God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First Crusade Narratives

As crusaders swept through the Rhineland in 1096 en route to the Holy Land, they brought destruction to Ashkenazic Jewry, through death or forced conversion. Record of this violence has survived in Latin and Hebrew chronicles as well as in Hebrew dirges. These chronicles have been the subject of intense scrutiny since their publication in 1892. Attention has focused on accounts that in Worms, Mainz, and elsewhere Jews killed their family members and then themselves when the enemy was at the door. The Hebrew sources glorify these acts of self-destruction as the embodiment of the religious ideal of martyrdom, Kiddush Hashem.