As we approach the black fast of Tisha b'Av, which starts at sunset on Wednesday, Jews focus on the more lachrymose parts of our history. Certainly some of Ashkenazi Jewry's darkest hours occurred at the beginning of the First Crusade, when Jews in 4 Rhineland cities were massacred in Spring 1096. Interestingly, the marauders themselves were slaughtered by the Hungarian army by mid-Summer, so that the Tisha b'Av parallel doesn't work in this instance. However, the First Crusade takes place during the time period covered by BOOK III - RACHEL, and thus I researched the subject thoroughly. And again, I learned that much of what I thought I knew about Jews in 11th century Ashkenaz was incorrect.
Here is a short quiz in which I address "The First Crusade: Facts and Misconceptions."
1. Anti-Semitism played a major role in bringing about the First Crusade. FALSE
After a plea from the Byzantium emperor, whose troops were being overwhelmed by the Seljuk Turks, Pope Urban preached for knights to join in an armed pilgrimage to rescue their beleaguered Christian brethren in the East, and while they were at it, wrest the Holy Land and Jerusalem from the infidels. The pope never suggested Jews as a target, and later, when marauders used the crusades as an excuse to assault Jewish communities in Germany, Urban denounced the attacks.
2. Killing Jews was the crusaders' goal. FALSE.
Their goal was to defeat the Turks and seize Turkish territory, including Jerusalem, for themselves, at the same acquiring riches and booty. In addition, everyone partaking of this pilgrimage were promised repentance for all their sins, plus immediate salvation should they die on the journey. Killing Jews was never a goal; those who attacked the cities of Speyer, Cologne, Mainz and Worms desisted as soon as a Jew agreed to baptism. But most German Jews preferred death to apostasy.
3. Crusaders massacred the Jews in Jerusalem. FALSE.
Medieval knights earned income from capturing opponents and redeeming them for suitable amount. Jewish merchant caravans were attacked regularly, because it was well known that nearby Jewish communities would ransom their compatriots. When the crusaders captured Jerusalem, they separated out the Jews and demanded payment from the wealthy Egyptian Jewish community. Letters from the Cairo Geniza indicate that sufficient funds were raised to redeem the Jews of Jerusalem. Reports that Jerusalem's streets ran with Jewish blood were hyperbole.
4. The crusades resulted in the destruction of French and German Jewry. TRUE, but not in the way most people think. [this explanation will come in my next post].
When I first outlined BOOK II - MIRIAM [in 1997], I planned that a major conflict for her and Judah would be his struggle to control his yetzer hara, which was attracted to men. I expected that this decision would be controversial and anticipated receiving criticism from some readers. Later, as I did more research into the lives of medieval Jewish women, I discovered that women were permitted to perform circumcisions in Rashi's community, something that is prohibited in Orthodoxy today. I immediately thanked my lucky stars that I had created Miriam as a midwife, because it was now possible, even plausible, that I could have her be a mohelet as well.
When BOOK II came out in 2007, issues surrounding gay clergy were on the front page of newspapers and Judah's struggle with his yetzer hara wasn't quite so shocking as it had seemed ten years earlier. Sure enough, when the complaints came in, more people were upset with Miriam being a mohelet that with Judah being attracted to his hevruta. "Where is my proof," the emails demanded, "that medieval women did circumcisions?" Of course nobody asked for proof that Talmud students fell in love with their study partners; that was a well-known predicament in the yeshiva world. [As I explained in the Afterword for BOOK II, there is no evidence whatsoever that Miriam was a midwife or mohelet, or that Judah was sexually attracted to men. I wrote a novel, not a history text].
I would refer readers to my sources, all the while wishing there was a short explanation of the history of women doing circumcisions. You can imagine my delight when a fan emailed me with a link to Rabbi David Golinkin's responsa on the subject. I urge you all to read it.
I want to share two short links with you. JPS, publisher of RASHI'S DAUGHTER: SECRET SCHOLAR, my adaptation of BOOK I - JOHEVED for students and young readers [age 9-14], has asked their authors for book recommendations. So if you go the JPS blog you will find my top 10 books.
Another, clever and fun website has comics based on various Talmud sugiya , mostly from Tractate Berachot. You may recognize several texts I used in my novels. Thanks to the Facebook Group, "Women Who Run with the Sages," for sharing this link.
Now that I've convinced you what an intellectually and socially advanced population lived during the 12th Century Renaissance, an unpleasant thought will probably occur to you: what happened to all these lovely advances? Indeed, I rarely give an author's lecture where someone in the audience doesn't ask, "How did we [Jews, women, Ganymedes] lose our high status?"
The answer is: we don't know. But historians and social scientists are studying the question, because we like to think society is on a continuum, always improving, not a pendulum, always making gains only to lose them later. Just because the 12th century's toleration and scholarship gave way to heresy trials, anti-Semitism, witch burnings, and the Inquisition, it shouldn't mean that today's improvement in life for Jews, women, and minorities will similarly disappear [we hope]. Or at least we hope to learn how to prevent this from happening.
Most scholars believe that devastation brought by the Black Death sealed a sudden end to the previous period of massive philosophic and scientific development. Within a 4-year period, 1347-1350, bubonic plague claimed between a third and a half of Europe's population, with some cities losing 80%. Nobody had the slightest idea what caused the disease or how to combat it, but clearly a disaster of such magnitude must have supernatural implications. Religious leaders, both Christians and Jews, called for more stringent rules, ever stricter enforcement to appease a clearly angry deity. But some people saw more sinister sources: witches' curses or Jews and heretics poisoning the wells.
Thus educated women were doubly condemned. First for stepping out of their God-given sphere into men's; second [and more deadly] because learned women were most likely to be seen as witches. In other words, when it came time to burn witches, who did they burn? Women who had an education, who knew something about healing, who people saw as different. Why were there no women in the 15th century Italian Renaissance? Because all the learned women had either gone into hiding or burned as witches. But perhaps the main reason for women's loss of status came with the huge decline in population, which meant fewer available servants. Thus even prosperous and educated women had to do their own housework and childcare, leaving little time for business or study.
The 11th and 12th centuries, in addition to their great intellectual advances, also saw a surprising amount of tolerance, both religious and sexual. The Church saw Jews as 'ignorant' little brothers, sharing the same Holy Text [as well as the religion of Jesus], and it was only a matter of time until they eventually saw the light and converted. Antisemitism and the Inquisition would not rear their ugly heads for centuries.
Apparently the society that was tolerant towards Jews and learned women also tolerated Ganymedes , the name medieval folks used to describe men who were sexually attracted to other men. Not only is the word 'homosexuality' of recent origin, but the very concept is recent as well. During the 12th-century Renaissance, as in ancient Greece and Rome, it was accepted that men would be sexually attracted to both lovely maidens and handsome youths. Hebrew and Arab poems from this time praise the beautiful 'fawn' and detail the poet's infatuation with him. Lusty young men were assumed to have sex with each other, and society accepted this as a means to keep young women chaste.
Sex with other men, known as 'playing the game,' was prohibited, but the desire for it was not abnormal. Sexual relations between men were sinful, but love between them was not. It was clear from songs and jokes of this time that monks were believed to be especially prone to this passion, and we have many love letters written by medieval clergy to each other that confirm this belief - letters that clearly indicate no shame attached to these feelings.
Jews were not immune to these feelings, and those who felt them were not condemned. In one poignant account from the First Crusade, we learn of a group of Jews from Cologne who had taken refuge in a fortified town situated on the Rhine. When the crusading hordes came to the town, many Jews jumped into the river and drowned. Two young men climbed to a tower overlooking the water. "Samuel the bridegroom ben Gedaliah and Yehiel ben Shmuel, a comely young man, as majestic as the Lebanon, were cherished in life - for they loved each other exceedingly and would not be parted in death. When they decided to throw themselves off the tower and into the water, they kissed one another and held one another by the shoulders and wept." Neither could bear to see the other die first, so clasped in each other's arms, they leaped from the tower together into the river below. The report concludes, "They [other Jews from the town] found there the two good friends, totally saintly, embraced together ... thus these pious ones sanctified the Holy Name."
Nearly all of the Jewish scientists, poets and philosophers of the 11th-12th century Sephardic world resided in Andalusia, as opposed to the Arab scholars who lived throughout the Muslim world. I detail 7 men below [sorry, no women in this group], but there are many more I didn't mention here. One of the earliest [mid 11th century] and most influential philosophers was Solomon ibn Gabirol of Saragossa. A neo-Platonist, he composed treatises on ethics and on metaphysics that dealt with universal themes rather than just Jewish ones. He was also one of the best-known secular and spiritual poets, composing over 400 poems. Another great Hebrew poet was Moses ibn Ezra, born in Granada, who also wrote several treatises on literary theory.
Moses ibn Ezra makes a brief appearance in Book III - RACHEL, while Rachel's husband Eliezer spends several years in Toledo helping support their family. A more prominent character in my novel was Abraham bar Hiyya, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, whom I wrote as befriending Eliezer. Bar Hiyya wrote all his works in Hebrew, not in Judaeo-Arabic of the earlier Jewish scientific literature, which made him a pioneer in the use of the Hebrew language for scientific purposes. He wrote several scientific works in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, and calendar calculations. He also cooperated in the translation of scientific works from Arabic into Latin. Continuing Abraham bar Hiyya's work in Toledo was astronomer and philosopher Abraham ibn Daud, while in Navarre Abraham ibn Ezra wrote poems and mathematics treatises, in addition to biblical commentaries that clearly indicate he was familiar with Rashi's.
The greatest medieval Jewish poet and philosopher, known also for the high volume of poetry and writings of his that survived, was Judah ha-Levi. He mainly wrote about the struggle between the Christians and Muslims for power in Spain and also about the Crusaders in Palestine. Known for writing "The Kuzari" his philosophical masterpiece that hints at a modern philosophy of Zionism and Jewish nationalism. Although he lived in Toledo during the time that I put Eliezer there, for some reason I did not have the two men meet, something I now regret.
I cannot ignore Moses Maimonides, who lived a century after Rashi and apparently never knew the French scholar's works. Called the Rambam, Moses was the greatest Jewish sage of Medieval Spain. He was a philosopher, ethicist, commentator and codifier. He wrote important texts such as "Thirteen Principles of Faith," "Guide to the Perplexed," and "Mishnah Torah," which have become the foundation for modern day Sephardic religious dogma. He was born in Cordova and when Jews there were forced to convert, his family left Spain for Morocco and later settled in Egypt.
Meanwhile, in the Muslim lands, all sorts of philosophical and scientific advances had been occurring for several hundred years, with the West slowly becoming aware of them. Many of these scholars, Moor and Jew, lived in the Iberian Peninsula, during what has been called the "Golden Age of Spanish Jewry." Whether one agrees with this description or not, it certainly wasn't so golden a time for Jewish women, whose rabbis forbade them to study Torah or perform any of the men's mitzvot, and who for the most part did not participate in commerce or synagogue life.
The earliest known Muslim scholar, al-Khawarizmi, lived in the 9th century. His work on algebra initiated the subject in a systematic form and he developed it to the extent of giving analytical solutions of linear and quadratic equations. The very name Algebra has been derived from his book Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah. His arithmetic synthesized Greek and Hindu knowledge as well as introduced the Indian system of numerals (now generally known as Arabic numerals). His own contributions included the use of zero, operations on fractions, and the decimal system, so that the overall system of numerals, algorithm or algorizm, is named after him. It was through his work that the system of numerals was first introduced to Arabs and later to Europe.
Another early scholar was al-Basri [11th century Persia], who discovered Fermat's principle of least time and Newton's first law of motion, described the attraction between masses and was aware of the magnitude of acceleration due to gravity. He also discovered that the heavenly bodies were accountable to the laws of physics, presented the earliest critique and reform of the Ptolemaic model, first stated Wilson's theorem in number theory, pioneered analytic geometry, and proved the earliest general formula for infinitesimal and integral calculus. His optical research laid the foundations for the later development of telescopic astronomy.
The glory of Toledo in the 11th century was the development of exact sciences. The leading mathematician and the foremost astronomer of this time was al-Zarqali. Here also lived mathematicians al-Waqqadi and al-Tugibi, as well as astronomers/geometers Ibn al-Attar and Ibn Hamis. Cordoba produced philosopher ibn Rushd, author of several commentaries on Aristotle, while Saragossa native ibn Bajjah, whose many scientific works have not survived, had his astronomy and physics preserved by Maimonides. Each of these Andalusian scholars criticized the Ptolemaic model of Earth-centric planetary motion, and some suggested that the inner planets, Venus and Mercury, might actually orbit the sun. Interestingly, a solar-centric model for all the planets, including Earth, was being investigated, but would eventually be proven by an Arab astronomer a few centuries later [well before Copernicus].
Not all scholars in Andalusia were Muslims. Jews too were scientists and philosophers. More on them in my next post.