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Friday, March 26, 2021

From 70 to 1099 Jews in Germany, France and England

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

70 CE was the date that the Romans burned down Jerusalem and Solomon's 2nd Temple, taking as many Jews as they could as prisoners to sell in Rome and killing the majority.  Jews fled if they could out of Judah, that had become Judaea when Roman soldiers occupied the land.   

131–136
The Roman emperor Hadrian (emperor from 117-138 CE) , among other provocations, renames Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina" and prohibits circumcision. Simon bar Kokhba (Bar Kosiba) leads a large Jewish revolt against Rome in response to Hadrian's actions. In the aftermath, most Jewish population is annihilated (about 580,000 killed) and Hadrian renames the province of Judea to Syria Palaestina, and attempts to root out Judaism.
136
Rabbi Akiva (50-135 CE) is martyred.  Greatest scholar of his time, supporter of General Bar Kokhba, said to be Messiah,  who took back Jerusalem in 132-135.  
138
With Emperor Hadrian's death, the persecution of Jews within the Roman Empire is eased and Jews are allowed to visit Jerusalem on Tisha B'av. In the following centuries the Jewish center moves to Galilee.

From Jerusalem some Jews managed to get to the Rhineland of Germany.  Such Jews as these became known as the Ashkenazi Jews, differentiating from the Sephardic Jews of Spain who took a different path out of Jerusalem.  By 321 CE, the Roman Emperor Constantine issued regulations which showed a Jewish community with rabbis and elders in Cologne.  Others also settled along the Rhineland at the time.  Jews were also found to be used as soldiers in the Roman garrisons.  The Carolingian royal house adopted a pro-Jewish policy and encouraged the settlement of Jews in its dominions with the object of developing trade.  By the 10th century, Jews were living in Worms, Mainz,, Speyer, and Cologne where an intense intellectual life developed by the 11th century under Franco-Jewish influence.  The 1st persecution was recorded in 1012 and was probably not unique.  

 Our famous biblical scholar, RASHI, was born in Troyes, France in 1044.  He first studied to be a rabbi in the Rhineland of Germany, then returned to Troyes where he opened his own school.  He also maintained his own vineyard which was his business.  People wrote to him from afar asking for his own Jewish opinion about matters.  He died in 1105.  Troyes is located on the Seine river about 140 km (87 mi) south-east of Paris.                                                    

   RASHI, born 1044 in Troyes, France, famous for his comments on Bible and Talmud; used later by Nahmanides and ibn Ezra.  

Troyes has been in existence since the Roman era, then known as Augustobona Tricassium, which stood at the hub of numerous highways, primarily the Via Agrippa. The city has a rich historical past, from the Tricasses tribe to the liberation of the city on August 25, 1944 during the Second World War, including the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, the Council of Troyes, the marriage of Henry V and Catherine of France and the Champagne fairs for which merchants came from all over Christendom.

By 1066 we see that some Jews had made it to France and the Province of Normandy within France.   Many Jews lived there in the Middle Ages, known to us by the number of rabbinical scholars as well as streets in some localities named after the Jewish population.  They were expelled in 1394, but in the early 17th century, there was an important Marrano settlement at Rouen.  Marranos were Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity or lose their lives, but were still Jews, but hiding the fact,   still practicing what they could.  The number of Jews grew in the 19th century, and there are now communities at Rouen, Le havare, and Ellbeuf.                                

                      A Norman Frenchman  who conquered England, William I
William I, byname William the Conqueror or William the Bastard or William of Normandy, French Guillaume le Conquérant or Guillaume le Bâtard or Guillaume de Normandie, was their most important leader.  He was born in c. 1028, in Falaise, Normandy [France]—died September 9, 1087, Rouen), duke of Normandy (as William II) from 1035 and king of England (as William I) from 1066, and was one of the greatest soldiers and rulers of the Middle Ages. 
He made himself the mightiest noble in France and then changed the course of England’s history by his conquest of that country. William was the elder of the two children of Robert I of Normandy.
In 1066, when William conquered England, a handful of Jewish financiers followed him from the Continent into England.  Within the next generation, Jews were living in London, York, Bristol, Canterbury, etc.  Jews were not allowed to own land like other people or enter the trades.  The only thing left for them to do was finances, looked upon as undesirable by European Christians.   How Jews managed to live was therefore by:
1. Trading
2. Lending money to the baronage
3. Advanced funds for current needs on the security of the revenue to the Crown-who in return protected them from malice.  
                                                               

 In 1071, Jerusalem was captured by the Turkish warlord Atsiz, who seized most of Syria and Palestine as part of the expansion of the Seljuk Turks throughout the Middle East. The Seljuk hold on the city was weak and returning pilgrims reported difficulties and the oppression of Christians. Byzantine desire for military aid converged with increasing willingness of the western nobility to accept papal military direction.
                                                                       
The 1st Crusades: The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when the Byzantine EmperorAlexios I Komnenos, requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the Byzantine Empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  As these Crusaders rode on horseback through Europe to join them, they slaughtered Jews on the way.  In 1096 the Crusaders massacred the Jews throughout the Rhineland and joining areas.  This contributed to the process which drove them out of Trading and forced them increasingly into the profession of money lending.  
                                                                      
                          Conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 by Crusaders
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-I-king-of-England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades


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