Bubonic plague Quote by C.H. Dalton

“Until well into the modern age, Christians had spread legends about Jews poisoning town wells, intentionally spreading the plague, and murdering Christian babies. Now,…

— Götz Aly

“As accusations spread, so did the false belief that Jews routinely engaged in the practice of ritual murder. An accusation made repeatedly tends to…

— Phyllis Goldstein

“The European upper-class could not decide if the Jews were a noble race of persecuted biblical heroes, everyone a King David and Maccabee, or…

— Simon Sebag Montefiore

[Jews were] fomenting a general plague on the whole world.

— Claudius

“So the myth that Jews belonged to a distinct and inferior race continued to grow throughout Europe. That myth gave individuals and governments a…

— Phyllis Goldstein

“The Jews are an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most…

— Voltaire

The Jews were the money-lenders of the Middle Ages so there's a stereotype of the slightly or more than slightly dishonest business man and…

— Reinhold Niebuhr

“the ancient blood libel: that every year at Passover, Jews ritually slaughter Christian children and use their blood to bake matzo.”

— Helmut Walser Smith

“[A] common denominator in European wars going back to the Crusades--no matter who won or lost, the one fairly reliable constant was that Jews…

— Scott Anderson

“With each new rumor, each new accusation, the way Christians thought about Jews became more and more distorted. Jews were increasingly seen as a…

— Phyllis Goldstein

“It’s a common slander of the Jews, but it’s no slander of a huge fraction of the Germans. They went like sheep to the…

— Martin Amis

“Jew hatred was overwhelmingly religious in nature and began to wane only in the age of enlightened absolutism in Western and Central Europe. Still,…

— Götz Aly