|
|
|
Book Review
Europe: Ancient and Medieval
Robert Chazan. God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First Crusade Narratives. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 2000. Pp. xi, 270. $40.00.
|
This is the third book that Robert Chazan has written on the lethal attacks launched against Rhineland Jewish communities by Christian warriors near the beginning of the First Crusade. European Jewry and the First Crusade (1987) was a historical overview, surveying the sources and what they reveal about the varieties of violence, the patterns of Jewish response (prayer, resistance, conversion, martyrdom), and subsequent interpretation and memorialization of the traumatic events. A substantial appendix to that book presented the major Hebrew chronicles in translation. In the Year 1096: The First Crusade and the Jews (1996), published in the anniversary year, covered much the same material for a general, nonacademic audience. As revealed by its subtitle, the scope of the current book is narrower. The many Christian chronicles of the First Crusade have relatively little to say about the bloodshed in the Rhineland; their focus is, understandably, the Middle East. It was not until the Hebrew chronicles were published in 1892 that the full story of the preliminary massacres became accessible to most medievalists, and not until after World War II that this account became integrated into the authoritative general Crusade histories. |
. . . |
There are about 515 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|