Soccer Dad

Kingdom of PC

I've found much of the media attention to the recently released movie "Kingdom of Heaven" to be more than a little annoying.

There were uneasy rumblings among Arab groups that obtained an early treatment of the script a year or so ago. They found the film potentially fraught with stereotypes about 12th century Muslims fighting Christians for control of Jerusalem, negative images that might have inflamed anti-Muslim sentiment.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee was among those worried groups, but half a dozen members came away greatly relieved after a "Kingdom of Heaven" screening arranged for them by Scott.

"It's one of the better representations of Muslims we've seen out of Hollywood," said Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based group. "We thought that he did a good job tackling a potentially volatile subject and avoided doing a simplified, stereotyped story of Muslim vs. Christian."

I find it hard to be worried about Muslim sensibilities at the times of the Crusades. Whether or not the Muslims were attacked unfairly, the Crusades that were Christian vs. Muslim were armies vs. armies.
The Pact of Umar a few centuries earlier had anticipated the Nazi practice, by more than a millenium, of forcing "protected" minorities to attach a yellow cloth to their clothing. (The requirement was later changed to blue for Christians.)
But the Jewish fate under Christians during the Crusades was much worse. Jews did not have armies, unlike the Muslims, and were subject the persecutions of the Crusaders who decided that need not wait to rid Jerusalem of infidels when there were so many living closer by.
There is a concept in Judaism of "kiddushei ketana" or the betrothal, by the father, of a minor daughter. There is a Tosefos (a commentary on the Talmud) on Daf (page) 41A in the Tractate of Kiddushin. It says:

...and now that we are accustomed to betroth our daughters, even minors, that is because every day the exile becomes more oppressive and if a person can afford now to provide a dowry for his daughter perhaps later he won't be able to afford it and his daughter will never get married."

(attempted translation mine.) The life of the Jews in the Rhineland at the time of the Crusades was that tenuous. Kiddushei Ketana, something that has generally been forbidden was allowed then because a family might never get a second chance to marry of their daughter.
An article Christianity Today, deals with this aspect of the Crusades in an unltimately unconvincing manner:

The Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterize them as nothing but piety and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence was brutal (although not as brutal as modern wars). There were mishaps, blunders, and crimes. These are usually well-remembered today. During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a righteous deed, since the Jews' money could be used to fund the Crusade to Jerusalem. But they were wrong, and the Church strongly condemned the anti-Jewish attacks.

Fifty years later, when the Second Crusade was gearing up, St. Bernard frequently preached that the Jews were not to be persecuted:

Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalm. "Not for their destruction do I pray," it says. The Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered … Under Christian princes they endure a hard captivity, but "they only wait for the time of their deliverance."
Nevertheless, a fellow Cistercian monk named Radulf stirred up people against the Rhineland Jews, despite numerous letters from Bernard demanding that he stop. At last Bernard was forced to travel to Germany himself, where he caught up with Radulf, sent him back to his convent, and ended the massacres.

It is often said that the roots of the Holocaust can be seen in these medieval pogroms. That may be. But if so, those roots are far deeper and more widespread than the Crusades. Jews perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite the contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of Europe were to be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic deaths like these "collateral damage." Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of American wars is to kill women and children.

Collateral damage is when the target is just but is near innocents. The Jews who were killed were the targets of the mayhem, there was nothing "collateral" about their deaths.
Maimon Schwarzschild and Tom Smith debate the Crusades over at the Right Coast.

Posted by SoccerDad at May 8, 2005 04:34 AM | TrackBack