The Jewish inhabitants of Constantinople soon felt the beneficent hand of Donna Gracia and her son-in-law. They assisted the poor, established houses of prayer and schools, and made endowments for teachers of the Talmud. But their benevolence was not limited to Spaniards and Portuguese, it extended to Germans and beyond the city of Constantinople.
When the news came that Pope Paul IV had imprisoned the Marranos of Ancona with the intention of burning them sooner or later, the heart of Donna Gracia felt a terrible pang, as a mother when her children are in misfortune, for she had taken them all into her heart as her sons and brothers. She did not give herself up to useless lamentation, but at once joined with her son-in-law in taking active steps for their relief. She first addressed herself to Sultan Solyman, entreating him to demand that at least Marrano Jews from Turkey, in Ancona on business, be surrendered to him, and had the happiness of seeing this request fulfilled. Sultan Solyman addressed a letter to the pope (March 9th, 1556) in the haughty tone which Turkish rulers, in the consciousness of their power, assumed towards the Christian princes, weakened by disunion. He complained that his Jewish subjects had been unjustly imprisoned, whereby his treasury had suffered the loss of fully 4,000 ducats, besides a still greater diminution of revenues on account of injuries to Turkish Jews. The sultan insisted that the pope should at once set at liberty all Turkish Marranos in Ancona, and hinted that, in case his representation meet with an unfavorable reception, reprisals would be made upon Christians dwelling in his dominions. Paul IV was most unwillingly compelled to submit, set free the Turkish Jews, and allow them to depart uninjured. The remainder, who had no powerful partisan, were, as has been said, burnt. The Jews resolved to be revenged on the pope, and hoped for the active aid of Donna Gracia and her son-in-law in accomplishing this purpose.
Duke Guido Ubaldo, of Urbino, had received the Marranos from Ancona in Pesaro, only because he thought by this means to bring the Levantine trade of the Jews to his own port. The community of Pesaro, therefore, sent a dispatch to all the Turkish communities which had commercial relations with Italy, requesting that they no longer send their goods to Ancona, but to Pesaro. The commerce of the Turkish Jews was very considerable; everything passed through their hands, they competed with the Venetians, and sent out their own ships and galleys. The Jewish Levantine merchants had hitherto made Ancona the staple port for the wares shipped from Turkey to Europe, in order to lessen the pre-eminence of Venice. In the first ebullition of indignation at the shameful deed of Pope Paul IV, many of the Levantine Jews agreed to the proposal of the Jews of Pesaro (Elul—August, 1556), and resolved to punish him severely by entirely cutting off the important source of revenue arising from the commerce of the Levant. But as this measure was practicable only if all Jews trading with Italy were privy to it, the participators in the arrangement at first only agreed not to carry on trade with Ancona for eight months (till March, 1557).
The Jews of Pesaro and the Marranos formerly in the Turkish dominions, of course, made every effort to effect a general movement to place the pope and his seaport under ban. But the resident Jews of Ancona, not Marranos, were afraid that their interests would suffer injury by the removal of the trade of the Levant to Pesaro, and they lost no time in sending letters to the Jewish communities in Turkey, entreating them not to make any binding agreement, because they would incur great danger, owing to the passionate disposition of the pope, who would certainly drive them into misery if he learnt that the Jews intended to be revenged on him.
All eyes were, therefore, directed towards Constantinople, for thither the representatives of the commercial towns of Salonica, Adrianople, Broussa, Ancona, and the Morea had sent letters requesting that the matter be well weighed, and their interests regarded. Donna Gracia and Joseph Nassi, of course, had the principal voice, and they were resolved from the beginning to punish the inhuman pope severely. They had instructed their agents to send the goods belonging to their house to Pesaro. The Portuguese and some of the Spanish communities in Turkey agreed to make a decided stand and prohibit trade with Ancona under threat of exclusion from Jewish commercial circles. But some opposition was made in Constantinople itself, many of the merchants fearing that their interests would be endangered by the preference given to Pesaro. The matter was, therefore, in the hands of the rabbis of Constantinople. If they unanimously considered that the port of Ancona was to be avoided out of regard for the danger which threatened the Marranos of Pesaro, their authority would fall into the balance, and settle the question. Gracia and Joseph, therefore, influenced the rabbis, so that they decided to pronounce against the pope.
Two rabbis, however, were opposed to this decision. As no unanimous decision was made in the chief community of Constantinople, the Jewish merchants of the other Turkish communities were spared the imposition of restrictions upon their trade with Ancona. In vain Donna Gracia, who regarded the question as of the deepest interest, demanded an opinion from the rabbis of the community of Safet, which enjoyed the highest authority among the Jews of the East, in the persons of its two representatives, Joseph Karo and Moses di Trani. The ban of the rabbis against Pope Paul IV was not put into action. Whilst the rabbis were still consulting, that which Donna Gracia and her adherents had been fearing to their great grief came to pass. Duke Guido Ubaldo, disappointed in his expectation of seeing his port of Pesaro become the center of the Jewish Levantine commerce, and attacked by the pope for his favor towards Jews, ordered the Marranos to depart from Pesaro (March, 1558). It must be accounted a great merit in him that he did not surrender them to the officers of the Inquisition. Most of the exiles sailed eastward in hired ships; but the pope's naval police lay in wait for them, and they escaped with difficulty. Some were taken prisoners, and treated as slaves. The skillful and humane physician, Amatus Lusitanus, a Marrano, who had resided for a short time in Pesaro, and then in Ragusa, restoring many Christians to life and health, was also obliged to quit Christian territory and take refuge in the town of Salonica, almost entirely peopled by Jews (1558–1559). This same year seems to have brought misfortune also to the Marranos of Ferrara, and the duke withdrew his protection from them, for the printing press of Abraham Usque was closed, and Joseph Nassi's brother, Don Samuel Nassi, was so badly treated by the duke, that he was obliged to call in the intercession of the Turkish court to enable him to remove to Constantinople in peace. One threatening glance from the infidel sultan had more effect upon Christian princes than the voice of justice and humanity.
The nearer Paul IV approached the grave, the more did he become incensed against the Jews. Two baptized Jews, named Sixtus Senensis, and Philip or Joseph Moro, at his command traveled through the Jewish communities situated in the Papal States and annoyed the Jews with their seditious sermons. The latter once forced his way into the synagogue at Recanate on the Day of Atonement (1558) with a crucifix, which the Jews regarded as an idolatrous image, and with violence placed it in the ark where the sacred Torah was kept. When the Jews turned him out for this insult to their sanctuary, he collected the furious mob round the house of God, and two Jews who had laid hands on him were seized and scourged by order of the chief magistrate. Pope Paul IV was most enraged against the Marranos and the Talmud. He tried to drive the former out of their most secret hiding-places Many pseudo-Christians of Spain and Portugal, unable to save themselves by flight, entered the orders, and, so to speak, howled with the wolves to escape being attacked by them. Paul IV, to whom complaints were made that Jewish Christians had joined the orders of monks, forbade them to receive Jews as members.
He went yet more thoroughly to work with the Talmud, of which not a copy was left in the Papal States or throughout the greater part of Italy, owners thereof being exposed to the heaviest penalty. The schools, for the most part, were closed. Had this condition of things become universal, great ignorance and stagnation would have spread among Italian Jews, and facilitated the great object of the pope—their conversion. But at this time a large school and an asylum for the persecuted Talmud arose in Cremona, a town of northern Italy, belonging to Milan. A Talmudist, Joseph Ottolenghi, from Germany, opened a school under the protection of the governor of Milan, teaching the Talmud and having rabbinical works printed. Every owner of a copy of the Talmud sent it secretly to Cremona, and thus very many were collected there, and thence exported to Germany, Poland, and the East. This scanty religious freedom the Jews retained also under the Spaniards, who were compelled to carry on war with Paul IV. After the pope had been obliged to submit to a disgraceful peace, he planned to have the Jewish writings in Cremona burnt. The Dominicans, who acted as the papal police, influenced the people, so as to be able to exert pressure upon the governor. Inflammatory papers were distributed in Cremona calling upon the people to kill the Jews (April 8th, 1559). A few days afterwards the governor was urged by two Dominicans, one of whom was Sixtus Senensis, a baptized Jew, to erect a pyre on which to burn copies of the Talmud, because it was said to contain nothing but blasphemies of Jesus. The governor did not choose to give credence to the accusations against the Jews without further confirmation, so two witnesses stood up against the Talmud (April 17th), a baptized Jew, Vittorio Eliano, grandson, by a daughter, of the Jewish grammarian Elias Levita, and a worthless German Jew, Joshua dei Cantori. By them the Spanish governor of Milan was convinced of the injuriousness of the Talmud, and gave orders to his soldiery to make a house to house search among the Jews of Cremona and in the printing offices, to collect all the copies they could find, and make a great fire of them. Ten or twelve thousand books were burnt on this occasion.
Vittorio Eliano, the malicious proselyte, very nearly came to grief by this burning of the Talmud, for the Spanish soldiery, having received orders to wage war upon the writings of Jews, troubled themselves but little whether the contents were Talmudical, or otherwise, and they very nearly burnt the Zohar, the Kabbalistic text-book, the especial favorite of the papacy. Since the enthusiasm of Pico di Mirandola, still more of Reuchlin, Cardinal Egidio de Viterbo, and the Franciscan Galatino, for mysticism, the most orthodox of the Fathers and Princes of the church believed firmly that the Kabbala contained the mysteries of Christianity. The order of extinction issued against the Talmud, then, did not touch the Zohar. In fact, it was precisely under Pope Paul IV that it was first printed, with the consent of the Inquisition, in Mantua. The Kabbala was to rise out of the ruins of the Talmud. Thus the printing of the book which caused more permanent injury to Judaism than any blow hitherto aimed at it was aided. From envy of the Mantuan publishers, a Christian publisher, named Vincent Conti, of Cremona, printed the Zohar at the same time, because the sale promised very large profits in Italy and the East, and he even offered to furnish a larger book in order to cast suspicion upon the Mantuan edition. The baptized grandson of Elias Levita, the venomous canon Vittorio Eliano, had charge of this Cremona Zohar, and he did not hesitate to write a boastful Hebrew preface to attract buyers, and to have his own name mentioned in connection with it. Whilst it was being printed, the Spanish soldiers were searching for Jewish writings in Cremona, and found two thousand copies of the Zohar, which they were about to cast into the burning pile. Vittorio Eliano and his partners very nearly lost their outlay and their profits, but another convert, the above-named Sixtus of Siena, commissioned by the papal Inquisition to help in destroying the Talmud in Cremona, restrained the fury of the Spanish soldiery, and rescued the Zohar. Thus the Talmud was burnt, and the Zohar spared for the time being. It was a wise instinct of the enemies of the Jews which led them to spare this poisonous spring in the hope that adherents of the Zohar would the sooner renounce Judaism.
Spread abroad by the press, the Zohar came to be considered a canonical book, and for some time was as much quoted as verses from the Bible, and treated on an equality with the Holy Scriptures in all Hebrew works not strictly Talmudical. But the love of the papacy for the Kabbala did not last long. A few years later the Kabbalistic writings were included in the catalogue of books to be burnt (Index expurgatorius).
Paul IV's hatred of Jews and their writings was not confined to Italy, but, nourished by the fanatical spirit aroused by him, extended far and wide. Baptized Jews were always the tools employed in these persecutions. One named Asher, from Udine, brought accusations against Jewish works in Prague, and the authorities confiscated them one and all, even prayer-books, and sent them to Vienna (1559). The Jewish ministers were obliged to repeat the prayers in the synagogue by heart. A fire which broke out at about this time in the Jews' quarter of Prague, and by which a great number of their houses were reduced to ashes, displayed the fanatical hatred of Christians towards them still more clearly. Instead of hastening to the assistance of the unfortunate people, and joining in their rescue, they threw helpless women and children into the flames, and plundered the goods of the Jews. And as if the measure of misfortune were not full enough, Ferdinand I, chosen emperor about a year before, commenced the expulsion of the Jews from Bohemia and Prague in real earnest.
Emperor Ferdinand was, in reality, a mild prince, who sincerely desired to maintain peace between Catholics and Protestants, but he had an invincible dislike to Jews. It was he who first introduced the tickets of notification, or permits, for the Jews of Austria. He made a regulation by which every Jew resident in Austria who went on business to Vienna, should at once on his arrival announce himself to the marshal of the district, and state what was his business, and how long he intended to remain in the place. To this restriction Ferdinand added others, and at length commanded the expulsion of the Jews with their wives and children, their servants and all their goods and chattels, from Lower Austria. This decree of banishment was delayed for two years, but they were finally compelled to withdraw from the country.
Emperor Ferdinand destined the ancient community of Prague to the same fate. What may have been the reason is either easy or difficult for us to conceive, according to our way of thinking. The congregation of Prague was in very evil repute among other Jewish communities, being considered low, unprincipled, violent, and quarrelsome. Such fierce disputes arose regularly about the appointment of rabbis and the choice of the president, that the chief rabbis of Germany and Italy, at the instigation of the emperor, were obliged to arrange a system of election for the community of Prague. The reason of this sad state of things was no doubt that, on the recall of the Jews after the expulsion of twenty years previously, only the worst, none of the well-disposed, members had returned. Christians were, no doubt, very much overreached by this rabble, but Christians of the lower class were probably not better nor more conscientious. Christians treated their own brethren with the greatest leniency, but required the practice of the strictest virtue and uprightness from Jews. Discussions about the second expulsion of Jews from Prague were long carried on, for even the archdukes then in the land were opposed to it; yet the banishment took place (1561). The exiles were attacked, and plundered by robber knights. But it was clear then, as after the first expulsion, that the Christians of Prague, or at all events the nobility, longed for the Jews. Scarcely were they driven out when steps were taken to recall them, and this policy was favored by the princes.
But Emperor Ferdinand refused the request to allow the Jews to return, on the ground, genuine or assumed, that he had sworn to expel the Jews from Prague, and could not break his oath. Thereupon a noble Jew of Prague undertook a journey to Rome to procure from the new pope, Pius IV (the Jew-hating Paul IV was dead), the absolution of the emperor from his oath.
This noble man was Mordecai Zemach ben Gershon, one of the noted Soncin family of printers, whose ancestor, Gershon, or Girolamo, Soncino, founded not only beautiful Hebrew, but also Latin, type, and published both rabbinical works and Petrarch's poems. Members of this family with great success carried on Jewish printing establishments in several towns of Lombardy, in Constantinople, and in Prague. Although Mordecai Zemach had borne gross insults to his honor from the people of Prague, and his married daughter, a second Susannah, had been accused of adultery by false witnesses, and sentenced by cowardly rabbis, he yet showed himself ready to make the greatest sacrifices for the good of the people of Prague. He undertook the journey to Rome amidst many dangers and difficulties for the purpose above stated, and his exertions were crowned with success. The pope, at that time invested with the power to bind and to loose, relieved the emperor of his oath, and the latter felt his conscience lightened. His son Maximilian (afterwards emperor) took the Jews of Prague under his special protection, and thus the decree of banishment was recalled. Jews were again allowed to reside in Prague and a few other Bohemian towns, and were also re-admitted to Austria. But they had a troubled existence even under the best of the emperors, such as Maximilian II and Rudolph, for the official hand of the Catholic Church was heavy upon them.
The first consistent representative of the fanatical and persecuting Catholic Church, Pope Paul IV, was dead (1559), and the people of Rome cursed his memory and his system. The people flocked to the Capitol as in the old times of the Roman Republic, traversed the eternal city, set fire to the buildings of the Inquisition, maltreated the Dominicans and the bailiffs of that tribunal, tore down the arms of the pope, destroyed his statue, and rolled its head through the streets. With derisive laughter the Romans looked on while a Jew placed the cap that he and his brethren were compelled to wear on the statue of the very pope who had issued the order concerning it. But of what avail was this childish rage against the dead? The system survived its supporter for centuries. The Jesuits and the strict church party had got the upper hand in the Catholic Church, and each pope, willingly or unwillingly, was obliged to submit to them. It was under Pope Pius IV, one of the best high priests of Rome, that the principles of the council of Trent were turned into decrees which enslave the minds of Catholics to this very day.
A deputation of the Jews of Rome waited upon the newly-chosen pope to do homage to him, and described in touching words the sorrows which his predecessors had brought upon them. Pius IV promised them relief, and issued a bull for the Jews of the Papal States (February 27th, 1562), which was certainly to their advantage, but the milder regulations only made the restrictions still remaining appear the harsher. The introduction to the bull is interesting, because it brings to light the hypocrisy of the papal curia:
"The precepts for your conduct issued by my highly venerated predecessor, out of his zeal for religion, have (as we are told) served some who coveted your goods as a pretext for false accusations against you, and have been interpreted contrary to the intention of my predecessor, thus causing you to be vexed and disquieted. Therefore, we decree, in consideration that Holy Mother Church grants and concedes much to Jews in order that the remnant of them may be saved, and in accordance with the example of our predecessors," etc.
All that the new pope conceded, however, was that Jews of the Roman dominions beyond the city be allowed to doff their distinguishing mark, the yellow cap, acquire land to the value of 1,500 ducats, trade in other things besides old clothes, and hold intercourse with Christians, but not to keep Christian servants. This was about all that one of the best popes granted, or dared grant. More important to the Jews of Rome was the point that the accusations of transgressing the harsh laws of Paul IV were not heard, as well as the charge of misdemeanor against those who had not given up their copies of the Talmud. The Italian Jews also made an effort to obtain from the pope the remission of the interdict against the Talmud. But this question was in the hands of the cardinals and bishops sitting in the council of Trent, and to carry out their object the Italian communities chose two deputies (October, 1563). As the council only approved the list of forbidden books previously made out in the papal office, the opinion of the pope and those who surrounded him served as a guide in the treatment of Jewish writings. The decision of this point was left to the pope, who afterwards issued a bull to the effect that the Talmud was indeed accursed—like all humanistic literature, including Reuchlin's "Augenspiegel and Kabbalistic writings"—but that it would be allowed to appear if the name Talmud were omitted, and if before its publication the passages inimical to Christianity were excised, that is to say, if it were submitted to censorship (March 24th, 1564). Strange, indeed, that the pope should have allowed the thing, and forbidden its name! He was afraid of public opinion, which would have considered the contradiction too great between one pope, who had sought out and burnt the Talmud, and the next, who was allowing it to go untouched. At all events, there was now a prospect that this written memorial, so indispensable to all Jews, would once more be permitted to see the light, although in a maimed condition. The printing of the Talmud was in fact undertaken a few years later at Basle.
But even this slight concession was withdrawn from the Jews of the Papal States when Pius IV was succeeded by a pope who held gloomy, monkish, intolerant institutions in higher esteem than human happiness and human life, and who carried the ecclesiastical aims of Caraffa and his colleagues to their extreme consequence. Pius V (1566–1572) outdid his pattern, Paul IV, in love of persecution and cruelty. This pope hated Jews no less than he hated Swiss Calvinists and French Huguenots. They soon felt the severity of the new ecclesiasticism. Three months after his enthronement (April 19th, 1566), Pius V confirmed in every respect the restrictions which Paul IV had imposed on Jews; he even increased their severity, and disregarded the ameliorations of his predecessor as if they had never been granted. The former regulations, then, were enforced: exclusion from intercourse with Christians, prohibition to own lands, or to carry on any business except the trade in old clothes, compulsion to wear the distinctive Jew badge, and the refusal to permit more than one synagogue. But these edicts were not issued against the Jews in the Papal States only; they extended throughout the whole Catholic world. For at that day, in a period of spiteful reaction against Protestantism, the decrees of the pope made a far different impression from what they had produced previously, and found willing executors. Thus days of sorrow were again beginning for the Jews of Catholic countries.
Once more Joseph Cohen had to enter trials in his "Annals of Persecution," once more to collect the tears of his people in his "Vale of Weeping" (Emek ha-Bacha). The ecclesiastical tyrant, Pius V, often gave the opportunity. Under the pretext that the Jews of the Papal States had infringed his canonical laws, he caused a number of them to be thrown into prison, and their books to be collected and burnt. The prosperous community of Bologna was visited with especial severity, the blow being aimed at their property. In order to have a legal reason for robbery, confusing questions upon Christianity were put at a formal hearing before the tribunal of the Inquisition; for example, whether the Jews regarded Catholics as idolaters; whether the forms of imprecation against the Minæans, and the "Kingdom of Sin" in the prayers referred to Christians and the papacy, and especially whether the story, in a work but little read, about a "Bastard, the Son of an Outcast," was intended to refer to Jesus.
A baptized Jew, named Alexander, had drawn up the points of accusation, and the prisoners were questioned upon them, under application of torture. Some of them succumbed to the pain, and confessed everything that the bloody tribunal asked them. Only the rabbi of Bologna, Ishmael Chanina, had the courage to declare even under torture, that if he should confess anything during the unconsciousness which might ensue from his sufferings, such confession would be null and void. As others, however, had confessed to slanders uttered by Jews against Christians, the papal curia had an excuse for its robberies. The rich and the upper classes were forbidden under the severest penalties to leave the town. But this foolish prohibition awakened in the minds of the Jews of Bologna the idea of leaving the place entirely and forever. By bribing the gatekeeper, they succeeded in escaping, with their wives and children, from the net spread for them, and fled to Ferrara. Pope Pius V was so incensed against the Jews for this act, that he informed the college of cardinals that all Jews were to be expelled from the Papal States. In vain some of the church dignitaries protested, showing how the Jews had been protected by the chair of St. Peter from time immemorial, that it had indeed pledged itself to shield the remainder of the Jews, in the hope that they might be saved. In vain did the commercial world of Ancona entreat the pope not to ruin by his own deed the commercial prosperity of the Papal States; his hatred of Jews stifled the voice of common sense, of justice, and of interest. The bull was issued (February 26th, 1569), that all Jews in the Papal States, except those of Rome and Ancona, should depart within three months; those who remained were to be reduced to slavery, and undergo even severer punishment.
There were at that time about 1,000 Jewish families and 72 synagogues in the Papal States, excluding Rome, Ancona, and Bologna. In spite of the misery which threatened them, almost all included in this decree decided upon emigration, and only very few became Christians. The exiles also suffered loss of property, because they had not time to sell their estates, and collect the debts owing to them. The historian Gedalya Ibn-Yachya alone lost over 10,000 ducats by his debtors in Ravenna. The exiles dispersed, and sought protection in the neighboring little states of Pesaro, Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua, and Milan. The Jews of Avignon and Venaissin, the only communities remaining on French territory since the expulsion of the Jews from France two hundred years previously, were also ordered to leave. The reactionary princes of the church had long cast malicious glances upon them, for they had been particularly favored by the officials of the Papal States under the humanistic popes, Leo X, Clement VII, and especially Paul III. The curia received its only income from this district through their commerce. The Jews of Avignon, Carpentras, and other towns, owned great wealth and property of all kinds, and held lands.
Most of the Jews of the Italian and French ecclesiastical territories, like all expelled from Christian countries, went to Turkey, and there met with the kindest reception, if they were able to get so far without being attacked and maltreated by the robber-knights of the Order of Malta. It seemed almost as if there were to be an end of Jews in Christian Europe. Hatred, persecution, and banishment reigned everywhere. In Catholic dominions the fanaticism of the papacy prevailed, and in Protestant countries the narrowness of Lutheranism, sunk from its former height to the level of a child's quarrel.
Both seemed to desire the enforcement of the oft expressed thought of the arch-enemies of the Jews, that Jews have no right to dwell in the West.
Joseph Nassi's Favor with Sultan Solyman—His Friendship for Prince Selim—Hostility of Venice and France to Nassi—Joseph Nassi restores Tiberias, and is created Duke of Naxos—The Vizir Mahomet Sokolli—The Turks, at the Instigation of Nassi, conquer Cyprus—Rebellion against Philip II in the Netherlands—Solomon Ashkenazi—Election of Henry of Anjou as King of Poland—Ashkenazi negotiates a Peace between Venice and Turkey—Gedalya Ibn-Yachya and Jewish Literature in Turkey—Joseph Karo compiles the "Shulchan Aruch"—Azarya del Rossi—Isaac Lurya—The Jewish "Dark Age"—Spread of the Kabbala—Lurya's Disciple, Chayim Vital Calabrese—Death of Joseph Nassi—Esther Kiera and the Influence of Jewish Women in Turkey.
1566–1600 C.E.
Again, as often before, the threads in the web of universal history were so involved that it was impossible to annihilate the Jews of Christendom even by systematic persecution. The sun, obscured on the Jewish horizon by gloomy clouds in the West, again rose bright in the East. Through a favorable turn of affairs a time was beginning in Turkey which, to the superficial observer, may seem a brilliant epoch. A Jew, who would have been burnt at the stake without ceremony in the countries of the cross, occupied a very influential position in the land of the crescent, rose to the rank of duke, and ruled over many Christians. All the Jews in Turkey, amounting to millions in number, rose with and by him to a free and honorable station, the envy of their despised and less numerous brethren in Christian Europe. With rage the Jew-hating Christian potentates saw their plans here and there frustrated by Jewish hands, and their internal complications rendered more and more involved and entangled. The down-trodden worm might yet become an annoyance to its tormentors. Joseph Nassi, or João Miques, the outlawed Marrano of Portugal, caused anxious hours to many a Christian ruler and diplomatist, who were obliged to flatter him in an abject manner, though they would have struck him dead like a dog if he had been in their power. The illustrious republic of Venice, the mighty kingdom of Spain, the conceited government of France, and even the haughty papacy, all saw themselves endangered by him.
João Miques, or Don Joseph Nassi, who had been well recommended to the Turkish court by French statesmen when first he entered Turkey, had become yet more popular by his agreeable presence, his inventive genius, his experience, and his knowledge of the Christian countries of Europe and their political situation. Sultan Solyman, who understood men well, soon took him into favor. He formed extensive plans for beginning a war with Spain and aiding the Mahometans on the coast of Africa against those who fed the stake. Joseph Nassi, through his riches, and through the attachment of his fellow-believers in Christian countries, was kept well informed as to what was going on in Christian courts, and could tell the sultan the state of political and military affairs, relieving the latter of the necessity of employing spies, or of permitting himself to be deceived by the Christian ambassadors at his court. Don Joseph could assist him with wise counsel, and thus as a Frankish bey soon became a very important person in Constantinople and was able to render material service to those of his own religion. His importance increased still more by a fortunate chance. Hatred and jealousy prevailed among the sons of Solyman, and the father preferred the younger on account of his military inclinations. The courtiers kept themselves aloof from the disregarded prince, Selim, and did not intercede with his father on his behalf. Only Joseph Nassi pressed Selim's claims warmly on his father, and when the latter wished to show his favor to his son by making him a handsome present of 50,000 ducats in cash, and 30,000 in valuables, he chose his Jewish favorite as the bearer of the gift to Selim's residence in Asia Minor. The prince, overjoyed both at the gift and at this proof of favor, from that moment became very friendly towards the messenger, and assured him of his life-long gratitude. He made a favorite and confidant of the Jewish bey, and appointed him a member of the life-guard (Mutafarrica), an honor to which even the sons of Christian princes eagerly aspired, and to which a large salary was attached.
The ambassadors from Christian courts saw with vexation the growing influence of a Jewish favorite, acquainted with all their plots, upon the future sultan, and promulgated the falsest rumors about him. They reported to their courts that Joseph Nassi was leading the prince into all kinds of orgies and excesses, and was ruining him. The ambassadors of Venice and of France were most hostile, because he saw through their artful designs against the Turkish court, and was able to frustrate them, and especially because he had private quarrels with them. The government of Venice had imprisoned his mother-in-law, deprived her of some of her property, and also had treated him scornfully; the French court owed an immense sum (150,000 ducats) to the house of Mendes-Nassi, and did not think of repaying it. The French ambassador was, therefore, very eager for Joseph's ruin; he wrote to Henry II, that he should inform Sultan Solyman that Joseph Nassi made it his business to acquaint the enemies of France with all the negotiations carried on at the Turkish court, and that being a Spaniard he did this in the interest of Spain. But so far from punishing him, Prince Selim and the reigning sultan took up Joseph's cause, and urgently insisted that the court of France pay the debt owing their Jewish favorite. Henry II and his successor raised an objection to Joseph's well-founded demand, characteristic of the—shall we say, Christian?—morality of the time. They averred that both law and religion forbade the king to repay the debt to his Jewish creditor, because it was altogether prohibited for Jews to have business dealings in France, and that all their goods could be confiscated by the king. The sultan and his son did not, of course, recognize this code of morals, and insisted with a half-threat that Joseph Nassi should be satisfied. Joseph Nassi rose so high in favor with Sultan Solyman, that the latter gave him a tract of land in Palestine, on the Sea of Tiberias, to restore the city of Tiberias under his own rule, with the express privilege that only Jews should dwell therein. The deed of gift was signed by the reigning sultan, by Selim, the heir to the throne, and by his son Murad, so as to render it valid in the future, and not liable to dispute. Selim proposed to his father to reward Joseph's services still further, and to make him sovereign lord over Naxos and some other islands. But the vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, a Christian renegade, who watched the growing power of the Jewish favorite with jealous eyes, seems to have worked against this and to have upset the plan.
After Solyman's death, when Selim II entered his capital to receive the homage of his subjects (1566), and Joseph also presented himself to swear allegiance to the new sovereign, he created him on the spot Duke of Naxos, and of the Cyclades, Andro, Paro, Antiparo, Milo, twelve islands in all, which he gave him one after the other, and for which he had to pay but a small tribute. He also granted him the collection of the duties paid in the Black Sea on imported wines.
Thus a Jew was able to issue his commands in the following grandiose style: "We, Duke of the Ægean Sea, Lord of Andro." Joseph did not reside in the capital of his duchy, where he would have been too far away from the center of affairs, but remained in his handsome palace Belvedere near Constantinople, and deputed the government of the islands to a Spanish nobleman, a Christian named Coronello, whose father had been governor of Segovia. Jealously as the Christian princes regarded this Jewish duke, placed upon an equality with them, European affairs were in such a condition that they were forced not only to recognize, but even to flatter him. If they wished to gain anything at the Turkish court, they dared not ignore him, knowing how high he stood in Selim's favor, and of how much weight his opinion was in the divan. When an Austrian embassy from Emperor Ferdinand I arrived in Constantinople (after fresh victories gained by the Turks in Hungary) to sue for peace, and win the great dignitaries by gifts and annual subsidies, it was charged to make terms also with Joseph of Naxos. His bitterest enemies were obliged to dissemble their hatred. The two states which set themselves most to oppose him, namely, France and Venice, felt the power of the Jewish duke severely.
The king of France declined to pay the debt contracted with the Marrano house of Mendes and transferred to Joseph. The latter easily procured a firman from the sultan, by virtue of which he was allowed to seize all ships carrying the French flag which entered any Turkish harbor. Joseph of Naxos sent privateers as far as Algiers to make a raid upon French merchant vessels. At last he succeeded in getting possession of several vessels in the port of Alexandria, captured all the merchandise on board, and sold it to pay the debt owing to him (1569). The court of France raised a clamor, protested, stormed, but all in vain; Selim protected his favorite. A coolness arose in consequence in the diplomatic relations of the two countries, which was more injurious to France than to Turkey.
The French ambassador at the Porte was, therefore, very desirous to bring about the overthrow of Joseph of Naxos. Not only was his own honor concerned, but that of the French crown also. The French had often boasted in the European cabinets that their word had the greatest weight and influence at the Turkish court, and that they were in a position to lead the divan to determine upon war or peace at will. And now it was proved that a gross insult had been shown to the French flag by this very court, and that France was not even in a position to demand satisfaction from a Jew, the originator of the insult. The French ambassador, therefore, directed his efforts to turning this overthrow into triumph by compassing the fall of the influential Jew. An opportunity soon presented itself in the discontent of one of Joseph's agents. A Jewish physician, named David or Daud, one of the physicians in ordinary at the Turkish court, and also in the service of the duke, considered himself slighted and wronged by his superior, and a quarrel arose between them. As soon as the French ambassador got wind of this, he tried to fan the flame of dissension, promised Daud a sum of money and a place as interpreter at the French embassy with a yearly salary, and then entered into relations with him in order to obtain secret information about Joseph of Naxos. In his irritation Daud allowed himself to be led into hasty expressions. He promised to furnish the French ambassador with full proofs that Joseph of Naxos had carried on a correspondence traitorous to the Porte. He undertook to produce documents to prove that Joseph sent daily information to the pope, the king of Spain, the duke of Florence, the Genoese republic, in short, to all the enemies of the sultan, and kept them acquainted with every thing that went on at the Porte. Delighted at the opportunity of overthrowing the Jewish duke, he informed the king of France and the crafty queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, in cipher, that he would soon be in a position to bring the powerful enemy of French influence at the Turkish court to the scaffold (October, 1569).
The Jewish duke was placed in a position of the greatest danger, and with him probably all the Jews in the Turkish empire. If Daud had been able to push his hatred to the point of an open accusation, if French money could have supported the intrigue, and if the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, the deadly enemy of Joseph, could have taken the matter in hand, the latter would have been lost. But the French ambassador thought it wise to treat the matter as a secret for a time.
In spite of this secrecy, the intrigues of Daud and the French ambassador were betrayed to Joseph of Naxos, and he was able to be beforehand with them. It was not difficult for him to convince Sultan Selim that he had always served him faithfully, and that of all his courtiers, he had been most sincerely attached to him. He obtained a decree from the sultan by which the traitor Daud was banished for life to Rhodes, the criminal colony of the Turkish empire. Either at the instigation of Don Joseph, or by their own impulse, all the rabbis and communities of Constantinople pronounced the severest form of excommunication upon Daud and two of his accomplices. The rabbinical colleges of the largest Turkish communities, Joseph Karo at their head, in servile flattery joined them, without first having convinced themselves of Daud's innocence or guilt. The extraordinary efforts of the French ambassador and court to procure the overthrow of Joseph were thus a complete failure, and left in the mind of the latter a feeling of only too justifiable bitterness, which induced him to strive the more to hinder and frustrate the diplomatic schemes of France.
Joseph of Naxos dealt even more severely with the state of Venice. Secret enmity prevailed between the Jewish duke and the republic, which both tried in vain to conceal by compliments. Independently of the ill-treatment which his mother-in-law had undergone at the hands of the Venetian government, it had refused Joseph's request for a safe conduct through its dominions for himself and his brother. Selim, not very well disposed towards the Venetians, was often urged by his Jewish favorite to put an end to the long-existing peace between them, and to set about the conquest of the Venetian island of Cyprus. In spite of the disinclination of Mahomet Sokolli, the first vizir, who was favorable to the Venetians, the war was undertaken.
The sultan is said to have promised Joseph that he should become king of Cyprus, if the enterprise proved successful, and the duke of Naxos is said to have kept a banner ready in his house, with the inscription, "Joseph, King of Cyprus." His European alliances made this undertaking easy. Whilst Mahomet Sokolli was still raising difficulties about consenting to a naval war of this character, Joseph received the news that the arsenal in Venice had been destroyed by an explosion. Joseph and the party in the divan which he had gained over for war took advantage of the embarrassment thus caused to the Republic of Venice, and persuaded the sultan to allow the attacking fleet to sail at once. Nicosia, one of the chief towns of Cyprus, fell at the first assault, and the other, Famagusta, was closely besieged.
In this instance, as often before, all Jews were made answerable for the action of one. That the Venetian government, at the outbreak of the war, imprisoned all the Levantine merchants in Venice, for the most part Jews, and seized their goods, was only natural in the barbarous state of intercourse between one state and another. But that the senate, at the instigation of the hostile doge, Luis Mocenigo, came to the resolve (December, 1571) to expel all Jews from Venice, as fellow-conspirators of Joseph Nassi and of the Turkish empire, was a result of the race-hatred encouraged by Christianity. Happily, things did not go so far. Notwithstanding the endeavors of the fanatical pope, Pius V, to bring about a league of the Christian states against Turkey, to organize a crusade against the so-called unbelievers, and to drive the Turkish fleet from the waters of Cyprus, the town of Famagusta was obliged to yield to the Turkish commander, and so the whole island fell into the hands of Turkey. The Venetians were compelled to sue for peace, and they placed their whole hope of obtaining it upon an influential Jew, who was to negotiate it. In spite of the solemn determination of the Venetian senate that no one should venture to say a word in favor of Jews, they had to be tolerated, because it dared not quite break with the Jews in Turkey.
The power of the latter was, indeed, so great that they, generally the suppliants, were entreated for aid by Christians. A serious rebellion had arisen in the Netherlands against Spain and the morose king, Philip II, who wished to introduce the bloody tribunal of the Inquisition. The barbarous Alva was trying to suppress apostasy and to lead back the erring into the bosom of the Catholic church by hecatombs of human beings. The block was to support the cross. In this extremity, the rebels turned to Joseph of Naxos, who had dealings with some of the nobility of Flanders from the time of his residence there. Prince William of Orange, the moving spirit of the rebellion, sent a private messenger to Joseph of Naxos, entreating him to persuade the sultan to declare war against Spain, which would necessitate the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from the Netherlands. The Austrian emperor, Ferdinand, also condescended to address an autograph letter to the Jewish duke in order to obtain the favor of the Porte, increasing the grand vizir's envy. Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland, who was hoping for an important service from the Porte, also addressed him, gave him the title of "Serene Highness," and, what was of greater importance, promised favorable conditions to the Jews in his country, to ensure Joseph's approval of his plans.
We may almost say that the divan, or Turkish council of state, under Sultan Selim consisted of two parties trying to checkmate each other: the Christian party, represented by the first vizir, and the Jewish, headed by Joseph of Naxos. Through and besides him there were other Jews who, though only in subordinate positions, exercised influence—the men on the holders of office, the women on the ladies of the harem. Sultan Selim's goodwill towards Jews was so evident that a story became current that by birth he was a Jew, foisted into the harem as a prince, when he was a child. Even the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, although an enemy of Joseph of Naxos and of Jewish influence, was forced to employ a Jewish negotiator and to intrust him with important commissions. The Venetian envoy, ordered to work secretly against the Jews at the Turkish court, himself assisted such a man in obtaining influence.
Solomon ben Nathan Ashkenazi, who conducted the diplomatic affairs of Turkey with Christian courts for nearly thirty years, and who supplanted Nassi, was an unknown personage in Constantinople at the period when the duke of Naxos had a powerful voice in the divan. Descended from a German family of Udine, he began to travel early in life, and went to Poland, where he rose to be first physician to the king. On his removal to the Turkish capital, he placed himself as a subject of the Venetian republic under the protection of the diplomatic agents of Venice. Solomon Ashkenazi understood the Talmud, and was called rabbi, but displayed greatest intelligence and skill in the niceties of diplomatic technicalities, the disentanglement of knotty questions, in negotiations, settlements, and compromises. For these qualities he had been esteemed by successive Venetian agents in Constantinople. The first minister of the Turkish court recognized his diplomatic skill, attached him to his service, and trusted him to the end of his life with such commissions as required tact, wisdom, and discernment in their fulfillment. Whilst the Turkish arms were raised against the Venetians, Solomon Ashkenazi was beginning to weave the web for the future treaty of peace.
Christian cabinets did not suspect that the course of events which compelled them to side with one party or the other was set in motion by a Jewish hand. This was especially the case at the election of the Polish king. The death (July, 1572) of the last Polish king of the Jagellon family, Sigismund Augustus, who left no heir, necessitated a genuine election from an indefinite number of candidates, and this put the whole of Europe, at all events the cabinets and diplomatic circles, into the utmost excitement. The German emperor, Maximilian II, and the Russian ruler, Ivan the Cruel, were most intimately concerned in the election, as neighbors of Poland. The former did everything that he could to insure the choice of his own son, and the latter boasted that he or his son would be chosen king. The pope plotted for a Catholic prince to be placed on the throne of Poland; otherwise it was to be feared that the choice of a king in favor of the Reformation, already on the increase among the nobles and the townspeople of Poland, would strengthen the movement, and that the country would free itself from the papacy. On the other hand, the Protestant countries of Germany and England, and, above all, the adherents of the various sects of the new church in Poland itself, felt the greatest interest in securing the election of a sovereign of their own faith, or at least of one not an aggressive Catholic. To this was added the personal ambition of a powerful French queen, who interfered with a deft hand. The widowed queen, Catherine de Medici, as clever as false, who believed in astrology, and to whom it had been announced that each of her sons should wear a crown, wished to procure a foreign throne for her son, Henry of Anjou, so that the astrological prophecy might not be fulfilled by the death of her reigning son, Charles IX. She and her son, the king of France, therefore, set every lever in motion to place Anjou on the throne of Poland. Turkey also had important interests and a powerful voice in the election of the king of Poland. A tangle of cabals and intrigues was developed by the election. Each candidate sought to gain a strong party among the higher and lesser nobility of Poland, and also to gain the favor of the Porte. Henry of Anjou seemed at first to have some prospect of success, but this was imperiled by the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew, in France, in which, at a hint from the king and the queen-mother, a hundred thousand Huguenots, great and small—men, women and children—were attacked, and murdered (August 26th, 1572). Such barbarity, planned and carried out in cold blood, had been unheard of in European history since the murderous attack made on the Albigenses in the thirteenth century by papal command. The Lutherans and other adherents of the Reformation in every country were completely stunned by this blow. The candidates for the throne of Poland sought to make capital out of it against Anjou. So much the more the French candidate, his mother, and his brother, were compelled to endeavor to gain over the Porte to their side. An ambassador extraordinary was dispatched to Constantinople with this object. So the choice of a king of Poland rested with a Jew who was in the background, for Solomon Ashkenazi governed the grand vizir completely, and ruled his will, and he managed foreign affairs in the sultan's name. Solomon decided in favor of Henry of Anjou, and won over the grand vizir to his side. When Henry of Anjou, by a combination of favorable circumstances, was at last chosen almost unanimously (May, 1573), the French ambassador boasted that he had not been one of the last in bringing about this election. But Solomon Ashkenazi ventured to write as follows to the king of Poland, afterwards king of France under the name of Henry III: "I have rendered your majesty most important service in securing your election; I have effected all that was done here" (at the Porte).
Great sensation was aroused throughout Christian Europe when this Jewish physician and diplomatist was appointed by the Porte to conclude the peace which he had for several years been trying to bring about with Venice, and thus to stand forth as a person of the highest official importance. The Jewish ambassador was not accepted without opposition by the illustrious republic. The subject was eagerly discussed in the senate, and the members of the government were against him. But, on the one hand, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, was resolved upon it, because Solomon enjoyed his unreserved confidence, and he wished through him to establish diplomatic relations for other purposes. On the other hand, the words of the Venetian consul, Mark Antonio Barbaro, who repeatedly assured his state that the Jewish diplomatist cherished the warmest sympathy with Venice, made a great impression. Under these circumstances, "Rabbi Solomon Ashkenazi," as he was termed, went to Venice in the capacity of envoy extraordinary from Turkey. When once he was acknowledged, the dignitaries of the republic, the doge, and the senators, paid him the greatest honor and attention, because the Turkish court was very sensitive on this point, and would have regarded want of due respect to its representative as an insult. Solomon was, therefore, received in state audience at the doge's palace, and there the act of peace between Turkey and Venice was signed by him on behalf of the former. The signoria showed him the most polite attentions during his stay in Venice (May to July, 1574), and all the European ambassadors in Venice paid him court.
Solomon was an angel of deliverance to his fellow-believers in Venice. Their joy at the honor shown by the authorities to one of their race was mingled with anxiety and sorrow on account of threatened expulsion. The doge Mocenigo had insisted upon the fulfillment of the decree of banishment previously issued against the Jews. Many Jewish families had already departed without waiting for the term to expire. Solomon had arranged with Jacopo Soranzo, the Venetian agent in Constantinople, to receive these unfortunates. On his return to Venice, Soranzo at once brought the question of the Jews to the consideration of the council of the doge and the Ten. He made them understand the injury to the republic which would arise by the expulsion of the Jews. Those driven out of Spain and Portugal had manufactured guns and other arms for the Turks, and it would be a serious matter to make enemies of a people who constituted a power in Turkey. To maintain friendship with this country would be the surest guarantee of peace, as neither the pope nor Spain could be trusted. This earnest appeal of Soranzo in favor of the Jews effected a change in the disposition of the doge and the Dieci (ten) towards them. The decree of banishment was revoked (July 19th, 1573), and Solomon's presence in Venice served to increase the joy of his fellow-believers, as he obtained for them the promise that they should never again be threatened with expulsion. Loaded with honors and enriched by a gift of ten pounds (weight) of gold, Solomon returned to Constantinople, where his position became more assured and his importance greater than ever. His son, who was residing in Venice for his education, was treated by the doge with the greatest consideration.
In consequence of the influence of Joseph of Naxos over Sultan Selim and of Solomon Ashkenazi over the prime minister, Mahomet Sokolli, the foreign Christian courts strove yet more earnestly to obtain the favor of the Turkish Jews in Stambul. If one of them wished to effect any object with the Porte, it first of all sought a Jewish negotiator, because without this aid there was no prospect of success. Even the morose Philip II of Spain, that incarnate hater of Jews and heretics, was obliged to turn to Jewish mediators in order to obtain peace with the Turks. The position of the Jews in Turkey, and above all in the capital, under the very eyes of their powerful protectors, was, therefore, extraordinarily favorable. They were able to put forth all their powers freely, and thus earned the wealth which then meant power, as it does now. The wholesale trade and customs dues were mostly in their hands; they also carried on wholesale shipping, and emulated the Venetians. They owned the largest and best houses, with gardens and kiosks, in Constantinople, equal to those of the grand vizir.
This prosperity, freedom, and security of the Turkish Jews could not fail to produce an exalted frame of mind, to open a prospect beyond the actual present, and to stir up their minds to activity. The mental fertility of the Spanish Jews, which brought so much that is beautiful and true to the light of day, was not exhausted or extinct in Turkey. The taste for history and events outside the Jewish world was not yet lost to them. Moses Almosnino, a favorite preacher at Salonica, while on a visit to Constantinople to procure privileges for the community of Salonica, described life in the Turkish capital, with its contrasts of glowing heat and benumbing cold, its astonishing wealth and terrible poverty, its enervating luxury and severe privations, its extravagant generosity and heartless greed, exaggerated piety and callous indifference, which followed one another abruptly, without any gradual transition. In his Spanish work on the "Contrasts and Greatness of Constantinople," Almosnino described the power and development of the Turkish empire with the pen of a master. He had a taste for the sciences and philosophy, and worked out his sermons as well as his expositions of the Scriptures in a scientific shape.
The physician, Samuel Shulam, likewise a Spaniard by birth, also had a great taste for history. He led a life of adventure until he was taken up by a Jewish woman in Constantinople, named Esther Kiera, in high favor with the sultana. He published Zacuto's poor but useful chronicle at her expense (1566–1567). This favorite of the court-Jewess also translated from the Latin the interesting work of the old Jewish historian Josephus against the attacks of Apion, the Alexandrine enemy of the Jews, being the first Jewish writer to make use of it. The dark side of Jewish history, the thousand years' martyrdom of the Jewish race, was at the same time described by a more competent historian, the now venerable Joseph Cohen, of Spanish descent. His "Vale of Weeping" presents a long series of mournful scenes, tortures, death, and distress in every form, but he was enabled to conclude his history with the joyful tidings that the Venetians were eager, if only from policy, to pay honor to and distinguish a Jew, the Turkish ambassador Solomon Ashkenazi.
Even Hebrew poetry bore some blossoms at this period in Turkey, and although but autumn flowers, showing traces of damp mists and a pale sun, they form an agreeable contrast to the joyless wintry waste of other regions and times. But we are more interested in the originator of these efforts than in the productions themselves. He was a certain Ibn-Yachya of the Turkish branch of this widespread family. This family preserved nobility of heart and mind throughout a long line of generations. The great-grandfather Jacob Tam, the grandfather Gedalya Ibn-Yachya, the grandson Moses, and the great-grandson Gedalya Ibn-Yachya II, with all collateral branches, were without exception friends of learning, and shared their property with the poor. Moses Ibn-Yachya not only spent thousands of ducats on sufferers at the time of the plague, but even exposed himself to the risk of death in his attendance upon the sick. His son Gedalya, a wise man and an agreeable orator, imitated his father in all his virtues, and by his love for poetry excelled him in gifts of the mind. He formed a sort of school or circle of poetry, that is to say, he assembled from time to time, at his own expense, all those interested in neo-Hebrew poetry, to recite their poems, and urged those at a distance to send him the fruit of their muse in order to encourage their zeal for this beautiful but neglected art. Two poets distinguished themselves in this numerous circle, Jehuda Zarko and Saadio Longo. To them we may add Israel Najara, the prolific versifier, living in Damascus. It is true that the verses of these writers do not contain much real poetry, and that the authors deserve the name of poet only on account of the smoothness and euphony of their style. As a matter of course this group of poets extolled Gedalya Ibn-Yachya, their patron and protector, in their verses.
The Jews of Turkey also wrote Latin verses in the security and comfort of their present life. The writers were, of course, immigrant Marranos, who had learnt the language of their oppressors in the dungeons of Spain and Portugal. When the conscientious physician, Amatus Lusitanus, whose aid had been sought alike by kings and beggars, and who, on account of the intolerance of the reactionary policy, emigrated from Italy to Salonica, and there acquired new friends and admirers, fell a sacrifice to his devoted energy, and died of the plague, one of his friends, the Marrano Flavio Jacopo de Evora, composed a memorial to him in beautiful Latin verses to the following effect:
He who so often recalled the breath well-nigh gone from the dying, and was, therefore, beloved by kings and peoples, lies far from the land of his birth, beneath the dust of Macedonia.
The exaltation of the Turkish Jews and their contentment with their present condition imbued them with thoughts of independence. Whilst the Jews of Christendom had no such thought, and from time immemorial considered themselves in a condition of subjugation to their masters, the Turkish Jews became familiar with the idea of regarding themselves as independent men.
Joseph of Naxos long cherished the thought of founding a Jewish state. The Jew and the statesman in him yearned for this, and the enormous wealth of his mother-in-law, over which he had control, was to serve him as the means for its execution. Even when a fugitive Marrano he had seriously put before the Republic of Venice the request that it give him one of its numerous islands, so that he might people it with Jewish inhabitants. But this was refused either on account of the narrow-mindedness of the Christians or the fear of mercantile competition. When later on Joseph stood high in favor with Prince Selim, and also with Sultan Solyman, he obtained from them, besides seven villages, the ruins of the city of Tiberias, for a small Jewish state to be peopled only with Jews. He sent one of his agents to superintend the re-building of Tiberias. The Turkish prince gave the pasha of Egypt strict orders to assist the building in every way. The Arab occupants of the neighboring villages were compelled to render forced labor, and the new and beautiful houses and streets of the city of Tiberias were completed in a year. Joseph of Naxos wished to make it a manufacturing town to compete with Venice. He planted mulberry-trees for the cultivation of silk-worms, and introduced looms for the manufacture of silks; he also imported wool from Spain for the making of fine cloth.
Joseph does not seem to have directed his full energy to the little Jewish state; his plans were far more extensive, and thus New Tiberias never became an important place. He next endeavored to obtain the island of Naxos as a dukedom, together with the adjacent islands of the Ægean Sea, and when he was fortunate enough to be appointed duke by Sultan Selim, he thought no more about peopling his little island state with Jews; perhaps it was not practicable. His mind was next set on becoming king of Cyprus. It is possible that he might have transformed this island of the goddess of beauty into a Jewish state had he obtained possession of it, but his enemy, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, prevented this. Thus his dreams of founding an independent Jewish state were dispelled. In reality, Joseph of Naxos did nothing of lasting importance for Judaism. He made various attempts, and then relaxed in his endeavors, or misspent his means.
The fact that Jews occupied an exceedingly favored position in Turkey for so long a period did not result in correspondingly enduring progress. They did not produce a single great genius who originated ideas to stimulate future ages, nor mark out a new line of thought for men of average intelligence. Not one of the leaders of the different congregations was above the level of mediocrity. The rabbis and preachers were deeply learned in their particular subjects, but kept to the beaten track, without making a new discovery or bequeathing an original contribution, even in their own department. Only one rabbi left to posterity an epoch-making work, which even yet possesses significance, disputed though it be; but even this work contained nothing new or original. Joseph Karo, chief rabbi of the city of Safet, in Palestine, completed, after many years of toil, a new book of religious ordinances, the "Shulchan Aruch." Religious impulses, mystical fanaticism, and ambition, had equal shares in the making of this book. For Joseph Karo was still subject to strange visions: he still believed that he would be recognized everywhere as the highest authority by the compilation of his religious code, a norm for Jewish religious life; and that, by this means, he would accomplish the revival of rabbinical ordination, in which Jacob Berab had failed; restore, in fact, the unity of Judaism, and thereby hasten the coming of the Messiah. He spent the whole of his life in collecting the vast material, in weighing the pros and cons of arguments, drawing conclusions and arranging them in their proper places. By doing this he supplied a serious want. There was no manual that embraced the whole field of religious observance. As the Talmud and the later religious codes to an even greater extent favored differences of opinion upon nearly every single point in matters of religion, ritual, law and the marriage state, disputes constantly occurred which led to altercation and divisions in the communities, for it rarely happened that two rabbis agreed upon any question that came up for discussion. Each was able to adduce reasons for or against any argument from the vast mass of rabbinical literature.
It was this confusion and divergence of opinion that Joseph Karo wished to check by means of his new religious Code. He embraced the whole of the vast field of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, although his intellect could not master it. By birth a Spaniard, he involuntarily preferred the views of Spanish authorities to those of French and German writers. Hence he allowed partiality to creep into his compilation. As a matter of course, too, Karo admitted various elements of mysticism, though only sparingly, as if unwilling to place the Zohar upon a level with the Talmud in matters of practical religious observance. He has embodied in his Code excellent precepts in regard to sanctity, chastity, brotherly love, morality, and honesty in business, drawn from the Talmud and the rabbinical writings; but they disappear in a sea of casuistical details and mere externals, in a patchwork of divisions and subdivisions, of "ifs" and "buts." In this work there appears an altogether different kind of Judaism from that revealed on Sinai, announced by the prophets, or even taught by Maimuni. But this Judaism thoroughly suited the ideas of the Jews of that period, and therefore Karo's Code was immediately hailed with delight, disseminated, and received as the infallible standard authority in Turkey, throughout the East, in Italy, and even in Poland.
Thus religious life received a certain finality and unity, but at the expense of spirituality and freedom of thought. From Karo Judaism received the form maintained up to the present time. His dream was partially fulfilled. His rabbinical writings became the common property of Judaism, and gave it religious unity. But he himself did not become the leader and head, as the "Spirit of the Mishna" had repeatedly promised him: he was only honored as one authority among many others. Still less did he restore the ordination of rabbi-judges as members of a Synhedrion, or hasten in any way the coming of the Messiah.
At that time there was a man in Italy, who not only surpassed all his Jewish contemporaries in his spirit of inquiry and desire for truth, but who would have been able to purify Judaism from the dross of centuries of hardship, if the tendency of the age had not run counter to this endeavor, or if he had had greater courage in opposing it. Azarya ben Moses deï Rossi (born at Mantua about 1514, died in 1578), descended from an old Italian family, had buried himself so deeply in books, that his body bore traces of severe suffering from over-study. Feeble, yellow, withered, and afflicted with fever, he crept about like a dying man. Yet in this living corpse a powerful and healthy mind worked with great activity. He had thoroughly mastered the whole of Jewish literature, besides being well read in Latin historical works, and he had also practiced medicine. At the same time he led a wandering life. He dwelt for some time at Ferrara, then in Bologna, had to leave that city in consequence of the persecution and expulsion of the Jews under Pius V, and finally settled again permanently in Ferrara. He held intercourse with the greatest Jews, Christians, and Marranos of his age, and was regarded by all with astonishment as a marvel of learning. He did not allow the treasures of his knowledge to lie dead within him, but let them grow and spread luxuriantly. Ancient history possessed special attraction for him. But even more admirable than his vast reading was the use he made of it. He was the first to bring into contact and connection with one another two provinces of literature which were far apart—the Talmud and its offshoots, with Philo, Josephus, and the works of the Church Fathers, proving the truth of historical narratives from the mouths of many witnesses. Deï Rossi, too, was the only one not satisfied with the data of tradition; he accepted nothing as truth till he had subjected it to a searching examination.
Chance brought to light the mental treasures of Deï Rossi. Ferrara, where, after leaving Bologna, he had settled shortly before, had been visited by a terrible earthquake (November 18th, 1570), and the inhabitants were compelled to leave their ruined and crumbling houses and seek places of refuge outside the city. In one of the villages Deï Rossi happened to meet a learned Christian, who was trying to overcome the gloomy thoughts caused by the earthquake by reading a Greek book of Jewish antiquity. In conversation Deï Rossi became aware that his co-religionists, even those possessed of some culture, owing to their one-sided absorption in the Talmud or obsolete philosophical writings, knew nothing of their own brilliant literature of the period of the Second Temple, whilst Christians resorted to it to dispel melancholy thoughts. Encouraged by his Christian friend, he determined to translate into Hebrew the "Letter of Aristas," supposed to be the discourse of a Greek king about the wisdom of the Jews, in order to make it accessible to his fellow-believers. He completed this task in twenty days. This was the first-fruit of his learning, and it led him on to further undertakings. His principal work, "Light of the Eyes," consists chiefly of parallel passages from Talmudic and profane sources upon the same subjects. Deï Rossi's distinction rests upon the fact that he did not adhere to tradition, but applied the methods of scientific inquiry to what the multitude regarded as unassailable truths, and that he used profane sources in elucidating them. The actual results of this historical investigation, for the most part, have proved unsound. Strong as Deï Rossi was in removing obstructive rubbish, his power of reconstruction was small.
The value of his efforts appears in its proper light only if we compare them with the circumstances of his time, or with the works of contemporary writers on the same subject, as, for example, those of Gedalya Ibn-Yachya; to these they form a complete contrast.
A descendant of the Italian branch of the noble Ibn-Yachya family, Gedalya inherited taste for knowledge. He was born in 1515, and died in 1587. His wealth enabled him to satisfy his taste by collecting a magnificent library. In his voluntary and compulsory journeys in northern Italy—for he was a preacher, and owing to the intolerance of the popes had to lead an unsettled life—he had seen and read much, both in sacred and profane literature, but without independent judgment, without discrimination, and without appreciation of the essence of truth. Ibn-Yachya's abbreviated "History of the Jews," together with a chronicle of the world, called "The Chain of Tradition," at which he worked for nearly forty years, is a confused medley of authentic historical narratives and mere fables. But in spite, or perhaps because, of its legendary contents, his book has found more acceptance among Jews than the researches of Deï Rossi. When the first edition of the latter's "Light of the Eyes" found its way to Safet, the orthodox of that town declared its contents to be heretical. Joseph Karo commissioned Elisha Gallaico, one of the members of his rabbinical college, to draw up an indictment, to be distributed amongst all Jews, ordering Deï Rossi's work to be burned. The people of Safet likewise had an inquisition. But Joseph Karo died (in Nisan, i.e., April, 1575) before he had signed the indictment. The Italian Jews were not so fanatical as to condemn Deï Rossi, for they knew him to be a pious and pure Jew. But the rabbis of Mantua employed the procedure of Ben Adret concerning the study of profane literature, that is, they forbade the reading of Deï Rossi's works by young people under twenty-five years of age. In consequence of this semi-official sentence of heresy, the book exercised but little influence upon the Jewish world of that day, or the generation immediately succeeding it, and has been appreciated only in quite recent times, when it created a new, enlightened view of history in Jewish circles. But in the Christian world Deï Rossi's work was noticed much sooner, and was annotated, and translated into Latin.