Why Jews Migrated to Germany Long Ago and Later Left

 Nadene Goldfoot

             

Depiction of German Jew of long ago, forced to dress like this.

    "The Jewish hat, also known as the Jewish cap, Judenhut (German) ("horned skullcap"), was a cone-shaped pointed hat, often white or yellow, worn by Jews in Medieval Europe. Initially worn by choice (I question that), its wearing was enforced in some places in Europe after the 1215 Fourth Council of the Lateran for adult male Jews to wear while outside a ghetto to distinguish them from others."  it was their badge of shame, like wearing the star of David during WWII. .

  Like the Phrygian cap that it often resembles, the hat may have originated in pre-Islamic Persia, as a similar hat was worn by Babylonian Jews.

We have to go back to Roman days to find out that there were Jewish soldiers in the Roman garrisons of Germany.  The Romans had taken Jews alive in 70 CE as slaves and may have used them as fodder in their army.  We believe this from archeological finds that demonstrate their presence.

By 1096, the German Crusade massacred Jews in European towns.  The Jewish community in Jerusalem was massacred by the Crusaders by 1099. 

However, by 321 CE, Roman Emperor Constantine issued regulations which indicate the existence of an organized Jewish community with rabbis and elders at Cologne.  It's probable that Jews were settled elsewhere on the Rhineland at that time.  They enjoyed some civil liberties, but were restricted regarding the dissemination of their culture, the keeping of non-Jewish slaves, and the holding of office under the government. They were considered more as 2nd class citizens, just as they were in Arab states.  Being Jewish made you different to others.  

In the 8th and 9th centuries, the Carolingian royal house  adopted a pro-Jewish policy!  They encouraged the settlement of Jews in its dominions because they needed them to develop trade.  New Jewish communities began to be created in the principal commercial centers.

By the 9th century, Jews were living in Augsburg and Metz.

In the 10th century, Jews were living in Worms, Mainz, Magdeburg, Ratisbon, etc.  The dense settlement was in the Rhineland that took in Mainz, Speyer, Worms, Cologne, etc.

By the 11th century, this is where an intense intellectual life developed under Franco-Jewish influence.  Conditions were generally not unfavorable, though the persecution recorded in 1012 was probably not unique.          

                                Anti-Semitic Acts Started

 However, in 1096, the Crusaders massacred the Jews throughout the Rhineland and the adjacent areas.  The moral atmosphere changed, and at all times of unrest or excitement in Germany, the Jews were attacked.  

The religious fervor against Jews caused Europe to react along against Jews which drove Jews out of trading and forced them increasingly into the profession of moneylending.  

The uptake on this was that as they were driven out of one area, another could receive them.  Germany figures preeminently in Jewish history as the land of martyrdom where expulsion was resorted to only locally and sporadically in order to complete the work of extermination.  This is when Jews moved into Eastern Europe's countries of Poland, Lithuania, etc. Jews were living in Poland from the 9th century on.  The 1st Jew could have been from the West like Germany,, Bohemia, et, or the South such as the kingdom of Kiev or the Byzantine Empire.  They must have been reinforced by the Khazar elements.  They no doubt were traders who in the Dark Ages helped to open up the area to civilizing influences.  The first Polish charter for Jews was granted in 905.  

In 1298, massacres of Jews happened, inspired by a knight named RINDFLEISCH, called the Rindfleisch Massacres.  The attacks took place on the Jews throughout Franconia and the surrounding regions after a Ritual Murder accusation at Rottingen..  They were instigated and led by this Bavarian noble, Rindfleisch.  146 communities were annihilated.                                    

Massacres of Jews happened again in 1336 at the time of the Black Death where Jews were accused of deliberately propagating.  People acted against Jews with complete barbarism.  Ove 350 localities of Jews suffered, and over 200 Jewish communities were utterly wiped out.                                     

By the 14th century in the 2nd half of it, the Jewish survivors were kept perpetually impoverished by cancelling debts due to them.  Those were the businessmen who suffered.  The Jewish intellectual life kept going in Germany throughout the Middle Ages by centering mainly on talmudic study.  Lithuania was home to Jews in 1495, after the 1492 expulsion of Jews in Spain.  Karaites were already there by 1321 with a community established by 1398.  

Toward the close of the Middle Ages most of the larger German cities banished the Jews after the beginning of the 16th century.  The only communities of importance left were Frankfort-on-Main and Worms.                             

As European commerce grew in the late Middle Ages, some Jews became prominent in trade, banking, and moneylending, and Jews’ economic and cultural successes tended to arouse the envy of the populace. This economic resentment, allied with traditional religious prejudice, prompted the forced expulsion of Jews from several countries and regions, including England (1290), France (14th century), Germany (1350s), Portugal (1496), Provence (1512), and the Papal States (1569). Intensifying persecution in Spain culminated in 1492 in the forced expulsion of that country’s large and long-established Jewish population. Only Jews who had converted to Christianity were allowed to remain, and those suspected of continuing to practice Judaism faced persecution in the Spanish Inquisition. As a result of these mass expulsions, the centres of Jewish life shifted from western Europe and Germany to Turkey and then to Poland and Russia.                           

The Protestant Reformation seemed to offer some amelioration in the Jewish position, but Luther ultimately reverted to the traditional German anti-Semitic standard.  

          pictured is Rabbi Wertheimer , a Court Jew

The 17th century saw after the 30 Years War the creation of many competitive states emerging.  Many hired Jews as factors, military purveyors, financial advisers, etc. and gave them privileged positions as Court Jews.  Of course they attracted other Jews and communities were formed.  The Jews of Hamburg were important after a Marrano colony was established there (Spanish hidden Jews) .  A few of our ancestors were court Jews Wertheimer, above  being one.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-clothing-in-the-middle-ages/

Jews Who Loved To Hike and Wander About

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Jews were prompted to undertake long journeys from early in their history either by  the desire for travel and thirst for knowledge, or for commercial and political purposes.  Their dispersion over the whole populated world facilitated such travels.

In the 9th century, Jewish merchants, called RADANITES regularly undertook distant journeys from Europe to the Orient, from Franconia (southern France)  to China.  They are known mainly from a description by the early Arab geographer, Ibn Khordadbeh, (846 to 886) who stated that they spoke Arabic, Persian, Roman and the languages of the Franks, Andalusians, and Slavs.  He describes in detail 4 trade routes that they followed.  The 1st was via the Mediterranean to Alexandria, overland to the Red Sea, and via the Indian Ocean to the China Sea.  The 2nd route went overland via Damascus, Baghdad, and Basra and then continued as in the previous route.  The 3rd of the routes was entirely overland across North Africa to Palestine, Baghdad, and then into the interior of China, while the 4th went across central Europe.                  

Isaac the Jew

       Caliph Haroun al-Raschid

The emperor Charlemagne sent a deputation to the caliph, Haroun al-Raschid, which included a Jew, Isaac, who alone returned.  Charlemagne or Charles the Great was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans from 800. During the Early Middle Ages, Charlemagne united the majority of western and central Europe.

Eldad HA-DANI son of Mahli the Danite', living in 883,  a philologist (A philologist is someone who studies the history of languages, especially by looking closely at literature. If you're fascinated with the way English has changed over time, from Beowulf to Beloved, you might want to become a philologist. Linguistics is the study of language, and a philologist is a type of linguist.),  who made adventurous journeys, but the historical value of his reports is disputed.  He was a Jewish, Hebrew-writing merchant and traveler of the ninth century. He professed to be a citizen of an independent Jewish state in eastern Africa, probably Ethiopia,  inhabited by people claiming descent from the lost Tribes of Dan, Asher, Gad, and Naphtali. Eldad visited Babylonia, Kairouan, and Iberia, where he spread fanciful accounts of the Ten Lost Tribes and halakhot which he claimed he had brought from his native country.  "And a Jew, a Merchant from the tribe of Issachar, found me and bought me for 32 gold pieces and brought me back with him to his country. They live in the mountains of the seacoast and belong to the land of the Medes and Persians."

Eldad's Hebrew narrative, Sefer Eldad, established his reputation as a philologist whom leading medieval Jewish grammarians and lexicographers quoted as an authority on linguistic difficulties. His halakhot, which dealt with the laws of shechita, differ in many places from the Talmudic ordinances, and are introduced in the name of Joshua ben Nun, or, according to another version, of Othniel Ben Kenaz. Eldad's accounts soon spread, and, as usual in such cases, were remolded and amplified by copyists and editors. There are numerous differing versions in several languages, made adventurous journeys, but the historical value of his reports is disputed.  

Caliph of Cordova                                                  

                                       

                                        Ibrahim ibn Jakub

About 970, the caliph of Cordova, Spain sent a deputation to Germany, incorporating a Jew, Ibrahim ibn Jakub/ Ibrahim Ben Yacub al-Israili of the 10th century who wrote an account of his journey. His descriptions of his travels have only survived in quotations.  He started from Spain in about 965  and traveled through Central Europe, visiting the court of Otto 1st of Germany and reaching Stettin, Poland.                                       

The most famous Jewish traveler was BENJAMIN OF TUDELA Spain, who, about 1160 to 1173, visited about 300 places, journeyed from Spain to France, Italy, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia.  His account in 1543 gives much information about the Jewish communities visited.  Benjamin was interested not only in the Jewish communities but also in economic and political conditions generally, and collected information on many places which he did not himself visit.  

               Regensburg, Germany

Later (1178-1185) a German Jew, PETHAHIAH OF REGENSBURG, traveled through Poland, Russia, Crimea, the land of the Khazars, Armenia, Media, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine.  His travels served as material for a book. Petachiah of Regensburg, also known as Petachiah ben Yakov, Moses Petachiah, and Petachiah of Ratisbon, was a German rabbi of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries CE. At some point he left his place of birth, Regensburg in Bavaria, and settled in Prague.

Many Jews undertook journeys to Palestine and others went in search of the Lost ten tribes.  Other notable Israelites were Abraham Ibn Ezra 1089-1164-a scholar and poet from Spain until 1140 but from then on journeyed extensively.  He visited Italy, France, England, and perhaps Palestine.  His writings are in Hebrew, was also a Hebrew grammarian of importance, translating from the Arabic and writing several compositions.  He was also a scientist and author of several studies on astrology in which he firmly believed.  His son, Isaac, was also a poet who lived in the Near East and for a period, professed Islam; Judah Al-Harizi 1170-1235  Spanish Hebrew poet and translator.  He traveled widely through Mediterranean countries.  His wanderings are reflected in his writings, the most important of which is his Tahkemoni (Hebrew for "The Wise One").  The book is of historical importance as it describes the communities visited by Alharizi and gives appreciations of contemporary Hebrew poets.  He translated many books from Arabic into Hebrew, and from Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed. His style was light and humorous;  and Estori Ha-Psariji, who wandered through Palestine for 7 years and wrote a valuable book on the topography.  

In the 15th to 17th centuries, individual Jews played some part in the expeditions of the Portuguese and the English.  The crew of Christopher Columbus is known to have included at least one hidden Jew, eluding the Spanish Inquisition.

At the end of the 18th century, Samuel Romanelli of Mantua, described his travels from Gibraltar to Algiers and Morocco and in the 19th century, the missionary, Joseph Wolff, traveled to Bokhara.  Nathaniel Isaacs explored  Zululand and Natal.(KwaZulu-Natal, a coastal South African province, is known for its beaches, mountains and savannah populated by big game. The safari destination Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, in the northeast, is home to black and white rhinos, lions and giraffes. Durban is an Indian-influenced harbor city and a popular surfing spot. Cultural villages around the town of Eshowe showcase the traditions of the indigenous Zulu people.  Arminus Vambery penetrated to Central Asia, and Emin Pasha investigated Central Africa.  Eduard Glaser and Hermann Burchardt explored Arabia;  Aurel Stein explored Central Asia, Arminius Vambery explored Peris.  Other African explorers were Angelo Castelbolognesi, Eduard Foa, Louis Binger and Henry Aaron Stern.  The Artic explorers included Rudolf Samoilovich, Isaac Israel Hayes, and August Sontag.  

Jews have been most known for their contribution to exploring through providing maps and nautical instruments, but there were many who got involved in the exploration of the unknown places as well. 

 Gasper Da Gama was one from 1444 to 1510.  He was an interpreter ("Língua", in old Portuguese) and guide to several fleets of the Portuguese maritime explorations. He was of Jewish origin and was probably born in Poznań in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1498 he was taken captive aboard Vasco da Gama's fleet on its return voyage to Portugal from India. He was known to speak multiple languages including Hebrew and Chaldean, as well as a mixture of Italian and Spanish.  There are several versions of his life before meeting Vasco da Gama in India. 

Some of these were sourced at Gaspar da Gama himself, but he probably tried to hide some "inconvenient" facts about his own past. According to Gaspar's own account, he became a Jewish traveller, making his way to Jerusalem, and then Alexandria, where he was taken prisoner and sold as a slave in India.  In India he secured his freedom in the service of the ruler of Goa. 

The chronicler Gaspar Correia states that, when found by the Portuguese, Gaspar da Gama was Captain of the fleet of Yusuf Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, Arab governor of Goa in India. Damião de Góis says Gaspar da Gama was a Jew born in the city of Poznań in the Kingdom of Poland and that at that time he did not speak Spanish, but the Venetian language, the very language used in European based commercial centers in the East. Could that have been Yiddish? 

In 1502 Gaspar da Gama participated in another travel to India commanded by Vasco da Gama, and again in 1505 with the recently appointed viceroy Francisco de Almeida. During these trips, he learned a few African languages.

   Massai with donkeys in Africa

All this took place at a time when man's only available means of a faster transportation other than his feet, were donkeys and camels, then horses.   Horses were first domesticated around 3500 BC, near the steppes of southern Russia and Kazakhstan. At about 2300 BC, horses were brought to the ancient Near East, and by 2000 BC, they were used to pull carts, chariots, wagons, and riding. Even with donkeys they must have done plenty of hiking, themselves, possibly with packs on their backs.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldad_ha-Dani

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba

https://sites.google.com/site/historyofeastafrica/eldad-ha-dani

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_da_Gama- big article 

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

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

  

What Induced Jews To Travel to North Africa's Libya?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

In 70, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem. A large part of the Jewish population was either massacred or exiled. In Judea, the area near present day Israel, 25% of the Jewish population was exterminated and 10% enslaved. Jews became a minority in their own land.                                        

     Port of Ras el Hilal, Libya

Many Jews fled to Mesopotamia, which is modern Iraq, and the rest fled to lands around the Mediterranean, presently known as southeastern Spain, southern France, southern Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey. Later, the Jews began to head north (to present day northern France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia) and northern Africa (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco).

                                                                    

                            Libyan coastline is beautiful.  

The North African Jews resided along the coast of North Africa for more than 2 millennia (2,000 years).  The Jewish population of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are descended from Israelite traders who colonized the coast along with Phoenician traders; exiles who left Judaea following the destruction of the Temples(in 597-586 BCE, and the other in 70 CE), and local converts, often from Berber tribes. Trading as been the motivation for all peoples who found that others had something of interest and they did also that could improve the quality of their life. This occupation has caused man to explore all the nooks and crannies of this planet.                                           

The Jewish chronicler, Josephus, reported the presence of 500,000 Jews in Cyrenaica alone in the 1st Century CE, although these communities did not thrive for much of their history under Arab and Ottoman rule. 

                                               

Cyrenaica was an administrative unit. It included all of eastern Libya from 1927 to 1963: Italian Cyrenaica from 1927 to 1937 and the Cyrenaica province until 1963.  

Libya was partitioned off into provinces much as our USA is divided into 50 states.  One of them was Cyrenaica where the capital, Cyrene lay. Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya. Also known as Pentapolis in antiquity, it formed part of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica, later divided into Libya Pentapolis and Libya Sicca. During the Islamic period, the area came to be known as Barqa, after the city of Barca.                                         

 It was colonized by Greeks from the 7th century BCE.  Under the Ptolemies (The Ptolemaic dynasty, the 33rd dynasty of Egypt, sometimes referred to as the Lagid dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal dynasty which ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Ancient Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Ptolemy had been the companion of Alexander the Great.   Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 to 30 BCE.), Jews were present as soldiers and cultivators in the principal towns and also in the villages.  There was an uprising here in 73 CE, after Jerusalem had been destroyed 3 years earlier, possibly the cause of the uprising as it was headed by fugitives from Eretz Yisrael.                                                  

By 115 to 117, a Jewish revolt, connected with the simultaneous risings in Egypt, Cyprus, etc,...devastated the country.  Its  suppression led to the almost total  annihilation of the community.  The Jewish rebellions were finally crushed by the Roman legions, chiefly by the Roman general Lusius Quietus, whose nomen later gave the conflict its title, as Kitos is a later corruption of Quietus.  Some localities were left so utterly annihilated that Romans moved in to settle the areas to prevent their complete depopulation. The Jewish leader, Lukuas, fled to Judea. Marcius Turbo pursued him and sentenced to death the brothers Julian and Pappus, who had been key leaders in the rebellion.

                                                 

                    Berbers, the indigenous people of North Africa

Jews are again  found in Cyrenaica in the 4th Century when the Berber tribes of neighboring Tripolitania seem to have  included Jewish elements.  Jews were at Barca in the 9th century and new communities grew up in the 15th century at Benghazi, etc.  

                                                   

In 1908, the country was investigated by the Jewish Territorial Organization with a view to Jewish settlement.  The Jewish population in 1935, when the Nazis were flexing their muscles in Germany against the Jews, was 3,192, but from 1945, most of these migrated to Israel, and the last Jews left Cyrenaica in 1967 after the anti-Jewish demonstrations at the time of the Six-Day War.  

                                                 

     Tripoli, Libya  is the capital and largest city in Libya.  The Phoenicians and then the Jews were probably attracted to the site by its natural harbor, flanked on the western shore by the small, easily defensible peninsula, on which they established their colony.
                                                 

The Jewish community in Libya was cosmopolitan, prosperous and educated.  Many lived in Tripoli.  

                                          

                    Kusksu: Libyan Couscous with spicy beef

           What to eat in Libya? 10 Most Popular Libyan Foods

• Side Dish. Tajin mahshi. LIBYA. ...
• Lamb/Mutton Dish. Couscous bil-bosla. LIBYA. ...
• Pasta. Makaruna imbaukha. Al Wahat District. ...
• Rice Dish. Ruz hoot bil kusbur. LIBYA. ...
• Egg Dish. Shakshouka. LIBYA. ...
• Vegetable Soup. Hasa adas. LIBYA. ...
• Cake. Basbousa bil tamr. LIBYA. ...
• Herb/Spice. Za'atar. LIBYA.

The 2011 Libyan Civil War started in Cyrenaica, which came largely under the control of the National Transitional Council (headquartered in Benghazi) for most of the war.  The First Libyan Civil War was an armed conflict in 2011 in the North African country of Libya which was fought between forces which were loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and rebel groups that were seeking to oust his government. It erupted with the Libyan Revolution, also known as the 17 February Revolution.

 In 2012, a body known as the Cyrenaica Transitional Council unilaterally declared Cyrenaica to be an autonomous region of Libya.  

Gaddafi also became a strong supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which ultimately harmed Libya's relations with Egypt when in 1979 Egypt pursued a peace agreement with Israel. As Libya's relations with Egypt worsened, Gaddafi sought closer relations with the Soviet Union. Libya became the first country outside the Soviet bloc to receive the supersonic MiG-25 combat fighters, but Soviet-Libyan relations remained relatively distant. Gaddafi also sought to increase Libyan influence, especially in states with an Islamic population, by calling for the creation of a Saharan Islamic state and supporting anti-government forces in sub-Saharan Africa.

As far as the Jewish DNA can be then traced, here's what is important to the population geneticists in this 2001 report.   After a lengthy, severe, and poorly documented bottleneck in population size, Libyan Jews engaged in cultural interactions with Berber tribes that lasted through the 6th century CE. During this time, the population absorbed Berber converts, although the proportion of Berber genetic contribution to the Libyan Jews is not known. Berbers are the indigenous people of Morocco and Algeria and to a lesser extent Libya and Tunisia. They are descendants of an ancient race that has inhabited Morocco and much of northern Africa since Neolithic times.

 A small number of additional Jewish immigrants may have entered the region from Spain in the 6th century , and others may have arrived from Arabia and Syria with the Moslem conquest of Libya in the 7th century . The Jewish population seems to have been significant by the 11th century , but after persecution and emigration under the Spanish and the Knights of Malta, from 1510 to 1551, it may have been small and mostly rural by the time of the Ottoman conquest in 1551 .

 Unlike other parts of North Africa, Libya did not serve as a major destination of Iberian Jews seeking refuge after their 1492 expulsion from Spain. Although occasional Jewish immigrants arrived in Libya from Jewish communities in Italy and elsewhere, over the last 400 years the Libyan Jews were mostly isolated from all other Jewish populations . 

                                 

Libya's revolution represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring back the Jewish community into my homeland's social fabric. As I discovered firsthand, however, when a mob prevented my efforts to rebuild Tripoli's synagogue by shouting anti-Semitic slogans, the hateful attitudes that Muammar al-Qaddafi was only too happy to encourage will not disappear overnight. In this post-Qaddafi era, I hope that Libya's new leaders will embrace needed change and that stories like mine will help make that happen. (David Gerbi is a psychotherapist in private practice in Rome and the executive director of the World Organization of Libyan Jews. 2012)  It was very hard for him to leave.  He also wrote:  Although my family and I were forced to flee Libya for Rome after the 1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, I still consider myself to be a proud Jew, a proud Libyan, and a proud Italian. I have been back four times since 1967, but have been forced to leave each time. Although much time has passed, I still feel the freshness of Tripoli's air and its special light: hot, but not blinding. I want to feel that light again — but in a stable Libya, a country that affirms freedom, justice, and the rule of law, protects freedom of religion for all its people, and honors its Jewish heritage.

The Libyan Jews eventually numbered more than 30,000 before the emigration of 1949–1951, when most members of the group moved to Israel.  At least they escaped from the days of Gaddafi.  

So a Libyan Jew might have been carrying a few segments from non-Jews;  Berbers, Spanish, Arabian, Syrian, Italian, Christian knights of Malta, or even none of those.  It will all show up in a good DNA test.  The Knights of Malta still exist. The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta is a Roman Catholic organization based in Rome with around 13,000 members worldwide. The group was founded in 1048 by Amalfian (Italian) merchants in Jerusalem as a monastic order that ran a hospital to tend to Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land.

Resource:

Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People by Harry Ostrer

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopoedia

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

https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/people/displace.htm

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

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC14674/

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-forgotten-memories-of-libya-s-vibrant-jewish-community-1.6386744

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

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/muammar-gaddafi

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

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