Jews Sentence Examples

Like many of the Spanish Jews he united scholarly tastes with political ability.

When the king of Persia, Shapur, captured Mazaca-Caesarea, the Cappadocian capital, Samuel refused to mourn for the 12,000 Jews who lost their livesin its defence.

The Jews were forbidden to reside in the city, but Christians were freely admitted.

Apart from the great interest of his philosophical work, Lazarus was pre-eminent among the Jews of the so-called Semitic domination in Germany.

The number of Jews was returned as 36,000, but is certainly higher.

Like Heine, Auerbach and Steinthal, he rose superior to the narrower ideals of the German Jews, and took a leading place in German literature and thought.

The gates of Jerusalem were opened to him and he left the Jews in peaceful occupation.

Leo showed special favours to the Jews and permitted them to erect a Hebrew printing-press at Rome.

He also largely employed Jews and Ishmaelites,' the financial specialists of the day, whom he rewarded with lands and titles.

But he did not forget his favourite work of ferreting out heretics; and his ministers of the faith made great progress over all the kingdom, especially at Toledo, where merciless severity was shown to the Jews who had lapsed from Christianity.

But this was not enough for the inquisitor-general, who in the following month (April) issued orders to forbid Christians, under severe penalties, having any communication with the Jews or, -after the period of grace, to supply them even with the necessaries of life.

The serfs, whose wrongs seldom attracted notice in an age indifferent to the claims of common humanity, found a friend in this severe monarch, and he protected even the despised and persecuted Jews.

He borrowed large sums from bankers, curials, princes and Jews.

The Ibn Tibbon family thus rendered conspicuous services to European culture, and did much to further among Jews who did not understand Arabic the study of science and philosophy.

But Samuel's fame rests on the service which he rendered in adapting the life of the Jews of the diaspora to the law of the land.

Pop. (1900), 141,131; (1905), 162,607 (of whom about 70,000 are Roman Catholics and 6000 Jews).

The indifference of the Jews to the desolate conditions of their sanctuary opens up a problem of some difficulty.

Apart from the weighty objections that the Edomites would have frustrated such a recrudescence of the remnant Jews as has been described, it must be remembered that the main stream of Jewish life and thought had been diverted to Babylon.

Thence, when the opportunity came under Cyrus, some 50,000 Jews, the spiritual heirs of the best elements of the old Israel, returned to found the new community.

These events shook the whole Persian empire; Babylon and other subject states rose in revolt, and to the Jews it seemed that Persia was tottering and that the Messianic era was nigh.

The Jews would have thought that He had returned to Sinai, the holy mountain; and that they were deprived of the temporal blessings which were the gifts of a God who literally dwelt in the midst of his people."

Probably the recognition and appointment of elders was simply the transfer from the synagogue to the Church of a usage which was regarded as essential among Jews; and the Gentile churches naturally followed the example of the Jewish Christians.

The latter resolved to devote the rest of his life to the emancipation of the Jews.

This work (1783) constituted Mendelssohn the Luther of the German Jews.

Some of the conservatives among the Jews opposed these innovations, but the current of progress was too strong for them.

The number of Protestants may be estimated at about 600,000 and the Jews at about 70,000.

The greatest number of Jews is to be found at Paris, Lyons and Bordeaux, while the departments of the centre and of the south along the range of the Cvennes, where Calvinism flourishes, are the principal Protestant localities, Nimes being the most important centre.

After the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem by Nehemiah, a considerable number of Jews returned to the city, but we know practically nothing of its history for more than a century until, in 332 B.C., Alexander the Great conquered Syria.

The oppression of Antiochus led to a revolt of the Jews under the leadership of the Maccabees, and Judas Maccabaeus succeeded in capturing Jerusalem after severe fighting, but could not get The sites shown on the plan are tentative, and cannot be regarded as certain; see Nehemiah ii.

Amongst the more important buildings for ecclesiastical and philanthropic purposes erected to the north of the city since 1860 are the Russian cathedral, hospice and hospital; the French hospital of St Louis, and hospice and church of St Augustine; the German schools, orphanages and hospitals; the new hospital and industrial school of the London mission to the Jews; the Abyssinian church; the church and schools of the Church missionary society; the Anglican church, college and bishop's house; the Dominican monastery, seminary and church of St Stephen; the Rothschild hospital and girls' school; and the industrial school and workshops of the Alliance Israelite.

The population in 1905 was about 60,000 (Moslems 7000, Christians 13,000, Jews 40,000).

The estimated population is about 12,000, of whom ii,000 are Kurds, and the majority of the remaining 1000 Jews.

The population of the island comprises 7000 Moslems, 21,000 Christians, and 2000 Jews.

As in the other Saxon duchies the population is almost exclusively Protestant; in 1905, 262,243 belonged to the Lutheran confession, 4845 were Roman Catholics and 1256 Jews.

Although the first definite endeavour to locate the Golden Chersonese thus dates from the middle of the 2nd century of our era, the name was apparently well known to the learned of Europe at a somewhat earlier period, and in his Antiquities of the Jews, written during the latter half of the 1st century, Josephus says that Solomon gave to the pilots furnished to him by Hiram of Tyre commands " that they should go along with his stewards to the land that of old was called Ophir, but now the Aurea Chersonesus, which belongs to India, to fetch gold."

There is also a lycee in which the instruction is similar to that given in France, and in which Christians, Jews and Mahommedans are educated together.

French residents numbered 50,996, naturalized Frenchmen Spaniards 12,354, Italians 7368, Maltese 865, and other Europeans (chiefly British and Germans) 1652, besides 12,490 Jews.

Cromwell's strong personal inclination towards toleration is clearly seen in his treatment of the Jews and Quakers.

In 1900 it had a population of 11,781, of whom 8878 were French-speaking, while there were 8277 Protestants to 3424 Romanists and 56 Jews.

But while the majority of the deputies, were nominally in favor of the bill, the parliamentary committee reported against it, and public opinion was so hostile that an anti-divorce petition received 3,500,000 signatures, including not only those of professing Catholics, but of free-thinkers and Jews, who regarded divorce as unsuitable to Italian conditions.

Now for a short time the document leaves the great questions at issue between the king and the barons, and two chapters are devoted to protecting the people generally against the exactions of the Jews.

Among the philosophic Jews, the Spanish Avicebron, in his Fons Vitae, expounds a curious doctrine of emanation.

His ritual and mysteries (Sacra Savadia) gained a firm footing in Rome during the 2nd century A.D., although as early as 139 B.C. the first Jews who settled in the capital were expelled by virtue of a law which proscribed the propagation of the cult of Jupiter Sabazius.

With the Jews of Cochin, they represent a very ancient Judaic invasion of India, and are to be entirely distinguished from those Jews who have come to India in modern days for purposes of trade.

Certainly the asceticism and ritualism might so be interpreted, for there was among the Jews of the Dispersion an increasing tendency to asceticism, by way of protest against the excesses of the Gentiles.

The Moors being vanquished, now came the turn of the Jews.

In 1490 had happened the case of El Santo nino de la Guardia - a child supposed to have been killed by the Jews.

Together with Szilagyi, the Minister of Justice, Csaky was one of the most decided champions of obligatory civil marriage and of the rights of the Jews.

In catalogues and bibliographies, however, the expression is now generally used, conveniently if incorrectly, as synonymous with Jewish literature, including all works written by Jews in Hebrew characters, whether the language be Aramaic, Arabic or even some vernacular not related to Hebrew.

The Apocry- Torah, the Law delivered to Moses, held among the Jews of the 4th century B.C. as it holds now, a pre eminent position.

The Jews have always been, however, an intensely literary people, and the books ultimately accepted as canonical were only a selection from the literature in existence at the beginning of the Christian era.

Africa were in close relation with those of Spain, and as early as the beginning of the 9th century Judah ben Quraish of Tahort had composed his Risalah (letter) to the Jews of Fez on grammatical subjects from a comparative point of view, and a dictionary now lost.

Meanwhile the literary activity of the Jews in Spain had its effect on those of France.

The fact that many of the most important works were written in Arabic, the vernacular of the Spanish Jews under the Moors, which was not understood in France, gave rise to a number of translations into Hebrew, chiefly by the family of Ibn Tibbon (or Tabbon).

Patriotic efforts are made to encourage the use of Hebrew both for writing and speaking, but the continued existence of it as a literary language depends on the direction in which the future history of the Jews will develop.

There were the conquerors themselves; there were the Italians, in Sicily known as Lombards, who followed in their wake; there were also the Jews, whom they may have found in the island, or who may have followed the Norman into Sicily, as they certainly followed him into England.

Pop. (1900), 34,188, of which half were Jews.

On the other hand, Christians and Jews are pretty well agreed on natural theology; so the New Testament tends to take its theism for granted.

The Jews, less bitterly opposed to Mahommedanism than the Christians were, caught fire more rapidly, and in some cases served as an intermediate link or channel of communication.

Moslems and Jews were applying Aristotelian philosophy to rigorously monotheistic faiths; Christianity had been encouraged by Platonism in teaching a trinity of divine persons, and Platonism of a certain order long dominated the middle ages as part of the Augustinian tradition.

When, then, Basilides identified the highest angel of the seven, the creator of the worlds, with the God of the Jews, this is a development of the idea which did not occur until late, possibly first in the specifically Christian circles of the Gnostics.

Ritual flagellation existed among the Jews, and, according to Buxtorf (Synagoga judaica, Basel, 1603), was one of the ceremonies of the day of the Great Pardon.

On several occasions they incited the populations of the towns through which they passed against the Jews, and also against the monks who opposed their propaganda.

The population, of which more than twothirds are Bulgarians, and about one-sixth Spanish Jews, was 20,501 in 1881, 30,428 in 1888, 46,593 in 1893 and 82,187 in 1907.

By far the greater part of these were Jews.

The Semitic race is represented by upwards of 5,000,000 Jews.

In many towns most of the skilled labourers and a great many of the unskilled (for instance, the grain-porters at Odessa and elsewhere) are Jews.

Little and Great Russians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Germans, Greeks, Frenchmen, Poles, Tatars and Jews are mingled together and scattered about in small colonies, especially in Bessarabia.

In theory all religions may be freely professed, except that certain restrictions, such as domicile,' are laid upon the Jews; but in actual fact the dissenting sects are more or less severely treated.

At Lodz alone the workmen, in great part Germans and Jews, number between 50,000 and 60,000, and the total output of the factories is estimated at £9,000,000 to £10,500,000 annually.

Jews, and elsewhere Russians,-to whom the peasants are for the most part in debt, as they purchase in advance on security of subsequent payments in corn, tar, wooden wares, &c. A good deal of the internal trade is carried on by travelling merchants.

In Finland the population is composed of Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking Protestants; the Baltic provinces are inhabited by German-speaking, Lettspeaking and Esth-speaking Lutherans; the inhabitants of the south-western provinces are chiefly Polish-speaking Roman Catholics and Yiddish-speaking Jews; in the Crimea and on the Middle Volga there are a considerable number of Tatarspeaking Mahommedans; and in the Caucasus there is a conglomeration of races and languages such as is to be found on no other portion of the earth's surface.

Of all the various races the Jews were the most severely treated.

But, partly from the usual laxity of the administration and partly from the readiness of the Jews to conciliate the needy officials, the rules had been by no means strictly applied.

Of the middle class, moreover, a large proportion were Jews and Germans.

The " black band " (chernaya sotnia), or " black hundreds," as they were branded by public opinion, directed their attacks especially against the Jews, and pogroms,' i.e.

Among the Jews the preaching of the prophets had been a constant protest against the grosser forms of sacrifice, and there are indications that when Christianity arose bloody sacrifices were already beginning to fall into disuse; a saying which was attributed by the Ebionites to Christ repeats this protest in a strong form, "I.

But among the Jews two other forms of the idea expressed themselves in usages which have been perpetuated in Christianity, and one of which has had a singular importance for the Christian world.

In the first instance it is probable that among Christians, as among Jews, every meal, and especially every social meal, was regarded as being in some sense a thank-offering.

Plato advocated them, and perhaps the later Jews imitated the Spartan community.

The religion of the Hebrew race - properly the Jews - now enters on a new stage, for it should be observed that it was Amos, Isaiah and Micah - prophets of Judah - who laid the actual foundations.

This victory inaugurates the entrance of the " aeon to come," in which the faithful Jews would enter their inheritance.

Corresponding to heaven, the abode of the righteous, we have Ge-henna (originally Ge-Hinnom, the scene of the Moloch rites of human sacrifice), the place of punishment after death for apostate Jews.

Pop. (1860) 23,761; (1897) 35,177, of whom one-half were Jews.

Pop. (1866) 31,779, (1900) 33,607, comprising Great and Little Russians, Bulgarians, Jews and Gipsies.

In the light of contemporary monuments, archaeological evidence, the progress of scientific knowledge and the recognized methods of modern historical criticism, the representation of the origin of mankind and of the history of the Jews in the Old Testament can no longer be implicitly accepted.

They lived in comparative quietude; although Herodotus knows the Palestinian coast he does not mention the Jews.

Although Palestine had not been depopulated, and many of the exiled Jews remained in Persia, the standpoint is that of those who returned from Babylon.

Some of the Jews had married women of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab, and the impetuous governor indignantly adjured them to desist from a practice which was the historic cause of national sin.

At a time when all nationalities, and at the same time all bonds of religion and national customs, were beginning to be broken up in the seeming cosmos and real chaos of the Graeco-Roman Empire, the Jews stood out like a rock in the midst of the ocean.

And if the work of criticism has brought a fuller appreciation of the value of these facts, the debt which is owed to the Jews is enhanced when one proceeds to realize the immense difficulties against which those who transmitted the Old Testament had to contend in the period of Greek domination.

Whether the master of the provinces, in which there were Jews, be an Alexander, a Ptolemy, a Seleucid or a Roman, the force by which he rules is the force of Greek culture.

The ancient historians, who together cover this period, are strangely indifferent to the importance of the Jews, upon which Josephus is at pains to insist.

His successors, the Diadochi, carried on his work, but Antiochus Epiphanes was the first who deliberately took in hand to deal with the Jews.

In Egypt, moreover, in Babylon and in Persia individual Jews had responded to the influences of their environment and won the respect of the aliens whom they despised.

In Arrian's narrative of Alexander's exploits, whose fame had already faded before the greater glory of Rome, there is no mention of the visit or the city or the Jews.

But it has a value of its own inasmuch as it illustrates the permanent tendencies which mould the history of the Jews.

But it is not clear that he had such need of the Jews or such regard for the Temple of Jerusalem that he should turn aside on his way to Egypt for such a purpose.

It is reported that philosophers are called Calani among the Indians and Jews among the Syrians.

The Jews take their name from their place of abode, which is called Judaea.

Megasthenes also describes the Jews as the philosophers of Syria and couples them with the Brahmins of India.

The sequel shows how a Jew might rise to power in the civil service of the Egyptian Empire and yet remain a hero to some of the Jews - provided that he did not intermarry with a Gentile.

But while such men went out into the world and brought back wealth of one kind or another to Palestine, other Jews were content to make their homes in foreign parts.

He seems to regard this body of literature as the answer to the charge that the Jews had contributed nothing useful for human life.

After the defeat of Scopas, Antiochus gained Batanaea and Samaria and Abila and Gadara, and a little later those of the Jews who live round the Temple called Jerusalem adhered to him."

From this it appears that the pro-Syrian faction of the Jews had been strong and active enough to bring an Egyptian army upon them (199-198 B.C.).

This act of oppression presumably strengthened the Syrian faction of the Jews and led to the transference of the nation's allegiance.

His defeat left the resources of his kingdom exhausted and its extent diminished; and so the Jews became important to his successors for the sake of their wealth and their position on the frontier.

The pro-Syrian faction of the Palestinian Jews found their opportunity in this emergency and informed the governor of Coele-Syria that the treasury in Jerusalem contained untold sums of money.

The priests deserted the Temple for the palaestra and the young nobles wore the Greek cap. The Jews of Jerusalem were enrolled as citizens of Antioch.

Whether led by this Mattathias or not, certain Jews fled into the wilderness and found a leader in Judas Maccabaeus his reputed son, the first of the five Asmonean (Hasmonean) brethren.

Antiochus was occupied with his Parthian campaign and trusted that the Hellenized Jews would maintain their ascendancy with the aid of the provincial troops.

Such hints as these indicate the impossibility of recovering a complete picture of the Jews during the sovereignty of the Greeks, which the Talmudists regard as the dark age, best left in oblivion.

Judas avenged them by burning the harbour and the shipping, and set to work to bring into Judaea all such communities of Jews who had kept themselves separate from their heathen neighbours.

Jakim, whose name outside religion was Alcimus, waited upon the new king on behalf of the loyal Jews who had hellenized.

Soon it came to his knowledge that Judas was in Samaria, whither he followed him on a sabbath with Jews pressed into his service.

Simon was thus left to consolidate what had been won in Palestine for the Jews and the family whose head he had become.

In the hundred and seventieth year (142 B.C.) the yoke of the heathen was taken away from Israel and the people began to date their legal documents "in the first year of Simon the great high priest and commander and leader of the Jews."

Simon was declared by the Jews and the priests their governor and high priest for ever, until there should arise a faithful prophet.

The only hope of the Jews lay in the clemency of their victorious suzerain, and it did not fail them.

He destroyed the temple of Gerizim and compelled the Idumaeans to submit to circumcision and embrace the laws of the Jews on pain of deportation.

According to Strabo he was a courteous man and in many ways useful to the Jews.

But Cleopatra's generals were Jews and by their protests prevented her from annexing it.

Alexander summoned his mercenaries, and 6000 Jews were killed before he set out on his disastrous campaign against an Arabian king.

But when the Syrians chased him into the mountains, 6000 Jews went over to him and, with their aid, he put down the rebellion.

Eight hundred Jews who had held a fortress against him were crucified; 8000 Pharisees fled to Egypt and remained there.

Against their natural desire for revenge may be set the fact that the Pharisees did much to improve the status of women among the Jews.

Pompey deferred his decision until he should have inquired into the state of the Nabataeans, who had shown themselves to be capable of dominating the Jews in the absence of the Roman army.

And there were Jews among the murderers of the 12,000 Jews who fell.

The Jews of Palestine thus became once more a subject state, stripped of their conquests and confined to their own borders.

Crassus, who succeeded him, plundered the Temple of its gold and the treasure (54 B.C.) which the Jews of the dispersion had contributed for its maintenance.

Some of the Jews, presumably the partisans of Aristobulus, were ready to co-operate with the Parthians.

He carried with him the Arabs and the princes of Syria, and through Hyrcanus he was able to transform the hostility of the Egyptian Jews into active friendliness.

Further, as confederates of the senate and people of Rome, the Jews had received accession of territory, including the port of Joppa and, with other material privileges, the right of observing their religious customs not only in Palestine but also in Alexandria and elsewhere.

The most reputable of the Jews fled to Egypt; but Onias, a righteous man and dear to God, who had hidden himself, was discovered by the besiegers.

So he prayed - and the wicked Jews stoned him.

Unrighteous Jews were in the ascendant.

When Antony assumed the dominion of the East after the defeat of Cassius at Philippi, an embassy of the Jews, amongst other embassies, approached him in Bithynia and accused the sons of Antipater as usurpers of the power which rightly belonged' to Hyrcanus.

So he could no more be high priest, and his life was spared only at the intercession of the Parthian Jews, who had a regard for the Asmonean prince.

From this point to the end of the period the Jews were dependents of Rome, free to attend to their own affairs, so long as they paid taxes to the subordinate rulers, Herodian or Roman, whom they detested equally.

This was so even in Palestine - the land which the Jews hoped to possess - and in Jerusalem itself, the holy city, in which the Temple stood.

Through them the experience of the dispersion was brought to bear upon the Palestinian Jews.

He was also ready and able to protect the Jews of the dispersion.

At last the law-abiding Jews might and must assert the majesty of the outraged Law.

On the death of Herod in 4 B.C. Archelaus kept open house for mourners as the Jewish custom, which reduced many Jews to beggary, prescribed.

Most notable of all perhaps was the shepherd Athronges, who assumed the pomp of royalty and employed his four brothers as captains and satraps in the war which he waged upon Romans and king's men alike - not even Jews escaped him unless they brought him contributions.

His subjects included only a sprinkling of Jews.

In violation of the Law he married a brother's widow, who had already borne children, and in general he showed himself so fierce and tyrannical that the Jews joined with the Samaritans to accuse him before the emperor.

So the Jews of Judaea obtained the settlement for which they had pleaded at the death of Herod; and some of them beg2 n to regret it at once.

So long as the Law was not deliberately outraged and so long as the worship was established, most of the religious leaders of the Jews were content to wait.

In Galilee the Jews predominated over the heathen and their ruler Herod Antipas had some sort of claim upon their allegiance.

If the Fourth Gospel is to be trusted, John had already recognized and acclaimed Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah for whom the Jews were looking.

It was, therefore, during the reign of Antipas, and partly if not wholly within his territory, that the Gospel was first preached by the rabbi or prophet whom Christendom came to regard as the one true Christ, the Messiah of the Jews.

Josephus' history of the Jews contains accounts of John the Baptist and Jesus, the authenticity of which has been called in question for plausible but not entirely convincing reasons.

However this may be, the Jews who believed Jesus to be the Christ play no great part in the history of the Jews before 70, as we know it.

Many religious teachers and many revolutionaries were crucified within this period; and the early Christians were outwardly distinguished from other Jews only by their scrupulous observance of religious duties.

Of the Jews under his predecessors little enough is known.

On learning of this, the Jews repaired to Caesarea and besought Pilate to remove these offensive images.

The vestments had been stored there since the time of the first high priest named Hyrcanus, and Herod had taken them over along with the tower, thinking that his possession of them would deter the Jews from rebellion against his rule.

But it is quite clear that Vitellius was concerned to reconcile the Jews to the authority of Rome.

When he marched against Aretas, his army with their standards did not enter Judaea at all; but he himself went up to Jerusalem for the feast and, on receipt of the news that Tiberius was dead, administered to the Jews the oath of allegiance to Caligula.

The Jews in particular had a friend at court.

In the provinces and even in Italy his subjects were ready to acknowledge his divinity - with the sole exception of the Jews.

So we learn something of the Palestinian Jews and more of the Jewish community in Alexandria.

The great world (as we know it) took small note of Judaism even when Jews converted its women to their faith; but now the Jews as a nation refused to bow before the present god of the civilized world.

The people of Alexandria seized the opportunity for an attack upon the Jews.

Images of Caligula were set up in the synagogues, an edict deprived the Jews of their rights as citizens, and finally the governor authorized the mob to sack the Jewish quarter, as if it had been a conquered city (38).

The people and the Jews remained in a state of civil war, until each side sent an embassy (40) to wait upon the emperor.

Claudius, the new emperor, restored the civic rights of the Alexandrian Jews and made Agrippa I.

The Jews prayed for his recovery and lamented him, The Gentile soldiers exulted in the downfall of his dynasty, which they signalized after their own fashion.

Under Ventidius Cumanus (48-52) the mutual hatred of Jews and Romans, Samaritans and Jews, found vent in insults and bloodshed.

At this the Jews flocked to Caesarea, and were only restrained from a second outbreak by the execution of the soldier.

Cumanus was bribed and refused to avenge the death of the Jews who were killed.

So the Galileans with some of the lower classes of " the Jews " allied themselves with a " robber " and burned some of the Samaritan villages.

The emperor Was still disposed to conciliate the Jews; and, at the instance of Agrippa, son of Agrippa I., Cumanus was banished.

The Jews claimed that the city was theirs, because King Herod had founded it.

On one occasion Felix sent troops against the victorious Jews; but neither this nor the scourge and the prison, to which the leaders of both factions had been consigned, deterred them.

The result of this decision was that the synagogue at Caesarea was insulted on a Sabbath and the Jews left the city taking their books of the Law with them.

At this the patience of the Jews was exhausted.

Florus actually dared to scourge and crucify Jews who belonged to the Roman order of knights.

For the moment the Jews were cowed, and next day they went submissively to greet the troops coming from Caesarea.

The Jews laid complaint against him, and he complained against the Jews before the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, who sent an officer to inquire into the matter.

In the course of his retreat he was attacked by the Jews and fled to Antioch, leaving them his engines of war.

Some prominent Jews fled from Jerusalem - as from a sinking ship - to join him and carried the news to the emperor.

Steadily the Romans forced their way through wall after wall, until the Jews were driven back to the Temple and the daily sacrifices came to an end on the 17th of July for lack of men.

According to Josephus, Titus decided to spare the Temple, but - whether this was so or not - on the 10th of August it was fired by a soldier after a sortie of the Jews had been repelled.

The Jews, wherever they might be, continued to pay the temple-tax; but now it was devoted to Jupiter Capitolinus.

Thenceforward the remnant of the Jews who survived the fiery ordeal formed a church rather than a nation or a state, and the Pharisees exercised an unchallenged supremacy.

Only the teachers of the Law survived to direct the nation and to teach those who remained loyal Jews, how they should render to Caesar what belonged to Caesar, and to God what belonged to God.

Already the Jews of the Dispersion had learned to supplement the Temple by the synagogue, and even the Jews of Jerusalem had not been free to spend their lives in the worship of the Temple.

Apart from these local outbreaks, the Jews throughout the empire remained loyal citizens and were not molested.

Under Vespasian and Titus the Jews enjoyed freedom of conscience and equal political rights with non-Jewish subjects of Rome.

The temple-tax was strictly exacted; Jews who lived the Jewish life without openly confessing their religion and Jews who concealed their nationality were brought before the magistrates.

Indeed it would seem that Domitian instituted a persecution of the Jews, to which Nerva his successor put an end.

Towards the end of Trajan's reign (114-117) the Jews of Egypt and Cyrene rose against their Greek neighbours and set up a king.

The rebellion spread to Cyprus; and when Trajan advanced from Mesopotamia into Parthia the Jews of Mesopotamia revolted.

In 132 the Jews of Palestine rebelled again.

Apart from these bitter provocations - the prohibition of the sign of the covenant and the desecration of the sacred place - the Jews had a leader who was recognized as Messiah by the rabbi Aqiba.

Some attempt was apparently made to rebuild the Temple; and the Jews of the Dispersion, who had perhaps been won over by Aqiba, supported the rebellion.

The Jews were forbidden to enter the new city of Jerusalem on pain of death.

Exception has been taken to a certain lack of sympathy with the Jews, especially the rabbis, which has been detected in the author.

The holy city was barred against the Jews; they were excluded, under pain of death, from approaching within view of the walls.

Hadrian's policy in this respect was matched later on by the edict of the caliph Omar (c. 638), who, like his Roman prototype, prevented the Jews from settling in the capital of their ancient country.

Roman law was by no means intolerant to the Jews.

A similar penalty attached to intermarriage between Jews and Christians, and an attempt was made to nullify all Jewish marriages which were not celebrated in accordance with Roman law.

Jews were by the law of Honorius excluded from the army, from public offices and dignities (418), from acting as advocates (425); only the curial offices were open to them.

Justinian gave the finishing touch by proclaiming in 537 the Jews absolutely ineligible for any honour whatsoever (" honore fruantur nullo ").

The Babylonian Jews were practically independent, and the exilarch (reshgalutha) or prince of the captivity was an official who ruled the community as a vassal of the Persian throne.

To Samuel of Nehardea belongs the honour of formulating the principle which made it possible for Jews to live under alien laws.

The Church, it is true, in council after council, passed decisions unfriendly to the Jews.

The caliph Omar initiated in the 7th century a code which required Christians and Jews to wear peculiar dress, denied them the right to hold state offices or to possess land, inflicted a poll-tax on them, and while forbidding them to enter mosques, refused them the permission to build new places of worship for themselves.

The medieval Jews on the whole lived, under the crescent, a fuller and freer life than was possible to them under the cross.

But the dispersion of the Jews was proceeding in directions which carried masses from the Asiatic inland to the Mediterranean coasts and to Europe.

There were Jews in the Byzantine empire, in Rome, in France and Spain at very early periods, but it is with the Arab conquest of Spain that the Jews of Europe began to rival in culture and importance their brethren of the Persian gaonate.

Before this date the Jews had been learning the rOle they afterwards filled, that of the chief promoters of international commerce.

Already under Charlemagne this development is noticeable; in his generous treatment of the Jews this Christian emperor stood in marked contrast to his contemporary the caliph Harun al-Rashid, who persecuted Jews and Christians with equal vigour.

The Jews of Spain attained to high places in the service of the state from the time of the Moorish conquest in 711.

From Hasdai ibn Shaprut in the 10th century and Samuel the nagid in the 11th the line of Jewish scholar-statesmen continued till we reach Isaac Abrabanel in 1492, the date of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

But the reconquest of Andalusia by the Christians associated towards the end of the 15th century with the establishment of the Inquisition, introduced a spirit of intolerance which led to the expulsion of the Jews and Moors.

Under Charlemagne, the Jews, who had begun to settle in Gaul in the time of Caesar, were more than tolerated.

In Germany at the same period the feudal system debarred the Jews from holding land, and though there was as yet no material persecution they suffered moral injury by being driven exclusively into finance and trade.

But in England, France and Germany persecution altogether failed to shake the courage of the Jews, and martyrdom was borne in preference to ostensible apostasy.

The crusades subjected the Jews to this ordeal.

In 1096 massacres of Jews occurred in many cities of the Rhineland.

The third crusade, famous for the participation of Richard I., was the occasion for bloody riots in England, especially in York, where 150 Jews immolated themselves to escape baptism.

Economically and socially the crusades had disastrous effects upon the Jews.

After the second crusade the German Jews fell into the class of servi camerae, which at first only implied that they enjoyed the immunity of imperial servants, but afterwards made of them slaves and pariahs.

Popular animosity was kindled by the enforced participation of the Jews in public disputations.

Such vicissitudes were the ordinary lot of the Jews for several centuries, and it was their own inner life - the pure life of the home, the idealism of the synagogue, and the belief in ultimate Messianic redemption - that saved them from utter demoralization and despair.

In the early 14th century, the age of Dante, the new spirit of the Renaissance made Italian rulers the patrons of art and literature, and the Jews to some extent shared in this gracious change.

Robert of Aragonvicar-general of the papal states - in particular encouraged the Jews and supported them in their literary and scientific ambitions.

Following on this came the Black Death with its terrible consequences in Germany; even in Poland, where the Jews had previously enjoyed considerable rights, extensive massacres took place.

Restrictions on their occupations were everywhere common, and as the Church forbade Christians to engage in usury, this was the only trade open to the Jews.

The excessive demands made upon the Jews forbade a fair rate of interest.

Hence, though this procedure made the Jews intensely obnoxious to the peoples, they became all the more necessary to the rulers.

A favourite form of tolerance was to grant a permit to the Jews to remain in the state for a limited term of years; their continuance beyond the specified time was illegal and they were therefore subject to sudden banishment.

Thus a second expulsion of the Jews of France occurred in 1394.

The Jews suffered in the persecution that followed, and in 1420 all the Austrian Jews were thrown into prison.

The Inquisition in Spain led to the expulsion of the Jews (1492), and this event involved not only the latter but the whole of the Jewish people.

The same century was not ended before the prospect of liberty dawned on the Jews.

Many Jews, who had been compelled to conceal their faith, now came into the open.

By the middle of the 17th century the Jews of Holland had become of such importance that Charles II.

The Jews had been expelled from England by Edward I., after a sojourn in the country of rather more than two centuries, during which they had been the licensed and oppressed money-lenders of the realm, and had - through the special exchequer of the Jews - been used by the sovereign as a means of extorting a revenue from his subjects.

In the 17th century a considerable number of Jews had made a home in the English colonies, where from the first they enjoyed practically equal Tights with the Christian settlers.

Cromwell, upon the inconclusive termination of the conference summoned in 1655 at Whitehall to consider the Jewish question, tacitly assented to the return of the Jews to this country, and at the restoration his action was confirmed.

Finally the city of London - not only as the converted champion of religious liberty but as the convinced apologist of the Jews - sent Baron Lionel de Rothschild to knock at the door of the unconverted House of Commons as parliamentary representative of the first city in the world " (Wolf, loc. cit.).

The pioneers of this emancipation in Holland and England were Sephardic (or Spanish) Jews - descendants of the Spanish exiles.

In the meantime the Ashkenazic (or German) Jews had been working out their own salvation.

The condition of the European Jews seems, on a superficial examination, abject enough.

In the " dark ages " Jews enjoyed neither rights nor privileges; in the 18th century they were still without rights but they had privileges.

A grotesque feature of the time in Germany and Austria was the class of court Jews, such as the Oppenheims, the personal favourites of rulers and mostly their victims when their usefulness had ended.

While the court Jews were the favourites of kings, the protected Jews were the protégés of town councils.

Corruption is the frequent concomitant of privilege, and thus the town councils often connived for a price at the presence in their midst of Jews whose admission was illegal.

Many Jews found it possible to evade laws of domicile by residing in one place and trading in another.

The Sephardic Jews in all these respects occupied a superior position, and they merited the partiality shown to them.

Another cause may be sought in the Cossack assaults on the Jews at an earlier period.

Crowds of wanderers were to be met on every road; Germany, Holland and Italy were full of Jews who, pack on shoulder, were seeking a precarious livelihood at a time when peddling was neither lucrative nor safe.

This Austrian reformation was so typical of other changes elsewhere, and so expressive of the previous disabilities of the Jews, that, even in this rapid summary, space must be spared for some of the details supplied by Graetz.

The Leibzoll (body-tax) was also abolished, in addition to the special law-taxes, the passport duty, the nightduty and all similiar imposts which had stamped the Jews as outcast, for they were now (Dec. 19) to have equal rights with the Christian inhabitants."

The Jews were not, indeed, granted complete citizenship, and their residence and public worship in Vienna and other Austrian cities were circumscribed and even penalized.

The emperor even permitted Jewish wholesale merchants, notables and their sons, to wear swords (January 2, 1782), and especially insisted that Christians should behave in a friendly manner towards Jews."

His miracles were reported and eagerly believed everywhere; " from Poland, Hamburg and Amsterdam treasures poured into his court; in the Levant young men and maidens prophesied before him; the Persian Jews refused to till the fields.

It is truer to say that on the whole the Jews began at this period to abandon as hopeless the attempt to find a place for themselves in the general life of their country.

At the age of fourteen he found his way to Berlin, where Frederick the Great, inspired by the spirit of Voltaire, held the maxim that " to oppress the Jews never brought prosperity to any government."

Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch into German with a new commentary by himself and others introduced the Jews to more modern ways of thinking.

Though the decisions of this body had no binding force on the Jews generally, yet in some important particulars its decrees represent principles widely adopted by the Jewish community.

They assert the citizenship and patriotism of Jews, their determination to accommodate themselves to the present as far as they could while retaining loyalty to the past.

The French assembly did not succeed in obtaining formal assent to these decisions (except from Frankfort and Holland), but they gained the practical adhesion of the majority of Western and American Jews.

And first as to Italy, where the Jews in a special degree have identified themselves with the national life.

The revolutions of 1848, which greatly affected the position of the Jews in several parts of Europe, brought considerable gain to the Jews of Italy.

The Italian Jews devoted themselves with ardour to the service of the state.

From Italy we may turn to the country which so much influenced Italian politics, Austria, which had founded the system of " Court Jews " in 1518, had expelled the Jews from Vienna as late as 1670, when the synagogue of that city was converted into a church.

But economic laws are often too strong for civil vagaries or sectarian fanaticism, and as the commerce of Austria suffered by the absence of the Jews, it was impossible to exclude the latter from the fairs in the provinces of from the markets of the capital.

As has been pointed out above, certain protected Jews were permitted to reside in places where the expulsion of the Jews had been decreed.

To pay for rendering inoperative the banishment edict of 1744, the Jews were taxed 3,000,000 florins annually for ten years.

In the same year it was decreed that the Jews should pay " a special tax of 40,000 florins for the right to import their citrons for the feast of booths."

Soon after his accession he abolished the distinctive Jewish dress, abrogated the poll-tax, admitted the Jews to military service and their children to the public schools, and in general opened the era of emancipation by the Toleranzpatent of 1782.

Agriculture was again barred; indeed the Vienna congress of 1815 practically restored the old discriminations against the Jews.

As time went on, a more progressive policy intervened, the special form of Jewish oath was abolished in 1846, and in 1848, as a result of the revolutionary movement in which Jews played an active part, legislation took a more liberal turn.

Many Jews have been members of the Reichsrath, some have risen to the rank of general in the army, and Austrian Jews have contributed their quota to learning, the arts and literature.

The Jews of Hungary shared with their brethren in Austria the same alternations of expulsion and recall.

By the law " De Judaeis " passed by the Diet in 1791 the Jews were accorded protection, but half a century passed before their tolerated condition was regularized.

During the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, the Jews suffered severely in Hungary, but as many as 20,000 Jews are said to have joined the army.

The Hungarian Jews did not consider themselves fully emancipated until the Synagogue was " duly recognized as one of the legally acknowledged religions of the country."

In Spain there has been of late a more liberal attitude towards the Jews, and there is a small congregation (without a public synagogue) in Madrid.

Portugal, on the other hand, having abolished the Inquisition in 1821, has since 1826 allowed Jews freedom of religion, and there are synagogues in Lisbon and Faro.

In Holland the Jews were admitted to political liberty in 1796.

At present more than half of the Dutch Jews are concentrated in Amsterdam, being largely engaged in the diamond and tobacco trades.

Belgium granted full freedom to the Jews in 1815, and the community has since 1808 been organized on the state consistorial system, which till recently also prevailed in France.

It was not till 1874 that full religious equality was granted to the Jews of Switzerland.

In Sweden the Jews have all the rights which are open to non-Lutherans; they cannot become members of the council of state.

Denmark has for long been distinguished for its liberal policy towards the Jews.

Many Copenhagen Jews achieved distinction as manufacturers, merchants and bankers, and among famous Jewish men of letters may be specially named Georg Brandes.

The story of the Jews in Russia and Rumania remains a black spot on the European record.

In Russia the Jews are more numerous and more harshly treated than in any other part of the world.

Despite a huge emigration of Jews from Russia, the congestion within the pale is the cause of terrible destitution and misery.

Many other pogroms have occurred, and the condition of the Jews has been reduced to one of abject poverty and despair.

Yet in spite of these disabilities there are amongst the Russian Jews many enterprising contractors, skilful doctors, and successful lawyers and scientists.

In Rumania, despite the Berlin Treaty, the Jews are treated as aliens, and but a small number have been naturalized.

In the Orient the condition of the Jews has been much improved by the activity of Western organizations, of which something is said in a later paragraph.

Turkey has always on the whole tolerated the Jews, and much is hoped from the new regime.

In Morocco the Jews, who until late in the 19th century were often persecuted, are still confined to a mellah (separate quarter), but at the coast-towns there are prosperous Jewish communities mostly engaged in commerce.

In other parts of the same continent, in Egypt and in South Africa, many Jews have settled, participating in all industrial and financial pursuits.

Recently a mission has been sent to the Falashas of Abyssinia, and much interest has been felt in such outlying branches of the Jewish people as the Black Jews of Cochin and the Bene Israel community of Bombay.

In Persia Jews are often the victims of popular outbursts as well as of official extortion, but there are fairly prosperous communities at Bushire, Isfahan, Teheran and Kashan (in Shiraz they are in low estate).

The recent advent of constitutional government may improve the condition of the Jews.

The Jews came to England at least as early as the Norman Conquest; they were expelled from Bury St Edmunds in 1190, after the massacres at the coronation of Richard I.; they were required to wear badges in 1218.

At the end of the 12th century was established the " exchequer of the Jews," which chiefly dealt with suits concerning money-lending, and arranged a " continual flow of money from the Jews to the royal treasury," and a so-called " parliament of the Jews " was summoned in 1241; in 1275 was enacted the statute de Judaismo which, among other things, permitted the Jews to hold land.

But this concession was illusory, and as the statute prevented Jews from engaging in finance - the only occupation which had been open to them - it was a prelude to their expulsion in 1290.

There were few Jews in England from that date till the Commonwealth, but Jews settled in the American colonies earlier in the 17th century, and rendered considerable services in the advancement of English commerce.

The Whitehall conference of 1655 marks a change in the status of the Jews in England itself, for though no definite results emerged it was clearly defined by the judges that there was no legal obstacle to the return of the Jews.

No serious attempt towards the emancipation of the Jews was made till the Naturalization Act of 1753, which was, however, immediately repealed.

Jews no longer attached to the Synagogue, such as the Herschels and Disraelis, attained to fame.

In 1830 the first Jewish emancipation bill was brought in by Robert Grant, but it was not till the legislation of 1858-1860 that Jews obtained full parliamentary rights.

The office of sheriff was thrown open to Jews in 1835 (Moses Montefiore, sheriff of London was knighted in 1837); Sir I.

A fair proportion of Jews have been elected to the House of Commons, and Mr Herbert Samuel rose to cabinet rank in 1909.

It is unnecessary to remark that in the British colonies the Jews everywhere enjoy full citizenship. In fact, the colonies emancipated the Jews earlier than did the mother country.

Jews were settled in Canada from the time of Wolfe, and a congregation was founded at Montreal in 1768, and since 1832 Jews have been entitled to sit in the Canadian parliament.

In Australia the Jews from the first were welcomed on perfectly equal terms. The oldest congregation is that of Sydney (1817); the Melbourne community dates from 1844.