Medieval Jewish massacres were often driven by elites’ debts, not undifferentiated mob hatred

Evidence

It is also dangerous, in spite of widespread pogroms, to talk of an undifferentiated and unrelenting “popular” antisemitism. In York in 1190 at the time of the Third Crusade, local nobles in debt to the Jews were largely responsible for the massacre of the community. Yet several years later Jews returned to the town and lived in relative peace amongst their non-Jewish neighbors. But the diabolical image of the Jews coming out of the Middle Ages, alongside their new association with money lending and finance (a result of the Jews being excluded from other economic activities), proved to have massive endurance in Western culture even when Jews were expelled and absent for many centuries. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 503

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that the diabolical image of Jews plus their forced association with moneylending outlasted their physical presence in Western culture.
• XREF: Connects to the pattern of elites exploiting scapegoat animosity, which recurs in later chapters on antisemitism and other racisms.