[Avodah] Dying al Kiddush Hashem

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2008 16:01:51 -0500
Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

...

> So, is there a classical source?
> 
> The Crusades might qualify as a borderline case. When the Crusaders
> killed the Jews of Mainz, R' Eliezer ben Nasan described it as "cruel
> foreigners, fierce and swift, Frenchmen and Germans...[who] put crosses
> on their clothing and were more plentiful than locusts on the face of
> the earth." (quoting Norman Gold "The Jews in Medieval Normandy", via
> wikipedia; the quote is a paraphrase of Chavaquq 1:6). "...Taf venashim
> beyom echad, ushelalam lavoz."

...

> And so, I would argue (and have before, but at less length) that the
> majority of the people we describe most Shabbasos as "qehillos haqodesh
> shemaseru nafsham al qiddushas hasheim" didn't actually choose Yahadus
> over death.

I have rebutted this argument during the previous iteration of this
discussion.  From my email:

> The Crusades, and particularly the First Crusade of 1096 ('G'zeiras
> Tatn"u'), were actually my paradigmatic example of the classic idea of
> "Kiddush Hashem"; the Jewish martyrs were legendary for their
> magnificent defiance of the Christians and their solicitations for
> Shmad.  By defiance, I mean verbal and moral, not military; besieged
> Jews, in imminent danger of death, taunted their besiegers with insults
> like: "Worshippers of an executed, bastard god!"
> 
> I believe that the very lines you cite indicate this.  "Al Yichud Sheim
> Hameyuchad Yichadu Sheim B'gvurah" means that they valiantly gave up
> their lives for their belief in God's unity, as does the other line you
> quote.  [I don't have many commentaries on the Kinnos handy, but see
> the Kinnos Ha'Meforush, who explains as I do.]
> 
> In general, the language here and elsewhere is always active, e.g.
> "Yihadu" and "Kidshu ... B'Morah" here, and "She'masru Nafsham al
> Keddushas Ha'Shem" in Av Ha'Rahamim.  The implication is that we are
> referring to an active decision to be Mekadeish Shem Shamayim, not a
> passive state of victimization.  The active component may be merely an
> attitude of Mesiras Nefesh, rather than any practical decision, but I
> stand by my contention that there is absolutely no early source for the
> idea that mere victim-hood is a sufficient condition for death Al
> Kiddush Ha'Shem. 
> See the hair raising and heartbreaking description in the Kinnah
> "Haharishi Mi'Meni Va'Adaberah" of the unknown martyrs' decision to
> implement a communal murder / suicide pact:
> 
> <Quote>
> 
> And they gathered B'Prishus and in purity
> to sanctify God's great and awesome name
> and each man strengthened his brother with support
> to cling [to him] with pure awe
> to refrain from bowing to Avodah Zarah
> 
> ...
> 
> and they spoke to them saying:
> "we have not merited to raise you to Torah
> we will offer you as an Olah and Haktarah
> and we will merit with you to the light
> that is hidden from all and obscured"
> 
> </Quote>
> 
> For more background on this, see Avraham Grossman, "The Roots of
> Kiddush Ha'Shem in Early Ashkenaz" (Heb.) in "K'dushas Ha'Haim V'Hiruf
> Ha'Nefesh", Y. Gafni and A. Ravitzky eds.
> 
> While Googling the subject, I turned up a rather provocative
> revisionist article (David Malkiel, "Destruction or Conversion,
> Intention and Reaction, Crusaders and Jews in 1096", Jewish History,
> Volume 15 Issue 3 October 2001) which claims that, contrary to the
> accepted narrative that the victims of the First Crusade were always
> offered the choice of baptism, in actuality the primary intention of
> salvation through conversion were only occasional and sporadic.  From
> the article:
> 
> <Quote>
> 
> H.H. Ben-Sasson expresses this notion as follows: “Because every Jew
> was offered the choice of converting to Christianity, and there were
> those who apostatized and hoped to return to Judaism, the voluntary
> sacrifice of the martyrs appears in bold relief.” For Ben-Sasson it is
> clearly important that the martyrs of 1096 acted voluntarily; he
> implies that the presence or absence of choice is crucial for the
> proper evaluation of their behavior. Almost all other historical
> accounts of the 1096 massacres present the same picture, though the
> ideological significance of the option to convert is nowhere as obvious
> as it is in Ben-Sasson’s formulation. Jacob Katz and Salo Baron agree
> that the martyrs faced the alternatives of death or conversion.10
> Norman Cohn feels that there was “no doubt” that “a Jew could always
> save both life and property by accepting baptism.” Avraham Grossman
> states that the martyrs took their lives and those of their wives and
> children “primarily because of the concern that the Gentiles would
> baptize them against their will.” Haym Soloveitchik asserts that the
> Jews of Ashkenaz “committed suicide rather than have baptism forced
> upon them, rather than be dipped in what they called ‘contaminated
> waters.’ ” Robert Chazan writes that the purpose of the attacks on the
> Jews of Worms, Mainz and Cologne “was to eliminate entirely the Jews –
> preferably by conversion, or, failing that, by slaughter.” Jeremy Cohen
> agrees that the Jews of Ashkenaz were “compelled by their attackers to
> choose between conversion to Christianity and death.” Anna Sapir
> Abulafia declares that the “hordes” approached the cities with Jewish
> populations “voicing their intention of killing any Jew who would
> refuse to be baptized.” Jonathan Riley-Smith claims that “every- where
> attempts were made to force Christianity on the Jews, who had heard
> that the crusaders intended to offer them the choice of conversion or
> death.” Gavin Langmuir, too, states categorically that “Jews were not
> killed if they would accept baptism.” Citing Hebrew and Latin sources
> alike, Jean Flori asserts that the crusaders “did not seek to kill the
> Jews, but rather forcibly to convert them.”
> 
> </Quote>
> 
> Malkiel disagrees that this is what actually occurred, although he does
> concede that this was the medieval Jewish understanding of the events:
> 
> <Quote>
> 
> The notion that the martyrs spurned conversion – had the
> opportunity of spurning it, to be more precise – has resonance only in
> the medieval Hebrew chronicles of the events, which were mostly
> written, and clearly edited, well after the events. The chronicles
> describe the large-scale slaughter of the Jewries of Worms and Mainz
> (and elsewhere), but also contain personal anec- dotes in which the
> option of converting is heroically, and tragically, rejected. One
> might be tempted to accept that at least these particular martyrs
> really did choose. Yet the chronicled accounts are too problematic and
> clearly directed toward other aims than those of the modern historical
> scholar restricted by modern historiographical limits to permit reading
> them at face value, certainly not as a simple historical record.
> 
> </Quote>
> 
> From his conclusion:
> 
> <Quote>
> 
> For reconsidering the textual evidence, what, we ask, are we to do with
> the old hypothesis, the one which Baer and so many others have argued?
> Perhaps their case, with respect to what really happened is valid. But
> the texts, as we have seen them, will not vouch for this. At the same
> time, are we entitled to rewrite the story on the basis of the
> chronicles, to suggest that murder was in fact the prime goal and
> conversion was of survivors alone, or if conversion and murder were
> simultaneous, was conversion a product of force or, again to cite
> Baron, “the weak-kneed” alone? The answer is no. For this would be to
> treat our sources unfairly as composites, as material of a single and
> whole cloth. Were not the chronicles put together from preexisting and
> not necessarily interdependent strands? If, too, we question the
> historicity of the chronicles, Latin or Hebrew, or refuse to impute to
> their authors modern historiographical procedures, then how may we
> privilege one hypothesis, one version of the chronicles, as true
> historically as opposed to another?
> 
> </Quote>

Yitzhak
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