RESULTS OF THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. GENERAL
VIEW.
Widespread Consequences of the Expulsion--The Exiles--Fate
of the Abrabanel Family--Leon Medigo--Isaac Akrish--The
Pre-eminence of Jews of Spanish Origin--The North-African
States: Samuel Alvalensi, Jacob Berab, Simon Duran II--The
Jews of Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis--Abraham Zacuto, and Moses
Alashkar--Egypt: Isaac Shalal, David Ibn-Abi Zimra--The
Jews of Cairo--Selim I--Cessation of the Office of Nagid--
Jerusalem--Obadyah di Bertinoro--Safet and Joseph Saragossi
--The Jews of Turkey--Constantinople--Elias Mizrachi: the
Karaites--The Communities of Salonica and Adrianople--The Jews
of Greece--Elias Kapsali--The Jews of Italy and the Popes:
Bonet de Lates--The Ghetto in Venice--Samuel Abrabanel and
Benvenida Abrabanela--Abraham Farissol--The Jews of Germany and
their Sorrows--Expulsion of the Jews from Various Towns--The
Jews of Bohemia--Jacob Polak and his School--The Jews of Poland.
1496-1525 C.E.
The expulsion of the Jews from the Pyrenean Peninsula, unwise as it
was inhuman, forms in various ways a well-marked turning-point in the
general history of the Jewish race. It involved not only the exiles,
but the whole Jewish people, in far-reaching and mostly disastrous
consequences. The glory of the Jews was extinguished, their pride
humbled, their center displaced, the strong pillar against which
they had hitherto leant broken. The grief caused by this sad event
was shared by the Jews in every country which had news of it. They
all felt as if the Temple had been destroyed a third time, as if the
sons of Zion had a third time been condemned to exile and misery.
Whether from fancy or pride, it was supposed that the Spanish (or,
more correctly, the Sephardic) Jews were the posterity of the noblest
tribe, and included among them descendants in a direct line from King
David; hence the Jews looked upon them as a kind of Jewish nobility.
And now these exalted ones had been visited by the severest affliction!
Exile, compulsory baptism, death in every hideous form, by despair,
hunger, pestilence, fire, shipwreck, all torments united, had reduced
their hundreds of thousands to barely the tenth part of that number.
The remnant wandered about like specters, hunted from one country
to another, and princes among Jews, they were compelled to knock as
beggars at the doors of their brethren. The thirty millions of ducats
which, at the lowest computation, the Spanish Jews possessed on their
expulsion, had melted away in their hands, and they were thus left
denuded of everything in a hostile world, which valued the Jews at
their money's worth only. At the same period many German Jews were
driven from cities in the East and in the West, but their misery
did not equal that of the Spanish Jews. They had known neither the
sweetness of a country that they could call their own, nor the comforts
of life; they were more hardy, or, at least, accustomed to contempt and
harsh treatment.
Half a century after the banishment of the Jews from Spain and
Portugal, we everywhere meet with fugitives: here a group, there a
family, or solitary stragglers. It was a kind of exodus on a small
scale, moving eastwards, chiefly to Turkey, as if the Jews were to
approach their original home. But their very wanderings, until they
again reached secure dwelling-places, and in a measure were settled,
were heartrending through the calamities of every description, the
humiliations, the contumely, sufferings worse than death, that they
encountered.
The ancient family of Abrabanel did not escape heavy disasters and
constant migrations. The father, Isaac Abrabanel, who had occupied a
high position at the court of the accomplished king, Ferdinand I, and
of his son Alfonso, at Naples, was forced, on the approach of the
French, to leave the city, and, with his royal patron, to seek refuge
in Sicily. The French hordes plundered his house of all its valuables,
and destroyed a choice library, his greatest treasure. On the death of
King Alfonso, Isaac Abrabanel, for safety, went to the island of Corfu.
He remained there only till the French had evacuated the Neapolitan
territory; then he settled at Monopoli (Apulia), where he completed or
revised many of his writings. The wealth acquired in the service of
the Portuguese and Spanish courts had vanished, his wife and children
were separated from him and scattered, and he passed his days in sad
musings, out of which only his study of the Scriptures and the annals
of the Jewish people could lift him. His eldest son, Judah Leon Medigo
Abrabanel, resided at Genoa, where, in spite of his unsettled existence
and consuming grief for the loss of his young son, who had been taken
from him, and was being brought up in Portugal as a Christian, he still
cherished ideals. For Leon Abrabanel was much more highly accomplished,
richer in thought, in every way more gifted than his father, and
deserves consideration not merely for his father's, but for his own
sake. Leon Abrabanel practiced medicine to gain a livelihood (whence
his cognomen _Medigo_); but his favorite pursuits were astronomy,
mathematics, and metaphysics. Shortly before the death of the gifted
and eccentric Pico de Mirandola, Leon Medigo became acquainted with
him, won his friendship, and at his instigation undertook the writing
of a philosophical work.
Leon Medigo, in a remarkable manner, entered into close connection with
acquaintances of his youth, with Spanish grandees, and even with King
Ferdinand, who had driven his family and so many hundred thousands
into banishment and death. For he became the private physician of the
general, Gonsalvo de Cordova, the conqueror and viceroy of Naples.
The heroic, amiable, and lavish De Cordova did not share his master's
hatred against the Jews. In one of his descendants Jewish literature
found a devotee. When King Ferdinand, after the conquest of the kingdom
of Naples (1504), commanded that the Jews be banished thence, as from
Spain, the general thwarted the execution of the order, observing that,
on the whole, there were but few Jews on Neapolitan territory, since
most of the immigrants had either again left it, or had become converts
to Christianity. The banishment of these few could only be injurious
to the country, since they would settle at Venice, which would benefit
by their industry and riches. Consequently the Jews were allowed to
remain a while longer on Neapolitan territory. But to exterminate
the Spanish and Portuguese Marranos who had settled there, Ferdinand
established the terrible Inquisition at Benevento. Leon Medigo for over
two years was De Cordova's physician (1505-1507), and King Ferdinand
saw him when he visited Naples. After the king's departure and the
ungracious dismissal of the viceroy (June, 1507), Leon Abrabanel,
having nowhere found suitable employment, returned to his father,
then living at Venice, whither he had been invited by his second son,
Isaac II, who practiced medicine first at Reggio (Calabria), then at
Venice. The youngest son, Samuel, afterwards a generous protector of
his co-religionists, was the most fortunate of the family. He dwelt
amidst the cool shades of the academy of Salonica, to which his father
had sent him to finish his education in Jewish learning. The elder
Abrabanel once more entered the political arena. At Venice he had the
opportunity of settling a dispute between the court of Lisbon and the
Venetian Republic concerning the East-Indian colonies established
by the Portuguese, especially concerning the trade in spices. Some
influential senators discerned Isaac Abrabanel's correct political and
financial judgment, and thenceforth consulted him in all important
questions of state policy. But suffering and travel had broken his
strength; before he reached seventy years, he felt the infirmities
of old age creeping over him. In a letter of reply to Saul Cohen
Ashkenasi, an inhabitant of Candia, a man thirsting for knowledge, the
disciple and intellectual heir of Elias del Medigo, Abrabanel complains
of increasing debility and senility. Had he been silent, his literary
productions of that time would have betrayed his infirmity. The baited
victims of Spanish fanaticism would have needed bodies of steel and the
resisting strength of stone not to succumb to the sufferings with which
they were overwhelmed.
We have a striking instance of the restless wanderings of the Jewish
exiles in the life of one of the sufferers, who, though insignificant,
became known to fame by his zeal to raise the courage of the
unfortunate. To Isaac ben Abraham Akrish, a Spaniard, a great traveler
and a bookworm (born about 1489, died after 1575), Jewish literature
owes the preservation of many a valuable document. Akrish said, half
in joke, half in earnest, that he must have been born in the hour when
the planet Jupiter was passing through the zodiacal sign of the Fishes,
a nativity which indicates a wandering life. For, though lame in both
feet, he spent his whole life in traveling from city to city, on land
and on sea. When a boy, Akrish was banished from Spain, and at Naples
he underwent all the sufferings which seem to have conspired against
the exiles. Thus he limped from nation to nation, "whose languages he
did not understand, and who spared neither old men nor children," until
in Egypt, in the house of an exile, he found a few years' rest. Who
can follow all the wandering exiles, with sore feet, and still sorer
hearts, until they somewhere found rest, or the peace of the grave?
But the very enormity of the misery they endured raised the dignity of
the Sephardic Jews to a height bordering on pride. That they whom God's
hand had smitten so heavily, so persistently, and who had undergone
such unspeakable sorrow, must occupy a peculiar position, and belong
to the specially elect, was the thought or the feeling existing more
or less clearly in the breasts of the survivors. They looked upon
their banishment from Spain as a third exile, and upon themselves
as favorites of God, whom, because of His greater love for them, He
had chastised the more severely. Contrary to expectation, a certain
exaltation took possession of them, which did not, indeed, cause them
to forget, but transfigured, their sufferings. As soon as they felt
even slightly relieved from the burden of their boundless calamity, and
were able to breathe, they rose with elastic force, and carried their
heads high like princes. They had lost everything except their Spanish
pride, their distinguished manner. However humbled they might be, their
pride did not forsake them; they asserted it wherever their wandering
feet found a resting-place. And to some extent they were justified.
They had, indeed, since the growth of the tendency among Jews towards
strict orthodoxy and hostility to science, and since their exclusion
from social circles, receded from the high scientific position they
had held, and forfeited the supremacy they had maintained during many
centuries; yet they far surpassed the Jews of all other countries in
culture, manners, and also in worth, as was shown by their external
bearing and their language. Their love for their country was too great
to allow them to hate the unnatural mother who had cast them out.
Hence, wherever they went, they founded Spanish or Portuguese colonies.
They carried the Spanish tongue, Spanish dignity and distinction
to Africa, Syria, and Palestine, Italy and Flanders; wherever fate
cast their lot they cherished and cultivated this Spanish manner so
lovingly, that it has maintained itself to this day in full vigor
among their descendants. Far from being absorbed by the rest of the
Jewish population in countries which had hospitably received them, they
considered themselves a privileged race, the flower and nobility of
the Jewish nation, kept aloof from others, looked down upon them with
contempt, and not unfrequently dictated laws to them. This arose from
the fact that the Spanish and Portuguese Jews spoke the languages of
their native countries (which by the discoveries and conquests of the
sixteenth century had become the languages of the world) with purity,
took part in literature, and associated with Christians on equal
terms, with manliness, and without fear or servility. On this point
they contrasted with the German Jews, who despised pure and beautiful
speech, the very thing which constitutes a true man, and considered
a corrupt jargon and isolation from the Christian world as proofs of
religious zeal. The Sephardic Jews attached importance to forms of all
kinds, to taste in dress, to elegance in their synagogues, as well as
to the medium for the exchange of thought. The Spanish and Portuguese
rabbis preached in their native tongues, and laid great stress on pure
pronunciation and euphony. Hence their language did not degenerate,
at least not in the first centuries after their expulsion. "In the
cities of Salonica, Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Venice, and
other resorts of commerce, the Jews transact their business only in
the Spanish language. I have known Jews of Salonica who, though still
young, pronounced Castilian as well as myself, and even better." This
is the judgment of a Christian writer about half a century after their
expulsion.
The contempt which even Isaac Abrabanel, mild and broken though he
was, entertained for the barbarous jargon spoken by German Jews is
characteristic. He was surprised to discover in a letter, sent to
him by Saul Cohen of Candia, a native of Germany, a finished Hebrew
style and close reasoning, and freely expressed his astonishment: "I
am surprised to find so excellent a style among the Germans (Jews),
which is rare even among their leaders and rabbis, however gifted
they may be in other respects. Their language is full of awkwardness
and clumsiness, a stammering without judgment." This superiority of
the Jews of Spanish descent in culture, bearing, social manners, and
knowledge of the world, was appreciated and admired by other Jews,
especially by German Jews, with whom they everywhere came into contact.
Hence Spanish Jews could presume to play the rôle of masters, and
frequently, in spite of their paucity of numbers, they dominated a
majority speaking other tongues. In the century after their expulsion
they are almost exclusively the leaders; the names of their spokesmen
are heard everywhere; they furnished rabbis, authors, thinkers and
visionaries, whilst German and Italian Jews occupied a humble place.
In all countries, except Germany and Poland, into which they had not
penetrated, or only as solitary individuals, the Sephardic Jews were
the leaders.
The northern coast of Africa, and the inhabitable regions inland,
were full of Jews of Spanish descent. They had congregated there in
great numbers during the century from the persecution of 1391 to their
total expulsion. From Safi (Assafi), the most southwestern town of
Morocco, to Tripoli in the northeast, there were many communities, of
varying numbers, speaking the Spanish language. Though mostly hated,
arbitrarily treated, and often compelled by petty barbarian tyrants and
the uncivilized, degenerate Moorish population to wear a disgraceful
costume, yet prominent Jews found opportunities to distinguish
themselves, to rise to high honors and acquire widespread influence.
In Morocco a rich Jew, learned in history, who had rendered important
services to the ruler of that country, was held in high esteem. At Fez,
where there existed a community of five thousand Jewish families, who
monopolized most trades, Samuel Alvalensi, a Jew of Spanish descent,
was greatly beloved by the king, on account of his ability and his
courage, and so trusted by the populace that it accepted him as its
leader. In the struggle between the two reigning families, the Merinos
and the Xerifs, he sided with the former, led one thousand four hundred
Jews and Moors against the followers of the latter, and defeated them
at Ceuta. A very numerous Jewish community of Spanish descent occupied
the greater portion of Tlemçen, or Tremçen, an important town, where
the court resided. Here Jacob Berab (born 1474, died 1541), fleeing
from Spain, found a refuge. He was one of the most active men among the
Spanish emigrants, and the most acute rabbi of his age. At the same
time, he was a crusty, dogmatical and quarrelsome man, who had many
enemies, but also many admirers. Born at Maqueda, near Toledo, Jacob
Berab, after passing through many dangers, suffering want, hunger and
thirst, reached Tlemçen, whence he went to Fez, the Jewish community
of which chose him, a needy youth, for their rabbi, on account of his
learning and sagacity. There he conducted a college until the fanatic
Spaniards made conquests in northern Africa, and disturbed the quiet
asylum that the Jews had found there.
The reduced community of Algiers was under the direction of Simon
Duran II, a descendant of the Spanish fugitives of 1391 (born 1439,
died after 1510), a son of Solomon Duran, the rabbi with philosophic
culture. Like his brother, he was considered in his day a high
rabbinical authority, and the advice of both was sought by many
persons. Of as noble a disposition as his father, Simon Duran was the
protector of his co-religionists and the sheet-anchor of the Spanish
exiles who came within his reach, for he shunned neither cost nor
danger when the religion, morals and safety of his compatriots were
in question. Fifty fugitive Jews, who had suffered shipwreck, had
been cast on the coast of Seville, where the fanatical Spaniards, in
accordance with the edict, put them into prison, and kept them there
for two years. They were in daily expectation of death, but finally
they were pardoned--that is to say, sold for slaves. As such they
reached Algiers in a deplorable condition; but by the exertions of
Simon Duran they were redeemed for the sum of seven hundred ducats,
which the small community managed to collect.
Two eminent Spanish Jews, the aged historian and astronomer, Abraham
Zacuto, and a younger man, Moses Alashkar, found a refuge at Tunis.
Zacuto, who had taught mathematics and astronomy to Christian and
Mahometan pupils in Spain, and whose published writings were widely
read and made use of, was nevertheless compelled to wander about like
an outlaw, and had only with difficulty escaped death. He seems to have
spent some quiet years at Tunis, where he completed his more celebrated
than useful chronicle ("Sefer Yochasin," 1504), history it cannot be
called. It is an epitome of Jewish history, with especial reference
to the literature of the Jews. It has the merit of having promoted
historical research among Jews, but lacks artistic arrangement and
completeness. It is a mere compilation from works accessible to the
writer, who has even failed to give a complete sketch of the history
of his own times, the sufferings of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews.
Zacuto's chronicle was a child of his old age and misery; he wrote
it with a trembling hand, in fear of impending events, and without
sufficient literary materials. On this account it must be judged
leniently.
A contemporary of Zacuto at Tunis was Moses ben Isaac Alashkar, as
deeply learned a Talmudist as his teacher, Samuel Alvalensi. He was
a correct thinker, and devoid of narrow one-sidedness. He plunged
into the dark labyrinths of the Kabbala, yet, at the same time,
raised his eyes to the bright heights of philosophy--a mental
_mésalliance_ possible in those days. Alashkar even defended Maimuni
and his philosophical system against the charge of heresy brought by
obscurantists.
Terrified by the perils which the Spanish arms foreboded to the Jews of
northern Africa, Zacuto and Alashkar, with many others, appear to have
quitted Tunis. They were but too well acquainted with the cruelties
practiced against Jews by the ultra-Catholic Spaniards. The former
went to Turkey, where he died shortly after his arrival (before 1515).
Alashkar fled to Egypt, where his extensive learning and wealth secured
for him an honorable position.
Egypt, especially its capital, Cairo, had become the home of many
Jewish-Spanish fugitives, who had in a short time acquired an influence
surpassing that of the original Jewish inhabitants. On their arrival,
all the Jewish communities were, as of old, ruled by a Jewish chief
justice or prince (Nagid, Reis). The office was then held by the noble
and rich Isaac Cohen Shalal, a man of upright character, learned in
the Talmud, who employed his wealth and the high esteem in which he
was held by all, even including the Egyptian Mameluke sultan, for the
benefit of his community and the fugitives who settled in their midst.
He impartially promoted deserving men of the Spanish immigration to
offices, whereby they gradually obtained paramount influence. The
Spanish scholar, Samuel Sidillo (or Sid, Ibn-Sid), a disciple of the
last Toledan rabbi, Isaac de Leon, highly venerated in his day on
account of his piety and his profound rabbinical knowledge, found
a refuge at Cairo. A Spanish fugitive who acquired still higher
distinction was David Ibn-Abi Zimra (born 1470, died about 1573). A
disciple of the mystic Joseph Saragossi, he was rich in knowledge and
virtues, as well as in property and distinguished descendants, and
he soon outshone the natives, acquiring the reputation of being the
highest rabbinical authority in Egypt. Many other Spanish rabbinical
scholars found rest in Egypt; to those already named, including
Jacob Berab and Moses Alashkar, we may add Abraham Ibn-Shoshan, all
eventually becoming official rabbis.
Political changes in Egypt placed the Spaniards at the head of the
Jewish communities in that country. The land of the Nile, together
with Syria and Palestine, whose conquest was so difficult a task for
the sultans of Constantinople, finally became the well-secured prey
of Selim I, who won a splendid victory over the Mameluke sultan in a
decisive battle not far from Aleppo (1517). His march from Syria to
Egypt was a triumphal progress. Selim spent the summer of that year
in remodeling the order of things in Egypt, reducing it to a real
dependency of Turkey, turning it, in fact, into a province, ruled by
a viceroy, a pasha entirely devoted to him. Abraham de Castro, a Jew
of Spanish descent, was appointed by Selim master of the mint for the
new Turkish coinage, and, by his wealth and influence, he acquired
great weight among Turkish officials and the Egyptian Jews. De Castro
was very benevolent; he annually spent three thousand gold florins
in alms, and in every way took lively interest in the affairs of his
co-religionists.
Selim, or his viceroy, appears to have introduced an entirely new order
into the management of the Egyptian Jews. For ages a chief rabbi and
judge had ruled all the communities; the person holding the office
had possessed a kind of princely power, similar to that formerly
exercised by the princes of the exile in Babylon. The chief rabbi
or prince (Nagid) nominated the rabbis of the communities, had the
supreme decision of disputes among Jews, confirmed or rejected every
new regulation, was even authorized to decree corporal punishment for
offenses and crimes committed by Jews under his jurisdiction. From
these functions he derived a considerable revenue, but all this ceased
with the Turkish conquest. Every community was thenceforth declared
independent in the election of its head, and allowed to manage its own
affairs. The last Jewish-Egyptian prince or chief rabbi was deposed
from his dignity, and betook himself with his riches to Jerusalem,
where he became a benefactor of its growing community. The office of
rabbi of Cairo was bestowed on the Spanish immigrant David Ibn-Abi
Zimra, on account of his upright character, learning, benevolent
disposition, and chiefly, probably, on account of his wealth. His
authority rose to such a degree that he could venture to abolish a very
ancient custom, which excessive conservatism had dragged along from
century to century, like a dead limb. The Babylonian Jews had more
than eighteen hundred years before adopted the Syrian or Seleucidan
chronology (_Minyan Yavanim_, _Minyan Shetaroth_), in memory of
the victory of the Syrian king Seleucus over the other generals of
Alexander the Great. The Syrian empire and the Seleucidæ had perished
long ago, Syria had by turns become the prey of Romans, Byzantines,
Mahometans, Mongols and Turks; nevertheless, the Babylonian and
Egyptian Jews had retained that chronology, employing it not only
in historical records and secular papers, but also in the dating of
documents of divorce and similar deeds. Whilst the Jews of Palestine
and of Europe had gradually adopted other chronologies, as "After the
Destruction of the Temple," or "Since the Creation" (_æra mundi_),
the Babylonian and Egyptian Jews so pertinaciously adhered to the
Seleucidan era as to declare invalid every letter of divorce not so
dated. Ibn-Abi Zimra abolished this antiquated chronology, as far as
Egypt was concerned, introducing in its stead the already accepted
mode of reckoning from the Creation, and his innovation met with no
opposition. The ascendency of the immigrant Sephardic Jews over the
majority of the original community (the Mostarabi) was so great and
so well established, that the former, in spite of the objections of
the latter, succeeded in the bold attempt to abolish an ancient and
beautiful custom, introduced by Maimuni himself. The Mostarabian Jews
for more than three centuries had been accustomed to have the chief
prayer said aloud in the synagogue, by the reader (Chazan), without
themselves participating in it. But to the pious immigrants from the
Peninsula this custom, though promoting decorum and devotion, appeared
illegal, anti-Talmudic, if not heretical, and they zealously set to
work to abolish it. Terrible sufferings had hardened the hearts of the
Sephardic Jews, and they were but too ready to exercise the utmost
severity in religious matters, and slavishly to follow the letter. The
rabbi, David Ibn-Abi Zimra, was their leader.
During his term of office a great danger hovered over the Cairo
community. The fourth viceroy of Egypt, Achmed Shaitan (Satan),
harbored the design of severing Egypt from Turkey, and making himself
its independent master. Having succeeded in his first measures, he
proposed to the Jewish superintendent of the mint, Abraham de Castro,
to have his name placed on the coins. De Castro pretended compliance,
but asked for a written order. Having obtained it he secretly left
Egypt, and hastened to the court of Solyman I, at Constantinople, to
inform the sultan of the treacherous design of the pasha, which was
thus frustrated. Achmed vented his rage on the Jews, threw some of
them, probably De Castro's friends and relatives, into prison, and
permitted the Mamelukes to plunder the Jewish quarter of Cairo. He
then sent for twelve of the most eminent Jews, and commanded them
within a short time to find an exorbitant sum of money, threatening
them, in case of non-compliance, with a cruel death for themselves and
their families. For greater security he retained them as hostages. To
the supplications of the Jewish community for mercy and delay, the
tyrant replied by more terrible threats. In their hopelessness the Jews
of Cairo turned in fervent prayer to God. Meanwhile the collectors
had got together a considerable sum, which they offered as a payment
on account. But as it scarcely amounted to the tenth part of Achmed's
demand, his private secretary had the collectors put in irons, and
threatened them, and all the members of the community, with certain
death on that very day, as soon as his master left his bath. At the
very moment when the secretary uttered these words, the pasha was
attacked in his bath by Mahomet Bey, one of his vizirs, and some other
conspirators, and severely wounded. Achmed Shaitan made good his escape
from the palace, but was betrayed, overtaken, cast into fetters and
then beheaded. The imprisoned Jews were set free, and their community
escaped a great peril. The Egyptian Jews for a long period afterwards
commemorated the day of their deliverance (Adar 27th or 28th, 1524--a
Cairoan Purim, Furin al-Mizrayim).
By the immigration of Spaniards and Portuguese, Jerusalem and other
Palestinian cities also obtained a great increase of members to their
congregations, and considerable importance. Here, too, the immigrants
in a short time became the social and religious leaders. In the very
brief period of seven years the number of Jewish families in the Holy
City grew from scarcely seventy to two hundred, and again within
the space of two decades (1495-1521), it rose from two hundred to
fifteen hundred. The influx of new settlers had largely augmented the
prosperity of the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem. Whilst formerly
nearly all the members of the community were in a state of destitution,
three decades afterwards there were only two hundred receiving alms.
And what is of greater importance, morality was greatly benefited by
the immigrants. Jerusalem was no longer the den of robbers found by
Obadyah (Obadiah) di Bertinoro (1470-1520), who had immigrated from
Italy. The members of the community were no longer harassed to death,
and driven to despair or voluntary exile by a rapacious, tyrannical
and treacherous faction; harmony, union, a sense of justice, and peace
had found an abode with them. There was indeed a show of excessive
piety, but it no longer flagrantly contrasted with a revoltingly
immoral mode of life. Obadyah di Bertinoro, the gentle and amiable
Italian preacher, had greatly contributed to this improvement of the
moral tone of Jerusalem; for more than two decades he taught the
growing community, by precept and example, genuine piety, nobility
of sentiment and relinquishment of barbarian coarseness. After his
arrival at Jerusalem, he wrote to his friends: "If there were in this
country one sagacious Jew, who knew how to lead a community gently
and justly, not Jews only, but also Mahometans would willingly submit
to him, for the latter are not at all hostile to the Jews, but full
of consideration for strangers. But there is not one Jew in this
country possessing either sense or social virtues; all are coarse,
misanthropical and avaricious." Bertinoro did not anticipate that he
himself would soften that coarseness, improve the morals, mitigate
that immorality, ennoble that baseness. But his genial, amiable manner
disarmed evil and healed the sores he had discovered, lamented, and
pitilessly exposed. Obadyah was the guardian angel of the Holy City,
he cleansed it from pollution, and clothed it with a pure festival
garment. "Were I to attempt proclaiming his praise," writes an Italian
pilgrim to Jerusalem, "I should never cease. He is the man who is held
in the highest esteem in the country; everything is done according to
his orders, and no one dares gainsay his words. From all parts he is
sought after and consulted; his merits are acknowledged by Egyptians
and Babylonians, and even Mahometans honor him. Withal, he is modest
and humble; his speech is gentle; he is accessible to every one. All
praise him and say: He is not like an earthly being. When he preaches
every ear listens intently; not the least sound is heard, his hearers
are so silently devout." Exiles from the Pyrenean Peninsula supported
him in his humane work.
To the intervention of Obadyah di Bertinoro, and of those who shared
his opinions, probably were due the excellent ordinances which the
community voluntarily imposed on itself, and for remembrance graved on
a tablet in the synagogue. They were directed against the abuses which
had crept in by degrees. These ordinances included amongst others the
following decrees: In disputes between Jews, the Mahometan authorities
are to be applied to only in the utmost necessity. The Jewish judge or
rabbi is not to be allowed to compel wealthy members of the community
to make advances for communal wants. Students of the Talmud and widows
shall not contribute to the communal funds. Jews are not to purchase
bad coin, and, if they acquire any accidentally, are not to pass it.
The pilgrims to the grave of the prophet Samuel are not to drink wine,
for men and women traveled together, the latter unveiled, and if the
men had been excited by wine, great mischief might have ensued.
The Holy City acquired still higher importance by the immigration of
Isaac Shalal, with his riches, experience, and authority.
Safet in Galilee, the youngest town of Palestine, next to Jerusalem
acquired the largest Jewish population and considerable importance,
which increased to such a degree that Safet not only rivaled, but
excelled the mother-city. At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning
of the next century it sheltered only some three hundred Jewish
families, original inhabitants (Moriscos), Berbers, and Sephardim. It
did not at first possess any eminent native expounder of the Talmud,
who might have become a leader. It owed its importance and far-reaching
influence to the arrival of a Spanish fugitive, under whose direction
the community was strengthened. Joseph Saragossi became for Safet what
Obadyah di Bertinoro had been for Jerusalem. Driven from Saragossa,
he passed through Sicily, Beyrout and Sidon, in which latter place he
resided for some time, and finally reached Safet, where he settled.
Joseph Saragossi possessed a mild, fascinating character, and
considered it the task of his life to preach peace and restore harmony
in private and communal life. Even among Mahometans he worked in a
conciliating and appeasing spirit, and on this account he was loved and
revered as an angel of peace. At one time he wished to leave Safet. The
inhabitants fairly clung to him, and promised him an annual salary of
fifty ducats, two thirds of which the Mahometan governor of the town
offered to furnish. Joseph Saragossi transplanted the study of the
Talmud to Safet, and also that of the Kabbala, as he was an ultra-pious
mystic. Through him the hitherto untainted community became a nest of
Kabbalists.
In Damascus, the half-Palestinian capital of Syria, there also arose,
by the side of the very ancient Mostarabian community, a Sephardic
congregation, composed of fugitives, and numbering five hundred Jewish
families. Within a short time after their arrival, the Spaniards built
a splendid synagogue at Damascus, called Khataib. They speedily
increased to such a degree as to separate into several congregations,
according to the states from which they had originally come.
The main stream of the Jewish-Spanish emigration flowed towards Turkey
in Europe; the greater part of the remnant of the three hundred
thousand exiles found an asylum in that country, where the inhabitants
did not take love as their watchword. The sultans Bajazet, Selim I
and Solyman I, not only tolerated the fugitive Jews, but gave them a
hearty welcome, and granted them the liberties enjoyed by Armenians and
Greeks. A Jewish poet enthusiastically described the freedom of his
co-religionists in Turkey. "Great Turkey, a wide and spreading sea,
which our Lord opened with the wand of His mercy (as at the exodus from
Egypt), that the tide of thy present disaster, Jacob, as happened with
the multitude of the Egyptians, should therein lose and exhaust itself.
There the gates of freedom and equal position for the unhindered
practice of Jewish worship are ever open, they are never closed against
thee. There thou canst renew thy inner life, change thy condition,
strip off, and cast away false and erroneous doctrines, recover thy
ancient truths, and abandon the practices which, by the violence of the
nations among whom thou wast a pilgrim, thou wert compelled to imitate.
In this realm thou art highly favored by the Lord, since therein He
granteth thee boundless liberty to commence thy late repentance."
The immigrant Jews at first enjoyed very happy days in Turkey, because
they were a godsend to this comparatively new state. The Turks were
good soldiers, but bad citizens. The sultans, frequently on bad terms
with Christian states, could place but indifferent trust in the Greeks,
Armenians, and Christians of other national creeds; they looked upon
them as born spies and traitors. But they could depend on the fidelity
and usefulness of the Jews. Hence they were, on the one hand, the
business people, and on the other, the citizen class of Turkey. They
not only carried on the wholesale and retail commerce by land and sea,
but were the handicraftsmen and the artists. The Marranos especially
who had fled from Spain and Portugal manufactured for the warlike Turks
new armor and firearms, cannons and gunpowder, and taught the Turks how
to use them. Thus persecuting Christianity itself furnished its chief
enemies, the Turks, with weapons which enabled them to overwhelm the
former with defeat after defeat, humiliation on humiliation. Jewish
physicians especially were held in high esteem in Turkey; they were
for the most part clever disciples of the school of Salamanca, and, on
account of their skill, higher education, secrecy and discretion, were
preferred to Christian, and even to Mahometan doctors. These Jewish
physicians, mostly of Spanish descent, acquired great influence with
grand sultans, vizirs and pashas.
Sultan Selim had for his physician in ordinary Joseph Hamon, an
immigrant probably from Granada. Hamon's son and nephew successively
held the same office. The son, Moses Hamon (born 1490, died about
1565), physician to the wise sultan Solyman, on account of his skill
and manly, determined character, enjoyed even higher reputation and
influence than his father. He accompanied the sultan in his warlike
expeditions, and brought back from Persia, whither he had followed
Solyman on a triumphal progress, a learned man, Jacob Tus or Tavs
(about 1535), who translated the Pentateuch into Persian. This version,
accompanied by Chaldean and Arabic translations, was afterwards printed
at the expense of Hamon, who was justly considered a protector of his
brethren and a promoter of Judaism.
The Jews were also in great request in Turkey as linguists and
interpreters, they having acquired knowledge of many languages through
their wanderings among foreign nations.
The capital, Constantinople, held within its walls a very numerous
Jewish community, which was daily increased by new fugitives from the
Peninsula, so that it became the largest in Europe, numbering probably
thirty thousand souls. It had forty-four synagogues, consequently as
many separate congregations. For the Jewish community in the Turkish
capital and other towns did not form a close corporation, but was
divided into groups and sections, according to their native places,
each of which was anxious to retain its own customs, rites and liturgy,
and to possess its own synagogue and rabbinical college. Hence there
were not only Castilian, Aragonese and Portuguese congregations, but
still more restricted associations, Cordovan, Toledan, Barcelonian,
Lisbon groups (Kahals), besides German, Apulian, Messinian and
Greek. Every petty congregation apportioned among its members the
contributions, not only for its worship, officials, the maintenance of
the poor, its hospitals and schools, but also for the taxes payable to
the state. These latter at first were trifling: a poll-tax on every one
subject to taxation (charaj), and a kind of rabbinical tax levied on
the congregation, according to the three different classes of property,
of 200, 100 and 20 aspers. The family of the physician Hamon alone was
exempt from taxes.
At first the native Jews, who formed the majority, had complete
preponderance over the immigrants. The office of chief rabbi, after the
death of the meritorious but unappreciated Moses Kapsali, was held by
Elias Mizrachi, probably descended from an immigrant Greek family, who
under the sultans Bajazet, Selim I, and perhaps also under Solyman,
had a seat in the divan like his predecessor, and was the official
representative of the whole body of Turkish Jews. He deservedly held
this post on account of his rabbinical and secular knowledge, and
upright, impartially just character. Elias Mizrachi (born about 1455,
died between 1525 and 1527), a disciple of the German school, and a
profound Talmudist and strictly pious man, was no enemy to science. He
not only understood, but taught mathematics and astronomy, gave public
lectures thereon, as also on the Talmud, and compiled handbooks on
these subjects, some of which became such favorites as to be translated
into Latin. In his youth he was a Hotspur, and had a feud with the
Karaites in Turkey. But in his old age he felt more kindly towards
them, and employed his weighty influence to avert a wrong which the
ultra-pious were about to inflict on them. A few obscurantists, chiefly
members of the Apulian congregation at Constantinople, attempted to
interrupt, in a violent manner, the neighborly intercourse which for
half a century had existed between Rabbanites and Karaites. They
assembled the members of the congregation, and, with the Sefer Torah
in their hand, excommunicated all who should henceforth instruct
Karaites, whether children or adults, in the Bible or the Talmud, or
even in secular sciences, such as mathematics, natural history, logic,
music, or even the alphabet. Nor were Rabbanite servants any longer to
take service with Karaite families. These fanatics intended to raise
an insuperable barrier between the followers of the Talmud and those
of the Bible. But the majority of the Constantinople community were
dissatisfied with this bigoted measure. The tolerant Rabbanites of
the capital held a meeting to frustrate the plan of the zealots. But
the latter behaved so outrageously and with such violence, bringing
a fierce rabble provided with cudgels into the synagogue where the
consultation was to be held, that the conveners of the meeting had no
chance of being heard, and the act of excommunication was carried by
an insolent minority, in defiance of the sound arguments and opposition
of the majority. Then Rabbi Elias Mizrachi openly and vigorously
opposed this unreasonable, illegal and violent proceeding, showing
in a learned discourse how unjust and opposed to the Talmud was the
rejection of the Karaites. He impressed on the zealots the fact that
by their intolerant severity they would bring about the decay of the
instruction of the young, since hitherto emulation to surpass their
Karaite companions had been a great incentive to Rabbanite scholars.
The Turkish Jews in those days had a kind of political representative,
an advocate (Kahiya), or chamberlain, who had access to the
sultan and his great dignitaries, and was appointed by the court.
Shaltiel, otherwise an unknown personage, but said to have been of
noble character, held the office under Solyman. With a population
looking contemptuously on unbelievers, with provincial pashas ruling
arbitrarily, and with fanatical Greek and Bulgarian Christians,
instances of injustice and violent proceedings against the Jews in the
Turkish empire were not of rare occurrence; on all such occasions the
Kahiya Shaltiel interposed on behalf of his co-religionists, and, by
means of money liberally spent at court, obtained redress.
The community next in importance in Turkey was that of Salonica (the
ancient Thessalonica), which, though an unhealthy town, possessed
attractions for the immigrants of Spain and Provence; for this once
Greek settlement offered more leisure for peaceful occupation than
the noisy capital of Turkey. Ten congregations at least were soon
formed here, the most of Sephardic origin. Eventually they increased
to thirty-six. Salonica, in fact, became a Jewish town, with more Jews
than Gentiles. A Jewish poet, Samuel Usque, calls the town "a mother
of Judaism, built on the deep foundation of the Lord, full of excellent
plants and fruitful trees, such as are found nowhere else on earth.
Their fruit is glorious, because it is watered by an abundance of
benevolence. The greatest portion of the persecuted and banished sons
from Europe and other parts of the earth have met therein, and been
received with loving welcomes, as if it were our venerable mother,
Jerusalem." Within a short period the Sephardic immigrants acquired
complete supremacy over their co-religionists, even over the original
community, so that the leading language of Salonica became Spanish,
which German and Italian Jews had to learn, if they wished to maintain
intercourse with the Spanish immigrants. The son of one of the last
Jewish-Spanish ministers of finance, Judah Benveniste, had settled
here. From his paternal inheritance he had saved enough to possess
a noble library; he was the standard around which his heavily-tried
brethren could rally. Representatives of Talmudic learning were
naturally found among the sons of the Pyrenean Peninsula only, such as
the Taytasaks, a family of scholars, and Jacob Ibn-Chabib, though even
they were not men of the first eminence. Spanish immigrants, such as
the physicians Perachyah Cohen, his son Daniel, Aaron Afia (Affius),
and Moses Almosnino, also cultivated philosophy and astronomy to some
extent. But the chief study was that of the Kabbala, in which the
Spaniards, Joseph Taytasak, Samuel Franco, and others, distinguished
themselves. Salonica in Turkey and Safet in Palestine in time became
the chief seats of Kabbalistic extravagance. Of less importance was
Adrianople, the former residence of the Turkish sultans, though there
also, as at Nicopolis, communities in which the Sephardic element
predominated were formed.
To the towns of Amasia, Broussa, Tria and Tokat in Asia Minor, the
Spanish fugitives furnished inhabitants. Smyrna, which later on had
a large Jewish population, was then of little importance. Greece,
however, could show some large communities. Calabrese, Apulian, Spanish
and Portuguese fugitives settled at Arta or Larta, by the side of the
original inhabitants, Rumelians and Corfuites. They seem to have done
well here, for we read that the Jewish youth were much given to gayety
and dancing, thereby greatly offending the ultra-pious. Not unimportant
communities existed at Patras, Negropont and Thebes. The Thebans were
considered very learned in Talmudic lore. The rites of the community of
Corfu were followed by the other Jews of Greece. There was an important
community at Canea, on the island of Candia, belonging to Venice. At
their head were two famous families, the Delmedigos, sons and relatives
of the philosopher Elias del Medigo, and the Kapsalis, connections
of the former chief rabbi of Turkey. Judah Delmedigo (the son of the
teacher of Pico di Mirandola), and Elias ben Elkanah Kapsali, finished
their studies under the same rabbi, Judah Menz, of Padua; nevertheless,
they were not at one in their views. As both held the office of rabbi
at Canea, there was constant friction between them. If the one declared
anything to be permissible, the other exerted all his learning and
ingenuity to prove the contrary; yet both were worthy men of high
principle, and both were well versed in general literature.
Elias Kapsali (born about 1490, died about 1555) was a good historian.
When the plague devastated Candia, and plunged the inhabitants into
mourning, he composed (in 1523) a history of the Turkish dynasty in a
very agreeable Hebrew style, in lucid and elevated language, free from
pompous and barbarous diction. Kapsali merely aimed at relating the
truth. Interwoven with the Turkish narrative was the history of the
Jews, showing in gloomy colors the tragic fate of the Spanish exiles,
as he had heard it from their own lips. Though in this composition
he had the subsidiary intention of cheering the people during the
continuance of the plague, his work may serve as a sample of a fine
Hebrew historical style. It has, indeed, found imitators. Kapsali
forsook the dry diction of the chroniclers, and as an historian was far
superior to his predecessor, Abraham Zacuto. Considering that Kapsali
was a rabbi by profession, and that in consultations and the giving
of opinions he was bound to make use of a corrupt jargon, his work
displays much versatility and talent.
Italy at this period swarmed with fugitive Jews. Most of those driven
from Spain, Portugal and Germany first touched Italian soil, either to
settle there under the protection of some tolerant ruler, or to travel
on to Greece, Turkey, or Palestine. Strangely enough, among the masters
of Italy the popes were most friendly to the Jews: Alexander VI, Julius
II, Leo X, and Clement VII, were pursuing interests, or devoting
themselves to hobbies, which left them no time to think of torturing
Jews. The popes and their cardinals considered the canonical laws only
in so far as they needed them for the extension of their power or to
fill their money-bags. Totally oblivious of the decree of the council
of Basle, which enacted that Christians were not to consult Jewish
physicians, the popes and cardinals themselves chose Jews as their
physicians in ordinary. It appears that, owing to the secret warfare,
the intrigues and the frequent use of poison, which, since Alexander
VI, had been rife in the curia, where every one looked on his companion
as an enemy, Jewish physicians were in favor, because there was no
danger of their offering a pope or cardinal a poisoned cup instead of a
salutary remedy. Alexander VI had a Jewish physician, Bonet de Lates, a
native of Provence, who practiced astrology, prepared an astronomical
circle, and sent the pope the Latin description thereof with a fulsome
dedication. Bonet de Lates afterwards became the favorite physician in
ordinary to Leo X, and influenced his conduct. Julius II had for his
physician Simon Zarfati, who in other respects also enjoyed his masters
confidence. Cardinals and other high princes of the church followed
their examples, and generally intrusted their sacred bodies to Jewish
doctors, who consequently were much sought after in Italy. Following
the example of the popes, the northern Italian cities received fugitive
Jews, even pseudo-Christians re-converted to Judaism, from Spain and
Germany, and admitted them to all the privileges of free intercourse.
Even the popes permitted Marranos to settle at Ancona, notwithstanding
their having been baptized. The most important communities in Italy
were formed, after the annihilation of the Jews of Naples, by an influx
from other countries into Roman and Venetian territory; in the latter,
Venice and the flourishing city of Padua, in the former, Rome and the
port of Ancona, receiving most of them. Two opposite views with regard
to Jews swayed the council of the egotistical Venetian republic. On the
one hand, this commercial state did not wish to lose the advantages
that Jewish connections might bring, though at the same time it was
loath to foster them, for fear of offending the Levantine Jews, their
co-religionists in Turkey; on the other hand, the Venetian merchants
were full of trade envy against Jews. Hence the latter were caressed or
oppressed as the one or the other party predominated in the Signoria.
Venice was the first Italian city wherein Jews resided which set apart
a special quarter as a Ghetto (March, 1516).
As a rule the immigrant Jews, Spaniards or Germans, obtained supremacy
in Italy over native Jews, both in rabbinical learning and communal
relations. The Abrabanels played an important part in Italy. The
head of the family, Isaac Abrabanel, indeed, was too much bowed down
by age and suffering to exercise much influence in any direction. He
died before Jewish affairs had assumed a settled condition. His eldest
son, Leon Medigo, likewise made no impression on his surroundings; he
was too much of a philosophical dreamer and idealist, a poetic soul
averse to dealing with the things of this world. Only the youngest of
the three brothers, Samuel Abrabanel (born 1473, died about 1550) left
his mark on his contemporaries. He was considered the most eminent
Jew in Italy, and his community venerated him like a prince. He alone
inherited his father's financial genius, and, after his return from
the Talmudic college at Salonica, appears to have availed himself
of it, and to have been employed in the department of finance by
the viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro de Toledo. At Naples he acquired a
considerable fortune, valued at more than 200,000 zechins. He employed
his wealth to gratify the disposition hereditary in his family to
practice noble beneficence. The Jewish poet, Samuel Usque, gives an
enthusiastic description of his heart and mind: "Samuel Abrabanel
deserves to be called Trismegistus (thrice great); he is great and wise
in the Law, great in nobility, and great in riches. With his wealth
he is always magnanimous, a help in the sorrows of his brethren. He
joins innumerable orphans in wedlock, supports the needy, and redeems
captives, so that he possesses all the great qualities which make the
prophet."
To increase his happiness heaven had given him a companion in life, the
complement of his high virtues, whose name, Benvenida Abrabanela, was
uttered by her contemporaries with devout veneration. Tender-hearted,
deeply religious, wise and courageous, she was a pattern of refinement
and high breeding, qualities more highly esteemed in Italy than in any
other European country. Don Pedro, the powerful Spanish viceroy of
Naples, allowed his second daughter, Leonora, to be on intimate terms
with Benvenida, that she might learn by her example. When this daughter
afterwards became Duchess of Tuscany, she kept up her acquaintance
with the Jewish lady, and called her by the honored name of mother.
This noble pair, Samuel Abrabanel and Benvenida, in whom tenderness
and worldly wisdom, warm attachment to Judaism and social intercourse
with non-Jewish circles were combined, were at once the pride and the
sheet-anchor of the Italian Jews, and of all who came under their
beneficent influence. Samuel Abrabanel, though not so well versed in
the Talmud as his poetic worshiper represents him to have been, was a
friend and promoter of Jewish knowledge. To fill the office of rabbi at
Naples, he sent for David Ibn-Yachya and his young, courageous wife,
who had fled from Portugal (1518); and, as the congregation was too
small to pay his salary, Abrabanel paid it himself. In his house the
learned Yachya lectured on the Talmud, and probably also on Hebrew
grammar. He thus formed a center for Jewish science in southern Italy.
Christian men of science also resorted to Abrabanel's house.
The chief seat of Talmudic or rabbinical studies was at that time
at Padua, where presided not Italians but immigrant Germans. Judah
Menz, of Mayence, even at his great age of more than a hundred years,
exercised attractive power over studious disciples from Italy, Germany,
and Turkey, as though from his lips they would learn the wisdom of
a time about to pass away. To be a pupil of Menz, was considered a
great honor and distinction. After he died, his son, Abraham Menz,
undertook the direction of the college (1504-1526); but his authority
was not undisputed. The native Jews have in no direction left names of
note. The chronicles mention some famous Jewish-Italian physicians,
who also distinguished themselves in other branches, such as Abraham
de Balmes (1521), of Lecce, physician and friend of Cardinal Grimani.
De Balmes possessed philosophical knowledge, and wrote a work on
the Hebrew language, which was published with a Latin translation
by a Christian. Other Jewish physicians of the same age were Judah,
or Laudadeus de Blanis, at Perugia, a worshiper of the Kabbala, and
Obadyah, or Servadeus de Sforno (Sfurno, born about 1470, died 1550), a
physician of Rome and Bologna, who, besides medicine, studied biblical
and philosophical subjects, and dedicated some of his Hebrew writings
with a Latin translation to King Henry II, of France. But, as far as we
are now able to judge of these highly praised compositions, they are
mediocre, and the authors, even in their own times, enjoyed but local
reputation. It is certain that De Balmes and Sforno are far beneath
Jacob Mantin, who, driven from Tortosa to Italy, there distinguished
himself as a physician and philosopher, leaving a famous name behind
him. Mantin (born about 1490, died about 1549) was a great linguist;
beside his native language and Hebrew, he understood Latin, Italian
and Arabic. He was a deeply learned physician and philosopher, and
translated medical and metaphysical works from Hebrew or Arabic into
Latin. He was held in high esteem as physician by a pope and the
ambassador of Charles V at Venice. But his learning was marred by his
iniquitous character; envy and ambition led him to commit wicked deeds,
to accuse and persecute innocent persons, even his own co-religionists.
In those days there lived in Italy a man, who, though not distinguished
by any brilliant achievement, was superior to nearly all his
co-religionists by a qualification better and rarer than literary
ability. He was gifted with common sense and a fine understanding,
which led him not to judge of things by appearances, or from a limited
point of view. Abraham Farissol (born 1451, died about 1525), a native
of Avignon, for reasons unknown, perhaps from want, had emigrated to
Ferrara. He supported himself by copying books, and also, it would
appear, by officiating as chorister at the synagogue. Though he was
in needy circumstances, and confined within narrow surroundings, his
perception was acute, his horizon wide, and his judgment matured. Like
most of his learned contemporaries in Italy, he commented on the Bible,
and his independence of thought in the midst of the dense credulity of
his time constitutes his claim upon pre-eminence. He said of himself,
"As regards miracles, I belong to those of little faith." Farissol was
the first Jewish author who, instead of studying the starry firmament,
astronomy and astrology (to which Jewish authors of the Middle Ages
were but too much inclined), turned his attention to investigate
the configuration and phenomena of our globe. He was influenced to
undertake these studies by the marvelous discoveries of the southern
coasts of Africa and India by the Portuguese, and of America by the
Spaniards. Penetrating mediæval mist and the deceptive illusions
of fancy, Farissol saw things as they actually are, and deeming it
necessary to point them out, he scoffed at ignorant men who, in their
pseudo-learned conceit, considered geography of no account. He had to
show conclusively that the Book of books, the holy record of the Torah,
attached importance to geographical data, in doing which he indicated a
new point of view for the comprehension of the Bible: it was not to be
explained by allegories and metaphysical or Kabbalistic reveries, but
by actual facts and the plain meaning of the words.
Farissol had access to the court of the duke of Ferrara, Hercules
d'Este I, one of the best princes of Italy, who vied with the
Medici in the promotion of science. The duke took delight in his
conversation, and often invited him to discuss religious questions
with learned monks. It seemed as if frequent religious disputations and
intellectual encounters were to be renewed on Italian soil. Farissol
displayed philosophical calm, besides caution, and forbearance for
the sensibilities of his opponents, when touching upon their weak
points. At the request of the duke of Ferrara, Farissol wrote down in
Hebrew the substance of his discourses with the monks, and reproduced
it in Italian, to give his opponents an opportunity for refutation.
But his polemical and apologetic work is of much less value than his
geographical writings, which he completed in his old age, with one foot
in the grave. They display Farissol's clear mind, common sense and
extensive learning.
The Italian Jews had at least the right of free discussion with
Christians. But as soon as they crossed the Alps into Germany they
breathed raw air, politically as well as atmospherically. Few Sephardic
fugitives visited this inhospitable land. The German population was as
hostile to Jews as the Spanish. True, the Germans had no occasion to
envy Jews on account of the position and influence of Jewish magnates
at royal courts, but they grudged them even their miserable existence
in the Jews' lanes in which they were penned up. They had been banished
from some German districts, from Cologne, Mayence and Augsburg, and
not a Jew was to be found in all Suabia. From other parts they were
expelled at about the same time as from Spain. Emperor Frederick III
to his last hour protected those outlawed by all the world. He even
had a Jewish physician, a rarity in Germany, the learned Jacob ben
Yechiel Loans, whom he greatly favored, and made a knight. Frederick
is said on his death-bed to have strongly recommended the Jews to his
son, enjoining on him to protect them, and not to listen to calumnious
accusations, whose falsity he had fathomed. It appears that Jacob Loans
also enjoyed the favor of Emperor Maximilian, whose lot it was to rule
over Germany in very troublous times. He transferred this favor to
Loans' relatives, for he appointed a certain Joseph ben Gershon Loans,
of Rosheim, in Alsace, as official representative of all German Jews at
the diet. This Joseph (Josselman, Joselin) was distinguished neither
by his rabbinical knowledge, nor his position, nor riches; yet, to a
certain extent, he was the official representative of German Judaism.
His most striking qualities were untiring activity, when it was
necessary to defend his unfortunate co-religionists, his love of truth,
and fervent clinging to his faith and people. Born 1480, died 1555, for
half a century he vigorously protected his co-religionists in Germany,
and became security for them when the ruling powers insisted on special
bail. The Jews, therefore, praised and blessed him as their "Great
Defender."
But the very fact that the German Jews needed a defender proves that
their condition was not easy. For Emperor Maximilian was not a man
of decided character, but was swayed by all kinds of influences and
insinuations; nor did he always follow his father's advice. His conduct
towards the Jews, therefore, was always wavering; now he granted, or
at least promised, them his protection; now he offered his help, if
not for their sanguinary persecution, at least for their expulsion or
humiliation. At times he lent ear to the lying accusations that the
Jews reviled the host, and murdered infants, falsehoods diligently
promulgated by Dominican friars, and, since the alleged martyrdom of
young Simon of Trent, readily believed. Hence, during Maximilian's
reign, Jews were not only expelled from Germany and the adjoining
states, but were hunted down and tortured; they were in daily
expectation of the rack, and of the martyr's death, so that a special
confession of sins was drawn up for such cases, and the innocently
accused, summoned to apostatize, sealed their confession with death,
and joyfully sacrificed themselves for the One God. When, either with
the sanction or by the passive permission of the emperor, Jews were
banished, he felt no compunction in confiscating their property and
turning it into money.
The emperor did not, indeed, expel the Nuremberg community, but for
a pecuniary consideration gave the citizens leave to do so. Yet
Christians presumed to reproach Jews with making money unjustly,
whereas only the rich did so, and then only on a small scale.
Immediately after the emperor's accession, the townsmen of Nuremberg
appealed to him to permit the expulsion of the Jews on account of
"loose conduct." This "loose conduct" was explained in the indictment
to be the reception of foreign co-religionists, whereby the normal
number of Jews had been excessively increased in the town; the practice
of inordinate usury; fraud in recovery of debts, whereby honest
tradesmen had been impoverished, and finally the harboring of rogues
and vagabonds. To stir up hatred against them, and to confirm the Latin
reading (_i. e._, the educated) classes, in the illusion that Jews were
blasphemers, revilers of the host and infanticides, the rich citizen,
Antonius Koberger, had the venomous anti-Jewish _Fortalitium fidei_
of the Spanish Franciscan, Alfonso de Spina, reprinted at his own
expense. After long petitioning, Emperor Maximilian at last granted the
prayer of Nuremberg, "on account of the fidelity with which the town
had ever served the imperial house," abrogated the privileges enjoyed
by the Jews, and allowed the town council to fix a time for their
expulsion, stipulating, however, that the houses, lands, synagogues,
and even the Jewish cemetery should fall to the imperial treasury. He,
moreover, granted to Nuremberg the privilege of being forever exempt
from receiving Jews within its walls (July 5th, 1498). The town council
at first allowed four months only for the exodus--and the cultured,
virtuous and humanity-preaching patrician, Willibald Pirkheimer,
afterwards so strong a pillar of the Humanists, was then a member of
the council! Upon the supplications of the unfortunate people, the
short reprieve was prolonged by three months. But the Jews, summoned to
the synagogue by the sheriffs, had to swear to leave the town by that
time. At last, on March 10th, 1499, the much reduced community left
Nuremberg, to which it had returned after the Black Death.
At about the same time the Jews of other German towns, Ulm, Nordlingen,
Colmar, and Magdeburg, were sent into banishment.
The community of Ratisbon, then the oldest in Germany, was to fare
still worse; even then it heard the warning voice to prepare for
expulsion. Since the inhabitants of that imperial city, through the
disputes with the Jews growing out of the false blood-accusation,
had suffered humiliation and pecuniary loss at the hands of Emperor
Frederick, the former friendly feeling between Jews and Christians had
given way to bitterness and hatred. Instead of attributing to the right
cause the troubles and misfortunes which had come upon the town by its
attempted secession from the empire, the citizens charged the Jews
with being the authors of their misfortunes, and vented their anger on
them. The priests, exasperated by the failure of their plot against
the Jews, daily stirred up the fanaticism of the populace, openly
preaching that the Jews must be expelled. The millers refused to sell
them flour, the bakers, bread (1499), for the clergy had threatened
the tradespeople with excommunication if they supplied them with food.
On certain days Jews were not admitted into the market place, on
others they were allowed to make their purchases only after stated
hours, when the Christians had satisfied their wants. "Under severe
penalties," imposed by the senate, Christians were prohibited from
making purchases for Jews; the former were to "secure the glory of God
and their own salvation" by being cruel to the latter. The town council
seriously discussed applying to Emperor Maximilian to give his consent
to the expulsion of the Jews, allowing about twenty-four families to
remain. For a few years more they were permitted to drag on a miserable
existence. Besides Ratisbon, only two large communities remained in
Germany, viz., at Frankfort-on-the-Main and Worms, and even these were
often threatened with expulsion.
There were many Jews in Prague, but this town was not in Germany
proper; Bohemia was counted a private possession of the crown, under
the rule of Ladislaus, king of Hungary. The Bohemian Jews were not too
well off under him; the Jewish quarter in Prague was often plundered
by the populace. The citizens were sincerely anxious to expel the Jews
from Bohemia. But the latter had their patrons, especially among the
nobility. When, at a diet, the question of the expulsion or retention
of the Jews arose, the decree was passed (August 7th, 1501) that the
crown of Bohemia was for all time to tolerate them. If any one of them
offended against the law, he only was to be punished; his crime was not
to be visited on the whole Jewish community. King Ladislaus confirmed
this decision of the diet, only to break it very shortly after, for the
citizens of Prague were opposed to it, and spared no pains to frustrate
its fulfillment. They so strongly prejudiced the king against the
Jews as to induce him to decree their expulsion, and to threaten with
banishment such Christians as should venture to intercede for them. By
what favorable dispensation they remained in the country is not known.
Though in daily expectation of expatriation, they grew reconciled to
having their habitation on the verge of a volcano. A descendant of the
Italian family of printers, Soncinus, named Gershon Cohen, established
a Hebrew printing office at Prague (about 1503), the first in Germany,
nearly four decades after the foundation of Hebrew printing offices in
Italy.
The Prague community does not seem to have excelled in learning; for
some time not a single scientific work, not even one on a Talmudic
or rabbinical subject, issued from the press of Gershon; it merely
supplied the needs of the synagogue, whilst Italian and Turkish offices
spread important ancient and contemporary works. We find but one
rabbinical authority mentioned in those days: Jacob Polak (born about
1460, died about 1530), the originator of a new method of Talmud study,
a foreigner, and, with the exception of his namesake Jacob Berab,
in the East, the most profound and sagacious Talmudist of his time.
Curiously enough, the astonishing facility of ingenious disquisition on
the basis of the Talmud (Pilpul), attributed to Polak, which attained
its highest perfection in Poland, proceeded from a native of Poland.
After Italy and Turkey, Poland was in those days a refuge for hunted
and exiled wanderers, chiefly for those from Germany. Here, as well as
in Lithuania, united with Poland under one sovereign, Jews enjoyed a
better position than in the neighboring lands beyond the Vistula and
the Carpathians, though the monk Capistrano had for a while interrupted
the good understanding between the government and the Jews.
Kings and the nobility were, to a certain extent, dependent on them,
and, when other interests did not conflict, generally granted them
privileges, because with their capital and commerce they were able
to turn the territorial wealth of the country into money, and to
supply its inhabitants, poor in coin, with the necessary funds. The
farming of the tolls and the distilleries were mostly in the hands
of Jews. It goes without saying that they also possessed land, and
carried on trades. Against 500 Christian there were 3,200 Jewish
wholesale dealers in Poland, and three times as many artificers,
including workers in gold and silver, smiths and weavers. The statute
of Casimir IV, so favorable to Jews, was still in force. For though,
constrained by the fanatical monk Capistrano, he had abrogated it, yet
in view of the advantages that the crown of Poland derived from the
Jews, he re-enacted the same laws a few years after. The Jews were
generally treated as citizens of the state, and were not compelled to
wear ignominious badges; they were also allowed to carry arms. After
the death of this politic king, two opponents arose against them:
on the one hand, the clergy, who saw in the favored position of the
Polish Jews an offense to Christianity, and on the other, the German
merchants, who, long settled in Polish towns, had brought with them
their guilds and old-fashioned prejudices, and hated the Jewish traders
and artificers from sheer envy. United they succeeded in prejudicing
the successors of Casimir, his sons John Albert and Alexander, against
the Jews, so that their privileges were abolished, and the Jews
themselves confined to particular quarters, or even banished altogether
from certain towns (1496-1505). But the next sovereign, Sigismund
I (1506-1548), was favorably disposed towards them, and repeatedly
protected them against persecution and expulsion. The strongest
supporters, however, of the Polish Jews were the Polish nobility, who
hated the Germans from national and political antipathy, and therefore,
both from policy and inclination, favored the Jews, and used them as
their tools against the arrogant Germans. And since the nobles held
the high official posts, the laws against Jews, to the vexation of the
clergy and the guilds, remained a dead letter. Poland, therefore, was
an asylum much sought after by persecuted Jews. If a Jew who had turned
Christian, or a Christian, wished to become a Jew, he could do so as
freely in Poland as in Turkey.
The rabbis were important agents for the crown. They had the privilege
of collecting the poll-tax from the communities and paying it over
to the state. Therefore, the rabbis of large towns, appointed or
confirmed by the king, became chiefs in the administration of communal
affairs, represented the Jews before the crown, and bore the title
of chief rabbi. The rabbis retained the civil jurisdiction, and
were authorized to banish unworthy members, and even to inflict the
punishment of death. But in Poland, the country which for several
centuries was to become the chief home of the Talmud and the nursery
of Talmudic students and rabbis, which was long enveloped, as it were,
in a Talmudic atmosphere, there were no prominent Talmudists at the
beginning of the sixteenth century; it became the home of the Talmud
only after the immigration of numerous German scholars. Coming from
the districts of the Rhine and Main, from Bavaria, Suabia, Bohemia,
and Austria, swarms of Jewish families settled on the banks of the
Vistula and the Dnieper, having lost their fortunes, but bringing with
them their most precious possessions, which they defended with their
lives, and which they could not be robbed of, namely, their religious
convictions, the customs of their fathers, and their Talmudic learning.
The German rabbinical school, which at home had no breathing-space,
established itself in Poland and Lithuania, in Ruthenia and Volhynia,
spread in all directions, and, impregnated with Slavonic elements,
transformed itself into a peculiar, a Polish school.
But the Jewish-German fugitives transplanted to Poland not only the
knowledge of the Talmud, but also that of the German language, as
then spoken; this they imparted to the native Jews, and it gradually
superseded the Polish or Ruthenian tongue. As the Spanish Jews turned
portions of European and Asiatic Turkey into a new Spain, the German
Jews transformed Poland, Lithuania, and the territories belonging
thereto, into a new Germany. For several centuries, therefore, the
Jews were divided into Spanish and German speaking Jews, the Italian
speaking members being too small in number to count, especially as in
Italy the Jews were compelled to understand either Spanish or German.
The Jews settled in Poland gradually cast off their German awkwardness
and simplicity, but not the language. They honored it as a palladium,
as a holy remembrance; and though in their intercourse with Poles they
made use of the language of the country, in the family circle, and in
their schools and prayers, they adhered to German. They valued it, next
to Hebrew, as a holy language. It was a fortunate thing for the Jews
that at the time when new storms gathered over their heads in Germany,
they found on her borders a country which offered them a hospitable
welcome and protection. For a tempest burst in Germany, which had its
first beginnings in the narrow Jewish circle, but eventually drew on
the Jews the attention of all Christendom. An eventful, historical
birth, which was to change the face of European affairs, lay, so to
speak, in a Jewish manger.