One of the unanticipated results of the First Crusade in 1095 was a series of violent assaults on major Jewish communities in the Rhineland. Robert Chazan offers the first detailed analysis of these events, illuminating the attitudes that triggered the assaults as well as the beliefs that informed Jewish reactions to them.

Robert Chazan is Scheuer Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.

"Lucid in its style, deliberate and even-handed in its argumentation, this book ably integrates many of the complex dimensions of its subject within a single well-crafted volume."—Jeremy Cohen, American Historical Review

"A significant and innovative study of the events in 1096 and their meaning for Jewish-Christian relations. . . . An outstanding new interpretation, closely attuned to the sources, yet accessible and readable throughout."—John Van Engen, Religious Studies Review

"Chazan's study is far more than one of a horrendous but marginal episode of the first crusade. He takes us deeply into the thoughts and feelings of Ashkenazic Judaism in its early, formative stages, and into its historical circumstances as an integral and highly significant part of Western Europe in the central Middle Ages. His work is balanced, judicious, and thought-provoking."—H. E. J. Cowdrey, International History Review

"This major monograph will become indispensable reading for everyone with an interest in Jewish history or in medieval Western Europe. It will undoubtedly provoke some controversy, but the arguments advanced are so carefully buttressed with evidence that the far-reaching revisions proposed will undoubtedly result in their incorporation in the standard understanding of the European Jewish experience."—Shofar

1988 National Jewish Book Award in the Jewish History category