When all this was done, Solomon and Eleazar returned to the faith of Moses, and according to Talmudic doctrine had the nails on their hands and feet cut off with sharp scissors, their heads shaved, and their entire bodies washed with spring water in the same way that, according to the Law, the body and soul of a foreign woman is cleansed before she marries a Jew.
The following week Master Alodet, assistant to the Mayor of Toulouse, brought in twenty-four cartloads of Pastoureaux, whom he had seized for the massacre of 152 Jews of various ages, in Castelsarrasin and the surrounding area. By the time the carts had arrived at the castle of the Count of Narbonne, and twenty were already inside the gate, a great mob of the people of Toulouse had swarmed to the place. The Pastoureaux in the rear carts began to shout for help, claiming that they were being taken to the dungeon, although they had committed no sin but, rather, had avenged Christ's blood, which cries to the heavens for revenge. Then the mob, enraged by the injustice committed, cut the ropes the avengers were tied with, pulled them out of the carts, and shouted loudly: "Death to the Jews!” The mob poured into the Jewish quarter. I was busy reading and writing when a great number of these men burst into my chamber, armed with ignorance blunt as a whip, and hatred sharp as a knife. It wasn't my silks that brought blood to their eyes, but the books arranged on my shelves; they shoved the silks under their cloaks, but they threw the books on the floor, stamped on them, and ripped them to shreds before my eyes. Those books were bound in leather, marked with numbers, and written by learned men; in them, had they wanted to read them, they could have found thousands of reasons why they should have killed me at once, and in them, had they wanted to read them, they could also have found the balm and cure for their hatred. I told them not to rip them apart, for many books are not dangerous, only one is dangerous; I told them not to tear them apart, for the reading of many books brings wisdom, and the reading of one brings ignorance armed with rage and hatred. But they said that everything was written in the New Testament, that it contains all boob of all times, and therefore the rest should be burned; even if they contained something this One did not, they should be burned all the more since they were heretical. They did not need the advice of the learned, they said, and shouted: "Convert, or we'll knock out of your head the wisdom from all the books you've ever read!"
Witnessing the blind fury of this mob and seeing them kill before my eyes the Jews who refused to be converted (some out of faith, and others from that pride which can sometimes be perilous), I answered that I would rather be converted than killed, since, in spite of everything, the temporary agony of being is mote valuable than the ultimate void of nothingness. Then they seized me and pushed me out of the house, without even allowing me to change my house cloak for more fitting attire, and led me as I was to the cathedral of Saint-Etienne. Two priests showed me the corpses of Jews strewn about in front of the church; the bodies were disfigured and the faces covered with blood. Then they showed me a stone in front of the church, and the sight petrified me; on the stone rested a heart, which looked like a bloody ball. "Look,” they said, "this is the heart of one who would not be converted." A mob of people had gathered around the heart, staring at it with astonishment and disgust.
When I closed my eyes not to see, someone hit me over the head with a rock or a whip and accelerated my decision. I said I would be converted, but I had a friend who was a priest, Brother Jean, called "the Teuton," and that I wanted him to be my godfather. I told them this, hoping that if I fell into the hands of Brother Jean, a great friend of mine, with whom I used to have long discussions on faith, perhaps he could save me from death without my having to be converted.
The two priests decided to take me out of the church and escort me to the house of Jean the Teuton because he was their superior and they feared they might do him injustice, When we came out of the church, I smelled smoke and saw flames rising over the Jewish quarter. Then they slaughtered before my eyes Asser, a twenty-year-old Jew, and said to me, "This one followed your teachings and your example," Pointing to another young man, who I later learned was from Tarascon, they said; "Your delay is killing those who believed in your teachings and followed your example". They released him, and the young man fell to the ground with his face toward me; since I had not yet uttered a word, they killed him by a deadly blow from behind. The people who were swarming in front of the church and witnessed the scene asked my escorts whether I had already converted; they said I hadn't, although, when we had started from the church, I begged them that if someone should ask, they would say that I was, but they had refused. Someone from the mob again hit me over the head with a whip, and I thought that the eyes would pop out of my head from the blow; I felt the spots but there was no blood, only a Jump, which had healed of itself, without the help of bandages, medicine, or other balms. They continued to kill Jews, and I heard their lamentations, and since the two priests told me they couldn't protect me from the fury of the mob or escort me to the house of the Confessor, because I would be killed before we reached the street, I asked them for advice. They said, “Walk the road we all walk, and we will help you." They also said, “Do not seek other paths besides the one on which everyone walks." And they also said, "Following your example, many have perished." Then I answered, “Let us return to the church."
We went back into the church, where candles were flickering and the people, their hands smeared with fresh blood, were kneeling in prayer. I asked my two keepers to wait a while longer, for I wanted to see whether my sons would come.[11] They waited, but when my sons didn't show up, they told me they couldn't wait any longer, and that I had to make a decision: to submit to conversion or go out to the front of the church where the undecided were still being slaughtered.
Then I told them that I would like to have the Vicar of Toulouse as my godfather, thinking of the court notary, Pierre de Savardun, one of my good friends, who could surely save me from death and conversion. I was told that the Vicar was unavailable, because that day he had brought the Pastoureaux in from Castelsarrasin, and was resting from the long journey. Some of those kneeling in the church rose up and grabbed me from all sides and pushed me toward the stone baptistry; as they forced my head under the water, I managed to utter the word "Vicar", but after that I wasn't able to say anything; they held me under until I thought they would drown me like a dog in the holy water of the baptistry. Next they led me to the stone stairs and forced me to my knees among those who were already kneeling; I don’t know how many were there or who they were, since I never looked anyone in the face; my eyes were lowered to the stone. The priest then performed, or so I think, all the ceremonies connected with baptism. However, before the priest began to read the baptismal service, one of the friars bent over and whispered into my ear that I must freely accept the ceremony of baptism or I would be killed. So I confirmed that everything I was doing was of my free will, although I thought otherwise. They named me Johan, or Jean; the people beside me rose and moved away.
11
In connection with the shove sentence, one of the modem commentators, Duvernoy, offers the following explanation: “Although the archives do not give us any information on this, we tend to interpret this statement of Baruch’s not only as a delay from the painful and degrading act of conversion, hut also as part of a shrewd tactic: if his sons succeeded in avoiding conversion, it was reason enough for the learned Baruch not to expose himself to their scorn; and if they were put to death, his decision would be reinforced by pain, and death would seem like redemption.