Posted on 07/10/2011 7:04:06 PM PDT by Palter
When the first line of the story only repeats an age old lie you know the rest of the story isn't worth reading...
Who says it is?
When the first line of the story only repeats an age old lie
Not precisely a correct depiction of history.
The Jews in Spain were given the choice of converting to Catholicism or leaving Spain.
The commonly held notion that Jews were tortured and forced to renounce their religion and become Catholics is untrue.
“Centuries after the Spanish Inquisition led to the forced conversion of Jews to Catholicism,”
Nonsense! Jews starting converting many years BEFORE the inquisition was founded in the late 15th century in Spain. Most conversions were in the 13th and 14th centuries. Some Jews converted under feelings of duress, but many converted freely.
I don’t know the number that creates the myth, but certainly, many Jews were burned at the stake and others converted from such threats. Are you saying that didn’t happen?
You wrote:
“Who says it is?”
Well, some reputable Jewish historians do. Look at Henry Kamen’s 1998 book called Spanish Inquisition.
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You wrote:
“Roman Catholics who think that 1,700 years of church history is pristine.”
So why do Jewish historians like Kamen say it then?
“Anyone who has read the writings of the Jewish sages in Spain can read the history of a severly persecuted people, no matter what Roman Catholic revisionism tries to do.”
No one denies the persecution. It is a matter of the source. The inquisition did not forcibly convert Jews. It had no authority over people who were not baptized unless they somehow violated the natural law. Thus, a Jew, who just practiced Judaism and minded his own business could not legally be forced to do anything by any inquisitor.
Christopher Columbus departed Spainshalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
on the 1st of Av 5252( Aug 3rd, 1492 CE ).This was the last day for all Jews
to leave Spain under pain of death.Could it be that many of his sailors were Jews.
You wrote:
“I don’t know the number that creates the myth, but certainly, many Jews were burned at the stake and others converted from such threats. Are you saying that didn’t happen?”
I’ll say it - it didn’t happen - on the part of the inquisition. The inquisition only had authority over baptized Christians. No Jew was ever burned at the stake by the inquisition for refusing to convert to Christianity. Those who were threatened into converting were threatened into converting in the 13th and 14th centuries by civilians in pogroms. The inquisition was established in the late 15th century. One of the reasons why it was founded in Spain was to stop abuses of converted Jews by Old Christians.
I am not saying that Jews were not persecuted. I am saying that the order of events is incorrect.
The Jews in Spain were given the choice of converting to Catholicism or leaving Spain.
Many Jews converted because as was the custom across the world at the time, if you left a country by royal decree your lands and wealth were forfeit. So convert or leave Spain as a pauper. Wealthy Jews understandably converted.
Many Jews were baptized and then continued to practice their religion in secret.
So King Ferdinand requested permission from the Pope for the Inquisition. The Pope reluctantly gave his permission. So many Jews were left open for persecution either because they still practiced their religion or simply because they were accused by rivals or suspicious neighbors.
I object to news papers continuing to print flawed history. Get your facts right or get out of the business.
And as far as “many” Jews being burned at the stake the number is widely exaggerated. It is at most 300 over 356 years. Not a small number when talking about individuals but certainly a tiny number when talking about man's inhumanity to man throughout history.
Jews were pretty much restricted to MAKING STUFF and LEARNING ~ or TRADING.
There are quite elaborate laws regarding how things got "turned over" when a Christian prince conquered a Moslem principality, or vice versa.
Jews were left right where they were ~ so they could be taxed.
Obviously there were folks who managed to "convert", but the greater part of the literature on the matter suggests that Jews couldn't convert if they wanted to until the late 1400s. The Crown issued an edict that told them to convert, and evidence is most Jews converted to Christianity, as did Moslems. There were remarkably few people expelled.
Some analysts of this question have come to the conclusion that about 1/4 of the Spanish population is descended in whole or in part from Jews, with another large chunk being descended from Arabs and North Africans.
The smart guys went to the colonial empire as it developed.
It's worth reading about the Inquisition. Yes, it was bad, but not as bad as it's portrayed. It wouldn't hold a candle to the slightest of atrocities commited by the Nazis several centuries later.
Medieval Spain was considered quite Progressive by just about everybody alive at the time who could read and write and travel.
None of these places were anything you'd wanted to live in ~ compared to today ~ maybe like palaces stuck in the mud surrounded by dusty farmland with impoverished peasants and lots of pigs.
Your grasp of history is better than mine.
You wrote:
“Could it be that many of his sailors were Jews.”
Unlikely since Columbus and the leaders of his expedition were committed to Christianity. Columbus believed he was specially chosen by God to bring the Gospel to the East.
Columbus’ Book of Prophecies is a study of the prophets of the Old Testament and the teaching of Christ about the duty to proclaim the Gospel to all nations. Columbus was a devout Catholic who attended Mass and received Holy Communion regularly. Columbus was a Third Order Franciscan who believed that the world should be converted to Christ.
Columbus’ journal in 1492, day after day, refers to Jesus and the need for divine help.
You wrote:
“Obviously there were folks who managed to “convert”, but the greater part of the literature on the matter suggests that Jews couldn’t convert if they wanted to until the late 1400s.”
Jews converted in droves in the 13th and 14th centuries.
“The Crown issued an edict that told them to convert, and evidence is most Jews converted to Christianity, as did Moslems. There were remarkably few people expelled.”
Half converted and half left. See Henry Kamen, Spanish Inquisition (1998) pages 29-31.
Jews benefited, as did Christians and Moslems. The North African Islamofascist dictators actually invaded Spain once to straighten out the Moslems and bring them back into conformance with Islamic law.
I referred to it above ~ but there was even a custom, with laws, governing "forced conversions" ~ and I'd guess the new local prince would make some decisions on the basis of whether or not he liked ham and eggs for breakfast.
By the time Ferdinand and isabella wrapped up the Reconquista most of the hard part had been done and people were "converted" according to law ~ with the Jews still having an exceptional status because they'd been prohibited entry into the mainstreams of Spanish society for hundreds of years.
The final forced conversion (or expulsion) was probably more of an afterthought about straightening out the kingdom than anything done in anger.
To a degree it was progressive in the sense it did offer Jews a way to enter Spanish society ~ which was shortly to become the wealthiest and most powerful on Earth!
The Slimes just can't help themselves. The must throw the unnecessary modifier "ultra" in there - just to let you know their editorial board's opinion.
A Russian Jewish friend of mine once spent quite a bit of time reading through Jewish genealogies and family stories in Moscow that dated back to Spain.
He was quite astounded to find out how open all of this was ~ not at all like a really oppressed minority fleeing the ovens.
BTW, I doubt any almost any sort of estimations that involve the last half the 14th Century and the first half of the 15th Century. The plague definitely tipped a lot of scales.
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