The Burning of the Talmud in Paris

In 4999 the convert Nicholas Donin, earlier excommunicated by his community, submitted thirty-five charges to Pope Gregory IX: the Talmud was not a sacred book but a collection of blasphemies against Christianity, and so deserved none of the protection the Church extended to the Old Testament. The Pope wrote to the kings of Europe; only Louis IX of France responded.

In the summer of 5000 a 'disputation' was staged in Paris that was in fact a trial of a book. Four Jews spoke, chief among them Rabbi Yechiel of Paris, head of a yeshiva of three hundred students. He defended brilliantly: the 'Yeshu' of the Talmud lived in another era; the laws concerning gentiles referred to ancient idolaters, not to Christian neighbours; aggadah is not legislation. The verdict was decided in advance. In 5002 some twenty-four cartloads of manuscripts were burned on the Place de Grève — by various estimates from twelve hundred to many thousands of hand-copied volumes.

The blow was worse than any pogrom: scarcely a Talmud remained in France, and a generation learned from memory and fragments.

Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, who as a young man saw the fire, wrote the lament 'Sha'ali serufah ba-esh' — 'Ask, you who were burned in fire, after the welfare of those who mourn you.' It is recited on the Ninth of Av to this day.