Jew Killing By Christians Exaggerated Chazan

Reassessing Jewish Life in Medieval Europe, by Robert Chazan. 2010

Christian Persecutions of Jews Have Been Way Overblown. Prejudices Were Fully Reciprocal

This work is part of a series of books that challenges the lachrymose version of Jewish history. This includes accounts of Jews prospering in medieval Christendom. However, as shown below, the author eventually lapses back into lachrymose thinking when he blames Christianity for the Holocaust.

CHRISTIANS NOT AT FAULT FOR JEWS LIVING IN GHETTOS

Author Chazan realizes that Jewish self-segregation and anti-assimilationist tendencies existed, over the centuries, largely because of Jewish religious strictures. (p. 196). In terms of specifics, Jews were to dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations. (Numbers 23:9). In addition, Jews were to be careful not to get ensnared by the ways of the nations. (Deuteronomy 12:30).

CHRISTIAN POGROMS AGAINST JEWS HAVE BEEN WAY OVERBLOWN

One major theme of this work is the overall rarity of Christian violence against Jews. The massacres of Jews during the First Crusade have been greatly exaggerated. In actuality, they had been very limited geographically, and then entirely (or almost entirely) confined to northern Europe. (p. 153, 168, 171). Later medieval massacres of Jews were also quite limited in scope. (pp. 181-182, 191). In addition to all this, the much more numerous instances of amiable Jewish-Christian relations have not gotten much attention. [I call this the newsworthiness bias.]

Christian religious and secular leaders generally condemned violence against Jews. (pp. 152-153). They also repudiated popular libelous accusations against Jews. (pp. 177-178).

DO NOT BELITLE THOSE LEADING JEWS WHO HAD CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY

The author examines voluntary Jewish conversions to Christianity. He rejects the argument that such converts had been ignorant of Judaism, or that they had been peripheral members of the Jewish community. For instance, Nicholas Donin, who led the assault on the Talmud, was assisted by similarly-learned converts from Judaism. (pp. 208-209). Abner of Burgos had been a respected member of the Jewish community, and showed a deep, rabbinic-style knowledge of Jewish law and exegesis. (p. 209).

THE WORLD OF THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD: NOT ONE OF PERSECUTION

The standard explanation (or exculpation) for the antigoyism of the Talmud is the one about Jews reacting to privations and exclusion. Although Chazan does not address this matter, he makes it clear that, if anything, the Jews of Babylon, in Talmudic times, did not face notable persecution or exclusion. He writes (quote) In fact, the center of gravity in the Jewish world of late antiquity lay farther eastward, in Byzantine Palestine and—even more so—in Sassanian Mesopotamia. The largest Jewry of the fourth through seventh centuries was that of Mesopotamia, inhabited by a multiplicity of peoples and beliefs, in which the Jews constituted but one of a number of important elements. While Jews may have to an extent viewed themselves as living under the rigors of exilic status, there is no sense from the limited sources available of a central image—held by either the non-Jewish majority or the Jewish minority—of Jews as a minority people living in servitude. (unquote). (p. 142).

THE JEWS AND USURY. WERE JEWS COMPELLED?

Chazan (p. 93) informs the reader that the expulsions of Jews, from many places in the Middle Ages, were related to Jewish usury. Interestingly, Pope Innocent III quoted Lamentations 5:2, “Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens”. Here Jews had been losing their property in the wake of the Babylonian Captivity. Now, in the Middle Ages, the Christians were the ones losing their property–to Jewish usurers. (p. 111).

The author does not support the premise that Jews had been, in the first place, forced to become usurers. He writes, (quote) It must again be emphasized that pre-1000 Jewish history show no signs of limited Jewish economic activities…As the northern [European] economy matured, Jews seem to have drifted increasingly toward moneylending. (unquote) (p. 112, 115). The profit motive is undeniable. Chazan quips, (quote) Governmental documents assuring the return of moneys disbursed by Jewish lenders created entirely new possibilities for the Jewish lending business. Jews could lend very large sums of money, with a high level of certainty of return. Lending against land, the most important collateral possessed by medieval northern Europeans, now became possible, prominent, and lucrative. (unquote) (p. 117).

Nor is it true, at least necessarily, that Jews persisted in usury because either the law or the circumstances forced them to do so. The actual cause, according to Chazan, is unclear. He comments, (quote) Jewish moneylending with governmental support resulted in a brief period of remarkable business success for the Jews of England and northern France. These successes could not, however, be sustained…Interestingly, pious royal pronouncements of moving Jews into “normal” economic channels proved unavailing. Jews were not able to integrate into the general economy. Whether this was the result of ongoing anti-Jewish pressures or Jewish perceptions that it would be better to relocate geographically rather than retool economically cannot be clarified at this point. (unquote). (pp. 122-123).

For more on the myth that Jews had been forced, by law or circumstance, to largely become vocationally confined to commerce, see my review of: The Chosen Few , by Botticini and Eckstein.

JEWS AND CHRISTIANS: FULL RECIPROCITY OF PREJUDICES. NO EXCULPATIONS

Author Robert Chazan repeats the standard contention that the Jewish sense of superiority arose in reaction to the challenges of Christianity, yet he tacitly acknowledges the inadequacy of this contention in the long term. He comments, (quote) The most significant Jewish defense against the realities of Christian numerical, economic, and political superiority was to argue for Jewish spiritual superiority. This meant in effect reversing the standard Christian sense of Jews as biological and physical Israel and Christians as spiritual Israel. In fact—argued medieval Jews—Christians are the thoroughly physical, with their military virtues and political supremacy. Jews are to be sure physically weaker, but they are intellectually and morally superior to their rough and ready Christian contemporaries. Many modern Jews have embraced these same attitudes, in a setting where they are no longer appropriate, creating yet another negative internal legacy of Jewish life in medieval Latin Christendom. (unquote). (p. 235).

JEWISH ANTAGONISM TO CHRISTIANITY WAS NOT CAUSED BY CHRISTIAN PERSECUTIONS OF JEWS

Jewish contempt for Christianity developed long before Christians had political power, and long before Christians were even in a position to restrict or persecute Jews. Thus, Chazan cites Peter Schafer’s Jesus in the Talmud on the fact that the Talmud contains derogatory references to Christianity, Jesus, and Mary. (pp. 218-219). {See my review]. He also recognizes the fact that the SEFER TOLDOT YESHU was, in his words, an anti-Christian “caricature of the figures held in highest esteem by the Christian world.” (p. 219). [No wonder that Martin Luther reacted so harshly against Jews–yet only he gets the blame.]

ANTECEDENTS TO THE HOLOCAUST: BLAMING CHRISTIANITY

Towards the end of his book, Chazan appears to do an about-face relative to what he had been writing up to that time. He slips into the lachrymose-history argument that Christian anti-Jewish teachings made the Holocaust possible.

Using the same logic, one could argue that centuries of harsh Catholic teachings about Protestants made the Nazi persecution of devout Protestants possible (even inevitable), and that the centuries of harsh Protestant teachings about Catholicism had made the Nazi persecution of devout Catholics possible (even inevitable).

The whole blame-Christianity argument falls apart. The Nazis had no problem targeting identifiable groups (e. g., the handicapped) which never had a history of religious teachings directed against them. Nazi Germans of Catholic background had no problem murdering the Catholic Poles. Chazan does not explain any of this.

Finally, the whole blame-Christianity approach skirts around the real reason for Nazi anti-Semitism. It was the deteriorating relations between Jews and Germans in the Weimar Republic. For example, see: Unfinished Victory.