Imagined Immunities: Medieval Myths and Modern Histories of Jews and the Black Death

Abstract:Epidemics were a part of early modern, and are still a part of modern, life. Yet, one catastrophic epidemic looms above others in popular historical thinking: the Black Death. A historical catastrophe, the Black Death carries a particular resonance in Jewish history, as the event provoked the outbreak of violence against Jewish communities across Europe and the massacre of Jews in large numbers. A popular reckoning of this episode suggests that Christians blamed Jews for the outbreak or spread of the plague on the belief that whereas Christians were perishing in droves, Jews had escaped the worst of the plague's lethal impact. Although the claim was without basis, in time writings by and for Jews came to accept the premise of Jewish resistance to plague, but they transvalued the meaning and memory of the Black Death persecutions from conspiratorial accusations to indications of Jewish prudence and sanitary behavior. Historical writing about Jews and the Black Death over the centuries—both frequently appearing yet limited in scope—reflects a history of both the changed political circumstances in which such writing was produced and the impact of advances in understandings of medical theory as it furnished authors with a structuring narrative about collective identity in the past.