The Fate of the Gentiles

This essay was originally presented in Hebrew at an "evening of study" in Jerusalem convened on January 1, 1996 to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of the attacks on Jews by crusaders in the spring of 1096. When I began the presentation, I remarked that an Israeli historian whom I had called after arriving in Jerusalem commented on the Jewish penchant for commemorating catastrophes by saying, "You have arrived for the Festival of 1096." I went on to say that years earlier, the American Academy for Jewish Research had held a conference commemorating the thousandth anniversary of the death of the Jewish courtier Hasdai ibn Shaprut counting from the first year when he might have died. So it is only appropriate that Jews should commemorate the terrible events of 1096 on the very first day of 1996 even though they had taken place in later months. Whatever the timing, the subject of that evening’s presentations remains tragically relevant.