God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First Crusade Chronicles

by Robert Chazan

Although closely focused on the remarkable Hebrew First-Crusade narratives, Robert Chazan's new interpretation of these texts is anything but narrow, as his title, God, Humanity, and History, strongly suggests. The three surviving Hebrew accounts of the crusaders' devastating assaults on Rhineland Jewish communities during the spring of 1096 have been examined at length, but only now can we appreciate the extent to which they represent their turbulent times.

After a close analysis of the texts themselves, Chazan addresses the objectives of the three narratives. He compares these accounts with earlier Jewish history writing and with contemporary crusade historiography. It is in their disjuncture with past forms of Jewish historical narration and their amazing parallels with Latin crusade narratives that the Hebrew narratives are most revealing. We see how they reflect the embeddedness of early Ashkenazic Jewry in the vibrant atmosphere of late-eleventh- and early-twelfth-century northern Europe.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published July 10, 2000

About the author

Robert Chazan is Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.

Reviews

[Beejai Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I picked up this book I actually thought I would be reading the actual Hebrew narratives of the French and German attacks on the German Jewish population in Germany along with some commentary. Instead this is a literary critique of those narratives.

For what it is, it does an excellent job but I was hoping I would actually be actually reading the Mainz Anonymous and the Simon bar Simpson Chronicles, not just reading about them. It was worth the time, but not what I was hoping for.

[Aṣwin Mannepalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful textual analysis. I really liked the work around the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle and reading it with albert of aix's history makes sense. But one wishes for a further exploration of ashkenazi political/religious satire from this period.