For Jack Shafer of Slate.com: What Violent Rhetoric Does

This is an edit of a post from 3/25/10 (see original here).  It's inspired by a really ill thought-out article by Jack Shafer at Slate.com, called "In defense of inflamed rhetoric."  Well, Mr. Shafer, I'm no fan of "inflamed rhetoric" and here's why:

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(image: crusaders killing Jews, 13th c. MS)

In May 1096, Christians attacked the Jews of Speyer.  The bishop of Speyer protected the Jews & arrested a couple of the perpetrators.  This ended the violence at Speyer.  The Christians, however, moved north, up the Rhine, to Worms and then to Mainz.  They massacred the Jewish communities they found in those cities, over the armed resistance of the archbishop of Mainz.  From Mainz, the Christians split up, with 1 segment moving down the Moselle river valley to Trier and Metz, killing a few and forcibly converting the rest of the Jews in those cities.  The other segment headed north from Mainz to Cologne, where they found that the bishop had moved the Jews out of Cologne & to a number of surrounding communities.  It didn't matter.  The Christians found them and massacred them all.