Black Death Dbq

Suddenly everyone around started to die; they were healthy one day, then they developed black tumors on their bodies, and two days later they were gone. The streets became a graveyard, more than half of the town died and the others would not leave their house terrified that they would be the next to go. The town became hell and that is when they understood that it was the doing of the Jews. They were sent by Satan, they poisoned the water causing everyone to die in order to make Earth an inferno. Years later people realized that the Black Death was in fact caused by micro-organisms. However, during the Middle Ages, bacteria was an unknown concept and the Jews were the easiest explanation. The Black Death was a plague caused by disease spreading

The blame lead to the Jewish nation being oppressed and world understanding that the Jewish nation will forever be the easiest to hold responsible. After the plague, Christians declared that very few Jews died from the plague, compared to the rest of the population. The Jewish law orders that Jews must wash their hands before eating and they must bathe before Shabbat. Jews are forbidden to recite a blessing with a stench, they must help the sick and must bury the dead. The rest of the world might have gone half their life without bathing and during the plague, the dead were left on the streets. Due to the sanitary practices of the Jewish law, Jews were better protected from the epidemic which meant that, in reality less Jews died (Wein, The Black Death). Additionally, Jewish villages were distant from the rest of the town meaning they were further from the epidemic. The townspeople could not find any logical explanation for the plague. They found the Jewish people very suspicious for living far away so they realized that the Jews were the simplest to blame. They came to the conclusion that the Jews were the messengers of Satan; they poisoned the wells and that is why they were better protected (The Black Death-Political Effects). People began attacking the Jews with pogroms, burning them at stake or exiling them from the country. On August twenty fourth, 1349, the largest Jewish community in Europe found in Mainz was killed with six thousand Jews being executed (Wein, The Black Death). Some Jews were taken in, tortured and forced to falsely accuse others. By 1351 there were no Jews left in Germany or Southern Europe. Those that survived the Black Death were either murdered or forced to escape to Poland or Russia. Most Jews ran away to Poland since they were under the protection of King Casimir III, who was influenced by his Jewish mistress, Esther. The