O God, do not let my blood rest in peace!

This anguished poem commemorates the sufering of the Jews during the First Crusade, when vicious bands attacked Jewish communities in the Rhine-land. As retold by later sources, the victims may have chosen to martyr themselves in some cases rather than succumb to death or conversion by their attackers. David compares the actions of Rhineland Jewish communities with those of the biblical Isaac. At that time, he writes, only one individual was to be sacrificed, whereas in his own time, “one sacrifice follows another.” The brutal imagery in this text recounts the deaths of children. David recalls these martyrs in order to stir divine judgment. This poem is written with a double alphabetic acrostic after which David signs his name. This poem is formatted as prose paragraphs by the translator.