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On the history and persecution of the Jews in the middle ages by Dr. M. J. (Matthias Jacob) Schleiden (1804-1881). The full title is Die Romantik des Martyriums bei den Juden im Mittelalter (The romance of the Martyrdom of the Jews in the Middle Ages). Dr. Schneider was not Jewish. The renowned historian, S. Dubnow, addressing Dr. Schneider’s motivation to write such a work, stated.
As examples and a proof of the strong humanitarian influence Jewish history exercises upon Christians, I would point to the relation established between the Jews and two celebrities of the nineteenth century, Schleiden and George Eliot. In his old
age, the great scientist and thinker accidentally, in the course of his study of sources for the history of botany, became acquainted with medieval Jewish history. It filled him with ardent enthusiasm for the Jews, for their intellectual strength, their patience under martyrdom. Dominated by this feeling, he wrote the two admirable sketches: Die Bedeutung der Juden fuer Erhaltung und Wiederbelebung der Wissenschaften im Mittelalter (1876) and Die Romantik des Martyriums bei den Juden im Mittelalter (1878). According to his own confession, the impulse to write them was "the wish to take at least the first step toward making partial amends for the unspeakable wrong inflicted by Christians upon Jews."
Die Romantik concludes with a bibliography and notes.
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