Jewish Understandings of the Other: An Annotated Sourcebook
Over the millennia, Jews have sought to understand their relationships to their gentile (i.e. non-Jewish) neighbors. Many Jewish teachings generated texts that subsequent generations accepted as authoritative. Despite their authority, these texts often offer a variety of opinions. As Jews seek to understand their place in today's multi-cultural world, they do so in dialogue with these texts. Some of these texts are "difficult." The annotations accompanying them explore ways of reading and understanding them, as historical, theological and legal texts, and as received texts today.
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Liturgy: Ninth of Av: Qinot: Crusades

Introduction

The Fast of the Ninth of Av falls between late July and mid-August on the secular calendar. It is a day of mourning, first and foremost for the destructions of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem (586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively), and secondarily for a long litany of additional tragedies that Jewish tradition associates with this date. The special liturgies for the day include the reading of the book of Eichah (Lamentations) and the recitation of qinot, poetry of lament, that often elaborates on parts of Lamentations or its themes. Many of these poems respond to negative Jewish interactions with their neighbors, thus creating a ritualized memory of persecution, pain, and anger. This communal memory lurks for many Jews in their interactions with their neighbors today.

This particular qinah is anonymous, but it is one of four preserved in the Ashkenazi rite (of 46 qinot in the collection) that preserves the memory of the 1096 massacres of the Jewish communities in the Rhineland by the peasant armies participating in the First Crusade. A few other qinot integrate other stories of atrocities perpetrated by Christians into the ritual memory, including the burning of the Talmud in 1240, the 1190 York massacre (particularly in modern British collections) and now the Holocaust. Whether other qinot making more explicit references to Christians were removed under pressure from Christian censors remains to be determined. Although Hebrew liturgical poetry is by convention allusive in its references to specific people, the lack of specificity about the perpetrators in these poems is rather remarkable. The line-by-line notes below, however, suggest that the intent of the poet is even harsher than the obvious meanings. To someone participating in the deep mourning of the day, these poems expand it from a day of mourning for the Temple to a day of mourning for other more recent losses too. They incise in Jewish memory the image of the European Christian as a murderous persecutor of Jews.

This poem is rather loosely structured, with no meter, no acrostic, and no set stanza length, but with a rhyme ending every stich of the stanza, and a one-line refrain concluding each stanza, to which the last stich rhymes. For the sake of clarity, the lines appear here in pairs or triplets, according to their meaning.

Text

  I.
החרישו ממני ואדברה\ ויעבור עלי מה
"Keep quiet; I will have my say, come what may upon me." [1]
חמס אזעק ושוד לך שוכן שמימה \הציקתני כוחי ולא אוכל אדומה 
I shout out "Violence!" and "Devastation" to You who dwells in Heaven/ My spirit oppresses me and I am not able to keep silent.[2]
כיולדה אפעה אשאף ואשומה\ מספד מר אעשה ואקונן בנהימה
Now I will scream like a woman in labor, I will gasp and I will pant/ I will craft a bitter eulogy and moaningly lament .[3]
דברי שאגותי יתכו כימה\ ספדי על עדתי אשר נתנה לשמה
The words of my roaring pour out like the sea[4]/ my eulogy for my community that was given over to destruction.
אריד בשיחי ואהימה\ וקול נהי ארימה
"I am tossed about, complaining and moaning"[5]/ I will raise up a voice of lament.
II.
איך שבת משוש וערבה שמחה\ כל פנים פארור וכל ראש קרחה How has gladness ceased and the sun set on joy/ every face turns ashen, "every head is made bald [6]
וכל זקן גרועה ועל כל לב אנחה\ מאז נתעורר גוי עז דורש שוחה And every beard is shorn," on every heart is sighing/ ever since the ruthless nation bestirred itself, seeking the Holy Sepulchre.[7]
סלה אבירי הוגי עז מבטחה\ בתולותי ובחורי נסח בנסיחה It trampled on my mighty ones who meditate on its mighty stronghold (Torah)/ it tore out my maidens and my youths.[8]
בראש כל חוצות נבלתם כסוחה\ עוללי וטפי נחשבו כצאן טבחה At every street corner their corpses lie like refuse/ my infants and babies were regarded as sheep to be slaughtered [9].
אלילה על זאת ודמעתי על לחה\ האספו אלי דוויי לבב צאן נדחה I wail about this, with my tear on [my] cheek/ Gather to me the sick of heart, the scattered sheep. [10]
להרבות הבכי ולהרים הצוחה\ הילילו שמים וזעקי אדמה To increase the weeping and to raise a cry/ Wail, o heavens, and shout out, earth!
אריד בשיחי ואהימה\ וקול נהי ארימה "I am tossed about, complaining and moaning"[5]/ I will raise up a voice of lament.
  III.
אראלים צאו וצעקו מרה\ ספוד תמרור האגדו בחבורה Angels go forth and shout out bitterly/ wail bitterly, be gathered in community [11]
קול כחולה צרה כמבכירה\ התאוננו על עדת שה פזורה With a voice like a woman in labor, in anguish bearing her first child/ mourn for the congregation of scattered sheep. [12]
עלימו כי נגזרה גזרה\ בחרי אף וזעם ועברה For a decree has been made against them/ in anger, indignation, and wrath.[13]
ונתועדו בפרישות ובטהרה\ לקדש שם הגדול והנורא They gathered together in abstinence and purity/ to sanctify the great and awesome Name. [14]
ואיש את-אחיו חזקו בעזרה\ לדבק <בו> ביראה טהורה And each one strengthened the other, helping/ him to cleave <to God> with pure reverence
בלי לכרוע לעבודה זרה\ ולא חסו על גבר וגבירה\ על בנים צפירת תפארה So as not to bow down to an idol, so as not to have mercy on a man or woman,/ or on children, a diadem of glory. [15]
אבל אזרו גבורה יתרה \להלום ראש ולקרץ שזרה But rather they girded themselves with extra strength/ to smite a head or to break a spine.
ואלימו דברו באמירה To them they spoke, declaring:
לא זכינו לגדלכם לתורה\ נקריבכם כעולה והקטרה We have not merited to raise you to a life of Torah./ Rather, we must sacrifice you like a burnt offering and incense.
ונזכה עמכם לאורה\ הצפונה מעין כל ועלומה So may we merit, with you, to the light/ which is stored up, hidden from the eyes of all.
אריד בשיחי ואהימה\ וקול נהי ארימה "I am tossed about, complaining and moaning"[5]/ I will raise up a voice of lament.
  IV.
אז הסכימו גדולים וקטנים\ לקבל באהבה דין שוכן מעונים Then large and small they agreed/ to accept lovingly the judgement of the One Who Dwells in the Heavens.
וזקנים דשנים ורעננים\ הם היו תחלה נדונים And the elders, full of sap and freshness/ were the first judged. [16]
ויצאו לקראתם עזי פנים\ ונהרגו המונים המונים \ונתערבו פדרים עם פרשדונים And the ruthless ones went out toward them/ and killed them in great numbers./ And the suet was mixed together with feces. [17]
והאבות אשר היו רחמנים\ נהפכו לאכזר כיענים And the parents who had been merciful / Turned cruel as ostriches.
והפיסו על אבות ועל בנים\ ומי שגורל עלה לו ראשונים\ הוא נשחט בחלפות וסכינים And they cast lots over the parents and the children/ and the one on whom the first lot fell, / he would be slaughtered with slaughtering knives.[18]
ובחורים עלי תולע אמונים\ הם לחכו עפר כתנינים And youths raised in purple garments, / they licked dust like serpents.[19]
והכלות לבושות שנים\ מעלפות בזרועות חתנים\ מנתחות בחרב וכידונים And the brides dressed in silks/ faint in the arms of the bridegrooms/ -- that have been severed by sword and spear.
זכרו זאת קהל עדת נבונים\ ואל תחשו מהרבות קינים\ והספידו על חסידים והגונים Remember this, congregation of wise ones,/ and do not hesitate to offer numerous laments/ and eulogize the pietists and worthy
אשר צללו במים הזידונים\ לזכר זאת נפשי עגומה Who sank in the seething waters. /In memory of this my soul is mournful:
אריד בשיחי ואהימה\ וקול נהי ארימה "I am tossed about, complaining and moaning"[5]/ I will raise up a voice of lament.
  V.
תורה תורה חגרי שק והתפלשי באפרים\ אבל יחיד עשי לך מספד תמרורים Torah, Torah, put on sackcloth and strew ashes on yourself;/ mourn, as for an only child, wail bitterly [20]
על תופשי משוטיך ופורשי מכמורים\ מלחיך וחובליך במים אדירים\ עורבי מערבך מישרי הדורים\ מפענחי צפוניך ומגלי מסתורים For those who wield your oars and spread your nets/ your sailors and your pilots in the mighty waters/ those who carry on your traffic making the way straight/ those who decode your hidden meanings and reveal secrets. [21]
מי-יקצה בגבעות ומי-יסתת בהרים\ מי יפרק הויות ומי יתרץ שברים Who will chop through the hills and who will cut through the mountains?/ Who will break through the difficulties of existence, and who will resolve lacunae?[22]
מי-יפליא נזירות ומי- יערוך נדרים\ מי ישדד מעמקיך וחתו אכרים Who will consecrate the Nazirites, and who will arrange vows?/ Who will plow Your valleys when the peasants are dismayed?
ומי-ילחום מלחמתך וישוב לשערים\ כלי-מלחמה אבדו ונפלו גבורים And who will fight Your wars and then return to the gates/ when the tools of war are lost and the heros have fallen?
אשריהם משכילים כרקיע זוהרים\ במנוחות שלום נחו ישרים Happy are the knowledgable. radiant like the heavenly expanse,[23]/ may the upright repose in resting places of peace.
אוי ואבוי ושד ושבר לנותרים\ למדיבת נפש וחבלים וצירים\ לכליון עינים צלמות ולא סדרים Alas and woe, devastation and destruction to those remaining,/ a despondent spirit, wounds and pains / for pining eyes and the shadow of death, and not order. [24]
ערב אומרים מי-יתן צפרים\ ובקר מצפים מי-יגלה אורים Evening they say, "Were it only morning;"/ morning they hope "Would that He banish the lights."[25]
ממראה עינימו אשר המה שרים\ מחוץ שכלה-חרב ואימה מחדרים Because of the vision of their eyes that they see/ outside of a death-dealing sword and inside of terror. [26]
עד-מתי תביט רואה כל סתרים\ קנא לתורתך אשר בזאו נהרים How long will You just look, Seer of all secret things?/ Be zealous for your Torah that gentile rulers have despoiled. [27]
קלאוה פרעוה קרעוה לגזרים\ כסירים סבוכים הגדילו המדורים  They have singed it, left it uncovered, torn it to shreds./ Like tangled thorns, they enlarged the bonfires.
העל- אלה תתאפק אדון כל יצורים\ תנקום דם הנשפך כמים המגרים "At such things will You restrain Yourself," Master of all Creation? [28] / Avenge the blood spilled like cascading water!
משד עניים מאנקת סעורים \ עם שבי פשע לעונים ומרורים Because of the plundered poor and the groans of the storm-tossed / nation who turn back from sin, [satisfied with] wormwood and bitter herbs,[29]
קומה והנשא על צרים הצוררים\ פעמיך למשאות הרימה Rise up and be exalted over the attacking enemies/ Lift up Your feet for the burdened ones.[30]
אריד בשיחי ואהימה\ וקול נהי ארימה "I am tossed about, complaining and moaning"[5]/ I will raise up a voice of lament.

 

Commentary: Stanza by Stanza

Whether or not literally the case, the poet's voice suggests that he was witness to the devastation caused in the Rhineland during the First Crusade. The first stanza, in the tradition of the reshut (poetic asking permission), voices his need to express his pain without inhibition.

With the second stanza, he introduces the specifics of his lament. He bewails the torturing and murdering of men, women, sages, youths, maidens, and babies by those wanting them to betray God by baptism. Note however that unlike some other poems and unlike the prose Crusades' chronicles, he does not reference specific people or specific towns. His concern ultimately is theological: to present a justification for the Ashkenazi Jews killing themselves and each other instead of passively allowing themselves to be killed.

In the third stanza, he describes the parents' decisions that the situation forced them to imitate Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, sacrificing their children and each other rather than risking that they become idolaters. They do this in the expectation of heavenly reward both for their children (who will complete their educations in angelic schools) and for themselves. Note the explicit reference to Christianity as avodah zarah (forbidden strange worship, idolatry).

The fourth stanza builds on the sacrificial themes, understanding the active killing of each other (rather than submission to death at gentile hands) to be necessary because of Christian profanation of their sacrifices. Not only was it critical that no Jew be baptized, but they also understood that the reward for their martyrdom depended on properly performed sacrifices. The suggestion here, however implausible, is that the Christian enemies would have deliberately prevented this. Particularly noteworthy here is the linking of lines by "and." While on the one hand, this echoes Biblical Hebrew, on the other hand, this gives the poetry a breathless quality of panic, of one event leading very quickly to the next. The Christianity presented here is beyond being an "other." It is not only totally improper for Jews, but its adherents seek to prevent even Jewish deaths as proper sanctifications of God's name, forcing Jews themselves into the unspeakably awful situation of mass suicide.

The final stanza moves on from the events of the Crusade to its aftermath. It begins with a dirge for the defacing of the Torah itself, equalled only by loss of the sages who applied it and taught it to the community. This leads to a description of the terrible state of the surviving community and their desperate need for messianic redemption. The lament, like most of this genre and other Crusades-era additions to the Ashkenazi liturgy (e.g. Av Harahamim) , concludes with a call for God to wreak vengeance on those who have despoiled the Torah and who have caused the deaths of so many Jews. This vengeance itself becomes, then, part of the messianic scenario. Thus, this qinah builds an image of an ideal world in which the persecutors of Jews receive harsh justice.

As an immediate and medieval response to the devastation of the Rhineland communities in 1096, these sentiments are natural. They are not so different from the (much less elaborate) references to the Nazi murderers and their collaborators in post-Holocaust memorial prayers for victims of the Shoah. Such prayers also teach and reinforce anti-German sentiments over the generations. Where this qinah (or the other similar ones) is actually recited and comprehended, it does inscribe the events of the Crusades and this response to them in Jewish memory. Such a memory continues to inform the intensity of Jewish negative responses to Christian missionary efforts, a response that is still necessary today. However, the call for divine vengeance leaves little room for responding positively to Christian repentance for such past horrors. Such a response was not possible in the wake of the Crusades, but today's world challenges us to construct one.

Commentary: Line by Line

[1] Job 13:13. This alludes also to the following verses, in which Job continues "He may well slay me; I may have no hope; yet I will argue my case before Him. In this too is my salvation; that no impious person can come into God's presence."

[2] Habakuk 1:2 "How long, O Lord, shall I cry out and You not listen, shall I shout to you "Violence!" and You not save? Job 32:18-20 "For I am full of words; the wind/spirit in my belly presses me... Let me speak, then, and get relief; let me open my lips and reply."

[3] Isaiah 42:14 "I [God] have kept silent far too long, kept still and restrained Myself; now I will scream like a woman in labor, I will pant and I will gasp."

[4] From Job 3:24b. The next verse continues with Job's recognition that disaster has struck.

[5] Ps 55:3b. The next verse continues "at the clamor of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked; for they bring evil upon me and furiously harass me."

[6] Lam 5:14 "Gone is the joy of our hearts; our dancing is turned into mourning"; Isaiah 24:11b "The sun has set on all joy, the gladness of the earth is banished;" Joel 2:6b "all faces turn ashen"; Jer 48:37a (Isa. 15:2, also about Moab) "For every head is bald" All are verses about a punishment received.

[7] Jer 48:37b (Isa 15:2) "Every beard is shorn." Dt 28:49ff. "The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the ends of the earth...a ruthless nation that will show the old no regard and the young no mercy..." These events thus fulfill the most dire curses of Deuteronomy. Jer 18:20 "Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me..." However, medieval Ashkenazi Jews used "shuchah" (literally "pit") as a name for the Holy Sepulchre (David Berger, see bibliography. "Search" is according to Berger's emendation.).

[8] Lam 1:15 "The Lord in my midst has rejected all my heroes..." Prov. 21:22 "One wise man prevailed over a city of warriors and brought down its mighty stronghold." The poet, following midrashic tradition (see, for example, Lev R 31:5) reads "mighty stronghold" as Torah. He is apparently either ignoring the first half of the verse or perhaps strengthening his lament because of its utter reversal in his world. Lam 1:18b "My maidens and my youths have gone into captivity." These persecutors have been more destructive than the Babylonians, fulfilling the curse of Dt 28:63, "...so will the Lord now delight in causing you to perish and in wiping you out; you shall be torn from the land..."

[9] "At every street corner" appears four times in the Bible, twice in Lamentations (2:19, 4:1). Isa 5:25 "That is why the Lord's anger was roused against His people, why He stretched out His arm against it and struck it, so that the mountains quaked, and its corpses lay like refuse in the streets. Yet His anger has not turned back, and His arm is outstretched still." Ps 44:21-23, is a clear allusion to the Crusades' context: "If we forgot the name of our God and spread forth our hands to a foreign god, God would surely search it out, for He knows the secrets of the heart. It is for Your sake that we are slain all day long, that we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." However, note that the babies slaughtered were not making their own choices to stay true to the God of Israel, but rather, in this context, their parents were ensuring that their future would not include baptism.

[10] Micah 1:8 "Because of this I will lament and wail..."; Lam 1:2 "Bitterly she weeps in the night, her cheek wet with tears, there is none to comfort her... "

[11] Isa 33:7, beginning "Hark, the Arielites cry aloud" appears in the midrash as a prooftext that the angels burst forth crying at the moment when Abraham lifted the knife against Isaac, causing God to stop the sacrifice (Gen R 56:5). The imperative here is a plea that they similarly would have halted this sacrifice. "Wail bitterly" alludes to Jeremiah 6:26. The call to the angels to gather together may allude to language that is common in describing angelic actions in minor midrashim influenced by early Jewish mysticism. Most striking is the descriptions of the angels gathering together stillborn babies, those who die in infancy or during their early schooling to teach them Torah. See, for instance, Otiot d'Rabbi Aqiva Hashalem, Version A, in Abraham Wertheimer, Batei Hamidrashot vol. 2, p. 353. The children sacrificed by their parents in the face of the Crusader armies required such heavenly intervention to complete their educations, as is stated explicitly at the end of the stanza.

[12] Jer 3:31 "I hear a voice as of one in travail, anguish as of a woman bearing her first child, the voice of fair Zion panting, stretching out her hands: 'Alas for me! I faint before the killers!'". Jer 50:17 "Israel are a scattered sheep, harried by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured them, and in the end King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon crunched their bones."

[13] Ps 78:49, referring to the plagues in Egypt, says "He inflicted his burning anger upon them, wrath, indignation, trouble, a band of deadly messengers." The familiar midrash in the Passover Seder interprets this verse to suggest a vast multiplication of the original ten plagues. The application here to describe immense suffering is clear.

[14] Ritual purity and abstinence from sexual relations were necessary preparations for the encounter with God at Sinai. Here, they are applied to the act of martyrdom, known in rabbinic tradition as "sanctifying the Name" of Heaven/God.

[15] Isa 28:5 describes God as "a crown of beauty and a diadem of glory" for His people. However, the reference here seems to be also to Prov 17:6, "Grandchildren are the crown of their elders, and the glory of children is their parents." The midrash (Gen R 63:2 and parallels) reads the two parts of this verse together and understands the glory of parents to be their children.

[16] Ps. 92:15, referring to the righteous, "In old age they still produce fruit; they are full of sap and freshness," attesting to the uprightness of God. In other words, they accept the righteousness of divine judgement even under these circumstances, part of the ritual Jewish response to death (tzidduq hadin).

[17] The ruthless gentiles here are those of the curse in Dt 28:50, "a ruthless nation that will show the old no regard and the young no mercy." These profaned the Jews' sacrificial deaths by mixing the ritually required fats (Lev 1:8) with the impure contents of the intestines (Ju 3:22, as interpreted rabbinically -- see Rashi). This profanation led to the extreme response of Jews' sacrificing each other in order to ensure the act's purity.

[18] Lam 4:3 "Even jackals offer the breast and suckle their young; but my poor people has turned cruel, like ostriches of the desert." The language of casting lots echoes Mishnah Yoma 6:1's description of the method for determining which goat will be the scapegoat and which the community's offering on Yom Kippur.

[19] Lam 4:5 "Those who feasted on dainties lie famished in the streets; those who were reared in purple have embraced refuse heaps." Mic 7:17, referring to the nations, "Let them lick dust like snakes, like crawling things on the ground!"

[20] Jer 6:26, almost verbatim, except that there the verse is addressed to "daughter of my people" and it concludes "for suddenly the destroyed is coming upon us."

[21] The previous line and all but the last stich here allude to Ez 27:26ff-32 and its dirge for Tyre's loss of the ships of Tarshish. The poet applies this language here because the loss of Ashkenazi sages is like the loss of the skilled men who know how to sail and profit from the "sea of the Talmud." (Note though that this specific expression is not attested early enough to be an obvious source of the poet's allusion. See the article by this title in the Encyclopaedia Judaica.) The final stich, which breaks from the language of Ezekiel, makes this application obvious. "Making the way straight" alludes to Isa 45:2, as interpreted by the medieval commentators.

[22] This verse and the two that follow refer directly and allusively to the various necessary communal roles of the sages in their teaching and interpretation of Torah that cannot be fulfilled after their deaths.

[23] Dan 12:3, referring to the time of final judgement, "And the knowledgable will be radiant like the bright expanse of sky..."

[24] Many of these terms allude to Dt 28:65 "Yet even among those nations you shall find no peace, nor shall your foot find a place to rest. The Lord will give you there an anguished heart and eyes that pine and a despondent spirit."

[25] With the beginning of the next line, alluding to the continuation of the curse in Dt. 28:67 "In the morning you shall say, 'If only it were evening!' and in the evening you shall say, 'If only it were morning!' -- because of what your heart shall dread and your eyes shall see."

[26] Dt 32:25, describing God's punishment of disobedient Israel, "The sword shall deal death without, as shall the terror within, to youth and maiden alike, the suckling as well as the aged."

[27] According to Rashi and Radaq on Isa 18:2 from which this language comes.

[28] Isa 64:11.

[29] Ps 12:6 "'Because of the groans of the plundered poor and needy, I will now act,' says the Lord..." Isa 59:20 "He shall come as a redeemer to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn back from sin, declares the Lord." Lam 3:15 "He has filled me with bitterness, sated me with wormwood."

[30] An allusion to Ps 74:3. Note that the printed version, as found in Rosenfeld, is significantly different for these last two lines, suggesting that they were censored. While the call for vengeance was enough to invoke censorship, one wonders also whether what has been translated here as "burdened ones" was originally "Crusaders" (with an "ayin" instead of an "aleph" -- undifferentiated sounds in Ashkenazi Hebrew), and the line was a plea for God to raise His foot against them. This makes more sense than his doing so for Israel.


Bibliography

Berger, David, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical Edition of the Nizzahon Vetus (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1979), see pp. 61 and 63 in the Hebrew text for שוחה.

Berger, David, "On the Image and Fate of Gentiles in Ashkenazi Polemical Literature [Heb.]," in Jews in the Crusades: 1096 in History and Historiography [Heb.], ed. Yom Tov Asis et.al. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000), p. 75 n. 3.

Hollender, Elisabeth, "Zur Reaktion auf Gewalt in hebraeischen liturgischen Dichtungen des Mittelalters" in Gewalt in Mittelalter. Realitaeten--Imaginationen, ed. M. Braun, C. Herberich (Muenchen: Fink, 2005), 203-223.

Rosenfeld, Abraham, The Authorised Kinot for the Ninth of Av... (Israel, 1970), #22, pp. 124-5. 

Goldschmidt, Daniel, Seder HaQinot L'tishah B'av (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1977), #21, pp. 80-82.


Translation and commentary by Ruth Langer, with extensive reference to those of Daniel Goldschmidt and Abraham Rosenfeld. Hebrew text mostly follows that of Goldschmidt. Biblical translations are from, or based upon, the New Jewish Publication Society translation.