{{Short description|Belief that Jewish males menstruate}} {{Redirect|Male menstruation|the disease carrying symptoms seen as "male menstruation"|Schistosomiasis}} {{More sources|date=August 2023}}
'''Jewish male menstruation''' is the [[anti-Semitic]] pejorative belief that Jewish males experience [[Menstruation|menstrual periods]], or periodic bleeding. This belief was popular among Christians across Europe throughout the late medieval and early modern period, including in Great Britain, Germany, and Spain.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Roguin Maro |first1=Nora |last2=Roguin |first2=Ariel |last3=Roguin |first3=Nathan |date=2021 |title=Medieval Roots of the Myth of Jewish Male Menstruation |journal=Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=e0033 |doi=10.5041/RMMJ.10454 |pmid=34709170 |pmc=8549838 }}</ref> Common ways Jewish men supposedly menstruated were through nosebleeds, urination, and bleeding of hemorrhoids.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Katz |first=David S. |date=1999 |title=Shylock's Gender: Jewish Male Menstruation in Early Modern England |journal=The Review of English Studies |volume=50 |issue=200 |pages=440–462|doi=10.1093/res/50.200.440 }}</ref> The ability to menstruate was not associated with having a uterus. The first written mention of this phenomenon was in [[Jacques de Vitry]]’s ''Historia Orientalis'' in 1219.<ref name=":0" /> These attitudes have roots in both [[Humorism]] and religious, [[antisemitic]] Christian beliefs.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, contemporaries such as sexologist and physician [[Magnus Hirschfeld]], physician [[Havelock Ellis]], and neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis [[Sigmund Freud]] have expressed belief in the phenomenon of male menstruation, less specific than Jewish male menstruation, with Freud having claimed to experience male menstruation himself.<ref name=":1" />
== Influences of Humorism == In the era of [[Hippocrates]] until around the 1850s, it was believed that health was based on equilibrium among the four ‘humours’: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood, under a system of medicine called [[Humorism]]. A common way to restore equilibrium if someone was ill was through bloodletting, to let an excess of blood, or ‘impure’ or ‘bad’ blood exit, thereby restoring equilibrium.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Craig |first=Robert |date=June 25, 2021 |title=Bloodletting and Medical Practice |url=https://medicine.uq.edu.au/blog/2021/06/bloodletting-and-medical-practice }}</ref> There was also a common belief that women did this naturally, through menstruation. Men, meanwhile, needed to participate in bloodletting activities to remove the impure blood manually, if ill. If not ill, it was believed that men had a naturally higher body temperature, which rid the blood of impurities, while women were naturally cooler, and therefore had to menstruate to get rid of the impurities.<ref name=":0" /> However, it was believed that Jewish men were more like women, and had a lower body temperature, and therefore had to menstruate, typically through nosebleeds, bleeding hemorrhoids, or urination, in order to expel impure blood.<ref name=":1" />
== Religious basis == Much of the basis for why Jewish men supposedly experienced menstruation was entrenched in religious beliefs, specifically [[Christianity|Christian beliefs]]. Many Christians believed that Jewish people were responsible for [[Jesus|Jesus Christ]]’s death, a belief known as [[Jewish deicide]]. There are many versions of how this relates to their supposed experience of menstruation. Under some tellings, Jewish people had been struck on their rear ends for killing [[Jesus|Jesus Christ]], and the resulting wounds, plus godly intervention, meant that Jewish men in following generations would experience menstruation through bleeding hemorrhoids as punishment for Jewish people supposedly having crucified [[Jesus|Jesus Christ]].<ref name=":0" />
A very similar explanation for why Jewish men supposedly menstruated has to do with the idea that menstruation is a ‘curse.’ Women were cursed with menstruation because of the biblical story told in Genesis 3, where Eve had committed the [[original sin]], by eating fruit God had forbidden her and Adam from eating in the Garden of Eden, and ever after, women were cursed with menstruation as punishment.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Resnick |first=Irven M. |date=2000 |title=Medieval Roots of the Myth of Jewish Male Menses |journal=The Harvard Theological Review |volume=93 |issue=3 |pages=241–263|doi=10.1017/S0017816000025323 |s2cid=162994525 }}</ref> Jewish men were allegedly also cursed for having crucified Jesus, and like women, were cursed with menstruation.<ref name=":2" />
== As a basis for discrimination == === Blood libel === Along with falsely believing that Jews menstruated, many medieval Christians also incorrectly believed in the [[blood libel]] canard, that Jewish people participated in ritualistic murder of Christians, in order to get their blood.<ref name=":2" /> There were many supposed uses for this Christian blood, including as an [[aphrodisiac]], a pain killer, perfume, and also as a remedy for the various ‘deformities’ Christians believed Jews suffered from, such as horns, tails, a specific smell, and male menstruation.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":1" /> In a famous 1494 trial in [[Tyrnau]] (modern Austria), twelve Jewish men and two Jewish women were tried for the murder of a Christian child and having consumed its blood.<ref name=":1" /> Allegedly, as reported under interrogation, they committed the murder in order to drink the youth's blood as a remedy for both male and female menstruation.<ref name=":1" />
=== Use in antisemitic propaganda === In recent centuries, the image of the menstruating Jewish male has been used in antisemitic propaganda, including in [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name=":0" /> An example of this sort of antisemitic literature or propaganda is the work of [[Theodor Fritsch]], a German journalist whose 19th century work ''The Handbook of the Jewish Question'' from 1893 was republished throughout the Nazi's rule in Germany.<ref name=":1" /> In this work, Fritsch argued for the antisemitic claim that male menstruation was a sign that Jewish people had a different sexuality from non-Jews.<ref name=":1" />
== See also == * [[Alpha and beta male]] * [[Antisemitic trope]] * [[Effeminacy]] ** [[Ergi|''Ergi'' and ''argr'']], Old Norse insults for alleged "unmanly" behaviour ** [[Sissy]] * [[Muscular Judaism]] * [[History of antisemitism]] * [[Sociology of gender]]
== References == {{reflist}}
[[Category:Antisemitic tropes]] [[Category:Antisemitic propaganda]] [[Category:Effeminacy]] [[Category:Gender and Judaism]] [[Category:Menstruation in religion]] [[Category:Christian antisemitism in the Middle Ages]] [[Category:Early Modern Christian anti-Judaism]]