Nadene Goldfoot
Background HistoryConstantine I the Great; Roman ruler (312-337) His edict of toleration which he issued at Milan in 312 in effect established the supremacy of Christianity. By 315, his decrees took an anti-Jewish turn, canceling Jewish exemptions from municipal office and prohibiting proselytization or interference with Jewish converts to Christianity. His legislation initiated the legal degradation of Jews characteristic of the Middle Ages.
In 329 AD Constantine the Great issued laws prohibiting Jews to own Christian slaves, prohibited mixed marriages and punished by death conversion of Christians to Judaism.
One of Constantine’s religious laws regarded attempts to stop Jews from converting to Christianity. It was noted that Judaism was “an abominable sect”.
He also began to claim land in Israel for use by the Christian Church. During a visit by his mother in 326 to 327, she identified places where key events may have taken place in Jesus’ life; Constantine went on build churches at those locations.
Constantine supported the separation of the date of Easter from the Jewish Passover (see also Quartodecimanism), stating in his letter after the First Council of Nicaea (which had already decided the matter):
Many councils – diocesan, provincial, national, and ecumenical – have dealt with matters that concerned the Jews. The very first ecumenical council, that of Nicaea (325), called primarily for the purpose of defining the nature of Jesus, also had before it the problem of transferring the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, a problem not solved for a long time after. Even before Nicaea, a council in Elvira (Spain) in c. 305 had tried to keep Jews and Christians apart by ordering the latter not to share a meal with Jews, not to marry Jews, not to use Jews to bless their fields, and not to observe the Jewish Sabbath. These objectives remained constant for centuries. For example, the prohibition against sharing a meal with Jews was repeated at Vannes (465), Epaon (517), Orleans III (538), and Mâcon (583); mixed marriages were prohibited at Orleans II (533), Clermont (535), Orleans III (538), and Orleans IV (541). As Jews entered commerce, pagan and Christian slaves became a subject for conciliar legislation. The trade in slaves was not forbidden, but Jews were forbidden to own Christian slaves and, especially, not to convert any slave to Judaism. These prohibitions were enacted and repeated at Orleans III (538), Orleans IV (541), Mâcon (583), Mâcon (626–27), Rome (743), Meaux and Paris (845–46), and – with less frequency – even later, down to the period of the Crusades.
The Roman rulers saw Jews as competitors of their new religion, Christianity. Jews were established by apostles of New Testament as the bad guys who killed G-d. The new religion of Christianity brought on more anti-Semitism than ever that had come from the Greeks and then the Romans. Now the Romans had even bigger reasons as Helena, mother of Constantine, turned the Romans onto Christianity.
By 1388, one year after the Christian-Catholic religion was introduced all over Lithuania, was the 1st settlement of Jews in the Great Lithuanian Princedom, the Magnus Ducatus Lithuaniae, began by invitation of the Grand Dukes Gediminas and Vytautas (Witold). They granted the Jews a preferred civil status and incomparable bills of rights in many different spheres, such as protecting their bodies and property; freedom to maintain their religious rituals; significant alleviation in the field of commerce, and money lending--this being permitted in relation to Christians. There was a particular regulation to protect Jews against blood libels.
By 1495, 3 years after the 1492 Spanish Inquisition expulsion, Grand Duke Alexander expelled all Jews numbering more than 6,000, from Lithuania and confiscated their property. Alexander became king of Poland 8 years later and allowed the Jews to return and gave them back some of their property. The Christian townspeople then became jealous and envious. Problems ensued.
Jews, who had entered England with the Norman conquest of 1066, were expelled in 1290 and were not allowed back in until 1655. The Norman Conquest was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqueror. They probably came in with the French troops. RASHI (1040-1105), our French rabbinical commentator had returned from the Rhineland to his native Troyes where he had established a school that was well-known. Students of his could had been with the conquerors. Then Jews were expelled from England by 1290 which lasted until 1655. This was 365 years of a country without any Jews. Why? Laws from the Emperor that excluded Jews from their lands coming from Rome in the 300s.
This covers the time of Shakespeare (1564-1616) who wrote about Shylock, a Jew who William knew nothing about except in here-say and his bible.
William Tyndale (1494-1536) translated the New Testament from the original Greek and had it printed in 1526 in English. They had only read their New Testament for the past 130 years where Jews were written about in bad light.
In 329 AD Emperor Constantine issued laws prohibiting Jews to own Christian slaves, prohibited mixed marriages and punished by death conversion of Christians to Judaism. One of Constantine's religious laws regarded attempts to stop Jews from converting to Christianity. It was noted that Judaism was “an abominable sect”.He also began to claim land in Israel for use by the Christian Church. During a visit by his mother in 326 to 327, she identified places where key events may have taken place in Jesus’ life; Constantine went on build churches at those locations.
The Pope (leader of all Christians then) had sent out word that Jews were not to be tolerated and so many Catholic countries started expelling Jews.
Hillel, a famous rabbinical Talmud commentator, was born in Babylonia in the late BCE era and established a dynasty of rabbis. Hillel II was in Palestine (330-365) who we could also call an astrophysicist who had published a system of intercalation to equalize the solar and lunar years, thus making it possible for the Jewish calendar to be determined without actual observation of the lunar phases.
Emperor Julian who followed Constantius II as emperor. A nephew of Constantine the Great, Julian was one of few in the imperial family to survive the purges and civil wars during the reign of Constantius II, his cousin. Hillel was in correspondence with the emperor Julian who addressed him as "my brother, the venerable patriarch." "Though the emperor hated and oppressed the Christians, he manifested benevolence and humanity towards the Jews. He wrote to the Jewish patriarchs and leaders, ...Emperor Julian (361-363) who had left the Christian fold. Although apparently in favor of freedom of religion, he was in reality unjust to the Christians but rather partial to the Jews. In a famous Greek letter to the Jews, (selection one below), he abolished the special taxes paid to the Roman government and sought also to stop the payment of a tax paid by Jews for the support of the Jewish patriarchate in Palestine. In this same letter he also encouraged the rebuilding of Jerusalem and, we may assume, of the Jewish Temple. Had this attempt been successful it would have meant the reestablishment of the Jewish state with its sacrifices, priests, and more important, its Sanhedrin or Senate. His attempt to build a Third Temple in Jerusalem was probably intended to harm Christianity rather than please Jews. Julian also forbade Christians from teaching and learning classical texts. He was the last emperor defending the Jewish people.
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A German Crusade massacred Jews in many European towns in 1096. The Worms massacre was the murder of at least 800 Jews from Worms, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany), at the hands of crusaders under Count Emicho in May 1096. The massacre at Worms was one of a number of attacks against Jewish communities perpetrated during the First Crusade (1096–1099).
Crusaders massacred Jews in Jerusalem in 1099. France followed England and expelled Jews by 1306. Then they did it again in Toulouse, France in 1420. Spain forcibly converted Jews to Christianity in 1146, then again in 1391. Spain in 1355 massacred 12,000 Jews by a mob in Toledo, Spain. By 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, they also expelled 180,000 Jews. 50,000 were converted to Christianity in order to remain in Spain. They came to be called the Marranos.
It continued. In the early 1320s, Pope John XXII (1316-1334) expelled all the Jews from one of his sovereign territories, the Comtat Venaissin. Hungary expelled Jews from 1349 to 1360. Jews had been in Germany early on, but Austria expelled them by 1421. Lithuania expelled Jews in 1495. Sicily and Sardinia expelled Jews from Portugal in 1497, right after they had moved from Spain to Portugal for refuge. The island of Rhodes were forcibly converted, expelled or taken into slavery by 1502. The kingdom of Naples expelled Jews by 1541. Poland was finally affected by 1648 to 1656 when 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Chmielnicki massacres. Russia expelled Jews by 1727 then again in 1747. By 1882, the 750,000 Jews living in Russia were forced to re-settle in the Pale of Settlement by Catherine the Great. By 1871, when my grandfather was born in Lithuania, there were anti-Jewish pogroms going on in towns of Russia (Russia proper and in the Pale) until 1821. She had set apart this block of land for Jews who were then not allowed into Russia proper. This involved Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, etc. It became a huge ghetto area. Russian land itself is huge-huge but mostly very cold land. Jews who had been in Moscow and St. Petersburg were expelled by 1891. Jews in the Soviet Union from 1917 onwards were denied the right of national identity. If you were caught in a synagogue or reading a prayer book of Hebrew, you were put into jail. In 1980-1981, I studied Hebrew in Israel. My teacher, Sarah, was communicating by mail with a very famous Russian Jew in prison who was trying to learn Hebrew with her help. No emails in those days. This man's wife finally managed after years of prison to get him out.
The Middle East was also affected in Meshed, Persia when they forcibly converted the entire Jewish community to Islam in 1838. By 1941 the Jewish community of Baghdad was attacked by mobs leaving 180 Jews dead. From 1948 onward, the persecution of Jewish communities in Arab countries saw mass expulsions.
Then, of course, Germany had its way and invaded Poland in 1939 and started the murder of 6 million Jews by the German Nazis and their European collaborators.
Every country in the world had been busy throwing out Jews. Many came to the USA by 1900s or even a little earlier. By 1924, USA had made a law cutting the numbers immensely for countries with Jews in order to almost prevent all Jews from entering. This affected eastern Europe a lot.
Palestine was under the control of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years, and when they lost the war of WWI, they lost control of Palestine. The Allies took it and gave England a 30 year mandate to govern Palestine. They early on decided not to follow the goal to make the Jewish Homeland or help Jews to do this, and they allowed many Arabs into the land while keeping out Jews. They even quickly made a deal with Abdullah of Transjordan and gave him the land designated for the Jews. They, being the boss, broke all the rules of years of decision-making by leaders of the League of Nations and the Jews.
When Jews were expelled from Spain, they moved over to Portugal, where they had a respite of moving for a few years before that country expelled them. From then on, they were on the move, trying to find a safe country. Wherever they went, the 1492 Spanish Inquisition followed them, threatening and taking their lives. They even followed Jews to Mexico.
Jews had gone to either Palestine or the USA, depending on the years. Early on, after 70 CE when Jerusalem fell to the Romans, the few remaining alive had scatter to the 4 winds, but mostly in nearby lands of the Arabs.
Resource:
Preserving Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin
Facts about Israel, Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem, 1973.
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Judaism#:~:text=Anti%2DJudaic%20legislation,-Under%20Constantine%20the&text=In%20329%20AD%20he%20issued,Jews%20from%20converting%20to%20Christianity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/jewish/julian-jews.asp
https://www.britannica.com/event/Norman-Conquest
https://www.jpost.com/blogs/truth-beyond-price/how-anti-semitism-was-exacerbated-at-the-council-of-nicea-500930 interesting reading
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