Ephraim ben Jacob of Bonn
- Ephraim ben Jacob of Bonn
(1132–1197)
The Jewish poet and exegete (interpreter of Scripture) Rabbi Ephraim ben Jacob was born in Bonn in the Rhineland in 1132, where he was raised and educated. He became head of the rabbinical court in Bonn, and his decisions are looked upon as important interpretations of the Talmud. But he is best remembered today as a chronicler and poet of the Second Crusade.
Rabbi Ephraim’s Book of Historical Records documents the accusations of ritual murder brought against the Jews of the city of Blois in France in 1171. This was the first instance of the so-called blood libel in continental Europe: the charge that Jews make use of the blood of Christian children for their Passover ritual. Rumor spread that such an act had been committed in Blois, and that the body of the slaughtered child had been cast into the Loire. Ephraim ben Jacob describes the burning of more than 30 Jews of Blois in retaliation. Such stories are, unfortunately, not uncommon during the period of the Crusades, when Christians, roused to fight the Muslim infidels in the Holy Land, by extension might well turn their wrath against the Jewish infidel living among them in Europe. During the First Crusade in Germany, communities of Jews, faced with death or conversion, were prompted to kill their own children to prevent them from falling into the hands of Christians and being forcibly converted. Ephraim ben Jacob’s best-known poem, his Akedah, or “The Sacrifice of Isaac,” was written in response to these events. It retells the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son, but describes Abraham as actually slaying Isaac before the Angel can stop him. The child is brought back to life, but the text clearly reflects recent history for Rabbi Ephraim.
Ephraim ben Jacob’s Sefer Zekhirah (Book of remembrance) contains liturgical poems as well as a chronicle of the times of the Second and Third Crusades. He also wrote a legend of the martyr Amnon of Mainz. His poetry and prose serve as a major primary historical source for study of the Ashkenazic Jews (those of Germany and northern Europe) of the 12th century.
Bibliography
■ Baron, Salo Wittmayer. A Social and Religious History of the Jews. Vol. 6. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
■ Chazan, Robert. “Ephraim ben Jacob’s Compilation of Twelfth-Century Persecutions,” Jewish Quarterly Review 84 (1993–94): 397–416.
■ ———.European Jewry and the First Crusade. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
■ Marcus, Jacob. The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315–1791. New York: JPS, 1938.
Encyclopedia of medieval literature.
2013.
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