Citaat:
Jews of Spain
In her book, The Jews of Spain, Jane S. Gerber writes that, “Judaism flourished in an unusual, indeed unique, environment as one component of the medieval Iberian scene that included Muslims and Christians. It was precisely because of this interaction that special sparks and creative energies were generated. In all of medieval Europe, only in Spain were Jews not the sole minority in a homogeneous Christian state. Consequently, Jews experienced two overlords on one soil as Iberia remained home to all three faiths from 711 to 1492 … a Jewish culture that did not adapt to new waves of thought would have become frozen in an ancient mold. To a large extent, then, the story of Jewish history is the story of creative cultural adaptation, and nowhere was this process more thoroughgoing than in Spain.”
According to Gerber, “In the minds of her sons and daughters, Sepharad (Spain) was a second Jerusalem. Expulsion from Spain, therefore, was as keenly lamented as was exile from the Holy Land … There are no other instances in Jewish history of such a close and enduring identification of the Jews with a land outside the holy land. Jews have lived in every corner of the globe, yet only Sepharad has lent its name to a division of world Jewry … Remarkably, during the turmoil of the early 1990s in Serbia, 57 Sephardic Jews of Sarajevo sought to return, not to the land of Israel but to Spain, and successfully sought asylum from King Juan Carlos.
The destruction of Muslim Spain, writes Karen Armstrong in The History of God, was “fatal for the Jews. In March 1492, a few weeks after the conquest of Grenada, the Christian monarchs gave Spanish Jews the choice of baptism or expulsion. Many of the Spanish Jews were so attached to their home that they became Christians, though some continued to practice their faith in secret … Some 150,000 Jews refused baptism, however, and were forcibly deported from Spain; they took refuge in Turkey, the Balkans and North Africa. The Muslims of Spain had given the Jews the best home they ever had in the diaspora, so the annihilation of Spanish Jewry was mourned by Jews throughout the world as the greatest disaster to have befallen their people since the destruction of the Temple in CE 70.”
Ottoman Empire
Jane Gerber points out that, “In the 15th and 16th centuries … it was the Ottoman Empire, then at the zenith of her power, that alone afforded exiles a place where ‘their weary feet could find rest’ … Her sultans — Bayezid II, Mehmet II, Suleiman the Magnificent — were dynamic, far-sighted rulers who were delighted to receive the talented Jewish outcasts of Europe … Bayezid II, responding to the expulsion from Spain, reportedly exclaimed, ‘You call Ferdinand a wise king, who impoverishes his country and enriches our own.’ He not only welcomed Sephardic exiles but ordered his provincial government to assist the wanderers by opening the borders. Indeed, the refugees would find the Ottoman state to be powerful, generous and tolerant.”
Also largely unknown is the role Moslems played in assisting Jews during the Nazi occupation of North Africa and in Nazi-occupied Europe as well. Part of this story is told in the book Among the Righteous by Robert Satloff. In Algeria, when the French Vichy regime stripped citizenship from Jews, one of the main sources of support for Algerian Jews who came from the Muslim religious establishment. “Here,” states Satloff, “the shining star was Abdel amid Ben Badis, leader of Algeria’s Isla (Reform) Party. Ben Badis was an intensely devout man with a modern, open, tolerant view of the world; among his many achievements was the founding of the Algerian League of Muslims and Jews. Regrettably, he died in spring 1940, before he could lend his personal strength and charisma to the Muslim response to Vichy’s coming to power.”
During the Vichy era, that mantle was worn by Saykj Taieb el-Okbi. Like Ben Badis, al-Okbi was a reformist leader who cultivated close ties with the leading Jews of Algeria. El Okbi showed his mettle in early 1942, reports Satloff: “When he heard rumors that leaders of a French pro-Fascist group ... were prodding Muslim troops to launch a pogrom against the Jews of Algiers, el-Okbi did all he could to prevent it, including a formal prohibition of Muslims from attacking Jews.”
Protecting Jews
Beyond this, from the pulpits of Algiers mosques, imams issued instruction to local Muslims not to take advantage of Jewish suffering for financial gain. “This act of self-denial at a time when many French colonialists were getting rich at the expense of Jews,” writes Satloff, “was an especially noble act on the part of the local Muslim community.”
In Tunisia, Prime Minister Mohamed Chenik, with long-standing ties to the Jewish community, regularly warned Jewish leaders of German plans, helped Jews avoid arrest orders, intervened to prevent deportations, and even hid individual Jews so they could evade a German dragnet. Even members of the royal court hid Jews who had escaped from German labor camps.
The same story is told about Morocco, where Sultan Muhammad V did his best to protect his Jewish subjects. At the annual Throne Day ceremony, with the elite of Moroccan and Vichy officialdom gathered at the royal place, the sultan made a point of welcoming the leaders of the Jewish community in attendance. “I must inform you that, just as in the past, the Israelites will remain under my protection,” he declared. “I refuse to make any distinction between my subjects.”
It was not only in North Africa that there is evidence of Muslims who saved Jews. The head of what could be considered the most important Muslim institution in Europe, the Great Mosque of Paris, was Si Kaddour Benghabrit. Built in the 1920s, the mosque was a gift from the French government to recognize the 100,000 or so Muslim soldiers who died in World War I. Benghabrit was a religious leader, spiritual guide, and well-connected political actor at the same time.
Mosque’s Role
“Stories of the mosque’s role in aiding Jews during the war have circulated for years,” Satloff notes. “The principal source was a North African Jew named Albert Assouline, a captive in a German prison camp. According to Assouline, he and an Algerian named Yassa Rabah escaped together from the camp and stealthily traversed the countryside across the French-German border heading for Paris. Once in Paris, they made their way to the mosque, where, evidently thanks to Rabah’s connections to the Algerian community, the two found refuge. Eventually Assouline continued his journey and joined up with Free French forces to continue the fight against the German occupation … the most fantastic part of the story was his claim that the mosque provided sanctuary and sustenance to Jews hiding from the Vichy and German troops as well as to other fighters in the anti-Fascist repentance.”
In a 1983 article for Almanach due Combattant, a French veterans’ magazine, Assouline wrote: “No fewer than 1,732 resistance fighters found refuge in its underground caverns. These included Muslim escapees but also Christians and Jews. The latter were by far the most numerous.” According to him, the senior imam of the mosque, Si Mohammed Benzouaou took “considerable risk” by hiding Jews and providing many (including many children) with certificates of Muslim identity, with which they could avoid deportation and certain death.
In Satloff’s view, “Assouline’s stunning story described the mosque as a virtual Grand Central Station for the Underground Railroad of Jews in France.”
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