Why did Jews get targeted during the plague? Here’s what happened (copied from FB comments string on “The Great Mortality” post):
By this time, England and northern France had expelled their Jewish populations. Jews lived in Spain, southern France (Marseille coast), Italy and Germany.
The plague came first to Italy, then to southern France and Spain. They didn’t know what it was, but they pretty much knew it had come from the Genoese death ships. Some Jews in towns near Marseille were attacked, but it wasn’t directly connected with the plague, it seems. The Jews maybe did statistically better (I haven’t seen that claim), but it was no better than maybe 20% of them died instead of 30%. That’s still a lot of death and it’s very plain to everyone that you’re not exempt.
Germany was assaulted by the plague from west and east, but it had a full year to hear news from Italy, France, England and even Sweden, and tremble. Italy was hit too suddenly to anticipate the tragedy, but Germany had time to think. They wanted desperately to turn away the dreadful thing that was headed their way, ready to plunge them into exquisite suffering.
I don’t know the true story on this, but a Jew in Switzerland confessed to local authorities that he had a letter from the Chief Rabbi in Toledo, Spain, telling them to start poisoning wells. The Rabbi sent out the poison packets, too. He took the town council to the well he had poisoned and showed them the packets. Or something like that. In medieval terms, it was a full investigation with proofs beyond doubt; I have a feeling it fell short of CSI standards.
The Swiss sent warning letters to the German towns, telling them that the way to avoid the plague was to prevent the Jews from carrying out their plan. Each major town received a copy of this letter with official seals affixed.
Some rulers doubted the story; after all, the Jews had done a pretty bad job at avoiding their own “poison” in Spain and Italy. What kind of a conspiracy was that? A few governing authorities (don’t make me look it up, but I will if you ask) tried to protect the Jews. But for the most part, terrified German towns bought the whole story.
Thus began the first mass murder program in modern history. Each town arrested all of the Jews and disposed of them in some way. The most dreadful, to me, was the town that rowed the Jews out to an island in the river, where a wooden house stood. The Jews were stripped (clothes were valuable) and herded in. The door was locked, the house set on fire, and the boats rowed back to the city.
Of course, the Germans still died like ants when the plague hit. And the Jews who heard of the crisis in time left Germany and moved to Poland, where the King welcomed them and gave sanctuary. Which is why so many of them were in Poland during the modern era. No other place in Europe was safe; they had to move to the margins, to the recently-Christianized lands.