The Burning of the Talmud in Paris
After a staged disputation in Paris, twenty-four cartloads of Talmud manuscripts are burned on the Place de Grève—the first time books, not people, were sent to the fire.
In 4999 the convert Nicholas Donin, earlier excommunicated by his community, submitted thirty-five charges to Pope Gregory IX: the Talmud was not a sacred book but a collection of blasphemies against Christianity, and so deserved none of the protection the Church extended to the Old Testament. The Pope wrote to the kings of Europe; only Louis IX of France responded.
In the summer of 5000 a 'disputation' was staged in Paris that was in fact a trial of a book. Four Jews spoke, chief among them Rabbi Yechiel of Paris, head of a yeshiva of three hundred students. He defended brilliantly: the 'Yeshu' of the Talmud lived in another era; the laws concerning gentiles referred to ancient idolaters, not to Christian neighbours; aggadah is not legislation. The verdict was decided in advance. In 5002 some twenty-four cartloads of manuscripts were burned on the Place de Grève—by various estimates from twelve hundred to many thousands of hand-copied volumes.
The blow was worse than any pogrom: scarcely a Talmud remained in France, and a generation learned from memory and fragments.
Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, who as a young man saw the fire, wrote the lament 'Sha'ali serufah ba-esh'—'Ask, you who were burned in fire, after the welfare of those who mourn you.' It is recited on the Ninth of Av to this day.
How we know
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Avodah Zarah 18a — “the letters are flying up” — the Gemara that sounds through this kinah
Scholarship
- the disputation of Rabbeinu Yechiel of Paris — the Hebrew account of the disputation of 5000
- the kinah “Shaali srefa bHaesh” — the Maharam of Rothenburg’s lament for the burnt cartloads
- the letters of Pope Gregory IX — Donin’s denunciation and the letters to the kings — the external documents
Basis: tradition.
People and places
Rashi · Rabbeinu Tam · Ramban · Meiri · Troyes · Babylonian Talmud · Guide for the Perplexed · Rabbi Yechiel of Paris · Smak—Rabbi Yitzchak of Corbeil · The Tosafists · Rabbeinu Yonah of Gerona · The Semag · Chizkuni · Kinot · Rabbeinu Perez of Corbeil · Paris · Sir Leon—Rabbi Yehuda ben Yitzchak of Paris · Rabbi Meir ben Shimon ha-Meili of Narbonne · The censorship of Hebrew books