ANTI-JEWISH DEFAMATIONS

Hugh Fogelman

 

 

The Early Church fathers brained-washed the Gentile-Christians into believing the Jews were the devil in human form. After the turn of the first millennium, three anti-Jewish libels were widely circulated by the medieval clergy and believed by most Christians. Even Martin Luther, the beloved Protestant leader wrote, “I advise you not to enter their synagogues; all devils might dismember and devour you there…therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that where ever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which blasphemy and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously…We are at fault in not slaying them”.  

BLOOD LIBEL - The first accusation of ritual murder occurred in 1144 CE in England. Individual Jews along with entire communities were put on trial on over 150 occasions for engaging in ritual murder. The most common accusation of blood libel is that a Christian boy was knapped by Jews and the boy’s blood was drained and used to make unleavened bread (matzoth) during the Jewish Holiday of Passover. One famous story occurred in Lincoln, England in which Jews were accused of kidnapping a boy by the name of “Little Hugh,” fattening him up for 10 days and then killing him by crucifixion. One hundred Jews were arrested and 19 were tortured into admitting the crime resulting in the hanging without a trail. The Catholic Church rushed to make “Little Hugh” a saint and declared the village a religious shrine. 

DESECRATION OF THE HOST – In 1215 CE, the Fourth Lateran Council accepted the doctrine that the wafer used at the Mass was miraculously transformed into the body of Jesus. Christian’s belief in this doctrine led to the torture and murder of thousands of Jews. The reasoning was: since Jesus was brought to life through the wafer, would not the Jews who had once crucified him wish to torture and kill him again? In 1243, the first accusation of “Host Desecration” occurred near Berlin and the city’s entire Jewish community was burned alive for allegedly torturing a wafer. In 1298, in Rottingen of Franconia, the Jews were accused of smashing a sacramental wafer in a mortar with reports that blood flowed from it. A Catholic priest named Rindfleish declared he had divine authority to eliminate the Jews and the entire community was burned at the stake. The bloodshed did not stop there―the horror spread from town to town through parts of Germany, Bavaria and Austria. 140 Jewish communities were destroyed murdering hundred thousand Jewish men, women and children. In 1389, Prague, the entire Jewish community was collectively accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer and was given a choice of baptism or death. When the Jews refused, three thousand of them were slaughtered. The same thing happened in Berlin (1510 CE) where 26 Jews were burned alive for reportedly “desecrating the Host.” 

JEWISH DOCTORS POISONING CHRISTIANS – Jews, who usually fell among the most educated classes, provided more than their share of physicians. However, rumors abounded of Jewish doctors killing Christian patients on purpose. There are several instances of Jewish physicians being executed after the death of  a king whom they were attending. In 1610, the Christian medical faculty of the University of Vienna declared that Jewish physicians were bound by Jewish law to kill every 10th Christian through the use of drugs. In Bohemia (1611 CE) eighty-six Jews were burned to death for an alleged plot of Jewish physicians to poison the populace.  

JEWS POISONING THE WELLS – The Bubonic Plague, known as the “Black Death” fell on Europe in the 14th century. Perhaps as many as 25 million people died, a quarter of Europe’s population. Rumors soon spread that it was caused by the hated Jews, who were poisoning the drinking wells. It did not matter that Jews were dying too as logic went out the window. Christian hysteria was unmanageable. Fire and sword came down upon the Jews―60 large Jewish communities were destroyed, as well as 150 smaller towns. Jews died by the thousands by Christian hands. In Strasbourg alone, 1,800 Jews were dragged out to the cemetery on the Sabbath and burned alive. In Mayence, 6,000 perished and the same thing happened in Erfurt where 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. 

During the period of the Black Death, a small holocaust occurred against the Jews in which almost a million Jews were murdered by Christians. Those Jews that survived the plague had to contend with the Christian mobs. It was a sad time for European Jewry. 

The Christian religion is the only religion in the history of man to accuse another people of deicide and also have a built-in theological hatred against a group of people year after year, generation after generation. 

 

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