synagogues, beating and killing Jewish families, and forcing individual Jews to convert to Christianity or commit suicide. Accounts of the atrocities at that time are a depressing reminder of the long and stubborn history of European anti-Semitism, which came to a head in the twentieth century. In 1096, Jews were dragged around the streets with their necks in nooses, herded into houses and burned, or beheaded in the streets before cheering crowds.9 “From this cruel slaughter of the Jews [only] a few escaped,” wrote the chronicler Albert of Aachen. Then “that intolerable company of men and
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