Talk:Persecution of Jews during the Black Death

Contradiction with Antisemitic canard

There is a possible contradiction about the massacres that happened after the Black Death, between the History of persecutions section of this article, and section Well poisoning in article Antisemitic canard. This is being discussed on the Talk page there; please contribute your thoughts at Talk:Antisemitic canard#Contradiction about post-Black Death massacres. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 03:53, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Archived here. Mathglot (talk) 08:25, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

"Ordinary folk hated the Jews because they had served the merchants and aristocrats, and with their loans and with their capital, helped establish urban economy and the city's governing political and territorial independence. Further, the Jews had exploited artisans 'with loans at usurious rates'."[22]

This is obviously an anti-semitic trope shoehorned in with a phony attribution. The hatred of the "ordinary folk" toward Jews because "they had served the merchants and aristocrats, and with their loans and with their capital" and that "the Jews had exploited artisans 'with loans at usurious rates'" are stated as facts and referenced to the title of a book whose publisher is not given. In my opinion, this quote and/or attribution are false and have been put there maliciously. They are not a serious exploration and should be stricken from this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StuartC1958 (talk • contribs) 18:58, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The unfortunate name of this article

Folks, "Jewish persecutions" doesn't mean "persecution of Jews". It means "persecution by Jews". Obviously that isn't the intention. Can we change the name to "Persecution of Jews during the Black Death"? It would be consistent with Persecution of Jews too. Zero^talk 02:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC) :You are right. "Jewish persecutions is confusing". It should say "Anti-Jewish persecutions" but I'll change the title according to your suggestion.--Aroma Stylish (talk) 21:06, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

"False accusations"

That's conjecture based on the presupposition that the accusations must have been false. To establish this one would have to look at any given case and establish that they were false. Whether they were correct or not, we simply don't know. And deciding it after the fact, based on consensus is not a good way to do that. At least mention that it is a consensus position and not something that has been established in every single case. 105.0.5.189 (talk) 19:00, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Also they clame that the plague can not be contracted from water.this has Ben pushed as a fact even though it has been confirmed to travel by air and body fluids for a long period. It just doesn’t seem like it would die off in water with how much it evolved at the time. ~2026-38004-3 (talk) 08:39, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Claim that there's no Jews in Medieval Russia

This claim is directly contradicted by the article for History of the Jews in Russia, which says there's an established Jewish population in Russia from the 7th century. If the lack of Jewish population is limited to specific cities or regions (Russia is big), that needs to be clarified. If the claim is indeed that there were no Jews in all of medieval Russia, then the contradictory sentenced of the articles need to be resolved. Both articles would need to have the claim be evaluated for factuality and either removed or better supported. The claim that there's no Jews in Russia is repeated on the page Black Death in Russia, where it cites the same singular source as this one. Apelcini (talk) 06:03, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

That article states Jews were dated to 1471 in Muscovite Russia, and this article is about 1349. But yes, medieval is too broad. It means pre-15th c, and Muscovy. Andre🚐 06:14, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

@AndreJustAndre That article also lacks citations in that section, but that's a problem for a different talk page. Under the assumption that it is correct, I recommend the wording be changed to "at the time of the plague, there was no recorded Jewish population in Muscovite Russia" and remove the reductionist dichotomy between Muscovy and Western Europe (I would hardly call Belarus and Ukraine part of Western Europe, and Muscovy didn't encompass them). It's worth clarifying that the lack of Jews is specific to the relevant span of time within the medieval era, as well as being based on the lack of records for Jewish presence rather than strong records for their absence (Russian record-keeping around the time of the plague is notably lackluster). I personally don't feel comfortable altering the wording until I've checked the wording of the cited source. Apelcini (talk) 06:37, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, let's check the specific wording. I was assuming that whole portion is in Gardner 2010. I think it's worth noting that that whole area was sparsely populated at that time and had limited records. I believe that by and large Muscovy prohibited Jews. JE states, "there is no evidence of the existence of Jewish communities in Great Russia during the reign of Ivan" Andre🚐 06:54, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

That section of Alexander's book (pp12-15) is about the plague starting in the 1350s. It says "Unlike medieval western Europe, Russia had no Jewish population to serve as scapegoats for these unfathomable visitations of 'God's wrath.' Instead, popular opinion sometimes blamed the Tatars—possibly with some justice, for several epidemics must have come from the east—as well as sorcerers, witches, and wizards. In Pskov at the end of the fourteenth century, eleven 'women soothsayers' were burned during an epidemic, an episode that was repeated in 1411." As for what "Russia" means here, it isn't spelt out but the locations Pskov, Novgorod, Beloozero, Moscow are mentioned. Zero^talk 07:22, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

See Ch 9 of The Cambridge History of Russia for a description of Muscovite Russia repeatedly preventing Jews from entering. Andre🚐 09:08, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

"Muscovite Russia" is dated from the late 15th century (the previous period is referred to as "Appanage Russia" because there was no centralized state), so I think we are fine with simply referring to "Russia" here because this refers to a collection of states. Mellk (talk) 13:35, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I think they start Muscovite Russia in 1300, so would work for plague. Andre🚐 18:48, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

You are right that the term "Muscovite Russia" is sometimes used earlier than this. There is no single periodization that is universally accepted. In this case it might only be referring to Moscow specifically, rather than other principalities. But for this article, I think the term still may cause some confusion.

For example, Nicholas V. Riasanovsky divided Russian history into five periods (six if we're including post-Soviet Russia) with "Appanage Russia" preceding "Muscovite Russia". Here is an example from Russian Identities: A Historical Survey (2005): "The terminal date of the appanage period has been variously set by specialists at the accession to the Muscovite throne of Ivan III in 1462, or Basil III in 1505, or Ivan IV, the Terrible, in 1533" (p. 35). Mellk (talk) 15:28, 26 December 2025 (UTC)