Shabbetai Tzvi’s strongest believer was Nathan of Gaza. Nathan of Gaza was already known for his religiosity and visionary powers when he met Shabbetai Tzvi in 1663. Nathan had a vision of Shabbetai Tzvi as the Messiah and one Shavuot, he fell into a trance and publically announced Shabbetai Tzvi as the Messiah. Nathan spread the word of coming redemption to Jewish communities all over Europe. In a prophetic dream, he saw the year 1666 as being the year of redemption. After Shabbetai Tzvi’s impromptu conversion to Islam, Nathan worked tirelessly to keep the Sabbatean ideologies alive for years to come. Raphael Joseph Chelebi was a very wealthy and pious Jew living in Cairo in the time of Shabbetai Tzvi. He held the prestigious Turkish title of chelebi, meaning gentleman. He became one of Shabbetai Tzvi’s most prominent supporters, going as far as to house the latter for two years. While Nathan of Gaza and Raphael Joseph Chelebi are examples of believers in Shabbetai Tzvi as the Messiah since the beginning, some followers came to be through other means. Chaim Pegna was a vocal disbeliever in Shabbetai Tzvi who was almost killed by an angry mob of believers. He eventually changed his loyalties when his daughter had a vision of Shabbetai Tzvi’s Messianic power. Shabbetai Tzvi’s movement gained so much momentum that at times, people could not…
Las Siete Partidas was a work commissioned by King Alfonso X in 1265. It introduced law codes which only took effect in Castile a century later. These law codes, which were based on earlier feudal, civil, and canon laws, were hostile to Jews. The conditions placed on Muslim Moors, however, were even more severe than those placed on the Jews (Muslims, for instance, were prohibited from having mosques.) The focus of this essay will be on excerpts taken from Las Siete Partidas which deal primarily with the Jewish people. The “Laws on Jews” were an attempt to manage the costs and benefits of living with a Jewish minority.…
During the 15th through the 18th centuries, the attitudes and beliefs about, and the treatment of Jews was an important subject. Anti-Semitism (the hostility to or prejudice towards Jews) raged on throughout Europe for most of this time period. Attitudes meaning the feelings about the Jews, beliefs meaning how you think the Jews are, and treatments meaning how you act towards them based on your attitudes and beliefs. At the beginning of this time period, Jews were generally thought of as vicious and greedy, the killers of Christ. Towards the end of this time period, around the 17th and 18th century, Jews were not treated as badly thanks to the Enlightenment. In the documents…
1.The Ottoman Empire was the Islamic world’s most important empire in the early modern period…
The book, Muslims in Spain by L.P Harvey depicts the history of Spanish Islam during the late 15th century to the year 1614, when the remaining Muslim population was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. In the early 16th century, Catholic kings Ferdinand and Isabella had already expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, which was the year in which they acquired the Islamic Kingdom of Granada; King Ferdinand and Isabella made all of the Muslims living in the territories of the Crown of Castile convert to Christianity. In 1526, the same action was extended to convert Muslims of Aragon and Valencia, which officially ended the existence of legal Muslims in Christian territories of Iberia, where they lived under the name of “Mudejares” throughout the entire medieval period.…
Was the Holocaust really necessary? Was the Salem Witch Trials really necessary? Was there any reason for it at all? Just like the Salem Witch trials there was no real evidence, need, or reason for The holocaust. Because somebody said this, or somebody believed in this, many people lost their lives with no real, strong reason for it. Most of it were caused by mass hysteria, something that does not happen much today.…
With the end of World War I, came the down fall of Germany. The signing of the Treaty of Versailles forced Germans to take blame for the war and pay large reparation to the victorious countries. Germany lost everything they owned and spiraled downhill. With the whole country down in the slums, any sight of hope sparked a wild fire; the emergence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party did just that. Hitler, a German Nationalist, began rising to power due to his promises to fix the corruption and create the rebirth of Germany, which included his idea of a perfect Aryan race. Many groups of people, including the Jewish, Russians, and Slavics, contaminated Hitler’s pure race. With the rise of the “Jewish Question”, what to do with this hated group of people, the only answer was the extermination of the vermin like European Jews. “Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology. It is a matter of cleanliness” (Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Himmler). The mass extermination of the Jews called for thousands of SS officers to run the concentration camps and gas chambers. The Holocaust happened due to the horrific orders that no one dared to break, in order to rebuild the strength of Germany.…
Everyday the Jews of Masada would try to live their lives in as much peace as possible while still knowing the Romans could attack any moment. In this paper I will be talking about the history of Masada, what life was like there, and what it was like for the Jews when they died.…
"To kill the Jews, the Nazis were willing to weaken their capacity to fight the war. The United States and its allies, however, were willing to attempt almost nothing to save them" (Pp 5). If we would have put half as much energy into loving the Jews as Hitler spent hating the Jews we could have made a great difference.…
Following centuries of flourishing political, cultural, and social life in Spain, the Jews were expelled in 1492 CE; tens of thousands of Jews seeking refuge migrated to Muslim countries of North Africa, to Italy, and to various parts of the Ottoman Empire.1 In 1517 CE, the Turks succeeded in extending their territory in the East by gaining control over Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the Arabian Peninsula, as a result Jews were able to settle in the land of Israel under highly favorable and secure conditions.2 For a variety of reasons Safed, located high in the Galilean hills, experienced the largest increase in population, in part, on account of the far greater economic opportunities there than in Jerusalem.3…
To many of us non Jews, whether it be Christian or Muslim or whatever, I…
The early modern period was a definite time of transition for the Jewish community. As they were being expelled from major countries in the west such as Spain and Portugal, the Jewish diaspora travelled east. Poland-Lithuania soon became a new center for the Jews that were infinitely better than other areas of settlement such as the Ottoman Empire. There are three distinct reasons that separated Polish-Lithuania from other areas in Europe. First, the Jews experienced some sense of religious freedom and tolerance. Moreover, the Jews quickly became an integral part of the economy creating a niche in which they were valued and indispensable. Lastly, because of their education and economic skills, they were able to form their own community equipped with a quasi government system. Because of these factors, Poland-Lithuania was viewed “as good as it gets” in the early modern period.…
During the Holocaust, sixteen to twenty million Gentiles from various countries throughout Europe were killed. These victims included Gypsies, Poles and other Slavic people, people who were physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, clergymen, political enemies, resistance fighters, asocials, African-German children, and still others. Each group wore different colored badges as means of identification. These non-Jewish victims died from starvation, executions, beatings, overworking, relocations, gassing, experiments, and disease, resulting in devastating losses.…
The Chronicle of Le Mans depicts events that took place in the French town of Le Mans toward the late 10th century. The document tells primarily of the evil acts of Sehok ben Esther Israeli, a former Jew who has converted to Christianity, and how he strove against the Jewish community in Le Mans. By examining this text, we can glimpse the beginnings of Jewish animosity toward converts; the events of the text purportedly took place in 992 CE, which, if true, situate the text in the beginning of Christian missionizing efforts and the glorification of martyrdom that Jews took on in place of converting. However, the text also shows reflections of 13th-century tensions between Jews and Christians. For example, the text alludes to how the Jewish were seen as having knowingly killed Christ, a Christian viewpoint that gained prevalence in the late medieval ages. The Chronicle of Le Mans therefore not only depicts the Jewish-Christian tensions of the 10th century, but also how tensions evolved and heightened into the 13th century. By examining The Chronicle of Le Mans, we can observe the path leading to the state of Jewish animosity toward converts in the 13th century.…
Unique for its time, in September of 1480, Spain created special religious tribunals to address cases of “heretical depravity”. These tribunals, collectively referred to as the Spanish Inquisition, sought to eliminate deviation from Catholicism. Jews bore the brunt of these tribunals. They were rarely acquitted of charges levied through the Spanish Inquisition, and relative to other “heretics,” Jews were executed more frequently. In 1492, all Jews were expelled from Spain. In 1750, Frederick the Great issued the Revidierte General-Privilegium und Reglement vor die Judenschaft im Königreiche Preussen, which strictly limited the number of "protected" Jews permitted…