Posts Tagged ‘Caesarea’

3. Jewish “Aliyah” Attempts to Return to Palestine – Frustrated by Christian Millenium Crusades (Phase I )

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

The  9th -11th centuries, saw the a rise in a Jewish movement to Palestine which believed that “aliyah” – “ascent” to the Land of Israel, would hasten the resurrection of Israel.

Jewish communities along the coast, such as those as Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea flourished at this time and maintained cultural relations with Egypt.

  • A man from Rafa, living in Egypt, wrote a letter (discovered in the Cairo Genizeh) to the Rafah Jewish community in 1015.  It begins:

“To our beloved Rabbi Solomon, the Judge, may his soul rest in peace, and the elders and the rest of the holy community who dwell in Rafah, may God preserve them.”

  • In 1047 the Persian traveller, Nasir-i-Khusraw, wrote:

From Byzantium many Christians and Jews come to Jerusalem in order to visit the church and the synagogue there.”

However Jewish “aliya” movement to return to the Holy Land however was affected by the millennium of the 11th century.

Many people feared (or hoped) the world was coming to an end. Plagues, volcanic eruptions, crime and sin are fulsomely described by contemporary chroniclers. Barbara Tuchman in her seminal The Bible and the Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour (Ballantine Books, New York, 1988) describes the period as one of religious hysteria, in which the year 1000 was expected to bring the end of the world. It afflicted all of Western Europe like an epidemic. Hastening to the scene of man’s Redemption before the final awful moment of reckoning, “hordes”, according to some chroniclers, poured into the Holy Land, of whom a large proportion never returned.  Some died of want; some of plague; some were killed by marauding Arabs; some were lost at sea by storms or shipwreck or pirates.  Only the lucky or the well provided came back alive.

For the Jews the year 1070, the millennium since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, also brought reality to their fears of future events:

    Seljuks

  • In 1071 Seljuks (http://www.themiddleages.net/people/seljuks.html ) conquered Jerusalem from the Abbasids whose power had been on the wane for some time. The Seljuk Empire was very extensive, stretching from Anatolia to Punjab.Because that empire also included the Holy Land, it became the target of the First Christian Crusade to free Jerusalem from the control of the “Saracens” a term used initially in the Middle Ages for Fatimids and subsequently for all who professed the religion of Islam. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saracen)In the eyes of the Crusaders, both Jews and Muslims were viewed as “pagans. They therefore made no distinction between them: all were either put to the sword or burnt. In consequence upon a Crusader approach many Jerusalem Jews (and presumably others) fled south-eastwards to Ashkelon, which was fortified.

    Crusaders
  • For the Crusaders, the Jews were viewed as the source of all the trouble in the Holy Land, especially for the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre by the Fatimids in 1009 (http://www.christusrex.org/www1/jhs/TSspdest.html.)One of the chroniclers of the time, Ralph Glaber, in his Miracles de Saint-Benoit (from Migne, PL 142:655ff)(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/glaber-1000.html) expressed his deep concern for the future and like many others he, too, expected the end of the world at the time of the Millennium.  As regards the Holy Land in general and Jerusalem in particular, Ralph was aware that “the prince of Babylon” was in command of Jerusalem, but placed the blame on the local Jewish communities in the Holy Land for all the mishaps that occurred to the Christians there:

At that time, moreover, that is in the ninth year after the aforesaid thousandth anniversary, the church at Jerusalem which contained the sepulchre of our Lord and Saviour was utterly overthrown at the command of the prince of Babylon.. . . After that it had been overthrown, as we have said, then within a brief space it became full evident that this great iniquity had been done by the wickedness of the Jews. When therefore this was spread abroad through the whole world, it was decreed by the common consent of Christian folk that all Jews should utterly driven forth from their lands or cities. Thus they were held up to universal hatred and driven forth from the cities; some were Slain with the sword or cut off by manifold kinds of death, and some even slew themselves in divers fashions; so that, after this well-deserved vengeance had been wreaked, scarce any were found in the Roman world. Then also the bishops published decrees forbidding all Christians to associate themselves with Jews in an matter whatsoever; and ordaining that, whosoever would be converted to baptismal grace and utterly eschew the Customs or manners of the Jews, he alone should be received. Which indeed was done by very many of them for love of this present life, and impelled rather by fear of death than by the joys of the life everlasting; for all such of them as simulated this conversion returned impudently within a brief while to their former way of life..[gma emphasis] . .

Jerusalem

  • The Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem

Dating from the time of `Umar, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar) the Quarter was located in the southern part of the city, near the gates of the Temple Mount and the pool of Siloam. An 11th century document briefly mentioned it as being located opposite the Temple and adjacent to ‘the Gate of the Priest’

In the eleventh century the southern wall line was abandoned, and the Jewish quarter, now without sufficient defence, moved to the northern part of the city.

A midrashic commentary, probably from an earlier period – the Song of Songs Rabba – cites that the phrase “There he stands behind our wall” (Song of Songs 2:9) is

a reference to the Western Wall of the Temple, since the Holy One Blessed Be His Name has sworn that this wall will never be destroyed; the Gate of the Priest and Hulda’s Gate have never been destroyed”. It seems …  that the Gate of the Priest was located in the Western Wall, and that the Jewish quarter extended from the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount southward toward the Zion and Siloam Gates.

The commentary states:

the kings of Ishmael treat us well and have allowed Israel to come to the Temple and build there a place of worship and study. All the Israelites in exile that live near the Temple make pilgrimage there on holidays and festivals and pray in it. (Rabbi Avraham Bar-Hiya, 1065-1135).

  • The Crusader Siege of Jerusalem

On 7 June the crusader army camped outside Jerusalem, described in “Chronicles of the Crusades” as “one of the strongest cities in the world.”

An attempt to storm the walls on June 13 failed, and the army settled in (in the baking heat) for a siege.
Fulcher of Chartres wrote:

During the siege we were so oppressed by thirst that we sewed together the hides of oxen and buffalo, which we used to carry water of a distance of about six miles… we were in daily distress and affliction for the Saracens used to lie in wait around the springs and water sources, and would ambush our men, kill them and cut them to pieces…”

After an all out attack, the Crusaders took Jerusalem on 15 July 1099.  The Gesta Francorum (The Deeds of the Franks), written circa 1100-1101, by an anonymous writer connected with Bohemund of Antioch  (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/gesta-cde.html) famously describes the scene:

Before we attacked Jerusalem, the bishops and priests preached to us, telling us to go in a procession in God’s honour around Jerusalem, and pray and give alms and fast…

…all the defenders of the city fled along the walls and through the city, and our men, following Lethold, chased after them, killing them and dismembering them as far as the Temple of Solomon.  And in that place there was such slaughter that we were up to our ankles in their blood.

At last the pagans were overcome and our men captured a good number of men and women in the Temple; they killed whomsoever they wished, and chose to keep others alive…  All our men came rejoicing and weeping for joy to worship at the church of the Holy Sepulchre

Haifa

  • Nor was Jerusalem the only city besieged.  Albert of Aachen in his Book of Travels, refers to the conquest of Haifa by the Crusaders:

“And the city of Haifa… which the Jews defended with great courage, to the shame and embarrassment of the Christians.”

A later writer, Marcel Ladoire, a French priest (also an historian) who visited in 1719 wrote:

“And Haifa, although moderate in size, was strongly fortified, and perhaps because of this, for a long time it withstood the mighty onslaught of the Prince Tancred, who attacked it from the sea and also from the land, with the help of the Venetians.  Although the Jews fought with courage, they were overcome by the might of the invaders.”

Thus, a full thousand years after the fall of the Jewish state, there were still Jewish communities throughout the Holy Land, fifty of which are known including Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea and Gaza.

4. Effect of Crusader Control of Holy Land (Phase II) on Jewish Settlement

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

In the second phase the Crusaders gained a hold over certain towns and regions by means of treaties and agreements in which the Jews participated.  The destruction of entire communities ceased as the Crusaders were more interested in possessing living cities than in occupying desolate wastes.

Jews, however, sought refuge in Ashkelon, Rafah and El Arish ahead of the advancing Crusaders.  In more remote areas such as Galilee, the invasion was felt less.  Everywhere the Jews were treated by the Crusaders as were other non-Christian communities, except that they were not allowed to live in Jerusalem.

Travel between the Holy Land and Europe became easier and the number of Jews immigrating from France, England and North Africa increased as did the number of Jewish pilgrims to Jerusalem; Yehuda Halevi in 1141, Maimonides in 1165 and Benjamin of Tudela, visiting between 1167 and 1169.

The renowned rabbi Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, 1135-1204) in the Preface to his Commentary on Tractate Rosh Hashana, written in 1165 notes:

    On the 4th day of Cheshvan (October-November) we departed from Acre to go up to Jerusalem at grave risk.  I entered the great and holy place (the synagogue on Temple Mount) and prayed there… and I departed from Jerusalem for Hebron to embrace the tombs of my forebears in the Cave and prayed there that day and gave thanksgiving to God for everything… And these two days I made an oath to celebrate for me and my descendants forever, may the Lord help me fulfil my pledges.

    And just as I was privileged to pray in the Land in its desolation, may I and all Israel live to see its speedy restoration.[gma emphasis] (Tal, p. 101)

Benjamin of Tudela found Jews living near David’s Tower in Jerusalem, despite the Crusader ban.  He noted the existence of Jewish communities in Acre, Tiberias, Caesarea, Jaffa, Ramla, Ashkelon and Hebron, as well as in the rural areas, mainly in Galilee:

    I saw in Jerusalem a numerous population composed of Jacobites, Armenians, Greeks, Georgians, Franks, and in fact of all tongues.  There’s a dyeing house rented yearly by the Jews, exclusively.  Two hundred of those Jews dwell in one corner of the city, under the Tower of David. (cited in Tal, p.102)

Benamin left a record of the number of Jewish inhabitants in towns and villages across the country. The relatively small numbers reflect the outcome of the destruction of entire communities by the First Crusade, half a century earlier.
Although the Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, the Jewish community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem, and elsewhere during the next 300 years.

5. Islamic Control Reasserted Over the Holy Land

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Ayyubids

    Christian attempts to maintain their hold the Holy Land against the Islamic Ayyubid dynasty failed. Its founder, Salah al-Din al-Ayubbi, a Kurdish warrior, born in 1138 in Tikrit, ultimately became the Sultan of Egypt and a known champion of Islam. In 1174, he conquered Damascus, Alleppo, and Iraq and preached Jihad to the Muslim world in a counter crusade against the Christians. Gathering a large force of Muslims of various groups, Saladin attacked the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187 and defeated the Crusaders in the Battle of the Horns of Hittin near the Lake of Galilee. After a further three months of fighting, Saladin gained control of Jerusalem. The Christian attempt at retaliation with the third crusade led by the English King Richard the “Lionheart in 1189 failed to recover Jerusalem. Richard conceded defeat and settled for a peace treaty – Peace of Ramla- that guaranteed Christian pilgrims access to the Holy Places and a Christian presence on the Mediterranean coast. In their fight against Islam, the Christians neither regained control of interior of the Holy Land nor of Jerusalem.

    Under Salah al Din (aka Saladdin) and his successors, Jews again enjoyed a certain measure of freedom were permitted to resettle in Jerusalem. Many who had fled earlier to Ashkelon returned and in 1211, some three hundred rabbis from England and France immigrated in a group, some settling in Acre and others in Jerusalem.

    Mamluks

    The 13th century saw the Mamluks (originally slave soldiers in Egypt who rebelled against the former Ayyubid sultans) gain power in Egypt and Syria in 1250. This notwithstanding, Jews continued to immigrate to the Holy Land, particularly from France, and settled in Haifa, Caesarea, Tyre and Acre.
    • In 1257 Rabbi Yehiel of Paris settled in Acre and established the Yeshiva (Religious Seminary) of Paris;
    • Nahmanides, a famous Jewish physician and talmudic scholar (1194-1270) migrated from Spain and after settling initially in Jerusalem he later moved to Acre. There, in the growing Jewish community, he became involved in local religious education.
    Unfortunately the Jewish communities in Acre and the other towns along the Mediterranean coast – Tyre, Haifa, and Caesarea – did not survive for very long. The Mameluk Sultan, Al Ashraf Khalil, employed a scorched earth policy along the coast to prevent the possibility of a new Christian invasion. He attacked and destroyed Acre in 1291 in an effort to dislodge the remaining Crusaders who had holed up there in retreat. The Jews were therefore forced to abandon their coastal settlements and move inland. (Bahat pp.41-43)
    Thus by the end of the 13th century, although Islam succeeded in regaining control of the Holy Land, many Jews who had tried to settle there were killed in the course of Islamic confrontations with Christians.
    Although the Mamluk rule brought stability to the Holy Land in the early 14th century and permitted the revival of Jewish settlement, which augmented the existing Jewish communities in Safad, Ramla and Gaza, nevertheless a Jewish renaissance was retarded by natural disasters such as epidemics and earthquakes. This notwithstanding, during the middle and through to the end of the century, travellers such as Jacques of Verona, and Ogier D’Anglure reporting on their visits to Jerusalem in 1335 and 1395 respectively, refer to the existence there of Jewish communities, as did Giorgio Gucci in 1350 who described the Jews coming to pray in Hebron at the shrine of the Jewish forefathers. (Bahat pp.44-45)
    The writings of the visiting Dominican priest, Felix Fabri, towards the end of the fifteenth century (1482) also disclose a reference to the presence of Jews in Jerusalem at the time. He described the city as “a collection of all manner of abominations” amongst whom were the Jews whom he referred to “as the most cursed of all.” On the other hand, a Christian pilgrim from Bohemia visiting Jerusalem in 1491 – 1492 wrote in his book ‘Journey to Jerusalem’

    “Christians and Jews alike in Jerusalem lived in great poverty and in conditions of great deprivation, there are not many Christians but there are many Jews, and these the Muslims persecute in various ways. Christians and Jews go about in Jerusalem in clothes considered fit only for wandering beggars. The Muslims know that the Jews think and even say that this is the Holy Land which has been promised to them and that those Jews who dwell there are regarded as holy by Jews elsewhere, because, in spite of all the troubles and sorrows inflicted on them by the Muslims, they refuse to leave the Land.” (cited in Bahat, p.49)

    Shortly afterwards, Palestine was to experience a further influx of Jews following their expulsion from Spain in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella.