Photo: Exiles in Siberia, 1904

Link to article: YIVO will digitize a trove of Jewish Leftist HIstory.

I'm getting real tired of rabbis dismissing me because my Judaism comes from my father and not my mother, and I'm willing to go to extremes to correct this.

The strength of the Swedish army, according to Matt and Chris, was a direct result of a weak nobility and a comparatively strong peasantry. An interesting counterpoint is Poland, which had a strong nobility, a weak monarchy, and was late to abandon both paganism and feudalism.

Following the black death in the 14th century, Poland and Lithuania came to be centers of Jewish life due to the weakness of Church control (comparatively) in recently Christianized lands. Migration of Yiddish/German speaking Jews happened due to widespread persecutions in central Europe, and the population growth was higher in a region spared the horrors of the 30 years war. Poland was a participant to be sure, but during the 1600s Polish nobles looked to the East, what was to become Ukraine, to do rent-seeking and procure necessary crops. It's arguable whether or not the taxes imposed by Polish landlords amount to "Colonialism" in the modern sense, but the farming peasants (Ukrainian, Orthodox) did not take well to the domination by Absentee Landlords (Polish, Catholic). Jews fit into the tinderbox because throughout Christian europe, they had been forced into a profession known as "Tax Farming," being the collectors for Nobles of taxes from impoverished peasants.

Bogdan Chmielnicki was a Cossack Noble who led an uprising against rival Polish Nobility. He hoped to ally an independent Ukraine with European powers against Poland. In practice, Jewish communities, regardless of if they were involved in tax-collecting or not were destroyed, as Cossack armies considered them tools of the Polish landlord class against the peasantry. Despite the material and political conditions, religious hatred against Jewish people cannot be ignored .On the eve of the uprising and genocide in 1648, Estimates of the death toll vary, but were likely in the 10s of thousands. 100 Jewish communities were destroyed, and there are reports of 6000 Jews murdered in one of the larger towns. Thousands more were forcibly converted to Christianity or sold into slavery. Chmielnicki is hailed as a hero by Ukrainian nationalists, appears on Ukrainian currency, and has several towns named after him.

Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza lived from 1632-1677 in Holland. He studied religous works under Menasheh ben Israel, last week's figure. I've found his actual writings rather dense. But he's a figure who lived his life in the fairly prosperous Dutch shadow of the 30 years war. He exemplifies the radically new kind of religious thinking that was happening at the time.

In James Carrol's sketch in "Constantine's Sword" he writes "Like Marx two centuries later, Spinoza was born a Jew, but by the time he died he was branded an atheist, a materialist, an anarchist, and a revolutionary."

Spinoza, though considered a "rationalist" incorporated mystical ideas about the divine presence in Nature and the value of the individual self into his writings. Carrol wrote America's Jewish Founding Father a piece on Spinoza that I consider well-written, but a fairly lukewarm lib analysis.

While his teacher ben Israel attempted to reconcile contradictory statements in the Hebrew Bible, Spinoza arguably invented modern Biblical criticism, publishing works atributing the Torah to human authors that was considered blasphemous. Previously, some commentators, notably the Andalusian world-traveler Abraham ibn Ezra had cautiously hinted that specific verses in the Torah were human additions.

Spinoza was excommunicated and the writis kind of a banger.

One person in Jewish history personally encapsulates the 17th century trend towards Biblical criticism, and the shift of population, wealth, and power from the Iberian kingdoms to Britain and the Netherlands.

In this post, we shift from the history of Ashkenazi Jewry (those descended from German-speaking lands) to Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese) speaking communities. There is a tendency to associate "Ashkenazi" with communities that developed under Christian rulers, and "Sephardi" which those under Islamic rule, but as you'll see below, that it an oversimplification that isn't useful for cultural or historical analysis.

Menasheh Ben Israel was born on the Portuguese Island of Madeira in 1604 and emigrated as a child with his family, fleeing the Inquisition, to Holland.

In his 20s, he brought and managed the first Hebrew Printing Press to Amsterdam. Although Hebrew printing had begun earlier in Northern Italy, Amsterdam was to be a major center of Hebrew books throughout the early modern age. He wrote and published books in Hebrew, Spanish, and Latin. Ben Israel was influential in creating a Sephardic Jewish community of Iberian refugees who had previously been outwardly practicing Catholicism. He visited the New World Colony of Recife, but returned back to Amsterdam.

As the reformation progressed, Calvinists in particular became interested in studying the Hebrew Bible in the original language, so Hebrew printing became influential to both Jews and Christians in the region. Similarly, Menasheh maintained contacts with the Royal courts of Europe, offering to provide them with Hebrew books.

Toward the end of his life, Ben Israel requested from Cromwell to allow Jewish settlement in England. The Jews had been expelled from England in 1290. Ben Israel and a small delegation visited London in 1656-7, and secured the right to settle and pray privately for a community of Dutch Jews. Cromwell was, well, a Millenarian psycho and Ben Israel spoke to his fantasies, self righteousness, and fervor. One could draw a pretty straight line from Cromwell's conditional philosemitism to the Balfour declaration and the Christian Zionism of today.

Between 1348 and 1351 The black death caused unspeakable death and destruction to the Jewish communities of Europe. Early, a rumor spread that the plague was spread by Jews poisoning the wells of Christian towns. There are eery parallels to antisemitic canards that arose early in the spread of COVID-19.

Violent pogroms erupted across central Europe, particularly in the Rhineland. Writers of the era composed Kinot_ or songs of mourning, some explicitly about the contemporary violence, and some retelling the destruction of Jerusalem (by Babylonians and Romans), or using literary motifs from the Lamentations of Jeremiah but obviously drawing on contemporary experiences. Typically, a minor noble or Burgher (often deeply in debt to a Jewish lender) would stir up area peasants based on the rumors of well-poisoning, ritual murder, or host (communion wafer) desecration. While the Pope issued a toothless protective bull against murdering Jews, and Emperor Charles IV also attempted to protect Jews from violence, the perpetrators were absolved of any murders fairly swiftly. This has echos in the complicity of the Vatican in organizing the "rat lines" sending Nazi War criminals to South America in the years immediately following WWII.

Some historians believe that in the period of the plague the Mourner's Kaddish became a central part of Ashkenazi practice. Though some scholars trace it earlier, to the time of the crusades. It is an example of a major prayer switching significance (from glorifying Torah study to communal mourning) based on the emotional needs of the population.

We have incredible archaeological finds from the years of the black death. Jewish lenders, sensing doom, buried or walled-off valuables that they held. The Erfurt Treasure was discovered in 1998 hidden within a wall. The Colmar Treasure was found in 1863. It is important to note that during medieval times, though a few Jews in each town would have worked as money-lenders and pawnbrokers, most had more mundane occupations, and did not hold such wealth. Jewish communities were neither noble or serf, they would have worked in various crafts depending on their skills and region including wagon-building, carpentry, dyeing, food production, fabric work, etc.

By way of introduction, I think the period of the thirty years war is a particularly interesting time when we can see the beginnings of modern Jewish thought and practice in Europe. The key preliminary events here were the Spanish Expulsion of 1492, where the Jews of Andalusia/Iberia were martyred, forced to convert to Catholicism or Emigrated (Mostly to Ottoman and Muslim lands, but also the Low countries and the New World). These Jews were the ancestors of the Sepharadim, while the Jews who originated in the Rhineland and migrated generally Eastward to the Slavic and Baltic areas would become the Ashkenazim.

The second major innovation was of course the printing press. Hebrew printing began in the late 1400s in Italy and radically changed the dynamics of studying sacred text.

The 1600s will bring us such fascinating characters in the Jewish world as Baruch Spinoza, Moshe Isserles, Shabbtai Tzvi, and Menashe ben Israel. And Jewish cultural centers will begin in the former backwaters of Lithuania and Poland.

My notes on Martin Luther (Ep 1.)

At about 80 minutes in, Matt makes reference to Luther's recalcitrance on what initially was a sort of philosemitism. Indeed in "That Christ was born a Jew" Luther appears to welcome Jewish converts into his new purified Christianity.

Towards the end of his life though, and the publication of "The Jews and Their Lies." Its clear than any semblance of openness and decency that Luther had towards Jews as a people was simply based on the assumption that they would quickly convert to Christianity in large number.

Some Historians (I have an essay by Hayim Greenberg to this effect) lay the cultural responsibility for Naziism squarely on Luther, with his synthesis of Religious and Political power combined with a more modern strain of antisemitism.

A real banger from Blowback's Noah Kulwin.

"Do not use participation in the slave trade as an excuse for whitewashing Jews, unless you are willing to do the same to Arabs and Native Americans. Otherwise, it is nothing more than discrimination. And discrimination against Jews has a name: antisemitism."

Good slop this week. Lots of talk about Representations of Jewish masculinity

a secret-Jew tricked his captors into allowing him to celebrate the holiday, imprisoned by the Inquisition in 1600s Mexico.

While I'm skeptical of the emphasis on haplotypes, I think it's really interesting how remains have been identified as belonging to Jewish people from a historical event, as well as dating the genetic "bottleneck" that occured.

"According to the Talmud, at the World-to-Come Diaspora Jews will roll through tunnels to be resurrected at Mount Olive."

Under the words "Emma Earns Her Punishment," this cartoon shows Goldman being led into prison by a police officer. The figure at the right is labeled a "sweat-shop boss," and the paper at Goldman's feet reads: "Lecture: How to protect from too many children." The caption at the bottom has the sweat-shop boss saying: "Hear this scandal! I need kids to work and she preaches against children! To prison with her!"

Interesting discussion from a text-based, Orthodox perspective, ranging from “Flags rule” to “Flags are idolatry.”

Saturday Night the holiday of Shavuot begins. It celebrates early agricultural produce, and the revelation of the Torah at Sinai. It occurs after a counting of 7 weeks (Sheva is the word for 7, and Shavuot is Weeks) following Passover.

The holiday has several observances: Staying up late learning and studying, eating dairy foods, making cringeworthy jokes about lactose intolerance, reading the book of Ruth (which has special significance for Jews by choice). In the 19th century, the Reform movement replaced the Bar Mitzvah at age 13 with confirmation at 16, and confirmations were often celebrated on this holiday as well.