In Italy, the fate of Jews was often tied to the fate of a particular ruling
house. In Tuscany, Jews were expelled along with the Medici family in 1501,
but returned with it in 1513. By contrast, during the wave of expulsions from
1520 to 1570, the driving force included princes and bishops in addition to
local elites and popular initiatives. This change was due largely to the impact
of the Reformation.
Primarily a religious movement that was critical of Catholicism, the
Reformation aimed at restoring the church to its pristine origins. In general,
Luther and his followers advocated restoring a direct relationship between man
and Christ, without the mediation of a priest or confessor. For example, Luther
and others derided simony (the buying and selling of ecclesiastical positions)
as a reflection of the corruption of the church. His Ninety-five Theses included
the elimination of four of the seven Catholic sacraments, the elimination of
tithes to Rome, and the reinterpretation of communion from transubstantia-
tion to consubstantiation. At the same time, the Reformation also had an
economic and political dimension, freeing temporal rulers from losing revenue
that was paid to Rome as a tithe. Barons and dukes also regarded the
Reformation as a way to throw off the yoke of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Initially, Luther regarded Jews amicably as potential supporters and fol-
lowers. His mentor, Johannes Reuchlin, was a Christian Hebraist who had
reached a favorable view of Judaism from his study of Kabbala. Luther
believed that Jews and Protestants shared a common enemy in the Catholic
Church. In 1523, Luther wrote “That Christ Was Born a Jew,” in which he
attributed the Jews’ refusal to convert to the shortcomings and iniquities of
the church and its “papal paganism”:
For our fools – popes, bishops, sophists, monks, the coarse blockheads! –
have so treated the Jews that to be a good Christian one would have to
become a Jew. And if I had been a Jew and had seen such idiots and
blockheads ruling and teaching the Christian religion, I would rather
have been a hog than a Christian.By the end of the 1520s, as it became clear to Luther that Jews were not con-
verting, his demeanor turned accordingly hostile, first toward Jewish usury
and then to Jews in general. In 1543, he published a second essay about Jews,
“On the Jews and Their Lies.” In this essay, he advocated violent condemna-
tion of Jews as rejectors of Christ:
What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of
Jews? Since they live among us and we know of their lying, blaspheming,
and cursing, we cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their
lies, curses, and blasphemy. ... Their synagogues should be set on fire and
whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so
that no one may ever be able to see a single cinder or stone.”110 World Jewry in flux, 1492–1750