Red Jews

The Red Jews , a legendary <a href="/facts/Jew/T9Y4wE6A">Jewish</a> nation, appear in vernacular sources in <a href="/facts/Germany/paluuWBX">Germany</a> during the <a href="/facts/Medieval/RqzEKB9v">medieval</a> era, from the 13th to the 15th centuries. These texts portray the Red Jews as an <a href="/facts/Epoch_(reference_date)/ow9RnUFC">epochal</a> threat to <a href="/facts/Christendom/vWEEqosk">Christendom</a>, one which would invade Europe during the <a href="/facts/Great_Tribulation/BryQudMs">tribulations leading to the end of the world</a>. 
A variant counter-story became an element of Yiddish folklore in the 15th century at the latest. Here the red Jews, the royte yidn, were lost tribes and poised to protect the Yiddish Jews from Christian violence. The earliest known references to the counter-story are in German-language reminiscences of Jewish life by converts to Christianity beginning in 1508. The Red Jews are a popular theme in later Yiddish literature, undergoing various mutations—including ultimately e.g. late 19th century and 20th century Zionist versions as a heroic warrior diaspora. 
<a href="/facts/Andrew_Gow/BPmRtx5E">Andrew Gow</a> studied the original <a href="/facts/German_language/oWaQIDA8">German language</a> texts and concluded that the legend of the Red Jews conflated three separate traditions: the <a href="/facts/Bible/SqkRTKCh">biblical</a> <a href="/facts/Prophet/SHXDfAAj">prophetic</a> references to <a href="/facts/Gog_and_Magog/NrN9Up8x">Gog and Magog</a>, the <a href="/facts/Ten_Lost_Tribes/59PcCQQL">Ten Lost Tribes</a> of Israel, and an episode from the <a href="/facts/Alexander_Romance/XTDbbGbd">Alexander Romance</a> (3rd century AD), in which <a href="/facts/Alexander_the_Great/8N3gLElj">Alexander the Great</a> encloses a race of heathens <a href="/facts/Gates_of_Alexander/nSNchfUM">behind a great wall</a> in the <a href="/facts/Caucasus/sE8P8Ejg">Caucasus</a>. These traditions had some overlap already; Gog and Magog are among the nations trapped behind the wall in the Alexander Romance, and the only ones named in the version of the story appearing in <a href="/facts/Quran/39rkStko">Quran</a> <a href="/facts/Sura/HxfNxqzu">Sura</a> <a href="/facts/Al-Kahf/pmgqY6SS">al-Kahf</a> (The Cave) 18:89, while the 14th-century work <a href="/facts/John_Mandeville/UHJ04Mo2">The Travels of Sir John Mandeville</a> explicitly associates the confined nations with the Ten Lost Tribes.
Many pamphlets circulated interpreting such events as the rise of <a href="/facts/Ottoman_Empire/6QvfTRsg"> Turkish power</a> in the context of the legendary Red Jews. Both <a href="/facts/Martin_Bucer/Uuf8CKFH">Martin Bucer</a> and <a href="/facts/Philipp_Melanchthon/hQtzHQjQ">Philipp Melanchthon</a> (1497–1560), for example, claimed that <a href="/facts/Muslims/W2ukq4pg">Muslims</a> were the Red Jews.

Red Jews open-in-new

Red Jews