We have now recorded the fortunes of the Jews, during the sixteenth century, in all the countries of Europe where a domicile was allowed them, as well as in Spain and Portugal, where, though banished by law, they were still, under a nominal profession of Christianity, permitted to linger. We have now once again to transfer our attention to eastern and southern lands, in which, under Mahometan rule, they found a more merciful refuge. Before doing so, however, it is proper to repeat the remark already made, that, although legally forbidden, during those centuries, to enter several of the European kingdoms, it is far from certain that they were not to be found in them, and that in no inconsiderable numbers, though doubtless they were careful to keep out of sight as much as possible. Reference has been made to a Spanish historian, who says that ‘many of the Spanish exiles fled to England, establishing themselves in three of the largest towns—Dover, York, and London—and that they built synagogues in the last-named city, where they afterwards carried on a thriving trade.’ ‘From 1291 to 1655,’ writes a pamphleteer in 1753, ‘the Jews have run the hazard, as they do in another country [doubtless Spain], where so many of them have expired, and annually still expire in the flames; but meeting all along with lenitives [merciful usage], they have made true one of our English proverbs of claiming an ell’s longitude for an inch’s allowance.’[177]

In France it is certain that they were tolerated, so long, probably, as they did not make themselves conspicuous. Rabbi Joseph relates that Henry II. allowed certain Jews from Mauritius to reside in the French cities, and in 1550 granted them his protection and various privileges. His father and his queen, Catherine de Medici, had Jewish physicians, who were high in favour with their employers. We are told that the Parliament of Paris condemned in severe terms the inhuman conduct of the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal; and that many of the Portuguese emigrants were suffered to establish themselves at Bordeaux and Bayonne, where they have since resided without molestation. The same, no doubt, was the case among the German States; where, if the Jews were persecuted in one city, it was comparatively easy to fly for shelter to another.

So likewise in Russia. The Jews have never been readmitted to the provinces from which they were originally driven out. But Russia has in modern times acquired by conquest extensive territories in which there was a large Hebrew population. She did not carry her dislike so far as to expel them from her new dominions, and has as many as two millions of Jewish subjects. But her feelings towards them have undergone but little change.

Doubtless many of the Spanish and Portuguese fugitives betook themselves to one or other of the above-named countries. But it is tolerably certain that the great mass chose the Mussulman kingdoms in Asia and Africa as their future abiding-places. Whether it was due to the scorn, the calm indifference, or the compassion, with which the Mahometan princes regarded them, it is certain that they permitted them the free exercise of their religion, and the full possession of civil rights. In Persia and Media, even before the Spanish exodus, they seem to have been very numerous, though the particulars recorded respecting them are extremely scanty. During Timour’s wars, they naturally suffered, among all the other inhabitants of Persia, from the inroads of his savage soldiery, which took little account of the difference of creed among those whom they attacked and conquered. We are informed that their synagogues were wrecked, their schools destroyed, and great numbers of them slain in the capture of cities. These troubles had hardly subsided when the irruption of the fierce Shah Ismail Sofi once more threw everything into disorder. His rapid and signal success is said to have produced such an effect upon them, that they were persuaded he must be the Messiah who was to come. The idea was encouraged by the fact that Ismail had declared himself to be a prophet sent from God to reform the corruptions of Islamism. But he received their homage very coldly[178]—indeed, is said to have treated them with less consideration than any others of his new subjects.

One of his successors, Shah Abbas, a generation or two afterwards, brought about a severe persecution of the Jews in his dominions, though in a very singular manner. He had issued a proclamation granting great privileges to such strangers as should settle in his dominions. The Jews immediately availed themselves of this, and crowded in such numbers into the country that they speedily engrossed the trade. This was no more than was their ordinary wont; but Shah Abbas’s subjects were greatly aggrieved, and made bitter complaints to the king. Thereupon he made a very minute inquiry into their peculiar habits and opinions, possibly in order to find some excuse for banishing them from the land. Learning that they had long expected the arrival of their Messiah, and were still waiting for Him, he insisted on it that they should name some time by which, if He had not made His appearance, they should admit their belief to be unfounded, and conform to Mahometanism. After long consultation among themselves, they told Shah Abbas that they would agree to fix seventy years as the prescribed limit—doubtless arguing that most probably all concerned, but certainly Shah Abbas, would be dead before the arrival of that day. The king received the reply with gravity, and caused it to be formally registered, and deposited in the archives of the kingdom. It is probable that the memory of it died out even before the end of Shah Abbas’s reign. At all events, when the appointed period approached, wars and commotions of one kind or another occupied men’s minds, and no attention was paid to the subject. But, more than a hundred years afterwards, Shah Abbas II., in an unlucky hour, chanced to light upon his ancestor’s decree. It was of course found that, although the seventy years had long expired, and the expected Messiah had not made His appearance, the Jews had not adopted the Moslem faith, nor were they disposed to do so now. Here was a clear proof of their treachery and falsehood; and the consequence was a massacre which is said to have lasted for three years, those only escaping who abjured their religion, or fled into Turkey on one side, or India on the other. After a while, however, it was found that the supposed converts, though nominally Mahometans, as their brethren in Spain had professed to be Christians, were in reality Jews at heart. Wiser than Ferdinand and his successors, Shah Abbas recalled his decree, and allowed the pretended Mussulmans to return to their real creed.

But little is known of the Jews in the Eastern Empire during the period preceding the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, in 1453. But, a generation or two after that event, large numbers were to be found both in Constantinople itself and other parts of the Sultan’s European dominions. The Spanish exiles who resorted thither found a large number of synagogues already in existence, served by a priesthood in no way inferior to what their own had been at home. They did not, however, amalgamate with these, but built new synagogues in Constantinople, Jerusalem, Damascus, Saloniki, and other great cities, each of which long afterwards retained the name of the original builders, one being called the synagogue of Toledo, another of Lisbon, another of Aragon, and the like. The Turkish government treated them with great liberality, allowing them unrestricted freedom in establishing manufactures and transacting commerce, permitting them also to hold landed property. Whatever amount of their wealth had been stripped from them by their Spanish persecutors, we may be sure, was now speedily recovered. Nor does it appear that they were subjected to any excessive exactions. They paid a certain amount of taxes, no doubt, and were occasionally liable to arbitrary demands, from which no one in the East is secure; but, on the whole, they were mercifully dealt with. Here too, as in all other lands where they have resided, their great financial and diplomatic ability was utilized by the Turkish rulers. Selim I. (A.D. 1512) trusted much to his Jewish physician, Joseph Hamon. His son, Solyman II., called ‘the Magnificent’ (A.D. 1520), similarly employed Moses Hamon, the son of Joseph, who, by his influence with his royal master, on one occasion saved the whole of his people from massacre.[179] Solomon Ashkenasi was selected as the Sultan’s agent to conduct a negotiation with the Venetian Republic. Joseph Nasi obtained such favour with Selim II. (A.D. 1566) that he was made Duke of Naxos, and was even designated King of Cyprus, though that intention was never carried out. After the disastrous battle of Lepanto, another Jew, Solomon Rophé, was sent to arrange a treaty of peace with the Venetians.

The Spanish Jews, among their other effects, brought their printing-presses into Turkey, where, by the favour of the Sultans, they were set up. At Constantinople and at Saloniki they were soon in active employment. The Old Testament Scriptures in Hebrew and Spanish were printed and largely circulated, as well as many Jewish writings which had hitherto remained in manuscript. At Saloniki a famous college was established, at which there were said to be as many as 5000 students. There was also a valuable library, which unfortunately was destroyed by fire in 1545.

The Holy Land is another country to which, as we might naturally expect, refugees from other lands resorted. It had always been regarded as a befitting thing for Jews of an advanced age to make a pilgrimage thither, and die among the hallowed scenes of their cherished traditions. With every persecution in European countries the number of these increased; and at the beginning of the sixteenth century Palestine was filled with swarms of Israelites, who, as a rule, were poor and destitute, and suffered greatly from the rapacity of Turkish officials. The Jewish communities in other parts of the world regarded it as their duty to support these needy brethren, and in larger cities collections were regularly made in the synagogues for this purpose. As no attempt apparently was made to provide them with the means of supporting themselves,—and possibly none could have been made with success,—the distress was always considerable, and after the Spanish exodus rose to a still greater height.

Another quarter to which large numbers of the expelled Jews migrated was the northern coast of Africa. This was a region already familiar to them. Egypt had, for a great length of time, been a favourite place of abode with them, and this had more particularly been the case since the time of Maimonides. Schools had been established in Cairo, Damietta, and other Egyptian towns, to which great numbers of students resorted. In the kingdom of Morocco, again, the banished Jews settled in great numbers. This was, indeed, the nearest country to Spain, Portugal excepted, and communications had for a long time been kept up between the inhabitants of the two kingdoms. In Tripoli also, Oran, Fez, Tunis, and Algiers, many Jewish families established themselves. But they did not receive the same friendly welcome which their brethren experienced in the East. They were allowed liberty of conscience, no doubt, and the protection of the law; but that was all the favour accorded them. The authorities laid heavy burdens on them, and at times exacted large sums as subsidies, after a fashion which greatly resembled the dealings of the English and French sovereigns several centuries before. The lower orders looked on them with fanatical prejudice, and they were obliged to wear black turbans, and boots of a different colour from those of the natives of the country. Yet their position, on the whole, was not unhappy. They were largely employed in the iron-works among the mountains of Morocco, as well as in building and agriculture.

One feature in their history deserves especial mention. In 1578, when the ill-fated expedition of Sebastian of Portugal took place, large numbers of Portuguese nobles and gentlemen were made prisoners, and sold as slaves in the market-places of the chief towns of Morocco. Many of these were bought by Portuguese Jews, who must have been sorely tempted to requite the injuries themselves and their fathers had received on these captives, who were wholly at their mercy. But they took a nobler revenge. They not only exacted no ransom of them, but allowed them to return to their homes, requiring of them no other condition than that of passing their word of honour that they would, on arriving in Portugal, remit to their former masters the sums that had been paid for their redemption from slavery. History has recorded few nobler actions.