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The first massacres and expulsions of Jews by Europeans began during the Roman Empire. The Roman Praetor Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Hispanus expelled Jews from Rome in 139 B.C.E. Pompey conquered Syria in 64 B.C.E. and present-day Palestine in 63 B.C.E. Some Jews were exiled to other parts of the empire.
The Romans implemented oppressive policies against the Jews. Emperor Tiberius once again expelled Jews from Rome in 19 C.E. In 62 C.E., the Romans rebelled against the Jews. Vespasian, sent to the region, suppressed the revolt. The Romans destroyed the Jewish "Second Temple" (Herod's Temple) in 70 C.E. After this event, Jews were expelled from Palestine, and many were enslaved by the Romans.
In exile, Jews rebelled against the Romans in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Libya, and Cyprus during the Kitos Wars of 115-117 C.E., but General Quietus suppressed the revolt. Under the leadership of Simon Bar Kokhba, Jews revolted in Palestine in 132 C.E. and established a state in the region. Emperor Hadrian's order led Sextus Julius Severus to Palestine, where he suppressed the revolt. After the suppression of the rebellion, Emperor Hadrian persecuted the Jews and forbade their entry into Jerusalem. He also had a pagan temple built in Jerusalem in honor of Jupiter.
During the Christian era, animosity toward Jews increased due to the belief that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. Ioannis Hrisostomos, who served as both Patriarch of Antioch and Constantinople and is considered a Church Father of both the Eastern and Western Churches, gained fame for his eight anti-Jewish sermons during his tenure in Antioch. These sermons were transcribed verbatim by his listeners and later circulated widely. Between 415-419, tensions in Byzantine lands escalated further, and Christians attacked Jews in Inmestar, near today's Hatay.
During the compilation of the famous law code "Corpus Juris Civilis" in Byzantium, certain measures were taken against Jews, stating that they could not benefit from any honor, and the most important Jewish prayers were forbidden. In 598, the bishop of Palermo ordered all synagogues and Jewish properties to be transferred to churches. During the same period, the First Council of Clermont, convened within the Catholic Church, forbade Jews from holding any public office.
At the Council of Paris, convened in 614-615 during the reign of the Frankish King Clothair, it was decided that Jews holding public office must convert to Christianity. Frankish King Dagobert ordered the expulsion of Jews from his country and also advised Byzantine Emperor Justinian on this matter. Heraclius issued a decree for the forced baptism of Jews, and another Byzantine Emperor, Leo III, followed the same practice. In 874, Byzantine Emperor Basil I ordered the forced baptism of Jews.
Pope Leo VII (937) advised the Archbishop of Mainz to expel Jews from the diocese if they continued to refuse baptism. In 876, Archbishop Ansegise of Gaul expelled Jews from Sens. In 899, King Charles III of France seized all Jewish-owned properties subject to a tithe for the benefit of the church in Narbonne. The Venetians forbade Jews from using their ships in 945. In 1010, Bishop Alduin of Limoges, France, offered the Jews in his diocese a choice between baptism and expulsion. They tried to persuade the Jews for a month but were largely unsuccessful; only 3-4 Jews abandoned their faith, while some fled to other cities and some committed suicide.
The Crusades witnessed major massacres not only against Muslims but also against Jews and Orthodox Christians. Massacres continued after the Crusades. As the Church forbade Christians from engaging in usury, Jews turned to moneylending. A great anti-Jewish sentiment arose among the populace and nobility due to the idea that Jews were the source of evil. A German knight named Rindfleisch ordered the massacre of thousands of Jews in Southern and Central Germany in 1298. The background to the massacre included a series of blood libels in Mainz (1281, 1283), Munich (1285), and Oberwesel (1287), and an accusation of "desecrating the host" in Paris in 1290.
On April 20, 1298, in Roettingen, a small Franconian town, 21 Jews were attacked and massacred by a group led by Rindfleisch under the accusation of "desecrating the host." Rindfleisch then gathered a mob eager for plunder and traveled from town to town, encouraging everyone to destroy the Jews. The massacres spread to every corner of Germany, engulfing Franconia, Swabia, Hesse, Thuringia, and finally Heilbronn.
Although Emperor Albert I of Austria announced that Jews would be protected, the emperor's warning was largely ignored, and Jews continued to be massacred in Gotha (1303), Renchen (1301), and Weissensee (1303). Jewish massacres occurred in Strasbourg and Zurich in 1349, and in Brussels in 1370. When King Louis the Great of Hungary expelled Jews in 1360, they sought refuge in Ottoman lands.
During the great plague epidemic in Europe in the 14th century, Jews were blamed for the plague, and it was believed that if they were eliminated, the plague would also end. In the spring of 1348, the first Jewish massacres began in Southern France. Jews were herded into wooden houses and burned.
Some 12,000 Jews were killed in Bavaria, 3,000 in Erfurt, and 2,000 Jews were burned alive in Strasbourg. Such massacres occurred almost everywhere in Europe. Sometimes Jews burned themselves to avoid falling into the hands of their executioners. In some places, Jews were impaled before being burned, and in others, they were put in barrels and thrown into rivers.
In 1420-1421, a persecution of Jews in Austria began by order of Duke Albert V. The persecution, which initially consisted of expulsion, forced conversion, and imprisonment, resulted in the execution of over 200 Jews. In 1405, the synagogue in Vienna's Jewish quarter was burned. Some Jews fled abroad, while others committed suicide. The existence of Vienna's Jewish community, numbering around 1500, virtually ceased, and their property was confiscated. These events are known as the "Vienna Gesera Massacres."
In 1391, many Jews in the Kingdom of Aragon were killed or forced to convert. The greatest persecution occurred in Valencia.
After 1480, the great pressure of the Inquisition against Jews began in Spain. Gangs attacked Jews. In 1483, thousands of Jews were killed by order of the inquisitor Torquemada. Under these pressures, Jews began to leave Spain. Jews who accepted Catholicism under duress in Spain and were called Marranos reverted to their own religion when they took refuge in Ottoman lands.
The persecution of Jews intensified in Spain with the fall of Granada in 1492 and the Reconquista. Many Jews in Spain were either killed or forced to convert. Those who managed to escape sought refuge in Muslim emirates in North Africa and, with the permission of Bayezid II, in Ottoman territories. Sultan Bayezid II, son of Sultan Mehmed II, who conquered Istanbul in 1453, sent a fleet to evacuate them and offered them Ottoman citizenship and complete religious liberty.
Although the numbers differ, as 13,000 Jews were executed in Spain in 1492, tens of thousands of Sephardic Jews set sail for Ottoman territories.
The presence of the Jews in Ottoman lands precedes their formal expulsion from Spain in 1492. In a letter written in 1454 by Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati, a prominent figure in the Ottoman lands, eloquently portrayed the plight of the Jews persecuted out of medieval Catholic Europe, characterising their journey as a transition “from the shadow of the cross to the shelter of the crescent”.
When Paul IV became pope in 1555, the persecution and massacres he initiated against Jews through the Inquisition began. Some of the Jews in Ancona were massacred, and their property was confiscated. In many places, Jews were prevented from trading in city centers. Indeed, because the Venetians expelled Jews from the city center and did not allow them into the city at certain hours, the concept of the "ghetto" emerged in the outer neighborhoods where Jews lived.
In 1648, the Cossack leader Bogdan Khmelnytsky, while rebelling against Poland, massacred Jews. Half of the 40,000 Jews in the region were massacred.
Massacres against Jews continued into the 19th century. One of the most significant of these massacres was the Hep-Hep riots, which began on Aug. 2, 1819. In these massacres against Ashkenazi Jews, which began in the Kingdom of Bavaria, part of the German Confederation, many Jews were killed and their homes were set on fire. During the attacks, the Wurzburg Synagogue was burned, but the uprising was suppressed on August 8 with the intervention of the army.
In 1881, anti-Jewish sentiment greatly increased following the assassination of Russian Tsar Alexander II. Jews began to be massacred (pogrom) in Russia and Poland. Jews emigrated en masse from Russia. Jews were also massacred in Russia between 1903 and 1906. Massacres continued during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The greatest massacres were committed by the Germans during the Hitler era. Millions of Jews were killed between 1933 and 1945.
With the decision to launch the Crusades at the Council of Clermont in 1095, the daily lives of Jews became extremely difficult. In 1096, the first massacre occurred in Worms. Shortly after the Crusaders, commanded by Count Emicho, arrived in Worms, a rumor spread that Jews had boiled a Christian alive and used his body to poison the town's wells. A savage attack was launched against the Jews.
Nearly 1,000 Jews were killed in Worms, with the exception of a few who were forcibly baptized. The Crusaders also killed Jews in the cities of Moselle, Cologne, and Metz. Jews were subjected to attacks in every city the Crusaders passed through until they reached Jerusalem. When the Crusaders reached Jerusalem, they also massacred the Jews there.
In 1103, Jews sought assurance from Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor. Although the Emperor provided this assurance, the Papacy did not. Indeed, in the Second Crusade of 1144, Crusaders attacked the Jews they encountered. However, the truly great massacres occurred in England during the time of King Richard the Lionheart, on the eve of the Third Crusade. On Feb. 6, 1190, the agitated crowd gathered in Norwich and massacred the Jews in the city. A similar massacre occurred in King's Lynn, very close to Norwich.
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