SOURCE: “Contemporary Letters on the Capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders,”The Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. III, No. 4, 1952, pp. 162–77.

In the following essay, Goitein attempts to explain the dearth of Jewish accounts of the First Crusade. After examining a letter written in 1100, Goitein theorizes that the lack of Jewish narratives about the victory of the Franks in Jerusalem stems from the fact that local inhabitants viewed the event as one of “only passing importance,” offering little opportunity for the type of “heroic sacrifice” worthy of literary narration.

So far, not a single Jewish literary source, bearing on the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, has come to light. The absence of a narrative on this event does not seem to be natural, for the Jews living around the eastern shores of the Mediterranean did not completely lack historical interest. They possessed family chronicles and compositions describing special...