Re: Question

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

>
> One hint about the history of Yiddish may be the Protestant
> Reformation in Germany.

The Reformation in Germany brought on this war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War (1618 - 1648)
'The Thirty Years' War marked the last major religious war in mainland Europe, ending the large-scale religious bloodshed accompanying the Reformation, in 1648. There were other religious conflicts in the years to come, but no great wars.'

> Jews were caught in the middle and persecuted by both sides,
> especially during the early stages when whole synagogues were
> surrounded and given the choice of mass conversion or mass burning.

That was much earlier, under uniform Catholic rule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews

> The whole Rhine Valley and border areas between Protestant and
> Catholic areas such as Lower Bavaria seem to have been especially
> turbulent.

With much murder and mayhem committed on the local population by Swedish, Imperial and French troops.

> I have ancestors named Kissinger, originally from Bad Kissingen in
> Bavaria,

Tsk, tsk. I camped out there next to the Autobahn hitchhiking in 1967.

> who were in Rhein Hesse in an area that went back and forth between
> Bavaria and other states.

Give my regards to Henry. ;-)

> Consequently they also switched back and forth between Catholicism
> and Protestantism whenever the borders changed. My ancestor Matthias
> Kissinger was born a Catholic, married as a Catholic but came to
> America as a Lutheran in 1737 because the local ruler had converted
> to Lutheranism. As far as I can tell, all my German ancestors were
> refugees from war torn areas such as northern Swtizerland, Alsace,
> Rhein Hesse and northern Baden-Würtemberg. Most were in the area
> between Stuttgart and Frankfurt at the time they came to
> America c. 1720-1740.

The wars there at that time were not religious, cf the Wikipedia article.

> I'm sure that in such a cauldron of religious hatred that persecuted
> Jews got out as fast as they could unless they were under the
> protection or sequestered by local rulers.

See above.


Torsten