Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1891-10-12
and pundered in the towns of France and
Enrnnnn1r


The old, old fable that Christian child
rem were kidnapped and murdered at the
Passover festivities, which was first heard
perhaps l 1000 years ago and is current tc
this very day, as witness case in the
Austrian empire last year when number
of Jews we're placed on trial for this crime
was often made the pretext for wholesale
slaughter and confiscation. Another fable
was that the Jews by bribery and other.
wise got possession OF the consecrated
host and subjected it to indgnities. On
this account great multitudes" gathered
at Wurzburg and Nuremburg ih 1898 and
according to contemporary accounts slew
100000 CD Jews. Probably the number
would be nearer the truth if one and per-
haps two ciphers were stricken off. But
it is certain that in Germany alone at vari-
Gus times many thousand. Jews were
sacrificed to this fable.
THE BLACK DEATH PANIC.
When the black death swept over
Europe the tumult OF panic, despair and
insane fear turned the human race into
raging beasts. The superstitious dread of
the besotted and ignorant population
manifested itself in remarkable FORMS
This was the time when the fanatical
tlagelants roamed up and down the coun-
try, lashing their bare bodies with scour-
yes, seeking thus to appease the wrath Of
God. The eXcitable temper of the time
was aggravated by the preaching of the
crusades and religious fanaticism was
famed to fever heat. The Jews were the
most prominent objects against which
the popular fury directed itself and multi
tndes of them were brutally massacred.
The christian OF the middle ages believed
himself under a personal obligation to
revenge the bloody death of the Savior on
the unbelievng Jews. In the years l34S
so the smoke of the fires in which the
Jews were burned accended to heaven
from every city along the Rhine. In
Basic, on the Christmas of the years l34S,
the Jews were shut up in wooden house,
which was set on fire and all within per-
ished by burning and suffocation. The
chronicles of Freiburg relate that "all the
Jews who dwelt in the town were burnt,
except the children and the women with
child" And the chronicle continues (;
Thus in every town on the Rhine were
the Jews burned"
DEATH RATHER THAN APosTACY.
Nowhere in the history Of mankind"
says the historian Scherr, lis there an
other instance of so heroic yet passive a
resistance as that of the Jews during their
prosecutions in the fourteenth century,"
With few exception they scorned to save
their lives and belongings by apostacy.
In Constance in l349 Jew was induced
by fear to submit to baptism, but he was
afterward so overcome with remorse and
shame that he shut himself up in his
house with his family, applied the torch,
and calling forth from the flames pro-
claimed that he offered himself and his
family as an atoning sacrifice to Adonai
Shaddai and that he died Jew. In
Strasburg, when it was sought to tear the
infants of Jewish mothers from their arms
in the public place when the fathers were
burning at the stake in order to baptise
them, the women threw themselves into
the flames with the children and heroic
ally persisted. In Esslingen, Spires and
Worms the entire congregation of Jews
gathered in their synagogues to escape
the nameless terrors which they feared,
and setting them on fire persisted to the
number of 5000 in the flames.
BRAVE HEARTS FOR 1000 YEARS.
There is nothing in history to parallel
The heroic tenacity with which the Jews
have clung to their belief and to each
other IN spite of oppression and persecu-
ion. Professionalism in Bohemia and in
France succumbed to the force arrayed
against it in comparatively short space
)f time. The same is true of Catho-
icism in England. But the Jews have
hostile world for more than
1000 years. From the time of the
captivity to the present day
hey have maintained intact their faith
and their individuality as race. And
t is safe to say this persecution has been
. potent means to the preservation OF
heir pecnliarities. In America, the
irst country which placed them on a
perfect equality with their neighbors and
where they enjoy the consideration to
which their merits entitle them, they are
oaing much of their individuality. There
s far more similarity between the Amer
can Jew and his gentle neighbor in ap-
'earance and sympathy than between the
ormer and his Polish or Russian BROTH
n. Ii the Jewish race is to be finally
merged and absorved into the nations
mong which it is scattered it will be
vhen the onslaugits of superstition |
nd prejudice against it are ended and
OrpOtten