Crises of the 14th Century
For 60 years from 1310 or so, very cold weather prevailed in the Northern Hemisphere.
The era was also featured by earthquakes and floods, leading to reduction in agricultural products in many parts on the earth. In addition, a plague started to widely spread, taking on one third of population in Europe at the time. This disease, namely a pestilence is believed to have been generated in Myanmar or part of Central Asia. It came to be widely carried by rats and mice through Europe as Christian churches were at the time eradicating cats since the animals were regarded as partners of witches.
This incident is now called the "Crisis of the 14th Century."
And one of the gravest consequences was that the view of Christians on Judaists changed drastically through this Crisis of the 14th Century. Christians in Europe started to take different attitudes against Judaits than before, regarding the minority among Europeans as a big enemy of Christ. They discovered a big enemy of their society in Judaists. Christians or non-Judaists in Europe came to physically attack Judaists. Even in Spain and Germany where Judaists had settled down in large numbers in preceding periods of the Middle Ages, Judaists were violently attacked and dispelled or pushed into ghettos.
Throughout Europe, the Jews were gradually confined in ghettos as the Middle Ages progressed. The first compulsory ones were established in Spain and Portugal at the end of the fourteenth century. Jewish ghettos existed in Madrid, Barcelona, Venice, Naples, Rome, Florence, and Prague, and other European cities.http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/PEOPLE/displace.htm
Jews continued to flee eastward from Germany, Austria, and Hungary to Poland. Also during the High Middle Ages, Jews were leaving the area along the north shores of the Black Sea and heading northwest, into Poland. Jewish life flourished in Poland. Polish rulers welcomed Jews during the 13th and 14th centuries, issuing charters of legal rights for Jews. During the hundred years of the 15th century, the Jewish Polish population exploded from about 15,000 to 150,000.
This persecution of Judaists were mostly guided by Catholic churches and the Vatican. Judaists were being pushed into Poland and East Europe where they adopted a kind of new language Yiddish. Between the 14th century and the early 20th century, East Europe had been the center of Judaist communities. Before WWII, 10 million Judaists spoke Yiddish. However due to Holocaust by Nazi Germany the number of Yiddish speakers decreased so much after WWII.
Reports of the number of current Yiddish speakers vary significantly. Ethnologue estimated in 2013 there were 1,505,030 speakers of Eastern Yiddish,[1] of which over one-third lived in the United States. In contrast, the Modern Language Association reports fewer than 200,000 in the United States.[17] Western Yiddish, which had "several tens of thousands of speakers" on the eve of the Holocaust, is reported by Ethnologue to have had an "ethnic population" of slightly below 50,000 in 2000.[18] Other estimates are also given, for example, of a worldwide Yiddish-speaking population of about two million in 1996 in a report by the Council of Europe.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language
It was not only Europe that faced drastic situations in the 14th century.
1333 - The first samurai regime of Japan based in Kamakura falls.
1368 - The Yuan dynasty built by Mongolians in China falls.
1392 - The Kingdom of Joseon is established in the Korean Peninsula.
Anyway, a change in weather, especially global cooling, can trigger a tragedy of any minor people or race, such as Judaists. Otherwise, it might bring about demise of a regime.
Conversely global warming today might be a situation Judaists and Israelis can tolerate.
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Mat 9:23 And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise,
Mat 9:24 He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.