“The Massacre of Jews at Strasbourg” in 1349 by Edward Beyer

Today is the anniversary of two vicious acts of anti-semitism in a long and horrific history of such acts.

In 1349 six thousand Jews in Mainz were massacred after being blamed for the Black Death.

In  1391 Jews were massacred in Palma de Mallorca.

Frye in The Great Code:

Anti-Semitism is a long-standing corruption of Christianity, and one of the more rationalized pretexts for it is the notion that the legalism condemned in the New Testament is to be identified with Judaism.  But this is a very dubious interpretation of even the most polemical parts of the New Testament, and is not found at all in the teaching of Jesus.  Jesus always attacks a quite specific elite or pseudo-elite of priests, scribes, lawyers, Pharisess, Sadduces, and other “blind guides” (Matthew 23:24), but not the precepts of the religion he was brought up in himself.  What Jesus condemned in Pharisaism is as common in Christianity as in any other religion.  The attack on legalism is in quite a different context: it means accepting the standards of society, and society will always sooner or later line up with Pilate against the prophet. (133)