15. Sacrifice of Isaac, woodcut from the Ritual Responsals (Sheelot w-teshuvot) of Asher b. Yechiel, Constantinople, same publisher, 1517
16. Martyrdom of Simonino and Jews with Eyeglasses, woodcut, Northern Italy 1475-85 (from A.M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving, II, New York-London, 1938, table 74 17. Circumcision, miniature from the Rotschild Miscellanea, Venice (?), 1475, Jerusalem, Bazelel Museum.
18. Circumcision of Christ, Salzburg, circa 1440 (from H. Schreckenberg, The Jews in Christian Art, Göttingen, 1996, p. 144). 19. Circumcision of Christ, altar piece, circa 1450, Nuremberg, Liebfraukirche. 20. Gandolfino da Roreto d'Asti, Martyrdom of Simonino, tempera on wood, end of 15th century, Jerusalem, Israel Museum
21. Altoatesina School, Martyrdom of Simonino, first half of 16th century, Trent, Provincial Museum of Art 22. Oratory of German Jews with the "almemor", miniature from the Rothschild Miscellanea, Venice (?), 1475, Jerusalem, Bezalel Museum.
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At Vienna in 1421, during that city’s violent riots against the Jews, accused of favoring and supporting the Hussites, the rabbi Natan Eger visited all the local Jewish boys in their own homes, and instructed their mothers to slaughter them without remorse if the Christians attempted to baptize them en masse. One Yiddish chronicle reports that, on that occasion, the Jewish community gathered a great number of children together in the synagogue to prevent their forced conversion, as vehemently demanded by an apostate.
"The Jews of the community at this point began to cry in a loud voice: 'Alas, (the Christians), may God forbid, intend to contaminate our children, holy and immaculate’. They therefore deliberated to deprive them of their lives in order to sanctify the name of God the Blessed.
They drew lots and selected the pious rabbi Jonah Ha-Cohen, who was responsible for putting the decision into action. This happened during the Festival of the Capanne (Sukkot).
"While the entire community murmured the formula of the call to repentance in a low voice, turning from one to another, the rabbi placed himself in front of the Ark containing the rolls of the Law, and cut the throats of all the children, one after the other. This occurred in the great hall, intended for men’s prayers. The women were also slaughtered, one by one, in the antechamber of the synagogue, intended for them, and this to sanctify the name of God. The last women waiting to be sacrificed turned to Jonah, the rabbi, asking him to butcher her (without entering the women's hall, but) causing his arm to pass through the grid, which separated the two halls. Then Johan the rabbi, having no more strength to kill himself, removed the rafters in the synagogue, made a stack of them, and poured oil on them, asking God to pardon him for that which he had done to save their souls. Finally, he curled up on the almemor, setting fire to them from on top, and met death in the midst of the flames" [600].
The blood of the sacrifice, far from contaminating the place, was to serve as an irresistible call to God, exhorting Him to implacable vengeance against His enemies and those of the Chosen People, as the necessary preamble to the much-desired Messianic redemption. The blood of the innocent children, shed in the synagogue "in sanctification of the name of God”, or "as a sign of contempt and abomination of the heretical crucifix", therefore served the same function, or, more exactly, served as two symbolic and successive phases of the very same process towards final redemption.
The depositions of the defendants in the Trent trial were all in agreement as to the fact that the murder of little Simon was said to have been committed on Friday, inside the synagogue, located in the dwelling of Samuele da Nuremberg, and, more exactly, in the antechamber of the hall in which the men gathered in prayer. This area, which was separate
p. 194]
from the synagogue, properly speaking, by a door, was intended for women’s prayers, since there was no women’s gallery. The door, however, remained half-ajar; during the Sabbath liturgy, the women peeped in while the rolls of the Law were raised and exhibited by the person officiating at the almemor, before the reading of the weekly fragment of the Penteuch. On that occasion, the women placed their fingers to their lips and blew kisses in the direction of the rolls, open and placed on show. There, as the physician Tobias da Magdeburg informed the judges, "according to their customs the women gather in the antechamber of the synagogue and come forward at the door, when the (rolls with) the precepts of Moses were raised, which happens every Sabbath based on their rites" [601].
Simon’s crucifixion was alleged to have been committed on a bench located in the so-called "women's synagogue". The boy’s body, now lifeless, was then alleged to have been removed to the central hall of the synagogue and placed on the almemor for the ceremonies of the Sabbath. Tobias confirmed that, during the Sabbath liturgy, "he had seen the boy’s body stretched out on the almemor, which is a table in the middle of the synagogue, on which they place books" [602]. Angelo da Verona stated that "almemor is a Hebrew term equivalent in Latin 'seat of prayer'; in fact, the almemor is the table upon which they place the five books of Moses and is located in the midst of the School. The child’s body lay supine on the alememor (during the offices of the Sabbath)" [603].
The body was wrapped in a mappah (wimple) of variegated silk and embroidery, a fine cloth the size of a hand towel used to cover the rolls of the Law after the reading [604].
Israel Wolfgang testified before the Inquisitors of Trent in relation to the ritual child murder of Regensburg of 1467, at which he had personally participated, according to his own statement. In this case as well, the monumental ritual was alleged to have been committed in the antechamber of the synagogue; later, the body of the victim was said to have been transferred into the prayer room and placed in the almemor , so that the faithful might in some way participate in the significant ceremony [605].
Probably in an attempt to detract from the overly obvious anti-Christian connotations of the ritual of the child’s crucifixion, Angelo da Verona transformed it into an emblematic commemoration of the epic tale of the exodus from Egypt, explicitly linking it to the celebration of the Pesach. The wound inflicted on the victim’s jaw was said to have been required to recall Moses’ useless appeals to the Pharaoh
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to free the people of Israel from the land in which they were being held prisoner. The wound on the tibia was said to have been a symbolic reference to the Egyptian army’s pursuit of the Jews in flight towards the Red Sea, and the terror and desperation with which the Jews were allegedly inflicted in those days. The amputation of the foreskin was said to have possessed an even more obvious commemorative function, recalling the mass circumcision of the Jewish people for the first time when they were about to leave Egypt, at God’s command [606]. The punctures in the victim’s body were said to have been inflicted to be taken as a symbol of the physical punctures inflicted by God upon the Egyptians, cruelly punished and suffering from a variety plagues [607].
600
Cfr. S. Bernfeld,
601
"lnterrogatus ubi erant mulieres ipsorum ludeorum, respondit quod non erant in sinagoga, quia non est de more eorum quod mulieres intrant sinagogam. Interrogatus ubi stant mulieres quando celebrantur offitia sua, respondit quod mulieres tunc stant in camera que est ante sinagogam. Interrogatus an mulieres stantes in dicta camera possint videre in sinagogam et maxime ea que sunt super almemore, respondit quod non, nisi veniant super ostium per quod intratur in sinagogam. Et dicit, interrogatus, quod secundum eorum consuetudinem mulieres, que se reperiunt in camera que est ante sinagogam, se reducunt super ostium quando elevantur precepta Moisi in sinagoga. Et dicit, interrogatus, quod dieta die Sabbati de sero precepta deberunt elevati, quia omni die Sabbato de sero elevantur, secundum eorum ordines" (cfr. A. Esposito e D. Quaglioni,
602
"Vidit cadaver dicti pueri extensum super almemore, qui est discus positus in medio sinagoge, super quo ponunt libros" [“They saw the body of the boy lying on the almemor, placed in the middle of the synagogue, which is where they place their books”] (cfr. ibidem, p. 324).
603
"Et die Sabbati [...] ipse Angelus ivit ad domum Samuelis et intravit dictas scolas et vidit quoddam cadaver pueri mortui positum super almemor, quod est verbum Hebraicum, quod est dicere in lingua latina ‘locus sermonis’; qui almemor est discus quidam super quo ponuntur quinque libri Moisi. Qui discus sive almemor era positus in medio Scole, super quo disco erat cadaver dicti pueri, quod cadaver iacebat resupinum" [“ And on the Sabbath […] this Angelo went to Samuele’s house and entered their school and saw the body of the dead boy placed on the almemor, which is the Hebrew word for what is called in Latin ‘the place where we give our sermons’, which almemor is the chest upon which they place books”] (cfr. ibidem, p. 286).
604
Vitale, Samuele da Nuremberg’s agent, stated "quod illud (i.e., Little Simon’s body) sic vidit in dicto die Sabbati, de mane, in sinagoga super almemore, et quod illud erat coopertum quodam palleo de sirico diversi coloris; et similiter illud vidit dicta die, de sero, tempore quo dicebantur offitia in eorum sinagoga" [“that they saw it (the body) that Sabbath, in the morning, in the synagogue, on the almemor, and that ti was covered with a cloth of various colors, and they also saw it that day, in the evening, when they have their religious services”] (cfr. ibidem, p. 220). Samuele da Nuremberg confirmed that "dictum corpus pueri erat coopertum una tovalea, qua tovalea solent uti super suo altari [...] et post coperto dicto corpore et illo stante in almemore, venerunt omnes alii Iudei in sinagogam et ibi dixerunt offitia sua" (cfr. ibidem, p. 248).
605
"Corpus illud fuit portatum [...] in quadam cameram contiguam Synagogae et illud corpus posuit in quadam capsam. Et dicit quod mane sequenti venerunt plures alii Judaei ad videndum dictum corpus et in qua die sequenti de sero idem corpus fuit sublatum de capsa et portatum in Synagogam praedictam [...] corpore stante extenso super Almemore" [“The body was taken […] into the chamber adjacent to the synagogue and placed on the chest. And he said that in the morning several other Jews came and saw the body and that on the following day the body was taken from the chest and taken into the synagogue [..] and placed on the almemor”] (cfr. [Benedetto Bonelli],
606
The circumcision of the Jews on the occasion of the exodus from Egypt, when they are said to have complied with this precept for the first time, is mentioned in the
607
"Interrogatus quod dicat quid importat aut significat illud vulnus quod factum fuit puero in maxilla dextra, respondit quod hoc significat quod Moyses per os suum pluries dixit Pharaoni quod debere dimittere populum suum Israheliticum; et quod vulnus quod habebat puer in tibia dextra, fit ad significationem quod Pharao et populus Egiptiacus, qui persequebantur ipsos ludeos, quod in eorum itineribus fuerunt infelices; et quod vulnus quod habebat puer in virga significat circumcisionem eorum et quod punctiones que fiunt per corpus pueri significant quod populus Egiptiacus in omni parte corporis sui fuit percussus" [“When asked the meaning of the injury to the boy’s right jaw, he answered that this meant that the laws of Moses told the Pharaoh orally several times to let the Israelites go; and that the injury to the boy’s right shinbone meant that the Pharaoh and the people of Egypt, who were persecuting the Jews, who were unhappy in their wanderings, and that the injury to his penis referred to their circumcision and that the puncture wounds to the boy’s body meant that the people of Egypt were inflicted with suffering in all parts of their body”] (cfr. Esposito and Quaglioni,