The First Crusade and the Massacres in the Rhineland

In the autumn of 4856 (November 1095) Pope Urban II called on Christian Europe to retake Jerusalem. Unruly bands set out ahead of the organised armies, and among them arose the thought that there was no need to cross the sea to find enemies of the faith. In the spring and summer of 4856 the wave reached the flourishing communities of the Rhine.

Speyer came first, where the bishop saved most of the Jews. In Worms some eight hundred died. In Mainz—the community of Rabbeinu Gershom, the heart of Ashkenazi learning—those sheltering in the archbishop's palace were handed over or abandoned; more than a thousand died. Then Cologne, Trier, Metz and Regensburg. One condition was offered: baptism or death.

The response shook even Christian chroniclers. Almost no one accepted baptism. Parents, seeing the door about to give way, killed their children and themselves rather than surrender them to another faith—the Hebrew chronicles call this kiddush haShem, sanctification of the Name.

From this catastrophe came prayers still recited: Av HaRachamim, said on Shabbat for the slaughtered communities, and dozens of penitential poems and laments. Emperor Henry IV permitted forced converts to return, against the Pope's wishes. Ashkenaz survived, but its view of the world changed for good.