History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6)

by Heinrich Graetz

Badis, nevertheless, persisted in his resolve, and issued his commands to the generals of his army. Joseph alone deemed it his duty to abstain from taking part in the mischievous design of the king against his Arab subjects, and determined to frustrate the plot even at the risk of his own life. Through the medium of certain women, on whom he could rely, he sent secret instructions to the chief Arabs of the capital, warning them not to attend the mosque on the following Friday, but to keep themselves concealed. They understood the hint and obeyed it. On the appointed Friday the troops were drawn up in readiness near the palace. The spies of Badis found in the mosque only Berbers and a few Arabs of the lower classes. Badis was thus obliged to abandon his plan; but his anger turned against his minister, whom he suspected of betraying his trust, and he reproached him bitterly for it. Joseph denied the charge of having warned the Arabs, and maintained that the plan had been revealed by the mysterious, unnecessary military preparations. Finally, he remarked that the king ought to thank God that he had protected him from impending danger. "The time will come when thou wilt approve of my view of the matter, and wilt readily follow the advice I give thee." A Berber sheik came to the support of the vizir, and Badis was appeased. But dislike lingered in his heart against his Jewish minister, and he was full of suspicion of him. Joseph could maintain his position only by the aid of spies, who reported to him every utterance of the king. The Berber population, however, noticed that the Jewish vizir was now no longer in high favor with their sovereign, and dared enter into plots against him, and follow the dictates of their hatred against him and the Jews. Damaging rumors were continually circulated about him. His enemies gained the upper hand. A fanatical Mahometan poet, Abu Ishak al-Elviri, in an inflammatory poem, stimulated the fierce enmity of the Mahometans of Granada against the Jews into energetic action. A passage in it ran as follows:—"Say unto the Sinhajas, to the mighty men of the time, and the lions of the desert, 'Your lord has committed a disgraceful deed, he has given honor to the infidels. He appointed as minister (Katib) a Jew, when he was well able to find one among the Faithful. The Jews buoy themselves up with foolish hopes, make themselves lords, and treat the Moslems with haughtiness. When I entered Granada, I perceived that the Jews possessed the sole authority, and divided the capital and the provinces among themselves. Everywhere one of this accursed tribe is in power.'" This seditious poem was soon in the mouth of all Mahometans; it was the raven's croaking for Joseph's death.

At length, a certain incident unchained the fury of his opponents. The troops of a neighboring prince, Almotassem of Almeria, had invaded the territory of Granada, and they declared that Joseph was in league with their king, and that the army had appeared because he intended to surrender the country to Almotassem. The truth of the matter cannot be discovered now. As soon as the statements of the Almerian soldiery had spread abroad, the Berbers, accompanied by a crowd of the common rabble, hastened on the same day, on a Saturday, to the palace of Joseph. On receiving news of the rising, he concealed himself, and blackened his face, so as to escape recognition. His furious enemies nevertheless recognized him, slew him, and crucified him at the gates of Granada. The young minister met his sad end in the thirty-fifth year of his life (9 Tebet, 30 December, 1066). The rage of the infuriated assassins also spent itself on all the Jews in Granada that had not saved themselves by flight. Over one thousand five hundred Jewish families were massacred on that day, and their houses destroyed. Only a few escaped the slaughter, among whom were Joseph's wife, with her young son, Azaria. They fled to Lucena, but so little of their enormous wealth had they been able to save that they were compelled to rely for their support on the congregation of Lucena. Joseph's valuable library was partly destroyed and partly sold. Great was the mourning for the Jewish martyrs of Granada and for the noble Jewish prince. Even an Arabic poet, Ibn-Alfara, who had celebrated Joseph during his lifetime, dedicated an elegy to him, in which these words occur: "Faithfulness is my religion, and this bids me shed a tear for the Jew." His sympathy caused calumnies to be spread against the Mahometan poet at the court of the king of Almeria, who was admonished against extending the hand of friendship to him. The prince, however, replied, "This poet must have a noble heart, since he laments a Jew after his death. I know Moslems who pay no attention to their living co-religionists."

The revolt against Joseph Ibn-Nagrela in Granada was the first persecution of the Jews in the Pyrenean peninsula since its conquest by Islam. It appears to have lasted some time, for the Jews throughout the kingdom of Granada were exiled, and compelled to sell their landed property. It had no effect, however, upon the Jewish inhabitants of other parts of Spain. The princes or kings of each district, who had made themselves independent on the downfall of the caliphate of Cordova, were so hostile towards each other, that the people who were persecuted by one prince were protected by his enemy. The three distinguished Jews who had been banished from Granada were received in a friendly spirit by Almuthadid, king of Seville, and Joseph Ibn-Migash I was given a high office. The king of Saragossa, Al-muktadir Billah, a patron of science and poetry, also had a Jewish vizir, Abu Fadhl, a son of the poet Joseph Ibn-Chasdaï who contended with Ibn-Gebirol for the laurels of poetry. This Abu Fadhl Chasdaï (born about 1040) was likewise a poet, but, although acquainted with Hebrew, he wrote only in Arabic verse. The following opinion of him was expressed by an Arabic critic: "When Abu Fadhl wrote poetry one was ready to believe in witchcraft; he did not compose verses, but miracles." Abu Fadhl was also distinguished in other branches of science. He understood the theory and practice of music, but his favorite study appears to have been speculative philosophy. The remarkable qualities of his mind attracted the attention of the king of Saragossa, who made him his vizir (1066).

Not long after these events, Solomon Ibn-Gebirol, the noble philosopher-poet, ended his days on earth. His gloomy spirit appears to have become still more somber through the tragic events in Granada. His last poems were therefore elegiac laments over the cruel fate of Israel: "Wherefore does the slave rule over the sons of princes? My exile has lasted a thousand years, and I am like the howling bird of the desert. Where is the high-priest who will show me the end of all this?" (1068). In the last year of his life, Solomon Ibn-Gebirol complained similarly: "Our years pass in distress and misery; we look for the light, but darkness and humiliation overtake us: slaves rule over us. Till she fell, Babylon held sway over me; Rome, Javan, and Persia then hemmed me in, and scattered me far and wide; and these 461 years (from the time of Hejira) doth Ishmael despoil me." This probably was Ibn-Gebirol's last poem. He spent the last years of his life, after many wanderings, in Valencia, and there he died, not yet fifty years old (1069 or 1070). A legend relates that an Arab poet slew him from envy of his masterly powers of song, and buried his body beneath a fig-tree. The tree produced extraordinary blossoms, the attention of passers-by was drawn to it, and thus the murder of the noble poet was discovered.

At the time when Spain showed such an abundance of distinguished men, France and Germany were lacking in great creative minds, and the history of the Jews of these countries presents few interesting features. They lived entirely undisturbed, were landowners, cultivated the vine, occupied themselves with handicrafts and trade, and only had to pay to the prince, in whose territory they dwelt, a kind of Jew-tax.

The French and German Jews doubtless lacked energy and chivalry, but theirs was not a lower grade of culture than that of their Christian compatriots. Their chief occupation on both sides of the Rhine was the study of the Talmud, into which Gershom had initiated them. "They drive away sleep to absorb themselves in the Talmud."

The first Jewish persecution on Andalusian soil by the Mahometan fanatics of Granada alarmed all the communities of Spain, but it did not have the effect of discouraging them, or producing stagnation. The pursuit of science and poetry had become second nature to the Jews of southern Spain, and only frequent and crushing disasters could repress their love. The persecution was neither repeated nor imitated. The people of Granada had murdered the Jewish vizir and several of his nation, which, however, did not hinder other kings or emirs from attracting gifted Jews to their courts, entrusting them with important affairs, and placing the Jews on an equality with the ruling population of the state.

An Arab historian complained that the princes of the Faithful abandoned themselves to sensual enjoyments, placed their power in the hands of the Jews, and made them Hayibs, vizirs and private secretaries. The example of the Mahometan courts was followed even by Christian states. They also began to employ Jews in affairs of state, and their ability and faithfulness added greatly to the growth of their power. Thus the position of the Spanish Jews remained for a time wholly unaffected by the success of Christian arms and the gradual dissolution of the Mahometan principalities. They felt as much at home under the dominion of the Cross in Spain, as under that of the Crescent, and were able, unfettered, to satisfy their love of investigation. Their ardor in the domain of science and of poetry, far from cooling, increased, if possible, more and more, and the number of students grew from year to year. Yet it appears that in the period after Ibn-Nagrela and Ibn-Gebirol, poetry, philology, exegesis, and philosophy, although eagerly followed, were superseded by the study of the Talmud, which became, as it were, the central study. The dialectics of the Talmud were revived and cultivated simultaneously in Spain, Africa, and France. The study of the Talmud was so thoroughly prosecuted that the achievements of the Geonim were thrown into the shade. Six men, of whom five bear the name of Isaac, and the other, that of Yizchaki, may be regarded as the principal figures of the second rabbinical age: Isaac Ibn-Albalia, distinguished also for his political position; Isaac Ibn-Giat and Isaac ben Reuben, who were at once Talmudists and writers of liturgical poems; Isaac Ibn-Sakni; Isaac Alfassi and Solomon Yizchaki, the two creators of an independent method of Talmudic study, far surpassing that used by the Geonim.

Isaac ben Baruch Albalia, by means of documents, traced his origin to Baruch, a noble exile from Jerusalem, who is supposed to have been sent by Titus to a proconsul at Merida, in order to carry on in Spain the silk culture, in which his family was skilled. Later the Albalias removed to Cordova, and became one of the most distinguished families of the Andalusian capital. Isaac (born 1035, died 1094) early betrayed a gifted mind and a burning thirst for knowledge. His inclinations led him equally to astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and the Talmud. Samuel Ibn-Nagrela encouraged him in his studies by gifts and books, and his son Joseph endowed him with abundant means. Isaac Ibn-Albalia lived alternately in Cordova and with his noble patron in Granada. He only trifled with poetry, and turned his mind to deeper studies. Isaac Ibn-Albalia had scarcely attained his thirtieth year, when he began a commentary to elucidate the most difficult portions of the Talmud. At the same time (1065) he was writing an astronomical work called Ibbur, on the principles of the Jewish calendar, which he dedicated to his patron, Joseph Ibn-Nagrela. Isaac Ibn-Albalia, who was at the time visiting his friend Joseph, luckily was not injured in the massacre at Granada (1066), and he afterwards made Cordova his permanent abode. Here he became acquainted with the noble prince, Abulkassim Mahomet, a lover of science and poetry. When the latter ascended the throne of Seville, under the name of Al-Mutamed (May, 1069), he summoned Ibn-Albalia to his court at Seville, and made him his astronomer, whose duty it was not so much to observe the motions of the stars as to foretell future events from the position of the constellations. He also appointed Isaac Albalia as chief over all the Jewish communities of his kingdom, which fortunate conquests had made the mightiest in Mahometan Spain. It extended northward as far as Cordova, and eastward to Murcia. Isaac, therefore, like Ibn-Chasdaï, Ibn-Jau, and Ibn-Nagrela, took the rank of prince (Nassi). He was at the same time rabbi over the communities of the realm of Seville, and his authority was acknowledged abroad. As his master, Al-Mutamed, was the most illustrious prince in Spain, so Isaac was the most illustrious and learned man among the Spanish Jews. Beautiful Seville became through him the center of Jewish Spain, as Cordova and Granada had been in the past. Al-Mutamed, the last noble ruler of the Arab race in Spain, had another Jewish functionary at his court, Ibn-Misha'l, whom he employed on diplomatic missions.

Of Albalia's contemporary, Isaac ben Jehuda Ibn-Giat (b. 1030, d. 1089), little is known. He belonged to a rich and illustrious family of Lucena (not far from Cordova). Both the Ibn-Nagrelas gave him in his youth many proofs of their respect, and he was devoted to them heart and soul. After the tragic end of Joseph Ibn-Nagrela, Ibn-Giat gave himself much trouble to raise Joseph's son, Abu-nassar Azaria, to the rank of rabbi of Lucena. But death deprived this noble house of its last scion. The community selected Isaac Ibn-Giat as its spiritual chief, on account of his learning and virtues. Liturgical poetry, philosophy, and the Talmud were the three domains sedulously cultivated by him.