Remembering the Crusades: Myth, Image, and Identity

2. Constructing Memories of Martyrdom: Contrasting Portrayals of Martyrdom in the Hebrew Narratives of the First and Second Crusade

50 chapter two Constructing Memories of Martyrdom Contrasting Portrayals of Martyrdom in the Hebrew Narratives of the First and Second Crusade chaviva levin The medieval european ideology of crusade appears, at first blush, to have little, if anything, to say about medieval Jews. And yet, when European Christians set out on crusade, Ashkenazic (or Northern European) Jewish communities were invariably caught up in their wake. In both the First Crusade (1096–99) and the Second Crusade (1146–48), the two focal points of this chapter, renegade Christian preachers fomented anti-Jewish hostility with the result that the Jews of Rhineland Germany were attacked not only as a consequence of increased upheaval attendant on the crusading expedition but also in the name of crusade.∞ When confronted by crusaders with the alternatives of conversion and death, many (though by no means all) Ashkenazic Jews opted to die as Jews rather than to live as Christians. Each of these attacks, or series of attacks, and the Jewish responses to them, was commemorated by Jews in historical narratives composed in Hebrew some time later. The narratives of each of these crusades evince a different attitude toward the Jewish response of martyrdom. This study examines the differing constructions of martyrdom and seeks the rationales that underlie those contrasting portrayals in these Hebrew narratives of crusade. For the experience of Rhineland Jews during the First Crusade, three narrative texts have survived: the shorter account, known as the ‘‘Mainz Anonymous,’’ so named for its focus on Mainz; the longer ‘‘Solomon bar Samson’’ account; and a third record, composed by R. Eliezer bar Natan (‘‘Raban’’), which is distinguished by its use of the more innovative liter- Constructing Memories of Martyrdom 51 ary genre of narrative alongside and interspersed with the more traditional genre of liturgical poetry.≤ The experiences of Jews during the Second Crusade were recorded only in a single narrative, the Sefer Zekhira of R. Ephraim of Bonn, a nephew of Raban.≥ There are many affinities between the two episodes of antiJewish violence and the narratives they engendered, and R. Ephraim of Bonn’s text, like that of his uncle, uses two genres, poetry and prose.∂ One translator of these texts has gone so far as to claim that ‘‘although the Sefer Zekhira of Ephraim of Bonn deals with the Second Crusade, in style and attitude it remains in the tradition of the three earlier [First Crusade] chronicles. . . . Above all, the document shows us that during the Second Crusade, the Jews of Germany viewed the persecutions, understood their roles, and greeted their agonies in the same spirit as had their forebears during the First Crusade.’’∑ For most readers of these texts, that ‘‘spirit’’ is exemplified by the Jewish response of martyrdom when confronted by crusaders with the alternatives of conversion to Christianity or death. A closer look, however, reveals significantly different attitudes toward Jewish martyrdom in the narratives of the Second Crusade from those of the First. The First Crusade narratives highlight and valorize the willingness to be killed or to kill oneself and one’s children rather than convert to Christianity,∏ or what has been termed activist martyrdom.π The portrayal of Jewish martyrdom in the First Crusade narratives alongside liturgical poetry composed to memorialize the Jewish martyrs of that crusade contribute significantly to the production of an Ashkenazic self-image in which activist martyrdom becomes a hallmark of Ashkenazic identity.∫ Sefer Zekhira, Ephraim of Bonn’s Hebrew Second Crusade narrative, by contrast, evinces a different response to Jewish martyrdom.Ω Whereas the earlier narratives celebrate Jewish willingness to die for the faith, this text minimizes the depiction of martyrdom and instead foregrounds the effective strategies for Jewish survival employed during this crusade. Martyrdom in the Hebrew Narratives of the First Crusade The Hebrew First Crusade narratives recount multiple Jewish responses to the crusader attacks of 1096, showing that these responses ranged 52 remembrance and response from efforts at political negotiation, to attempts at flight, to fighting back against the attackers, to death at the hands of crusaders.∞≠ One of the most striking aspects of these narratives, though, is their depiction of Jewish sacrificial martyrdom, which is the most distinctive attribute of the texts.∞∞ They are replete with arresting portrayals not only of Rhineland Jews allowing themselves to be killed rather than submit to conversion to Christianity (the traditional Jewish interpretation of martyrdom) but also of Jews killing themselves and their...