Benjamin of Tudela on Jewish Life

Cathedocracy: Part 3

• In 1168, an observant Jewish traveler, possibly a gem merchant, from Spain visited Constantinople, the Byzantine capital.
• Hardly anything is known about Benjamin of Tudela other than he wrote Book of Travels about his extensive journeys around Middle East and northern Mediterranean during 1159-72.
• Book of Travels was published in 1556 and translated into many European languages , becoming a scholar primary source material.
• Benjamin meticulously documented the conditions of Jewish communities, especially in Constantinople, the largest city.
• Approximately 2,500 Jews lived there, divided into two groups.
• 2,000 followed rabbinical customs, recognizing the Mishnah, Talmud, and commentary, while 500 were Karaites and adhered solely to the Pentateuch, rejecting Oral Law.
• By the 8th century, Karaites had become a distinct group.
• Benjamin noted tension between rabbinic Jews and Karaites, symbolized by high fence dividing their region of Jewish quarter.
• Jews worked as artisans and merchants, including many wealthy people; law prohibited horse riding except for Rabbi Solomon the Egyptian, king's doctor, helped alleviate their oppression.
• Byzantine Jews had legal status under Justinian laws and later statutes, unlike pagans and heretics.
• Jewish synagogues were legally protected places of worship, at least in theory.

Jewish Identity in Byzantium

• Jewish law courts were recognized by state, magistrates enforced legal decisions involving Jews.
• Laws protected Jews from anti-Semitic actions and mistreatment of their beliefs but were still considered 2nd class citizens.
• Serving in posts was forbidden in 425; they had to serve as decurions on city councils without pay.
• Jews could not build new synagogues; Passover date had to be after Christian Easter.
• Insisting on reading scriptures in Hebrew in Jewish communities was illegal.
• Law facilitated conversion of Jews, converts had to affirm they were not forced by fear or reward.
• Molesting converts meant being burned alive; converts reverting to Judaism were considered heretics.
• Benjamin said hostility came from tanners pouring dirty water and angering Greeks who imposed a heavy yoke and hard labor.
• Benjamin still considered Jews in Constantinople rich, charitable, observant of the scriptures, and cheerfully bearing their oppression.
• Benjamin travelled in north-eastern Spain, Provence, and Italy.
• He then visited Greece, Cyprus, Palestine, Babylonia, Persia, Cairo, Alexandria, and Sicily, where he documented Jewish communities.
• There was one Jewish agricultural colony, but most Jews were urban glassworkers, silkweavers, tanners, dyers, and merchants.
• European Jewish settlements were ancient and primarily urban during the Dark Ages; The First Book of Maccabees lists colonies across Mediterranean.

The Early Europeans

• According to Cecil Roth, the Jews were among the first Europeans culturally
• Distinct communities lived as far north as Cologne and as far west as Toledo in the early Roman empire.
• They expanded into Poland, Baltic, and Ukraine during the Dark Ages.
• Between 1-1.5 million Jews by the tenth century, a decrease from about 8 million at the time of Christ.
• The population fell more in former Roman territories with more Jewish losses than the population decreased overall.
• The number of Italian Jews declined heavily; by 1638, there were about 25,000 total which equaled 0.2%.
• Assimilation and blending among surrounding populations and economic/demographic issues resulted in these losses.
• Social role of the Jews was more prominent in Dark Age Europe than their numbers show.
• Wherever urban communities grew, Jews built communities.
• The destruction of Palestinian Jewry in the 2nd century AD led rural communities to move to cities.
• High taxes wrecked agricultural societies after the Arab conquest in the 7th century which led many Jews into towns and becoming craftsmen, merchants, and traders.
• Most Jews were literate, educated, and able to settle in areas unless restricted by violence and laws.
• The Jews in Europe were essential to urban Dark Age life.
• Responsa literature reveals a connection between Roman cities and rising town communities of early Middle Ages.
• The word commune is derived from the Hebrew kahal.
• Essential skills the Jews possessed were business letter writing, exchange rate calculation, and secure delivery within expansive family/religious networks.

The Jewish Religion, Ethical Motivations, and Usury

• Jewish religion encouraged its followers economically and incentivized hard work.
• Rabbinic Judaism after 70 AD increased economic effect and historians link the weakening of clericalism with strengthening economic dynamism.
• Clericalism ended in Jewish societies in the 2nd century AD with the temple priests, Sadducees, disappearing.
• Rabbis, who replaced clerics, were encouraged to trade and acquire a trade.
• Rabbi's decisions were made according to their trading routes.
• Rabbinical Judaism was a work gospel that needed people to maximize their gifts and directed the industrious to fulfill philanthropic duties.
• Economic progress is the product of rationalization and Rabbinical Judaism adapted old laws to modern conditions.
• The first great rationalizers of the world were the Jews and they became methodical problem-solving business people.
• Legal scholarship aimed to make business dealings efficient, fair, and honest.
• Usury, or lending at interest, created a problem Jews, Christianity, and Judaism all faced.
• Ancient Near East's early religious systems and codes did not forbid usury because people considered things live and able to reproduce themselves.
• Lending monetary tokens and food money meant interest would be earned legitimately.
• Cuneiform documents say loans were know as early as Hammurabi's time, the lenders were royal officials and temples, and interest rates were 10-25% for silver and 20-35% for cereals.

The Burden of Usury

• Interest was often fixed and legal in Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Egypt, and with various groups.
• Exodus 22:25 says the Jews are not suppose to be usurers nor take interest: religious laws forbade lending at interest among each other but allowing it from strangers.
• Provision protects poor community which needs to maintain collective survival and lending becomes philanthropic for those that did not matter.
• Lending came under philanthropy; hostility was synonymous with charitable efforts for those you know and care for.
• Borrowing still had to happen in Palestine, and this Biblical law was constantly being evaded, even discussed in Elephantine papyri and by religious authorities who laid strict rules.
• Not only principals to a usurious transaction committed a sin, but so did any accessory but talmudic casuists worked to make fair business dealings possible which did not go against Torah.
• Increased price for repayment, business partnerships that paid lenders salaries or gave them profits, and processes which allowed 1 to lend money to non-Jews who would turn around and lend it to the Jew.
• Lending capital and interest led Jewish courts to threaten moneylenders with hell, fined the creditor, and declare unenforceable debt.
• Strict, intelligent enforcement and obedience of laws was detrimental to the Jews in their relations with the rest of the world.
• Small communities in gentile universe allowed and encouraged them to moneylenders to non-Jews.
• Philo understood why code separated strangers with brothers but said the reason for the usury rules should be the same nation and citizenship , regardless of religion.
• One ruling said Jews should prefer loans that are interest-free for gentiles and Jews; another said the man who does not take interest is praised by the community .
• The fourteenth-century French Jew Levi ben Gershom agreed with the teaching: it was an obligation to burden the gentile using interest to hurt them without deviating from righteousness and helping an idolater.
• The most common way to justify it was economic necessity, even though persecution increased.
• Financial oppression tended to occur when Jews were disliked or concentrated on to gentile moneylending, Jews became a vicious circle due pressure and unpopularity.
• Christians condemned interest taking absolutely and from 1179 those who were excommunicated.
• Christians created problems for Jews financially, resulting in Jews responding by engaging in occupations that Christianity actually helped them.
• Rabbi Joseph Colon knew both France and Italy in the 15th century and wrote Jews barely engaged in any other profession besides moneylending.

The Impact on Various Groups

• Non-Muslims in Islamic law were based on Mohammed arrangements made with Jewish tribes who refused to follow Islam/Mohammad and fell under the Jihad.
• Jihad divides world into Dar al-Islam, peaceful Islamic territory, and Dar al-Harb a temporary territory controlled by non-Muslims.
• Jihad can only end until the world adheres to Islam, and was waged against the Jewish tribes of Medina under Mohammad which divided their children/property/ women and decapitated the men.
• Allah let Mohammad deal with cities as Joshua did cities of Canaan in the Old Testament but he would sometimes make a treaty or dhimma to spare foes' lives for half of their proceeds.
• Dhimma later advanced, with the dhimmi receiving protection, their life, and religion in exchange for special taxes land-poll, commercial, travel taxes.
• All are at risk since the conquerors can kill or confiscate them whenever they did not follow Islamic law.
• The Arab warriors who quickly took over half the civilized world between the 7th and 8th centuries did not want to eradicate Jewish communities that paid taxes, were literate, and were working.
• Many Jews, including Christians, were in administrative intelligentsia; Arab Mulsims were slow to hate Jews.
• The Jews had rejected Mohammad's claims as sin but had not crucified him like the Christians.

Jewish Monotheism and Culture

• Jewish monotheism was pure, similar to Islam. Its dietary and cleanly rules were similar, with minimal anti-semitic polemic/inheritances from pagan-Greek world.
• Judaism did not constitute a political threat like its Byzantine or Latin counterparts and were easier to live alongside.
• Babylonian academies flourished in Iraq, with Jewish communities thriving in the new capital of Baghdad.
• The Abbasid dynasty provided court doctors/officials in 762 as their capital.
• Arabic was learnt as a trading device and sacred commentary language, with Jewish masses speaking this like Aramiac, treasured Hebrew as families.
• Jews traded from 8th-11th centuries and supplied silk, spices, slaves from the west to Islamic territory, with Jews selling those taken by Christians
• Archbishop Agobard of Lyons believed in 825 that the slave labor was managed by the Jews.
• Baghdad Jews served as bankers for Moslem courts in the 10th century and accepted deposits/lent to caliphs, supporting academies and manipulating at the houses quietly at court and receiving honor by Arabs.
• Benjamin of Tudela found 40 000 Jews in Baghdad with 28 synagogues/10 places of study.
• Kairouan in Tunisia, another prominent Jewish region, was founded in 670 and was the capital of the Aghlabid, Fatimid, and Zirid dynasties.
• Jewish scholars/Christians transferred here as they were successful urban colonists and Jewish merchants made a wealthy academic life possible.

Jewish Success in Spain

• The most successful area was Spain between the 8th and 11th centuries, with communities prospering under Roman rule.
• Visigoth kings had systematic antisemitism that either forcibly baptized Jews or forbade Jewish rites. Observances of Shabbat and Jewish tradition became prohibited.
• Jews in Visgoth territory were executed, flogged, heavily taxed, forbidden to trade, and dragged to baptism, resulting in secret Jews/marrano who worried Spain/Christianity
• The secret Jews helped the Muslims overrun and capture cities in 711, with those stationed as garrisons behind advancing Arab armies.
• Cities became seen as Jewish in Arab geographers, with Córdoba being the capital of Ummayid dynasty under caliph Abd al-Rahman III.
• Jewish court doctor Hisdai ibn Shaprut and Jewish scholars, scientists, and poets made Córdoba the centre of Jewish culture.
• There were well-to-do families and yashiva in 44 towns.

The Waning Stability

• Liberal caliphs brought a way of life for Spanish Jewry which was never found again until the 19th century though instability remained.
• Rich Moslem leaders drew envy/fanaticism which negatively impacted their status as well as those under their aegis and Moslems started putting more trust in zealous worriers.
• Berber Moslems assassinated Jewish leaders and massacred people.
• The Almoravids became violence rulers whom threatened the community of Lucena with forced conversion and settling for a ransom instead.
• The Jews used diplomatic/financial skills to turn conquers away and served new masters as doctor/advisors/tax farmers, with the Jews being safer under Christian rulers.
• New wave of Islamic fundamentalism arose from the Almohads which carried their beliefs to Spain in 1146 and shut synagogues with choice being conversion or death.
• As with Visigoth Christianity, Jewish converts practiced their religion in secrecy in Islam they were forced to wear blue tunics; Special sign called "shikla" was worn by those who were spared in addition to clothes having to be yellow and only trading was allowed on a small scale.

The Exodus from Southern Spain and Rise of Maimonides

• Southern Spain settlements did not survive the persecution, with Jews heading north or to Africa for more tolerant lords.
• Young scholar Moses ben Maimon had prodigious learning who wondered to Spain/Fez after Almohads took hold.
• Five years later, forced conversion led to his exodus, first to Acre to visit Holy Lands/Egypt; he was appointed court physician in 1185 and was seen as great in rank through his output.
• His loss of his brother David by drowning, who invested in jewels, led Maimonides to live off medical fees.
• Maimonides died 13 December 1204, requesting to be buried in Tiberias and is worth it for his archetypal and excellent cathedocrat and scholar status.
• Ruling and knowledge were associated with rabbinical Judaism with scripture being the blueprint with which God created.
• Akiva regarded it as the instrument with which god created and Simeon ben lakish said scripture said it preceded world by 2 000 years with Eliger ben yoseh teaching it laid for 974 generations.
• Some sages thought it was rejected by 70 nations in 70 languages before Israel accepted it which made perfect sense as both religious/wisdom tradition governing Jews .

Governing Through Wisdom

• Philosophy called it the ideal law for philosophers, writing it was sealed with nature, following Torah increased right to rule Jews .
• Public people ought to be distinguished with study required to combine study.
• The Jews never took views against them since capacity promotes wisdom while also promoting piety against corruption which was quoted from the book of Proverbs.
• Torah study in comparison to study of knowledge came up as it promotes virtue of understanding, but needs of others such as poor should not be ignored.
• Sages of Lydda met to push back Hadrian persecution by saying study should always takes first, though giving God's help was just as deserving to heaven.
• Philo wrote about conflicts of public duty and study as he was leader serving at least on one embassy which was helped by the two brother notion.
• Scholastic dynasties were originally scribal lineage which spread to Jewish life.

Family Affaire in Babylonian and Egyptian Societies

• Exilarch had to come from David's family. All important men had to come from academic family , with Babylonia head from its 6 families and Palestine descending its own.
• The academy became "Grand Sanhedrin" which wrote Torah documents with Palestine calling itself a Righteous Corporation for parliament with the supreme court.
• Hierarchy looked as for ordinary, literate masses know the Muses while scholars and doctors know "ordinances" with members of Academy able to judge with literature about the law.
• Doctors sat on the Babylonian's triuvirative of Academy sat facing the gaon into different rows.

Ritual and Traditions

• Doctors and senior academics commanded similar title addressing giving and were heredity sacral and academic, demanding similar actions.
• Babylonian was hereditary judiciary used as final court for entire diaspora, had excommunication but the power existed only as long as there was Islam.
• Scholars sprang from the old academies with local centers and Egypt acting as the centre, thanks to arrivals and Spaniards.
• Families mattered with trading/ success only coming if they had regular rulings and men of unchallenged learning .
• Family is required to gain authority with trade though they began with listing distinguished family along lists of memorials to see lineage of academic ancestry dating back to scholar/judge.
• Skillful trading sustained families who worked through extensive distances and Jewish specialties with a vast variety trading and acting as Agents for academia.
• India to Samatra would takes 4 months and letter between the Maimodes talks about loss by travels though his melancholy.

The Jewish World

• 1200 business letters showed Egyptian Jews, with younger brother David, handle remarkable variety of products and distance during Maimodes time.
• The world had to be civilized at once and they were made out with careful direction but most letters also exuded caution.
• Maimonides sought to rationalize what was truly human by attempting at peace and looked above, always.

Rabbinic Judaism: Reason and Progress

• Improve humanity's condition ensure vanguard by extending knowledge by standing for progress and reason; thought was for an increasingly elite which could be helped .
• Should sell books or lend them for wisdom; had always pushed for it but they could also take care of people for them, creating reason for the future.
• Divine intellect became capable which provided rationalist explanations and was intended.

The Downfall and Persecution

• Jews should fight for holiness and be upset by attacks against them, could reach towards peace and support many through the world.
• Messianism would be explained like this with Jews' writings becoming heavily condemned and was the rule for change, better to change and push down heavy times.
• The letters are used by God so that this might happen to what has been written. They were forced in times long past, all the time.
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