Persecution of Jews in Switzerland

Roman emperors
Under Christian emperors, Jews were persecuted in the Roman Empire, which included forbidding Jews from marrying Christians, restricting Jewish ownership of slaves, and punishing those that converted from Christianity to Judaism.

Frankish kings
King of the Franks, Chlothar II in 614 forbade Jews to serve in any military or administrative office. His successor Dagobert I gave Jews the alternatives of conversion to Christianity or exile in 629. Those that did not convert or leave his dominions were killed.

Blood libels
Jews were murdered after blood libels, which are false accusations of having killed Christians (usually children) for rituals, in Bern in 1294, Diessenhofen, Schaffhausen, and Winterthur in 1401.

Persecution of Jews during the Black Death
Jews were falsely blamed for the Black Death or bubonic plague pandemic in Europe during the mid-1300s. They were persecuted and massacred. Jews were often used by Christians to blame due to their resentment of them considering the antisemitic Christian belief that Jews as a people hold the responsibility for killing Jesus Christ or Jewish deicide. Many Jews were murdered in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

In Basel, Jews were burnt at the stake and children were forcibly baptized, and other Jews were expelled. The Christian residents turned the synagogue into a church and destroyed the Jewish cemetery. Jews were murdered in many other locations in Switzerland, including Zürich and Bern.

15th century expulsions
Jews were expelled from Fribourg and Zürich in 1426.

Council of Basel
In 1434, the ecclesiastical Council of Basel forbade Jews from obtaining academic degrees.