When the

Talmud
was
Burned
Unfortunately, many of our worst enemies have come from within
How was it that you, O Law, given by G-d, the Consuming Fire, like the community that lived according to its principles, would
Should be consumed by the fire of mortals, come under attack from anti-Semites.
And that the heathens weren’t singed by your burning coals? In 1095 Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade. While the
How can food ever again be sweet to my palate pope did not mention Jews in his call to arms, he clearly touched
After beholding what your plunderers have gathered? off the spontaneous attacks on Jews that eventuated in the Rhine-
Men whom you rejected from entering your assembly land massacres, commemorated by Ashkenazim in the kinah “Mi
Burned the spoil of the Most High in the midst of the market Yitein Roshi Mayim” by Kalonymus ben Yehudah (11th century).
square, This was the time of Rashi (1040-1105), and the communities
Like the possessions of a condemned city. destroyed, most notably Speyer, Worms (where Rashi studied)
(Adapted from a translation by A. Rosenfeld) and Mainz (the home of Rabbeinu Gershom, 960-1040) were
part of the heartland of Talmudic study.

W
ith these poignant words from the kinah The earliest person to directly polemicize against the Talmud
“Sha’ali Serufah Va’eish,” recited by Ashkenazim was probably Petrus Alphonsi, a Jewish physician and scholar
each year on Tishah B’Av, Rav Meir of Rothen- who converted to Christianity in 1106 and was formerly known
berg (1215-1293) mourned the burning of as Moses Sephardi. Leaving Spain, he eventually lived in England
the Talmud in Paris that he had witnessed in and then France. The first sections of his Dialogue Against the Jews
June of 1242. He writes that he himself saw 24 wagon loads of attacks Judaism to a great extent by challenging the Gemara and
Talmudic volumes destroyed. This horrible anti-Semitic act had Chazal. Whereas previous claims had been that the Jews contin-
enormous consequences for the study of the Gemara in Ashkenaz ued to practice biblical law, refusing to accept Christianity, Petrus
(France and Germany) in the Middle Ages. In fact, we have only now claimed that the Jews were following what he said was a new
one complete manuscript of the Talmud Bavli, the Munich manu- and false law—that of the Talmud.
script, an Ashkenazic copy from 1342. Somewhat different was Peter the Venerable, the Benedictine
But the burning of the Talmud in Paris was not a sudden, isolated Abbot of Cluny (c. 1092-1156). Himself hostile to Jews and Juda-
event. Rather, it capped a long history of anti-Semitic accusations. ism, he also wanted to see Jews spared from violence. He wanted
While the European Jewish communities had their origins in the the Jews to be despised and hated for their rejection of Christianity
Roman period, it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that they emerged and strongly called for hatred of the Jews while deploring violence
as major centers of Jewish life. By the time these communities against them. Peter composed a lengthy polemic against the Jews
attained developed status, during the 10th-11th centuries, the that included an attack on the Talmud. Peter is effectively the first
text of the Gemara had reached a more or less fixed form, even major example of an attack of this nature, although those who fol-
if it circulated in varying manuscript traditions. The authority of lowed him had much more thorough familiarity with the Gemara.
the Bavli over the Yerushalmi had been accepted already under the What is new here in European anti-Jewish polemic is the use of
Geonim (7th to 11th centuries). But it would not be long before it, the Talmud to argue their case. This takes place in an atmosphere

2 5 T A M U Z 5 7 7 7 / / J U LY 1 9 , 2 0 1 7 / / A M I M A G A Z I N E 57
in the 12th century when European Christendom was crystal- and then burned in several episodes in Paris in the 1240s.
lizing a new spirited opposition to Jews and Judaism. Yet this But our story was not yet over: In 1247, the new pope, Innocent
was the same time in which the scholarship of the Baalei Hato- IV, was approached by the rabbis of France and became convinced
safos, Rashi’s students and grandsons, was developing throughout by their argument that because of the central role of the Talmud in
Northern Europe. Often, these attacks called attention to the bla- Judaism, confiscation and destruction of its manuscripts violated
tant attacks in the Talmud on Christianity and its leader. These the Catholic doctrine of tolerance of the Jews and Judaism. This
passages were censored by Christians from printed copies of the doctrine required that the Jews be allowed to continue to practice
Gemara and are still omitted from almost all the editions and their faith freely so that their downtrodden and persecuted status
translations used today. would somehow testify to the “truth” of Christianity. The authori-
By the 13th century, Jewish converts to Christianity began ties were instructed to return to the Jews those books that were
to provide much more Talmudic learning to increasingly anti- not destroyed, but only after censoring out objectionable mate-
Talmudic Christian authorities. The first of these was Nicholas rial. The Paris church leaders refused to obey. However, in the rest
Donin (first half of the 13th century). He argued that the Talmud of Europe, censorship became the norm rather than destruction.
was intolerable to Christians and that Christian society should Indeed, numerous medieval Hebrew manuscripts that survive
destroy it. He set in motion the process that would lead to the from the Middle Ages bear testimony to Christian censorship.
burning of the Talmud in France in the 1240s. We can learn of Still, Christian opposition to the Talmud would continue to
his accusations against the Talmud from the letters sent by Pope remain a major part of anti-Jewish polemic. In contrast to Donin,
Gregory IX (c. 1170-1241) to monarchs and ecclesiastical leaders Pablo Christiani (d. 1274), a Spanish apostate who became a
in Western Europe in the lead-up to the burning of the Talmud, Dominican Friar, used his knowledge of the Talmud and Jewish
and from a set of 35 accusations, probably composed by Donin literature to argue the “truth” of Christianity. He falsely argued that
himself. Essentially, Donin understood the central theological and numerous aggados found in the Gemara actually supported Chris-
halachic role of the Gemara in Jewish life but claimed that it was tian beliefs. He even had a disputation with the Ramban (Vikuach
antithetical to Christianity and was preventing the conversion of haRamban) in Barcelona in 1263. Much of the debate revolved
Jews—by then a stated goal of the medieval church. around how literally aggados should be taken. The Ramban suc-
Sadly, his accusations led to papal action. The Pope asked ceeded in exposing the weakness of Pablo’s arguments, and in this
the political leaders to collect the Talmudic texts and give them way prevented defections to Christianity by weaker elements of
to churchmen to inspect. Those texts containing unacceptable the Jewish community.
“errors” were to be burned at the stake. These orders were car- By the mid-13th century, Christian scholarship in Jewish texts
ried out only in northern France by King Louis IX and by the was flourishing—in order to support polemics and proselytizing
theologians of the University of Paris. Indeed, a trial took place efforts, as well as, apparently, for its own sake as part of the rising
(“Vikuach Rabbi Yechiel mi’Paris”) for which we have considerable tradition of medieval scholarship. Among the Christian Hebra-
Jewish and Christian evidence. Despite the valiant efforts of Rabbi ists was the strongly anti-Semitic Dominican Friar Raymond
Yechiel (d. 1286) at this disputation, the Talmud was convicted Martini (c. 1220-1284). His Pugio Fidei (Dagger of Faith) shows

58 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / J U LY 1 9 , 2 0 1 7 / / 2 5 T A M U Z 5 7 7 7
 When the
Talmud
was
Burned
enormous knowledge of rabbinic sources, even some that are lost people. As Rav Meir of Rothenberg watched the tragic confla-
to us today but that scholarship has proven to be authentic. He gration brought about by those who thought that they could
defined his book as “the dagger of Christians [to be used] for slay- extinguish the Jewish people by destroying their books, he con-
ing the perfidy of the impious and especially the Jews” and tried cluded his elegy with the following comforting words:
to prove at excruciating length that Talmudic sources support the May the Creator comfort you according to the days of your
beliefs of Christianity. affliction,
While these polemics, trials and burnings of the Talmud were And may He restore the captivity of the tribes of Yeshurun
going on, the context of Jewish life in medieval Western Europe And raise your meek ones from their lowliness.
was deteriorating. Jewish banking and lending contributed You will again adorn yourself with ornaments of scarlet;
greatly to the negative image of the Jews of medieval Europe. Fur- You will take up the timbrel and lead the circling dance and
thermore, popular Christian fear turned to irrational beliefs, such rejoice in your revels.
as the specious claim that Jews sought to kill Christians, often in Then shall my heart be uplifted when your Creator will afford
the form of ritual murder—the infamous blood libel. Often con- you light,
nected to Passover and the baking of matzah, this belief persists Brighten your darkness and illuminate your sorrowing gloom.
even today in some circles. Jews were also blamed for bubonic (Adapted from a translation by A. Rosenfeld)
plague and accused of poisoning the wells. As we remember the destruction of these communities and their
Eventually, the Jews were almost systematically expelled from manuscripts, and the destruction only so recently of European
Western Europe, starting with England in 1290, France repeat- Jewry, their yeshivos, and many of their sefarim, let us redouble
edly until the final expulsion in 1394, and later from numerous •
our efforts to make Rav Meir’s words a reality.
parts of Germany, Italy and the Balkans. Then, of course, came
the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497.
Sadly, today’s accusations made by anti-Semites are very simi- Lawrence H. Schiffman is Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of
lar to those that circulated in the Middle Ages. They continue to Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Director of the Global Network for
be made against the Talmud and, on its basis, against the Jewish Advanced Research in Jewish Studies at New York University.