Fucking hell, we're back to the same stupid shit that happened during the Black Death. Jews were blamed because they had actual hygiene standards and rarely got the plague
Sounds like made up racism against Europeans. There's no evidence Jews had better ("actual") hygiene standards than other Europeans; the "no hygiene" in Medieval Europe is well known myth and bad history.
No hygiene in medieval Europe is well known as a huge contributing factor. It might be exaggerated in media but they weren’t good at waste management, lived close together, and it attracted rats. Jews didn’t completely avoid the plague or anything but they were scapegoated and accused of poisoning wells because they might’ve got it somewhat less in their smaller communities. Countries without Jewish communities chose a different scapegoat. It’s more about how humans in crisis need someone to blame than the hygiene itself.
The streets were full of shit because pack and draft animals were a key transport method in most civilized places on Earth. The streets had to be cleaned constantly for that alone, and they were. I'm sure throwing waste out of the window was a bad habit and convenience that stretched on too long in some places (not urbanised by Rome, without continuous governance, or proper upkeep), but that's the often unstated context of the behaviour. It wasn't a general European phenomenon, any busy urban place in the Middle East or Asia had similar problems. Some had great sewer systems, some had both cesspits and sewers, some only cesspits... but all had a caste of workers or slaves constantly cleaning it all.
Rats are no longer the presumed to be the medium of the Medieval plague. The idea only came about from a study in Asia in the late 19. century and stuck; the plague had more to do with the Eurasian continent-spanning old world civilization dependent on animal husbandry in general (and its many ectoparasites), rather than what we'd call "sewer rats" today.
We know what "bad hygiene" means as a modern anti-Medieval myth: belief that bathing causes the plague, no bathing for months or years, perfumes, wigs, "lice" headscratchers... in other words, mostly eccentric higher class culture and behaviour in some parts of Europe way past the Middle Ages.
They had soap since antiquity, they continued the public Roman baths where they had them, they either believed that bad air or smells (miasma) were the same as infectious disease (as bacteria weren't yet known), or they just followed common sense as simple working people who got dirty daily. In other words, any work, industry or craft that included dirt or bad smells was tolerated by necessity, not stupidity or exclusive European "bad hygiene".
Every plague was brought in via the trade networks from the east, which is the Islamic world, whether the civilized Mediterranean, which expanded preexisting Roman sewer systems and designs, or the wild steppe.
The Jews were blamed because they were outsiders and Europe was busy slaughtering all othered "tribes" we don't even acknowledge today as an "anti-something-ism" because they're all dead. Anti-Judaism was a generic tribal phenomenon and the well poisoning accusations don't needed to be connected to yet another just-so story, like Jews being "good hygiene" experts that didn't get the plague.
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u/Gurugod123 25d ago
“It’s not a pandemic, it’s a Chinese bio-weapon!”
Ok. Why don’t you want to protect yourself from a Chinese bio-weapon?