WHAT!! …Christian Antisemitism’?!?! -8

  Authors Edward Flannery, who wrote “The Anguish of the Jews”; and Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, who wrote “Why the Jews?” agree that up to 1000AD, things were relatively quiet regarding “Christian Anti-semitism”.* Prager and Telushkin write, “By the eleventh century (1000AD), the church had converted virtually all the inhabitants of Europe, except the Jews.** Until then, the situation of the Jews was tenuous but tolerable” (p79). Flannery writes, “The year 1000AD found Jews in conditions reasonably stable for the time”(p91).
  However, the same authors point to the year 1095-1096 as the birth of horror. Prager and Telushkin write, “With the First Crusade in 1096, however, the status and security of European Jewry declined precipitously” (p79). And, Flannery writes, “Though often surpassed by other years in the volume of atrocities, 1096 marks the beginning of a harassment of the Jews that, in duration and intensity, was unique in Jewish history” (p91).
  I repeat, 1096 was the year of the Ratisbon ‘First Crusade’. Flannery writes, “Great ill-organized hordes of nobles, knights, monks, and peasants-“God wills it” on their lips as they set off to free the Holy Land from the Muslim infidel—suddenly turned on the Jews. There were mutterings that the Crusaders might better start their work with the “infidels at home.” One chronicler, Guibert of Nogent (1053-1124) reported the crusaders of Rouen as saying: “we desire to combat the enemies of God in the East; but we have under our eyes the Jews, a race more inimical to God than all the others. We are doing this whole thing backward.” Turning this logic into action, the Crusaders fell upon the Jews in Rouen and other places in Lorraine, massacring those who refused baptism” (pg92).
  I have only one word “Unbelievable!” On the contrary, I do have a question for these Crusaders about the following phrases: “God wills it!” “Muslim infidel”; “infidels at home”; “enemies of God”; and especially the phrase: “the Jews, a race more inimical to God than all the others.” As Christians who derive inspiration to act from the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, from what verses do you derive the idea that we are to ‘kill the infidel’? And…“God wills it”?
  And especially regarding the comment that “the Jews are more inimical to God than all others”; please inform me when the following passage ceased. And, how? (Please carefully
 consider my highlights)
9.For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10.He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he (God) instructed him (His people), he kept him as the apple of his eye.  -Deut 32:9-10
Regarding Israel, the term of endearment: “apple of my eye” is repeated in Lamentations 2:18.
   Flannery writes, “All along the Rhine Valley the troops, urged on by preachers like Peter the Hermit, and antisemitic Count Emicho, and others offered Jewish communities the option of baptism or death.” I repeat, I wonder what verse these preachers in their sermons to support the call for: “baptism or death”? Were these preachers so ignorant of God’s word as to know that not only does forced conversion not work, but baptism does not save!?!?!
  Flannery continues, “At Speyer, thanks to the forceful action of Bishop John, ‘only’ ten were killed.” “At Worms, many Jews took refuge in the palace of Bishop Adalbert, while others remained in their homes, promised protection by their neighbors. The stronger forces of the Crusaders prevailed, however, and the majority of Jews were killed” (pg92).
   “Many Jews committed suicide rather than risk being baptized. Several hundred were massacred at Mainz, as once again Jewish parents sacrificed their children and themselves to “sanctify the Name.”” “A few, as was usual, were baptized. Cologne knew a momentary reprieve as Jews, with the aid of Archbishop Hermann, were hidden in Christian homes in seven villages of the diocese, only to be discovered later and murdered. In Ratisbon, the Crusaders forced the whole Jewish community into the Danube River and baptized them. Massacres occurred at Treves, Neuss, Ratisbon, in cities along the Rhine and the Danube, in Bohemia, and finally in Prague where Bishop Cosmas did his best to shield the Jews. In 1099 at journey’s end in Jerusalem the soldiers of Godfrey de Bouillon found the Jews assembled in a synagogue and set it ablaze.”
  “From January 1096 it is estimated that up to ‘10,000’ died, probably one-fourth to one-third of the Jewish population of Germany and Northern France at that time” (p93-94).
 
May God have mercy!!! I have only tears!!!!
 
*This does not mean there was no anti-semitism, I refer specifically to “Christian” anti-semitism.
**Of course, this is from the perspective of their “Judaism”. The actual truth is that many of the so-called converts at that time were not converts at all. An authentic Christian behaves like Jesus(1Cor11:1)! Did Jesus murder Jews? Absolutely not! He was Jewish! John 14:21 teaches if one loves Jesus, he must keep His commandments, i.e. the Word of God.