The Jews And The Medieval Church

The Church wields great power and has great influence on everyone’s daily life in Medieval Europe.

Bruised from the failure of the Crusades, religious domination over the Jewish people becomes their consolation prize.

They make it very uncomfortable for people to remain Jewish. They exert enormous pressure to convert, at times by force.

They enact discriminatory laws and they encourage the nobility to do likewise.

They sponsor confrontation by hosting many debates. Most debates end in disaster, as the Jewish participants must be careful in their response, lest they insult the Church.

Within this climate the Jews are used and the Jews are abused. It has been said that had there been no Jews, the Church would have needed to invent them.

Jews are used as scapegoats for every evil.

Jews enable commerce by becoming middlemen for financial dealings that Church dogma forbids. At times, loans are wiped out by wiping out the Jews. The high risk and the usurious rates charged for obtaining money to make the loans push the interest rate up to forty-percent, making Jews increasingly unpopular.

The establishment views knowledge as a threat and non-Jews are afraid to expose their secular expertise. Jews frequently teach secular studies to the clergy.

Tragically, this period provides many segments of Western Civilization with an anti-Jewish heritage.

Curiously, a handful of Jews make it to knighthood.

In Loving Memory Of Our Father, Mr. Joseph Black (Yosef Ben Zelig) O"H In Loving Memory Of Our Mother, Mrs. Norma Black (Nechama Bas Tzvi Hirsh) O"H

© 1996- by Tzvi Black, JewishAmerica. All rights reserved.