History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

After the death of João II, who sank in wretchedness into his grave (end of October, 1495), he was succeeded by his cousin Manoel, a great contrast in disposition to himself – an intelligent, amiable, gentle-minded man, and a lover of learning. There seemed some prospect of a better star's rising upon the remnant of the banished Jews in Portugal. King Manoel, finding that the Jews had remained in his kingdom beyond the allotted time only from fear of many forms of death upon the ocean, gave all the slaves their freedom. The money which, beside themselves with joy, they offered him for this, he refused. It is true that his ulterior motive, as Bishop Osorius tells us, was to win them over to Christianity by clemency. The Jewish mathematician and astronomer, Abraham Zacuto, who had remained in Lisbon, having come thither from northern Spain, where he had taught his favorite science even to Christians, was made chief astrologer. Zacuto served the king not merely in the latter capacity. Although a man of limited understanding, unable to rise above the superstition of his day, he had sound knowledge of astronomy, and published a work upon that science, besides preparing his astronomical tables. He also invented a correct metal instrument for measuring the altitude of the stars, to replace the clumsy and inaccurate wooden one used hitherto by mariners.

Under King Manoel, in whose reign Portugal's domains were enlarged by acquisitions in India and America, the Jews were able to breathe awhile. It appears that soon after ascending the throne he issued a command that the accusations against them for murdering children should not be recognized by courts of justice, since they were malicious, lying inventions. Nor would he allow the fanatical preaching friars to utter denunciations against them.

Very short, however, was the gleam of happiness for the Jews under Manoel: the somber bigotry of the Spanish court changed it into terrible gloom. No sooner had the young king of Portugal mounted the throne than their majesties of Spain began to entertain the idea of marriage relations with him in order to turn an inimical neighbor into a friend and ally. They proposed marriage with their younger daughter, Joanna, who afterwards became notorious on account of her jealous disposition and her madness. Manoel lent a willing ear to the proposal of an alliance with the Spanish court, but preferred the elder sister, Isabella II, who had been married to the Infante of Portugal, and had soon after become a widow. Isabella had strong repugnance to a second marriage; but her confessor knew how to overrule her objections, and made her believe that if she consented she would have opportunity to glorify the Christian faith. The Spanish court had marked with chagrin and vexation that the Portuguese king had received the Jewish and Mahometan refugees, and King Manoel's friendly treatment of them was a thorn in their flesh. Ferdinand and Isabella thought that by falling in with the Portuguese king's wishes, they would attain their end. They, therefore, promised him the hand of their eldest daughter upon condition that he join with Spain against Charles VII, and send the Jews out of Portugal, both the native and the refugee Jews. The conditions were very disagreeable to King Manoel, who was on good terms with France, and reaped great advantage from the wealth, energy, intelligence, and knowledge of the Jews.

He consulted with his lords and council upon this question, fraught with such importance for the Jews. Opinions upon it were divided. Manoel hesitated for some time, because his noble nature shrank from such cruelty and faithlessness. The Infanta Isabella spoke the deciding word. She entertained fanatical, almost personal hatred against the Jews. She believed or was persuaded by the priests that the misfortunes and unhappiness which had befallen King João in his last days were occasioned by his having allowed Jews to enter his kingdom; and, nourished as she had been at the breast of superstition, she was afraid of ill-luck in her union with Manoel if Jews were permitted to remain in Portugal. What dreary lovelessness in the heart of a young woman! Irreconcilable strife of feelings and thoughts was thus raised in the soul of King Manoel. Honor, the interest of the state, humanity, forebade his proscribing and expelling the Jews; but the hand of the Spanish Infanta, and the Spanish crown were to be secured only by the misery of the Jews. Love turned the balance in favor of hate. When the king was expecting his bride to cross the borders of his kingdom, he received a letter from her saying that she would not set foot in Portugal until the land was cleansed of the "curse-laden" Jews.

The marriage contract between Don Manoel and the Spanish Infanta, Isabella, then, was sealed with the misery of the Jews. It was signed on the 30th of November, 1496, and so early as the 24th of the following month, the king caused an order to go forth that all the Jews and Moors of his kingdom must receive baptism, or leave the country within a given time, on pain of death. In order to relieve his conscience, he showed clemency in carrying his edict into effect. He lengthened the term of their stay until the October of the following year, so that they had time for preparation. He further appointed three ports, Lisbon, Oporto, and Setubal, for their free egress. That he sought to allure the Jews to Christianity, by the prospect of honor and advancement, was so entirely due to the distorted views of the times, that he cannot be held responsible for it; as it was, only a few submitted to baptism.

Precisely Manoel's clement behavior tended to the greater misery of the Jews. Having ample time to prepare for their departure, and not being forbidden to take gold and silver with them, they thought that there was no need to hurry. Perhaps the king would change his mind. They had friends at court who were agitating in their favor. Besides, the winter months were not a good time to be upon the ocean. The majority, therefore, waited until spring. In the meantime King Manoel certainly did change his mind, but only to increase their fearful misery. He was much vexed at finding that so few Jews had embraced Christianity. Very unwillingly he saw them depart with their wealth and their possessions, and sought ways and means to retain them, as Christians, of course, in his own kingdom. The first step had cost him a struggle, the second was easy.

He raised the question in council whether the Jews could be brought to baptism by force. To the honor of the Portuguese clergy it must be said that they expressed themselves as opposed to this. The bishop of Algarve, Ferdinand Coutinho, cited ecclesiastical authorities and papal bulls to the effect that Jews might not be compelled to adopt Christianity, because a free, not a forced, confession was required. Manoel, however, was so bent upon keeping the industrious Jews with him, that he openly declared that he did not trouble himself about laws and authorities, but would act upon his own judgment. From Evora he issued (beginning of April, 1497) a secret command that all Jewish children, boys and girls, up to the age of fourteen, should be taken from their parents by force on Easter Sunday, and carried to the church fonts to be baptized. He was advised by a reprobate convert, Levi ben Shem Tob, to take this step. In spite of the secrecy of the preparations, several Jews found it out, and were about to flee with their children from the "stain of baptism." When Manoel heard it, he ordered the forced baptism of children to be carried out at once. Heartrending scenes ensued in the towns where Jews lived when the sheriffs strove to carry away the children. Parents strained their dear ones to their breasts, the children clung convulsively to them, and they could be separated only by lashes and blows. In their despair over the possibility of being thus for ever sundered, many of them strangled the children in their embraces, or threw them into wells and rivers, and then laid hands upon themselves. "I have seen," relates Bishop Coutinho, "many dragged to the font by the hair, and the fathers clad in mourning, with veiled heads and cries of agony, accompanying their children to the altar, to protest against the inhuman baptism. I have seen still more horrible, indescribable violence done them." In the memory of his contemporaries lingered the frightful manner in which a noble and cultured Jew, Isaac Ibn-Zachin, destroyed himself and his children, to avoid their becoming a prey to Christianity. Christians were moved to pity by the cries and tears of Jewish fathers, mothers and children, and despite the king's commands not to assist the Jews, they concealed many of the unfortunates in their houses, so that at least for the moment they might be safe; but the stony hearts of King Manoel and his young wife, the Spanish Isabella II, remained unmoved by these sights of woe. The baptized children, who received Christian names, were placed in various towns, and reared as Christians. Either in obedience to a secret order, or from excessive zeal, the creatures of the king not only seized children, but also youths and maidens up to the age of twenty, for baptism.

Many Jews of Portugal probably embraced Christianity in order to remain with their children; but this did not satisfy the king, who, not from religious zeal, but from political motives, had hardened his heart. All the Jews of Portugal, it mattered not whether with or without conviction, were to become Christians and remain in the country. To attain this end, he violated a solemn promise more flagrantly than his predecessor. When the time of their departure came closer, he ordered the Jews to embark from one seaport only, that of Lisbon, although, at first, he had allowed them three places. Therefore, all who wished to go, had to meet in Lisbon – 20,000 souls, it is said, with burning grief in their hearts, but prepared to suffer anything to remain true to their convictions. The inhuman monarch allowed them lodgings in the city, but he placed so many hindrances in the way of their embarkation, that time passed by, and the day arrived when they were to forfeit life, or at least liberty, if found upon Portuguese soil. He had all who remained behind locked in an enclosed space (os Estaõs) like oxen in stalls, and informed them that they were now his slaves, and that he could do with them as he thought fit. He urged them voluntarily to confess the Christian faith, in which case they should have honor and riches; otherwise they would be forced to baptism without mercy. When, notwithstanding this, many remained firm, he forbade bread or water to be given them for three days, in order to render them more pliable. This means did not succeed any better with the greater number of them: they chose to faint with starvation rather than belong to a religion which owned such followers as their persecutors. Upon this, Manoel proceeded to extreme measures. By cords, by their hair and beard, they were dragged from their pen to the churches. To escape this some sprang from the windows, and their limbs were crushed. Others broke loose and jumped into wells. Some killed themselves in the churches. One father spread his tallith over his sons, and killed them and himself. Manoel's terrible treatment comes into more glaring prominence when compared with his behavior to the Moors. They, too, had to leave Portugal, but no hindrances were placed in their way, because he feared that the Mahometan princes in Africa and Turkey might retaliate upon the Christians living in their domains. The Jews had no earthly protector, were weak and helpless, therefore, Manoel, whom historians call the Great, permitted himself to perpetrate such atrocities. In this fashion many native Portuguese and refugee Spanish Jews were led to embrace Christianity, which they – as their Christian contemporaries relate with shame – had openly scorned. Some, at a later period, became distinguished Rabbinical authorities, like Levi ben Chabib, afterwards rabbi in Jerusalem. Those who escaped with their lives and their faith attributed it to the gracious and wondrous interposition of God. Isaac ben Joseph Caro, who had come from Toledo to Portugal, there lost his adult and his minor sons ("who were beautiful as princes"), yet thanked his Creator for the mercy that in spite of peril on the sea he reached Turkey. Abraham Zacuto, with his son Samuel, also was in danger of death, although (or because) he was King Manoel's favorite, astrologer and chronicler. Both, however, were fortunate enough to pass through the bitter ordeal, and escape from Portugal, but they were twice imprisoned. They finally settled in Tunis.

The stir which the enforced conversion of the Jews caused in Portugal did not immediately subside. Those who had submitted to baptism through fear of death, or out of love for their children, did not give up the hope that by appealing to the papal court they might be able to return to their own faith, seeing that, as all Europe knew, Pope Alexander VI and his college of cardinals, as base as himself, would do anything for money. A witticism was then going the rounds of every Christian country:

Vendit Alexander Claves, Altaria, Christum;Emerat ista prius, vendere jure potest.

Rome was a market of shame – a hill of Astarte – a mart of unwholesomeness – but there the innocent, also, could buy their rights. The Portuguese new-Christians now sent a deputation of seven of their companions in misery to Pope Alexander, and they did not forget to take a purse of gold with them. The pope and the so-called holy college showed themselves favorably inclined towards them, especially Cardinal de Sancta Anastasia took them under his patronage. The Spanish ambassador, Garcilaso, however, was instructed by their Spanish majesties to oppose them. Despite his influence the affairs of the Portuguese Jews must have taken a favorable turn, for King Manoel decided to make concessions. He issued a mild decree (May 30th, 1497), in which he granted amnesty to all forcibly baptized Jews, and a respite of twenty years, during which they were not to be brought before the tribunal of the Inquisition for their adherence to Judaism. It was said that it was necessary for them first to lay aside their Jewish habits, and accustom themselves to the ways of the Catholic faith, for which they needed time. Further, the decree ordered that, on the expiration of this term, a regular examination should be made of those accused of Judaizing practices, and if the case was decided against them, their goods should not be confiscated, as in Spain, but given over to their heirs. Finally, the decree ordained that those baptized physicians and surgeons who did not understand Latin might make use of Hebrew books of reference. Practically this allowed the enforced Christians to live in secret, without fear of punishment, as Jews, and to retain all their books. For, who, in Portugal, in those days, could distinguish a book of medicine from any other work in the Hebrew language? The students of the Talmud could thus follow their favorite researches and studies under the mask of Catholicism. This amnesty benefited the Portuguese Marranos, but not those who had immigrated into Portugal, by a clause which Manoel had inserted out of deference to the Spanish court, or, more particularly, to the Spanish Infanta Isabella. For she insisted that the Marranos who had fled out of Spain into Portugal should be delivered over to the Moloch of the Inquisition. In the marriage contract between the king of Portugal and the fanatical Isabella (August, 1497), it was expressly set down that all persons of the Hebrew race coming under condemnation of the Inquisition, who sought refuge in Portugal, must leave within a month's time.

Thus many thousand Portuguese Jews became pseudo-Christians, but with the firm resolve to seize the first opportunity to get away, so that in a free country they might openly practice a religion only the dearer to them for all they had suffered for it. Their souls, as the poet Samuel Usque writes, had not been stained by the baptism imposed on them. There were some Jews, however, who had refused baptism with all their might. Among them was Simon Maimi, apparently the last chief rabbi (Arrabi mor) in Portugal, a scrupulously pious man; also his wife, his sons-in-law, and some others. They were closely imprisoned, because they would not forswear Judaism, nor observe the rites of the church. To bring them to conversion, Simon Maimi and his fellow sufferers, official rabbis, were most inhumanly tortured. They were immured up to the neck in their prison, and left for three days in this fearful position. When they nevertheless remained firm, the walls were torn down; three had died, among them Simon Maimi, whose conversion was most important, because his example would have influenced the others. Two Marranos imperiled their lives to secure the corpse of the pious martyr, that they might inter it in the Jewish burial-ground, although it was strictly forbidden to bury the Jewish victims of Christian sacrifice otherwise than by the executioner's hands. A few Marranos secretly attended their deeply-lamented saint to his last rest, and celebrated a mourning service over his grave. Manoel permitted the few remaining Jews to depart not long after, probably on the death of Isabella, the instigator of all his barbarities to the Jews. She died at the birth of the heir to the thrones of Portugal and Spain, August 24th, 1498, and the Infante died two years later. One of the remnant dismissed was Abraham Saba, a preacher and Kabbalist author, whose two children were baptized by force and taken from him. The companions of Simon Maimi and his sons-in-law remained in prison a long time, were afterwards sent to Arzilla, in Africa, there condemned to work at the trenches on the Sabbath, and died at last a martyr's death.

Eighty years later, Manoel's great-grandson, the adventurous king, Sebastian, led the flower of the Portuguese people to fresh conquests in Africa. In a single battle the power of Portugal was broken, her nobility slain, or cast into prison. The captives were carried to Fez, and there, in the slave-market, offered for sale to the descendants of the barbarously treated Portuguese Jews. The unhappy Portuguese nobles and knights were, however, glad to be bought by Jews, as they well knew the mild and humane nature of the followers of the "God of vengeance."

CHAPTER XIII.

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.