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

The power of the latter was, indeed, so great that they, generally the suppliants, were entreated for aid by Christians. A serious rebellion had arisen in the Netherlands against Spain and the morose king, Philip II, who wished to introduce the bloody tribunal of the Inquisition. The barbarous Alva was trying to suppress apostasy and to lead back the erring into the bosom of the Catholic church by hecatombs of human beings. The block was to support the cross. In this extremity, the rebels turned to Joseph of Naxos, who had dealings with some of the nobility of Flanders from the time of his residence there. Prince William of Orange, the moving spirit of the rebellion, sent a private messenger to Joseph of Naxos, entreating him to persuade the sultan to declare war against Spain, which would necessitate the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from the Netherlands. The Austrian emperor, Ferdinand, also condescended to address an autograph letter to the Jewish duke in order to obtain the favor of the Porte, increasing the grand vizir's envy. Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland, who was hoping for an important service from the Porte, also addressed him, gave him the title of "Serene Highness," and, what was of greater importance, promised favorable conditions to the Jews in his country, to ensure Joseph's approval of his plans.

We may almost say that the divan, or Turkish council of state, under Sultan Selim consisted of two parties trying to checkmate each other: the Christian party, represented by the first vizir, and the Jewish, headed by Joseph of Naxos. Through and besides him there were other Jews who, though only in subordinate positions, exercised influence – the men on the holders of office, the women on the ladies of the harem. Sultan Selim's goodwill towards Jews was so evident that a story became current that by birth he was a Jew, foisted into the harem as a prince, when he was a child. Even the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, although an enemy of Joseph of Naxos and of Jewish influence, was forced to employ a Jewish negotiator and to intrust him with important commissions. The Venetian envoy, ordered to work secretly against the Jews at the Turkish court, himself assisted such a man in obtaining influence.

Solomon ben Nathan Ashkenazi, who conducted the diplomatic affairs of Turkey with Christian courts for nearly thirty years, and who supplanted Nassi, was an unknown personage in Constantinople at the period when the duke of Naxos had a powerful voice in the divan. Descended from a German family of Udine, he began to travel early in life, and went to Poland, where he rose to be first physician to the king. On his removal to the Turkish capital, he placed himself as a subject of the Venetian republic under the protection of the diplomatic agents of Venice. Solomon Ashkenazi understood the Talmud, and was called rabbi, but displayed greatest intelligence and skill in the niceties of diplomatic technicalities, the disentanglement of knotty questions, in negotiations, settlements, and compromises. For these qualities he had been esteemed by successive Venetian agents in Constantinople. The first minister of the Turkish court recognized his diplomatic skill, attached him to his service, and trusted him to the end of his life with such commissions as required tact, wisdom, and discernment in their fulfillment. Whilst the Turkish arms were raised against the Venetians, Solomon Ashkenazi was beginning to weave the web for the future treaty of peace.

Christian cabinets did not suspect that the course of events which compelled them to side with one party or the other was set in motion by a Jewish hand. This was especially the case at the election of the Polish king. The death (July, 1572) of the last Polish king of the Jagellon family, Sigismund Augustus, who left no heir, necessitated a genuine election from an indefinite number of candidates, and this put the whole of Europe, at all events the cabinets and diplomatic circles, into the utmost excitement. The German emperor, Maximilian II, and the Russian ruler, Ivan the Cruel, were most intimately concerned in the election, as neighbors of Poland. The former did everything that he could to insure the choice of his own son, and the latter boasted that he or his son would be chosen king. The pope plotted for a Catholic prince to be placed on the throne of Poland; otherwise it was to be feared that the choice of a king in favor of the Reformation, already on the increase among the nobles and the townspeople of Poland, would strengthen the movement, and that the country would free itself from the papacy. On the other hand, the Protestant countries of Germany and England, and, above all, the adherents of the various sects of the new church in Poland itself, felt the greatest interest in securing the election of a sovereign of their own faith, or at least of one not an aggressive Catholic. To this was added the personal ambition of a powerful French queen, who interfered with a deft hand. The widowed queen, Catherine de Medici, as clever as false, who believed in astrology, and to whom it had been announced that each of her sons should wear a crown, wished to procure a foreign throne for her son, Henry of Anjou, so that the astrological prophecy might not be fulfilled by the death of her reigning son, Charles IX. She and her son, the king of France, therefore, set every lever in motion to place Anjou on the throne of Poland. Turkey also had important interests and a powerful voice in the election of the king of Poland. A tangle of cabals and intrigues was developed by the election. Each candidate sought to gain a strong party among the higher and lesser nobility of Poland, and also to gain the favor of the Porte. Henry of Anjou seemed at first to have some prospect of success, but this was imperiled by the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew, in France, in which, at a hint from the king and the queen-mother, a hundred thousand Huguenots, great and small – men, women and children – were attacked, and murdered (August 26th, 1572). Such barbarity, planned and carried out in cold blood, had been unheard of in European history since the murderous attack made on the Albigenses in the thirteenth century by papal command. The Lutherans and other adherents of the Reformation in every country were completely stunned by this blow. The candidates for the throne of Poland sought to make capital out of it against Anjou. So much the more the French candidate, his mother, and his brother, were compelled to endeavor to gain over the Porte to their side. An ambassador extraordinary was dispatched to Constantinople with this object. So the choice of a king of Poland rested with a Jew who was in the background, for Solomon Ashkenazi governed the grand vizir completely, and ruled his will, and he managed foreign affairs in the sultan's name. Solomon decided in favor of Henry of Anjou, and won over the grand vizir to his side. When Henry of Anjou, by a combination of favorable circumstances, was at last chosen almost unanimously (May, 1573), the French ambassador boasted that he had not been one of the last in bringing about this election. But Solomon Ashkenazi ventured to write as follows to the king of Poland, afterwards king of France under the name of Henry III: "I have rendered your majesty most important service in securing your election; I have effected all that was done here" (at the Porte).

Great sensation was aroused throughout Christian Europe when this Jewish physician and diplomatist was appointed by the Porte to conclude the peace which he had for several years been trying to bring about with Venice, and thus to stand forth as a person of the highest official importance. The Jewish ambassador was not accepted without opposition by the illustrious republic. The subject was eagerly discussed in the senate, and the members of the government were against him. But, on the one hand, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, was resolved upon it, because Solomon enjoyed his unreserved confidence, and he wished through him to establish diplomatic relations for other purposes. On the other hand, the words of the Venetian consul, Mark Antonio Barbaro, who repeatedly assured his state that the Jewish diplomatist cherished the warmest sympathy with Venice, made a great impression. Under these circumstances, "Rabbi Solomon Ashkenazi," as he was termed, went to Venice in the capacity of envoy extraordinary from Turkey. When once he was acknowledged, the dignitaries of the republic, the doge, and the senators, paid him the greatest honor and attention, because the Turkish court was very sensitive on this point, and would have regarded want of due respect to its representative as an insult. Solomon was, therefore, received in state audience at the doge's palace, and there the act of peace between Turkey and Venice was signed by him on behalf of the former. The signoria showed him the most polite attentions during his stay in Venice (May to July, 1574), and all the European ambassadors in Venice paid him court.

Solomon was an angel of deliverance to his fellow-believers in Venice. Their joy at the honor shown by the authorities to one of their race was mingled with anxiety and sorrow on account of threatened expulsion. The doge Mocenigo had insisted upon the fulfillment of the decree of banishment previously issued against the Jews. Many Jewish families had already departed without waiting for the term to expire. Solomon had arranged with Jacopo Soranzo, the Venetian agent in Constantinople, to receive these unfortunates. On his return to Venice, Soranzo at once brought the question of the Jews to the consideration of the council of the doge and the Ten. He made them understand the injury to the republic which would arise by the expulsion of the Jews. Those driven out of Spain and Portugal had manufactured guns and other arms for the Turks, and it would be a serious matter to make enemies of a people who constituted a power in Turkey. To maintain friendship with this country would be the surest guarantee of peace, as neither the pope nor Spain could be trusted. This earnest appeal of Soranzo in favor of the Jews effected a change in the disposition of the doge and the Dieci (ten) towards them. The decree of banishment was revoked (July 19th, 1573), and Solomon's presence in Venice served to increase the joy of his fellow-believers, as he obtained for them the promise that they should never again be threatened with expulsion. Loaded with honors and enriched by a gift of ten pounds (weight) of gold, Solomon returned to Constantinople, where his position became more assured and his importance greater than ever. His son, who was residing in Venice for his education, was treated by the doge with the greatest consideration.

In consequence of the influence of Joseph of Naxos over Sultan Selim and of Solomon Ashkenazi over the prime minister, Mahomet Sokolli, the foreign Christian courts strove yet more earnestly to obtain the favor of the Turkish Jews in Stambul. If one of them wished to effect any object with the Porte, it first of all sought a Jewish negotiator, because without this aid there was no prospect of success. Even the morose Philip II of Spain, that incarnate hater of Jews and heretics, was obliged to turn to Jewish mediators in order to obtain peace with the Turks. The position of the Jews in Turkey, and above all in the capital, under the very eyes of their powerful protectors, was, therefore, extraordinarily favorable. They were able to put forth all their powers freely, and thus earned the wealth which then meant power, as it does now. The wholesale trade and customs dues were mostly in their hands; they also carried on wholesale shipping, and emulated the Venetians. They owned the largest and best houses, with gardens and kiosks, in Constantinople, equal to those of the grand vizir.

This prosperity, freedom, and security of the Turkish Jews could not fail to produce an exalted frame of mind, to open a prospect beyond the actual present, and to stir up their minds to activity. The mental fertility of the Spanish Jews, which brought so much that is beautiful and true to the light of day, was not exhausted or extinct in Turkey. The taste for history and events outside the Jewish world was not yet lost to them. Moses Almosnino, a favorite preacher at Salonica, while on a visit to Constantinople to procure privileges for the community of Salonica, described life in the Turkish capital, with its contrasts of glowing heat and benumbing cold, its astonishing wealth and terrible poverty, its enervating luxury and severe privations, its extravagant generosity and heartless greed, exaggerated piety and callous indifference, which followed one another abruptly, without any gradual transition. In his Spanish work on the "Contrasts and Greatness of Constantinople," Almosnino described the power and development of the Turkish empire with the pen of a master. He had a taste for the sciences and philosophy, and worked out his sermons as well as his expositions of the Scriptures in a scientific shape.

The physician, Samuel Shulam, likewise a Spaniard by birth, also had a great taste for history. He led a life of adventure until he was taken up by a Jewish woman in Constantinople, named Esther Kiera, in high favor with the sultana. He published Zacuto's poor but useful chronicle at her expense (1566–1567). This favorite of the court-Jewess also translated from the Latin the interesting work of the old Jewish historian Josephus against the attacks of Apion, the Alexandrine enemy of the Jews, being the first Jewish writer to make use of it. The dark side of Jewish history, the thousand years' martyrdom of the Jewish race, was at the same time described by a more competent historian, the now venerable Joseph Cohen, of Spanish descent. His "Vale of Weeping" presents a long series of mournful scenes, tortures, death, and distress in every form, but he was enabled to conclude his history with the joyful tidings that the Venetians were eager, if only from policy, to pay honor to and distinguish a Jew, the Turkish ambassador Solomon Ashkenazi.

Even Hebrew poetry bore some blossoms at this period in Turkey, and although but autumn flowers, showing traces of damp mists and a pale sun, they form an agreeable contrast to the joyless wintry waste of other regions and times. But we are more interested in the originator of these efforts than in the productions themselves. He was a certain Ibn-Yachya of the Turkish branch of this widespread family. This family preserved nobility of heart and mind throughout a long line of generations. The great-grandfather Jacob Tam, the grandfather Gedalya Ibn-Yachya, the grandson Moses, and the great-grandson Gedalya Ibn-Yachya II, with all collateral branches, were without exception friends of learning, and shared their property with the poor. Moses Ibn-Yachya not only spent thousands of ducats on sufferers at the time of the plague, but even exposed himself to the risk of death in his attendance upon the sick. His son Gedalya, a wise man and an agreeable orator, imitated his father in all his virtues, and by his love for poetry excelled him in gifts of the mind. He formed a sort of school or circle of poetry, that is to say, he assembled from time to time, at his own expense, all those interested in neo-Hebrew poetry, to recite their poems, and urged those at a distance to send him the fruit of their muse in order to encourage their zeal for this beautiful but neglected art. Two poets distinguished themselves in this numerous circle, Jehuda Zarko and Saadio Longo. To them we may add Israel Najara, the prolific versifier, living in Damascus. It is true that the verses of these writers do not contain much real poetry, and that the authors deserve the name of poet only on account of the smoothness and euphony of their style. As a matter of course this group of poets extolled Gedalya Ibn-Yachya, their patron and protector, in their verses.

The Jews of Turkey also wrote Latin verses in the security and comfort of their present life. The writers were, of course, immigrant Marranos, who had learnt the language of their oppressors in the dungeons of Spain and Portugal. When the conscientious physician, Amatus Lusitanus, whose aid had been sought alike by kings and beggars, and who, on account of the intolerance of the reactionary policy, emigrated from Italy to Salonica, and there acquired new friends and admirers, fell a sacrifice to his devoted energy, and died of the plague, one of his friends, the Marrano Flavio Jacopo de Evora, composed a memorial to him in beautiful Latin verses to the following effect:

He who so often recalled the breath well-nigh gone from the dying, and was, therefore, beloved by kings and peoples, lies far from the land of his birth, beneath the dust of Macedonia.

The exaltation of the Turkish Jews and their contentment with their present condition imbued them with thoughts of independence. Whilst the Jews of Christendom had no such thought, and from time immemorial considered themselves in a condition of subjugation to their masters, the Turkish Jews became familiar with the idea of regarding themselves as independent men.

Joseph of Naxos long cherished the thought of founding a Jewish state. The Jew and the statesman in him yearned for this, and the enormous wealth of his mother-in-law, over which he had control, was to serve him as the means for its execution. Even when a fugitive Marrano he had seriously put before the Republic of Venice the request that it give him one of its numerous islands, so that he might people it with Jewish inhabitants. But this was refused either on account of the narrow-mindedness of the Christians or the fear of mercantile competition. When later on Joseph stood high in favor with Prince Selim, and also with Sultan Solyman, he obtained from them, besides seven villages, the ruins of the city of Tiberias, for a small Jewish state to be peopled only with Jews. He sent one of his agents to superintend the re-building of Tiberias. The Turkish prince gave the pasha of Egypt strict orders to assist the building in every way. The Arab occupants of the neighboring villages were compelled to render forced labor, and the new and beautiful houses and streets of the city of Tiberias were completed in a year. Joseph of Naxos wished to make it a manufacturing town to compete with Venice. He planted mulberry-trees for the cultivation of silk-worms, and introduced looms for the manufacture of silks; he also imported wool from Spain for the making of fine cloth.

Joseph does not seem to have directed his full energy to the little Jewish state; his plans were far more extensive, and thus New Tiberias never became an important place. He next endeavored to obtain the island of Naxos as a dukedom, together with the adjacent islands of the Ægean Sea, and when he was fortunate enough to be appointed duke by Sultan Selim, he thought no more about peopling his little island state with Jews; perhaps it was not practicable. His mind was next set on becoming king of Cyprus. It is possible that he might have transformed this island of the goddess of beauty into a Jewish state had he obtained possession of it, but his enemy, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, prevented this. Thus his dreams of founding an independent Jewish state were dispelled. In reality, Joseph of Naxos did nothing of lasting importance for Judaism. He made various attempts, and then relaxed in his endeavors, or misspent his means.

The fact that Jews occupied an exceedingly favored position in Turkey for so long a period did not result in correspondingly enduring progress. They did not produce a single great genius who originated ideas to stimulate future ages, nor mark out a new line of thought for men of average intelligence. Not one of the leaders of the different congregations was above the level of mediocrity. The rabbis and preachers were deeply learned in their particular subjects, but kept to the beaten track, without making a new discovery or bequeathing an original contribution, even in their own department. Only one rabbi left to posterity an epoch-making work, which even yet possesses significance, disputed though it be; but even this work contained nothing new or original. Joseph Karo, chief rabbi of the city of Safet, in Palestine, completed, after many years of toil, a new book of religious ordinances, the "Shulchan Aruch." Religious impulses, mystical fanaticism, and ambition, had equal shares in the making of this book. For Joseph Karo was still subject to strange visions: he still believed that he would be recognized everywhere as the highest authority by the compilation of his religious code, a norm for Jewish religious life; and that, by this means, he would accomplish the revival of rabbinical ordination, in which Jacob Berab had failed; restore, in fact, the unity of Judaism, and thereby hasten the coming of the Messiah. He spent the whole of his life in collecting the vast material, in weighing the pros and cons of arguments, drawing conclusions and arranging them in their proper places. By doing this he supplied a serious want. There was no manual that embraced the whole field of religious observance. As the Talmud and the later religious codes to an even greater extent favored differences of opinion upon nearly every single point in matters of religion, ritual, law and the marriage state, disputes constantly occurred which led to altercation and divisions in the communities, for it rarely happened that two rabbis agreed upon any question that came up for discussion. Each was able to adduce reasons for or against any argument from the vast mass of rabbinical literature.

It was this confusion and divergence of opinion that Joseph Karo wished to check by means of his new religious Code. He embraced the whole of the vast field of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, although his intellect could not master it. By birth a Spaniard, he involuntarily preferred the views of Spanish authorities to those of French and German writers. Hence he allowed partiality to creep into his compilation. As a matter of course, too, Karo admitted various elements of mysticism, though only sparingly, as if unwilling to place the Zohar upon a level with the Talmud in matters of practical religious observance. He has embodied in his Code excellent precepts in regard to sanctity, chastity, brotherly love, morality, and honesty in business, drawn from the Talmud and the rabbinical writings; but they disappear in a sea of casuistical details and mere externals, in a patchwork of divisions and subdivisions, of "ifs" and "buts." In this work there appears an altogether different kind of Judaism from that revealed on Sinai, announced by the prophets, or even taught by Maimuni. But this Judaism thoroughly suited the ideas of the Jews of that period, and therefore Karo's Code was immediately hailed with delight, disseminated, and received as the infallible standard authority in Turkey, throughout the East, in Italy, and even in Poland.

Thus religious life received a certain finality and unity, but at the expense of spirituality and freedom of thought. From Karo Judaism received the form maintained up to the present time. His dream was partially fulfilled. His rabbinical writings became the common property of Judaism, and gave it religious unity. But he himself did not become the leader and head, as the "Spirit of the Mishna" had repeatedly promised him: he was only honored as one authority among many others. Still less did he restore the ordination of rabbi-judges as members of a Synhedrion, or hasten in any way the coming of the Messiah.

At that time there was a man in Italy, who not only surpassed all his Jewish contemporaries in his spirit of inquiry and desire for truth, but who would have been able to purify Judaism from the dross of centuries of hardship, if the tendency of the age had not run counter to this endeavor, or if he had had greater courage in opposing it. Azarya ben Moses deï Rossi (born at Mantua about 1514, died in 1578), descended from an old Italian family, had buried himself so deeply in books, that his body bore traces of severe suffering from over-study. Feeble, yellow, withered, and afflicted with fever, he crept about like a dying man. Yet in this living corpse a powerful and healthy mind worked with great activity. He had thoroughly mastered the whole of Jewish literature, besides being well read in Latin historical works, and he had also practiced medicine. At the same time he led a wandering life. He dwelt for some time at Ferrara, then in Bologna, had to leave that city in consequence of the persecution and expulsion of the Jews under Pius V, and finally settled again permanently in Ferrara. He held intercourse with the greatest Jews, Christians, and Marranos of his age, and was regarded by all with astonishment as a marvel of learning. He did not allow the treasures of his knowledge to lie dead within him, but let them grow and spread luxuriantly. Ancient history possessed special attraction for him. But even more admirable than his vast reading was the use he made of it. He was the first to bring into contact and connection with one another two provinces of literature which were far apart – the Talmud and its offshoots, with Philo, Josephus, and the works of the Church Fathers, proving the truth of historical narratives from the mouths of many witnesses. Deï Rossi, too, was the only one not satisfied with the data of tradition; he accepted nothing as truth till he had subjected it to a searching examination.