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I am currently a student studying Jewish history.

Jewish history[edit]

Babylonian Exile[edit]

Babylonian captivity

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Middle Ages[edit]

During the Middle Ages, Jewish people under Muslim rule experienced tolerance and integration.[1] Some historians refer to this time period as the "Golden Age" for the Jews as more opportunities became available to them.[2] Abdel Fattah Ashour, a professor of medieval history at Cairo University, states that Jewish people found solace under Islamic rule during the Middle Ages.[3]Jews and Muslims regarded each other as brothers and were able to look past their religious differences. Author Merlin Swartz referred to this time period as a new era for the Jews, stating that the attitude of tolerance led to Jewish integration into Arab-Islamic society.[4]

Jewish integration allowed Jews to make great advances in new fields, such as mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, chemistry and philology.[5] Jewish people also experienced political achievements under Islamic rule.[6]Jews under Islam pursued many economic endeavors that helped integrate them into the Arab marketplace.[7] During early Islam, Leon Poliakov writes, Jews enjoyed great privileges, and their communities prospered. There was no legislation or social barriers preventing them from conducting commercial activities. Commercial and craft guilds did not exist like the ones in Europe. Jewish people under Islamic Rule were no longer excluded from any specific profession and this helped lessen their negative stigma.[8] Many Jews migrated to areas newly conquered by Muslims and established communities there. The vizier of Baghdad entrusted his capital with Jewish bankers. The Jews were put in charge of certain parts of maritime and slave trade. Siraf, the principal port of the caliphate in the 10th century, had a Jewish governor.[9]

Although Jewish life improved under Islamic rule, an interfaith utopia did not exist.[10] Jewish people still experienced persecution. Under Islamic Rule, the Pact of Umar was introduced, which protected the Jews but also established them as inferior.[11] Since the 11th century, there have been instances of pogroms against Jews.[12] Examples include the 1066 Granada massacre, the razing of the entire Jewish quarter in the Andalucian city of Granada.[13] In North Africa, there were cases of violence against Jews in the Middle Ages,[14] and in other Arab lands including Egypt,[15] Syria.[16] and Yemen[17] Jewish population was confined to segregated quarters, or mellahs, in Morocco beginning from the 15th century. In cities, a mellah was surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway. In contrast, rural mellahs were separate villages inhabited solely by the Jews.[18]The Almohads, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172, were far more fundamentalist in outlook than the Almoravides, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Jews and Christians were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain.[19] Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, some Jews, such as the family of Maimonides, fled south and east to the more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[20][21] In 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in an offensive manner. The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.[22][23]

Historian Mark R. Cohen writes that conclusions about Jewish life under Islamic rule can only be derived through a comparative approach. Jews of Islam experienced less physical violence than Jews under Western Christendom.[24] Cohen believes a reason for this may be that Islam, unlike Christianity, did not need to establish a separate identity from Judaism.[25] He also states that Jewish people were less threatening to Muslims than Christians.[26]


Jerusalem was sieged by the Babylonians in March 597 BC. [27]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),55
  2. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),55
  3. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),56
  4. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),56
  5. ^ Cowling (2005), p. 265
  6. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),55
  7. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),58
  8. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),58
  9. ^ Poliakov (1974), pg.68-71
  10. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),58
  11. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),59
  12. ^ The Treatment of Jews in Arab/Islamic Countries
  13. ^ Granada by Richard Gottheil, Meyer Kayserling, Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906 ed.
  14. ^ "The Jews of Morocco".
  15. ^ "The Jews of Egypt". Jewish Virtual Library.
  16. ^ "The Jews of Syria". Jewish Virtual Library.
  17. ^ "The Jews of Yemen". Jewish Virtual Library.
  18. ^ The Jews of Morocco, by Ralph G. Bennett
  19. ^ The Forgotten Refugees
  20. ^ Sephardim, Jewish Virtual Library, Rebecca Weiner
  21. ^ Kraemer, Joel L., Moses Maimonides: An Intellectual Portrait in The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides pp. 16-17 (2005)
  22. ^ Gerber (1986), p. 84
  23. ^ Jews kicked out of Arab Countries Part 2: The Persecution of Jews prior to 1948, Historical Society of Jews from Egypt
  24. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),58
  25. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),58
  26. ^ Cohen, Mark R. "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History." Tikkun 6.3 (1991),58
  27. ^ Peter R. Ackroyd, [1], "Exile and Restoration: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century B.C.", 1968
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