Rabbis on refugees: theological responses to the treatment of converso migrants in sixteenth-century Candia

Abstract

This case study considers rabbinic texts that address the migration of converso refugees to Venetian Crete in the mid-sixteenth century. New papal policies and the onset of the Roman Inquisition on mainland Italy prompted a refugee crisis in Candia that led to tensions between the migrants and local Candiote Jews. Coming primarily from Sephardic origins, these migrants were in search of refuge as well as the opportunity to reclaim their Jewish identities after forced conversion; here we consider three letters contained in Takkanot Kandiyah from rabbinic authorities on how to diffuse the situation and approach the converso issue within a halakhic framework.

Keywords:

• Candia
• Takkanot Kandiyah
• conversos
• Inquisition
• Venetian Crete
• Yosef Karo

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For more on Jews in mid-sixteenth-century Italy, see Stow, Catholic Thought, and Bonfil, Jewish Life.

2. During the period of Venetian Rule (1205–1669), the island of Crete was referred to as “Candia”. The name Candia is also used to refer to the particular city of Heraklion, which is today the capital city of Crete and the fourth largest city in Greece.

3. The original Byzantine community in Crete is Romaniote, Greek-speaking, but fourteenth- and fifteenth-century migrations brought Ashkenazi and Sephardic ethnicities to the island as well. For an overview of the island’s Jewish history; see Paudice, Between Several Worlds.

4. Artom and Cassuto, Statuta Iudaeorum Candiae, nos. 112–14; 146–8.

5. For an overview of the history and themes, see the recent doctoral dissertation by Borýsek, “Takkanot Kandiyah.”

6. Zeldes, “Jewish Settlement in Corfu,” 175.

7. Papadia-Lala, “The Jews in Early Modern Venetian Crete,” 141.

8. Borýsek, “The Jews of Venetian Crete,” 245.

9. Schoenfeld, “Immigration and Assimilation,” 4. However, the entire island of Crete is often referred to as Candia in early modern texts and maps.

10. Arbel, “Introduction,” 118.

11. Ibid.

12. Schoenfeld, “Immigration and Assimilation,” 4.

13. da Ponte as cited in Starr, “Jewish Life in Crete,” 64.

14. Burke, The Greeks of Venice, 214.

15. Starr, “Jewish Life in Crete,” 65.

16. Lauer, “Cretan Jews,” 130.

17. Schoenfeld, “Immigration and Assimilation,” 9.

18. Lauer, “Cretan Jews,” 131.

19. Roth, History of the Jews, 303; also cited in Nehama, “The Jews of Salonika.”

20. Arbel, “Jews and Christians,” 287.

21. For a discussion of ibn Verga, see Cooperman, Ethnicity and Institution Building, 122; David, “The Spanish Expulsion”; and Stow, “Ethnic Rivalry or Melting Pot?,” 286–96. For more on the North African context, see Zeldes, “The Case of Colau Aragones,” 71–2.

22. Baroutsos, “Venetian Pragmatism,” 230.

23. Zeldes, “The Case of Colau Aragones,” 72.

24. Artom and Cassuto, Statuta Iudaeorum Candiae, 147–8.

25. Ibid. Here it states: לכן מהיום והלאה יזהר כל אדם מלהכשל בדבר זה, ומלהכוות בגחלתו של ר׳׳ג מאור הגולה.

26. Ibid. Here it states: ואם חס ושלום יעבור שום אדם על זה, גדול או קטון, יחוש לעצמו וישב/בנידוי יום אחד ויתודה, ויקבל עליו שלא להכשל עוד בדבר זה. ושב ורפא לו. ואם יסרב מלהיות בנידוי, כ׳׳ת תבדלו ממנו עד שיקבל עליו את הדין.

27. Bonfil, “Dubious Crimes,” 306.

28. Kaplan, “The Social Functions of the Herem,” 108.

29. Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Herem.”

30. Starn, Contrary Commonwealth.

31. See note 29.

32. Ibid., 15.

33. Artom and Cassuto, Statuta Iudaeorum Candiae, 146–8. Biographical details of rabbis Yitzhak Berav, Moshe Damo, and Elijah Galimidi have not been located, though it is likely that Berav is related to Spanish rabbi Jacob Berav (1474–1546), who was a leading figure in Safed.

34. Ibid., 146–7.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., 146–8.

41. Ibid., 147–8.

42. See Netanyahu, The Marranos of Spain for a deeper discussion on this distinction.

43. Medieval precedents were set by Maimonides and Rashi, later rulings specifically for the Iberian conversos on the length of permissible time before reversion to Judaism come from rabbis including ibn Haviv (47:123). Ibn Lev (A:22), Rashdam (Orah Hayim 10:5b–7a), Sasportas (Ohel Yaakov 3), di Trani (Even ha-Ezer 18).

44. Artom and Cassuto, Statuta Iudaeorum Candia, nos. 112, 146–7.

45. An interesting example comes from Sicily, where the process of travelling to Tunis to revert to Judaism after conversion was apparently commonplace. Referred to as romeria or romeaje, the notion of nullifying a conversion to Christianity involved “going to the land of the Moors to become a Jew”, and those that did not take that path were harshly condemned. See AH Prov. Z., Testimony of 9 March 1510, as quoted in Zeldes, “The Case of Colau Aragones,” 70.

46. See AH Prov. Z., Testimony of 9 March 1510, as quoted in Zeldes, “The Case of Colau Aragones,” 70.

47. Artom and Cassuto, Statuta Iudaeorum Candia, nos. 114, 148.

48. Ibid., nos. 112, 146–7.

49. Ibid., nos. 114, 148. Here it states: והחרימו בכל הקהלות הקדושות חרם גמור איום ונורא וגזרו חרם נידוי ושמתא על כל איש ואשה קטן וגדול. אשר יניע שפתיו או יוציא מפיו דבר נבלה להזכיר עונם כ׳׳ש לאיים לומר אזיל ואכיל קורצא לאומות יהיה מוחרם ומנודה לשמים ולבריות. בעולם הזה ובעולם הבא ארור הוא ביום ארור הוא בלילה, לא יאבה ה׳ סלוח לו, והבדילו ה׳ לרעה מכל שבטי ישראל, ומחה ה׳ את שמו מתחת השמים.

50. Ibid.

51. Jews within the Republic were generally secured from persecution by the Inquisition, but conversos were a focus even beyond the terraferma. See Pullan, The Jews of Europe, 151. Also see Pullan, The Jews of Europe, 310 for an example of the Venetian Inquisition issuing an arrest warrant for a converso in Corfu.

52. Pullan, The Jews of Europe, 16. For more on earlier centuries of Inquisitorial activity in Crete, see Jacoby, “Venice, the Inquisition and the Jewish Communities of Crete,” 133.

53. Ray, After Expulsion, 57–75.

54. Melammed, “Adapting and Adopting Conversos,” 86.

55. Paudice, Between Several Worlds, 125.

56. David, “Historical Sources in the Kaufmann Collection,” 27–37.

57. David, “New Documents,” 378–9 (Hebrew); also referenced in David, “The Expulsion from the Papal States (1569),” 94.

58. David, “The Expulsion from the Papal States,” 94.

59. Ibid., 96; and David, “Historical Sources in the Kaufmann Collection,” 34.

60. Manuscript preserved in London, Montefiore collection 251, p 368r., as referenced in David, “The Expulsion from the Papal States,” 97.

61. See note 47.

62. For more on the centrality of Rashi in Sephardic rabbinic circles, see Lawee, “The Reception of Rashi’s Commentary,” 33–66.

63. Goldin, “Jewish Self-Definition,” 170. Here Goldin notes that “it was Rashi who determined that the state of brotherhood binding all Jews does not cease even if a person decided to change his religion, or, needless to say, if he was forced to convert to another religion.”

64. Rashi, no. 173, as cited in Goldin, “Jewish Self-Definition,” 170.

65. Maimonides, Epistles of Maimonides. While Rambam’s Epistles was written in response to the forced conversions of Jews to Islam in North Africa in 1165, the conclusion is applicable as halakhic precedent. He states: “A victim of this [forced conversion to Islam] persecution should follow this counsel: Let him set it as his to observe as much of the Law as he can. If it happens that he has sinned much, or that he has desecrated the Sabbath, he should still not carry what is not allowed to carry … What I counsel myself, and what I should like to suggest to all my friends and everyone that consults me, is to leave these places and go to where he can practice religion and fulfil the Law without compulsion or fear. Let him leave his family and his home and all he has, because the divine Law that He bequeathed to us is more valuable than the ephemeral, worthless incidentals that the intellectuals scorn; they are transient, whereas the fear of God is eternal.” Epistles, 31.

66. Ibid., 30.

67. Maimonides, no. 448, as cited in Sokolow, trans. Islam, Christianity and Avodah Zarah. Rambam states: “These Yishmaelim [i.e., Muslims] are not idolaters at all. [Idolatry] has been eradicated from their mouths and hearts. They unify G-d without question. … Likewise all contemporary Muslims, including women and children, have eradicated idolatrous beliefs and their errors and foolishness are manifest in other matters. … In respect of the unity of God, they are in no error at all.”

68. Novak, “Maimonides’ View of Christianity.”

69. Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, 1.50, as cited in Novak, 11. In The Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides states that “God’s being One by virtue of true Oneness, so that no composition whatever is to be found in Him and no possibility of division in any way whatever – then you must know that He, may He be exalted, has in no way and in no mode any essential attribute, and that just as it is impossible that He should be a body, it is also impossible that He should possess an essential attribute. If, however, someone believes that He is one, but possesses a certain number of essential attributes, he says in his works that He is one, but believes Him in his thought to be many. This resembles what the Christians say: namely, that He is one but also three, and that three are one.”

70. The distinction here is between the rishonim and aḥaronim, the earlier and later rabbinic sages, where it is noted that the work of the earlier sages, including Maimonides, was superior to later rabbis. For more on this notion, see Horowitz and Derovan, “Aḥaronim.”

71. Werblowsky, Joseph Karo, 139–40.

72. Karo, Avkat Rochel, 17.

73. Angel, “The Responsa Literature,” 673.

74. de Medina, Yoreah De’ah, 86.

75. Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca Wartell

Rebecca Wartell is an Instructor in the Program in Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her PhD in History from Monash University is expected in 2019. Her dissertation considers rabbinic texts from the mid-sixteenth century in relation to the Inquisition, forced conversion, and the resettlement of Sephardi refugees in the Mediterranean. Rebecca also has a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard University.