Jedwabne No Jewish Self Defense Incredulity Abulafia

Religious Violence Between Christians and Jews: Medieval Roots, Modern Perspectives, by Anna Sapir Abulafia (Editor). 2002

Jewish Self-Defense in Russian Pogroms Discredits Jan T. Gross’ Tale of Poles and Jedwabne. Crusader Pogroms Against Jews in Perspective

This book is essentially two books. The first one is primarily about the medieval period, and the second is about the last century and half. The title of the book is a little misleading, as it is solely about Christian violence against Jews. For a study of the reverse, please click on:Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World).

DEICIDE: BLAMING CHRISTIANS FOR BLAMING JEWS FOR THE DEATH OF CHRIST

It is interesting to note that, in contrast to today, Jews did not deny the essential validity of the charge against them. Rather, they justified it in terms of their theology, (quote) The hatred that had fueled the massacre of 1096 was explicitly justified by the long-established Christian conviction that Jews did not believe in Christ and had killed him; a conviction that had a hard core of truth. In fact, not only had some Jews been involved in the death of Jesus, but since then, the Jews as a group, including those killed in 1096, denied that he was divine, believed that he had been properly condemned to death, and said derogatory things about him. (unquote) (Gavin I. Langmuir, pp. 149-150).

THE SCALE OF CRUSADER POGROMS

Christian violence against Jews must be kept in perspective. There was little Christian violence against Jews during 500-1096 AD. (Gavin I. Langmuir, p. 152). The Crusader pogroms, in this work, come across as sporadic acts rather than a systematic Christian persecution of Jews. A few units of Crusaders, under specifically-named commanders, account for a disproportionate share of the Crusader-murdered Jews.

Some of the widely quoted massacres of Jews by Crusaders turn out to be of dubious validity. Thus, according to Riley-Smith, “…the evidence for a massacre of Jews in Jerusalem in 1099 has largely evaporated, even in relation to the Muslims the estimates of the dead have now fallen drastically.” (p. 4).

Pointedly, Christian conduct towards Jews was complex and variegated rather than unilaterally hostile. Augustine of Hippo, and his dictum against persecuting of Jews and interfering in the practice of their religion, had widely been applied for a long time. (Jeremy Cohen, p. 45, 53). One striking fact in this work is the citation, by the various authors, of many different popes, bishops, secular leaders, etc., variously forbidding groundless accusations against, violence against, and forced conversions of, Jews (e. g, p. 25, 29, 37, 58, 149). Thus, the sad events occurred in spite of, and not because of, the statements of the Christian leaders.

In fact, religious and secular Christian leaders opposed the Crusader pogroms against the Jews. Riley-Smith writes about, (quote) …the belief that it was part of the divine plan that Jews should survive in a servile condition as providential witnesses made it impossible for church leaders to tolerate the use of force against them…Peter the Venerable, who in the course of a diatribe against Jews in a letter to the king of France in 1146, wrote that in spite of everything God did not want Jews killed; on the other hand, they should be punished for their wickedness in a suitable manner, by having their profits confiscated, and the proceeds should be used to help finance the crusade being prepared by the king…One is faced by a curious situation in which leading churchmen were consistently expressing their abhorrence of Judaism, often in emotive terms, while at the same time “ring-fencing” its adherents. They regarded the Jews as deviants from the truth, but, unlike other deviants such as heretics, rather ungraciously forbade steps being taken against them. (unquote)(Jonathan Riley-Smith, pp. 10-11).

Various authors take the “ideas have consequences” attitude, wherein untoward acts towards Jews, though not sanctioned by the Church, nevertheless inevitably occurred because of the very nature of Christian teachings. However, why stop there? Could not any strongly-held teachings, derived from ANY religion or secular philosophy, become a motive for untoward acts towards others?

MUSLIM AND POLISH TOLERANCE OF JEWS

Author Mark R. Cohen suggests that, in general, Jews had it significantly better in Islamic lands than in Christian ones. This owed partly to the fact that the religious conflicts between Judaism and Islam were much less than those between Judaism and Christianity.

However, Cohen realizes that the experiences of Jews varied a great deal from nation to nation, and time to time, and that they were governed partly by economic factors. Interestingly, he finds parallels between many Islamic countries, and Christian Poland, in terms of their treatment of Jews. He comments, (quote) Medieval Poland also exhibits the applicability of the paradigm…In Poland, Jews found expansive economic opportunities during the period of religious settlement that liberated them from exclusive reliance on moneylending and its untoward consequences in Christian animosity…Economic diversification…made Jews less “other” and further helped attenuate anti-Jewish violence. The Polish Commonwealth, especially in its geographically expanded form, represented a large, multi-ethnic kingdom of Lithuanians, Poles, Armenians, Ukrainians (Orthodox Christians in distinction to Catholic Poles), Tatars and Jews. Pluralism, as the paradigm asserts, constituted an advantage for the Jews, as it did elsewhere in the Middle Ages. (unquote)(p. 128).

I now move past medieval times into much more recent events.

RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE DWARFED BY SECULARIST VIOLENCE

Author Christopher Andrews alludes to the fact that violence by militant atheistic systems has greatly exceeded that of past religious-inspired events. He comments, (quote) Despite their hostility to religion, however, the tyrannical one-party states of the twentieth century provide some insight into the roots of religious violence. All claimed both to represent absolute truth and to have the right to impose it on others. Religions, like states, are most prone to violence when they make such absolutist claims. In imposing Stalinism on the states of the Soviet Bloc after the Second World War, Stalin was implementing–probably without realizing it–the sixteenth century principle, CUIUS REGIO EIUS RELIGIO (“as country so religion”). (unquote)(p. 173)

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OVERCROWDING OF JEWS IN THE SHTETL

The Jews in tsarist Russia underwent a population explosion. Their population more than quintupled, from approximately 1 million in 1800 to over 5 million in 1900. This gave rise to Jewish poverty, as the Russian economy could not grow fast enough to absorb this extra population. (John D. Klier, p. 169). It also intensified the competition between Jews and non-Jews for the same resources. [Poland, of course, inherited this problem when she was resurrected as a nation in 1918, and the problem persisted right up to the time of the German-made Nazi Holocaust. ]

EVERYDAY MARKETPLACE HOSTILITY AND VIOLENCE

Even when it did not reach the level of pogroms, the antagonism between Jews and Russians [and additionally between Jews and Poles] was always simmering in the background, (quote) The marketplace was the quintessential meeting place for Jews and non-Jews, and it was an environment where the Jews felt confident and at home. Like markets around the world, it was also a center for disagreements, insults and fights. Jewish stallholders felt no compunction against trading insults with Christian competitors, importuning potential buyers, manhandling troublesome customers or boxing the ears of the street urchins who filled the marketplace. Tavern-keepers, whose livelihood depended on catering to human weakness, had even less respect for many of their customers, especially those who asked for credit or became drunk and disorderly. Such patrons were unceremoniously shown the door. In short, the meek and mild Jew, cringing before the Gentiles, is very much a fictional creation. (unquote). (John D. Klier, p. 163).

POGROMS: JEWISH SELF-DEFENSE MAKES JAN T. GROSS INCREDIBLE ON JEDWABNE

Klier continues, (quote) From what has been said above, it was not an uncommon event for Christians and Jews to engage in fisticuffs. Indeed, the Jews were not the passive victims of pogrom mythology. Far from running away, the Jews of Elisavetgrad initially defended their shops with crowbars and axes until overwhelmed by superior numbers. Throughout 1881, Jewish communities organized self-defense units, sometimes with the approval of the authorities…In other words, Jewish resistance was a familiar part of pogroms. (unquote). (pp. 164-165).

The myth of the violence-averse, helpless Jew has implications for the 1941 Jedwabne massacre, although not mentioned by Klier. Writing in his NEIGHBORS, neo-Stalinist Jan T. Gross would have us believe that, other than Germans taking photographs, Poles acted alone. This would mean that the Jews massively and dutifully obeyed their unarmed, tool-wielding Polish assailants, and astonishingly cooperated in the procession into the barn to be burned alive. Moreover, from the forensic evidence, this would also mean that the Jews freely allowed themselves to be sorted into groups, and that, during the entire pogrom process, not a single Jew resisted and got a skeletal injury! Although probably not intended as such, John Doyle Klier’s analysis of pogroms in tsarist Russia further exposes the absurdity of Jan T. Gross and his Polonophobic tale.

The circumstantial evidence thus alone points to the Germans as the main killers. They were armed, and thus able to induce the Jews to not fight back, and to line up and proceed to the barn where they were burned alive.