews of the Rhineland. Noted teacher and historian Robert Chazan brings readers to critical moments in Jewish history, illuminating the events themselves, their antecedents, and their far-reaching consequences.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Publication Society of America (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827605757
• ISBN-13: 978-0827605756
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,796,707 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jews,Crusaders, and the Church - A New Perspective, June 8, 2000

By	Anna Pilatova (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This book fulfills its promise: it examines carefully the impact of the 1096 events on the Ashkenazi Jewry. The author uses striking passages from contemporary chronicles to illustrate his points while giving the reader the opportunity to form his or her own opinion about the events there described (the chronicles are found, in a highly readable translation and in full lenght, in the appendix). This book challenges the commonly held view that the first crusade lead to a wide spread destruction of Ashkenazi communities and precipitated their movement to the east. While several leading centres of Ashkenazi intellectual life were destroyed, they were quickly rebuilt and the decline of Rhine Jewry did not occur until the 13th century (in connection with the great plague). Chazan focuses of the diversity of Jewish response to immediate threat which ranged locally from the effort to disperse into the countryside to taking refuge in palaces, and individually from conversion to martyrdom. The kiddush Hashem again is far from uniform, ranging from acceptance of death my enemy's hand and suicide, to a new, activist form of taking other Jew's life to prevent him or her from falling into the hand of the enemy. The talmudic precedents for each of these patterns of behavior are discussed. Finally, this is also a highly novel view on the Jewish-Christian relation in those turbulent times. Written with erudition as well as ease, this is not only an informative, but also very absorbing reading experience.