In the Hebrew chronicles of 1096, qiddush ha-shem appears as an indispensable and dominant characteristic of German Jewry. Contributing to this impression was the long scholarly interest in Ashkenazic martyrdom, which tended to minimize, if not to ignore, the chronicles' reference to forced conversion. As the authors and scholars focused on the different forms of self-destruction, long-lasting effects on both European Jews and Christians were attributed to these destructive reactions. Let us first examine the impact of the Jewish behavior on the immediate Christian environment.

CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

In a most controversial and instrumental study, I. J. Yuval has suggested that the phenomenon of Rhenish Jews taking the lives of their own children created a negative Jewish image in Christian eyes, which led to the infamous blood libels of the Middle Ages. If Jews could take the lives of their own children, some Christians would believe, they would not hesitate to take the lives of their children to fulfill what Christians saw as religious Jewish rites. Indeed, Yuval's argument looks logical. But as Yuval himself warns, the Jewish behavior alone cannot fully explain the connection he has made. Clearly, the Ashkenazic self-inflicted violent reactions to baptism did not help the Jewish image in already prejudiced Christian eyes. But given the direction in which anti-Jewish and antiheretical feelings were taking during the eleventh and especially the twelfth centuries, I believe that libels were bound to arise anyway in relation to the “other.”