Читать книгу Judaism I - Группа авторов - Страница 20

Dr. Robert Chazan of New York University covers Judaism’s shift from its Mediterranean orbit to Europe. The small Jewish community in Northern Europe around the year 1000 became a vigorous branch of the Jewish people. Christian rulers perceived Jews as useful for economic improvement. Anti-Jewish animosity and violence was manifest. In 1095, Pope Urban II announced an undertaking to recapture the sites of Christianity in the Holy Land. Anti-Jewish crusading violence reflected popular resistance to Jewish settlement in northern Europe. Yet French Jewry produced the first major classics of literature to emerge in Europe.

The Church prohibited Christians taking interest from other Christians, so finance became a Jewish specialty. Allegations of Jewish murder of Christian youngsters began to spread during the twelfth century. King Philip Augustus of France instituted a new policy toward his Jews: confiscation of Jewish goods; a remission of debts owed to Jews; and finally, expulsion.

In the 1230’s, Pope Gregory IX sent letters to the authorities of Christendom with the allegation that the Talmud contained demeaning references to Christianity. King Louis IX of France convened a court where Rabbi Yehiel of Paris defended the Talmud, while scholars from the university of Paris constituted the jury. They found the Talmud guilty and its manuscripts were burned. The Jews expelled from northwestern Europe proceeded eastward to economically less developed areas.

By the end of the first Christian millennium, the Jewish communities of Southern Europe were well rooted, especially on the Iberian Peninsula. Jews immigrated to Christian Spain and southern France as a result of the twelfth century invasion of the Almohade Muslims of North Africa. Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, who was born and studied in Muslim Spain left as a result. He was one of the towering intellects of all Jewish history. Major stimuli for Jewish creativity across medieval southern Europe came from the Islamic sphere.

In the thirteenth century, inquisitorial courts played a significant role in the Roman Church. The claim of heresy among the New Christians was a major factor in the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. Jews made their way eastward into the Ottoman Empire.