I’d like to continue my summary of Jewish history. Here’s what I’ve discussed so far:
Cecil Roth says that Charlemagne was “crowned Emperor at Rome on Christmas Day, 800 AD.” His empire “extended at the outset throughout what is now France, Germany, and North Italy.” At the start of Charlemagne’s reign, there were few Jews in his empire, but he
| patronized the Jews and encouraged their immigration. Charter after charter is extant in which [Charlemagne’s officials] extend protection and privileges to some Jewish merchant. When, in 797, an embassy was sent to [the Caliph] Harun al-Rashid at Baghdad, a Jew named Isaac was attached to it as interpreter. His principals died on the way home; and it was he alone who returned to [Charlemagne’s capital] Aachen, bringing with him in triumph the elephant sent by the Caliph in token of his esteem.1 |
One of the most valuable commodities at this time (as at other times) was slaves, which were often obtained from Slavic lands (“slave” may come from “Slav”). The Catholic Church had no objection to slavery, but couldn’t abide the possession of Christian slaves by non-Christians. So pagan slaves “could often count on freedom, and always on causing their masters a great deal of embarrassment, by requesting baptism.”
Church Councils routinely passed rules to oppress the Jews, and the Church urged the government to enforce these rules. Jews were limited to certain businesses. “Everything was done to ensure that [the Jew] should not attain undue influence in Christian society, and above all, that he should not secure converts to his faith.”
But these rules were often ignored, and Jews spread from the south northward. Northeastern France had “thriving” Jewish communities. One of the attractions of the northeast were the fairs in Champagne, which took place throughout the year.
From eastern France, Jews spread into western Germany. “The boundary between France and Germany was ill-defined. From the Jewish point of view, the whole of the watershed of the Rhine was one. Boys went from Champagne to study with the famous Rabbis of Worms.”
Jews settled in England after settling in France and Germany. Few Jews, if any, lived in England prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Roth says that Jewish civilization was moving from East to West. “The Jew ceases, in fact, to be an Oriental, and becomes a European.” As Jews migrated westward, they managed to preserve their civilization, though it was based on Hebrew, which wasn’t a spoken language. Roth writes,
| To keep alive a cultural life when it is no longer rooted in the soil nor even based upon a living language, to transfer it from country to country, and to develop it homogeneously notwithstanding a succession of different environments, is a delicate task. Their triumphant achievement of this is a phenomenon which distinguishes the Jews from all other peoples of history. |
Arab conquests, around 700 AD, enabled Jewish culture to spread from Mesopotamia through North Africa to Spain. Spanish-Jewish culture “constitutes a chapter of unexampled brilliance in the history of Jewish literature and thought.” This brilliance left its mark on Western philosophy:
Perhaps the leading Spanish-Jewish writer in medieval times was Judah Halevi, who’s remembered chiefly for his poetry. Roth writes,
| Nothing Jewish, and nothing human, was strange to [Halevi’s] muse — neither the pleasures of friendship, nor the ecstasies of passion, nor the grandeurs of nature, nor the mysteries of religion. Above all, he developed a transcendental passion for the Holy Land: and his hymns to Zion compare in their heart-rending appeal to the greatest love-lyrics in world literature. |
Halevi’s religious poems have a place, Roth says, in the ritual of Sephardic Jews (“Sephardic” is from the Hebrew “Sepharad,” meaning “Spain”).
Halevi wrote some philosophical works, as well as poetry. Halevi was born in Spain around 1075 AD, and had “a first-hand acquaintance with three cultures — the Christian, the Arabic, and the Jewish.” At the end of his life, Halevi attempted to visit Palestine, but didn’t make it. Elsewhere I quoted Goitein: “[When] Judah Halevi describes how, while rising from his sleep at midnight, he was overcome by the majestic beauty of the starlit sky, we believe with all our hearts that he has actually had that experience.”
While Jewish poetry was flourishing in Spain, Talmud scholarship was flourishing further north. Here the leading light was “Rashi,” who was born in Troyes in Champagne around 1040, studied at Worms, then returned to his hometown. This was the world of the Ashkenazi Jews (from the Hebrew “Ashkenaz,” meaning “Germany”). Ashkenazi Jews usually spoke Yiddish (a mix of German, Hebrew, and other languages), while Sephardic Jews usually spoke a version of Arabic, or a version of Spanish. As poets, northern Jews were no match for Spanish Jews; as Roth says, “When the Jew of northern Europe turned his attention to poetry there was little of the lighter touch: it was generally harsh, highly allusive, and preoccupied by martyrology or religious problems.”
The great Jewish philosopher Maimonides combined (Roth says) the “humanism” of Spanish-Jewish culture, with the “practical interests” of the northern Jews. Maimonides was born in Spain in 1135. His family was “long distinguished for its learning.” When he was 13, his native city (Córdoba) was captured by Berber armies (“the Almohadan fanatics”), and his family was driven into exile. They went first to Morocco, before settling in Egypt.
“[Egypt] was the seat of a Jewish community of immemorial antiquity, which had flourished again under Arab rule.” Egypt had escaped the wave of Berber fanaticism that had swept over North Africa and Spain. Roth writes,
| The literature of this period, from complete juridical treatises down to the most insignificant personal notes, was brought to light not long ago, after many centuries of total oblivion, in the Geniza, or Lumber-Room, of one of the old synagogues at Cairo — one of the most spectacular rediscoveries of modem times. |
S. D. Goitein wrote a 5-volume work based on Geniza documents.
Like Judah Halevi and many other Jewish intellectuals, Maimonides was a physician. One of his patients was the ruler of Egypt, Saladin, who was famous for his victory over the Crusaders (Saladin captured Jerusalem in 1187).
Maimonides was a wide-ranging thinker. “He took the whole corpus of traditional Judaism, theoretical and practical, and reduced it to order. From all parts of the Jewish world men appealed to him for advice.” He wrote in both Arabic and Hebrew.
In his time, Aristotle’s philosophy was popular with Muslim scholars and Christian scholars. Maimonides tried to show that Aristotle’s rational approach was compatible with Judaism — one didn’t need to choose between Aristotle and Judaism, one could have both. Maimonides’ best-known work is The Guide for the Perplexed. The “perplexed” were those who tried to understand Biblical passages in a literal sense; the “guide” showed how these passages could be understood figuratively.
Like other rational thinkers, Maimonides couldn’t accept that prophets anticipated the future; Roth speaks of his “intellectualization of the faculty of prophecy.” The Guide was “written in Judeo-Arabic, a dialect of Classical Arabic that used the Hebrew alphabet.”2
Though Maimonides was regarded by many Jews as the leading scholar of his time, his work was controversial, especially after his death; his work triggered disputes among Jewish scholars. “An unprecedented acrimony made itself felt in the dispute.... Famous Rabbis hurled excommunications and counter-excommunications at one another.”
Jewish scholars were known for their translations. Roth says that, around 1200 AD, Arab civilization was “on the wane,” so an Arab text by Maimonides might find more readers if it was translated into Hebrew. A Jewish family named Ibn Tibbon translated Maimonides and other writers. This family lived in Provence, which Roth describes as a bridge between Spain and northern Europe — a bridge “geographically, spiritually, and linguistically.”
Jewish translators sometimes compiled Hebrew dictionaries and grammars, thereby helping Christian scholars to learn Hebrew. Texts in Hebrew were sometimes translated into Latin. Jewish translators worked, not only in Provence, but also at the court of Frederick II in Palermo, Sicily.
In 1095, Pope Urban II preached about the desecration of Christian holy places in Palestine, and about violence against Christian pilgrims. He called for a crusade of Christian soldiers, to reclaim the Holy Land, and protect pilgrims. Thus began a series of crusades that lasted for two centuries.
Pope Urban II preached at Clermont (mount of light), but Jews called it the mount of darkness (Har Ophel), because for Jews, the Crusades were a dark time. Jews were often massacred by Crusaders traveling through Europe. It seemed “supremely illogical” to Crusaders to travel a long distance to fight infidels, while leaving infidels in Europe untouched. Didn’t the Jews kill Christ? “Certain Crusading leaders had vowed that the blood of Christ should be avenged in the blood of the Jews.”
Roth says that burghers and bishops often tried to protect Jewish communities, but “wild hordes of ill-armed peasantry” thirsted for blood. In 1096, there were massacres at Metz, Worms, Mainz, Prague, and as far east as Salonica in Greece. Some Jews, if the situation seemed hopeless, committed suicide; others left money with Christian neighbors, to cover their burial expenses.
The First Crusade culminated in 1099, with the capture of Jerusalem, which had a Jewish community. “The steep streets of the Holy City ran with blood, and all the surviving Jews [were] driven into one of the synagogues, which was then set on fire.”
Jews wondered if perhaps these sufferings were the prelude to the coming of the Messiah. “Now, more than ever before, they anticipated the speedy coming of the Messiah to comfort them and restore them to their own land.” Jewish communities remembered their sufferings, they kept lists of those who had been killed on particular days; history was martyrology; massacres were commemorated in the liturgy.
After the First Crusade, many Jews returned to their homes, and for fifty years, “the land had rest.” The Second Crusade took place around 1150. It was inspired by the preaching of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. There were some massacres of Jews, but violence was kept within “comparatively moderate bounds,” with Bernard insisting that Jews “should on no account be molested.”
The Second Crusade was a failure, the Christian armies being defeated by the Turks as they passed through Asia Minor. When the remnants of the Christian armies approached the Holy Land, they attempted to capture Damascus, and were repulsed.
The Third Crusade took place around 1190. “With the Third Crusade, the infection spread to England,” and Jews were massacred, first in London, then in other English cities. Roth writes,
| The culminating point was reached in York, where, after a preliminary attack, the Jews sought refuge in the Castle and held out for some time against a regular siege. In the end, seeing that there was no possibility of deliverance, they resolved to deprive their enemies at least of the delights of massacre. Led by their Rabbi, all the heads of families killed their wives and children, and then each other. When on the next morning... the gates of the Castle were opened, barely a soul was found alive to tell the tale of that awful night. It was noteworthy that in this case the ringleaders in the riot were members of the lesser baronage who had financial transactions with the Jews, and whose religious ardor was certainly heightened, if not occasioned, by their financial indebtedness. |
The Third Crusade aimed to capture Jerusalem, which had been seized by Saladin in 1187. It failed to capture Jerusalem, but it captured “most of the coastline of the Levant.” A treaty was signed with Saladin, allowing unarmed Christians to enter Jerusalem.
Now that Christians had developed “a taste for blood,” they didn’t need “the pretext of a Crusade.” Jews were accused of child murder, ritual murder, and were massacred for those alleged crimes. The heads of Church and State condemned these accusations against Jews, but the accusations continued. The alleged victims of ritual murder were venerated as saints. “In May 1171 the charge (unsubstantiated on this occasion even by the discovery of a body) led to the execution by burning of almost the whole [Jewish] community of Blois, including seventeen women. As they died, the bystanders heard a hymn chanted in unison from the midst of the pyre: it was the sublime monotheistic confession, Alenu.”
Later another accusation was leveled against Jews: it was said that a wafer, which had been consecrated and had become the body of Christ, had been tortured by Jews, and had emitted blood. This wild accusation gained credence, Roth says, partly because a wafer can, indeed, develop red mold. “The first instance on record is that of Beelitz, near Berlin, in 1243, when a large number of Jews and Jewesses were burned at the stake... upon this charge. Later on, cases of the sort, with their accompaniment of pillage, bloodshed, and banishment, were recurrently brought up all over Europe.”
And there were other accusations against Jews. If a fire broke out, Jews were accused of starting it. If a plague broke out, and Jews contracted the disease first, they were said to have introduced it; and if Jews didn’t contract it, they were also accused of introducing it. Civil strife led to accusations against Jews: “Kings accused them of complicity with rebels, and rebels asserted that they were the instruments of the king. Sometimes, no pretext at all was necessary for an attack to be made, other than the imminence of the Easter season with its reminiscences of the Passion.”
On the other hand, Roth reminds us that, during the Middle Ages, life was cheap, and violent death common — for Jews and non-Jews alike. “The tribulations of the Jew were not therefore so exceptional in kind as is generally supposed.” But the Jew was a perfect target for violent passions, being an ethnic minority and a religious minority. Jews were often affluent, hence worth plundering. For all these reasons, Jews suffered much in medieval Christendom. “It was not until the Middle Ages were at an end, until law and order became generally established, and until in western Europe at least a fresh value had been placed on human life, regardless of race and creed, that the condition of the Jew began to ameliorate, and that his existence in normal times became reasonably secure.”
Roth distinguishes between the medieval north and the medieval south. In northern Europe (France, Germany, England), religion was treated with grim seriousness, the Crusading spirit was strong, and Jews were outsiders ethnically and religiously. The result was persecution. In Italy and Spain, on the other hand, “religion was not as yet taken quite so seriously,” the Crusading spirit was weaker, and there were multiple ethnic groups, so Jews could blend in more easily.
Arabs had come to Italy in Roman times (as slaves or businessmen), and Arabs had come to Spain as conquerors around 715 AD. Jews didn’t stand out as much in the multi-ethnic societies of Italy and Spain; Roth speaks of, “the intermixture of peoples and influences” in Italy and Spain.
There was less persecution in southern Europe; “In Italy, above all, the path of the Jews was comparatively smooth.” The Pope had considerable clout in Italy, and the Pope advocated toleration. Roth writes,
| In the Papal dominions, alone almost in all Europe, the Jews never knew the last extremes of massacre and expulsion.... A protective Bull of Calixtus II, Sicut Judaeis, which strongly condemned physical attacks upon the Jews or their baptism under duress, was confirmed at least twenty-two times from its first promulgation in 1120 down to the middle of the fifteenth century. |
Greece seems to have been less hospitable to Jews than Italy; Roth speaks of “Byzantine fanaticism,” and “bursts of oppression and attempts to enforce conformity.”
In Spain, the Christian kingdoms in the north were expanding, the Muslim realm in the south was contracting. In 1085, the Christian king of Castile (Alfonso VI) captured Toledo, and more than half of Spain was in Christian hands. Initially, the Christian kingdoms had treated Jews roughly, but they became more tolerant; they needed Jewish help in their conflicts with other Christian kingdoms, and in their conflicts with Muslims; they needed multi-lingual Jews for diplomacy, and they needed Jewish medical knowledge.
Tradition says that Jews in Spain flourished under Muslim rule, and languished under Christian rule. Roth rejects this view. He says that Christian kings were more tolerant than Berber-Muslim regimes; he points out that Maimonides fled Spain because of Berber persecution. Many Jews fled Berber persecution in the south, and went to Christian kingdoms further north. Roth says that Jews “reached the zenith of their prosperity” in Christian Spain under Alfonso VI, who reigned from 1065 to 1109. Christian Toledo had some 10,000 Jews and “numerous magnificent synagogues.”
In the early 1200s, however, the Crusading spirit began to enter Spain. A holy war against Muslim Spain was declared, and knights from around Europe came to Spain. As in northern Europe, the Crusaders began by attacking Jewish neighborhoods.
In 1212, Christian forces decisively defeated Muslim forces, and “the territory subject to the Crescent [i.e., the territory ruled by Muslims] was reduced to insignificance.” Since the Christians reigned supreme, they no longer needed the Jews. Roth writes,
| The fierce religious intolerance... which prevailed in the rest of Europe, began to penetrate the Peninsula. Political maltreatment and popular outbreaks became more common.... Even Alfonso the Wise [reigned 1252-1284], whose court was one of the greatest centers of Jewish scientific activity, subjected them in his famous code known as the Siete Partidas to the most minute and galling restrictions, though these were not enforced until some time later. |
The tide was turning, Spain was becoming inhospitable toward the Jews.
In 1920, Churchill published an article called “Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People.” Churchill takes a negative view of Bolshevism, and a positive view of Zionism.
The article begins, “Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.” Churchill says that the Jews developed Christian ethics, “incomparably the most precious possession of mankind.” He says that Jews are now creating Marxism, which is “as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent.... It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people.” Churchill writes,
| There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. |
Churchill says there are good Jews and bad Jews, and the good ones are loyal to the nations in which they live: “In our own Army, Jewish soldiers have played a most distinguished part, some rising to the command of armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for valor.” On the other side of the ledger are the “international Jews,” a “sinister confederacy” with no loyalty to their host nation, and no loyalty to the faith of their fathers. Churchill writes,
| This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. |
Churchill refers respectfully to the writings of Nesta Helen Bevan Webster. Webster contributed to The Jewish Peril, and “claimed that the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was an ‘open question.’” That a person of Churchill’s stature would read Webster, and praise her writings, shows how widely anti-Semitic literature was disseminated around 1920, and how much traction it had.
Churchill says that Jews played a leading role in the “system of terrorism” that prevailed in Russia around 1918; this terrorism was called “Combating Counter-Revolution.” “The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary.”
Churchill welcomes Zionism, viewing it as an antidote to Marxism, a magnet that could draw Jews away from Marxism. Churchill praises Balfour’s “statesmanship and historic sense” (Arthur Balfour advanced the cause of a Jewish homeland with the 1917 “Balfour Declaration”). Did Churchill realize that a Jewish state in Palestine would be fiercely resisted by Arabs?
Churchill notes that Marxist Jews like Trotsky were vehemently opposed to Zionism; Marxist Jews realized that Zionism is a “powerful competing influence.” The struggle between Zionism and Bolshevism is “a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people.” Marxism is a dream of a Golden Age; Zionism is also a dream of a Golden Age.
In a recent issue, I discussed Hilaire Belloc’s 1922 book on the Jews. Belloc and Churchill are in agreement; Belloc was probably familiar with Churchill’s essay, and may have been influenced by it. Belloc and Churchill view Marxism as one of the gravest threats that civilization has ever faced, and they view the Marxist menace as a Jewish menace. It’s easy to see how Hitler could present himself as a savior, defending civilization, battling the Marxist-Jewish menace, and appealing to the ancient anti-Semitism of the mob.
Churchill became famous long before World War II, because of his adventurous life, his writings, and his leading role in politics. When he was in Germany in 1932, researching his book on Marlborough, Hitler wanted to meet him, or Ernst Hanfstaengl wanted to arrange a meeting. Churchill said something to the effect, “Yes, I’ll meet him. I’ll ask him why he’s against the Jews.” It seems that this was relayed to Hitler, who lost interest in meeting Churchill.3
For more on Churchill and the Jews, see Gertrude Himmelfarb’s The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England from Cromwell to Churchill.
© L. James Hammond 2024
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| Footnotes | |
| 1. | Cecil Roth, A Short History of the Jewish People, illustrated edition 1948, Ch. 16, p. 165. Harun al-Rashid was Caliph from 786 to 809 AD. “His reign is traditionally regarded as the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age.... Harun established the legendary library Bayt al-Hikma (‘House of Wisdom’) in Baghdad... and during his rule Baghdad began to flourish as a world center of knowledge, culture and trade.”(Wikipedia) Baghdad was “the world’s largest city by then.”(Wikipedia) One cause of the decline of this civilization was Mongol invasion; the Mongols captured Baghdad in 1258. back |
| 2. | Wikipedia back |
| 3. | There are several versions of this story. Wikipedia says, “In the course of the conversation with Hanfstaengl, Churchill asked, ‘Why is your chief [i.e., Hitler] so violent about the Jews? I can quite understand being angry with the Jews who have done wrong or who are against the country, and I understand resisting them if they try to monopolize power in any walk of life; but what is the sense of being against a man because of his birth? How can a man help how he is born?’ Hanfstaengl, according to Churchill, must have related this to Hitler because the next day [Hanfstaengl] came to the hotel to tell Churchill that Hitler would not be coming to see him after all.”
The Churchill Project at Hillsdale College has another version of the story. In this version, Churchill says to Hanfstaengl, “Tell your boss from me that anti-Semitism may be a good starter, but it is a bad sticker.” back |