Liturgical practice preserves historical realities

The paragraph “Av Harachamim (Father of Compassion)” in the Shabbat morning service recalling martyrs killed “al Kiddush Hashem” is generally associated with the 1096 decimation of the Rhine valley communities by the Crusaders. Accordingly, while there are varied customs in regard to the dates of its recital aside from at the end of Yizkor, in the case of festive dates when Tachanun is not said or as we declare Rosh Chodesh (Shabbat Mevarchim). Nevertheless, all Ashkenazic communities recite it on Shabbat Mevarchim Sivan and/or the first Shabbat in Sivan to recall the massacres of 1648/9, while many do so on Shabbat Mevarchim Iyar – also during the Sefirat HaOmer semi mourning period – as well.

But in many shules it is also to be recited this coming Shabbat Mevarchim Menachem Av. What is its relevance to this time of the year?

The usually heard reason is that both the Omer period and the Three Weeks have in common commemoration of exile-related tragedy, and accordingly commemoration of the martyrs through our history is appropriate. It is also a fact that its recital on this Shabbat is a less widespread custom than that of recital on Shabbat Mevarchim Sivan – although as was once the central European custom still evident from a statement in the “Singer” siddur, once the hallmark of English Jewry, that some who do not even recite it the whole year through make a point of its recital on the Shabbat before Tisha b’Av (as also, for the above-mentioned reason, on the Shabbat before Shavuot). So given that there must be logic to every accepted minhag (custom), what is the connection between Av Harachamim and the Three Weeks?

The answer, I suggest, is one that provides an additional insight into the tragic impact of the Crusades – and, simultaneously into the history of the millennia of exile that commenced on Tisha b’Av.

The events relating to the 1096 Crusader devastation in the Rhine valley that we recall during the Omer period and in Kinnot on Tisha b’Av may well be those most in the consciousness of Ashkenazi Jewry. But in actual fact they were only the precursors to what would occur three years later, when the Frankish Crusader army reached their destination – the Holy City.

On June 7, 1099, the Crusader force finally camped at Nebi Samuel on the city outskirts. On Tammuz 17 (Shabbat, July 15) the walls of Jerusalem were breached again – this time by Crusaders led by Godfrey de Bouillon. By Friday, Tammuz 23, as his soldiers penetrated the city walls and the city’s defence collapsed, all its non-Christian inhabitants were doomed.

In his definitive work The Crusaders in the Holy Land, Meron Benvenisti records:

“The Crusaders, drunk with victory, conducted a massacre in the city such as has seldom been paralleled in the history of war; the troops ran amok through the streets, stabbing and slaying everyone they encountered. It is said that rivers of blood flowed through the narrow lanes covering the horses’ hocks. The Jewish community gathered in the central synagogue were shut in by the Crusaders and burnt alive.”

Out of 40,000 residents, few survived to be sold as slaves. And even as the initial fervour-induced killing spree faded into the background, and the Christians in the city found that they were dependent on local populations for crucial supplies, residence in the city was absolutely forbidden to Jews and Muslims. Only in the north of the country some Jewish communities remained.

Although Benjamin of Tudela found a few Jews in Yerushalayim about 1170, it was only after Saladin recaptured it in 1187 that Jews could really re-establish themselves. Then, just 13 years after Saladin’s revival of Muslim rule, the Tosafist Rabbi Yechiel of Paris arrived in Akko with hundreds of followers and established a yeshivah there. He had actually sought to travel to Yerushalayim to offer a Pesach sacrifice (for which rebuilding the Temple was not considered necessary); clearly the situation of Jews in France combined with the new apparent opportunity in our land post Saladin, raised Messianic hopes. Nevertheless despite Rabbi Yechiel’s failure to achieve that aim, from his arrival until modern times there is an unbroken line of immigration to Israel.

In 1267, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (Ramban) arrived in Yerushalayim. Finding only an impoverished quorum of 10 Jews who still gathered for the Sabbath, he revived the congregation, retrieved Torah scrolls from Shechem, and established a synagogue that laid the foundation for today’s Jewish Quarter.

So in conclusion, what is the significance of the Crusader arrival beyond the disastrous events themselves?

In a nutshell, one needs to remember that despite our frequent references to two millennia of exile, the Roman Destruction of 70CE did not result in total exile of Jews from our land.

In the third and fourth centuries Jews were still the majority in parts of the Galilee – where the Mishnah and then the Talmud Yerushalmi were compiled. Problems between Jews and the early Christians impacted on but did not bring to an end to those Jewish communities. The advent of Islam from 628CE meant a change of circumstances; in subsequent centuries the Gaonim of Eretz Israel, the grammarians and payetanim (composers of piyutim, liturgical pieces) all flourished. Particularly well known from this period is a controversy over the calendar in 920/922 between the Gaonim of Yerushalayim and Saadiah Gaon, indicative of the way that the strength of those in Yerushalayim was such that they at least felt they could even challenge and overrule the Babylonian Gaonate. Only through the Crusader invasion did the effective continuity of Jewish life in our land post the Destruction come to an end.

Thus the events in Yerushalayim associated with the Crusaders actually marked the culmination of the exile set in train by the Roman siege and the city’s capture just over a millennium earlier, but in the same Three Weeks period of our calendar year.

Accordingly, recitation at this time too of Av Harachamim, the memorial prayer associated with victims of Crusader murderous excesses, is absolutely appropriate.

And at the same time, when as per tradition, we also see Tisha b’Av as the moment of commencement of the Messianic era, we also recall that it was actually the end of the Crusader kingdom that first opened the door for the continuous train of immigration and development that has brought us the Israel we know in our contemporary era – and hopefully, speedily in our time, will direct us to the final redemption.

Shabbat shalom,

Yossi

Yossi Aron OAM is The AJN’s religious affairs editor.