Where Were We From 1290 to 1655? Dark Ages On?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

                                                        Background History

Constantine  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. 

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.                          

Nazi influence in Baghdad fanned anti-British and anti-Semitic sentiments;  books such as Mein Kampf had become very popular with Muslims in Middle East.  

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

What Has Driven Russia and Eastern Europe in General Into Strong Anti-Semitism

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

    Constantine the Great and facial reconstruction;  how he really looked ;  He really converted to Christianity because of his mother, Helen, who did.  

My original theory stands;  that it has been Eastern Europe's form of Christianity that has turned the people of Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and others into strong anti-Semites. Of course, this goes along with the events happening. The problem has been that of competition for followers; both in religion and in business. On the social ladder, Jews were almost at the bottom rung because of their treatment by the emperors of Rome.  

 On August 13, 339, C.E., Emperor Constantius II enacted a series of new laws restricting the freedom of Jews in the Roman Empire even more than under the anti-Jewish legislation imposed by his father, Constantine the Great.  Judaism faced some severe restrictions under Constantius, who seems to have followed an anti-Jewish policy in line with that of his father. This included edicts to limit the ownership of slaves by Jewish people and banning marriages between Jews and Christian women. Later edicts sought to discourage conversions from Christianity to Judaism by confiscating the apostate's property. However, Constantius' actions in this regard may not have been so much to do with Jewish religion as with Jewish business—apparently, privately owned Jewish businesses were often in competition with state-owned businesses. As a result, Constantius may have sought to provide an advantage to state-owned businesses by limiting the skilled workers and slaves available to Jewish businesses.

An early sign of anti-Semitic attitude was in 1936 with outbreaks of anti-Jewish activity in several states beyond the borders of Germany.  In Lithuania, in an attempt to establish restrictions on the % of Jewish students, not a single Jewish medical student was given a place in the medical faculty of Kovno University. Though Germany had led the way towards attacking Jews with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, was that reason enough for all others to copy Germany?  Didn't they think for themselves?  Usually, what is normal is to copy something you think is good, valuable, worthy of copying.  Well?  

Surprisingly, The Christianization of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos krikštas) occurred in 1387, initiated by King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Władysław II Jagiełło and his cousin Vytautas the Great. It signified the official adoption of Christianity by Lithuania, the last pagan country in Europe. This event ended one of the most complicated and lengthiest processes of Christianization in European history.

In 1388, one year after the Christian-Catholic religion was introduced all over Lithuania, the latter also 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.  Would you say that the Lithuanian heads wanted Jews to enter to make such an enticing offer?  Of course;  they couldn't pass this offer up.   

What happened to Lithuania?  What else is the reason for hating Jews so much that was or maybe still is that Jews killed their god?  Of course this makes NO sense to me that any human being can kill G0d, but there you are;  we've been blamed for a Roman decision for the past 2,000 years.  We're somebody to blame, for others to never take responsibility for a thing because somebody is blaming us, the Jews for the bad things in life.  Lithuanians are not the only people who have done this.  

The 1st settlement of Jews took place in the Great Lithuanian Princedom began in the 14th century by invitation of the Grand Dukes Gediminas and Vytautas (Witold). In other words, the Jews were enticed, invited to settle in Lithuania by the highest powers there.  

"In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Christian anti-Judaism in the medieval West had intensified, which is reflected in the harsh anti-Jewish measures agreed at the Fourth Council of the Lateran called in 1215 by Pope Innocent III. The peninsular Christian kingdoms were not at all oblivious to the growth of increasingly belligerent anti-Judaism—the Castilian statutory code of Siete Partidas stated that the Jews lived among Christians "so that their presence reminds them that they descend from those who crucified Our Lord Jesus Christ"—but the kings continued to "protect" the Jews for the important role they played in their kingdoms."

It was around this time that Spain was affected by the Pope over Jews.  By 1492 with the Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion;   they kicked Jews out who wouldn't convert, causing some to go underground and go through a pretense.  This had been growing stronger ever since the 1200s, so the Jews knew that this was a good offer.  They were needed here for their trading skills, and the fact that they were able to read and write and speak several languages, skills needed by those in trading in those days.  

It is not surprising then to read that by 1495, Grand Duke Alexander expelled all Jews--then numbering more than 6,000 people from Lithuania and confiscated their property.  Then 8 years later he was elected King of Poland and allowed Lithuanian Jews to return to their homes and gave them back PART of their property.  It was a good move to hope for re-election, wasn't it?  

 Grant Gochin has been so convinced of their present anti-Semitism that he's written a book "Malice, Murder, and Manipulation-one man's Quest for Truth" about it as well as several articles. "Citizenship and legal status affected every aspect of Jewish life in the “old country.” Follow a 100-year circular story of how the Lithuanian government abused national laws, causing multiple Jewish deaths in 1922, and how the same government still continued that behavior four generations later. Follow the documented saga of one Jewish family’s deportations, starvation, death, abductions, and movement. Understand the implications of heritage citizenships for past, current, and future generations. Testimonials: “A fascinating read!” —The Hon. Dr. Juris Bunkis, Honorary Consul for the Republic of Latvia,"   Grant and I have found out we're 3rd cousins twice removed through genealogy searches and 4th cousins by DNA testing with my brother with  ancestors from 1800s  marrying in Lithuania.  We accuse them of this because Lithuania is in the act of such denial right now, and our ancestors were there; witnesses to and victims of such feelings.

My grandfather, Nathan Goldfus-Goldfoot came from Telsiai/Telz.     I've traced the Goldfus line back to 1730 to Iones "Jonah" Goldfus of Telsiai, Lithuania who died in 1813 at age 83. He was first on the 1910 census in Portland, Oregon at age 38. Grant was also a genealogist of his family and the Gochins were in Papile, Lithuania. Grant's ancestor, Sam Gochin was born in 1902 and was deported from Papile by 1915, then abducted and taken into the Russian army in Belorussia in 1917.   An ancestor of his, Faive Shrago Gochin b; c1837 married my ancestor, Tsipa Goldfus  b: c1842, married in c1857.  We agree on our genealogy and assessment of Lithuania treatment of Jews.  

My grandmother, Zlata Jermulowske, came from Lazdey, Lithuania which was on the border with Poland.I'll use Telz information as the Lithuanian example of how Lithuanians reacted during the war.

              Yaakov Leibowitzs wedding in Mazheik, Lithuania

A shtetl at one time; Mažeikiai was first mentioned in written sources in 1335. A chronicler of the Livonian Order wrote about a campaign of the Order, during which the land of Duke Mažeika was devastated. The town started growing rapidly in 1869 when the Libau–Romny Railway connecting Vilnius and Liepāja was constructed. In 1893, the town had 13 shops and 5 alehouses. In 1894 an Eastern Orthodox church was built, and a synagogue had been founded several years earlier. In 1902 a Catholic church was established, followed by an Evangelical-Lutheran church in 1906. From 1899 to 1918 the town was called Muravyov.

After (July 28, 1914-November 11, 1917 or World War I) , Lithuania became an independent state again. However, the capital and the city with the largest Jewish population, Vilna, had been incorporated into Poland. The remaining Jews living in Lithuania were emancipated—their rights were mostly recognized—but by the early 1930s, the economic crisis known as the Great Depression and rampant antisemitism among ultranationalist groups were having an effect on the Jewish community. On the eve of World War II, despite the earlier loss of Vilna, 160,000 Jews lived in Lithuania—about 7% of the overall population.  

The German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 affected all Lithuanians, too.  Telz's Jews had been feeling the affects several months before.  Hitler sent an ultimatum to Lithuania on March 20, 1939 to Jews to leave Memel within 24 hours.  About 7,000 Jews lived in this city and escaped, leaving everything behind, looking for asylum in other regions like Zemaitija and in Kovno.  Many settled in Telz, and the Jewish community there took care of them.  

Report from Kovno: "trained Lithuanians were available in sufficient number.  Only 15% of Lithuanian Jewry remained alive by November 1941.  As a result, the city was, as he expressed it, comparatively speaking, a shooting paradise.  The male work-Jews should be sterilized immediately to prevent any procreation.  a Jewess who, nevertheless, was pregnant is to be liquidated".  So reported SS Colonel Karl Jaeger, the chief of Einsatzkimmando 3. 

The affect was that goods were hard to get or find and some Jews were exiled to Siberia in June 1941.  Buildings were conviscated like the Yeshiva (Jewish school) and turned into city schools.  Telz had had the famous Telz-Stone Yeshiva, known throughout eastern  Europe.  

On Friday, June 27, Telz's Jews were expelled from their houses and directed to the shore of Lake Mastis and had to leave their homes unlocked.  They were surrounded by armed Lithuanians under German command.  the Jews then realized they were to be murdered or drowned.  To make it even more horrific, men and women were separated and the women and children were to return to a home they found to have been previously robbed, left bare, while the men were executed.  

The next day, Shabbat, 28 armed Lithuanians appeared, beating those in the homes and led to the Rainiai farm 4 km away where the men were, a surprise.  The men were set to work, digging up corpses of 73 political prisoners previously in Telz prison and murdered by the Soviet security men.  Telz men were forced to wash the corpses,, kiss them, and lick the decaying wounds that must have been putrid.   All the guards in the camp and in the working places were Lithuanians.  Much more happened and by June 15, 1941 all men were taken out of the camp and led in groups to the grove and murdered.  First they had to undress and stand on a plank across the burying pit and were shot.  

Finally the women met their fate.  On the 30th and 31st of December 1941 the women were taken out from the ghetto and led in groups to the pits where they were murdered.  

Lazdijai's Jews entered on the grant by the Magdeburg Rights in 1579 as well as permission to maintain a weekly market and 2 yearly fairs.  Until 1795 it was part of the Polish Lithuanian Kingdom, when the 3rd division of Poland by the 3 superpowers took over;  Russia, Prussia and Austria.  The German army entered Lazdey on Sunday, June 22, 1941 and the residents were terrorized.  Thousands fled.  Most Lithuanians wouldn't hide or help anyone Jewish, even denied them water to drink.  The Lithuanians yelled, "Go back to Stalin, your father!"  Jewish families had been there for the past 362 years.  The Jews were accused of being Communists.  All the arrested were moved to Mariampol and murdered there.  The Rabbi of Lazdey who was rabbi Ya'akov Aryeh haCohen Gershtein from his shelter in Lazdijai and a German and Lithuanian Zarembo started beating him with riding whips.  Those people who came to see what was happening were also beaten.  Jewish males were taken by Germans and Lithuanians were tortured and robbed.  They suffered from merciless beatings first.  After Church on Sunday, the Lithuanians took male Jews and tortured them, forced them to roll in the dirt, hit each other, perform other acts to the amusement and pleasure of the spectators.  It became like the Roman days and the victims in the amphitheater.  It didn't look like a sermon in their church changed them at all. 

Out of approximately 208,000–210,000 Lithuanian and Polish Jews, an estimated 190,000–195,000 were murdered before the end of World War II, most of them between June and December 1941.  

More than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was massacred over the three-year German occupation – a more complete destruction than befell any other country affected by the Holocaust. Historians attribute this to the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries, though the reasons for this collaboration are still debated. The Holocaust resulted in the largest-ever loss of life in so short a period of time in the history of Lithuania.

Ethnic Lithuanian nobles were the main converts to Catholicism, but paganism remained strong among the peasantry. Pagan customs prevailed for a long time among the common people of Lithuania and were covertly practiced. There had been no prosecution of priests and adherents of the old faith. However, by the 17th century, following the Counter-Reformation (1545-1648), the Roman Catholic faith had essentially taken precedence over earlier pagan beliefs.

The conversion and its political implications had lasting repercussions for the history of Lithuania. As the majority of the population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania outside Lithuania proper was Orthodox and the elite gradually converted to Roman Catholicism, religious tensions increased. Some of the Orthodox Gediminids left Lithuania for Muscovy, where they gave rise to such families as the Galitzine and the Troubetzkoy. The Orthodox population of present-day Ukraine and eastern Belarus often sympathized with the rulers of Muscovy, who portrayed themselves as the champions of Orthodoxy. These feelings contributed to such reverses as the Battle of Vedrosha, which crippled the Grand Duchy and undermined its position as a dominant power in Eastern Europe.

On the other hand, the conversion to Roman Catholicism facilitated Lithuania's integration into the cultural sphere of Western Europe and paved the way to the political alliance of Lithuania and Poland, finalized as the Union of Lublin in 1569.

 Catholicism was one of the officially tolerated religions in the Russian Empire but Orthodoxy was considered to be above all  the religion of the Tsar and the empire. But, having said that, Catholicism continued to shape the lives of people in Lithuania. This was a question of religious politics, identity politics, in general.

Today, if you are Jewish, you cannot obtain citizenship in Lithuania.  Just ask Grant Gochin about it.  He's tried and wrote his book in 2013. I hear they're on the way to improvement.  It's been 10 years.   

Israel and Lithuania signed a new cooperation agreement in the fields of education and culture for the years 2023-2026 in March. The two countries first started working together in these sectors in 1994 and the program has been renewed every few years. The agreement serves as a framework for joint activities in education, higher education, youth and youth exchanges, dance, theatre, music, literature, cinema, cultural heritage, sports and more. As part of the agreement, student exchanges can take place through scholarships awarded by the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Cultural and Educational Cooperation.

Resource:

Malice, Murder, and Manipulation by Grant Arthur Gochin

The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert

Preserving Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin by JewishGen,Inc. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Lithuania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_Lithuania

https://yivo.org/Jewish-Encounters-with-the-Catholic-Church-in-Lithuania

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantius_II

https://yivo.org/cimages/historical_sources_of_antisemitism.pdf

The Only Roman Emperor Who Favored the Jews: Julian the Apostate

Nadene Goldfoot
Nudged by Victor Sharp                       

The most interesting Roman Emperor that my friend, Victor Sharp, had read about, was Flavius Claudius Julianus, known hatefully to Christians as Julian the Apostate who was the last pagan Roman emperor,  who reigned from 360 to 363 CE.  He was the nephew of Constantine the Great who was the first Christian emperor.  Julianus was actually educated as a Christian which must have angered and shocked him as he apostatized at the age of 20 when he was initiated into a religion based on Neoplatonism in 351 (oriental conceptions that conceive of the world as an emanation from the One with whom the soul is capable of being reunited in trance or in ecstacy.)  He was one of history's great ironies in that he was the last non-Christian emperor.  "A persistent enemy of Christianity, he publicly announced his conversion to paganism in 361, in essence, came out of the closet about his religious thoughts,  after 10 years when he was more successful,  thus acquiring the epithet “the Apostate.”
Because of this, he was vilified by most Christian sources beginning with John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzus in the later 4th century.  It seems that he was a force against the early Christians who were persecuting pagan Romans.  One never hears of that, usually it is the pagans persecuting the early Christians.  

Julian, born in 331-332 in Constantinople,  was orphaned as a young child.  He was raised, not by his uncle Constantine's family members but by a Gothic eunuch slave, Mardonius, who had a profound influence on him.  He was the teacher of his master's daughter Basilina. In 330, Basilina would marry Julius Constantius, the half-brother of Constantine the Great, who had defeated Licinius (or Gaius Valerius Licinianus Licinius Augustus (c263-325) a Roman emperor from 308 to 324.  For most of his reign he was the colleague and rival of Constantine I, with whom he co-authored the EDICT OF MILAN that granted official toleration to Christians in the Roman Empire, and seized control of the entire Roman Empire. 

The couple had one son, the later emperor Julian. He provided Julian with an excellent education.  This is the role that many Greeks who had been taken as slaves played for Romans. As a result, Julian also became a philosopher and a writer as well.  He married another Helena, and had a son, Procopius.  He was not an only child, but had a half brother, Constantius Galius, 7 years older,   Their father had been Julius Constantius and Basilina was Julian's mother.  
                                                       

Bishop Eusebius

Both Julian and Galius were exiled to the imperial estate of Macellum in Cappadocia, Turkey in 342 when Julian was about 11 years old.  This was after Eusebius, a Bishop and historian of Christianity,  died.  "During the Council of Antiochia (325) he was excommunicated for subscribing to the heresy of Arius (Libyan presbyter and ascetic, and priest in Baucalis in Alexandria, Egypt. His teachings about the nature of the Godhead in Christianity, which emphasized God's uniqueness and the Christ's subordination under the Father, and his opposition to what would become the dominant Christology, Homoousian Christology, made him a primary topic of the First Council of Nicaea, which was convened by Emperor Constantine the Great in 325.   Thus Eusebius was withdrawn during the First Council of Nicaea where he accepted that the Homoousion referred to the Logos.  (The Gospel of John identifies the Christian Logos, through which all things are made, as divine (theos), and further identifies Jesus Christ as the incarnate Logos.). Never recognized as a saint, he became counselor of Constantine the Great, and with the bishop of Nicomedia he continued to polemicize against Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Church Fathers, since he was condemned in the First Council of Tyre in 335."

 In 351 Julian  converted to the pagan Neoplatonism, recently “reformed” by Iamblichus, and was initiated into theurgy by Maximus of Ephesus.  "Neoplatonism is a term used to designate a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the third century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as it encapsulates a chain of thinkers which began with Ammonius Saccas and his student Plotinus (c. 204/5 – 270 AD) and which stretches to the sixth century AD. Even though Neoplatonism primarily circumscribes the thinkers who are now labeled Neoplatonists and not their ideas, there are some ideas that are common to Neoplatonic systems, for example, the monisticidea that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One"."

Julian became Caesar (This title was given to an heir to the throne. ) over the western provinces by order of Constantius II, his cousin,  in 355, and in this role he campaigned successfully against the Alamanni and Franks.  Later, he became a co-emperor in 361 with his cousin, Constantius II who was the Eastern emperor.  At this time, Christianity was still less popular than polytheism.   He was summoned to appear before the emperor in Mediolanum and on November 6 of 355 was made Caesar of the West, and married Constantius's sister, Helena.  She would be his cousin.  

Five years later in 360, Julian was proclaimed Augustus ( The title given to the ruling emperor as being the senior ruler of the empire.) by his soldiers at Lutetia (Paris), sparking a civil war with Constantius, his brother in law.  
       Kaveh Farrokh, artist                                                

Emperor Julian 'The Apostate' sought to emulate Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia, but Shapur II’s Savaran cavalry proved his undoing.

Julian was killed by the Persians just 2 years after his accession (coming into his highest seat of power.)  When he was killed it was the end of Roman official acceptance of polytheism. When Emperor Julian had received the wound [in Persia], he filled his hand with blood, flung it into the air and cried, Thou hast won, O Galilean,” wrote Theodoret of Cyrus. Emperor Julian, who reigned from 361 to 363 CE, had received that fatal wound during his last duel with the Savaran armored knights of Persia, but not before defeating the armored gladiator-type Persian infantry at the very gates of Ctesiphon, capital of the Sassanian Persian Empire. Had Julian the Apostate conquered Persia, he may well have become history’s second Alexander, leading Roman armies far to the east toward India and Central Asia. Julian already had proven his martial mettle in the crucible of battle against Europe’s Germanic warriors.

 He's buried at the Church of the Holy Apostles.  "It was a Greek Eastern Orthodox church in Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire." " It was second in size and importance only to the Hagia Sophia among the great churches of the capital. When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, the Holy Apostles briefly became the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church. Three years later the edifice, which was in a dilapidated state, was abandoned by the Patriarch, and in 1461 it was demolished by the Ottomans to make way for the Fatih Mosque."
                                                         

The remarkable bestseller about the fourth-century Roman emperor who famously tried to halt the spread of Christianity, Julian is widely regarded as one of Gore Vidal’s finest historical novels.Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great.  Julian himself wrote a book titled "Against the Galileans."  

 He was so interesting to so many that Gore Vidal wrote about his life as a Roman emperor.  He rebelled against the growing power of Christianity in the Roman Empire at the young age of 22, as he was more in favor of restoring the Jewish homeland.  

His opposition to Christianity culminated in his attempt to restore the Roman paganism which led him to regard the Jews more favorably.  In 362, he announced his intention of restoring the Jerusalem Temple and appointed an official named Alypius in charge of the building operation.  This stopped after a short time, probably because of the political uncertainties created by Julian's Persian campaign.  Christian sources attributed it to a miraculous fire.  

"The Jews already tried to rebuild the Temple. In 363 A.D., egged on by the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, the Jews tore down every remaining stone from the old temple to begin rebuilding it. But God miraculously halted this work.                                                      Jesus predicted that not one stone of the Jewish Temple would remain atop another.  The Romans utterly destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D.  What many people don't know is that in 363 A.D. the Jews tried to rebuild it, but God would have none of this.  In doing so, Jews themselves took the remaining stones from the Temple Mount.  In hindsight, the extraordinary act of Moshe Dayan handing over the Temple Mount to the Muslims can actually be seen as an Act of God in 1967.  This is because, according to Scripture -only after the Lord returns will the Jewish Temple be rebuilt."That's the Christian theory.  For the Jews, it's that the moshiach (messiah) , a human leader, will rebuild the Temple.  It's a prerequisite to be the moshiach.                                                              A few, very small, Jewish groups support constructing a Third Temple today, but most Jews oppose this, for a variety of reasons. " My 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, was one of the leaders of a group planning for the day it is rebuilt.  His home was in Jerusalem.  He belonged to the Jerusalem Temple Foundation, or the Faithful of the Temple Mount.

It was in c37 that Jesus had died.  It took almost 300 years for Rome to become Christianized to the point of meeting about this new religion that was slowly spreading throughout their realm by 312 and again in 325.  Most people were still happy being pagans and worshipping the many gods populating Mt. Olympus.  Why would anyone want to trade off their exciting holidays, virgin methods of bringing on good harvests, etc.?  
                                                      

King Alaric I, of Visigoths in Athens : Alaric was also a Roman magister militum"master of soldiers," making him a valued member of the Roman Empire.  Despite his allegiance to Rome, Alaric knew he would conquer the eternal city because it had been prophesied.     

Our Julian was educated by a Gothic slave, Mardonius.  Who were the Goths?  "The Goths were a people who flourished in Europe throughout ancient times and into the Middle Ages. Referred to at times as “barbarians,” they are famous for sacking the city of Rome in A.D. 410. 

Ironically, however, they are often credited with helping preserve Roman culture. After the sacking of Rome, a group of Goths moved to Gaul (in modern-day France) and Iberia (Spain)  and formed the Visigothic Kingdom. This kingdom would eventually incorporate Catholic Christianity, Roman artistic traditions and other aspects of Roman culture. The last Gothic kingdom fell to the Moors in A.D. 711."

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebius
https://www.livescience.com/45948-ancient-goths.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardonius_(philosopher)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor
http://bibleprobe.com/rebuildingthetemple.htm
https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1983/eirv10n16-19830426/eirv10n16-19830426_018-flirting_with_armageddon_the_jer.pdf
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/emperor-julian-the-apostate/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaric_I
https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/as9ks/julian_the
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/342592-the-roan-emperor-julian
www.roman-emperors.org/julian.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Julian