By the immigration of Spaniards and Portuguese, Jerusalem and other Palestinian cities also obtained a great increase of members to their congregations, and considerable importance. Here, too, the immigrants in a short time became the social and religious leaders. In the very brief period of seven years the number of Jewish families in the Holy City grew from scarcely seventy to two hundred, and again within the space of two decades (1495-1521), it rose from two hundred to fifteen hundred. The influx of new settlers had largely augmented the prosperity of the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem. Whilst formerly nearly all the members of the community were in a state of destitution, three decades afterwards there were only two hundred receiving alms. And what is of greater importance, morality was greatly benefited by the immigrants. Jerusalem was no longer the den of robbers found by Obadyah (Obadiah) di Bertinoro (1470–1520), who had immigrated from Italy. The members of the community were no longer harassed to death, and driven to despair or voluntary exile by a rapacious, tyrannical and treacherous faction; harmony, union, a sense of justice, and peace had found an abode with them. There was indeed a show of excessive piety, but it no longer flagrantly contrasted with a revoltingly immoral mode of life. Obadyah di Bertinoro, the gentle and amiable Italian preacher, had greatly contributed to this improvement of the moral tone of Jerusalem; for more than two decades he taught the growing community, by precept and example, genuine piety, nobility of sentiment and relinquishment of barbarian coarseness. After his arrival at Jerusalem, he wrote to his friends: "If there were in this country one sagacious Jew, who knew how to lead a community gently and justly, not Jews only, but also Mahometans would willingly submit to him, for the latter are not at all hostile to the Jews, but full of consideration for strangers. But there is not one Jew in this country possessing either sense or social virtues; all are coarse, misanthropical and avaricious." Bertinoro did not anticipate that he himself would soften that coarseness, improve the morals, mitigate that immorality, ennoble that baseness. But his genial, amiable manner disarmed evil and healed the sores he had discovered, lamented, and pitilessly exposed. Obadyah was the guardian angel of the Holy City, he cleansed it from pollution, and clothed it with a pure festival garment. "Were I to attempt proclaiming his praise," writes an Italian pilgrim to Jerusalem, "I should never cease. He is the man who is held in the highest esteem in the country; everything is done according to his orders, and no one dares gainsay his words. From all parts he is sought after and consulted; his merits are acknowledged by Egyptians and Babylonians, and even Mahometans honor him. Withal, he is modest and humble; his speech is gentle; he is accessible to every one. All praise him and say: He is not like an earthly being. When he preaches every ear listens intently; not the least sound is heard, his hearers are so silently devout." Exiles from the Pyrenean Peninsula supported him in his humane work.
To the intervention of Obadyah di Bertinoro, and of those who shared his opinions, probably were due the excellent ordinances which the community voluntarily imposed on itself, and for remembrance graved on a tablet in the synagogue. They were directed against the abuses which had crept in by degrees. These ordinances included amongst others the following decrees: In disputes between Jews, the Mahometan authorities are to be applied to only in the utmost necessity. The Jewish judge or rabbi is not to be allowed to compel wealthy members of the community to make advances for communal wants. Students of the Talmud and widows shall not contribute to the communal funds. Jews are not to purchase bad coin, and, if they acquire any accidentally, are not to pass it. The pilgrims to the grave of the prophet Samuel are not to drink wine, for men and women traveled together, the latter unveiled, and if the men had been excited by wine, great mischief might have ensued.
The Holy City acquired still higher importance by the immigration of Isaac Shalal, with his riches, experience, and authority.
Safet in Galilee, the youngest town of Palestine, next to Jerusalem acquired the largest Jewish population and considerable importance, which increased to such a degree that Safet not only rivaled, but excelled the mother-city. At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the next century it sheltered only some three hundred Jewish families, original inhabitants (Moriscos), Berbers, and Sephardim. It did not at first possess any eminent native expounder of the Talmud, who might have become a leader. It owed its importance and far-reaching influence to the arrival of a Spanish fugitive, under whose direction the community was strengthened. Joseph Saragossi became for Safet what Obadyah di Bertinoro had been for Jerusalem. Driven from Saragossa, he passed through Sicily, Beyrout and Sidon, in which latter place he resided for some time, and finally reached Safet, where he settled. Joseph Saragossi possessed a mild, fascinating character, and considered it the task of his life to preach peace and restore harmony in private and communal life. Even among Mahometans he worked in a conciliating and appeasing spirit, and on this account he was loved and revered as an angel of peace. At one time he wished to leave Safet. The inhabitants fairly clung to him, and promised him an annual salary of fifty ducats, two thirds of which the Mahometan governor of the town offered to furnish. Joseph Saragossi transplanted the study of the Talmud to Safet, and also that of the Kabbala, as he was an ultra-pious mystic. Through him the hitherto untainted community became a nest of Kabbalists.
In Damascus, the half-Palestinian capital of Syria, there also arose, by the side of the very ancient Mostarabian community, a Sephardic congregation, composed of fugitives, and numbering five hundred Jewish families. Within a short time after their arrival, the Spaniards built a splendid synagogue at Damascus, called Khataib. They speedily increased to such a degree as to separate into several congregations, according to the states from which they had originally come.
The main stream of the Jewish-Spanish emigration flowed towards Turkey in Europe; the greater part of the remnant of the three hundred thousand exiles found an asylum in that country, where the inhabitants did not take love as their watchword. The sultans Bajazet, Selim I and Solyman I, not only tolerated the fugitive Jews, but gave them a hearty welcome, and granted them the liberties enjoyed by Armenians and Greeks. A Jewish poet enthusiastically described the freedom of his co-religionists in Turkey. "Great Turkey, a wide and spreading sea, which our Lord opened with the wand of His mercy (as at the exodus from Egypt), that the tide of thy present disaster, Jacob, as happened with the multitude of the Egyptians, should therein lose and exhaust itself. There the gates of freedom and equal position for the unhindered practice of Jewish worship are ever open, they are never closed against thee. There thou canst renew thy inner life, change thy condition, strip off, and cast away false and erroneous doctrines, recover thy ancient truths, and abandon the practices which, by the violence of the nations among whom thou wast a pilgrim, thou wert compelled to imitate. In this realm thou art highly favored by the Lord, since therein He granteth thee boundless liberty to commence thy late repentance."
The immigrant Jews at first enjoyed very happy days in Turkey, because they were a godsend to this comparatively new state. The Turks were good soldiers, but bad citizens. The sultans, frequently on bad terms with Christian states, could place but indifferent trust in the Greeks, Armenians, and Christians of other national creeds; they looked upon them as born spies and traitors. But they could depend on the fidelity and usefulness of the Jews. Hence they were, on the one hand, the business people, and on the other, the citizen class of Turkey. They not only carried on the wholesale and retail commerce by land and sea, but were the handicraftsmen and the artists. The Marranos especially who had fled from Spain and Portugal manufactured for the warlike Turks new armor and firearms, cannons and gunpowder, and taught the Turks how to use them. Thus persecuting Christianity itself furnished its chief enemies, the Turks, with weapons which enabled them to overwhelm the former with defeat after defeat, humiliation on humiliation. Jewish physicians especially were held in high esteem in Turkey; they were for the most part clever disciples of the school of Salamanca, and, on account of their skill, higher education, secrecy and discretion, were preferred to Christian, and even to Mahometan doctors. These Jewish physicians, mostly of Spanish descent, acquired great influence with grand sultans, vizirs and pashas.
Sultan Selim had for his physician in ordinary Joseph Hamon, an immigrant probably from Granada. Hamon's son and nephew successively held the same office. The son, Moses Hamon (born 1490, died about 1565), physician to the wise sultan Solyman, on account of his skill and manly, determined character, enjoyed even higher reputation and influence than his father. He accompanied the sultan in his warlike expeditions, and brought back from Persia, whither he had followed Solyman on a triumphal progress, a learned man, Jacob Tus or Tavs (about 1535), who translated the Pentateuch into Persian. This version, accompanied by Chaldean and Arabic translations, was afterwards printed at the expense of Hamon, who was justly considered a protector of his brethren and a promoter of Judaism.
The Jews were also in great request in Turkey as linguists and interpreters, they having acquired knowledge of many languages through their wanderings among foreign nations.
The capital, Constantinople, held within its walls a very numerous Jewish community, which was daily increased by new fugitives from the Peninsula, so that it became the largest in Europe, numbering probably thirty thousand souls. It had forty-four synagogues, consequently as many separate congregations. For the Jewish community in the Turkish capital and other towns did not form a close corporation, but was divided into groups and sections, according to their native places, each of which was anxious to retain its own customs, rites and liturgy, and to possess its own synagogue and rabbinical college. Hence there were not only Castilian, Aragonese and Portuguese congregations, but still more restricted associations, Cordovan, Toledan, Barcelonian, Lisbon groups (Kahals), besides German, Apulian, Messinian and Greek. Every petty congregation apportioned among its members the contributions, not only for its worship, officials, the maintenance of the poor, its hospitals and schools, but also for the taxes payable to the state. These latter at first were trifling: a poll-tax on every one subject to taxation (charaj), and a kind of rabbinical tax levied on the congregation, according to the three different classes of property, of 200, 100 and 20 aspers. The family of the physician Hamon alone was exempt from taxes.
At first the native Jews, who formed the majority, had complete preponderance over the immigrants. The office of chief rabbi, after the death of the meritorious but unappreciated Moses Kapsali, was held by Elias Mizrachi, probably descended from an immigrant Greek family, who under the sultans Bajazet, Selim I, and perhaps also under Solyman, had a seat in the divan like his predecessor, and was the official representative of the whole body of Turkish Jews. He deservedly held this post on account of his rabbinical and secular knowledge, and upright, impartially just character. Elias Mizrachi (born about 1455, died between 1525 and 1527), a disciple of the German school, and a profound Talmudist and strictly pious man, was no enemy to science. He not only understood, but taught mathematics and astronomy, gave public lectures thereon, as also on the Talmud, and compiled handbooks on these subjects, some of which became such favorites as to be translated into Latin. In his youth he was a Hotspur, and had a feud with the Karaites in Turkey. But in his old age he felt more kindly towards them, and employed his weighty influence to avert a wrong which the ultra-pious were about to inflict on them. A few obscurantists, chiefly members of the Apulian congregation at Constantinople, attempted to interrupt, in a violent manner, the neighborly intercourse which for half a century had existed between Rabbanites and Karaites. They assembled the members of the congregation, and, with the Sefer Torah in their hand, excommunicated all who should henceforth instruct Karaites, whether children or adults, in the Bible or the Talmud, or even in secular sciences, such as mathematics, natural history, logic, music, or even the alphabet. Nor were Rabbanite servants any longer to take service with Karaite families. These fanatics intended to raise an insuperable barrier between the followers of the Talmud and those of the Bible. But the majority of the Constantinople community were dissatisfied with this bigoted measure. The tolerant Rabbanites of the capital held a meeting to frustrate the plan of the zealots. But the latter behaved so outrageously and with such violence, bringing a fierce rabble provided with cudgels into the synagogue where the consultation was to be held, that the conveners of the meeting had no chance of being heard, and the act of excommunication was carried by an insolent minority, in defiance of the sound arguments and opposition of the majority. Then Rabbi Elias Mizrachi openly and vigorously opposed this unreasonable, illegal and violent proceeding, showing in a learned discourse how unjust and opposed to the Talmud was the rejection of the Karaites. He impressed on the zealots the fact that by their intolerant severity they would bring about the decay of the instruction of the young, since hitherto emulation to surpass their Karaite companions had been a great incentive to Rabbanite scholars.
The Turkish Jews in those days had a kind of political representative, an advocate (Kahiya), or chamberlain, who had access to the sultan and his great dignitaries, and was appointed by the court. Shaltiel, otherwise an unknown personage, but said to have been of noble character, held the office under Solyman. With a population looking contemptuously on unbelievers, with provincial pashas ruling arbitrarily, and with fanatical Greek and Bulgarian Christians, instances of injustice and violent proceedings against the Jews in the Turkish empire were not of rare occurrence; on all such occasions the Kahiya Shaltiel interposed on behalf of his co-religionists, and, by means of money liberally spent at court, obtained redress.
The community next in importance in Turkey was that of Salonica (the ancient Thessalonica), which, though an unhealthy town, possessed attractions for the immigrants of Spain and Provence; for this once Greek settlement offered more leisure for peaceful occupation than the noisy capital of Turkey. Ten congregations at least were soon formed here, the most of Sephardic origin. Eventually they increased to thirty-six. Salonica, in fact, became a Jewish town, with more Jews than Gentiles. A Jewish poet, Samuel Usque, calls the town "a mother of Judaism, built on the deep foundation of the Lord, full of excellent plants and fruitful trees, such as are found nowhere else on earth. Their fruit is glorious, because it is watered by an abundance of benevolence. The greatest portion of the persecuted and banished sons from Europe and other parts of the earth have met therein, and been received with loving welcomes, as if it were our venerable mother, Jerusalem." Within a short period the Sephardic immigrants acquired complete supremacy over their co-religionists, even over the original community, so that the leading language of Salonica became Spanish, which German and Italian Jews had to learn, if they wished to maintain intercourse with the Spanish immigrants. The son of one of the last Jewish-Spanish ministers of finance, Judah Benveniste, had settled here. From his paternal inheritance he had saved enough to possess a noble library; he was the standard around which his heavily-tried brethren could rally. Representatives of Talmudic learning were naturally found among the sons of the Pyrenean Peninsula only, such as the Taytasaks, a family of scholars, and Jacob Ibn-Chabib, though even they were not men of the first eminence. Spanish immigrants, such as the physicians Perachyah Cohen, his son Daniel, Aaron Afia (Affius), and Moses Almosnino, also cultivated philosophy and astronomy to some extent. But the chief study was that of the Kabbala, in which the Spaniards, Joseph Taytasak, Samuel Franco, and others, distinguished themselves. Salonica in Turkey and Safet in Palestine in time became the chief seats of Kabbalistic extravagance. Of less importance was Adrianople, the former residence of the Turkish sultans, though there also, as at Nicopolis, communities in which the Sephardic element predominated were formed.
To the towns of Amasia, Broussa, Tria and Tokat in Asia Minor, the Spanish fugitives furnished inhabitants. Smyrna, which later on had a large Jewish population, was then of little importance. Greece, however, could show some large communities. Calabrese, Apulian, Spanish and Portuguese fugitives settled at Arta or Larta, by the side of the original inhabitants, Rumelians and Corfuites. They seem to have done well here, for we read that the Jewish youth were much given to gayety and dancing, thereby greatly offending the ultra-pious. Not unimportant communities existed at Patras, Negropont and Thebes. The Thebans were considered very learned in Talmudic lore. The rites of the community of Corfu were followed by the other Jews of Greece. There was an important community at Canea, on the island of Candia, belonging to Venice. At their head were two famous families, the Delmedigos, sons and relatives of the philosopher Elias del Medigo, and the Kapsalis, connections of the former chief rabbi of Turkey. Judah Delmedigo (the son of the teacher of Pico di Mirandola), and Elias ben Elkanah Kapsali, finished their studies under the same rabbi, Judah Menz, of Padua; nevertheless, they were not at one in their views. As both held the office of rabbi at Canea, there was constant friction between them. If the one declared anything to be permissible, the other exerted all his learning and ingenuity to prove the contrary; yet both were worthy men of high principle, and both were well versed in general literature.
Elias Kapsali (born about 1490, died about 1555) was a good historian. When the plague devastated Candia, and plunged the inhabitants into mourning, he composed (in 1523) a history of the Turkish dynasty in a very agreeable Hebrew style, in lucid and elevated language, free from pompous and barbarous diction. Kapsali merely aimed at relating the truth. Interwoven with the Turkish narrative was the history of the Jews, showing in gloomy colors the tragic fate of the Spanish exiles, as he had heard it from their own lips. Though in this composition he had the subsidiary intention of cheering the people during the continuance of the plague, his work may serve as a sample of a fine Hebrew historical style. It has, indeed, found imitators. Kapsali forsook the dry diction of the chroniclers, and as an historian was far superior to his predecessor, Abraham Zacuto. Considering that Kapsali was a rabbi by profession, and that in consultations and the giving of opinions he was bound to make use of a corrupt jargon, his work displays much versatility and talent.
Italy at this period swarmed with fugitive Jews. Most of those driven from Spain, Portugal and Germany first touched Italian soil, either to settle there under the protection of some tolerant ruler, or to travel on to Greece, Turkey, or Palestine. Strangely enough, among the masters of Italy the popes were most friendly to the Jews: Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, and Clement VII, were pursuing interests, or devoting themselves to hobbies, which left them no time to think of torturing Jews. The popes and their cardinals considered the canonical laws only in so far as they needed them for the extension of their power or to fill their money-bags. Totally oblivious of the decree of the council of Basle, which enacted that Christians were not to consult Jewish physicians, the popes and cardinals themselves chose Jews as their physicians in ordinary. It appears that, owing to the secret warfare, the intrigues and the frequent use of poison, which, since Alexander VI, had been rife in the curia, where every one looked on his companion as an enemy, Jewish physicians were in favor, because there was no danger of their offering a pope or cardinal a poisoned cup instead of a salutary remedy. Alexander VI had a Jewish physician, Bonet de Lates, a native of Provence, who practiced astrology, prepared an astronomical circle, and sent the pope the Latin description thereof with a fulsome dedication. Bonet de Lates afterwards became the favorite physician in ordinary to Leo X, and influenced his conduct. Julius II had for his physician Simon Zarfati, who in other respects also enjoyed his masters confidence. Cardinals and other high princes of the church followed their examples, and generally intrusted their sacred bodies to Jewish doctors, who consequently were much sought after in Italy. Following the example of the popes, the northern Italian cities received fugitive Jews, even pseudo-Christians re-converted to Judaism, from Spain and Germany, and admitted them to all the privileges of free intercourse. Even the popes permitted Marranos to settle at Ancona, notwithstanding their having been baptized. The most important communities in Italy were formed, after the annihilation of the Jews of Naples, by an influx from other countries into Roman and Venetian territory; in the latter, Venice and the flourishing city of Padua, in the former, Rome and the port of Ancona, receiving most of them. Two opposite views with regard to Jews swayed the council of the egotistical Venetian republic. On the one hand, this commercial state did not wish to lose the advantages that Jewish connections might bring, though at the same time it was loath to foster them, for fear of offending the Levantine Jews, their co-religionists in Turkey; on the other hand, the Venetian merchants were full of trade envy against Jews. Hence the latter were caressed or oppressed as the one or the other party predominated in the Signoria. Venice was the first Italian city wherein Jews resided which set apart a special quarter as a Ghetto (March, 1516).
As a rule the immigrant Jews, Spaniards or Germans, obtained supremacy in Italy over native Jews, both in rabbinical learning and communal relations. The Abrabanels played an important part in Italy. The head of the family, Isaac Abrabanel, indeed, was too much bowed down by age and suffering to exercise much influence in any direction. He died before Jewish affairs had assumed a settled condition. His eldest son, Leon Medigo, likewise made no impression on his surroundings; he was too much of a philosophical dreamer and idealist, a poetic soul averse to dealing with the things of this world. Only the youngest of the three brothers, Samuel Abrabanel (born 1473, died about 1550) left his mark on his contemporaries. He was considered the most eminent Jew in Italy, and his community venerated him like a prince. He alone inherited his father's financial genius, and, after his return from the Talmudic college at Salonica, appears to have availed himself of it, and to have been employed in the department of finance by the viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro de Toledo. At Naples he acquired a considerable fortune, valued at more than 200,000 zechins. He employed his wealth to gratify the disposition hereditary in his family to practice noble beneficence. The Jewish poet, Samuel Usque, gives an enthusiastic description of his heart and mind: "Samuel Abrabanel deserves to be called Trismegistus (thrice great); he is great and wise in the Law, great in nobility, and great in riches. With his wealth he is always magnanimous, a help in the sorrows of his brethren. He joins innumerable orphans in wedlock, supports the needy, and redeems captives, so that he possesses all the great qualities which make the prophet."
To increase his happiness heaven had given him a companion in life, the complement of his high virtues, whose name, Benvenida Abrabanela, was uttered by her contemporaries with devout veneration. Tender-hearted, deeply religious, wise and courageous, she was a pattern of refinement and high breeding, qualities more highly esteemed in Italy than in any other European country. Don Pedro, the powerful Spanish viceroy of Naples, allowed his second daughter, Leonora, to be on intimate terms with Benvenida, that she might learn by her example. When this daughter afterwards became Duchess of Tuscany, she kept up her acquaintance with the Jewish lady, and called her by the honored name of mother. This noble pair, Samuel Abrabanel and Benvenida, in whom tenderness and worldly wisdom, warm attachment to Judaism and social intercourse with non-Jewish circles were combined, were at once the pride and the sheet-anchor of the Italian Jews, and of all who came under their beneficent influence. Samuel Abrabanel, though not so well versed in the Talmud as his poetic worshiper represents him to have been, was a friend and promoter of Jewish knowledge. To fill the office of rabbi at Naples, he sent for David Ibn-Yachya and his young, courageous wife, who had fled from Portugal (1518); and, as the congregation was too small to pay his salary, Abrabanel paid it himself. In his house the learned Yachya lectured on the Talmud, and probably also on Hebrew grammar. He thus formed a center for Jewish science in southern Italy. Christian men of science also resorted to Abrabanel's house.
The chief seat of Talmudic or rabbinical studies was at that time at Padua, where presided not Italians but immigrant Germans. Judah Menz, of Mayence, even at his great age of more than a hundred years, exercised attractive power over studious disciples from Italy, Germany, and Turkey, as though from his lips they would learn the wisdom of a time about to pass away. To be a pupil of Menz, was considered a great honor and distinction. After he died, his son, Abraham Menz, undertook the direction of the college (1504–1526); but his authority was not undisputed. The native Jews have in no direction left names of note. The chronicles mention some famous Jewish-Italian physicians, who also distinguished themselves in other branches, such as Abraham de Balmes (1521), of Lecce, physician and friend of Cardinal Grimani. De Balmes possessed philosophical knowledge, and wrote a work on the Hebrew language, which was published with a Latin translation by a Christian. Other Jewish physicians of the same age were Judah, or Laudadeus de Blanis, at Perugia, a worshiper of the Kabbala, and Obadyah, or Servadeus de Sforno (Sfurno, born about 1470, died 1550), a physician of Rome and Bologna, who, besides medicine, studied biblical and philosophical subjects, and dedicated some of his Hebrew writings with a Latin translation to King Henry II, of France. But, as far as we are now able to judge of these highly praised compositions, they are mediocre, and the authors, even in their own times, enjoyed but local reputation. It is certain that De Balmes and Sforno are far beneath Jacob Mantin, who, driven from Tortosa to Italy, there distinguished himself as a physician and philosopher, leaving a famous name behind him. Mantin (born about 1490, died about 1549) was a great linguist; beside his native language and Hebrew, he understood Latin, Italian and Arabic. He was a deeply learned physician and philosopher, and translated medical and metaphysical works from Hebrew or Arabic into Latin. He was held in high esteem as physician by a pope and the ambassador of Charles V at Venice. But his learning was marred by his iniquitous character; envy and ambition led him to commit wicked deeds, to accuse and persecute innocent persons, even his own co-religionists.
In those days there lived in Italy a man, who, though not distinguished by any brilliant achievement, was superior to nearly all his co-religionists by a qualification better and rarer than literary ability. He was gifted with common sense and a fine understanding, which led him not to judge of things by appearances, or from a limited point of view. Abraham Farissol (born 1451, died about 1525), a native of Avignon, for reasons unknown, perhaps from want, had emigrated to Ferrara. He supported himself by copying books, and also, it would appear, by officiating as chorister at the synagogue. Though he was in needy circumstances, and confined within narrow surroundings, his perception was acute, his horizon wide, and his judgment matured. Like most of his learned contemporaries in Italy, he commented on the Bible, and his independence of thought in the midst of the dense credulity of his time constitutes his claim upon pre-eminence. He said of himself, "As regards miracles, I belong to those of little faith." Farissol was the first Jewish author who, instead of studying the starry firmament, astronomy and astrology (to which Jewish authors of the Middle Ages were but too much inclined), turned his attention to investigate the configuration and phenomena of our globe. He was influenced to undertake these studies by the marvelous discoveries of the southern coasts of Africa and India by the Portuguese, and of America by the Spaniards. Penetrating mediæval mist and the deceptive illusions of fancy, Farissol saw things as they actually are, and deeming it necessary to point them out, he scoffed at ignorant men who, in their pseudo-learned conceit, considered geography of no account. He had to show conclusively that the Book of books, the holy record of the Torah, attached importance to geographical data, in doing which he indicated a new point of view for the comprehension of the Bible: it was not to be explained by allegories and metaphysical or Kabbalistic reveries, but by actual facts and the plain meaning of the words.