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Shlomo Yitzchaki, generally known by the acronym Rashi, was a medieval French rabbi, the author of comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible.
Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about 60 km (40 mi) south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had about 82,000 inhabitants as of 2015.
Year 1096 (MXCVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
Eliezer ben Nathan of Mainz (1090–1170), or Ra'avan, was a halakist and liturgical poet. As an early Rishon, he was a contemporary of the Rashbam and Rabbeinu Tam, and one of the earliest of the Tosafists. He was the son-in-law of Rabbi Eliakim b. Joseph of Mainz, a fellow student of Rashi. Through his four daughters Eliezer became the ancestor of several learned families which exerted a great influence upon religious life in the subsequent centuries. One of his great-grandsons was Asher b. Jehiel (ROSH), father of R. Jacob, author of the Ṭurim.
Iyar is the eighth month of the civil year and the second month of the Jewish religious year on the Hebrew calendar. The name is Babylonian in origin. It is a month of 29 days. Iyar usually falls in April–May on the Gregorian calendar.
Emicho was a count in the Rhineland in the late 11th century. He is also commonly referred to as Emicho of Leiningen or Emich of Flonheim, and not to be confused with Bishop Emicho of Leiningen. In 1096, he was the leader of the Rhineland massacres which were a series of mass murders of Jews that took place during the People's Crusade.
Anusim is a legal category of Jews in halakha who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically while forcibly converted to another religion. The term "anusim" is most properly translated as the "coerced [ones]" or the "forced [ones]".
Eleazar of Worms, or Eleazar ben Judah ben Kalonymus, also sometimes known today as Eleazar Rokeach from the title of his Book of the Perfumer —where the numerical value of "Perfumer" is equal to Eleazar, was a leading Talmudist and Kabbalist, and the last major member of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, a group of German Jewish pietists.
Rishonim were the leading rabbis and poskim who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the Shulchan Aruch and following the Geonim. Rabbinic scholars subsequent to the Shulchan Aruch are generally known as acharonim.
The Rhineland massacres, also known as the German Crusade of 1096 or Gzerot Tatnó, were a series of mass murders of Jews perpetrated by mobs of French and German Christians of the People's Crusade in the year 1096, or 4856 according to the Hebrew calendar. These massacres are often seen as the first in a sequence of antisemitic events in Europe which culminated in the Holocaust.
"Ma'oz Tzur" is a Jewish liturgical poem or piyyut. It is written in Hebrew, and is sung on the holiday of Hanukkah, after lighting the festival lights. The hymn is named for its Hebrew incipit, which means "Strong Rock " and is a name or epithet for God in Judaism. It is thought to have been written sometime in the 13th century, although recent research suggests the 12th century. It was originally sung only at home, but has been used in the synagogue since the 19th century or earlier. In more recent years, of its six stanzas sometimes only the first stanza is sung.
The History of the Jews and the Crusades is part of the history of antisemitism toward Jews in the Middle Ages. The call for the First Crusade intensified the persecutions of the Jews, and they continued to be targets of Crusaders' violence and hatred throughout the Crusades.
The Mainz Anonymous is an account of the First Crusade of 1096 written soon thereafter by an anonymous Jewish author. The work is written in Hebrew. Its author is unknown, and it deals primarily with the Crusaders' actions in Mainz; hence the name commonly applied to it. However, it also deals with the ShUM-cities in the Rhineland, specifically Speyer and Worms. It is not entirely accurate: it has a definite Jewish point of view and fictionalizes anecdotes occasionally to make a point. It also includes occasional anguished supplications to God.
Ephraim of Bonn, also known as Ephraim ben Jacob, was a rabbi and writer, known for documenting the massacre of the Jews in the city of York in 1190.
Kalonymos or Kalonymus is a prominent Jewish family who lived in Italy, mostly in Lucca and in Rome, which, after the settlement at Mainz and Speyer of several of its members, took during many generations a leading part in the development of Jewish learning in Germany. The family is according to many considered the foundation of Hachmei Provence and the Ashkenazi Hasidim.
Martyrdom in Judaism is one of the main examples of Jews doing a kiddush Hashem, a Hebrew term which means "sanctification of [the] name". An example of this is public self-sacrifice in accordance with Jewish practice and identity, with the possibility of being killed for no other reason than being Jewish. There are specific conditions in Jewish law that deal with the details of self-sacrifice, be it willing or unwilling.
Kalonymus Ben Meshullam was a French Jew of the Kalonymos family.
The history of the Jews in Speyer reaches back over 1,000 years. In the Middle Ages, the city of Speyer, Germany, was home to one of the most significant Jewish communities in the Holy Roman Empire. Its significance is attested to by the frequency of the Ashkenazi Jewish surname Shapiro/Shapira and its variants Szpira/Spiro/Speyer. After many ups and downs throughout history, the community was totally wiped out in 1940 during the Holocaust. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 Jews again settled in Speyer and a first assembly took place in 1996.
The Worms massacre was the murder of at least 800 Jews from Worms, Holy Roman Empire, at the hands of crusaders under Count Emicho in May 1096.
Robert Chazan is the S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Professor of Hebrew & Judaic Studies at New York University.
References
- ↑ Chazan, God, humanity and history, p. 121.