On Pesach, more than six hundred years ago, as a result of young Jewish boys playing with some pebbles, almost the entire Prague community was massacred — three thousand Jews perished, many women and children were baptized and the Jewish quarter was burned and ransacked.
What enraged the non-Jews to such an extent that a mob was incited enough to destroy gravestones, and scatter the remains of dead bodies they exhumed from Prague’s Jewish cemetery?
The answer lies in the powerful narrative that developed about Jews in late medieval Europe, the host desecration accusation.
Beginning in Paris in the year 1290, and taking place throughout Europe for the next two centuries, Jews were accused of desecrating the Eucharist, the wafer that Christians believed embodied their savior. For two hundred years, violent anti-Jewish activity took place in areas from Catalonia to Bohemia where region wide massacres and cleansing took place.
The terrible tragedy that took place in Prague on April 18, 1389, as a result of this accusation is considered the most tragic period in the city’s Jewish history.
Easter Sunday that year coincided with the last day of Pesach. A priest who was leading the Easter procession through the ghetto was hit by some pebbles and caught in the cross fire of some Jewish children playing in a sandbox. The priest, who was carrying an eucharistic wafer claimed that pebbles hitting him, made him drop the host.
He insisted that the community purposely plotted against. him. The priest’s followers beat up the boys. The parents of the boys came to the defense of their children. The clergy, and especially Ješek Čtyrhranný, from the pulpit, exhorted the people to take vengeance. A mob was then incited to attack the ghetto. Jews were bludgeoned to death with axes and killed with bows and arrows.
The synagogue was destroyed and the Torah scrolls were trampled and stepped on. The buildings were set ablaze and the homes were pillaged.
Rabbi Avigdor ben Yitzchok Kara a liturgist who composed many piyutim including Echad Yachid Umyuchod which is sung while a choson is pelted with candies and nuts during his aufruf, authored Es Kol Hatela’ah, describing the persecution and slaughter of Jews in Prague in 1389 which he witnessed. This piyut would be recited every year in Prague on Yom Kippur in commemoration of the tragedy.
Here is an English translation of some of the lines of the Hebrew piyut:
“Chastisement hit flourishing Prague in the year five thousand one hundred and forty-nine after creation,
As the just fell before evil, the line spoilt
How the staff of fortitude, the rod of magnficense, has been broken
Blood touched blood in that spring month,
on the last day of Passover, the feast of sweet salvation
and Now a roasting fire has burnt me, has baked the Maztzos
since I have heard the lible of many and danger around me
Evil men’s counsel was heard on this woeful day
Rushing, running nameless sons of villainy
Each of them with weapons in hand, bows and arrows,
with axes they came like wood cutters,
From every gate, from every opening they entered,
gathering in groups, hovering in troops,
their chants tremulous and joyful,
as they spilt pure blood for swift robbery, to do and to have done with……..
Huler one of the royal chamberlains decreed the Monday after the incident of the boys throwing pebbles, that the Jews should be legally punished. Five tons of silver were taken from them.
The story of the host desecration in Prague was told in literary form in Latin entitled “Passio judaerum secundum Johannem rusticus quadratus (The Passion of the Jews according to John the Stocky Peasant).
It is related that during a procession of Holy Week 1389 (11-17 April) a Jew threw a little stone at the monstrance carried by the priest not far from the Jewish quarter. This prompted the anger of the people of Prague as they were led by one Johannes or Gesco Quadratus (John the Square)
It describes the Jewish children in the streets during the procession carrying branches and cursing the Eucharist “stone him, for he pretends to be G-d’s son…
All Christians fell upon all Jews, amputating their limbs one by one. The books of the Jewish law were burnt under a crown of burning twigs.
According to a Latin parody Christians fell upon all Jews, amputating their limbs one by one…….
The following Monday, it was decided that the Jews should be legally punished. Five tons of silver were demanded and taken from them.
Rabbi Avigdor ben Yitzchok Kara a liturgist who composed many piyutim including Echad Yachid Umyuchod which is sung while a chosson is pelted with candies and nuts during his aufruf, authored Es Kol Hatela’ah, (All the Afflictions). This liturgical poem describes the persecution and slaughter of Jews in Prague in 1389 which he witnessed. This piyut used to be recited every year in Prague on Yom Kippur in commemoration of the tragedy.
Here is an English translation of some of the lines of the Hebrew piyut:(1)