Jews in The Middle Ages - Late Middle Ages and The Renaissance

Late Middle Ages and The Renaissance

The late fifteenth century saw the death of the Byzantine empire (the last remnant of the Roman Empire) and the full conquest of all Greek lands by the Turks. That time period also saw two Spanish royals sponsoring the expulsion of Jews from Spain and the voyage of Columbus, which reached the Americas. The Protestant Reformation, a Christian schism/ revolution, expanded, affecting attitudes towards both the papacy and the Jews. It was an age of inventions and discoveries that brought about an immense change in ideas. It appears that many Jews migrated east, towards the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe. They had to seek refuge in the realms of the Slavs and the Turks. Their external circumstances were not at first unfavorable. They even attained to high positions in the state, at least in The Ottoman Empire (serving several internal political objectives of the Sultan-mainly balancing the gaining influence of the Greek and Armenian traders over the Ottoman economy). Don Joseph Nasi was made Duke of Naxos; and Solomon Ashkenazi was ambassador of the Porte to the republic of Venice.

In Poland the Jews were a link between the nobility and the peasants by working in trade and industry. But there were trials brought upon the Polish and Lithuanian Jews through the Cossack hetman Chmielnicki (1648) and by the Swedish wars (1655). Hundreds of thousands of Jews are said to have been killed in these few years.

In 1648, a youth from Smyrna, Sabbatai Ẓevi, claimed to be the Messiah based on the prophecies of the Zohar, a popular Jewish text at the time. His rapid rise in popularity reflected the desperation of the Jews throughout Europe at the time. Brutal persecutions, murder, seizure of property and forced conversions were rampant. Thousands of Jews sold their properties and followed Sabbatai Zevi to Turkey. He converted to Islam in 1666 rather than face execution at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan. Thousands of his European Jewish followers became crypto-Jews, called dönme living in Turkey to this day.

Fugitives from Spain and Germany had come also to Italy, and founded new communities beside Greeks who had fled hither from Constantinople-bringing the treasures of classical antiquity with them—became the leaders and guides of the humanists to the source of Jewish antiquity. The Italian Jews taught Hebrew, and learned Latin and Greek.

The inclination to study esoteric doctrines spread at that time even among the Jews who had founded new communities in the Protestant states on the shores of the North Sea under Dutch and English protection. This new mysticism strongly influenced the German Jews. The elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg allowed them to settle in Berlin, and protected them with a strong hand from injury and slander.