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Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Jews and the 109 Countries they have supposedly been expelled from (Part 2)

(Part 1)

10. 1182 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - France
The Jewish History Sourcebook notes that Philip Augustus expelled them to seize their wealth. Curiously, if the Jews were really such bad citizens, he allowed them back in 1198 - with heavy taxation, to earn more of their money.

11. 1182 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Germany
I am unable to find any information on this. Indeed, Steve Katz of Boston University notes that "Between 1182 and 1486 Jews were expelled from all the Christian countries of Europe except Germany"

12. 1276 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Upper Bavaria
I can find almost no information on this - only that Louis the Strict banished them. But as The Jewish Encyclopedia notes, "it could not have lasted long, for nine years later 180 Jews, accused of a ritual murder in the synagogue, were committed to the flames".

13. 1290 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - England
A resource from the University of Oxford notes that Jews had historically been protected by the Crown, and that it was only from the middle of the 12th century that anti-Semitism grew, partly due to the blood libel, and the Church also grew more hostile to Jews. It also links anti-Semitism to the Crusades and Jewish money-lending (the latter of which, in turn, pressured Christians because the Jews were themselves being taxed by English Kings). But the proximate cause for Edward I's 1290 decree was to raise money in a quid-pro-quo with Parliament, which would give him money if he expelled the Jews.

14. 1306 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - France
This was partly due to the Church's anti-Semitism, but the primary cause was that Philip IV was short of money due to a war with the Flemish, so expelling the Jews let him steal their property.

15. 1322 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - France (again)
One might question why the Jews needed to be expelled from France again after only 16 years; Louis X allowed them in again in 1315. But in Philip V, Charles IV, and the Jews of France: The Alleged Expulsion of 1322, Elizabeth A. R. Brown notes that they may not really have been expelled (again) in 1322 - and they were actually in France on a 12 year contract from 1315 to 1327. In any event, the alleged expulsion is linked to how in 1321 "the Jews were linked with the lepers of France in an alleged plot to poison the wells of Christendom" (even if anti-Semites think that the Jews could really have been plotting to poison wells, hopefully they don't also imagine that there is/was some grand Global Council of Lepers co-ordinating this conspiracy with the Jews). By persecuting both lepers and Jews, Philip V could "enrich the royal treasury by claiming the property of those found guilty", and "if the banishment of the Jews from France and the county of Burgundy was proclaimed, the order remained generally unexecuted or was canceled".

16. 1348 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Switzerland
This was linked to the Black Death, and lepers and the poor were also suspected of perpetrating the plague, but Jews were viewed as "the main antagonists of Christianity".

17. 1349 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hielbronn (Germany)
This is spelled "Heilbronn" and given the timeframe, it is no surprise that this also happened during the Black Death.

18. 1349 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Saxony
Ditto. Though what happened in Germany was pogroms rather than expulsions.

19. 1349 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hungary
Ditto.

20. 1360 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hungary
This is variously attributed to "the hostile influence of the Church" and because Lajos / Ludwig / Louis I "had failed to convert them" (according to Norman Roth's 2014 Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia and other sources). But Raphael Patai's The Jews of Hungary History, Culture, Psychology also presents a more base motive: "when the Jews were expelled, their landed properties were confiscated by the royal treasury and presented by the king to his favorites, to the cities, and most often to church prelates. Thus in 1361, Lajos bestowed the new synagogue of the Pressburg Jews, built in 1336, to his physician". Plus, he let them back in after a few years, so.

21. 1370 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Belgium
There was a massacre because Jews were accused of desecrating the Host: "A banker of Enghien, distinguished by his wealth as well as by his philanthropy, was assassinated in his own garden. His wife and son took refuge in Brussels. The assassins spread the report that the Jews had stolen from a church consecrated wafers in order to pierce them with poniards. This brought about the burning of hundreds of Jews at Brussels (May 22, 1370) and a general banishmentfrom Belgium".

22. 1380 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Slovakia
I am unable to find any information on this.

23. 1388 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Strasbourg
This was officially blamed on usury but their real estate was confiscated, which surely played into the motivations.

24. 1394 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Germany
I am unable to find any information on this.

25. 1394 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - France
Charles VI expelled them in 1394. In Paris there had been a rumour that the Jews had crucified a Christian baby on Good Friday and had killed a convert from Judaism. What was interesting about this expulsion was that their property was not confiscated, so this was not motivated by the chance to enrich the state (<< Ce qui distingue cette ordonnance des précédentes, c'est, d'une part, qu'elle n'offre pas le caractère de spoliation habituel ; elle ne confisque pas les biens des Juifs, elle leur permet de rentrer dans leurs créances et d'emporter ce qui leur appartient >> - Histoire des Juifs à Bordeaux by Théophile Malvezin (1875))

26. 1420 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Lyons
I can't find anything about this, except a note that it was not part of the Kingdom of France, so they had not been affected in 1394.

27. 1421 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Austria
There had been rumours of host desecration in 1420. Albert / Albrecht V was also motivated by seizing Jewish property and getting his debts cancelled. The Jews were also suspected of being sympathetic to the Hussites, with whom Austria was at war. Some were burned alive when they refused to get baptised.

28. 1424 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Fribourg
The only source I can find is Wikipedia, which links to German sources. It says the most recent round of persecution had been going on since 1401: "As a result of news of ritual killings against Christians in distant Bavaria, on 4 July 1401, the city council, after consulting Duke Leopold, announced the expulsion of all Jews from the pulpits. The councillors solemnly signed the decree dekein Jude ze Friburg niemmerme sin sol (no Jews may set foot in Freiburg ever again). Jews were only allowed to stay in Freiburg with the aid of a municipal court and an hourly fee. From 1411 onwards, Jews were accepted again in Freiburg, but during the time of the imperial city (1415-1527), King Sigismund officially confirmed the decree of 1401 with the Eternal Expulsion in 1424". So it sounds like anti-Semitic rumours motivated the expulsion.

29. 1424 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Zurich
The year seems off, since I can only find this year mentioned in sources without details (just saying they were expelled). According to Rafaël Francis David Amadeus Newman Rafael Newman's Contemporary Jewish Writing in Switzerland An Anthology, this was in the wake of rumours about Jews poisoning public fountains or spreading the Black Death. There were also several expulsion orders around that time: 1425, 1435 and 1436, which suggests that they weren't enforced.

30. 1424 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Cologne
According to D. Joslyn-Siemiatkoski's Christian Memories of the Maccabean Martyrs, this was due to "repeated mob attacks on Jews".

31. 1432 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Savoy
I am unable to find any information on this. The closest thing I can find is that in 1417 and 1430, the Jews of Savoy were accused of having books which blasphemed against Christianity.

32. 1438 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mainz
The only thing I can find on this is that there was "a dispute with the council" and that "they may in fact have been expelled". In addition to this, in Ashkenazic Jewry in Transition, Bernard Rosensweig notes that: "The high rates of interest were commensurate with the risks which were involved in the collection of loans made by Jews to non-Jews. There was always the real possibility of a total loss of the capital; and this could only be compensated for by a high rate of interest. It was not an easy matter to collect a debt. Members of royalty, government officials, and civic authorities, were constantly in need of money, and they were never anxious to repay the loans which they had taken"

33. 1439 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Augsburg
I can't find the proximate reason for this, but a century before that, the city owed the Jews a lot of money (and debts owed to them got cancelled at least twice) and during the Black Death they got massacred. So their expulsion could be to avoid paying money owed to them.

34. 1442 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Netherlands
I can't find anything on this.

35. 1444 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Netherlands
This seems to refer to Utrecht prohibiting Jews from entering the city. BMJ Speet in Reappraising the History of the Jews in the Netherlands reports that in 1485 they were pressured by the guilds into reiterating that, saying that "the Jews conducted themselves improperly and were dishonest traders". Whatever your views on this, this was not an expulsion.

36. 1446 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Bavaria
This either refers to Jews being expelled from Upper Bavaria in 1442 or Jews being expelled from Berlin and the province of Brandenburg in 1446 (and allowed to return in 1447). If this is the former, apparently it was due to clerical lobbying.

(Part 3 - which goes live on 30 July)

(Part 4)

(Part 5)

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