Israel in Europe

by G. F. Abbott

Spain, as we have seen, embraced the opposite principle, and at the end of the fifteenth century, a great number of Jewish refugees from that country joined their brethren in Venice, where they were allowed to settle under certain conditions agreed to between the Government of the Republic and Daniel Rodrigues, the Jewish Consul of Venice in Dalmatia. But, as tolerance began to decline, the life of the Venetian Jews was made bitter to them by a variety of harsh enactments which hampered their movements and checked their development; such as the law that compelled them to reside at Mestre, the law that forbade them to keep schools, or teach anything, on pain of 50 ducats’ fine and six months’ imprisonment, and numerous other restrictions which culminated in their confinement in the Ghetto.

Meanwhile persecution and the accumulation of sufferings brought back to life the old Messianic Utopia. According to one calculation the Redeemer was expected in the year 1503, and the end of the world to come soon after the fall of Rome. Cabbalistic mysticism encouraged these expectations, and in 1502 a certain Asher, in Istria near Venice, assumed the character of Precursor. Like John the Baptist, Asher preached repentance and contrition, promising that the Messiah would appear in six months. He gained many devoted disciples both in Italy and in Germany, and his predictions called forth much fasting and praying and charity, as well as considerable exaltation and extravagance. The prophet’s sudden death brought the dream to an end; but it revived thirty years later among the much-tried Marranos of Spain and Portugal.[78]

Despite all disadvantages, however, the Jews of Venice were able to hold their own. Their wit, sharpened by an oppression not severe enough to blunt it, suggested to them various means of evading the statutes, and escaping the consequences. Their hatred of the Gentile oppressors sought its gratification in over-reaching and beating them in the race for wealth. Excluded from most other provinces of activity, they concentrated all the resources of their fertile genius in the acquisition of gold. These circumstances were scarcely conducive to cordiality between them and the Christians.

During the war with Turkey all the Levantine merchants in Venice, most of whom were Jews, were, in accordance with the barbarous practice of the times, imprisoned, and their goods seized. On the 18th of October, 1571, the popular enthusiasm, excited by the news of the Lepanto victory over the Turks, expressed itself, among other demonstrations—such as cheering, releasing debtors from prison, closing the shops, mutual embracing, thanksgiving services, bell-ringing, and the like—also in an outcry against the Jews, who, for some occult reason, were suddenly accused of being the cause of the war. ♦1571 Dec.♦ This outcry led to the issue by the Senate of a decree of expulsion which, however, was only partially carried out, ♦1573♦ and two years later was revoked through the exertions of Jacopo Soranzo, the Venetian Agent at Constantinople, who explained to the Doge and the Council of Ten the harm which the Jewish colonies in Turkey were able to do to their Catholic enemies in the West.

♦1574♦

Next year a Jewish diplomatist, Solomon Ashkenazi, arrived in Venice as Envoy Extraordinary, appointed by the Grand Seigneur to conclude peace with the Republic. It was not without difficulty that the prejudices of the Venetian Government were overcome, and that the Jew was received. But, once acknowledged, Solomon was treated with the respect due to his ambassadorial character, and to the power of the Court which he represented. The joy of the Venetian Jews at the consideration paid to their illustrious co-religionist knew no bounds.

Rome followed the example of Venice. The Catholic reaction against the Reformation brought about a radical change in the attitude of the Popes towards their Jewish subjects. Humanism was banished from the Vatican, and with it the broad spirit of toleration which had secured to the Jews of Rome an exceptional prosperity. The ancient canonical decrees which had wrought desolation in the distant dependencies of the Papacy, but had hitherto been allowed to lie dormant in its capital, are now enforced. The old outcry against the Talmud, as the source of all the sins and obstinacy of the Jews, was once more raised by Jewish renegades, and the Court of the Inquisition condemned it to the flames. ♦1553♦ Julius III. signed the decree for the destruction of a book which Leo X. had helped to disseminate. The houses of the Roman Jews were invaded by the myrmidons of the Holy Office, and all copies of that and other Hebrew works found therein were confiscated and publicly burnt, by a refinement of malice, on the Jewish New Year’s Day. Similar bonfires blazed in Ferrara, Mantua, Venice, Padua, and even in the island of Crete.

♦1555–1559♦

Matters grew worse under the bigoted Pope Paul IV. The very first month of his reign was signalised by a Bull ordering every synagogue throughout the States of the Church to contribute ten ducats for the maintenance of the House of Catechumens, in which Jews were to be educated in the Christian faith. A few weeks later, a second Bull forbade the Jews to employ Christian servants or nurses, to own real estate, to practice medicine, to trade in anything but old clothes, or to have any intercourse with Christians. The synagogues were destroyed, except one; and it was proclaimed that all the Jews who were not labouring for the public good should quit Rome by a fixed date. The meaning of this mysterious sentence became clear to the victims when shortly after they were forced to repair the walls of the city. The edict of banishment, it is true, was immediately repealed by the intervention of Cardinal Fernese; but the harshness of their treatment was in itself sufficient to drive the wretched people to exile. ♦1555♦ Many Jews left Rome, and those who remained were penned in the Ghetto.[79]

Previous to this date most of the Roman Jews voluntarily dwelt in a special quarter on the left bank of the Tiber, known as Seraglio delli Hebrei or Septus Hebraicus; but they were not isolated from the Christians; for many of the latter, even members of the nobility, had their luxurious palaces in the midst of the Jewish houses, and many a stately Roman church reared its proud Campanile in the vicinity of a synagogue. All this was now altered. The palaces of the Christian nobility and the places of Christian worship were removed, or fenced off, from the abodes of the unclean, and these were surrounded by great grim walls, with porticoes and gates guarded by watchmen, who shut them at midnight and opened them at early morning, except on the Sabbath and on the Lord’s Day, or other Christian feasts, when the gates remained closed the whole day, so that no infidel could go forth and defile the Christian festivities with his unhallowed presence. On week days the bell that called the faithful to vespers was for the Jew who valued his life a signal to retire to his prison. All the inmates of this prison, men and women alike, on leaving its precincts, were obliged to wear a special garb: the men a yellow hat, the women a yellow veil or a large circular badge of the same colour on their breast. Thanks to this mark of distinction no Jew or Jewess could step or stand outside the Ghetto gates without meeting with insult and outrage on the part of the mob. The yellow badge was the favourite mark for the missiles of the street urchins, and for the sneers of their elders; so that the prison often became a haven of refuge for the Jew.