Annotated Bibliography: Anti-Semitism in Medieval Europe

Abramson’s article is about the anti-Semitic portrayal of Jewish woman in art in the medieval world. Abramson takes into account the double stigma upon Jewish woman during medieval times: “Jewish women, victims twice over as members of a 'defective' gender within a 'degenerate' people, bore the double brunt of both antisemitism and misogyny.” This article covers both topics without being too immersed in the history of that time while also not plunging into an agenda based on presentism. Abramson chooses instead to lightly glaze over the various sections and refer the reader to other sources provided if the reader so chooses to decide to become further immersed in the topic at hand. In short this source provides a content with pith that’s both informative to the reader of anti-Semitism in the medieval world but also makes the reader want to delve deeper into the topic. 


Chazan, Robert. “The Barcelona ‘Disputation’ of 1263: Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response.” Speculum, vol. 52, no. 4, 1977, pp. 824–842.

The Barcelona Disputation is very interesting on its own. Chazen gives the reader a tapestry of background and information from both the Christian and Jewish perspective of this particular disputation, pointing out why this one was so important compared to the others held during this time period. One of which is the freedom of speech given by the Christian authorities to Rabbi Moses ben Nachman for this event. Even more interesting at the forefront of this on the Christian side is a former Jew turned clergy Friar Paul Christian. Here is an event where the now lost art of apologetics are at the forefront. Though the topic here is anti-Semitism, this article and this event are so significant because what could have been an exchange of violence and destruction of Jewish life and property wound up being an exchange of ideas and culture. This is so very important to reflect on both in today’s climate of anti-Semitism but also in the era of western medieval Europe as years before the disputation in Barcelona, there was one in Paris that resulted in the burning of the Talmud by Christian authorities. 


Chazan, Robert. God, Humanity, and History: the Hebrew First Crusade Narratives. University of California Press, 2000.

Again Robert Chazan proves himself an enticing author and a detailed historian, bringing events from centuries ago to life for the reader. His book God, Humanity and History covers those topics in relation to the First Crusade. Chazan interprets the primary sources from the Rhineland massacres of 1096. Just as the Crusaders' pilgrimages and martyrdom in the Holy Land was to mirror that of Christ’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem and his ultimate act of martyrdom, for the Jewish people, their plight at the hands of the Christian Crusaders mirrored that of Abraham and the binding of Isaac. Chazan suggests these later primary sources on the Rhineland massacres were not just an attempt to record tragic events of their own people. Rather it too had the effect or the attempted effect of taking back what the Christians had taken from them. The legend/mythos of martyrdom, that the Jews have their own martyrs, their own sacrifices mirrors the ones in Scripture. Chazan’s use of the Jewish perspective reflects that which he used in the previous article mentioned above. Both these Chazan sources focus on the history and the theology behind such acts of anti-Semitism. The focus on history and theology separate it from other sources that may focus on cultural or economic shifts towards anti-Semitism. 


Cohn, Samuel K. “The Black Death and the Burning of Jews.” Past & Present, no. 196, 2007, pp. 3–36.

Cohn’s article is chilling. The anti-Semitic scapegoating of the Jewish people during the 1300’s followed by their demise echoes from distant medieval times to the far too recent events during the Holocaust. Cohn takes a look at the different levels of society’s social structures at the time then asks and tries to answer important questions such as who initiated these mass killings, who carried them out, and why? He comes to the conclusion it was the elite, and not for economic reasons but more so out of the ever-present anti-Semitism of that time and place. Though indulged by the upper tiers of European society, such large killings involved the implicit and explicit approval of the whole of the communities where the atrocities took place. These answers provided/suggested, the reader is left with the quagmire that is banality of evil that can lay dormant for long swaths of time, only to rear its ugly face to commit the worst of atrocities. As the Black Plague brought out at times the worst of humanity in Medieval Europe, might we no longer avert our gaze to the repetition of history and seek both compassion and pragmatism as we confront our own Coronavirus plague.


Roth, Cecil. “The Disputation of Barcelona (1263).” The Harvard Theological Review, vol. 43, no. 2, 1950, pp. 117–144.  

Roth’s article is far different than that of Chazan’s on the same topic. His writing allows little room for speculation. He is confidant of the conclusions he’s arrived at, though provides little explanation as to how he comes to those confidant conclusions. It’s as though for the first portion of the article he’s reciting a yarn, told many times over. Where Chazan was writing of past events, trying to comprehend and analyze the actions of the people involved, Roth does little of that by comparison. Roth’s version is best read first before that of Chazan. Just as I thought Chazan’s article on the Barcelona Disputation was important, due to its lack of violent anti-Semitism, I think this is important for the same reason. This source, though on the same topic as that of Chazan, provides a different tone and scope, giving the reader an additional and varied perspective on this one topic.

Webman, Esther. “The Challenge of Assessing Arab/Islamic Antisemitism.” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 46, no. 5, 2010, pp. 677–697.

Webman’s article only has a paragraph or so covering anti-Semitism in the medieval era. However ,the overall topic is one that Webman points out as overlooked, but very significant. Though both Islam and Judaism share a common theme of being unwanted by Western Europe throughout various points in history, the Muslim ruled Ottoman Empire did like that of the Christians relegate the Jewish people to second-class citizen status, though the way in which they did so differed from the Christian counterparts. Webman could have put more than a mere paragraph on anti-Jewish sentiments perpetrated by the Muslims during the medieval era, which is the only short-coming of the article. However, Webman’s article focused more on anti-Jewish sentiment within the past 120 or so years.


Weinberg, Robert. “The Blood Libel in Eastern Europe.” Jewish History, vol. 26, no. 3/4, 2012, pp. 275–285.

Like the Webman article, Robert Weinberg’s article "The Blood Libel in Eastern Europe" only glazes over the medieval era. Yet it covers the topic of blood libel. The main focus or Weinberg’s article is the blood libels of the 18th  and 19th centuries. He begins to wrap-up with the last blood libel trial of 1913 in the Russian Empire, now Ukraine, over Mendel Beilis, who was accused of causing the death of Andrei Yushchinsky. Weinberg’s article was written on the cusp of the 100-year anniversary of the Beilis trial, though now we are nearing 110 years since that trial. With Russia’s renewed interest in Ukraine and the shift towards authoritarianism across eastern/central Europe, there too comes renewed anti-Semitism in that region. This article is significant as it presents the reader with a form of antisemitism that far outlives the medieval time period. 

Zukier’s article is most interesting. He goes back and forth in time between modern history of the 19th/20th century and that of the Middle Ages. His focus on the Jewish "other" takes on various categories and subcategories as the reader shifts through time and culture. Unlike the other articles that take on history, theology, or art as the main tone for their article, Zukier has a psychological tone in his article. This is what separates it from all the other articles presented above. It is significant to consider the psychological perspective when dealing with a topic like anti-Semitism, including its aspects of violence.