PULVERIZING GAZA

 

Disturbing images of Israeli ordinance pounding Gaza into fine grey dust present a serious moral problem for Western democracies.  It is difficult to reconcile the passive trainloads of Jewish victims in the Nazi Holocaust with the new reality of aggressive military vengeance in the Middle East.  Twentieth-century certainties of international justice look increasingly shabby. 

This is a different people.  A transformation has taken place. Medieval Tradition has been abandoned in favour of a new wave of 'biblical' interpretation.

      "The Midrashic and Talmudic literature grew and developed in the years following the failure of a series of Jewish revolts that broke out against Rome in the land of Israel and beyond its borders during the first and second centuries CE ...

       The first uprising was the Great Revolt of 66-73 CE. This rebellion was viciously put down, leading to a great many deaths in battle and by starvation. The peak came with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE ...

       The second rebellion broke out some forty years later. It is commonly referred to as the Uprising of the Diaspora in Hebrew, and is also known as the Kitos War (115-117 CE). The revolt broke out among Jews scattered beyond the boundaries of Judea, engulfing different areas including Alexandria [Egypt], Cyrene [Libya], and Cyprus ... Primary sources describe the revolt as being extremely aggressive on the part of the Jews; yet it too was put down with extreme severity ...

       The third uprising against Rome ... was the Revolt of Bar Kokhba, which took place in 132-135 CE ... The rebellion was initially successful on the battlefield, with the Province of Judea even achieving a degree of independence. Yet in the end the rebellion was put down with an iron fist ... The Jewish presence in Palestine was reduced to the point of near total elimination

       It is evident from various rabbinic sources that in the wake of these bloody developments, the sages of the Talmud who next seized the sceptre of Jewish leadership made a strategic choice in  changing the Jewish ethos from an offensive to a defensive one. (Footnote: 'The sages of the Mishnah experienced personally the oppression of the three rebellions; therefore it is understandable why they did it.) ..."

[Relevant extracts from Amir Mashiach, 2016, 'The Ethos of Masada in Halakhic Literature', The Review of Rabbinic Judaism, vol 19, pp 56-57]

THE MEDIEVAL JEWISH ETHOS ― A BENDING REED

      "The notion of freedom as this was accepted in the period prior to the sages of the Talmud was understood along the lines of legal freedom ... a free person was one who had no master, ruler, or king. Legal freedom was the principal factor in stirring Jewish sentiment and in leading to Jewish uprisings in various empires. The sages of the Talmud injected a different meaning into the familiar concept. The sense of freedom was henceforth internal to consciousness, a religious feeling rather than an objective given:

   'For there can be no free person except for him who engages in the study of the Torah'

No more need to revolt or cast off the yoke of the enslaving oppressor; from now on, regardless of where he may be spatially located at any given time, the Jew who studies the Torah [the Law in the Hebrew Bible] is thereby ― and thereby alone ― transformed into a free man ...in the texts of the Talmud and Midrash, physical-military prowess turn into ability of a psychological-cognitive type:

   'Who is mighty?  He who overcomes his inclination [to violent impulse]'

... the sages of the Talmud preached submission and maintaining a low posture; no longer a Jew upholding his dignity, but one who keeps his head down.

The sages said:

   'If evildoers come upon one, he should nod to them with his head'

Yet another piece of advice:

   'One should always be pliable as a reed, not hard as a cedar'

The message is the same: a Jew should know how to bow his head, swallowing his self-respect, and becoming similar to a reed:

   '... just as a reed that all the winds come and blow at, and it sways to and fro with them.

    Should the winds fall silent, the reed resumes its erect posture, standing in place ...

    But a cedar does not remain in place: once a southern wind has blown,

    it uproots and overturns it.'

The sages of the Talmud endorsed their preached message of passivity and submission with a pungent oath in which God makes His people pledge:

   '... not to rise up in rebellion against the nations of the world'

an oath accompanied by a severe threat:

   'Said the Holy One, Blessed be He, If you abide by the oath, well and good, and if not,

    I will make your flesh permissible for all, like the flesh of the deer and the hinds of the field'.

THIS IS AN ETHOS DESTINED TO PRESERVE THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN THE DIASPORA, PREVENTING THE FOSTERING OF DESTRUCTIVE NOTIONS OF REBELLION."

[Continued extracts from Mashiach 2016, as above, pp 59-60, 62]

A MEDIEVAL JEWISH EXPERIENCE ― THE MASSACRES UNDER KING RICHARD I

LONDON:

   "On 3 September 1189, crowds from all over Europe gathered to witness the coronation of England's King Richard 1.  Despite the celebratory nature of this occasion, William of Newburgh, a twelfth-century English monk, recorded that the English had always called September 3rd 'the bad' nor 'the Egyptian'. 

    William added that this designation proved to be a divinely-inspired portent of cataclysmic events that would spread throughout England during the early months of Richard's reign ― massacres of the English Jews.

    Initial riots erupted at Richard's coronation, quickly turned deadly, spread throughout the countryside, and ended with the death of 57 Jews at Bury St Edmund's on Palm Sunday, 18 March 1190.  This violence towards the religious minority of English Jews ended as abruptly as it had begun, leaving behind an enigma of both cause and effect."

[Ted Booth, 2021, 'The Massacres of the Jews under Richard I (A.D. 1189-1190)', Religions, vol 12, p 821]

A Jewish Account of the London Massacre by Ephraim ben Jacob of Bonn

    In the year of Creation 4950 [= Sept. 1189] evil was brought upon Israel from heaven. For there arose a King in the Isle of the Sea known as Angleterre.  And it happened on the day of their appointing him King, and when they put the royal crown upon his head in the city of London, in the palace which is without the city, and many folk gathered there from France and from the isles of the sea, and there came likewise Jewish magistrates, and with them tenths to bring the King as a tribute, and bad men hastened to say that it was not allowed for Jews to look on the King's crown when the monks and priests crowned him, when the crowned the King at Orleans [?] and they thrust them forth and destroyed them, and the King knew not of this, and a rumour went to the city saying 'The King has ordered the Jews to be converted,' and they went to fall upon them and slay them and their maidservants in their houses, and they slew about thirty men and some of the remainder slew themselves and their children. 

And then were slain the distinguished Chief Rabbi, Jacob of Orleans, for the hallowing of the Name. And the King knew nothing during all this, for when he heard the noise in the city he asked, 'What is this news of a tumult?'  And the doorkeeper replied, 'It is nothing but the young men rejoicing and making merry,' although the truth was known to him.  He ordered them to bind the doorkeeper to the tails of horses, dragging and casting him through the streets and alleys of the city till his spirit departed and he died a miserable death. Blessed be the Lord that giveth vengeance!

[Translation found in Joseph Jacobs, 1893, The Jews of Angevin England, Documents and Records, pp 107-108]

 Benedict and Joceus, Two Jews from York,  by William of Newburgh 

    The Jews then fled away; and in their flight, many were beaten, so that they died, and others were trampled under foot and perished. Along with the rest, two noble Jews of York had come thither, one named Joceus, and the other Benedict. Of these, the first escaped; but the other, following him, could not run so fast, while blows were laid upon him; so he was caught, and to avoid death was compelled to confess himself a Christian; and being conducted to a church, was there baptized ...

    That Benedict, however, who, as I have said, had received Christian baptism under compulsion, yet not giving credence in his heart to that which was right, but only beating the air by the empty confession of his lips, being brought the next day to the king, and interrogated by him whether he was a Christian, replied that he had been compelled by the Christians to be baptised, but in his heart he had always been a Jew; and he would rather die as such, since he could not possibly live now, for he was treading close upon death by reason of the blows he had received the day before. Being, therefore, cast out from the sovereign, the Christian apostate was restored to the Jews; and being made the child of hell twofold more than before, he died after a few days, having been made a Christian only for this, that he might die an apostate.

[From the electronic translation of 'William of Newburgh, Book Four' in Joseph Stevenson, 1856, The Church Historians of England, by Scott McLetchie, 1999, at Fordham Univ site]

YORK:

   "Demonstrating his zeal for crusade, Richard only spent a few months in England before leaving for the continent. With the king out of the country, reports of episodes of violence against the Jews began to erupt once again.

   William of Newburgh wrote that the renewed violence began at first at the city of Lynn ... Ralph de Decito ... noted the new anti-Jewish massacre in Norwich on 6 February 1190, around the same time as the events in Lynn ...

    William of Newburgh recorded that the escalating violence spread to the cities of Lincoln and York ... the Jews of Lincoln ... heard of the recent incidents so they 'withdrew quickly with their money into a fortified residence' ... and this potential massacre quickly dissipated ... Despite this ... another attack on the Jews began at about the same time at the city of York ...

    Ralph de Decito recorded that the violence at York began on March 16, 1190 ... William of Newburgh described the mood of the citizens of York in very dramatic fashion stating: '...neither the fear of the most bold leader (the king), nor the strength of laws, nor reason, nor kindness hindered them (the men of York) from satisfying their own rage by the common destruction of the treacherous people living with them, and that they might erase that entire race in their city'."

[Continued quotes from Booth 2021, as above, pp 827-429]

A Jewish Account of the York Massacre by Ephraim ben Jacob of Bonn    

     Also in the year 4951 [=1190] there came wicked ones on the people of the Lord in the City of Aborick [= York] which is in England, on the Great Sabbath, and the time of their joy was turned to their annoy, and they destroyed the House of Prayer and Rabbi Yomtob [of Joigny] also, and slew about 60 souls and also others slew, and there was even one that ordered them to slay his only son, whose foot had hardly touched the ground going and returning. And there were some that slew themselves for the sake of Unity, and the numbers of those slain by others or by themselves was about 150 souls men and women. Their holy bodies and their houses were burned, and they despised gold and silver and beautiful books of which they had written many, and they rejoiced in the money and the multitude of pure gold which were not equalled for beauty, and brought them to Cologne. And in the rest of the places and quarters of the Jews our enemies did thus as in these cities. And in a certain city where there were many proselytes, twenty-two men forming a congregation of proselytes, they slew them all and did not allow them to soil the vile waters [of baptism], but they all hallowed the Name of the Unity.

[Translation from Jacobs 1893, as above, pp 130-131]

The Fate of the Jews of York, 16-17th March 1190, by William of Newburgh

    Of the Jews of York (as I have mentioned above) the principal were Benedict and Joceus, men who were rich, and who lent on usury far and wide ... When they were in London, at the solemnity of the royal coronation, Benedict (as it has been mentioned) had, by the judgment of God, a most unhappy lot assigned him for his end, and appeared to be in this accursed; but Joceus, having been with difficulty rescued from danger for a time, returned to York ...

    Late at night no small portion of the city was blazing in a conflagration that was kindled by chance, or rather (as it is believed) by confederates; so that while the citizens were occupied with their own houses because of the peril of the fire, they could offer no impediment to the plunderers. An armed band of the confederates, with iron tools made ready for this purpose, and with great violence, broke into the house of the said Benedict, who had died miserably at London (as it is mentioned above); in this house his wife and sons, and many others, were living; and after they had slain all that were in it, they set fire to the roof also; and while the fire was sullenly gaining strength, they swept away all the wealth, and left the house in flames  ... 

    The Jews, struck with consternation at this event and especially Joceus, who was more eminent than the rest, earnestly entreated the governor of the royal castle, and secured his assistance. They carried thither vast loads of their money, as if they had been royal treasurers; and, moreover, they had a very vigilant guard for their own security ... After some days, these nocturnal plunderers returned with greater confidence and ferocity; and being joined by many others, they fiercely attacked the house of Joceus ... and after plundering it, they set it on fire, while all those people whose misfortune it was to be in the house were destroyed either by sword or by fire. Joceus, however, cautiously foreseeing this misfortune, had a short time before removed into the castle with his wife and sons. In like manner the rest of the Jews acted, very few remaining abroad to be victims ...

    Thus were the Jews besieged in the castle; and in consequence of the want of a sufficient supply of food, they would, without doubt, have been compelled to surrender, even if no one had attacked them from without ... The castle was actively besieged for several days ... the capture of the castle was certain ... the Jews, strong and unbending through desperation alone, had but little rest, and debated among themselves what was to be done in such an emergency.

    There was among them a certain elder, a most famous doctor of the law, according to the letter which killeth, who had come from countries beyond the sea to instruct the Jews in England, as it is said. This man [Rabbi Rom Tov of Joigny] was held in honour among them all, and was obeyed by all, as if he had been one of the prophets. So when at this juncture his advice was asked, he replied, "God, to whom we ought not to say, "Why dost thou this?" commands us to die now for his law ― and behold our death is at the doors; as ye see; unless, perchance, which be far from us, ye should think that the Holy Law ought to be deserted for the short span of this life, and should choose that which to good and manly minds is worse than any kind of death, that is to say, to live with the greatest disgrace, as apostates, through the mercy of our impious enemies. Since, therefore, we ought to prefer a glorious death to an infamous life, it is plain that we ought to choose the most honourable and easy kind of death; for if we should fall into the hands of the enemy, we should die according to their pleasure, and amidst their mockery. Therefore, let us willingly and devoutly, with our own hands, render up to him that life which the Creator gave to us, since he now claims it, and let us not wait for the aid of a cruel enemy to give back that which he reclaims. For this, indeed, many of our people are known to have done laudably in divers tribulations, setting before us a precedent for that choice  which is most fitting for us to make".

    Then the elder said, "Let those to whom this good and pious counsel is not pleasing, sit apart, cut off from this sacred band: for to us, for the sake of the Law of our fathers, this temporal life has already become vile" ... Then it was decided, by the direction of that man who had grown old in evil days, that the men whose minds were more firm, should kill their wives and children ― that most infamous Joceus, with a very sharp knife, cut the throat of Anna, his most beloved wife, and spared not even his own children. When this had been done by other men also, that most cursed old man cut the throat of Joceus, because he was more honourable than the rest. When all were killed, together with the leader of the crime, the fire which (as it was said) they had lighted when they were about to die, began to burn the interior of the castle ...

   This irrational fury of rational creatures against themselves is truly astonishing; but whoever reads the History of the Jewish War by Josephus understands well enough that madness of this kind, arising from their ancient superstition, has continued down to our own times, whenever any very heavy misfortune fell upon them.

[Continued extracts from Stevenson 1856 / McLetchie 1999, chs 9  & 10]

THE END OF JEWISH SUBSERVIENCE ― A NEW STATE OF ISRAEL

   In the words of Rabbi Rom Tov,  mass martyrdom was already a familiar part of Jewish history by the twelfth century: "For this indeed many of our people are known to have done laudably in divers tribulations, setting before us a precedent for that choice which is most fitting for us to make". 

    William of Newburgh mentions the famous incident recorded in Josephus' Jewish War, when the siege of Masada summit resulted in the recorded suicide of 960 Jewish rebels, including men, women, and children. He could just have easily recorded the massacres and suicides of Rhineland Jews in the violence stirred up by the First Crusade of 1096.

    The ruinous cycle of murderous persecutions meeting a fatalistic sort of acceptance continued throughout the second millennium, culminating in the horror of Nazi death camps. With six million "souls" to mourn it was time to assess how much the medieval tradition of non-resistance had contributed to this. 

    The 1940s genocide coincided with the establishment, by arms, of the nation-state of Israel. A new Zionist ideology had also been developed that was much more assertive and critical of the medieval teachings.

After the Holocaust, the Western world agreed unreservedly with the sentiments of "Never again" and "Jewish Homeland". At that time it didn't seem to matter that the Palestinians didn't. 

    We missed that Arabs of the Near East ― not just the Islamic extremists who incite them, like Hamas or Hezbollah ― have no complementary doctrine of accommodation or acceptance. While the new Israel is 75 years old, so are the refugee camps.