Chapter XVII: The Jews in Turkey. Don Joseph Nassi (1)

Joseph Nassi's Favor with Sultan Solyman--His Friendship
for Prince Selim--Hostility of Venice and France to Nassi--
Joseph Nassi restores Tiberias, and is created Duke of Naxos
--The Vizir Mahomet Sokolli--The Turks, at the Instigation
of Nassi, conquer Cyprus--Rebellion against Philip II in the
Netherlands--Solomon Ashkenazi--Election of Henry of Anjou
as King of Poland--Ashkenazi negotiates a Peace between
Venice and Turkey--Gedalya Ibn-Yachya and Jewish Literature
in Turkey--Joseph Karo compiles the "Shulchan Aruch"--Azarya
del Rossi--Isaac Lurya--The Jewish "Dark Age"--Spread of the
Kabbala--Lurya's Disciple, Chayim Vital Calabrese--Death of
Joseph Nassi--Esther Kiera and the Influence of Jewish Women
in Turkey.

1566-1600 C.E.

Again, as often before, the threads in the web of universal history were so involved that it was impossible to annihilate the Jews of Christendom even by systematic persecution. The sun, obscured on the Jewish horizon by gloomy clouds in the West, again rose bright in the East. Through a favorable turn of affairs a time was beginning in Turkey which, to the superficial observer, may seem a brilliant epoch. A Jew, who would have been burnt at the stake without ceremony in the countries of the cross, occupied a very influential position in the land of the crescent, rose to the rank of duke, and ruled over many Christians. All the Jews in Turkey, amounting to millions in number, rose with and by him to a free and honorable station, the envy of their despised and less numerous brethren in Christian Europe. With rage the Jew-hating Christian potentates saw their plans here and there frustrated by Jewish hands, and their internal complications rendered more and more involved and entangled. The down-trodden worm might yet become an annoyance to its tormentors. Joseph Nassi, or João Miques, the outlawed Marrano of Portugal, caused anxious hours to many a Christian ruler and diplomatist, who were obliged to flatter him in an abject manner, though they would have struck him dead like a dog if he had been in their power. The illustrious republic of Venice, the mighty kingdom of Spain, the conceited government of France, and even the haughty papacy, all saw themselves endangered by him.

João Miques, or Don Joseph Nassi, who had been well recommended to the Turkish court by French statesmen when first he entered Turkey, had become yet more popular by his agreeable presence, his inventive genius, his experience, and his knowledge of the Christian countries of Europe and their political situation. Sultan Solyman, who understood men well, soon took him into favor. He formed extensive plans for beginning a war with Spain and aiding the Mahometans on the coast of Africa against those who fed the stake. Joseph Nassi, through his riches, and through the attachment of his fellow-believers in Christian countries, was kept well informed as to what was going on in Christian courts, and could tell the sultan the state of political and military affairs, relieving the latter of the necessity of employing spies, or of permitting himself to be deceived by the Christian ambassadors at his court. Don Joseph could assist him with wise counsel, and thus as a Frankish bey soon became a very important person in Constantinople and was able to render material service to those of his own religion. His importance increased still more by a fortunate chance. Hatred and jealousy prevailed among the sons of Solyman, and the father preferred the younger on account of his military inclinations. The courtiers kept themselves aloof from the disregarded prince, Selim, and did not intercede with his father on his behalf. Only Joseph Nassi pressed Selim's claims warmly on his father, and when the latter wished to show his favor to his son by making him a handsome present of 50,000 ducats in cash, and 30,000 in valuables, he chose his Jewish favorite as the bearer of the gift to Selim's residence in Asia Minor. The prince, overjoyed both at the gift and at this proof of favor, from that moment became very friendly towards the messenger, and assured him of his life-long gratitude. He made a favorite and confidant of the Jewish bey, and appointed him a member of the life-guard (Mutafarrica), an honor to which even the sons of Christian princes eagerly aspired, and to which a large salary was attached.

The ambassadors from Christian courts saw with vexation the growing influence of a Jewish favorite, acquainted with all their plots, upon the future sultan, and promulgated the falsest rumors about him. They reported to their courts that Joseph Nassi was leading the prince into all kinds of orgies and excesses, and was ruining him. The ambassadors of Venice and of France were most hostile, because he saw through their artful designs against the Turkish court, and was able to frustrate them, and especially because he had private quarrels with them. The government of Venice had imprisoned his mother-in-law, deprived her of some of her property, and also had treated him scornfully; the French court owed an immense sum (150,000 ducats) to the house of Mendes-Nassi, and did not think of repaying it. The French ambassador was, therefore, very eager for Joseph's ruin; he wrote to Henry II, that he should inform Sultan Solyman that Joseph Nassi made it his business to acquaint the enemies of France with all the negotiations carried on at the Turkish court, and that being a Spaniard he did this in the interest of Spain. But so far from punishing him, Prince Selim and the reigning sultan took up Joseph's cause, and urgently insisted that the court of France pay the debt owing their Jewish favorite. Henry II and his successor raised an objection to Joseph's well-founded demand, characteristic of the--shall we say, Christian?--morality of the time. They averred that both law and religion forbade the king to repay the debt to his Jewish creditor, because it was altogether prohibited for Jews to have business dealings in France, and that all their goods could be confiscated by the king. The sultan and his son did not, of course, recognize this code of morals, and insisted with a half-threat that Joseph Nassi should be satisfied. Joseph Nassi rose so high in favor with Sultan Solyman, that the latter gave him a tract of land in Palestine, on the Sea of Tiberias, to restore the city of Tiberias under his own rule, with the express privilege that only Jews should dwell therein. The deed of gift was signed by the reigning sultan, by Selim, the heir to the throne, and by his son Murad, so as to render it valid in the future, and not liable to dispute. Selim proposed to his father to reward Joseph's services still further, and to make him sovereign lord over Naxos and some other islands. But the vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, a Christian renegade, who watched the growing power of the Jewish favorite with jealous eyes, seems to have worked against this and to have upset the plan.

After Solyman's death, when Selim II entered his capital to receive the homage of his subjects (1566), and Joseph also presented himself to swear allegiance to the new sovereign, he created him on the spot Duke of Naxos, and of the Cyclades, Andro, Paro, Antiparo, Milo, twelve islands in all, which he gave him one after the other, and for which he had to pay but a small tribute. He also granted him the collection of the duties paid in the Black Sea on imported wines.

Thus a Jew was able to issue his commands in the following grandiose style: "We, Duke of the Ægean Sea, Lord of Andro." Joseph did not reside in the capital of his duchy, where he would have been too far away from the center of affairs, but remained in his handsome palace Belvedere near Constantinople, and deputed the government of the islands to a Spanish nobleman, a Christian named Coronello, whose father had been governor of Segovia. Jealously as the Christian princes regarded this Jewish duke, placed upon an equality with them, European affairs were in such a condition that they were forced not only to recognize, but even to flatter him. If they wished to gain anything at the Turkish court, they dared not ignore him, knowing how high he stood in Selim's favor, and of how much weight his opinion was in the divan. When an Austrian embassy from Emperor Ferdinand I arrived in Constantinople (after fresh victories gained by the Turks in Hungary) to sue for peace, and win the great dignitaries by gifts and annual subsidies, it was charged to make terms also with Joseph of Naxos. His bitterest enemies were obliged to dissemble their hatred. The two states which set themselves most to oppose him, namely, France and Venice, felt the power of the Jewish duke severely.

The king of France declined to pay the debt contracted with the Marrano house of Mendes and transferred to Joseph. The latter easily procured a firman from the sultan, by virtue of which he was allowed to seize all ships carrying the French flag which entered any Turkish harbor. Joseph of Naxos sent privateers as far as Algiers to make a raid upon French merchant vessels. At last he succeeded in getting possession of several vessels in the port of Alexandria, captured all the merchandise on board, and sold it to pay the debt owing to him (1569). The court of France raised a clamor, protested, stormed, but all in vain; Selim protected his favorite. A coolness arose in consequence in the diplomatic relations of the two countries, which was more injurious to France than to Turkey.

The French ambassador at the Porte was, therefore, very desirous to bring about the overthrow of Joseph of Naxos. Not only was his own honor concerned, but that of the French crown also. The French had often boasted in the European cabinets that their word had the greatest weight and influence at the Turkish court, and that they were in a position to lead the divan to determine upon war or peace at will. And now it was proved that a gross insult had been shown to the French flag by this very court, and that France was not even in a position to demand satisfaction from a Jew, the originator of the insult. The French ambassador, therefore, directed his efforts to turning this overthrow into triumph by compassing the fall of the influential Jew. An opportunity soon presented itself in the discontent of one of Joseph's agents. A Jewish physician, named David or Daud, one of the physicians in ordinary at the Turkish court, and also in the service of the duke, considered himself slighted and wronged by his superior, and a quarrel arose between them. As soon as the French ambassador got wind of this, he tried to fan the flame of dissension, promised Daud a sum of money and a place as interpreter at the French embassy with a yearly salary, and then entered into relations with him in order to obtain secret information about Joseph of Naxos. In his irritation Daud allowed himself to be led into hasty expressions. He promised to furnish the French ambassador with full proofs that Joseph of Naxos had carried on a correspondence traitorous to the Porte. He undertook to produce documents to prove that Joseph sent daily information to the pope, the king of Spain, the duke of Florence, the Genoese republic, in short, to all the enemies of the sultan, and kept them acquainted with every thing that went on at the Porte. Delighted at the opportunity of overthrowing the Jewish duke, he informed the king of France and the crafty queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, in cipher, that he would soon be in a position to bring the powerful enemy of French influence at the Turkish court to the scaffold (October, 1569).

The Jewish duke was placed in a position of the greatest danger, and with him probably all the Jews in the Turkish empire. If Daud had been able to push his hatred to the point of an open accusation, if French money could have supported the intrigue, and if the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, the deadly enemy of Joseph, could have taken the matter in hand, the latter would have been lost. But the French ambassador thought it wise to treat the matter as a secret for a time.

In spite of this secrecy, the intrigues of Daud and the French ambassador were betrayed to Joseph of Naxos, and he was able to be beforehand with them. It was not difficult for him to convince Sultan Selim that he had always served him faithfully, and that of all his courtiers, he had been most sincerely attached to him. He obtained a decree from the sultan by which the traitor Daud was banished for life to Rhodes, the criminal colony of the Turkish empire. Either at the instigation of Don Joseph, or by their own impulse, all the rabbis and communities of Constantinople pronounced the severest form of excommunication upon Daud and two of his accomplices. The rabbinical colleges of the largest Turkish communities, Joseph Karo at their head, in servile flattery joined them, without first having convinced themselves of Daud's innocence or guilt. The extraordinary efforts of the French ambassador and court to procure the overthrow of Joseph were thus a complete failure, and left in the mind of the latter a feeling of only too justifiable bitterness, which induced him to strive the more to hinder and frustrate the diplomatic schemes of France.

Joseph of Naxos dealt even more severely with the state of Venice. Secret enmity prevailed between the Jewish duke and the republic, which both tried in vain to conceal by compliments. Independently of the ill-treatment which his mother-in-law had undergone at the hands of the Venetian government, it had refused Joseph's request for a safe conduct through its dominions for himself and his brother. Selim, not very well disposed towards the Venetians, was often urged by his Jewish favorite to put an end to the long-existing peace between them, and to set about the conquest of the Venetian island of Cyprus. In spite of the disinclination of Mahomet Sokolli, the first vizir, who was favorable to the Venetians, the war was undertaken.

The sultan is said to have promised Joseph that he should become king of Cyprus, if the enterprise proved successful, and the duke of Naxos is said to have kept a banner ready in his house, with the inscription, "Joseph, King of Cyprus." His European alliances made this undertaking easy. Whilst Mahomet Sokolli was still raising difficulties about consenting to a naval war of this character, Joseph received the news that the arsenal in Venice had been destroyed by an explosion. Joseph and the party in the divan which he had gained over for war took advantage of the embarrassment thus caused to the Republic of Venice, and persuaded the sultan to allow the attacking fleet to sail at once. Nicosia, one of the chief towns of Cyprus, fell at the first assault, and the other, Famagusta, was closely besieged.

In this instance, as often before, all Jews were made answerable for the action of one. That the Venetian government, at the outbreak of the war, imprisoned all the Levantine merchants in Venice, for the most part Jews, and seized their goods, was only natural in the barbarous state of intercourse between one state and another. But that the senate, at the instigation of the hostile doge, Luis Mocenigo, came to the resolve (December, 1571) to expel all Jews from Venice, as fellow-conspirators of Joseph Nassi and of the Turkish empire, was a result of the race-hatred encouraged by Christianity. Happily, things did not go so far. Notwithstanding the endeavors of the fanatical pope, Pius V, to bring about a league of the Christian states against Turkey, to organize a crusade against the so-called unbelievers, and to drive the Turkish fleet from the waters of Cyprus, the town of Famagusta was obliged to yield to the Turkish commander, and so the whole island fell into the hands of Turkey. The Venetians were compelled to sue for peace, and they placed their whole hope of obtaining it upon an influential Jew, who was to negotiate it. In spite of the solemn determination of the Venetian senate that no one should venture to say a word in favor of Jews, they had to be tolerated, because it dared not quite break with the Jews in Turkey.

The power of the latter was, indeed, so great that they, generally the suppliants, were entreated for aid by Christians. A serious rebellion had arisen in the Netherlands against Spain and the morose king, Philip II, who wished to introduce the bloody tribunal of the Inquisition. The barbarous Alva was trying to suppress apostasy and to lead back the erring into the bosom of the Catholic church by hecatombs of human beings. The block was to support the cross. In this extremity, the rebels turned to Joseph of Naxos, who had dealings with some of the nobility of Flanders from the time of his residence there. Prince William of Orange, the moving spirit of the rebellion, sent a private messenger to Joseph of Naxos, entreating him to persuade the sultan to declare war against Spain, which would necessitate the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from the Netherlands. The Austrian emperor, Ferdinand, also condescended to address an autograph letter to the Jewish duke in order to obtain the favor of the Porte, increasing the grand vizir's envy. Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland, who was hoping for an important service from the Porte, also addressed him, gave him the title of "Serene Highness," and, what was of greater importance, promised favorable conditions to the Jews in his country, to ensure Joseph's approval of his plans.

We may almost say that the divan, or Turkish council of state, under Sultan Selim consisted of two parties trying to checkmate each other: the Christian party, represented by the first vizir, and the Jewish, headed by Joseph of Naxos. Through and besides him there were other Jews who, though only in subordinate positions, exercised influence-- the men on the holders of office, the women on the ladies of the harem. Sultan Selim's goodwill towards Jews was so evident that a story became current that by birth he was a Jew, foisted into the harem as a prince, when he was a child. Even the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, although an enemy of Joseph of Naxos and of Jewish influence, was forced to employ a Jewish negotiator and to intrust him with important commissions. The Venetian envoy, ordered to work secretly against the Jews at the Turkish court, himself assisted such a man in obtaining influence.

Solomon ben Nathan Ashkenazi, who conducted the diplomatic affairs of Turkey with Christian courts for nearly thirty years, and who supplanted Nassi, was an unknown personage in Constantinople at the period when the duke of Naxos had a powerful voice in the divan. Descended from a German family of Udine, he began to travel early in life, and went to Poland, where he rose to be first physician to the king. On his removal to the Turkish capital, he placed himself as a subject of the Venetian republic under the protection of the diplomatic agents of Venice. Solomon Ashkenazi understood the Talmud, and was called rabbi, but displayed greatest intelligence and skill in the niceties of diplomatic technicalities, the disentanglement of knotty questions, in negotiations, settlements, and compromises. For these qualities he had been esteemed by successive Venetian agents in Constantinople. The first minister of the Turkish court recognized his diplomatic skill, attached him to his service, and trusted him to the end of his life with such commissions as required tact, wisdom, and discernment in their fulfillment. Whilst the Turkish arms were raised against the Venetians, Solomon Ashkenazi was beginning to weave the web for the future treaty of peace.

Christian cabinets did not suspect that the course of events which compelled them to side with one party or the other was set in motion by a Jewish hand. This was especially the case at the election of the Polish king. The death (July, 1572) of the last Polish king of the Jagellon family, Sigismund Augustus, who left no heir, necessitated a genuine election from an indefinite number of candidates, and this put the whole of Europe, at all events the cabinets and diplomatic circles, into the utmost excitement. The German emperor, Maximilian II, and the Russian ruler, Ivan the Cruel, were most intimately concerned in the election, as neighbors of Poland. The former did everything that he could to insure the choice of his own son, and the latter boasted that he or his son would be chosen king. The pope plotted for a Catholic prince to be placed on the throne of Poland; otherwise it was to be feared that the choice of a king in favor of the Reformation, already on the increase among the nobles and the townspeople of Poland, would strengthen the movement, and that the country would free itself from the papacy. On the other hand, the Protestant countries of Germany and England, and, above all, the adherents of the various sects of the new church in Poland itself, felt the greatest interest in securing the election of a sovereign of their own faith, or at least of one not an aggressive Catholic. To this was added the personal ambition of a powerful French queen, who interfered with a deft hand. The widowed queen, Catherine de Medici, as clever as false, who believed in astrology, and to whom it had been announced that each of her sons should wear a crown, wished to procure a foreign throne for her son, Henry of Anjou, so that the astrological prophecy might not be fulfilled by the death of her reigning son, Charles IX. She and her son, the king of France, therefore, set every lever in motion to place Anjou on the throne of Poland. Turkey also had important interests and a powerful voice in the election of the king of Poland. A tangle of cabals and intrigues was developed by the election. Each candidate sought to gain a strong party among the higher and lesser nobility of Poland, and also to gain the favor of the Porte. Henry of Anjou seemed at first to have some prospect of success, but this was imperiled by the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew, in France, in which, at a hint from the king and the queen-mother, a hundred thousand Huguenots, great and small--men, women and children--were attacked, and murdered (August 26th, 1572). Such barbarity, planned and carried out in cold blood, had been unheard of in European history since the murderous attack made on the Albigenses in the thirteenth century by papal command. The Lutherans and other adherents of the Reformation in every country were completely stunned by this blow. The candidates for the throne of Poland sought to make capital out of it against Anjou. So much the more the French candidate, his mother, and his brother, were compelled to endeavor to gain over the Porte to their side. An ambassador extraordinary was dispatched to Constantinople with this object. So the choice of a king of Poland rested with a Jew who was in the background, for Solomon Ashkenazi governed the grand vizir completely, and ruled his will, and he managed foreign affairs in the sultan's name. Solomon decided in favor of Henry of Anjou, and won over the grand vizir to his side. When Henry of Anjou, by a combination of favorable circumstances, was at last chosen almost unanimously (May, 1573), the French ambassador boasted that he had not been one of the last in bringing about this election. But Solomon Ashkenazi ventured to write as follows to the king of Poland, afterwards king of France under the name of Henry III: "I have rendered your majesty most important service in securing your election; I have effected all that was done here" (at the Porte).

Great sensation was aroused throughout Christian Europe when this Jewish physician and diplomatist was appointed by the Porte to conclude the peace which he had for several years been trying to bring about with Venice, and thus to stand forth as a person of the highest official importance. The Jewish ambassador was not accepted without opposition by the illustrious republic. The subject was eagerly discussed in the senate, and the members of the government were against him. But, on the one hand, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, was resolved upon it, because Solomon enjoyed his unreserved confidence, and he wished through him to establish diplomatic relations for other purposes. On the other hand, the words of the Venetian consul, Mark Antonio Barbaro, who repeatedly assured his state that the Jewish diplomatist cherished the warmest sympathy with Venice, made a great impression. Under these circumstances, "Rabbi Solomon Ashkenazi," as he was termed, went to Venice in the capacity of envoy extraordinary from Turkey. When once he was acknowledged, the dignitaries of the republic, the doge, and the senators, paid him the greatest honor and attention, because the Turkish court was very sensitive on this point, and would have regarded want of due respect to its representative as an insult. Solomon was, therefore, received in state audience at the doge's palace, and there the act of peace between Turkey and Venice was signed by him on behalf of the former. The signoria showed him the most polite attentions during his stay in Venice (May to July, 1574), and all the European ambassadors in Venice paid him court.

Solomon was an angel of deliverance to his fellow-believers in Venice. Their joy at the honor shown by the authorities to one of their race was mingled with anxiety and sorrow on account of threatened expulsion. The doge Mocenigo had insisted upon the fulfillment of the decree of banishment previously issued against the Jews. Many Jewish families had already departed without waiting for the term to expire. Solomon had arranged with Jacopo Soranzo, the Venetian agent in Constantinople, to receive these unfortunates. On his return to Venice, Soranzo at once brought the question of the Jews to the consideration of the council of the doge and the Ten. He made them understand the injury to the republic which would arise by the expulsion of the Jews. Those driven out of Spain and Portugal had manufactured guns and other arms for the Turks, and it would be a serious matter to make enemies of a people who constituted a power in Turkey. To maintain friendship with this country would be the surest guarantee of peace, as neither the pope nor Spain could be trusted. This earnest appeal of Soranzo in favor of the Jews effected a change in the disposition of the doge and the Dieci (ten) towards them. The decree of banishment was revoked (July 19th, 1573), and Solomon's presence in Venice served to increase the joy of his fellow-believers, as he obtained for them the promise that they should never again be threatened with expulsion. Loaded with honors and enriched by a gift of ten pounds (weight) of gold, Solomon returned to Constantinople, where his position became more assured and his importance greater than ever. His son, who was residing in Venice for his education, was treated by the doge with the greatest consideration.

In consequence of the influence of Joseph of Naxos over Sultan Selim and of Solomon Ashkenazi over the prime minister, Mahomet Sokolli, the foreign Christian courts strove yet more earnestly to obtain the favor of the Turkish Jews in Stambul. If one of them wished to effect any object with the Porte, it first of all sought a Jewish negotiator, because without this aid there was no prospect of success. Even the morose Philip II of Spain, that incarnate hater of Jews and heretics, was obliged to turn to Jewish mediators in order to obtain peace with the Turks. The position of the Jews in Turkey, and above all in the capital, under the very eyes of their powerful protectors, was, therefore, extraordinarily favorable. They were able to put forth all their powers freely, and thus earned the wealth which then meant power, as it does now. The wholesale trade and customs dues were mostly in their hands; they also carried on wholesale shipping, and emulated the Venetians. They owned the largest and best houses, with gardens and kiosks, in Constantinople, equal to those of the grand vizir.

This prosperity, freedom, and security of the Turkish Jews could not fail to produce an exalted frame of mind, to open a prospect beyond the actual present, and to stir up their minds to activity. The mental fertility of the Spanish Jews, which brought so much that is beautiful and true to the light of day, was not exhausted or extinct in Turkey. The taste for history and events outside the Jewish world was not yet lost to them. Moses Almosnino, a favorite preacher at Salonica, while on a visit to Constantinople to procure privileges for the community of Salonica, described life in the Turkish capital, with its contrasts of glowing heat and benumbing cold, its astonishing wealth and terrible poverty, its enervating luxury and severe privations, its extravagant generosity and heartless greed, exaggerated piety and callous indifference, which followed one another abruptly, without any gradual transition. In his Spanish work on the "Contrasts and Greatness of Constantinople," Almosnino described the power and development of the Turkish empire with the pen of a master. He had a taste for the sciences and philosophy, and worked out his sermons as well as his expositions of the Scriptures in a scientific shape.

The physician, Samuel Shulam, likewise a Spaniard by birth, also had a great taste for history. He led a life of adventure until he was taken up by a Jewish woman in Constantinople, named Esther Kiera, in high favor with the sultana. He published Zacuto's poor but useful chronicle at her expense (1566-1567). This favorite of the court-Jewess also translated from the Latin the interesting work of the old Jewish historian Josephus against the attacks of Apion, the Alexandrine enemy of the Jews, being the first Jewish writer to make use of it. The dark side of Jewish history, the thousand years' martyrdom of the Jewish race, was at the same time described by a more competent historian, the now venerable Joseph Cohen, of Spanish descent. His "Vale of Weeping" presents a long series of mournful scenes, tortures, death, and distress in every form, but he was enabled to conclude his history with the joyful tidings that the Venetians were eager, if only from policy, to pay honor to and distinguish a Jew, the Turkish ambassador Solomon Ashkenazi.

Even Hebrew poetry bore some blossoms at this period in Turkey, and although but autumn flowers, showing traces of damp mists and a pale sun, they form an agreeable contrast to the joyless wintry waste of other regions and times. But we are more interested in the originator of these efforts than in the productions themselves. He was a certain Ibn-Yachya of the Turkish branch of this widespread family. This family preserved nobility of heart and mind throughout a long line of generations. The great-grandfather Jacob Tam, the grandfather Gedalya Ibn-Yachya, the grandson Moses, and the great-grandson Gedalya Ibn-Yachya II, with all collateral branches, were without exception friends of learning, and shared their property with the poor. Moses Ibn-Yachya not only spent thousands of ducats on sufferers at the time of the plague, but even exposed himself to the risk of death in his attendance upon the sick. His son Gedalya, a wise man and an agreeable orator, imitated his father in all his virtues, and by his love for poetry excelled him in gifts of the mind. He formed a sort of school or circle of poetry, that is to say, he assembled from time to time, at his own expense, all those interested in neo-Hebrew poetry, to recite their poems, and urged those at a distance to send him the fruit of their muse in order to encourage their zeal for this beautiful but neglected art. Two poets distinguished themselves in this numerous circle, Jehuda Zarko and Saadio Longo. To them we may add Israel Najara, the prolific versifier, living in Damascus. It is true that the verses of these writers do not contain much real poetry, and that the authors deserve the name of poet only on account of the smoothness and euphony of their style. As a matter of course this group of poets extolled Gedalya Ibn-Yachya, their patron and protector, in their verses.

The Jews of Turkey also wrote Latin verses in the security and comfort of their present life. The writers were, of course, immigrant Marranos, who had learnt the language of their oppressors in the dungeons of Spain and Portugal. When the conscientious physician, Amatus Lusitanus, whose aid had been sought alike by kings and beggars, and who, on account of the intolerance of the reactionary policy, emigrated from Italy to Salonica, and there acquired new friends and admirers, fell a sacrifice to his devoted energy, and died of the plague, one of his friends, the Marrano Flavio Jacopo de Evora, composed a memorial to him in beautiful Latin verses to the following effect:

He who so often recalled the breath well-nigh gone from the
dying, and was, therefore, beloved by kings and peoples, lies
far from the land of his birth, beneath the dust of Macedonia.

The exaltation of the Turkish Jews and their contentment with their present condition imbued them with thoughts of independence. Whilst the Jews of Christendom had no such thought, and from time immemorial considered themselves in a condition of subjugation to their masters, the Turkish Jews became familiar with the idea of regarding themselves as independent men.

Joseph of Naxos long cherished the thought of founding a Jewish state. The Jew and the statesman in him yearned for this, and the enormous wealth of his mother-in-law, over which he had control, was to serve him as the means for its execution. Even when a fugitive Marrano he had seriously put before the Republic of Venice the request that it give him one of its numerous islands, so that he might people it with Jewish inhabitants. But this was refused either on account of the narrow-mindedness of the Christians or the fear of mercantile competition. When later on Joseph stood high in favor with Prince Selim, and also with Sultan Solyman, he obtained from them, besides seven villages, the ruins of the city of Tiberias, for a small Jewish state to be peopled only with Jews. He sent one of his agents to superintend the re-building of Tiberias. The Turkish prince gave the pasha of Egypt strict orders to assist the building in every way. The Arab occupants of the neighboring villages were compelled to render forced labor, and the new and beautiful houses and streets of the city of Tiberias were completed in a year. Joseph of Naxos wished to make it a manufacturing town to compete with Venice. He planted mulberry-trees for the cultivation of silk-worms, and introduced looms for the manufacture of silks; he also imported wool from Spain for the making of fine cloth.

Joseph does not seem to have directed his full energy to the little Jewish state; his plans were far more extensive, and thus New Tiberias never became an important place. He next endeavored to obtain the island of Naxos as a dukedom, together with the adjacent islands of the Ægean Sea, and when he was fortunate enough to be appointed duke by Sultan Selim, he thought no more about peopling his little island state with Jews; perhaps it was not practicable. His mind was next set on becoming king of Cyprus. It is possible that he might have transformed this island of the goddess of beauty into a Jewish state had he obtained possession of it, but his enemy, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, prevented this. Thus his dreams of founding an independent Jewish state were dispelled. In reality, Joseph of Naxos did nothing of lasting importance for Judaism. He made various attempts, and then relaxed in his endeavors, or misspent his means.

The fact that Jews occupied an exceedingly favored position in Turkey for so long a period did not result in correspondingly enduring progress. They did not produce a single great genius who originated ideas to stimulate future ages, nor mark out a new line of thought for men of average intelligence. Not one of the leaders of the different congregations was above the level of mediocrity. The rabbis and preachers were deeply learned in their particular subjects, but kept to the beaten track, without making a new discovery or bequeathing an original contribution, even in their own department. Only one rabbi left to posterity an epoch-making work, which even yet possesses significance, disputed though it be; but even this work contained nothing new or original. Joseph Karo, chief rabbi of the city of Safet, in Palestine, completed, after many years of toil, a new book of religious ordinances, the "Shulchan Aruch." Religious impulses, mystical fanaticism, and ambition, had equal shares in the making of this book. For Joseph Karo was still subject to strange visions: he still believed that he would be recognized everywhere as the highest authority by the compilation of his religious code, a norm for Jewish religious life; and that, by this means, he would accomplish the revival of rabbinical ordination, in which Jacob Berab had failed; restore, in fact, the unity of Judaism, and thereby hasten the coming of the Messiah. He spent the whole of his life in collecting the vast material, in weighing the pros and cons of arguments, drawing conclusions and arranging them in their proper places. By doing this he supplied a serious want. There was no manual that embraced the whole field of religious observance. As the Talmud and the later religious codes to an even greater extent favored differences of opinion upon nearly every single point in matters of religion, ritual, law and the marriage state, disputes constantly occurred which led to altercation and divisions in the communities, for it rarely happened that two rabbis agreed upon any question that came up for discussion. Each was able to adduce reasons for or against any argument from the vast mass of rabbinical literature.

It was this confusion and divergence of opinion that Joseph Karo wished to check by means of his new religious Code. He embraced the whole of the vast field of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, although his intellect could not master it. By birth a Spaniard, he involuntarily preferred the views of Spanish authorities to those of French and German writers. Hence he allowed partiality to creep into his compilation. As a matter of course, too, Karo admitted various elements of mysticism, though only sparingly, as if unwilling to place the Zohar upon a level with the Talmud in matters of practical religious observance. He has embodied in his Code excellent precepts in regard to sanctity, chastity, brotherly love, morality, and honesty in business, drawn from the Talmud and the rabbinical writings; but they disappear in a sea of casuistical details and mere externals, in a patchwork of divisions and subdivisions, of "ifs" and "buts." In this work there appears an altogether different kind of Judaism from that revealed on Sinai, announced by the prophets, or even taught by Maimuni. But this Judaism thoroughly suited the ideas of the Jews of that period, and therefore Karo's Code was immediately hailed with delight, disseminated, and received as the infallible standard authority in Turkey, throughout the East, in Italy, and even in Poland.

Thus religious life received a certain finality and unity, but at the expense of spirituality and freedom of thought. From Karo Judaism received the form maintained up to the present time. His dream was partially fulfilled. His rabbinical writings became the common property of Judaism, and gave it religious unity. But he himself did not become the leader and head, as the "Spirit of the Mishna" had repeatedly promised him: he was only honored as one authority among many others. Still less did he restore the ordination of rabbi-judges as members of a Synhedrion, or hasten in any way the coming of the Messiah.

At that time there was a man in Italy, who not only surpassed all his Jewish contemporaries in his spirit of inquiry and desire for truth, but who would have been able to purify Judaism from the dross of centuries of hardship, if the tendency of the age had not run counter to this endeavor, or if he had had greater courage in opposing it. Azarya ben Moses deï Rossi (born at Mantua about 1514, died in 1578), descended from an old Italian family, had buried himself so deeply in books, that his body bore traces of severe suffering from over-study. Feeble, yellow, withered, and afflicted with fever, he crept about like a dying man. Yet in this living corpse a powerful and healthy mind worked with great activity. He had thoroughly mastered the whole of Jewish literature, besides being well read in Latin historical works, and he had also practiced medicine. At the same time he led a wandering life. He dwelt for some time at Ferrara, then in Bologna, had to leave that city in consequence of the persecution and expulsion of the Jews under Pius V, and finally settled again permanently in Ferrara. He held intercourse with the greatest Jews, Christians, and Marranos of his age, and was regarded by all with astonishment as a marvel of learning. He did not allow the treasures of his knowledge to lie dead within him, but let them grow and spread luxuriantly. Ancient history possessed special attraction for him. But even more admirable than his vast reading was the use he made of it. He was the first to bring into contact and connection with one another two provinces of literature which were far apart--the Talmud and its offshoots, with Philo, Josephus, and the works of the Church Fathers, proving the truth of historical narratives from the mouths of many witnesses. Deï Rossi, too, was the only one not satisfied with the data of tradition; he accepted nothing as truth till he had subjected it to a searching examination.

Chance brought to light the mental treasures of Deï Rossi. Ferrara, where, after leaving Bologna, he had settled shortly before, had been visited by a terrible earthquake (November 18th, 1570), and the inhabitants were compelled to leave their ruined and crumbling houses and seek places of refuge outside the city. In one of the villages Deï Rossi happened to meet a learned Christian, who was trying to overcome the gloomy thoughts caused by the earthquake by reading a Greek book of Jewish antiquity. In conversation Deï Rossi became aware that his co-religionists, even those possessed of some culture, owing to their one-sided absorption in the Talmud or obsolete philosophical writings, knew nothing of their own brilliant literature of the period of the Second Temple, whilst Christians resorted to it to dispel melancholy thoughts. Encouraged by his Christian friend, he determined to translate into Hebrew the "Letter of Aristas," supposed to be the discourse of a Greek king about the wisdom of the Jews, in order to make it accessible to his fellow-believers. He completed this task in twenty days. This was the first-fruit of his learning, and it led him on to further undertakings. His principal work, "Light of the Eyes," consists chiefly of parallel passages from Talmudic and profane sources upon the same subjects. Deï Rossi's distinction rests upon the fact that he did not adhere to tradition, but applied the methods of scientific inquiry to what the multitude regarded as unassailable truths, and that he used profane sources in elucidating them. The actual results of this historical investigation, for the most part, have proved unsound. Strong as Deï Rossi was in removing obstructive rubbish, his power of reconstruction was small.

The value of his efforts appears in its proper light only if we compare them with the circumstances of his time, or with the works of contemporary writers on the same subject, as, for example, those of Gedalya Ibn-Yachya; to these they form a complete contrast.

A descendant of the Italian branch of the noble Ibn-Yachya family, Gedalya inherited taste for knowledge. He was born in 1515, and died in 1587. His wealth enabled him to satisfy his taste by collecting a magnificent library. In his voluntary and compulsory journeys in northern Italy--for he was a preacher, and owing to the intolerance of the popes had to lead an unsettled life--he had seen and read much, both in sacred and profane literature, but without independent judgment, without discrimination, and without appreciation of the essence of truth. Ibn-Yachya's abbreviated "History of the Jews," together with a chronicle of the world, called "The Chain of Tradition," at which he worked for nearly forty years, is a confused medley of authentic historical narratives and mere fables. But in spite, or perhaps because, of its legendary contents, his book has found more acceptance among Jews than the researches of Deï Rossi. When the first edition of the latter's "Light of the Eyes" found its way to Safet, the orthodox of that town declared its contents to be heretical. Joseph Karo commissioned Elisha Gallaico, one of the members of his rabbinical college, to draw up an indictment, to be distributed amongst all Jews, ordering Deï Rossi's work to be burned. The people of Safet likewise had an inquisition. But Joseph Karo died (in Nisan, _i.e._, April, 1575) before he had signed the indictment. The Italian Jews were not so fanatical as to condemn Deï Rossi, for they knew him to be a pious and pure Jew. But the rabbis of Mantua employed the procedure of Ben Adret concerning the study of profane literature, that is, they forbade the reading of Deï Rossi's works by young people under twenty-five years of age. In consequence of this semi-official sentence of heresy, the book exercised but little influence upon the Jewish world of that day, or the generation immediately succeeding it, and has been appreciated only in quite recent times, when it created a new, enlightened view of history in Jewish circles. But in the Christian world Deï Rossi's work was noticed much sooner, and was annotated, and translated into Latin.

How, indeed, could a sober, critical method of inquiry have found favor in an age when the mystic, dazing Kabbala was the first authority, bidding men esteem blind credulity as the highest virtue, and exciting visionary enthusiasm to the highest pitch of fanatical intoxication? The visions of Solomon Molcho and Joseph Karo and their fond enthusiasm about the Messiah were sober compared with the excitement which reigned after their death, and celebrated a veritable witches' Sabbath. During the last three decades of the sixteenth century the Kabbala gained sole mastery in Palestine, conjured up apparitions, and encouraged orgies of mysticism. It spread thence over the whole of Turkey, Poland, Germany, and Italy, darkening and confusing men's minds, having an evil influence even upon their hearts, allowing no healthy thought to appear, or branding such thought as heretical and sinful. Once again, as in the early days of Christianity, Galilee, especially the district of Safet, became the scene of a host of evil spirits, of people possessed with devils, which challenged mystic exorcism, and revealed profound mysteries; and it is impossible to say whether the possessed appeared in consequence of the exorcisers, or the latter of the former. It was a period of Kabbalistic mania, coincident with profligacy and moral degradation, and its victims despised not only the sciences, but even the Talmud with its exhortations to sobriety. Then for the first time the Jewish world entered on a "dark age" of its own, with all the appropriate credulity, while only the last traces of such darkness were visible in Europe generally. This tendency was exaggerated by two men, who by their fanaticism and visionary extravagance infected a continually widening circle. These were Isaac Lurya and his disciple Chayim Vital Calabrese.

Isaac Lurya Levi (born in Jerusalem in 1534, and died 1572) was descended from a German family. Left an orphan at an early age by the death of his father, young Isaac came to Egypt, to the house of a rich uncle, Mardochaï Francis, a tax-farmer, and began to study the Talmud. The dry study of the Talmud, which filled the mind with voluminous learning, unfruitful hairsplitting, and mere formulas, yet failed to satisfy the wants of the heart, seems to have become repugnant to Lurya, and to have driven him to fantastic mysticism. He preferred the awful loneliness of the Nile country to the noise of the school; abstraction in worlds of mysticism and devout praying to working out intellectual problems. He was greatly attracted by the Zohar, which had then been printed for the first time, and, widely spread abroad, had become accessible to everybody. The more familiar he became with the Kabbala through his absorption in the sounding emptiness of the Zohar, the more did he seek solitude, and the less intercourse had he with men. He even neglected his young wife, only visited his house from Sabbath to Sabbath, and spoke little, that little being only in Hebrew. Lurya is said to have spent several years in solitude in this manner, and the result was that like all whose reason is weaker than their imagination, he became a confirmed visionary. The mystic book, the Zohar, his constant companion in this seclusion, aided in exciting his imagination. Firmly convinced of its authenticity as the work of Simon bar Yochaï, and also of the divine character of all the fantasies and follies therein revealed, Lurya persisted in seeing in it high allusions and profound wisdom. In his heated imagination he even saw Elijah, the teacher of mysteries, face to face.

But what did the prophet Elijah, or the Zohar, or rather his own heated imagination, reveal to him? First he took the trouble to put system, unity, and logical order into the confusion and intricacies of the Zohar, as if connected thought could be expected in the idle chatter of a half imbecile. The hermit of Cairo sought to deduce from it how God had created and ordered the world by means of the mystic numbers (Sefiroth), or how the Godhead revealed itself in the forms of substances, or how it concentrated itself within itself in order to project the finite nature of created things from its own infinitude. Thus he evolved an extraordinarily complicated system of powers and opposing powers, forces and counterforces, forms and degrees (Parsophin), in the four spheres of Separation, Creation, Formation, and Transformation; and he clothed these empty abstractions with such wondrous names, that he afterwards complained, with reason, that no one could understand his mystic system. Yet Lurya looked upon this intricate and complex theory of the creation as only a kind of introduction to what seemed to him a much more important and practical part of the Kabbala, whereby the divine order of the world (Olam ha-Tikkun) could be brought about. This practical Kabbala of Lurya rests upon a not less marvelous doctrine of souls, also based upon the visions of the Zohar.