The Persecution of the Jews in the Middle Ages
The Jewish population in the Middle Ages was heavily persecuted by the dominant Christians. If anything went wrong for people, they blamed it on the Jews. If there was a famine, the Jews were blamed for polluting the air. When the Black Death was decimating Europe's population, again the Jews were blamed. One of the main reasons for the Jews being the scapegoat was a section in the bible which explained that Jews were different in every way, and for this they were hated. They were robbed, beaten, tortured, forcibly baptized, and raped by the church and the general population. Crusades were directed specifically at the Jews, and as a result religious differences became religious hatred, which continued for years after the crusades and middle ages had ended. An example of the horrifying treatment of the Jews was in a work by Emico, titled The Slaughter of the Rhineland Jews. " They rose in a spirit of cruelty against the Jewish people scattered throughout these cities and slaughtered them without mercy." According to Emico's account, the Jews were slaughtered simply because they were Jewish. As a result of these inhuman actions, the Jewish community was and is still scarred from the days when a "messenger of god" would break down the door and murder or rape those within. The emotionless slaughter and persecution of the Jewish population during the Middle Ages only serves as a further reason as to why it so very easily could be renamed "The Decline of Society."