Keeping Judah, Jewish!

שמירת יהודה יהודי

www.keepingjudahjewish.jimdo.com

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They called us Jews

Christ Killers!

Part 1.

הם קראו לנו יהודים

רוצחי ישו!

Ha'Am Kara'av Lanu Yehudim Rozachi Yashev

The History of the of the Crusades.

 

These Christian Crusaders went about   killing Jews on the eve of Shavuot.

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Rabino Aminadav Hinton. “Posekim Pesher”

הרב עמינדב הינטון. פוסקי פשר

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6/07/5774/10 pages.

 

900 years before Ha'Shoah!

 

CONTENTS:

1. The First Crusade; The Jews under the Almoravides; Judah Ha'Levi (1096-1148). Commentary notes with additional added Transliterated Hebrew by Rabbi Aminadav Hinton.

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Popular History of the Jews. By Professor H. Graetz Vol 3. Hebrew Publishing Company 1919. The First Crusade; The Jews under the Almoravides;

Judah Ha'Levi. Pages 166- 201.

 

The history of us Jews always seem to start out good, then turn for the worst.

 

Toward the end of the eleventh century there occurred the first assault in the struggle between Christianity and Islam outside of Spain which changed the course of history and added a bloodstained page to the annals of the Jewish People. Peter of Amiens' lamentations over the mistreatment of the pilgrims to Jerusalem (Ali Razal Li'Yerushalayim) found a thousandfold echo in the Council of Clermont, and aroused the piety, the romantic knighthood, the ambition, the greed and a multitude of other noble and sordid passions of Christendom into a Crusade. A period rich in martyrs ensued; the greatest martyrdom, however, fell to the lot of the Jews of Germany, who sealed with their blood their covenant with the G-d of Yisroel. Before the crusades, the Jews of Germany were allowed to live undisturbed; they were not excluded from holding real property, and were still less despised and held in contempt as some apologetic historians claim. When Bishop Rudiger Huozmann of Speyer added the hamlet of Old Speyer to the city (1084), he decided to provide therein dwelling places for the Jews, and to confer privileges upon them as the best way of enhancing the reputation of the city. In addition to freedom of commerce, they were given the right to possess landed property, buildings,gardens and vineyards in New Speyer. Bishop Rudiger further granted the Jews of Speyer an independent jurisdiction and their Synagogue officials or Rabbis which they called (Archisnagogus) were to enjoy the same authority in judicial matters as the burgomaster. Nevertheless, to guard them against any annoyances on the part of the rabble,Rudiger assigned to them an exclusive district which they were at liberty to fortify and defend. These privileges, for which they had to pay three and a half pounds of gold annually, were secured to them for all time by a document in which Rudiger adds that he conceded to the Jews more favorable laws than they enjoyed in other German city. The emperor Henry IV confirmed these privileges, and added still more favorable provisions. This emperor who, despite his fickleness and vacillation, was never unjust, was, on the whole, friendly to the Jews. The Jews of Worms, like the other inhabitants of that city, received favorable privileged from him. When the emperor, in the course of his quarrel with Pope Gregory VII, was forsaken by all the princes and the clergy and was treated like an outcast,the city of Worms remained loyal to him, and the Jews, like the Christians of that city, flew to arms in defense of their emperor. In appreciation of their loyalty, the Jews of the imperial cites were exempted from the payment of duties (1077).

 

Several years later (Feb. 6, 1095) he issued an imperial diploma that was extraordinarily favorable to the Jews: Jews were not to be forced to accept Christianity under fine of twelve pounds of gold. In a trial between a Jew and a Christian, the oath should be administered in accordance with Jewish custom; Jews were to be exempt from the ordeals of fire or water. And soon after the issuance of this favorable decree they were to be butchered by the consecrated warriors of a supposed holy war! 

 

The Jews of France and Germany were just then filled with Messianic Hopes (Not referring to today's Christian Hebrew Pagan movement).

 

A mystic, including Rabbi Akiva had calculated that the Son of Dovid, the false Messiah, Simon Bar Kochba would make his appearance toward the end of the two hundred and fifty sixth lunar cycle between the years 1096 -1104, and would lead the scattered sons of Judah to the Holy Land (Ha'Banim Mafozarim Yehudah L'Aretz L'Kadosh). But instead of the Shofar of the Messianic redemption (Not talking about the Idolatrous Christian Hebrew Pagan Movement)-Ha'Geulah Meshichit- they heard the cry of the Pagan Crusader pilgrims (Avodah Elilim Zli'inim): “The Jews have crucified our Savior; they must therefore either embrace (Anusim- forced conversion to Yashke) to Him or die.”

 

The first bands of the crusaders (Zalvanim), the one led by Peter of Amiens and his eight knights, the other by the presbyter of Gottschalk, the succeeding swarms, composed of the riffraff of France, England, Lorraine, and Flanders, began the holy-less work of murder and of plunder with Jews in default of the Mohammedans. It was a shameless mob, a promiscuous rabble of Pagan Christian men and women who abandoned themselves to the most vicious excesses. But these vicious palmers were consecrated warriors; their sins, both past and future, were forgiven by the Church but not forgotten by us Jews. A monk suggested to this gang the idea of driving the Jews by force into the bosom of the Church; a written message, supposedly found on the grave of Jesus, made this work the duty of all true pagan Christians. This idea appeared to the wild crusaders as advantageous, as comprehensible and pleasing to their God. Are not the Jews as unbelieving as the Saracens, both arch enemies of Christianity? The crusade could start at once if a beginning is to be made with the Jews! As soon as the bands assembled in France and in Germany, they were marked by the cross      

(The ancient symbol to Tammuz “t”) on their shoulders and by the shedding of Jewish blood. But though France was the first place of assembly for the Crusaders, the massacres in that country were only spasmodic; but the terror of the communities was so great that they sent messengers to near and distant Jewish communities including those of Germany, to urge upon them to assemble in the Synagogues, and by fasting and penitence, to supplicate the help of G-d to avert the approaching danger.

 

In Germany all was quiet as yet; the Jews of the Rhine region had as yet no suspicion of the tragic fate awaiting them, but they nevertheless assembled in their Synagogues, at the request of the leaders of the Mayence community, in fervent prayer in behalf of their endangered Jewish brothers of France. The latter, however, escaped with the mere fright, because the princes and the clergy took energetic measures for their protection. Only in Rouen that belonged to England did the crusaders drive the Jews into the Church, and, at the point of the sword, gave them the choice between death and baptism (Forced Pagan Christian Conversion of Jews)..

 

In Germany, however, the persecutions assumed a particularity tragic character. The band(Halhakah Ha'Zalvinim) that rolled into Germany from France and Flanders was led by a French knight called William the Carpenter, who, even before his departure, had to resort to the plunder of the peasants in order to obtain the gold requisite for the equipment of his train. The spirit that animated Williams pilgrims is characterized by their selection of a goose and a few goats as their guides, firmly believing that these were inspired by their God and would point out to them the road to Jerusalem. It was to such enemies that the defenseless Jewish communities of the Moselle and of the Rhine were abandoned. The emperor Henry was then entangled in Italy, and in Germany anarchy reigned supreme.

 

The mere news of the approach of the crusaders spread such consternation in the community of Treves that several Jews stabbed their children and themselves with knives, and women and girls loaded themselves with stones and jumped into the Moselle to escape baptism or dishonor, a Jew would rather kill themselves which is a violation of Tora than to be killed by Pagan Christians and forced to believe in Jesus and follow Christianity.

The rest of the community pleaded with Bishop Egilbert for protection.

 

But this hard hearted Bishop who possibly wished to clear himself from a suspicion of heresy by a zeal for proselytizing, replied to the Jews: “Embrace Christ, and I give you peace and the quiet enjoyment of your possessions; but if you remain obdurate, your souls perish together with your bodies.” The Jews held a consultation and decided, at the advice of one of their learned members, Micha (Michaeas) to feign conversion. Thereupon Michaaddressed the bishop: “Tell us quickly what we we are expected to believe, and protect us from the enemy that lurks at the gate to destroy us.” The bishop at once drawled theCatholic confession; The Jews mechanically repeated it and submitted to baptism. The band of crusaders then rolled on to Speyer, the Jewish Community of which had recently been guaranteed inviolability and freedom both by the bishop and by the emperor.In the first assault ten Jews were dragged to a church to receive baptism under the threat of death, what kind of salvation of the Church is this? More steadfast than their coreligionists of Treves, these Jewish men declined to submit to baptism, and were killed on May the 3^rd, 1096.

 

The other Jews of Speyer had fled meanwhile to the palace of Bishop Johannsen, and to the emperors castle. This bishop, more humane than Egilbert, who abhorred proselytizing by means of hangmen, employed force against the raging mob; and the Jews themselves defended their lives desperately. These energetic measures saved the community of Speyer. Johannsen even seized some of the pilgrims and ordered their execution, for which, of course, he is censured by the monkish chronicles. A rumor was circulated that the bishop was bribed by the Jews. As a matter of fact, it is not at all surprising that the Jews conceived an absolute abhorrence for Christianity, and not only resisted baptism but regarded themselves as contaminated by the mere contact with baptismal water sprinkled upon them in a condition of stupor and unconsciousness. 

 

In the Christianity of the eleventh century they could see only a wretched Idolatry. The veneration of relics and of images, the conduct of the supreme head of the Church who absolved the nations from their sacred oath and urged upon them the murder of an emperor, the lascivious life of the clergy, and the brutal behavior of the crusaders- all this suggested to the Jews the Idolatry condemned in the Scriptures rather than a faith based upon the belief in one G-d!!! 

 

The German Jews looked upon the Christianity of their time as their forefathers in the days of the Maccabees, looked upon the cult of Zeus.

 

The swarm that attacked the community of Speyer was evidently not numerous enough and could therefore be repulsed. The mob, however, awaited reinforcements; and, fourteen days later, a still larger and ever increasing number of Pagan Goy Crusader Pilgrims“Wolves of the wilderness,” as the Jewish chronicler calls them- marched upon Worms.

Bishop Allebrandus of that city could not or would not give the Jews adequate protection, though the fact that he harbored in his palace a part of the community, probably the most prominent and wealthiest, would indicate that he did not sanction the massacre of the Jews. The majority of the Jews, left to their own resources, at first defended themselves, but soon succumbed to superior numbers, and died with the “Shma” on their lips. Only a few Jews submitted to baptism, thus Christian conversion. Many Jews committed suicide rather than to become a Pagan Christian; Jewish women slew their children with their own hands. The Crusader pilgrims destroyed the houses of Jews, plundered our Jewish properties and vented their blind fury also upon the Jewish books, Seferims found in the Synagogues and in the houses of Rabbis (May 18).

 

THE JEW CAN'T TRUST ANY CHRISTIANS! EVEN THE ONE'S THAT SAY THEY ARE IN SUPPORT OF JEWS, ISRAEL. WE CAN NOT TRUST AND SHOULD NOT TRUST ANY OF THEM! FOR THEIR ALLEGIANCE IS TO THE CHURCH, TO THERE YASHKE, AND MOST OF THEM ARE DEEPLY ANTISEMITIC WITHIN THEIR HEARTS EVEN IF THEY DON'T REGARD IT OPENLY! I AM NOT SAYING ALL GOYIM ARE BAD AND EVIL. I'M SAYING WE CAN'T TRUST THEM TO PROTECT US IN TIMES OF TROUBLE. WE MUST LOOK TO OUR OWN JEWISH PEOPLE

 

Seven days later, the Jews who had found protection in the bishop's palace suffered martyrdom in their turn. The bishop notified them suddenly that he could no longer harbor them unless they accepted baptism. The Jews asked for a dew days respite to consider the matter. In front of the palace the Crusader Pilgrims were assembled, prepared to lead the Jews to the church or to death. But when the respite expired, the bishop threw the gates open to the mob, all the Jews were found swimming in blood [suicide by stabbing each other].

 

They had prepared to fall by each others [Jewish] hands. Upon learning the news, the raging mob fell upon those Jews who were still barely alive, murdered them, and dragged their corpses into the streets. Only a few Jews saved their lives by feigning acceptance of Christianity on Sunday, May the 25^th One youth, Simcha Cohen, who had lost his father and seven brothers through the Crusaders, determined not to die unavenged. He was taken to the church, and in the moment he was to receive the sacrament, he drew a knife which he kept hidden in his sleeve, and stabbed a nephew of the bishop. He was torn limb from limb in the church, as was to be expected. [A Jew should not have anything to do with Christians, or their Churches. The Jew can't trust a Pagan Christian even today!!!] Only after the crusaders left the city could the Jewish martyrs be interred. The grave diggers counted eighteen hundred “Jewish.” corpses. The day following the second massacre in Worms the crusaders arrived in Mayence. Here the mob was led by Court Emmerich or Emicho of Leiningen, a near kinsman to the Archbishop Ruthard, a blood thirsty man. Greedy for the wealth of the Jews as much as for their blood, it seems that he and the archbishop, an arch enemy of Henry IV, concerted a devilish scheme with that object in view.

 

THE JEW CAN'T TRUST CHRISTIANS, EVEN THE ONE'S THAT SAY THEY ARE IN SUPPORT OF JEWS, ISRAEL. WE CAN NOT TRUST AND SHOULD NOT TRUST ANY OF THEM. WE JEWS HAVE NO ALLEGIANCE WITH CHRISTIANS, MESSIANIC CHRISTIANS AND HAVE NO BUSINESS TRYING TO FIND COMPARISONS BETWEEN OUR OBSERVATIONS AND RELIGIONS. WE DON'T NEED TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH CHRISTIANS, THEY WILL, BUT KEEP GIVING YOU, TRYING TO CONVINCE YOU OF THEIR YASHKE! WE JEWS NEED TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR OWN JEWISH PEOPLE!

 

The archbishop invited all the Jews to place themselves under his protection until the storm passed. “Thirteen hundred Jews” took advantage of this trick invitation, committed their wealth to the bishop's charge, and hid in the court and in the garrets of the extensive palace. But at dawn of the very next day on Tuesday, May 27 Emmerich led the crusaders before the episcopal residence and, amidst savage cries, demanded the surrender of the Jews. The archbishops troops posted at the gates for the protection of the Jews, refused to turn their weapons against Christians and Crusader Pilgrims. The crusaders broke down the palace gates easily, and scattered through the chambers in search of their Jewish victims. The horrible scenes of Worms were repeated here. With the“Shma” on their lips, men, women and Jewish children were murdered by the sword of these Christians enemies.

 

[The Crusaders wanted the Jews that remained alive that converted to Christianity to help with the killing of innocent Jews by killing there own people by the sword, since they made an allegiance by converting to Christianity they had to prove that allegiance by murdering their own Jewish People!]

The Jewish corpses of thirteen hundred Jews were conveyed on wagons outside of the city from the palace. The archbishop retained the Jewish wealth and divided it with Emmerich. Sixty Jews, probably the wealthiest, who were hidden by Ruthard in the cathedral, and later on conveyed by him to a village (Rheingau) remote from the highway were also seized and slaughtered. Two men and two girls- Uriah, Isaac and the laters two daughters who, in the midst of the terror and weakness, had submitted to baptism were driven by their remorse to a horrible deed. Two days later Isaac slaughtered his daughters in his house, and set his home on fire. Thereupon, he and Uriah went to the Synagogue set it on fire likewise, and threw themselves into the flames! [ALL DONE AT THE HAND OF CHRISTIANS, WHY THE HELL WOULD A JEW WANT CHRISTIANITY AND ITS JESUS?]

This fire started a conflagration that reduced a large part of Mayence to ashes. A depraved mob of Christian Crusaders under Hermann the Carpenter gathered meanwhile about Cologne on The Jewish Eve Of The Feast Of Weeks (Shavuot).

 

The most ancient community of Germany was prepared for the worst, but the sympathy of the bishop and of the citizens of Cologne was stirred by the Jewish pleas for protection, and they secreted the Jews in their own houses. When the raving mobs broke into the Jewish houses the following day at dawn, they found them deserted, and could vent their fury only on stone, wood and the parchment scrolls of the Tora which they “these Christians.” trampled under foot. An earthquake that was felt on that day instead of frightening the delirious, bloody mob, increased their fury inasmuch as they regarded it as an expression of divine approval. The Bishop Hermann the 3rd, had the Jews secretly removed from Cologne and conveyed for greater security to cities and villages that belonged to him, in Neus and other places, where they spent three anxious weeks June 3-24 in praying and fasting.

On what was called St John's Day June 24^th, the Christian Crusaders were inspired to new murders by the sacrament of the mass, and slaughtered on the same day all Jews who had found refuge in Neus. The pilgrims soon discovered the hiding places of the other Cologne Jews also, sought them out in their retreats, and murdered the Jewish People. Many of them committed suicide in rivers and swamps. One old and learned man, Samuel Ben Yehiel, set the example. He slaughtered his only son, a handsome youth Jew, in the river, pronounced a benediction over his act to which the victim responded an “Omein,”while those who stood by joined in “ SHMA YISROEL” and plunged into the water.

Altogether twelve thousand Jews are said to have been killed in the cities of the Rhine in the course of two months May to July. The rest feigned Christianity in the anticipation that the just emperor upon his return from Italy would listen to their grievances.

In every Jewish community through which the Christian Crusader Pilgrims passed the same tragic scenes were repeated. The Jews of Bohemia appear on the scene of history for the first time through the incidents connected with the crusade. Hitherto they did not feel the yoke of oppression because Christianity had not yet became a power in the Slavic countries so those Jews were safe temporary. Some of them were well-to-do, and engaged in slave traffic which consisted mostly of Slavs (Slavonians, where the term slaves originated) whom they brought at first hand and sold in Western Europe and Spain. [Much of which brought about the slavery of my Afrocentric Jewish People from Africa and Spain, Portugal.] This traffic brought them in conflict with the clergy, and Bishop Adalbert of Prague denounced them vigorously. 

 

Then came the crusades and transplanted the poisoned seeds of fanaticism in Bohemia also. When the crusaders passed through Bohemia, the powerful Duke Wratislaw 2 was engaged in a foreign war, and there was none to check the mob in its work of murder of the Jews. The crusaders, accordingly, dragged the Jews of Prague to baptism, and murdered those who resisted.Bishop Cosmas preached in vain against such acts of violence. The Christian Goy Crusaders understood their Christianity better than the prelate. Fortunately for the Jews of Western Europe and particularly of Germany, and for the honor of mankind, this greed for blood was confined to the scum of the nation those pagan Goy Christians. The princes and the citizens, on the other hand, abhorred those deeds of violence, and even the higher clergy, with the exception of Arch bishop Ruthard of Mayence and Egilbert of Treves, stood on the side of the Jews. The time had not yet come when all the three powers- princes, people, and clergy- were a unit in the persecution of the Jews. When the news arrived that the two hundred thousand Christian Crusader Pilgrims under Emmerich and Hermann met a miserable end for the most part, most of them slain by the Hungarians, and that the leaders, with the small tattered remnant, returned to Germany covered with disgrace, Christians and Jews alike regarded this catastrophe as a just divine judgment.The emperor Henry IV had meanwhile returned from Italy, expressed his abhorrence of the excesses of the Crusaders, and upon the application of Moses Ben Ghutiel (Jukuthiel), the head of the Speyer Jewish Community, permitted the Jews who had been baptized by force to return to the faith of their fathers “Judaism.”

This was joyous news for the surviving Jews of Germany, and the baptized Jews discarded the mask of Pagan Christianity at once in 1097.

 

The representatives of the Church were by no means satisfied with this imperial decree, and even Pope Clemens the 3^rd, who owed his elevation to the emperor, protested against the profanation of the sacraments of the Church by the Jews. The emperor, however, ignored this unholy zeal of the clergy, and furthermore, upon the complaint of the Jews, instituted proceedings against the kinsman of the Archbishop Ruthard of Mayence on account of the robbery of the property of the Jewish community. As a result, the emperor confiscated the revenues of the archbishopric in 1098. Ruthard retaliated by joining the conspiracy against the Emperor. The Jews of Bohemia, however, fared badly in this year. Upon the news that the emperor had granted permission to return to Judaism, they, too, quickly dropped the mask of Christianity, but feared to remain in the country where they could find no justice. Accordingly, they gathered their belongings together with the intention of removing them to a place of safety in Poland or Panonia, Austria and Hungary and of emigrating there later on. But the Bohemian duke Wratislaw who had just then returned from the wars and learned of the intention of the Jews to remove their wealth abroad, ordered his soldiery to occupy the Jewish houses at once, and sent word to the elders of the community that he regarded their possessions as his personal property, and their scheme of removing them as a robbery about to be committed against him. “Of the Jerusalem treasures you have brought nothing to Boehmia... Naked you came into the country, naked you may depart. As to your apostasy I leave that to Bishop Cosmas.” Against such logic, the logic of brutal force, arguments are superfluous. Accordingly, the Jews of Bohemia were stripped from head to foot, and all that was left them was a few pence for their momentary needs. A contemporaneous bishop tells in this chronicle with evident satisfaction that the duke took much more gold from the Jews on that occasion than the Greeks from the Trojans upon the conquest of Troy.

 

The Jews of Jerusalem also met with a tragic fate. When the army of crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon took the Holy City by storm, after many hardships, and instituted a massacre among the Mohammedans, they drove the Jews, Karaites and Rabbinites into a Synagogue, set fire to it, and all the Jews died on July 15^th 1099. The eleventh century expired in the midst of Jewish blood. The emperor Henry, however was fully determined to protect the Jews of his empire. During his presence at mayence, with the scene of the atrocious murders before him, he made the princes and the citizens take a solemn oath not to disturb and maltreat the Jews in 1103. But the protection which the emperor granted the Jews, of a great advantage for the moment, prove detrimental in the long run. This imperial protection deprived the Jews of Germany of their citizenship and rendered them the personal property, the bondsmen, slaves, of the emperor. This circumstance, however, was not the only evil result of the crusades experienced by the Jews of Germany.

 

Those Jews who had accepted baptism under compulsion and afterward returned to Judaism, were on the one hand, claimed as Christians by Pope Clemens III, and on the other hand, repelled as apostates (in German: Abtrünnige) by their coreligionists who had remained loyal. These unfortunates thus were treated with suspicion and contempt by both sides.

 

Rashi protested vigorously against this suspicious, narrow attitude on the part of the Jews who had remained loyal: “Far be it from us,” he said, “to keep aloof from those who had returned to the fold and to put them to shame. What they did was done out of fear of the sword, and as soon as the danger passed they hastened to return to Judaism.”

 

The consequences to the first crusade upon the intellectual development of the German Jews were even more detrimental. The natural tendency of the German Jews were even more detrimental. The natural tendency of the German Jews toward exaggerated penitential piety was heightened to the point of gloom by their unparalleled sufferings. From the Catholic Church, which they could not sufficiently attest, they borrowed nevertheless the custom of visiting the graves of their martyrs whom they, likewise called pious Jewish saints (Kedoshim), and of addressing prayers to the dead and pleading for their intercession. Since that time Judaism in Germany became more and more torpid, and assumed a mournful aspect. This extreme tendency on the part of the German Jews was, however, counteracted by the Talmud. The study of Talmud, as developed by Rashi.

 

The profound Talmudic studies were the balm for the wounds inflicted upon the Jewish communities of the Rhine region by the crusading Christian mobs. Within the Talmudic Yeshivots there reigned the joyousness of intellectual creativeness; here all care and all sorrow were banished. Ha'Yeshivot thus became the universe for the unfortunate. The two great Rebbes who gave breadth and depth to the study of the Talmud died at the beginning of the twelfth century: Isaac Alfasi in 1103, and Rashi two years later in 1105 while engaged in his great Talmudic commentary. Both left numerous Talmidim who continued their studies in the spirit of their Rebbes, Ha'Toar Shni (The Masters, Baal). Both were revered by their contemporaries as well as by posterity. The admiration of the Spaniards for Alfasi found expression, in conformity with their high degree of culture, in artistic, well rounded poetic lines; that of the Jews of Germany and of Northern France for Rashi, in accordance with their lower scale of culture, in exaggerated legends.

 

The Jews of Spain, Sephardim, and even those of Andalusia, could still regard this land of beauty and of culture as their beloved home. Even under the barbaric Almoravides, who had become the masters of the south, they lived in peaceful security. Under the second Almoravidian ruler Ali (1106-1143), Jews were entrusted with the collection of the poll tax from the Jewish and Christian populations, and some of the more distinguished among them were appointed to positions of honor in his court. Under him too science and poetry were the stepping stones to his high preferment. A Jewish physician and poet, Abu Ayyub Solomon Ibn Al Muallem, Sephardi, was his court physician and bore the title of- Ha'Nasir-The Prince and vizier. Another Jewish physician, Abraham Ibn Meir Ibn Kamnial, Sephardi of Saragosa occupied a position of eminence at court, and likewise bore the title of vizier. The greatest poets of his time glorified him in lofty strains for his nobility of character, generosity, and sympathy with his coreligionists of other countries: “He walks upon the earth while he aims at the stars; he lives in Spain, but his love reaches out to Babylon and to Egypt.” Another Jewish prince whom the contemporary poets extolled was Solomon Ibn Farusal, Sephardi who was probably in the service of a Christian prince and was entrusted with a mission to the court of Murcia. Shortly before the battle of Ucles where the Mohammedans won another decisive victory over the Christians, Iban Farusal was murdered. The young poet, Judah Ha'Levi was engaged in writing an enthusiastic poem of laudation with which to greet him upon his return from his important mission when the news of his murder arrived. Thereupon, the poet transformed the jubilee song into an ingenious elegy. The astronomer Abraham Bar Hiyya, Sephardi 1065-1136 was a sort of minister of police of one of the Mohammedan rulers, and also bore the title of “prince.” He was greatly esteemed by the princes on account of his knowledge of astronomy, held a disputation with learned Christian ecclesiastics, and proved to them the correctness of the Jewish Calendar (Luach-Lunar). Although the Pyrenean Peninsula at this period possessed a number of influential men who were generous promoters of knowledge, none of them formed a pivotal point, like Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, Sephardi and Samuel Ibn Nagdela, for the awakening of dormant forces and for giving direction to literary activity. In fact, this period needed such men no longer. The emulation in all branches of human and divine knowledge was so great that it needed no longer to be stimulated from above, by an eminent personality.

 

The first half of the twelfth century produced in Jewish circles a veritable cornucopia of eminent Rabbis, poets, philosophers, ingenious Talmudists whose productions, in nearly all cases, bar the stamp of perfection. The petty jealousy of which Menahem Ben Saruk and Ibn Gabirol had occasion to complain, the feelings of hostility that prevailed between Ibn Janah and Samuel Ibn Nagdela, between Alfasi and Ibn Abalia, were banished from the circle of the cultural leaders of this period.  

CNP:J:04.850.394/0001-28 RF-026