Pogroms and Ghettos, 1096 Onwards Quiz

Answer: The Rhineland

Mobs, headed mainly by lesser nobles, tried to force Jews to convert to Christianity, and robbed and killed many who refused. The Jewish communities in Cologne, Mainz, Speyer and especially Worms suffered large numbers of deaths. Some of the mobs were led by Count Emicho, who never reached the Holy Land, and by one monk called Volkmar.

'Let robbers become knights!' Pope Urban II is quoted as having said in his fiery sermon launching the Crusade. The robbers remained thugs.

There were also pogroms in Saxony and Bohemia.

Answer: False

The bishops and most of the priests in the areas concerned condemned the forced conversions, the robbery and the murders, but to little avail. The Bishop of Speyer, for example, gave Jews refuge in his palace but the Crusaders forced their way inside.

A little over a century later, in 1199, Pope Innocent III also issued a condemnation of violence against the Jews and forcible conversion, but again to little effect.

Answer: All of these

Allegations of murdering children are of course highly inflammatory. The first recorded 'blood libel' in medieval Europe was in 1144 in Norwich. By about 1200 these allegations had become part of standard anti-Jewish demonology and persisted throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. In slightly modified forms the blood libel resurfaced in the 19th century, especially in parts of Central and Eastern Europe.

Various other unpopular groups have also been subject to versions of the 'blood libel'.

Answer: Richard I (Lion Heart)

When Richard I was crowned in 1189 some leading members of the Jewish community in England gathered outside Westminster Abbey to do homage and present gifts to him as their feudal lord. They were savagely beaten, and rumours spread claiming that the king had ordered the massacre of all Jews in England.

There was serious and continuing violence for some months against the Jews in London and some provincial towns and cities. In York in 1190, the Jews were taken for protection into the castle, but the mob managed to set fire to Clifford's Tower, where they were sheltering.

Many committed suicide. In all, about 150 Jews perished in York in March 1190.

Answer: True

The exact form of the badge varied. Most commonly, it took the form of a yellow or red 'wheel' (which looked like two concentric circles) or the Star of David. In the later Middle Ages Jews in some places had to wear a conical yellow hat as well, or other distinctive items of dress that exposed them to ridicule.

As is well known, the Jewish 'badge' was revived by the Nazis, first in Poland in 1939, and soon afterwards in nearly all other countries under Nazi rule.

Answer: Edward I (Longshanks)

In 1290 Edward I ordered all Jews to leave England. He also ordered that they were not to be harassed or robbed on their way out of the country, but this was widely disregarded. No reason for the expulsion has been recorded. However, it is known that the lot of the Jews in England had worsened since the violence that followed the coronation of Richard I in 1189 and that they had become less useful to the English kings. Jews were not readmitted to England till 1656, except as members of the households of foreign ambassadors. (From Elizabethan times on, a very small number number of individual Jews were occasionally admitted for specific jobs, but usually only on a temporary basis).

Answer: Ghettos were slums or shanty towns

In many towns and cities the designated area of the ghetto was not expanded much (or at all) to meet population increases and therefore became overcrowded. The term 'ghetto' originated c. 1600 in Venice.

The legal requirement to reside in the ghetto made it different from the more general tendency of many minorities to live together in certain districts.

The use of the word 'ghetto' for any run down inner city area inhabited mainly by members of ethnic or religious minority groups is a modern extension of the earlier meaning. The term has also been extended to a some occupations and activities that tend to isolate groups from mainstream society and opportunities. For example, the term 'pink ghetto' is sometimes used to describe typically female office jobs that offer little or no chance of promotion.

Answer: Rome

Pope Paul IV established the Rome ghetto amid the religious zeal of the Council of Trent. It was widely regarded as one of the harshest ghettos of all. Initially about 3,000 inhabitants were forced to live in an area of eight acres, slightly expanded later as the number of inhabitants rose to 5,000 and more. For the first few decades the water supply was inadequate. The ghetto in Rome was not finally abolished till 1870, when Italian nationalists, including a large contingent of anticlerical Liberals, took control of Rome by force. They had absolutely no time for what they regarded as obscurantist, churchy nonsense.

In addition to the usual restrictions, the Jews in the Rome Ghetto had to provide genuine Jews for demeaning roles in Passion plays. (Many of the more onerous restrictions were lifted in 1848).

Answer: Luther

Luther's book on 'The Jews and Their Lies' bristles with undisguised hatred and does no credit at all to the author. The tone is hysterical and the book is one long, coarse, hate-filled rant. Luther was no Renaissance man.

Answer: Venice

Venice has the only remaining (former) ghetto in Europe. It is located on two islands and part of a third in the old city. It has five synagogues and a sombre memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. There are regular guided tours by members of the local Jewish community.

Ironically, since c. 1980 the former ghetto in Venice has become a decidedly upmarket (upscale) place to live.