Kaddush ha-Shem

Kaddush ha-Shem
By
Robert E. Reis

Once upon a time when Christianity was a living religion and words were used with discrimination, the word ‘martyr’ was used in its proper sense.

As a verb, martyr means to put a person to death for adhering to a belief, faith or publicly proclaimed opinion. A martyr is a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion. A penalty is a punishment inflicted by some authority: the state, a court, a dictator, a court, a mob, etc.

Suicide can never be described as martyrdom. A suicide is never a martyr.

Kaddush ha-Shem
By
Robert E. Reis

Once upon a time when Christianity was a living religion and words were used with discrimination, the word ‘martyr’ was used in its proper sense.

As a verb, martyr means to put a person to death for adhering to a belief, faith or publicly proclaimed opinion. A martyr is a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion. A penalty is a punishment inflicted by some authority: the state, a court, a dictator, a court, a mob, etc.

Suicide can never be described as martyrdom. A suicide is never a martyr.

Kamikaze pilots were not martyrs. The Japanese who threw themselves from the cliffs of Saipan were not martyrs.

The members of the Jewish genetic clustering of the Middle Eastern genetic clustering of the non-European genetic clustering of the Caucasian genetic clustering who died at Masada were not martyrs.

The members of the Jewish genetic clustering of the Middle Eastern genetic clustering of the non-European genetic clustering of the Caucasian genetic clustering who died in Germany in 1096 AD were not martyrs.

About Masada very little is known. It is said that almost one thousand members of the Jewish genetic clustering of the Middle Eastern genetic clustering of the non-European genetic clustering of the Caucasian genetic clustering died there in a suicide pact rather than surrender to a Roman army.

We know a lot about 1096.

The Jews had been invited to live in Archdiocese of Mainz by the Archbishop.

In 1096 the Crusaders on the way to the Holy Land turned on the Jews. Perhaps they felt leaving one group of Infidels behind them while they crossed the world to fight another group of Infidels was imprudent. Perhaps they had learned that Jewish slave traders were selling castrated Christian boys to the Moslems. Perhaps they had heard that a Christian boy had been murdered so his blood could be used to make matzos for the Jewish Passover. Perhaps they were mentally deranged anti-Semites. (Oops! The word anti-Semite would not be invented for almost 800 years.)

The members of the Jewish genetic clustering of the Middle Eastern genetic clustering of the non-European genetic clustering of the Caucasian genetic clustering turned to the Archbishop for protection.

The Archbishop feared an overwhelming attack on his palace by the Crusaders. He told the Jews that he could only save them if they accepted Christianity.

He did not tell them that he would kill them if they refused.

The representative of the Jewish community brought the Archbishop’s offer to the leaders of the Jewish community. They decided it was time for the “kiddush ha-Shem” or “sanctification of the Divine Name.”

What is the “kiddush ha-Shem” or “sanctification of the Divine Name”?  It is the ceremony of mass suicide.
“Rabbi Kalonymous the pious took his son Joseph, kissed him and slaughtered him.

When the Archbishop learned of the first ritual murder he withdrew his offer of protection.

But the “kiddush ha-Shem” or “sanctification of the Divine Name” went on.

A Jewish chronicler records that the Jews cried out, “Blessed are we if we do his will and blessed are all those who are killed and slaughtered and die for the Unity of his Name.”

He tells us, “They all stood - men and women - and slaughtered one another… They were all slaughtered. The blood of the slaughter flowed through the chambers in which the children of the sacred covenant were. They lay in slaughtered rows - the infant with the elderly - ... making sounds like slaughtered sheep.”

Rachel the daughter of Rabbi Isaac ben R. Asher had four children. She sanctified the Divine Name by killing her smallest son Isaac, then her two daughters, Bella and Matrona, and finally pulled her son Aaron from his hiding place and killed him.

She placed the bodies of her children on her lap and waited for the Crusaders. They killed her.

Other Jews drowned themselves in the Rhine to sanctify the Divine Name.

“When the pious Samuel saw his son Yehiel, who had thrown himself in the water but had still not died - he was a comely young man, as majestic as the Lebanon, he cried out: “Yehiel, my son, my son! Stretch out your neck before your father, and I shall offer you up as a sacrifice before the Lord… I shall make the benediction for slaughtering and you shall respond amen.” R. Samuel the pious did so and slaughtered his son with sword in the water.”

“When R. Samuel the elder, the pious, the father of R. Yehial saw this act of sanctification they had undertaken, he also said to Menahem the pious, the sexton: “Menahem, conquer your will like a warrior and slaughter me with the same sword with which I slaughtered my son Yehiel. I have examined it well and it has no defect that might void the slaughtering.”

The Jewish chronicler celebrates the slaughter:

“Thus, these pious ones sanctified the holy Name of the zealous and avenging [God] in the water. Now come all inhabitants of the world and see! Was there ever anything like this, such a declaration of the unity of the [Divine] Name, from the days of Adam? How great was the strength of the father, whose mercies were not aroused for his son.”

Participation in the “kiddush ha-Shem” or “sanctification of the Divine Name” was not entirely voluntary even among adults.

When Judah ben R. Abraham “the pious” saw that his daughter-in-law wanted to flee he cut her into two pieces.

The Christians did not see the “kiddush ha-Shem” or “sanctification of the Divine Name” as martyrdom.  They saw it as murder and suicide.

The dictionaries agree with them.

Posted by Robert Reis on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 02:07 PM in Jewish Diaspora
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