In 1244, the Mongols, under Möngke Khan’s rule, invaded Syria and after savage progress, Egypt and Syria became vassal states under the authority of the Mongol forces but without full occupation. The Mongols were initially tolerant of all religions and they themselves followed Buddhism, Shamanism and Tenriism and many followers of different religions were found as officials within the empire; it was only later that some Mongol leaders embraced Islam. Meanwhile, in Palestine by 1250, it was estimated that only 200 Jews remained within Jerusalem. As to the Jews under the Mongols, we need to set the situation in the context of what was happening in Christian Europe and other places before we turn to consider the long reign of the Ottomans.
In 1253 in England, Henry III introduced a statute of Jewry which reflected what was happening elsewhere in Europe after the Seventh Crusade. One reaction to Henry’s statute and abuse was men like Elias l’Eveske, the arch-presbyter of England’s Jews, applied to leave the country but was refused. In 1254, Simon de Montfort revolted against Henry. In his charter, De Montfort’s stated, ‘No Jew or Jewess in my time, or in the time of any of my heirs to the end of the world, shall inhabit or remain, or obtain a residence in Leicester.’ Such a mood prevailed in England and subsequently, in 1263, a slaughter of Jews ensued:
‘In the week before Palm Sunday, the Jewry in London was wantonly destroyed, and more than five hundred Jews “murdered by night in sections” – none escaping, seemingly, except those whom the mayor and the justiciars had sent to the Tower before the massacre began’
In 1254, Louis IX expelled the Jews from France, stealing their property and confiscating their synagogues. Matthew Parish wrote of the Jews of that time, ‘See how the king of France hates you and persecutes you.’
A severe blow to the Islamic hold in the Middle East was inflicted by the Mongols in 1258, when Genghis Khan’s grandson, Hulegu, laid siege to and captured the Islamic centre of Baghdad. The city’s population was massacred along with caliph Al-Mustasim but the Mongols showed favour to Christians and the Shia Moslems but were hostile to the Sunni Moslems who they considered their enemies. This was the beginning of the end for the Ayyubids who were finally destroyed in 1260, when Syria was conquered by the Mongols who now numbered some Christians within their ranks. In the same year, they were carrying out raids into Palestine beginning to threaten the hold of the Islamic power but they came to a halt when the Islamic Mamluks met them in battle at Ain Jalut in Galilee and there defeated a depleted Mongol army. Eventually, the Mongols would lose Syria and Mamluk’s rule dominated the region including the city of Jerusalem. The tragedy of the Jewish people throughout all this was recorded by Nahmanides, a noted Jewish scholar, who arrived in Jerusalem in 1267. He found a ‘Judea devastated’ with the buildings of many cities in ruins. He himself found only ‘two self-supporting Jews’ in Jerusalem itself. The continual wars over Palestine and the bloody conflict the Jews had experienced once more stirred in them the belief that the troubles were the fore-runner of the Messiah. Unfortunately, that was not to be.
In Vienna, in 1267, the Jews were forced to wear a distinctive coned shaped headdress as well as the yellow badge they were already compelled to wear, whilst in Poland, not for the last time, the Jews were ordered to be separated into ghettos by the church Synod of Breslau and ordered to also wear a pointed hat. Fortunately, on this occasion the orders were not enforced but they reinforced the deep anti-Semitism of the time. Edward I of England, son of Henry III, also was opposed to the advancement of Jews, considering them and their property as his own. One of his first acts as king was to insist that any property held by a Jew should be restored into Christian hands and the original loan be repaid to the Jews and he would then extract money from them. The Jews also had to wear the distinctive yellow badge and their loathing by the populace saw many petitions to the king to expel them from the country. Following the expulsion of Jews, he received substantial sums from the clergy and laity to show their favour. In France, Louis IX may have been cured of an illness but the experience had not cured him of his desire to continue the Crusade and he made another attempt in 1270, but his death in Tunis brought it to nothing. Jerusalem and most of Palestine were still under Islamic control. Before he was crowned, Edward I was the last to lead a Crusade to Palestine, in 1271. Initially he had some success in his campaign, but he never had enough resources to attempt to take Jerusalem from the Moslems. There was also the background of divisions within the Christian kingdoms and after retiring to Acre, Edward returned home to England. In 1276, in Fez, a massacre of Jews occurred that would have wiped out the entire community but for the intervention of the emir. In Germany, in 1283 and 1285, there were more Blood Libel allegations leading to the death of hundreds of Jews. Edward I of England had allowed the Jews to remain until he had no longer need of their money and in 1287 imprisoned them all and demanded a ransom of £12,000 (£14.25m, 2017) for their release. When this was paid, they were banished from the country in 1298. In the same year in Germany, another massacre began that is estimated to have killed up to 100,000 Jews over a few years.
In the Middle East in 1300, the Mongols made a brief re-appearance in an attempt to extend power in the region, but this lasted only a few months and the Mamluks successfully repelled them. Acre would finally be taken by the Mamluks and by 1303 the Crusaders had finally been driven out of the Holy Land. The territory was now fully under Islamic control and after 208 years, the Christian world had failed to gain authority over the Jewish homeland. The Mamluks would retain their hold until the sixteenth century and under their reign, the condition of the Jews was no different from the other non-Moslem religions. All such religions were treated as inferior and experienced different attitudes depending on the ruler of the day. Taxation and distinctive clothing and various restrictions on what was permitted were enforced and on many occasions the Moslems’ specific actions against Christians were clouded and Jews were included in the punishments. The attitude to both were summed up by the comment, ‘Jews and Christians are no better than dogs’. So whilst both Christians and Jews laboured under the Mamluks, they often were involved in conflict with one another as both tried to live out their religious practice under Mamluk rule. Palestine also suffered greatly from earthquakes over that period and the plague that had afflicted Europe also reached the area and devastated not only the population but hit all aspects of life including trade and commerce. The ongoing conflicts with Mongols and internecine intrigues necessitated harsher taxes which fell heavily on non-Moslems. Savage conflict of another raid into Syria by the Mongols rocked the Mamluks’ hold in the region.
As the fourteenth century began, the persecutions of the Jews continued with Philip IV of France seizing Jewish property and expelling them from his country in 1305. Louis X would revoke this order and re-admitted the Jews in 1315 but when Philip V had come to power, a shepherd boy in 1320 claimed he had a religious vision that told him to go on crusade and fight the Moors. Philip refused to accept the shepherd’s invitation to join him and the result was the shepherd’s army went through France and Spain killing along the way, attacking particularly Jews as well as others who opposed them. The kings of France and Aragon, along with the Pope, tried to stop the slaughter but were ignored and the communities where the Jews were attacked were fined but this in turn resulted in more attacks on Jews. David Nirenberg, commented:
‘The shepherds came to focus most spectacularly on the Jews, converting or killing Jews at Saintes, Verdun on the Garonne, and in the dioceses and cities of Cahors, Toulouse, and Albi (the massacre in Toulouse occurred on June 12). Massacres are also recorded at Castelsarrasin, Grenade, Lezat, Auch, Rabastens, Montguyard and Gaillac. In many places townsfolk and municipal officials may have been sympathetic to the pastoureaux, even complicit in their atrocities.’
In 1325, Charles IV sought to raise finance because of wars and imposed taxation which fell heavily on Jews who had begun to flee France but in 1327, he expelled all remaining Jews. Jews had lived in Spain from earliest Biblical times and indeed the history of Toledo has them residing there 500 years before Christianity arrived. This country stands with many others in Europe with a terrible history of persecution against the Jews which can be traced back to 418, when a Christian bishop confiscated two synagogues and in the Council of Toledo canons were passed to impose discrimination against the Jews as early as the fifth century. Whilst it is true that Catholic Spain often brought sanctions and penalties against the Jews, it is also true that there were periods when Jewish learning flourished there and many great Jewish scholars came from Spain. In the thirteenth century, laws came into force that gave some protection to Jews but were also very proscriptive in places and included the death penalty for any Christian who became a Jew. The council of Zamora in 1313 brought in a fresh wave of anti-Semitism including the order to wear a mark of clothing that showed their separation from Christians. The council of Salamanca in 1322 brought further proscription against the Jews, including a ban from holding public office. Christians were forbidden to use Jewish doctors; these orders also applied to the Moors. It has to be said that despite these laws, attempts were made to protect the Jews and allow them the right to earn a living but there remained a general public animosity towards them. In 1332, an attempt was made by a Spanish general who offered money to the king to expel the Jews from Spain but the king, although desperate for such help to fight a war, refused. The growth of the Jewish population in areas of Spain was alarming to local bishops and they began to impose heavy fines for the smallest infringements of the law. There was also a growing resentment in the area of finance and loans, with the king having to intervene to maintain justice for the Jews, causing further anger among the bishops and populace. The arrival of Peter (the Cruel) – despite his nickname – was particularly favourable to the Jews and they flourished under him. Rivalry within the Spanish kingdom led to many attempts to have the king turn against the Jews, and petitions often made to persecute them. E H Lindo in 1845 wrote:
‘… the said Jews, as a wicked and daring people, the enemies of God and all Christendom, with great insolence commit many wrongs and extortions in such manner that everyone in our kingdoms, or the greater part of them are ruined and driven to despair by the said Jews, which they do in contempt of Christians and our Catholic faith. And since it is our will that this evil company may live in our kingdoms, and our pleasure was, that they, as well as Moors, should wear a badge, and that they may live marked and apart from Christians, as God commands, and justice and the laws ordain; beside that they should not hold any posts in our household, nor those of the grandees, knights and squires of our kingdoms.’
The king rejected these false allegations and refused to implement their suggestions declaring the Jews should have justice and be allowed to live in peace, but daily life for Jews remained pressured because of those with whom they lived. This contradiction in the attitude of the governing authority and action against Jews from the population, was also prevalent in Germany, where, in 1336, Arnold von Uissigheim, a German knight and convicted felon, slaughtered Jews. Eventually, he would be arrested and executed but persecution still persisted with sixty-five Jewish communities being entirely wiped out. Two years later in Bavaria, the onslaught continued with local government officials introducing laws to justify it. The ugly reasons for those in power opposing the persecutions was not from any sense of humanity, but because the Jews provided a ready source of financial exploitation through heavy taxation.
The Black Death ravaged Europe and caused a huge loss of life as country after country was devastated by the disease. The ignorance of its cause added to the woes of the Jews, when in many places they were alleged to be that cause. For example, 900 Jews were burnt in Strasbourg, 40 in Toulon and in Germany these suspicions added to the already brutal attacks and in 1349 a pogrom against Jews resulted in deaths and a huge amount of property being claimed by the authorities with Charles IV of Germany taking every advantage for himself. In the same year in Basel, 600 Jews were burned at the stake, 140 children forcibly baptized, and the remainder of the city’s Jews expelled. The city synagogue was turned into a church and the Jewish cemetery was destroyed. In a massacre at Erfurt, 3,000 Jews were murdered and right across Europe the picture was repeated as the underlying hostility towards Jews found excuse for release. After the plague had passed, there seemed to be no further need for excuses, as the hostility continued. A massacre in Brussels in 1370 saw the last of the Jewish community in that city and Wenceslaus, the Holy Roman Emperor, expelled the Jews from the Swabian League and Strasbourg in 1386, stealing their property. Prague was the setting for another outrage when some Jewish children at play were charged with insults against a Catholic priest and 3,000 Jews were killed, with the mobs destroying the Jewish cemetery and the city’s synagogues. The desecration of Jewish places of worship and the senseless barbarity of the mob was compounded by the remarkable comments of Wenceslaus, who blamed the whole matter on the Jews for daring to go into the streets during Holy week – a picture far removed from our carol of Good King Wenceslaus. Spain, once more, was also the scene of anti-Jewish violence, incited by the Archdeacon of Ecija, Ferrand Martinez. The Jewish quarter in Barcelona was destroyed. His campaign quickly spread throughout Spain (except for Granada) and destroyed Jewish communities in Valencia and Palma De Majorca. Thousands of Jews are murdered or forced to accept baptism and the Spanish historian Amador de los Ríos wrote:
‘The cause of this attack was something else: the tinder was already at hand, only awaiting the application of fire. The sermons of the archdeacon of Ecija,..caused this horrible firestorm.’
France 1394 saw further expulsions of Jews and in 1399 in Posen, another Blood Libel case began when an archbishop charged Jews with stealing three pieces of the Host and stabbing it, so that blood spurted from it. The verdict of the trial was certain and led to the burning alive of the rabbi and thirteen elders, with an ‘eternal fine’ being imposed on the Jews which had to be paid to the Dominican order. Incredibly, this fine was technically still in place in the eighteenth century.
The coming of the fifteenth century did not auger well for German Jews, as in 1400 the Judensau (German for ‘Jews’ sow’ or ‘Jewish sow’), a folk art image of Jews in obscene contact with a large sow, in Judaism an unclean animal, began to appear in churches, sanctioned by Church and State authorities. These grotesque images, often accompanied with scenes of Blood Libel, were seen as an ‘exclusively German phenomena’ and provided a reminder and stimulus to Germans for anti-Jewish sentiments. In Spain, despite the presence of a king favourable to Jews, the Christian church continued its anti-Semitism with forced conversions, especially through the preaching of the Dominican friar Vicente Ferrer. Even though he spoke against the forced conversions, he did nothing to prevent them and in 1412 demanded the excommunication of anyone associating with Jews. His ideas were formulated into laws by Benedict XIII in 1415, which in effect reduced the Jews to impoverished pariahs, forcing many to convert or die. Duke Albrecht V turned against the Jews and imposed punitive taxes on them; in cases of non-payment, he ordered the torture of Jews, to discover their supposed hidden wealth. In Vienna, a pogrom climaxed in the Vienna Edict of 1421, which continued to pour more tribulation on their heads, when more Jewish property was confiscated. When the children of Jews were forcibly converted and baptised, many Jews barricaded themselves in their Synagogue and committed suicide rather than betray their faith. Furthermore, to impress their claims, 212 Jews (92 men and 120 women), who refused baptism, were burned alive at the stake and across Germany, France and England many other terrors were inflicted on the Jewish community. Many expulsions were carried out as Austrian Christianity continued to assert its ‘right’ to destroy the Jewish people and their religion. For thirty years there was no community in Austria and the Jews now referred to Austria as Erez Hadimin, ‘Land of Blood’. Perhaps as a response to this, a year later, Pope Martin V issued a Papal Bull, reminding Christians of their Jewish roots and warned friars not to incite against the Jews, but the following year it was withdrawn. These persecutions continually fanned the flames of passion of Jews who yearned for a homeland and many sailed from Italy as it was close to the sacred places of their desire, but in 1427, the Pope banned sea captains from taking Jewish passengers and the hopes of many were dashed.
In Switzerland, Majorca and Poland the pressure remained on the Jewish people but in 1447, Casimir IV renewed all the rights of the Jews of Poland and marked his charter one of the most liberal in Europe. This encouraged many Jews to move across borders to safety, but the charter was revoked in 1454 after a defeat of the Polish army and at the insistence of Bishop Zbigniew, a powerful Cardinal at Cracow. Expulsions, confiscations, exploitations and heavy taxation remained throughout Europe alongside the continuing attempts to gain forced conversions; this was despite many attempts by some kings and princes to intervene, often for financial reasons. Such interventions had only a short-term effect as the general Christian populations maintained their anti-Jewish attitudes. However, it was not only in Europe where Jews continued to be the object of terrible atrocities. In 1465, in Fez, Morocco, another attack on the Jewish quarter almost wiped out the entire population of the district – an Arabic letter of the time gave the details:
‘On the eleventh of Shawwal 869 [7th June 1465], the news arrived in Tlemcen from Fez that the great mass of people of Fez had risen up against the Jews there and had killed them almost to the last man’
The reason given for the attack was that the ruler Abd al-Haqq had appointed Jews to high rank over the Moslem population and those Jews had not changed their religion. As in many other places, the Jews were often opposed when they received any favour or power from a ruler. There was also the issue for those Jews who had converted, either willingly or otherwise, that did not escape the madness when it arose. In Cordoba, Spain, in 1473, the mobs attacked, murdered and robbed both Jews and converts, with the Catholic Cathedral records showing that the greatest concern of the church authorities was the loss of their rental income. Such was the picture for Jews in the wider world; back in Palestine, in Jerusalem the situation had also deteriorated. There was a rise of conflict between Mamluk rulers in different areas, which in turn was exploited by the indigenous Bedouins who even attacked Jerusalem and put the city’s Governor to flight. In 1481, Ramla, in the centre of Palestine, was sacked and a Mamluk army sent to deal with it was annihilated. Obadiah ben Abraham di Bertinoro, an Italian Jew, had longed to live in his homeland, as did many of the persecuted who had fled. They believed there would be found a paradise but in 1488, when Obadiah arrived in Jerusalem, he found a quite different situation.
‘Jerusalem is for the most part desolate and in ruins … As for Jews about seventy families of the poorest classes have remained … One who has bread for a year is called rich … In my opinion an intelligent man versed in political science might easily raise himself to be chief of the Jews as well as Arabs, for among all the inhabitants there is not a sensible man who knows how to deal kindly with his fellow-men.. Among the population there are many aged, forsaken widows from Germany, Spain, Portugal, and other countries. It is impossible to gain a living … except that of shoemaker, weaver, or goldsmith.’
He also found the Mamluk and Jewish agents both dishonest, with the Jewish elders wickedly placing heavy taxation on incoming refugees. Not only this, but they had also sold off synagogue furnishings and Torah scroll ornaments to fill their own pockets and please their Moslem rulers.
Throughout Syria and Palestine, because of the heavy taxation and the conscription of youth into the army, citizens looked outward to the Ottoman power which was growing and believed that life under them would be better. Therefore, with a growing dissatisfaction among its people, internal conflict and Bedouin pressure, it was only a matter of time before a collapse would come.