On a Pogrom

I want to speak about a country where Jews had been persecuted for centuries for being, well, different. Their religion and traditions, their clothing, and their lifestyle; these already marked them in Europe as being the “other” for as long as people could remember. And we know how things go for groups marked as being different. So, when the government of this particular nation ordered that Jews would have to wear a badge signifying their ethnicity and religion, well, in many ways such an order was superfluous. People knew who the Jews were in their community. And, over the years, propaganda spread about Jews being carriers of diseases (but they themselves being immune because they were in league with the Devil, you understand) and being hunters of children for their blood. Jews had been persecuted for being dishonest moneylenders when the Catholic Church condemned them for the charging of interest in lending the money. And so on.

We know that the nation’s history was already littered with accounts of pogroms against Jewish people. In fact, we have records that the houses that had Jewish populations in them were burned in times of plague or famine, because, after all, you have to blame somebody for the bad things that were happening, and who better than the “other” to pin the blame on? Churches preached sermons on blaming Jews for things like floods and earthquakes, saying that these things were happening because God was angry that the Jews had killed Jesus.

But back to this particular period of persecution, specifically how the authorities first marked Jews for persecution. The government, in ordering that the badge be worn, mandated that it be yellow and that it be of specific size and shape. To be a Jew and be caught without wearing the badge in public meant prison or worse. The government decreed that (in fact, promoted the fact that) average citizens could make such accusations. Rewards were offered for turning in Jews who ignored the law. Other laws quickly followed. Of course, one of the first things that the government mandated was that all synagogues were to be immediately shuttered. Then, in an effort to push the Jews out of the economy, extremely heavy taxes were imposed. That shut down several of the smaller businesses immediately. Then, where Jews could travel was limited. What amounted to the establishment of ghettos resulted from laws forcing Jews to live in certain areas of towns. And then, as we know, Jews were systematically rounded up and removed by the authorities.

We should read descriptions like these and redouble our resolve that such events should never happen again. Yet, we see history repeating itself over and over as hatred is allowed to go unchallenged and unchecked. Some people actually deny that these things and others like them ever took place at all. Media even go to great lengths to give credence and platforms for people who actively practice such denial. Many simply say that to deny that these events happened is merely another opinion or even “alternate facts.”

And to think that these events described above occurred in England in the late 1200s makes all of it even more astonishing.