The Jews in America Trilogy

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  These were years when, according to the historian Americo Castro: “In the commercial sphere no visible barriers separated Jewish, Christian, and Saracen merchants.… Christian contractors built Jewish houses, and Jewish craftsmen worked for Christian employers. Jewish advocates represented gentile clients in the secular courts. Jewish brokers acted as intermediaries between Christian and Moorish principals. As a by-product, such continuous daily contacts inevitably fostered tolerance and friendly relationships, despite the irritations kept alive in the name of religion.” In the south, in Andalusia, still under Moorish control, it was the same: a civilized society that made no distinction as to creed, where Jew, Moor, and Hidalgo lived in accord and mutuality, though it is interesting to note that the term “blue blood” originated here. In those with light skin, the blue veins of hands and wrists showed through the skin. The Moors were not Negroes but they were dark and tanned from the sun. Their “blue” blood did not show.

  During these years, Spanish Jews enjoyed the privilege, almost universally denied to Jews elsewhere, of wearing arms. Contemporary accounts describe dashing Jewish knights, elegantly fitted out, riding through cities on horseback, swords glittering in the sun. Many bore elaborate multiple names, and had been given the title of “Don.” From Portugal, a report to King John II remarks: “We notice Jewish cavaliers, mounted on richly caparisoned horses and mules, in fine cloaks, cassocks, silk doublets, closed hoods, and with gilt swords.” Jews organized their own sports and amusements, participated in jousts and tournaments of their own, and these often had a particularly Jewish flavor. In one popular pastime, Jewish knights, to the blare of horns and bugles, tilted with wooden staves at an effigy representing Haman, the Biblical enemy of the Jews in the Book of Esther, and, at the termination of the game, burned Haman on a mock funeral pyre while everybody sang and danced.

  Then why did it end? What caused three tranquil centuries to turn suddenly into something so different, so violent and bloody, and so prolonged that it has continued into modern times? What sent Spain hurtling in a new and terrible direction? Actually, it was a combination of many forces, some obvious, some subtle, some planned, some accidental that changed life totally for the Jews of Spain. True, Moorish power, which had helped bring the Jews to power, was on the wane. By 1480, Granada was the last Moorish stronghold on the peninsula. But long before that, factors had begun to accumulate and align themselves against the Jews.

  Though Spain and Portugal were isolated and cut off, emotionally as well as geographically, from the rest of Europe, they cannot have been unaware of what was going on elsewhere, where conditions for Jews were steadily worsening. There was the problem of dress, of identification. When Pope Innocent III introduced the Jewish badge in 1215, he particularly stressed that his reason was that Jews had been dressing and looking far too much like other people, that intermarriages with Christians had occurred as a result. The prevailing feeling was that Jews were “different,” and that their difference must be made unmistakable. The yellow badge became the Jews’ greatest insult, “the mark of the beaten, reviled, scorned, abused by everyone,” according to one medieval writer. The position of the Jew in various lands could be gauged by the size of the badge each country prescribed. In France and Italy, the circular badge was relatively small. Germany required the largest badges and in the most reactionary city-states of Bavaria the badge was soon deemed not degrading enough, and laws were passed enjoining Jews to wear only the colors yellow and black, and to walk barefoot.

  At the Spanish Jews’ heated insistence, the papal bull decreeing the badge was not enforced in thirteenth-century Spain. (In some cities, Jews were allowed to buy exemptions from the badge; in others, the edict was simply ignored.) For many years, Jewish scholars and rabbis had worn the cope—a long embroidered cloak, open at the front and clasped at the throat with a brooch—when they walked the streets. They considered the cope an appropriate ecclesiastical vestment, even though it belonged specifically to the costume of the Christian Church.

  Still, the Jews must have been aware that the tide was beginning to run against them. Many Spanish moneylenders were still Jews, as were tax collectors—two professions that have never rated high in popularity among the general populace. The old dark myths began to be unearthed again of the abominations that supposedly took place in synagogues, that on Good Friday the Jews crucified young Christian boys and drank their blood. By unhappy coincidence, while these rumblings and mutterings were being heard, the Black Plague marched across the European continent, and Jewish doctors, helpless in its path, were accused of poisoning their Christian patients. Bigotry, fed by fear, flourished.

  The Seventh, and last, Crusade ended unsuccessfully in 1270. The spirit of the Crusades had always been as much commercial as religious—with the profitable sacking and looting of the land of the infidel just as important (if not a good deal more so) than the claiming of his immortal soul. The Seventh was a failure in terms of loss of both life and money and, all over Europe, the prevailing mood toward the infidel grew harsh and bitter. Purification of the blood and homogeneity of faith became twin preoccupations. If the infidel of the East was now too costly to reach, then where could he be found? Eyes turned homeward, and there he was. The century following 1270, then, can well be labeled a Home Crusade, with ridding the homeland of “outsiders” a major theme.

  Meanwhile, Moorish power in Spain was declining. The Islamic hand that had pulled the Jews upward was no longer outstretched. Both Jews and Moors who saw the writing on the wall began converting to Catholicism, and now the Conversos, or New Christians, created a problem all their own. It was often the Converso who became the greatest enemy of his former religion, the most virulent anti-Semite, who took it upon himself to lead the attack against the “reprobate Jews.” Such a Converso was Don Pablo de Santa María, who, before his conversion in the early 1400’s, was named Selemoh ha-Levi.* The former chief rabbi of Burgos, he now became the bishop of Burgos. It is a monstrous irony that this ex-rabbi, famous throughout Spain for his scholarship, should have become the scourge of the Jews.

  Don Pablo’s specialty was accusing the Conversos, of which he was one, of secretly betraying their faith, of “Judaizing.” He was the first to draw the distinction between “faithful” Conversos and the “faithless” ones, between true Christians and false. The more Christian zeal a Converso displayed, Don Pablo pointed out, the greater was the likelihood that this Converso was a secret Jew or Marrano—literally “pig” in Spanish. (It has also been said that these Jews were called Marranos because they “ate pork in the streets,” so badly did they want—and need—to be taken for true Christians.) Don Pablo obviously did not intend his own extreme zeal to be considered in this light.

  He rose rapidly and became tutor to Prince John, the future John II of Castile, father of Isabella. He also placed in high positions in the Church and government many members of his large family, many of whom shared his anti-Semitic obsession. (His wife and sons, on the other hand, renounced him.) Don Pablo repeatedly urged the reenactment of old Visigothic laws under which a new Christian relapsing into Judaism could be punished with the death penalty, and he wrote these grimly prophetic words: “I believe that if in this our time a true inquisition were made, numberless would be those who would be given over to the fire amongst those who would really be found judaizing; who, if they are not down here more cruelly punished than public Jews, will be burnt forever in eternal fire.”

  And, of course, the fact is that he may have been right. “Numberless” Jews may indeed have made the gesture of converting only because they considered it prudent, and had simply taken their old religion underground. Others who may have been sincere converts at the outset may have suffered second thoughts. The Converso immediately found himself an object of extreme suspicion since, thanks to the efforts of Don Pablo, “New Christian” had become synonymous with “false Christian.” The Converso’s former coreligionists had little use for him and so the Converso became a so
rt of social outcast. Whereas he had had status as a Jew, he must have begun to think little of a religion that treated its converts with so little charity. Who could blame him for returning, in private, to his old faith?

  Don Pablo used the pulpit, the most effective medium of communication of his day, to spread his views. When one of his coagitators declared, in a sermon, that he possessed positive proof that one hundred circumcisions had been performed on sons of Judaizing Christians, the prelate was rebuked and called a liar by the king, but the episode demonstrates another force that was working against the Jews. Medieval Spain was a ceaseless battleground for power, not only Christian versus Moorish but a three-way struggle between the kings, the bishops of the Church, and the feudal nobles. The Moors and, in turn, the kings, had been the Jews’ protectors. Now, as Spanish cities grew and became more important, the dukedoms of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were coalescing. The kings had used the Jews and the bourgeoisie in their struggle against the lesser nobles; the nobles, meanwhile, were aligned with the Church. Now the nobles sided with Don Pablo de Santa María and other bishops to wrest the Jews away from the kings.

  At the heart of the billowing anti-Semitism was, of course, envy—a human trait and a trait predominant in what has been called the Spanish temper. The Jews had simply become too rich, too powerful, too important in too many walks of life. Just as the Crusades had been of a mixed religious and commercial motivation—conversion of the infidel no more important than pillaging his fields and emptying his vaults—so did the episodes of prejudice and the scattered anti-Jewish pogroms that broke out in the fourteenth century have only partly to do with matters of faith. They were undertaken in jealousy, with intent to get back, by force, what less fortunate non-Jews believed to have been unrightfully taken away from them. As Chancellor Pedro López de Ayala wrote in his diary after a particularly savage pogrom in Seville, in which the rich Jewish quarter of the city was looted and many were murdered: “And it was all cupidity to rob, rather than devotion.”

  The pogroms spread like brush fire, and it was clear that a terrible twilight was at hand. In 1390, the Jews of Majorca were forbidden to carry arms. The question of the Jewish badge—“yellow, in circumference four fingers, to be worn over the heart”—became specific. Riots took place in several cities, and suddenly in 1391 in Seville—in direct defiance of orders from his king—a priest named Don Ferrán Martínez led an armed mob into the judería. After scattering the king’s soldiers, Martínez and his men massacred more than four thousand Jews, looted and burned their houses. Pogroms were now an institution across the face of Spain, and they erupted in Toledo, Valencia, Barcelona. After each pogrom, forcible mass baptisms and conversions were inflicted on the Jewish survivors. These Jews, presented with a faith that wielded a cross in one hand and a knife in the other, were also called Conversos, and, needless to say, went into a category all their own.

  Through the next twenty years conditions grew steadily more severe, and thousands of Jews emigrated from Spain, scattering across the face of Europe. In 1421, Saint Vincent Ferrer and the Chancellor of Castile dictated a long series of anti-Semitic and anti-Moorish laws. Jews and Moors alike were required to wear identifying badges; they were forbidden to hold office or to possess titles; they were excluded from such trades as those of grocer, carpenter, tailor, and butcher. They could not change their residences. They could not hire Christians to work for them. They could not eat, drink, talk, or bathe with Christians under the new laws. They were forbidden to wear anything but “coarse clothing.” One Jew complained:

  They forced strange clothing upon us. They kept us from trade, farming, and the crafts. They compelled us to grow our beards and our hair long. Instead of silken apparel, we were obliged to wear wretched clothes which drew contempt upon us. Unshaved, we appeared like mourners. Starvation stared everyone in the face.…

  However, the legislation did have the effect that it claimed it desired. Conversions stepped up markedly, while the line between “faithful” and “faithless” Converso became very dim. In the years following Don Pablo de Santa María, it was easier to suppose that everyone was faithless, and bloody battles continued—in Toledo in 1467, in Córdoba in 1473, and, in 1474, an incredible uprising where a young Converso led a bloodthirsty crowd in Segovia in a raid against other Conversos. In the middle of this maelstrom, this tumult of cross- and countercurrents, of warring factors and faiths and ideologies, of opposing ambitions and thrusts for power and money, there stepped a youngish pair of royal newlyweds, Queen Isabella of Castile, and King Ferdinand of Aragon.

  It was a dynastic union, and had been planned that way by—the ironies do not cease—a small group of Jews from the very highest court and banking circles of Spain. The two principal matchmakers were Don Abraham Senior of Castile, and Don Selemoh of Aragon, men of such prominence that they had never taken the trouble to be baptized. (“Yes,” Aunt Ellie would assure the children when she spoke of these great men. “We are connected, we are connected.”) It was their grand notion to bring the two great kingdoms—which had been gradually coalescing from the multitude of minor ones—into a single, even greater whole. Their idea represented an early form of nationalism not unlike de Gaulle’s in modern France; both men were intensely chauvinistic, dedicated to making Spain the mightiest nation in the world. It was Don Abraham of Castile who invited Ferdinand to his house and put him up there while Ferdinand paid formal court to Isabella, and who brought Ferdinand on his first secret visit to inspect his bride-to-be. It was Don Selemoh who served as the intermediary in the presentation of a magnificent golden necklace to Isabella, Ferdinand’s engagement gift, purchased, of course, with Jewish money. It was Don Abraham who, in conversations with his royal house guest, was the first to suggest that one of Ferdinand and Isabella’s future offspring might be wed to a Portuguese prince or princess, thus placing the entire Iberian peninsula under one rule. The two men negotiated on all details involving Isabella’s dowry to her husband.

  In Granada a splendid catafalque rises above the place where, in simple leaden caskets, the Catholic monarchs rest. The king, or at least his marble effigy, lies with his hands folded on his chest, looking very regal, his head not even denting the stone pillow beneath it—an indication, it has been said, of his cranial capacity in life. His queen lies at his left, hands folded, and for some reason that has never been explained, her head is turned away from her husband, her eyes seemingly fixed contemplatively on the middle distance, giving her a look that is both thoughtful and estranged, and the disturbing mood created by the pair is one of disunion and disaffection. Certainly this must have been the queen’s attitude toward her husband while she lived. He was a perpetual adulterer, and his many mistresses, and the ensuing bastard children with which he scattered the Spanish landscape, must have been a heavy cross for the queen to bear. It was a notably unhappy marriage, with Isabella emerging as the more interesting partner in it.

  This stern, practical, pious, thorough woman, who treasured her rents and her “power to be feared,” had—through the efforts of Don Abraham Senior and Don Selemoh of Aragon—married a man almost totally her opposite. Where Isabella was direct and forthright, Ferdinand was devious and sly. Where Isabella was plain, Ferdinand was dashing and handsome. A contemporary describes his “merry” eyes, and “his hair dark and straight, and of good complexion.” For all her jealousy, it was said that Ferdinand “loved the Queen his wife dearly, yet he gave himself to other women.” Also, “He enjoyed all kinds of games such as ball, chess or royal tables, and he devoted to this pleasure more time than he ought to have done.” At the same time, “He was also given to following advice, especially that of the Queen, for he knew her great competence.” Also, she was some two years older than he.

  Although history has labeled Ferdinand and Isabella as archenemies of the Jews, it is hard to believe that they themselves were anti-Semitic. The royal household had a very Jewish complexion, and the king and queen were literally surrounded
by Jews. Some, like Don Abraham Senior, had not converted, while others were Conversos. These included Hernando de Pulgar, the queen’s confidential secretary, and the queen’s confessor, Fray Hernando de Talavera. The king and queen depended enormously on these men, and on the guidance and support of other Converso advisers, and before Ferdinand assumed his father’s throne he had officially increased the power of the Conversos at court. The general bailiff of Aragon, the grand treasurer, and the rational master, were all members of the Sánchez family, baptized Jews. Conversos also held the three top military posts in Ferdinand’s command—heads of the fortresses of Perpignan and Pamplona, and commander of the fleet off Majorca. The king’s private chamberlain, Cabrero, was an ex-Jew.

  Isabella’s household was no different, and Conversos about her included her closest woman friend, the Marquesa de Moya, who closed Isabella’s eyes at her death. It was the same everywhere in Spain. In Aragon, the vice-chancellor of the kingdom, the comptroller general of the royal household, the treasurer of the kingdom of Navarre, an admiral, a vice-principal of the University of Saragossa, were all members of the large and powerful La Caballería family, as were several pivotal members of Ferdinand’s council. Don Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena and Grand Master of the Order of Santiago, was descended on both sides from an ex-Jew named Ruy Capón, and Don Juan’s brother, Don Pedro Girón, was the equally exalted Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava. Their uncle was archbishop of Toledo, and an ex-Jew—everyone knew. At least seven of the principal prelates of the kingdom were of Jewish descent, including at least two bishops. Why, then, with Jews and ex-Jews serving them in so many important areas, did Ferdinand and Isabella permit a policy to develop that was so patently destructive and disruptive of their mightierest ambition—a great and unified Spanish nation? How could a policy of ferreting out, and separating, the true Christians from the false, the faithful converts from the secretly “Judaizing” ones, have possibly been considered practical, much less wise? The crucial, and virtually unanswerable, question became: who was Jewish and who was not? In the three generations that had passed since the massacre of 1391, thousands of Jews had been baptized. Throughout the fifteenth century, many of the wealthier New Christians had married into families of the old Catholic nobility.