A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism (19 page)

The church governed much of daily life in this period. The only book most people knew much about was the Bible. The church was their only
source of help in times of flood or famine. The rules they lived by were said to be the word of God. From their perspective, Jews were seen both as outsiders who refused to participate in the spiritual life of the community and as wealthy misers who demanded impossible payments from hardworking people who could not afford to pay. Yet Christians needed to borrow money, and no one was willing to lend it to them without interest. When Jews were killed and their money and property confiscated, people might have felt guilty about the theft. However, if they could persuade themselves that the Jews deserved to be killed and robbed, there would be less to feel guilty about.

After the Black Death in the mid-1300s, the persecution of Jews intensified, and many Jews in Europe moved farther east. Some left because life at home had become too dangerous. Others headed east because they were forced from their homes. Increasingly, whenever a ruler decided that his debts were overwhelming or that he no longer needed the services Jews provided, he expelled them—no matter how long they and their families had lived in the country. In every instance, the ruler claimed their property and took charge of all money owed to them. Borrowers then had to pay their debts to the ruler instead of to the Jewish lenders.

In contrast to much of northern Europe, where Jews faced persecution, Spain was a haven. From the eighth century onward, Jews there prospered under Muslim and, later, Christian rule. By the fifteen century, Spain had the largest Jewish population in the world. One out of every ten individuals in Spain was a Jew or of Jewish descent. Jews were prominent in trade, medicine, the arts, and even government. And yet in 1492, Spain expelled its entire Jewish population. The expulsion shows how precarious life was for outsiders, particularly Jews.

First, some background: By 715
CE
, Muslims had conquered the entire Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). The newcomers treated the Iberian people they conquered, both Christians and Jews, as
dhimmi
—people who belonged to a tolerated religion—just as the Muslims in Syria did at about the same time (see
Chapter 3
). As
dhimmi
, Jews and Christians had rights, including the right to practice their religion and establish their own communities. In return, they had to obey Muslim laws, pay special taxes, and suffer discrimination and humiliation depending on the whim of a ruler.

Today, receiving
dhimmi
status does not sound like much of an accomplishment. In effect, the
dhimmi
were second-class citizens—separate
from but definitely not equal to Muslims. But in the eighth century and later,
dhimmi
status was a step forward, particularly for Jews: most had more freedom in Muslim Spain than anywhere else in Europe. Jews there could own land and farm for a living. They could also become artisans, practice medicine, and buy and sell a variety of goods. Some worked as diplomats, advisers, and translators for the caliphs who then ruled Spain.

Christians were less satisfied with Muslim rule, and they fought from time to time to try to regain control of the peninsula. By the eleventh century, their fight had become a holy war. Slowly they made progress. By the beginning of the twelfth century, Spain was divided into small territories; most of the Christian kingdoms were in the north and the Muslim principalities in the south.

How Jews were treated in a particular place always depended on who was king or caliph. A ruler who was tolerant of Jews and other minorities might be followed by one who was greedy, cruel, or just weak. In the late twelfth century, the Almohades, a North African people who believed in an extreme form of Islam, overran much of Spain. Even though forced conversions were against Muslim law, the Almohades demanded that all
dhimmi
convert to Islam. Christians responded by fleeing north to kingdoms under Christian rule. Some Jews fled to the north, as well. Although the rulers of those kingdoms considered Jews “serfs of the exchequer” in much the way rulers did in other parts of Europe, they needed money and other aid from Jews and were therefore willing to give them considerable freedom. As a result, some Jews in Christian Spain provided supplies to the military, managed the financial affairs of various kingdoms, and even held high positions in government—occupations that were unthinkable in other parts of Europe. A few even fought in the
Reconquista
—the wars Christians waged to reconquer the Iberian Peninsula.

Many other Jews found refuge in more tolerant Muslim lands. Among them was the family of Moses Maimonides, one of the most extraordinary Jews of his or any other time. Maimonides was born in Cordoba in 1135. When the Almohades took control of the town in 1145, his parents and other Jews in the city were forced to convert to Islam. In order to become Jews again, they had to leave Cordoba. For ten years, the family moved from place to place in Spain before settling in Morocco, where young Maimonides studied science and medicine. In time he moved to Egypt, where he became a noted philosopher, a physician to the sultan of Egypt, and the leader of the Jewish community in Cairo. He was admired and revered by both Muslims and Jews.

Journeys like the one that the Maimonides family made became more and more common as the battle for control of Spain continued. By the thirteenth century, Christians ruled all of Spain except Grenada in the south, and Ferdinand III of Castile (who ruled his kingdom in northern Spain from 1230 to 1252) proudly declared himself “king of three religions.” Yet even as he boasted of his toleration, there were signs of trouble. Many Christians resented the idea of Jews in high places. They complained that Jews were favored over Christians.

The preaching of two religious orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, reinforced distrust of Jews. Everywhere they traveled—and they spent most of their time traveling—these monks spread myths and lies about Jews. They claimed that Jews routinely committed ritual murder, desecrated the host (see
Chapter 5
), and poisoned wells. During the plague years in the fourteenth century, such stories led to massacres of Jews in Barcelona and other Spanish cities.

In 1378, a high-ranking Franciscan priest named Ferrán Martínez began a campaign against Jews in Castile. In sermon after sermon, he called on Christians to expel all Jews from Spain. Jewish leaders defended their community, reminding King Enrique II of their contributions to Spanish life. They also asked the king to denounce this priest. Although he was sympathetic, the king was in the midst of a political struggle of his own, trying desperately to hold on to his throne.

By 1390, Martínez was powerful enough to take advantage of the king’s weakness. In December, Martínez ordered priests in his diocese to destroy all synagogues in their area. Then, early on the morning of June 4, 1391, he and his followers attacked the Jews of Seville, the capital of Castile. They murdered hundreds of Jews in their homes and countless more in the streets. Many Jewish women and children were captured and sold into slavery. A few Jews fled the country, but many converted to Christianity to escape death. According to one observer, “[In] the shortest time and with great speed, the tumult [in Seville] spread through all of Spain and even beyond the Pyrenees and to the islands of Majorca and Sardinia.”

Martínez and his followers played a central role in the widening crisis. They moved through the countryside, murdering Jews wherever they went. Cordoba was their next target, then Toledo, where Jews were burned alive or drowned in the Tagus River. Again, hundreds of Jews converted to
Christianity to save themselves. By July, when the group reached Valencia in Aragon, that city’s Jews had armed themselves in preparation for an attack. They won an early victory but were outnumbered by the growing mobs. Local officials were too fearful of the rioters to protect the Jews, even though the king had ordered them to do so.

Why did so many people join the mobs? Events in Barcelona offer some clues. When Martínez and his followers arrived there in early August, many Christians in the city joined in with them. Before the two groups made their first assault on the Jewish quarter, they burned the building that housed records of the debts Christians in Barcelona owed local Jews.

As in northern Europe, the rioters consisted mainly of workingmen and artisans who were deeply in debt to Jews. Unlike officials in northern Europe, those in Barcelona responded to the destruction by arresting the ringleaders. However, they were unable to prevent the rioters from storming the jail and freeing their leaders before continuing their attack on the city’s Jews. As in other cities, thousands of Jews in Barcelona chose to convert rather than be slaughtered in the streets.

The rioting in many parts of Spain that began in June of 1391 did not end until August, and new violence broke out repeatedly between the fall of 1391 and 1420. In both Castile and Aragon, the violence was followed by increased pressure on Jews to convert. Jews were forced to attend sermons in which Christian preachers showed them the “errors” of their beliefs, and new laws were passed that segregated Jews from Christians, outlawed the Talmud and other rabbinic literature, and limited the occupations that were still open to Jews. As a result of the violence and the campaigns to convert them, large numbers of Spanish Jews did become Christians—most sources estimate the number to be more than 100,000.

For hundreds of years, Christians had been trying to convert the Jews, and now, for the first time, they had real success. Suddenly thousands of Jews had become Christians. Christians should have rejoiced, and many did. Yet within a generation or two, a growing number were uncomfortable with the changes that mass conversion had brought.

As baptized Christians, the
conversos
(“converted ones”) were entitled to all the rights and privileges other Christians enjoyed, and they were quick to take advantage of this change in their status. As Christians, these former Jews entered new occupations even while some continued in traditionally “Jewish” ones like money lending and tax collecting. They held important posts in government and the church. They were a force in the
arts as well as the marketplace. In short, the New Christians made the most of their economic and social opportunities.

One of the first signs of the growing resentment toward New Christians appeared in Toledo in 1449. The spark was an unpopular tax. When the king ordered
converso
tax collectors to enforce that tax, a riot broke out. Unwilling to challenge the king, the mob turned its anger not only on tax collectors but also on other
conversos
. They accused the New Christians of practicing Jewish customs and rituals. For the most part, these charges were false. Most
conversos
were sincere in their commitment to Christianity. By the mid-1400s, many came from families that had been Christian for two generations or more. They no longer had ties to Judaism.

Officials in Toledo and elsewhere responded to those charges not by defending
conversos
but by requiring “purity of blood” as proof of being a “true Christian.” Because the
conversos
had “Jewish blood,” they were considered “unworthy and unfit,” and they were now segregated in much the way Jews were segregated. In a sense, officials in Toledo were saying that Jews were not just members of a religious group but were in fact members of a “race.” Anyone can change religion, but a person cannot change his or her “blood.” Purity-of-blood laws spread quickly throughout Christian Spain, even though the pope condemned them. He objected to them because they contradicted the idea that the church was “catholic,” or universal.

Yet even as the pope denounced the laws, a number of popular monks and friars went a step further by linking
conversos
to Jews and Judaism. They accused the New Christians of being “false” Christians led astray by evil Jews who were guilty of blood rituals and devil worship. As a result, violent attacks on
conversos
increased.

King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella created the Spanish Inquisition in 1480 primarily to deal with rumors of Judaizing by
conversos
. It was not the first inquisition in Europe or, indeed, in Spain. (The word originally meant an inquiry or investigation.) Pope Gregory IX had introduced the inquisition in France in 1231 as an organization within the church whose purpose was to root out heresies. The Spanish Inquisition had the same goal, but the government, rather than the church, was in charge. From the start, officials focused on the
conversos
.

What constituted Judaizing? Lighting candles on a Friday night, failure to attend church regularly, and even a dislike of pork were all considered signs of Judaizing. The inquisitors tortured one woman because she put fresh sheets on her bed on Friday, just before the Jewish Sabbath began.

How did the inquisitors uncover such behavior? Anyone could accuse another person of heresy. The defendants were never told who their accusers were or allowed to confront them in open court. The inquisitors also had the right to use torture to obtain evidence; this was standard procedure for all crimes at the time. Those convicted of heresy faced life in prison or death by burning at a public event known as an
auto-da-fé
—a Portuguese term that means “act of faith.” The accusers were later rewarded for their actions by receiving part of the victim’s estate (the government kept the rest). Historians estimate that by 1490, about 2,000 New Christians had been burned to death. Others died as a result of torture or were left to rot in prison. Many
conversos
decided to leave Spain during the years of the Inquisition. Some returned to Judaism, but many did not.

Even as the Spanish Inquisition took its toll on New Christians, new laws restricted the freedom of Jews in order to segregate them from Christians of both kinds. The laws were passed shortly after Ferdinand and Isabella united all of the kingdoms in Christian Spain under their rule. They were about to begin a final push to reunite the entire country by conquering Grenada, the last territory in Spain still ruled by Muslims. Much of the money needed for this war came from Jews; between 1482 and 1492, Jews paid a fortune in special taxes and forced “loans.”