Heinrich Graetz

“ He was nevertheless struck to the ground by a stone hurled by a Jewish hand, and yielded up his fanatical spirit.
The Jews had, in the meantime, exhausted their provisions, and death stared them in the face. When the men were deliberating what to do, one learned in the Law, who had come over from France, Yom Tob, of Joigny, counseled them to slay one another, saying, "God, whose decisions are inscrutable, desires that we should die for our holy religion. Death is at hand, unless you prefer, for a short span of life, to be unfaithful to your religion. ”

“ All the beauties and treasures of Spain are worthless as dust, in mine eyes;
But the dust of the Lord's ruined house, as a treasure of beauty I prize."
This is the keynote of all the songs of Zion. But in how many and in what various ways does the poet skilfully manipulate his subject! What a wealth of sentiments, images and devices does he develop! The ancient days of Israel are idealized in his verses; the people of his own age at one time appear invested with the thorny crown of a thousand sufferings, and at another with the glittering diadem of a glorious hope. ”

“ Only too soon was the Jewish race to realize the awful truth that it possessed no home on earth, and that it was only tolerated in the lands of its exile. As long as the intolerant religious principles of the Church and of the Mosque remained inoperative, either by reason of the indifference, or the inertia, or the selfish pursuits of their adherents, the Jews lived in comparative happiness; but when religious hatred was aroused, torture and martyrdom fell upon Israel, and again he was compelled to grasp the wanderer's staff, and with bleeding heart depart from his dearly beloved home. ”

“ The first half of the twelfth century produced a vast number of clever men in Jewish circles, poets, philosophers, Talmudists, and almost all their labors bore the stamp of perfection. The Jewish culture of this period resembled a garden, rich in odorous blossoms and luscious fruits, whose productions, though varied in color and taste, have their root in the same earth. The petty jealousy that rendered Menachem ben Saruk and Ibn-Gebirol unhappy, the inimical feelings existing between Ibn-Janach and Samuel Ibn-Nagrela, between Alfassi and Ibn-Albalia, were banished from this circle. ”

“ The less the men of southern France were able of themselves to reconcile Judaism with the results of science, the more did they occupy themselves with the writings of the sage who in so convincing a manner showed that pure and earnest devotion to religion was compatible with a taste for free research, and whose works revealed circumspection, clearness, deliberation and depth. Not only laymen, but even profound Talmudists, like Jonathan Cohen, of Lünel, idolized him, eagerly absorbed his every word, and paid him profound homage. ”

“ That Judaism should teach nothing more than Aristotelian philosophy was an abomination to those whose deep piety regarded every word of the Bible and the Talmud as a divine truth. There is a way of escape from the philosophical consideration of God and Judaism, i. e. to receive everything in naïve faith. This was the method of the Jews of Germany and northern France; it was the rigid Tossafist tendency. But the pious Jews of southern France and of Spain, who, as it were, breathed everywhere an atmosphere of philosophy, could not be satisfied with dull literalness. ”

“ Thereupon the king of the Chazars replied, "I was right, then, in not asking of the Jews, because their wretched, low condition has destroyed every reasonable idea in them. You, O Jew, should have premised that you believe in the Creator and Ruler of the world, instead of giving me so dry and unattractive a mass of facts, which are of significance only to you." The Jewish sage replied: "This notion that God is the Creator and Ruler of the universe requires a lengthy demonstration, and the philosophers have different opinions on the matter. ”

“ It was important for the future that Maimuni, in his unconscious self-deception, undertook for the first time to develop a Jewish system of belief. Since Judaism, according to his views, was nothing more than revealed philosophy, it ought to dominate the beliefs and opinions of men as well as their religious and moral conduct; ay, the one more than the other, as morality has no value in itself, and is only the fruit of right knowledge. He, accordingly, assumed as certain and positive that Judaism defines for us not only what we must do, but what we must believe ”

“ When, therefore, the thinking Jew borrows the truths of Greek philosophy, and adopts the theories of Plato and Aristotle, they are not altogether strange elements to him, but only a reminder of his own forgotten treasure.
The whole universe, which must be considered as a single organic whole, consisting of spheres suspended over one another working in harmony, is nothing more than the realized thoughts of God, or rather than the ideas of God ever tending to realization. He continually imparts to it new forms and shapes, and implants order and regularity in the world. ”

“ The rich and the poor, the good and the bad Jews were, without distinction, hated most bitterly by the Greeks. No Jew was allowed to ride on a horse, the privilege of freemen; it was only by way of exception that the emperor Emanuel vouchsafed this privilege to Solomon, the Egyptian, his physician in ordinary. Any Greek might molest the Jews publicly, and in general treat them as slaves; the law did not protect them. Byzantium, from time immemorial celebrated for its avarice, imposed burdensome taxes on them. They endured this insolent brutality with the resignation of martyrs ”

“ Four men appeared simultaneously on the stage of history, who were thoroughly pervaded with the spirit of Christianity, and especially with its oppressive, unlovely, inhuman form, and they rendered the life of the Jews in many countries an inconceivable torture. The first was Pope Gregory IX, a passionate old man, the deadly enemy of Emperor Frederick II, whose sole ambition was the extension of the power of the Church and the destruction of his opponents, who cast the torch of discord into the German Empire, and annihilated its unity and greatness. ”

“ It is because I have learnt that my kingdom is polluted by them as by an epidemic that I denounce the life and the behavior of the Jews. For while the Almighty has entirely freed the country from heresy, a disgraceful desecration of the churches still continues. This shall either be reformed by our piety or rooted out by our severity. I mean that many of the Jews still persist in their old unbelief, while others, although purified by baptism, have relapsed so deeply into the errors of apostasy that their blasphemy seems even more abominable than the sin of those who have not been baptized. ”

“ Intellectual activity, even in the field of the Talmud, did not, however, thrive in the Holy City. It seemed as if the curse of heaven had fallen upon this once glorious, and now distressed city, for since the Roman legions, under Titus and Hadrian, had struck down her noblest sons, she had become altogether barren. Not a single man of importance had sprung up in the city since the destruction of the Synhedrion. Jerusalem, like the whole of Palestine, was notable only on account of its illustrious dead. ”

“ He himself had long recognized the dangerous character of the doctrines laid down in Maimuni's "Guide of the Perplexed"; they certainly strengthen the ground of religion, but destroy its branches; they repair the breaches of the building, but tear down the enclosures. "The exalting of God's name is on their lips, but also poison and death lurk on their tongues." He had always kept himself remote from this bottomless heresy, and had sent a letter to the Lünel community more than thirty years since, to counteract the enthusiasm for Maimuni, but his effort had been fruitless. ”

“ Maimuni, the most intellectual rabbi and the deep religious philosopher, constitutes the zenith in mediæval Jewish history, and soon after his death the shadows begin to incline. Gradually the sunshine lessens, and gives way to dismal gloom. His intellectual bequest produced a far-reaching cleavage, which divided Judaism, or its leaders, into two hostile camps, and aroused a weakening, factional spirit which presented points of attack to deadly foes. ”

“ The belief in miracles has, in every country, at all times, and in all creeds, befogged the intellect of unthinking men, and robbed them of the ability to form a rational view of divine wisdom and of life. This belief was fostered by the Jews in many ways, and took as firm a hold on them, as it had on the Christian and the Mahometan world. It was especially prevalent in Palestine and Italy. Its devotees believed that any one who is truly pious can perform at will miracles as great and surprising as those of the prophets of old. ”

“ The darkness of the Middle Ages became thicker and thicker, but the spiritual light of Judaism shone forth in all its splendor.
The Church was the seat of monastic ignorance and barbarity, the Synagogue was the place of science and civilization. In Christianity every scientific effort was condemned by the officials of the Church as well as by the people, as the work of Satan; in Judaism the leaders and teachers of religion themselves promoted science, and endeavored to elevate the people. Far from condemning knowledge, the Geonim considered it as an aid and supplement to religion. ”

“ As the Christians showed themselves ready to adopt innovations, so the Jews of southern France did not accept all tradition with unquestioning faith, but sought to comprehend its import, and test it before the judgment-seat of reason. Although the Jews of Provence manifested great interest in science, they cannot be considered as independent thinkers, able to strike out into new lines of thought within the limits of Judaism. Jewish Provence did not produce a single original mind, not one profound thinker, not one genuine poet, not one distinguished scholar in any branch of knowledge. ”