Why were the Jews blamed for everything in the middle ages?

Question

i am doing a report for history and i need some good sites on this topic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i have until monday to completly be finished!!!!

Answer 1

There are many places where you can find good material on this topic. Believe it or not, "alternative history" writer Harry Turtledove has written about it exensively, as has another author in the genre, Eric Flint. Both have web sites where this topic has been discussed - and eventually you will find some of their books informative, entertaining reading. You won't even know you're getting a history lesson!

Here's an overview to help you:

Once the Roman Empire crushed a Jewish rebellion in 77a.d., the Jewish nation was dispersed. Jews went to three primary locations after that although there were many spots in which they lived. They went to Damascus and Baghdad, to Rome, and to Spain (then the Roman province of iberia). For a VERY long time, the Middle Eastern headquarters of Judaism was a great center of learning, while after the Moors conquered southern Spain in the 8th Century CE, Jews became welcome.

But as the 'dark ages" settled over most of Europe, the people became isolated and mired in ignorance. In most areas, the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church were the most educated people around - and at that time doctrine of the Church blamed Jews for the death of Jesus. This became the foundation for suspicion and hatred of the few Jews found in much of Europe at the time.

As an exiled people, Jews tried hard to keep to their faith and to their own community. Their various religious laws and the customs that arose around those tended to set Jews apart, while with very minimal intermarraige there were few of the family ties formed outside the Jewish people that marked most communities of the time.

This separateness both preserved Judaism and exposed Jews to increasing hostility and suspicion. Over the centuries many regions made it illegal for Jews to live there at all, or forced the Jews into closed communities called today "ghettoes." As the influence of craft and other guilds grew in the early Middle Ages, Jews were excluded from competing in many occupations. This left largely service work inside the ghettoes and such things as merchant trading and banking open to the Jews.

At the same time, many of the Jewish enclaves creaed after the Roman dispersal spread even further. While Christian Europeans made Jews unwelcome, Muslim people welcomed Jews for their learning and many other skills. And because family ties inside Judaism were kept in that exclusive community, soon the more enterprising families had relatives in far-flung, important locales. This fostered trading and banking.

Ultimately Jewish physicians, astronomers, mathematicians, merchants and bankers became influential in Christian Europe. Local lords, princes and kings found it convenient to use Jews to borrow money - especially when both Islam and Christianity officially frowned upon charging interest (called "usury") for loans.

At the same time, those influential people also found it inconvenient to repay what they owed, and at times incied riots and attacks on Jews in order to get out of their obligations. Frequently some horrid event such as the presence of plague or the foul work of criminals who murdered or abused children would be blamed on the Jews. At times in history, especially in south central Europe in the 160's, and later in the Ukraine in the 1800's, this led to massive attacks, or in the Russian term, "pogroms," against the Jews, and tens of thousands were slaughtered.

After the Black Death of the 1300's, some claimed that the plagues were caused because God was angry at Christians for tolerating Jews. This also led to terrible slaughter.

Oddly enough, it also led to centuries' worth of bad hygiene among Christians, and indirectly led to hundreds of thousands of deaths from typhus, dyentery, skin diseases and more. The Christians, noting that Jewish religious laws required frequent bathing and other acts of ritual cleanliness, and afraid of misunderstood consequences of certain bathing practices (such as pneumonia or getting waterborne parasite infections), made it a public requirement for people to be dirty! In the 30 Years' War, when marauding armies of mercenaries devastated most of Western Europe, "clean" people who bathed and washed their clothing were considered Jews and killed just because of it.

Horrible claims were made about Jewish religious rituals during the 300 years when European Christians were also afflicted by such superstitions as fear of witches. One, that popped up far too often, was that Jews ritually killed and ate the bodies of Christian babies.

On the same day that Columbus landed in America, oct. 12, 1492, Isabella and Fredinand completed their conquest of Moorish Spain with a triumphal parade into the Alameda in Granada. It was a terrible doomsday for spain's Jews. They were expelled forcibly, or allowed to turn Christian, or killed in waves of public executions. Many Jews sought refuge in what is today Holland, and their relocation created for a time a new and brilliant Jewish community of culture and wealth.

A few years before, in 1453, Muslims conquered Constantinople, the captial of the Byzanatine Empire, and also opened a new era of wealth, freedom and influence for the Jews of the Levant. But by the 19th Century, all of these hopeful conditions had largely withered.

And after that, the Jews became hunted people for almost 150 years.

Answer 2

Because it is human nature to blame someone else. It is the easiest thing to do politically. If someone is different and you don't understand them, then you will be AFRAID and you will resent that feeling. Who is to blame for that?

I think that you should understand this about human nature and include this in your essay. The answer to your question is FEAR and the politics of fear.

When some clever man realizes that people have fears he might think,

"You know what! I can get this group together, then pit this group against another to keep them fighting. Then while everyone is busy fighting and blaming I will become more powerful by feeding this!"

And then when one battle is over, you simply divide people agian. You can continue this game for a long time. You do this as often as you can until the others wake up and realize that you're maipulating them and that you are no good. And this tyranny of fear will eventually fall or be torn down, to lie beneath the feet of truth.

Why was it "against God" to believe anything other than the world was flat?" FEAR

Who was the first to proclaim, "The Emporor wears no clothes!" A child. That innocent child had not been taught to fear the Emperor. He spoke the truth.

Answer 3

Racists are ignorant and often unintelligent. Unintelligent, ignorant people are bewildered by the complex nature of existence, that both good and bad things happen. When bad things happen, they can't comprehend why and instead want to point the finger at someone. Since conspiracies about Jews have existed ever since the Catholic Church and feudal lords decided to make them the official scapegoats for everything, Jews become an easy target for anyone who's incapable of or uninterested in thinking.

Answer 4

Google "pogrom" for many of the answers you seek. Jews were blamed (by the Catholic Church) for the death of Jesus, even though this was a predestined event and Jews were having Passover on that day/night. Also, some Jews became very wealthy and royals were in debt to them and blaming Jews for bad turns was a way to get Jewish wealth and erase the debt.

Answer 5

In the Middle Ages Antisemitism in Europe was religious. Though not part of Roman Catholic dogma, many Christians, including members of the clergy, have held the Jewish people collectively responsible for killing Jesus, a practice originated by Melito of Sardis. As stated in the Boston College Guide to Passion Plays, "Over the course of time, Christians began to accept... that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for killing Jesus. According to this interpretation, both the Jews present at Jesus’ death and the Jewish people collectively and for all time, have committed the sin of deicide, or God-killing. For 1900 years of Christian-Jewish history, the charge of deicide has led to hatred, violence against and murder of Jews in Europe and America''

During the Middle Ages in Europe there was full-scale persecution in many places, with blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions and massacres. A main justification of prejudice against Jews in Europe was religious. Jews were frequently massacred and exiled from various European countries. The persecution hit its first peak during the Crusades. In the First Crusade (1096) flourishing communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed; see German Crusade, 1096. In the Second Crusade (1147) the Jews in France were subject to frequent massacres. The Jews were also subjected to attacks by the Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320. The Crusades were followed by expulsions, including in, 1290, the banishing of all English Jews; in 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled from France; and, in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of the expelled Jews fled to Poland.

Answer 6

LETS NOT JUST STOP AT THE MIDDLE AGES?...The Jews are still being blamed for all of many and Major problems in this world. It's unfortunately. I really don't think they'll find any answer that i deem as ACCEPTABLE. The Jews just became an EVER-LASTING "ESCAPE GOAT" for the world problems.

Answer 7

They were the largest group of "different" people most ever came across. There weren't all that many blacks, asians or other minorities to blame?

There's the money thing too... Jews could lend money (and demand interest), and it wasn't allowed for christians. So basically they financed everything, and most of the higher-ups owed them money. So, envy?

And straight financial interest. It's a lot easier to blame an "outsider" for any random event (witchcraft is always good, or using poison), and kill him in the name of justice, than it is to actually pay him what you owed.

Answer 8

they were blamed because they were the easiest to blame. In the middle ages everyone in Europe was Christian so because the Jews killed Jesus by framing him for false crimes because of their deep jealousy, the Christians absolutly hated them so thats why the Jews were blamed. Also the muslims thought they were the most disgraceful people because they had no home country and they were mixing their blood with different races which the muslim thought were the most disgraceful thing to do. So even the muslims blmed them for everything.

Answer 9

I think that the standard answer is that the Catholic Church held very strong power in European politics at the time, and that the Jews provided a very convenient scapegoat for the problems that people were experiencing. Wikipedia (see link below) is a great place to start your research.

Answer 10

Middle ages?..The Jews are still blamed for all by many in this world. It's unfortunate. The answers, though are in the Bible..through and through. Happy Reading.

Answer 11

and why are the still blamed for everything today? Think about it all throughout history Jew have gotten the short end of the stick.