Chapter 4 Reactive Anti-Semitism in the Medieval Period

Ashkenazic Jews, one Jacob ben Sullam, the offspring of a Jewish father and a gentile mother, is described as committing suicide along with others during the disturbances. According to a contemporary Jewish chronicler, Jacob's last words were, "All the days my life till now, you have despised me. Now I shall slaughter myself" (in Chazan 1987, 241). The implication is that his low status was the result of his genetic ancestry, another indication of the importance of racial purity among historical Jewish groups.