Why did parts of some societies feel the need to "scapegoat" groups such as the Jews in the fourteenth century, while others did not? In what other ways did cultural responses to the plague vary?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A. "Scapegoat" of the Jews
1. common opinion that Jews started the plague in Europe
a. massacres that ensued, especially in Germany, were nearly
always result of mob violence, which authorities tried to restrain
1. Pope Clement VI declared the Jews innocent and
excommunicated anyone who harmed them
2. city council of Cologne in the Rhineland warned
authorities in other cities that anti-Jewish riots could
ignite popular revolt
b. not all authorities, however, were equally vigilant, equally
effective, or equally committed, and massacres continued
B. Why Jews were victimized
1. Jews were alternately privileged and persecuted
a. privileged, because rulers who needed productive settlers were prepared to reward them with legal immunities, including,
typically, the right to their own courts
b. persecuted, because host communities resented the privileges
2. scholars trace anti-Semitism to Christian prejudices
a. to saddle Jews with collective responsibility for the death of Jesus
C. Cultural responses to the plague
1. society's antipathy for groups it could not assimilate
a. lepers were also accused of well poisoning
b. random strangers and individuals unpopular in their
communities were also accused
c. similar phenomena in almost every culture
2. Persecution drove Jews to new centers
a. Jews were forced out of most of France in the early fourteenth
century
b. from many areas of western Germany in the early fifteenth
century
c. shift Jewish settlement toward the central and eastern
Mediterranean, Poland, and Lithuania, which first admitted
Jews in 1321