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 Why the Jews?
Anti-Semitism Reformation Black Death Spanish Inquisition Scapegoat
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Black Death

For over three hundred years, from the 1000's to the 1200's, the Christians raised a series of Crusades in an attempt to "rid Jerusalem of infidels," or non-Christians. Although the Crusades also attempted to displace Muslims, the Crusaders' widespread attacks on Jews throughout Western Europe and Germany began to form the early roots of anti-Semitism.

Christians created and popularized many cruel and negative mythologies (false stories) about Jews. The medieval Christians also accused the Jews of stealing children, drinking blood, and poisoning the "host" sacrament used in Christian "communion" rituals.

Moreover, the Christians blamed Jews for causing the epidemic of the bubonic plague, or "the Black Death" (really, it was rats that infected drinking water in wells). In the mid-1300s there were more than 350 pogroms during which Christians attacked over 200 Jewish communities and killed as many as 16,000 Jews. These actions forced the Jews to migrate into Eastern Europe, many settling in Poland.