Basel massacre

The Basel massacre of Jews took place in 9 of January 1349, as part of the Black Death persecutions 1348–1350.

Following the spread of the Black Death through the surrounding countryside of Savoy and subsequently Basel, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the wells, on account of the fact that they suffered a lower mortality rate than the local gentiles from the pestilence. The reasons for the lower death rate of Jews from the plague has been correctly attributed to mandatory hygiene practices enumerated in the Torah. Examples of this included daily washing and regularly bathing, something which was not common amongst the non-Jewish populations of Europe at the time. In fact, the prevailing theory at the time, from a Christian spiritual ethic, was that too frequent washing was actually harmful for the soul. In addition to this, Jews were frequently walled off in mandatory ghettos, limiting their exposure to Yersinia pestis, the organism responsible for the Plague.

The City Fathers of Basel attempted to protect their Jews but to no avail: the local guilds demanded their blood and 600 were handed over. They were shackled inside a wooden barn on an island in the Rhine, which was set afire. The few survivors—young orphans—were forcibly converted to Catholicism.

Following the massacre, it was decreed that all Jews were banned from settling in the city of Basel for 200 years. However, the city's subsequent financial collapse necessitated their early re-admittance.

See also

• History of the Jews in Switzerland
• Strasbourg massacre
• Black Death Jewish persecutions