A.D. 1500-1600.
THE JEWS IN ASIA AND AFRICA.
We have now recorded the fortunes of the Jews, during the sixteenth
century, in all the countries of Europe where a domicile was allowed
them, as well as in Spain and Portugal, where, though banished by
law, they were still, under a nominal profession of Christianity,
permitted to linger. We have now once again to transfer our attention
to eastern and southern lands, in which, under Mahometan rule, they
found a more merciful refuge. Before doing so, however, it is proper
to repeat the remark already made, that, although legally forbidden,
during those centuries, to enter several of the European kingdoms, it
is far from certain that they were not to be found in them, and that
in no inconsiderable numbers, though doubtless they were careful to
keep out of sight as much as possible. Reference has been made to a
Spanish historian, who says that ‘many of the Spanish exiles fled to
England, establishing themselves in three of the largest towns—Dover,
York, and London—and that they built synagogues in the last-named
city, where they afterwards carried on a thriving trade.’ ‘From
1291 to 1655,’ writes a pamphleteer in 1753, ‘the Jews have run the
hazard, as they do in another country [doubtless Spain], where so
many of them have expired, and annually still expire in the flames;
but meeting all along with lenitives [merciful usage], they have made
true one of our English proverbs of claiming an ell’s longitude for
an inch’s allowance.’[177]
In France it is certain that they were tolerated, so long, probably,
as they did not make themselves conspicuous. Rabbi Joseph relates
that Henry II. allowed certain Jews from Mauritius to reside in the
French cities, and in 1550 granted them his protection and various
privileges. His father and his queen, Catherine de Medici, had
Jewish physicians, who were high in favour with their employers.
We are told that the Parliament of Paris condemned in severe terms
the inhuman conduct of the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal; and
that many of the Portuguese emigrants were suffered to establish
themselves at Bordeaux and Bayonne, where they have since resided
without molestation. The same, no doubt, was the case among the
German States; where, if the Jews were persecuted in one city, it was
comparatively easy to fly for shelter to another.
So likewise in Russia. The Jews have never been readmitted to the
provinces from which they were originally driven out. But Russia has
in modern times acquired by conquest extensive territories in which
there was a large Hebrew population. She did not carry her dislike
so far as to expel them from her new dominions, and has as many as
two millions of Jewish subjects. But her feelings towards them have
undergone but little change.
Doubtless many of the Spanish and Portuguese fugitives betook
themselves to one or other of the above-named countries. But it is
tolerably certain that the great mass chose the Mussulman kingdoms in
Asia and Africa as their future abiding-places. Whether it was due to
the scorn, the calm indifference, or the compassion, with which the
Mahometan princes regarded them, it is certain that they permitted
them the free exercise of their religion, and the full possession of
civil rights. In Persia and Media, even before the Spanish exodus,
they seem to have been very numerous, though the particulars recorded
respecting them are extremely scanty. During Timour’s wars, they
naturally suffered, among all the other inhabitants of Persia, from
the inroads of his savage soldiery, which took little account of the
difference of creed among those whom they attacked and conquered.
We are informed that their synagogues were wrecked, their schools
destroyed, and great numbers of them slain in the capture of cities.
These troubles had hardly subsided when the irruption of the fierce
Shah Ismail Sofi once more threw everything into disorder. His rapid
and signal success is said to have produced such an effect upon them,
that they were persuaded he must be the Messiah who was to come. The
idea was encouraged by the fact that Ismail had declared himself to
be a prophet sent from God to reform the corruptions of Islamism.
But he received their homage very coldly[178]—indeed, is said to
have treated them with less consideration than any others of his new
subjects.
One of his successors, Shah Abbas, a generation or two afterwards,
brought about a severe persecution of the Jews in his dominions,
though in a very singular manner. He had issued a proclamation
granting great privileges to such strangers as should settle in
his dominions. The Jews immediately availed themselves of this,
and crowded in such numbers into the country that they speedily
engrossed the trade. This was no more than was their ordinary wont;
but Shah Abbas’s subjects were greatly aggrieved, and made bitter
complaints to the king. Thereupon he made a very minute inquiry into
their peculiar habits and opinions, possibly in order to find some
excuse for banishing them from the land. Learning that they had long
expected the arrival of their Messiah, and were still waiting for
Him, he insisted on it that they should name some time by which, if
He had not made His appearance, they should admit their belief to
be unfounded, and conform to Mahometanism. After long consultation
among themselves, they told Shah Abbas that they would agree to fix
seventy years as the prescribed limit—doubtless arguing that most
probably all concerned, but certainly Shah Abbas, would be dead
before the arrival of that day. The king received the reply with
gravity, and caused it to be formally registered, and deposited in
the archives of the kingdom. It is probable that the memory of it
died out even before the end of Shah Abbas’s reign. At all events,
when the appointed period approached, wars and commotions of one
kind or another occupied men’s minds, and no attention was paid to
the subject. But, more than a hundred years afterwards, Shah Abbas
II., in an unlucky hour, chanced to light upon his ancestor’s decree.
It was of course found that, although the seventy years had long
expired, and the expected Messiah had not made His appearance, the
Jews had not adopted the Moslem faith, nor were they disposed to do
so now. Here was a clear proof of their treachery and falsehood; and
the consequence was a massacre which is said to have lasted for three
years, those only escaping who abjured their religion, or fled into
Turkey on one side, or India on the other. After a while, however, it
was found that the supposed converts, though nominally Mahometans,
as their brethren in Spain had professed to be Christians, were in
reality Jews at heart. Wiser than Ferdinand and his successors, Shah
Abbas recalled his decree, and allowed the pretended Mussulmans to
return to their real creed.
But little is known of the Jews in the Eastern Empire during the
period preceding the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, in
1453. But, a generation or two after that event, large numbers
were to be found both in Constantinople itself and other parts of
the Sultan’s European dominions. The Spanish exiles who resorted
thither found a large number of synagogues already in existence,
served by a priesthood in no way inferior to what their own had been
at home. They did not, however, amalgamate with these, but built
new synagogues in Constantinople, Jerusalem, Damascus, Saloniki,
and other great cities, each of which long afterwards retained the
name of the original builders, one being called the synagogue of
Toledo, another of Lisbon, another of Aragon, and the like. The
Turkish government treated them with great liberality, allowing them
unrestricted freedom in establishing manufactures and transacting
commerce, permitting them also to hold landed property. Whatever
amount of their wealth had been stripped from them by their Spanish
persecutors, we may be sure, was now speedily recovered. Nor does
it appear that they were subjected to any excessive exactions. They
paid a certain amount of taxes, no doubt, and were occasionally
liable to arbitrary demands, from which no one in the East is secure;
but, on the whole, they were mercifully dealt with. Here too, as
in all other lands where they have resided, their great financial
and diplomatic ability was utilized by the Turkish rulers. Selim I.
(A.D. 1512) trusted much to his Jewish physician, Joseph Hamon. His
son, Solyman II., called ‘the Magnificent’ (A.D. 1520), similarly
employed Moses Hamon, the son of Joseph, who, by his influence with
his royal master, on one occasion saved the whole of his people
from massacre.[179] Solomon Ashkenasi was selected as the Sultan’s
agent to conduct a negotiation with the Venetian Republic. Joseph
Nasi obtained such favour with Selim II. (A.D. 1566) that he was
made Duke of Naxos, and was even designated King of Cyprus, though
that intention was never carried out. After the disastrous battle of
Lepanto, another Jew, Solomon Rophé, was sent to arrange a treaty of
peace with the Venetians.
The Spanish Jews, among their other effects, brought their
printing-presses into Turkey, where, by the favour of the Sultans,
they were set up. At Constantinople and at Saloniki they were soon in
active employment. The Old Testament Scriptures in Hebrew and Spanish
were printed and largely circulated, as well as many Jewish writings
which had hitherto remained in manuscript. At Saloniki a famous
college was established, at which there were said to be as many as
5000 students. There was also a valuable library, which unfortunately
was destroyed by fire in 1545.
The Holy Land is another country to which, as we might naturally
expect, refugees from other lands resorted. It had always been
regarded as a befitting thing for Jews of an advanced age to make
a pilgrimage thither, and die among the hallowed scenes of their
cherished traditions. With every persecution in European countries
the number of these increased; and at the beginning of the sixteenth
century Palestine was filled with swarms of Israelites, who, as a
rule, were poor and destitute, and suffered greatly from the rapacity
of Turkish officials. The Jewish communities in other parts of the
world regarded it as their duty to support these needy brethren, and
in larger cities collections were regularly made in the synagogues
for this purpose. As no attempt apparently was made to provide them
with the means of supporting themselves,—and possibly none could have
been made with success,—the distress was always considerable, and
after the Spanish exodus rose to a still greater height.
Another quarter to which large numbers of the expelled Jews migrated
was the northern coast of Africa. This was a region already familiar
to them. Egypt had, for a great length of time, been a favourite
place of abode with them, and this had more particularly been the
case since the time of Maimonides. Schools had been established in
Cairo, Damietta, and other Egyptian towns, to which great numbers of
students resorted. In the kingdom of Morocco, again, the banished
Jews settled in great numbers. This was, indeed, the nearest country
to Spain, Portugal excepted, and communications had for a long time
been kept up between the inhabitants of the two kingdoms. In Tripoli
also, Oran, Fez, Tunis, and Algiers, many Jewish families established
themselves. But they did not receive the same friendly welcome which
their brethren experienced in the East. They were allowed liberty of
conscience, no doubt, and the protection of the law; but that was all
the favour accorded them. The authorities laid heavy burdens on them,
and at times exacted large sums as subsidies, after a fashion which
greatly resembled the dealings of the English and French sovereigns
several centuries before. The lower orders looked on them with
fanatical prejudice, and they were obliged to wear black turbans, and
boots of a different colour from those of the natives of the country.
Yet their position, on the whole, was not unhappy. They were largely
employed in the iron-works among the mountains of Morocco, as well as
in building and agriculture.
One feature in their history deserves especial mention. In 1578, when
the ill-fated expedition of Sebastian of Portugal took place, large
numbers of Portuguese nobles and gentlemen were made prisoners, and
sold as slaves in the market-places of the chief towns of Morocco.
Many of these were bought by Portuguese Jews, who must have been
sorely tempted to requite the injuries themselves and their fathers
had received on these captives, who were wholly at their mercy. But
they took a nobler revenge. They not only exacted no ransom of them,
but allowed them to return to their homes, requiring of them no other
condition than that of passing their word of honour that they would,
on arriving in Portugal, remit to their former masters the sums that
had been paid for their redemption from slavery. History has recorded
few nobler actions.
FOOTNOTES:
[177] _Some Observations of a London Merchant about the Bill for
the Naturalization of the Jews_, A.D. 1753. The writer had probably
conversed with persons who remembered the state of things in England
before the readmission of the Jews. As regards the assertion of the
Spanish historian, therefore, there is very reasonable likelihood of
the Jews having been allowed to live without molestation in England
during the reigns of the Tudors. Indeed, as Disraeli has remarked,
if there had been no Jews in England, Sir E. Coke would hardly have
insisted so forcibly on their not being admissible as witnesses. But
the statement respecting the building and public use of synagogues
must be taken with reservation. The expulsion from Spain occurred a
little before the close of the fifteenth century. Scarcely more than
fifty years afterwards we find Cromwell’s divines declaring that ‘for
the Jews to have synagogues, or any public meetings for worship, was
not only evil, but scandalous to Christian churches.’ Surely they
could not have said this, if synagogues had so recently existed in
London, and worship been celebrated in them!
[178] This king seems to have had a dislike to excessive homage,
which was a rare feature in an Eastern prince. It is recorded of him
that on one occasion, after one of his great victories, his soldiers
saluted him with Oriental adulation, some declaring him to be a
prophet, others an angel, and others God Himself. Finding that he
could not dissuade them from their impiety, he ordered a deep pit to
be dug, and then, throwing one of his shoes into it, gave out that
the man who honoured him most was to fetch it out. Numbers instantly
threw themselves into the pit. He then gave orders to have the earth
thrown back again, burying the whole of his worshippers alive!
Doubtless none ever offered him adoration again.
[179] A Turk, having reason to suspect one of his neighbours of an
attempt to seduce his wife, assassinated him, and to escape suspicion
threw the corpse into the Jewish quarter. It was found there, and
occasioned a popular insurrection, in which the Jews would have been
murdered to a man, if Moses Hamon had not prevailed on Solyman to
order an inquiry, by which the truth was elicited.