Er, That "Nonsense" About 800 Years...

...may not be so nonsensical after all*.

Via "The Browser", I learn of an amazing historical study entitled "Persecution Perpetuated: Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany" by Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth (Economists are everywhere).

The abstract reads (paragraphing and emphasis added by me):

How persistent are cultural traits ?

This paper uses data on anti-Semitism in Germany and finds continuity at the local level over more than half a millennium. When the Black Death hit Europe in 1348-50, killing between one third and one half of the population, its cause was unknown. Many contemporaries blamed the Jews. Cities all over Germany witnessed mass killings of their Jewish population. At the same time, numerous Jewish communities were spared these horrors.

We use plague pogroms as an indicator for medieval anti-Semitism. Pogroms during the Black Death are a strong and robust predictor of violence against Jews in the 1920s, and of votes for the Nazi Party.

In addition, cities that saw medieval anti-Semitic violence also had higher deportation rates for Jews after 1933, were more likely to see synagogues damaged or destroyed in the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, and their inhabitants wrote more anti-Jewish letters to the editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.

Wow !

*The reference will need no explanation for most Irish, but I have a few readers who are not so blessed. Next Sunday, it will in fact be 842 years since The Invasion led by Richard de Clare - better known as "Strongbow" - began our history as the Most Oppressed People Ever ("MOPE"). Allegedly.

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[andy m]

An cat dubh go an puiscín dubh { a leopard never changes its spots } as Bearla