Valentine's day horror

[Hrvatski Noahid]

https://youtu.be/sV8UnfFmD-Y

[Binyamin Yisrael]

This is what St. Valentine's Day is really about. It's not for Jews. This is a real life horror for this evil holiday.
   
On February 14, 1349 – St. Valentine’s Day – the Jewish residents of Strasbourg, in Alsace, were burned to death by their Christian neighbors. Estimates of the number murdered range from several hundred to more than 2,000.

The Strasbourg massacre was one of a string of pogroms that took place during this period in a number of towns in Western Europe – 30 alone in the Alsace region, bordering the Rhine River, in what is today France.

Ostensibly, the reason for the pogroms was the widespread belief that Jews were responsible for the Black Death pandemic that swept across Europe in 1348-1350, killing between one-third and two-thirds of the continent’s population. (Black Death has been identified as Yersenia pestis, one of whose forms is bubonic plague.) They were accused of contaminating the wells from which their non-Jewish neighbors drew their drinking water. In the case of Strasbourg, however, even as reports were received from the Swiss cities of Bern and Zofingen of Jews having confessed – under torture – to such crimes, the city elders and master tradesmen came to the defense of the Jewish population, who were under the protection of the Church.

Strasbourg’s patrician class understood that Jews were important to their town’s economy, both in their role as money-lenders and in the high taxes they paid for the protection they received. Being creditors, however, had its down side, as it contributed to anti-Jewish sentiment among the less privileged and, in extreme cases, to the desire to kill the Jews and see the debt cancelled, or even to expropriate their property.

The city’s nobles offered a show trial of Jews to appease the bloodlust of the masses, but the members of the city’s butchers and tanners guilds wanted to rid Strasbourg of them altogether. They accused three patrician leaders of having been bribed by the Jews in return for protecting them and subsequently drove them from office.

The city’s 2,000 Jews were given a choice of undergoing baptism or being killed. About half of them accepted conversion or left the city; the remainder were barricaded in the Jewish cemetery and burned alive. Following this, the new town council passed an ordinance forbidding Jews from even entering Strasbourg for 200 years. Less than two decades later, however, the first Jews were allowed to return. By 1388, another order of banishment was imposed, and there is no evidence of Jews being present in the city, even as visitors, until 1520.

It was only after the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, with the Jews gone, that the plague arrived in Strasbourg. It killed an estimated 16,000 residents.   

[Binyamin Yisrael]

From: Shira in Chicago

Dear Rabbi,

I was wondering if it’s OK to do Valentine’s Day or if there’s anything about the day that is against Judaism?

Dear Shira,

First of all, formally the day is called Saint Valentine’s Day, which clearly shows the Christian, non-Jewish character of the day. Furthermore, like other Christian holidays, the day may have roots in pagan rituals observed by pre-Christian Europeans. Finally, the themes of the day, namely public expression of “love” with erotic under/overtones, centered around indulgent consumption, are antithetical to Judaism.

Allow me to elaborate.

Christianity, in what’s known as The Calendar of Saints, commemorates the martyrdom of its holy ones by declaring a feast on the day the saint was killed. First decreed in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, the feast of Saint Valentine was celebrated on February 14 by the Roman Catholic Church in commemoration of one (or all) of three men named Valentinus, who lived in the late third century and were martyred during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. Accordingly, the day is named and celebrated after either a priest in Rome, a bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) or a martyr in the Roman province of Africa who were all named Valentine, a popular name in those times derived from “valens” (meaning worthy) in approximately 270 C.E. However, in addition to the day being a Christian holiday, it may have pagan origins.

In Ancient Rome, February 14 marked the festival of Lupercalia (lupa meaning wolf) in honor of the she-wolf who legendarily suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Priests of the Roman god Faunus sacrificed two male goats and a dog whose blood was wiped off the knife and smeared on the foreheads of two young men. After a feast, the skins of the sacrificed goats were cut into straps to be used in a ceremony that was an omen for marriage and fertility. The nominally Christian Roman populace still observed Lupercalia as late as the end of the fifth century when, after a long contest, it was finally abolished by Pope Gelasius. Interestingly, this is the same Gelasius who first proclaimed February 14 as Valentine’s Day.

How did the day come to be associated with love and romance? If viewed as an originally Christian holiday, legend says that when Claudius II purportedly outlawed marriage for young men hoping to groom better soldiers, Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret. When he was discovered, he was put to death. A feast was proclaimed to commemorate his death. If viewed as an originally pagan holiday, the source of the feast is the meal after the goat sacrifice, while the ceremony that served as an omen for marriage and fertility is the origin of the day’s sentimental nature. Accordingly, these themes may have been “Christainized” by the church to wean the early Europeans away from paganism by supplanting Lupercalia with St. Valentine’s Day. Others posit that the day’s romantic character was introduced much later in the Middle Ages’ lore and literature of “courtly love”.

Either way, the public demonstration connecting indulgence and romance is antithetical to Jewish values. In fact, the icon of Valentine’s Day, Cupid, in Roman mythology is the god of love and intimate relations, which in turn is based on the Greek god Eros. This means that the cupid-love of Valentine’s Day is essentially a modern form of ancient eros. In Judaism, true love and its expression not only on a physical level, but also on an emotional, intellectual and spiritual level as well, is very important and central. However, it is something that is shared privately and intimately between two people in the nurturing and elevating context of marriage. To cheapen it through public, commercialized and hollow expressions of infatuation is indeed against Judaism’s notion of true love and its proper demonstration.

So whether Valentine’s Day is Christian, pagan or immoral, one thing it’s not is Jewish.

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Thanks for challenging me.

Modern Valentine's day is a secular day of love. Gentiles are forbidden to set aside any day for a specific religious observance. I assure you that I do not observe Valentine's day as a religious holy day.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

Thanks for challenging me.

Modern Valentine's day is a secular day of love. Gentiles are forbidden to set aside any day for a specific religious observance. I assure you that I do not observe Valentine's day as a religious holy day.

Does that mean you think Jews can celebrate it as a Secular holiday? I think it's the same as Halloween. Both are modern Secular holidays of religious origin.

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Does that mean you think Jews can celebrate it as a Secular holiday? I think it's the same as Halloween. Both are modern Secular holidays of religious origin.

It doesn't matter what I think. It matters what the Torah allows and forbids. If a Gentile went to church on Valentine's day and prayed to Valentine, that would be forbidden. Giving chocolate and roses to a loved one? I don't see it.

The Torah Law for Jews is more restrictive.     

[Joe Gutfeld]

This is what St. Valentine's Day is really about. It's not for Jews. This is a real life horror for this evil holiday.
   
On February 14, 1349 – St. Valentine’s Day – the Jewish residents of Strasbourg, in Alsace, were burned to death by their Christian neighbors. Estimates of the number murdered range from several hundred to more than 2,000.

The Strasbourg massacre was one of a string of pogroms that took place during this period in a number of towns in Western Europe – 30 alone in the Alsace region, bordering the Rhine River, in what is today France.

Ostensibly, the reason for the pogroms was the widespread belief that Jews were responsible for the Black Death pandemic that swept across Europe in 1348-1350, killing between one-third and two-thirds of the continent’s population. (Black Death has been identified as Yersenia pestis, one of whose forms is bubonic plague.) They were accused of contaminating the wells from which their non-Jewish neighbors drew their drinking water. In the case of Strasbourg, however, even as reports were received from the Swiss cities of Bern and Zofingen of Jews having confessed – under torture – to such crimes, the city elders and master tradesmen came to the defense of the Jewish population, who were under the protection of the Church.

Strasbourg’s patrician class understood that Jews were important to their town’s economy, both in their role as money-lenders and in the high taxes they paid for the protection they received. Being creditors, however, had its down side, as it contributed to anti-Jewish sentiment among the less privileged and, in extreme cases, to the desire to kill the Jews and see the debt cancelled, or even to expropriate their property.

The city’s nobles offered a show trial of Jews to appease the bloodlust of the masses, but the members of the city’s butchers and tanners guilds wanted to rid Strasbourg of them altogether. They accused three patrician leaders of having been bribed by the Jews in return for protecting them and subsequently drove them from office.

The city’s 2,000 Jews were given a choice of undergoing baptism or being killed. About half of them accepted conversion or left the city; the remainder were barricaded in the Jewish cemetery and burned alive. Following this, the new town council passed an ordinance forbidding Jews from even entering Strasbourg for 200 years. Less than two decades later, however, the first Jews were allowed to return. By 1388, another order of banishment was imposed, and there is no evidence of Jews being present in the city, even as visitors, until 1520.

It was only after the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, with the Jews gone, that the plague arrived in Strasbourg. It killed an estimated 16,000 residents.

There are 2 other non-Jewish massacres that happened on Feb. 14th.  One in 1929 in Chicago that Al Capone started.  The other last year in Florida in Parkland High School.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

There are 2 other non-Jewish massacres that happened on Feb. 14th.  One in 1929 in Chicago that Al Capone started.  The other last year in Florida in Parkland High School.

But the one against Jews was done in the name of Xtianity, to celebrate St. Valentine's Day. It was like the Crusades.