God I'm tired.
I have to read Eichmann in Jerusalem by Wednesday. And write a working bibliography for the literature review for my sociology senior and honors theses. And write a cover letter for my resume for another class.
Yay!
Good weekend. Love my friends and family. I have a hilarious video of my brother doing the drunken invisible hula hoop. Oh god. . .
I really miss Matt. He hasn't even left yet. . . But we hardly get to talk, and I can tell the knowledge of this next deployment is tearing him up. My sweetie. Erm (Marge Simpson voice)
Anyfuck, I need to get to reading my Arendt.
The basis for my (English) senior thesis:
Survivors' Guilt and Martyrs' Response:
Understanding Themes of Hebrew Crusade Chronicles in the "S" Narrative
In the reading the "S" narrative of the First Crusade in Ashkenaz, or the Rhineland, several themes and motifs arise. Some of these are motifs with origins in the Torah: multiple references to Abraham are present, along with allusions to the historical/Biblical suffering of the people of Israel. Many direct scripture quotes are included in the Mainz Anonymous' telling of the events of 1028. These references and quotes tie the narrator and the actors of the events with historical and ancestral characters, strengthening the bond between the martyrs and apostates with their cultural past. This connection is desperately important to the Jews of the Rhineland, who have survived the Crusaders' attempts to annihilate the entire people. This survival and the collective memory, and possible guilt, affiliated with it are instrumental in shaping the narrative style of the chronicle.
David Malkiel's article, "Destruction or Conversion: Intention and Reaction, Crusaders and Jews, in 1096", discusses the common readings of this and other Hebrew and Latin Crusade chronicles of Ashkenaz. Conversion is often stated as the goal of the Christian Crusaders: they intend to baptize and bring to Christ all who they encounter on their travel to the Holy Land. The Hebrew chronicles are responsive to this in their description, and later interpretation, of the massacres of Jews by the Crusaders; any death at the hand of the Crusaders, including the mass suicides and infanticides committed by the Jews, was martyrdom: they all chose death over conversion to a false and heretical faith. However, Malkiel points out, and a close reading of the "S" Narrative reveals, that conversion and baptism were far from the primary goals of the Crusaders. A choice to convert or die was not given to the slain. From the beginning of the "S" Narrative this is clear. The Mainz Anonymous states from the outset of his narrative that the Crusaders intended to "do battle and clear a way for journeying to Jerusalem", "to kill and subjugate the Jews, who killed and crucified him [Jesus of Nazareth]" (225). Intentions to completely wipe out the Jewish population of the Rhineland are restated throughout the "S" Narrative: they "destroy[ed] vine and stock all along the way to Jerusalem" (226), stating that "'anyone who kills a single Jew will have all his sins absolved'" (226). The Crusaders plan to leave not a "remnant" (228, etc.) of Jewish blood unshed in Ashkenaz. According to Malkiel, the Latin narratives demonstrate the same motives in the actions of the Crusaders in the Rhineland. When baptism or conversion did take place, it was by force and only followed gruesome violence. Not once in the "S" Narrative is baptism mentioned as a choice to precede massacre. It is only after a person has been tortured that s/he is offered baptism, only after seeing his community razed.
This reexamination of the motives of the Crusaders asks the reader of the "S" Narrative to also reexamine the motives of the martyrs, who have been glorified for maintaining religious purity at the eve of most assured destruction. Jeremy Cohen's article, "Between Martyrdom and Apostasy: Doubt and Self-Definition in Twelfth-Century Ashkenaz" and Shmuel Shepkaru's "To Die for God: Martyrs' Heaven in Hebrew and Latin Crusade Narratives" offer a new perspective to the reader of the "S" Narrative.
The paradigm of a special Heaven, or a specific place in Heaven, for martyrs arose in both Christian and Hebrew cultures around the same time. The idea seems to have bled into Jewish cosmology from the Christian culture through close interactions and the (more peaceful) polemics between the two. Prior to the First Crusade, there was no specific place or reward for martyrs in the Jewish concept of the after-life. Tales of extreme sacrifice are seen throughout the Bible and Torah, praising the patience and faith of these servants of God, they are not glorified in the same way as the martyrs of the Crusades, who are treated as the Christians do their own saints. Shepkaru holds that this comes as a result of the blending and interaction of the two cultures of the time. The differences that are maintained between the two Heavens, the two paradigms of martyrdom, are evidence that the Hebrew chronicles are a response to the Christian chronicles: an argument or rebuttal to the Latin boasting and self-glorification.
Throughout the "S" Narrative, the Mainz Anonymous directs insults and ridicule toward the Christian community. A Gentile woman who has a trained goose is described as declaring the goose's loyalty to her as sign that God favors the Christians. Jesus of Nazareth, the Christian "savior", is called the "Crucified", a "child of lust and menstruation", and "a trampled corpse". The greed, bloodlust, and general avarice of the Crusaders is described in detail (and is also mentioned in the Latin chronicles, which pinpoint this undisciplined ravaging as the reason for the failure of the Crusades in Ashkenaz), painting the Crusaders as cruel, beastly, monstrous beings who seek nothing more noble than to bleed dry the community of Mainz. It is not difficult to see the entire narrative, then, as a response to the contemporary Christian chronicles which glorify and canonize the Crusaders.
Cohen explores the acculturation of the Jewish communities in the Rhineland and reads the Hebrew chronicles as saying, "Our martyrdom, the atonement it effected, and the salvation it secured were genuine, yours were not. Our martyrs surpass your martyrs, and even your Martyr par excellence" (435.) The exaggerated numbers and glorified gore serve to elevate the experience of the martyrs of Mainz to that of sainthood, placing the slain in the same kind of Heavenly context as that in which Christians place their own martyrs.
Cohen continues his analysis of the narratives and the culture that arose from them, finding something akin to survivors' guilt in both the actual narratives and other contemporary texts. Those who survived the Crusades often did so by converting to Christianity. Albeit a temporary conversion, this apostasy was a sin, a shame to the community. The experience of those who seek refuge in the church in the "S" Narrative can be read as a metaphor for those who sought refuge in the Church during the Crusades: they lived in the dark, hungry and thirty, barely kept physically alive. They were eventually betrayed by their Christian protectors to the murderers, as the converted would be betrayed to eternal death or death in sin by their conversion.
Those who survived the Crusades were left with fear and indecisiveness: death or conversion? Which is the worse? Guilt and self-doubt plagued the community. From this deep and painful place in the cultural collective conscious of the Ashkenazic Jews came the stories of great martyrdom and heroism in the face of possible cultural extinction. Whether the slain were actually offered the choice of survival though conversion seems irrelevant at the time of the telling. Those killed maintained their purity: rather than dying at the hand of the uncircumcised, they sacrificed themselves to God, never permitting the Gentiles to corrupt them. This is a direct rebuttal to the Latin narratives that tell of attempts to "save" the Jews or that glorify slain Crusaders.
Annotated Bibliography
Cohen, Jeremy. "Between Martyrdom and Apostasy: Doubt and Self-Definition in Twelfth-Century Ashkenaz". Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. Volume 29: Issue 3, fall 1999. pp 431-463.
Cohen explores the Ashkenazic Hebrew texts from the Crusades and explains the reasons why the narratives depart from historical record in certain ways. He examines the ideas of apostasy, or conversion (and reversion), and martyrdom in these texts. For Cohen, a major theme in the narratives is the glorification of martyrdom; the texts tell of the slain choosing certain death, even suicide, over forced baptism. The martyrs become pillars of the Jewish community, epitomizing all that is valued in Ashkenazic Jewish society at the time of the writing of the narratives, which occur after the fact. Something akin to survivors' guilt is evident in Cohen's reading of the texts. The narratives, written after the fact, are obsessed with the idea of conversion. Those who live to tell and hear the story of the survivors must justify themselves to the lives of the martyrs. From this same sentiment, other texts arose which glorify piety, listing the pious quite near the martyrs in the heavenly hierarchy. Those who live on after the slaughter, who either converted or otherwise failed to sacrifice themselves to God, live with the task of rationalizing the martyr's actions and try to redeem themselves in the light of those who've committed the ultimate sacrifice.
Malkiel, David. "Destruction or Conversion: Intention and Reaction, Crusaders and Jews, in 1096". Jewish History. Number 15. Page 257-280. 2001.
Malkiel exams several Latin and Hebrew Crusade narratives, seeking to disprove the commonly held idea that the massacres of the Jews of Ashkenaz took place only after the Crusaders attempted to convert them. Malkiel contends that murder and annihilation, vengeance for the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, was the actual motive. His examination of both Latin and Hebrew sources finds that this indeed was true, that the Crusaders intended to destroy the Jewish presence in the Ashkenaz area. Baptism, when it did take place, was by force and only after severe acts of violence.
Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld. "Abraham's Simplicity". Torah.org: http://www.torah.org/learning/pirkei-avos/chapter5-4.html
I used this essay and other guides and lessons on the Torah.org website to better understand the religious and cultural references made in the narrative. Of particular interest are the parallels I found in the narrative to the life of Abraham and the history of the Jewish people.
Shepkaru, Shmuel. "To Die for God: Martyr's Heaven in Hebrew and Latin Crusade Narratives." Speculum, volume 77, number 2, 2002. pp 311-341.
Shepkaru's article examines the increasing similarities between Christian and Jewish cultures and paradigms at the time of the First Crusade. The closeness and interaction of the two cultures aided in the hybridization and modification of certain beliefs and practices. Among these is the idea of heaven which takes on a new face for Ashkenazic Jews at the time of the greater massacres of the Crusade. The idea of a martyr's heaven is greatly shaped by dominate ideas in Christian culture that trickled, via multiple routes, into the collective Jewish culture. Martyrdom in the Crusade chronicles takes on the role of rebuttal and reply to Christian texts that explore similar themes. Shepkaru also looks at the surviving differences between the contemporary cultures and examines the significance of these and how they may have aided in the shaping of the chronicles.
Stow, Kenneth. "Conversion, Apostasy, and Apprehensiveness: Emicho of Flonheim and the Fear of Jews in the Twelfth Century". Speculum, volume 76, number 4, 2001. pp 911-933.
Stow looks at the character of Emicho, who is present in both Latin and Hebrew Crusade narratives, and attempts to unravel the myth of the man and understand the actual historical figure. Emicho takes on a significant role for both Jews and Crusaders, both of whom curse him in their chronicles of the First Crusade. The man seen in the narratives is the embodiment of all that went wrong in the Crusades: to the Jews, he is the actor of the evils against them: forcing conversion and stealing away cultural identity, and committing gruesome acts of violence against the people f Ashkenaz; to Christians, he represents the failed attempts to convert to Christianity those Jews not slaughtered that led to the greatly feared reversion to Judaism that shook the Christian/Crusader community.
I have to read Eichmann in Jerusalem by Wednesday. And write a working bibliography for the literature review for my sociology senior and honors theses. And write a cover letter for my resume for another class.
Yay!
Good weekend. Love my friends and family. I have a hilarious video of my brother doing the drunken invisible hula hoop. Oh god. . .
I really miss Matt. He hasn't even left yet. . . But we hardly get to talk, and I can tell the knowledge of this next deployment is tearing him up. My sweetie. Erm (Marge Simpson voice)
Anyfuck, I need to get to reading my Arendt.
The basis for my (English) senior thesis:
Survivors' Guilt and Martyrs' Response:
Understanding Themes of Hebrew Crusade Chronicles in the "S" Narrative
In the reading the "S" narrative of the First Crusade in Ashkenaz, or the Rhineland, several themes and motifs arise. Some of these are motifs with origins in the Torah: multiple references to Abraham are present, along with allusions to the historical/Biblical suffering of the people of Israel. Many direct scripture quotes are included in the Mainz Anonymous' telling of the events of 1028. These references and quotes tie the narrator and the actors of the events with historical and ancestral characters, strengthening the bond between the martyrs and apostates with their cultural past. This connection is desperately important to the Jews of the Rhineland, who have survived the Crusaders' attempts to annihilate the entire people. This survival and the collective memory, and possible guilt, affiliated with it are instrumental in shaping the narrative style of the chronicle.
David Malkiel's article, "Destruction or Conversion: Intention and Reaction, Crusaders and Jews, in 1096", discusses the common readings of this and other Hebrew and Latin Crusade chronicles of Ashkenaz. Conversion is often stated as the goal of the Christian Crusaders: they intend to baptize and bring to Christ all who they encounter on their travel to the Holy Land. The Hebrew chronicles are responsive to this in their description, and later interpretation, of the massacres of Jews by the Crusaders; any death at the hand of the Crusaders, including the mass suicides and infanticides committed by the Jews, was martyrdom: they all chose death over conversion to a false and heretical faith. However, Malkiel points out, and a close reading of the "S" Narrative reveals, that conversion and baptism were far from the primary goals of the Crusaders. A choice to convert or die was not given to the slain. From the beginning of the "S" Narrative this is clear. The Mainz Anonymous states from the outset of his narrative that the Crusaders intended to "do battle and clear a way for journeying to Jerusalem", "to kill and subjugate the Jews, who killed and crucified him [Jesus of Nazareth]" (225). Intentions to completely wipe out the Jewish population of the Rhineland are restated throughout the "S" Narrative: they "destroy[ed] vine and stock all along the way to Jerusalem" (226), stating that "'anyone who kills a single Jew will have all his sins absolved'" (226). The Crusaders plan to leave not a "remnant" (228, etc.) of Jewish blood unshed in Ashkenaz. According to Malkiel, the Latin narratives demonstrate the same motives in the actions of the Crusaders in the Rhineland. When baptism or conversion did take place, it was by force and only followed gruesome violence. Not once in the "S" Narrative is baptism mentioned as a choice to precede massacre. It is only after a person has been tortured that s/he is offered baptism, only after seeing his community razed.
This reexamination of the motives of the Crusaders asks the reader of the "S" Narrative to also reexamine the motives of the martyrs, who have been glorified for maintaining religious purity at the eve of most assured destruction. Jeremy Cohen's article, "Between Martyrdom and Apostasy: Doubt and Self-Definition in Twelfth-Century Ashkenaz" and Shmuel Shepkaru's "To Die for God: Martyrs' Heaven in Hebrew and Latin Crusade Narratives" offer a new perspective to the reader of the "S" Narrative.
The paradigm of a special Heaven, or a specific place in Heaven, for martyrs arose in both Christian and Hebrew cultures around the same time. The idea seems to have bled into Jewish cosmology from the Christian culture through close interactions and the (more peaceful) polemics between the two. Prior to the First Crusade, there was no specific place or reward for martyrs in the Jewish concept of the after-life. Tales of extreme sacrifice are seen throughout the Bible and Torah, praising the patience and faith of these servants of God, they are not glorified in the same way as the martyrs of the Crusades, who are treated as the Christians do their own saints. Shepkaru holds that this comes as a result of the blending and interaction of the two cultures of the time. The differences that are maintained between the two Heavens, the two paradigms of martyrdom, are evidence that the Hebrew chronicles are a response to the Christian chronicles: an argument or rebuttal to the Latin boasting and self-glorification.
Throughout the "S" Narrative, the Mainz Anonymous directs insults and ridicule toward the Christian community. A Gentile woman who has a trained goose is described as declaring the goose's loyalty to her as sign that God favors the Christians. Jesus of Nazareth, the Christian "savior", is called the "Crucified", a "child of lust and menstruation", and "a trampled corpse". The greed, bloodlust, and general avarice of the Crusaders is described in detail (and is also mentioned in the Latin chronicles, which pinpoint this undisciplined ravaging as the reason for the failure of the Crusades in Ashkenaz), painting the Crusaders as cruel, beastly, monstrous beings who seek nothing more noble than to bleed dry the community of Mainz. It is not difficult to see the entire narrative, then, as a response to the contemporary Christian chronicles which glorify and canonize the Crusaders.
Cohen explores the acculturation of the Jewish communities in the Rhineland and reads the Hebrew chronicles as saying, "Our martyrdom, the atonement it effected, and the salvation it secured were genuine, yours were not. Our martyrs surpass your martyrs, and even your Martyr par excellence" (435.) The exaggerated numbers and glorified gore serve to elevate the experience of the martyrs of Mainz to that of sainthood, placing the slain in the same kind of Heavenly context as that in which Christians place their own martyrs.
Cohen continues his analysis of the narratives and the culture that arose from them, finding something akin to survivors' guilt in both the actual narratives and other contemporary texts. Those who survived the Crusades often did so by converting to Christianity. Albeit a temporary conversion, this apostasy was a sin, a shame to the community. The experience of those who seek refuge in the church in the "S" Narrative can be read as a metaphor for those who sought refuge in the Church during the Crusades: they lived in the dark, hungry and thirty, barely kept physically alive. They were eventually betrayed by their Christian protectors to the murderers, as the converted would be betrayed to eternal death or death in sin by their conversion.
Those who survived the Crusades were left with fear and indecisiveness: death or conversion? Which is the worse? Guilt and self-doubt plagued the community. From this deep and painful place in the cultural collective conscious of the Ashkenazic Jews came the stories of great martyrdom and heroism in the face of possible cultural extinction. Whether the slain were actually offered the choice of survival though conversion seems irrelevant at the time of the telling. Those killed maintained their purity: rather than dying at the hand of the uncircumcised, they sacrificed themselves to God, never permitting the Gentiles to corrupt them. This is a direct rebuttal to the Latin narratives that tell of attempts to "save" the Jews or that glorify slain Crusaders.
Annotated Bibliography
Cohen, Jeremy. "Between Martyrdom and Apostasy: Doubt and Self-Definition in Twelfth-Century Ashkenaz". Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. Volume 29: Issue 3, fall 1999. pp 431-463.
Cohen explores the Ashkenazic Hebrew texts from the Crusades and explains the reasons why the narratives depart from historical record in certain ways. He examines the ideas of apostasy, or conversion (and reversion), and martyrdom in these texts. For Cohen, a major theme in the narratives is the glorification of martyrdom; the texts tell of the slain choosing certain death, even suicide, over forced baptism. The martyrs become pillars of the Jewish community, epitomizing all that is valued in Ashkenazic Jewish society at the time of the writing of the narratives, which occur after the fact. Something akin to survivors' guilt is evident in Cohen's reading of the texts. The narratives, written after the fact, are obsessed with the idea of conversion. Those who live to tell and hear the story of the survivors must justify themselves to the lives of the martyrs. From this same sentiment, other texts arose which glorify piety, listing the pious quite near the martyrs in the heavenly hierarchy. Those who live on after the slaughter, who either converted or otherwise failed to sacrifice themselves to God, live with the task of rationalizing the martyr's actions and try to redeem themselves in the light of those who've committed the ultimate sacrifice.
Malkiel, David. "Destruction or Conversion: Intention and Reaction, Crusaders and Jews, in 1096". Jewish History. Number 15. Page 257-280. 2001.
Malkiel exams several Latin and Hebrew Crusade narratives, seeking to disprove the commonly held idea that the massacres of the Jews of Ashkenaz took place only after the Crusaders attempted to convert them. Malkiel contends that murder and annihilation, vengeance for the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, was the actual motive. His examination of both Latin and Hebrew sources finds that this indeed was true, that the Crusaders intended to destroy the Jewish presence in the Ashkenaz area. Baptism, when it did take place, was by force and only after severe acts of violence.
Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld. "Abraham's Simplicity". Torah.org: http://www.torah.org/learning/pirkei-avos/chapter5-4.html
I used this essay and other guides and lessons on the Torah.org website to better understand the religious and cultural references made in the narrative. Of particular interest are the parallels I found in the narrative to the life of Abraham and the history of the Jewish people.
Shepkaru, Shmuel. "To Die for God: Martyr's Heaven in Hebrew and Latin Crusade Narratives." Speculum, volume 77, number 2, 2002. pp 311-341.
Shepkaru's article examines the increasing similarities between Christian and Jewish cultures and paradigms at the time of the First Crusade. The closeness and interaction of the two cultures aided in the hybridization and modification of certain beliefs and practices. Among these is the idea of heaven which takes on a new face for Ashkenazic Jews at the time of the greater massacres of the Crusade. The idea of a martyr's heaven is greatly shaped by dominate ideas in Christian culture that trickled, via multiple routes, into the collective Jewish culture. Martyrdom in the Crusade chronicles takes on the role of rebuttal and reply to Christian texts that explore similar themes. Shepkaru also looks at the surviving differences between the contemporary cultures and examines the significance of these and how they may have aided in the shaping of the chronicles.
Stow, Kenneth. "Conversion, Apostasy, and Apprehensiveness: Emicho of Flonheim and the Fear of Jews in the Twelfth Century". Speculum, volume 76, number 4, 2001. pp 911-933.
Stow looks at the character of Emicho, who is present in both Latin and Hebrew Crusade narratives, and attempts to unravel the myth of the man and understand the actual historical figure. Emicho takes on a significant role for both Jews and Crusaders, both of whom curse him in their chronicles of the First Crusade. The man seen in the narratives is the embodiment of all that went wrong in the Crusades: to the Jews, he is the actor of the evils against them: forcing conversion and stealing away cultural identity, and committing gruesome acts of violence against the people f Ashkenaz; to Christians, he represents the failed attempts to convert to Christianity those Jews not slaughtered that led to the greatly feared reversion to Judaism that shook the Christian/Crusader community.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
punknitemike:
what are you going to school for?
timber_:
and the award for longest blog ever in history goes to.... YOU! lol 