Stained Glass

Flora Cassen’s Stained Glass: A Reflective History of Antisemitism is exactly the book humanity needs right now. It explores the blood libels and their lack of evidence in medieval Europe, and how they influenced the COVID conspiracies of today. Meticulously researched, it reveals who invented these theories out of wholecloth. At the same time, it offers a surprisingly new perspective with many facts not widely known, since its Belgian author describes the vanishing European Jewish culture of today and how mainstream Europe regards it.  

Cassen is Senior Faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, motivated to write after the protests on college campuses begged the world for a clear definition of antisemitism versus criticism of Israeli policy. The author describes her personal journey, finding that Judaism was only discussed in major metropolitan areas like Paris before coming to the US. 

For those who know and those who don’t, the book guides readers through European history through lively stories, first person accounts, and the all-important context of then and now. Exploring trends, Cassen finds the centuries of history created a mindset still present in world culture. The 1370 stained glass image of Jews desecrating the host in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels (home of NATO and capital of the EU) shocked the author when she visited. Today, there is a tiny plaque saying there’s no evidence the story is true, but that is all.  

The yellow badges of the Italian ghettos, the fictions perpetuated about William of Norwich, the mass murder and expulsion of England’s Jews that followed—these start off the book and set the tone. Details include the trials and imprisonment records as well as the accounts of attackers, victims, and witnesses. In an era in which America has torn down many statues glorifying its racist past, cathedrals still satirize Jews in stained glass and effigies, despite public protests. 

The history travels through the 1980s and 1990s with new Holocaust museums and backlash based on Christian assumptions—putting up a massive cross at Auschwitz is likely the worst. There are also moments of commemoration. The author describes the Walk of Malines, the city halfway between Antwerp and Brussels, from which twenty-five thousand people were deported. It became a custom for Jewish teenagers to take this walk of twenty-three kilometers (just over fourteen miles) each year. 

Americans know about Tree of Life and Charlottesville, but not always the tragedies of Europe. As violence exploded between Hamas and Israel in 2014, anti-Jewish marches and smaller acts of discrimination filled Belgium. With the 2014 mass murder in the Jewish Museum of Brussels as an example, Cassen considers how modern countries react to such terror attacks, often blaming them as a “Middle Eastern problem,” though the Jews are Belgian citizens. In January 2015, four Jews were murdered in the Paris Hypercacher, a kosher grocery store. Cassen was shocked when her friend told her it was a Jewish-Arab conflict, not an attack on innocents. In Paris and other large French cities, anti-war protesters chanted, “Death to the Jews,” “Jews, France is not yours,” and “All Jews are terrorists.” As Cassen concludes: “Yet, in Europe, I had been told that I was not Belgian enough, while in the US, I was told we couldn’t talk about European antisemitism while war raged in Israel-Palestine. In both places, the effect was the same: European Jews were rendered invisible.”

Finally, the book shares the famous history of Doña Gracia Nasi (also known as Beatrice Mendes) and the many Jews she helped during the expulsions from Spain and Portugal. After this, the narrative takes a delightful turn to share the author’s grandmother’s story. Pola was born in 1919 in Warsaw and died in 2019, months before her one hundredth birthday, in Antwerp. She and her husband fled from Belgium through France and Spain, only allowed visas if her husband enlisted in the Congo. Off they went, pregnant, to discover generalized antisemitism but also surprising acts of kindness. All this took place in the context of Belgium’s brutal history, as its imperialism killed millions of Black Congolese people. As a historian, Cassen acknowledges this problematic, complex history as her grandparents followed their only path to survival. 

The book finishes, inevitably, with Charlottesville, October 7th, and recent events in a time of rising violence. As Cassen shares, her Jewish students are feeling pushed out of progressive spaces. This is the predicament of Jews worldwide, forcing Jews to turn on the nebulously defined “Zionists” or be shunned by friends and family. It’s an ongoing problem, and there are no perfect solutions. Still the context and history here help reassure readers that they’re not alone. Quite a fascinating page turner, deeply informative and thoughtful in these problematic times. 

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Her Chelm for the Holidays (2019) was a PJ Library book, and now she’s the editor of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy, publishing an academic series that begins with Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy through 1945. Jews in Popular Science Fiction is the latest release. Outside academia, she published the popular overview, Discovering Jewish Science Fiction: A Look at the Jewish Influences in Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, DC, Marvel, and so Many More. Once a lecturer at San Jose State University, she now teaches at Mission College and San Jose City College and speaks often at conferences. Come explore her research at www.vefrankel.com