Red Jews

The red Jews ( Yiddish rojite jidlech ) were the medieval legend, a Jewish people. It was suspected there on the edge of the world, somewhere in the Northeast Asia, beyond the legendary river Sambation by which it was cut off from the rest of the world, because on the weekdays prevented the roaring and raging of the river a crossing on the Sabbath he calmed down though, then it was but the Jews were forbidden to ride the river. It was not until the coming of the Messiah, they would overcome the river, their appearance would be a sign of the end times.

Core of the legend is the story of the lost tribes of Israel, those parts of the Jewish people, who did not return after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC, from the Babylonian captivity, had been considered lost since then and up to modern times most diverse in the parts of the world were located.

The term Red Jews was known by the Yiddish picaresque novel The journeys of Benjamin the Third by Mendele Moicher Sforim (1836 - 1917), which is why earlier then assigned the name of the Ashkenazi tradition of East European Jewry. Indeed term and legend appear already to Germany in the 13th century. The legend was born here of a fusion of several elements: on the one hand the story of the lost ten tribes, on the other, an episode of the Alexander romance, according to the King Alexander in the East locked far barbarian peoples behind a huge, insurmountable wall, and finally the legend of Gog and Magog, two peoples who would break forth, according to the Apocalypse of John in the end times from the east, but eventually the Messiah would again swept over her triumph (Rev. 20.8 to 10 ELB ). The Red Jews were now in the Christian conception next to Gog, Magog and the barbarian peoples of the Alexander romance to another army of Antichrist, that would pounce at the end of time about the Christian world.

The role of the Red Jews in Jewish legend, a mirror image of the Christian: Here are the Red Jews mighty warriors, the river exceed Sambation after the arrival of Mashiach, free the Jews from the bondage of "peoples" and take revenge for the millennia of abuse and oppression.

The existence of the Red Jews was regarded in the Middle Ages as safe, which is why they like other fabulous people on the Mappae mundi, the medieval world maps appear. Most of them were located in the northeast, near Gog and Magog, cannibals and other savages. It was not until around 1600 they gradually disappeared from the cartography.

In times of high tension and general millenarian expectation of the end of the world news of the alleged advance of the Red Jews were spread and believed in pamphlets and epistles. So reports a pamphlet of 1523 From ainer large meng vnnd violence of the Jews had long been decided zeyt VND hid with vnwonhafftigen Deserts / Yetzunder VND Auss broken at day come Being. One sees a heavily armed army of Jews, recognizable by their pointed hats, marching from the mountains of darkness. In front of them is quietly the flow Sambation. Next reports the Scripture that the Jewish army 'm already 30 days ' march to Jerusalem and had stored there. Like Tatar entries were in the 16th century frequently. Conversely, led the Jewish expectation of the Messiah, brought to a head in the time of Sabbatai Zevi, to the fact that the Jewish communities expected daily news of the first advance of the lost tribes.

For the link between the color red with this fabulous Jewish people different explanatory models have been presented. The association was founded:

• With the negative connotation of the color red in the Middle Ages, especially red beard and red hairs were a sign of falsity and malice:

In which the beard and there ჳ Har beidiu red, viurvar. of the same I hear you say, because ჳ si valschiu herze wear.

• With the connection of Esau with Edom and Edom again with red ( adom אדום Hebrew also means 'red' ), where Christianity is " true Israel " as the people of the New Covenant and as the ( verus Israel) saw, as opposed to identified with Edom Jews,
• With the identification of the Jews with the Red White Khazars, a group of Turkic people of the Khazars converted to Judaism, whose members, according to Arab sources had reddish hair and blue eyes. A similar theory was represented by Kevin Alan Brook.

From the Jewish side, the color red was positively connoted by being associated with King David, the biblical tradition in accordance with reddish hair had (1 Sam 16:12 NIV ) in the re-interpretation of the legend. Just as David defeated Goliath, the Red Jews would overcome the overpowering enemies Christianity and Islam.