1492 A.D.: King Ferdinand's Catholicism Protecting Alhambra Decree Evicts The Jews Unceremoniously From Spain, But Guess Who Wants Them? Did You Guess Muslim Turkey?
It is an amazement to read the history of the Israelites, especially that portion of them who became known to the world as the Jews. The Israelites are identified as the people that God chose out of all the peoples of the world as His own, so that the whole world could see the wonderfulness, peace, safety, and plentiful provision that God's people could have from the One True God when these Israelites were obedient to Him, and so the whole world could see the fierceness of God's wrath and the severity and stern nature of His discipline when these same Israelites were disobedient to Him.
The Jews (I'll just use the term 'the Jews') soon enough seem to prosper ridiculously no matter which new place they must flee to and are granted sanctuary in. But they then also draw the hatred and envy of the people they dwell among in consequence of this. Because they were compelled to be wanderers among strangers from 70 A.D. to 1948 A.D. let's say, (1,878 years!) the world has had a great deal of time to watch and ponder the terrible fate of those who earn the Holy Father's wrath (His especially identified children, these Jewish wanderers!) But the world has also been shown that God the Father is a frightening disciplinarian once He decides He must discipline you, but that it is for Him to discipline His own chosen people and woe to the nations that decide that they are going to jump in and do it for Him.
It is understandable. Parents discipline their children, but they don't let other people or other children jump in and pretend it's their job to be the parent. As a parent, at the end of the day that is still your very own child, and you still love them. It's just that they acted bad...perhaps very bad...and they are going to get their little minds set right, they're going to get put back on track; you're going to make sure of it for the kid's sake and for yours. But parenting them is your business, no one else's.
This helps explain the strange history of the Jews since they crucified the Son of God, their own largely unrecognized Messiah, back in about 30 A.D.. They are still the particular people that was chosen to be God's peculiar people, but they got themselves in deep trouble with their Maker. They had gotten themselves in trouble with their Maker several times before that. But when they crucified God's Son they got themselves into a whole different level of trouble. And so, for 1,878 years they became the 'wandering Jews', driven by pagans and erring Christians from place to place to place. Oddly, when they were booted out of one place they would be miraculously given grace by some other nation of people just about the exact time that they needed it. They suffered much, they were quite often robbed, even killed. It was with difficulty that these wandering and besieged Jews, by the sweat of their brow, obtained and ate their food until they returned to the ground. Their existence never remained smooth and easy for long, it seems.
As when Cain killed Abel, Christians used to believe that the Jews were greatly punished for killing Christ, but still, God decided that they were not to be wiped out of existence! He had publicly claimed them as His own. What happened with them was a reflection on Him in some senses, even though their errors and offenses against Him might be obvious to all. (Not that Jewish people are a bit more wicked or disobedient towards God than all of us others...they may even be better for all that I know?!?) Do you remember from Genesis chapter 4 how God dealt with Cain, who had killed His brother Abel?:
10 The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”
13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
15 But the Lord said to him, “Not so[e]; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden.
End Quote
So, maybe in reflection of this or maybe not, the Jews of Jerusalem and Israel as a whole were sent homeless and wandering in around 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and killed hundreds of thousands of the Jews seeking refuge behind Jerusalem's strong walls. The survivors would find sanctuary first in one place and then in another. They never received a nation of their own in these places. But sometimes they got to stay there for decades or even centuries. But they were nearly always required to be outsiders there in their sanctuary nations. Sometimes it was by the commands of their host nation that they would be treated differently than the native residents. And sometimes it was because the Jews still tried to follow their religion...the Laws of Moses...as best they could with no Temple of Yahweh to work with, which made them have to live differently, not eat the same food, not wear the same clothes. They were always somewhat separate looking and acting from the people they dwelt among. They were hosted, but did not truly assimilate. And soon enough the prosperity that they attained (and who knows which spiritual forces?) would begin to drive their hosts insane with jealousy and envy. They would begin to out shine the people that had rescued them in their hour of need. Few things will breed more hate in a host people, it appears.
In some places where the Jews settled there were trade guilds that would say to their government something like, "Let them live among us if you decide to, but do not let them take up our skilled trades. We do not need the competition. It will reduce our income!" And so the Jews would be allowed to live there, but not to be carpenters or stone masons, etc. They could only be traders, merchants, money lenders, sometimes hold political positions, become teachers, and these sorts of things. So, they were forced to take up the sorts of businesses where you might come, in time, to have a position of influence and power in your new country if you were successful. The natives might have to come to the Jewish banker and plead for a loan they needed. And the Jews would look after each other as you might naturally expect. All things being equal they might choose a fellow Jewish person to do the work, get the contract, get a raise, etc. And in time...over and over again...the Jews tended to become successful enough to cause jealousy. And did they not also have the favor of God as well at certain times?
A likeness of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain
So, then comes the year 1492 A.D., and it was an especially terrible year for a lot of the European Jews, in some senses. In Spain King Ferdinand enacted the Alhambra decree, which is posted at the bottom of this article for those who would like to read it, and the Jews suddenly had to leave Spain. They were expelled. Unexpectedly, they were homeless and unwelcome. Similar things happened to other Jews in Sicily and parts of Italy that year. Soon enough in 1496 A.D. the island of Crete expelled the Jews. Western Europe was suddenly full of endangered, homeless Jewish people, and these were God's people. It was believed by many Christians that God was still angry at them because they had long ago crucified Jesus. But He had once declared them His special people, it said so in every Christian's Bible, so would the Father take care of them anyway?
Only God knows how the various events in the world are worked towards His plan, but this can be said: in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That's right, the Americas were "discovered" by Europe in 1492 A.D. And it came to be that thousands of Jewish people would begin moving to the Americas in coming times. It became a huge sanctuary. The Americas still are a place where millions of Jewish people have their home, and it all began, that huge door first began to open for the Jews, in 1492 A.D....the same year that the urgent need for a new home arose.
Sultan Bayezed II of Turkey
But perhaps an even more unlikely door opened in 1492 A.D. A Muslim leader of Turkey named Sultan Bayezed II learned that huge numbers of expelled Jews were in need of a home, and so he put the word out that they could come to Turkey. Why? I will not rule out that the man might have been compassionate, and certainly God the Father will guide the thoughts of Kings and Rulers however He decides to, but history records the reason as this: this ruler, this practical and wise Sultan Bayezed II, felt that it was simply an undeniable fact that these Jewish people were totally the bomb for ramping up any nation's economy. Where so ever the Jews came and settled in, business started to boom! There was nothing so transforming for a nation's finances than having a healthy Jewish community! And so the Jews were offered a warm welcome in Turkey by his royal command, and an initial wave of around 60,000 Jews decided that this was a pretty good offer in light of their prospects. They came to Turkey and were given a pretty fair footing to work with there. The government put out the word to treat them courteously and help them get settled in and rebuild their interrupted lives. And so, that is one of the amazingly unlikely doors that opened for the Jews in the time frame of their 1492 A.D. mass expulsion from several European nations they had long called home. (There were other places that offered them sanctuary such as Greece and North Africa, even parts of Italy.)
Inviting the recently evicted Jews of Europe into their Muslim nation was soon enough shown to be a wise financial move by Turkey, because the Jews really did come and begin living their generally hard working and characteristically productive lives, and soon there was a large jump in the economic activity going on in Turkey. And the Jews, finding conditions there in Turkey to be copacetic, put out the word to other home-seeking Jews and soon there were quite substantial Jewish communities in Turkey where there had only been a few small ones previously. Turkey went on to have one of the world's more vibrant economies for the next couple of centuries, and this accommodation of the expelled Jews was a major reason why.
God, though just and righteous and generous, requires obedience from those who would belong to Him, and His wrath can be devastating to the defiantly disobedient, but His love and provision and mercy and love cannot be equaled. And He keeps His promises even to the unworthy...such as every human truly is. There is nothing that compares to belonging to God the Father, and He decided that we would belong to Him through His Son Jesus. But even the Jewish people of today, not yet convinced that Jesus was actually their Messiah despite His huge sacrifice for the welfare of their souls and ours, even they have their protections because of the promises God the Father made to their ancestors. There are prophetic Biblical scriptures which make it plain that one day they will suddenly understand. And those Jews who come to believe do certainly have a hope and a future. And we gentile Christians only had a chance to be grafted back into the Tree of Life because these Jews, for a time, have rejected the Christ that we came to believe in. But their time of seeing the truth is coming, and probably fairly soon. But in the meantime, He who watches over them neither sleeps nor slumbers as the scriptures say.
The end, except for those who wish to read...
The Alhambra Decree of 1492 A.D.:
The Alhambra Decree-- Edict of the Expulsion of the Jews of Spain (1492) (1) King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, by the grace of God, King and Queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, the Balearic Islands, Seville, Sardinia, Cordoba, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, of the Algarve, Algeciras, Gibraltar, and of the Canary Islands, count and countess of Barcelona and lords of Biscay and Molina, dukes of Athens and Neopatria, counts of Rousillon and Cerdana, marquises of Oristan and of Gociano, to the prince Lord Juan, our very dear and muched love son, and to the other royal children, prelates, dukes, marquees, counts, masters of military orders, priors, grandees, knight commanders, governors of castles and fortified places of our kingdoms and lordships, and to councils, magistrates, mayors, constables, district judges, knights, official squires, and all good men of the noble and loyal city of Burgos and other cities, towns, and villages of its bishopric and of other archbishoprics, bishoprics, dioceses of our kingdom and lordships, and to the residential quarters of the Jews of the said city of Burgos and of all the aforesaid cities, towns, and villages of its bishopric and of the other cities, towns, and villages of our aforementioned kingdoms and lordships, and to all Jews and to all individual Jews of those places, and to barons and women of whatever age they may be, and to all other persons of whatever law, estate, dignity, preeminence, and condition they may be, and to all to whom the matter contained in this charter pertains or may pertain. Salutations and grace. (2) You know well or ought to know, that whereas we have been informed that in these our kingdoms there were some wicked Christians who Judaized and apostatized from our holy Catholic faith, the great cause of which was interaction between the Jews and these Christians, in the courts which we held in the city of Toledo in the past year of one thousand, four hundred and eighty, we ordered the separation of the said Jews in all the cities, towns and villages of our kingdoms and lordships and [commanded] that they be given Jewish quarters and separated places where they should live, hoping that by their separation the situation would remedy itself. Furthermore, we procured and gave orders that inquisition should be made in our aforementioned kingships and lordships, which as you know has for twelve years been made and is being made, and by many guilty persons have been discovered, as is very well known, and accordingly we are informed by the inquisitors and by other devout persons, ecclesiastical and secular, that great injury has resulted and still results, since the Christians have engaged in and continue to engage in social interaction and communication they have had means and ways they can to subvert and to steal faithful Christians from our holy Catholic faith and to separate them from it, and to draw them to themselves and subvert them to their own wicked belief and conviction, instructing them in the ceremonies and observances of their law, holding meetings at which they read and teach that which people must hold and believe according to their law, achieving that the Christians and their children be circumcised, and giving them books from which they may read their prayers and declaring to them the fasts that they must keep, and joining with them to read and teach them the history of their law, indicating to them the festivals before they occur, advising them of what in them they are to hold and observe, carrying to them and giving to them from their houses unleavened bread and meats ritually slaughtered, instructing them about the things from which they must refrain, as much in eating as in other things in order to observe their law, and persuading them as much as they can to hold and observe the law of Moses, convincing them that there is no other law or truth except for that one. This proved by many statements and confessions, both from these same Jews and from those who have been perverted and enticed by them, which has redounded to the great injury, detriment, and opprobrium of our holy Catholic faith. (3) Notwithstanding that we were informed of the great part of this before now and we knew that the true remedy for all these injuries and inconveniences was to prohibit all interaction between the said Jews and Christians and banish them from all our kingdoms, we desired to content ourselves by commanding them to leave all cities, towns, and villages of Andalusia where it appears that they have done the greatest injury, believing that that would be sufficient so that those of other cities, towns, and villages of our kingdoms and lordships would cease to do and commit the aforesaid acts. And since we are informed that neither that step nor the passing of sentence [of condemnation] against the said Jews who have been most guilty of the said crimes and delicts against our holy Catholic faith have been sufficient as a complete remedy to obviate and correct so great an opprobrium and offense to the faith and the Christian religion, because every day it is found and appears that the said Jews increase in continuing their evil and wicked purpose wherever they live and congregate, and so that there will not be any place where they further offend our holy faith, and corrupt those whom God has until now most desired to preserve, as well as those who had fallen but amended and returned to Holy Mother Church, the which according to the weakness of our humanity and by diabolical astuteness and suggestion that continually wages war against us may easily occur unless the principal cause of it be removed, which is to banish the said Jews from our kingdoms. Because whenever any grave and detestable crime is committed by members of any organization or corporation, it is reasonable that such an organization or corporation should be dissolved and annihilated and that the lesser members as well as tile greater and everyone for the others be punished, and that those who perturb the good and honest life of cities and towns and by contagion can injure others should be expelled from those places and even if for lighter causes, that may be injurious to the Republic, how Much more for those greater and most dangerous and most contagious crimes such as this. (4) Therefore, we, with the counsel and advice of prelates, great noblemen of our kingdoms, and other persons of learning and wisdom of our Council, having taken deliberation about this matter, resolve to order the said Jews and Jewesses of our kingdoms to depart and never to return or come back to them or to any of them. And concerning this we command this our charter to be given, by which we order all Jews and Jewesses of whatever age they may be, who live, reside, and exist in our said kingdoms and lordships, as much those who are natives as those who are not, who by whatever manner or whatever cause have come to live and reside therein, that by the end of the month of July next of the present year, they depart from all of these our said realms and lordships, along with their sons and daughters, menservants and maidservants, Jewish familiars, those who are great as well as the lesser folk, of whatever age they may be, and they shall not dare to return to those places, nor to reside in them, nor to live in any part of them, neither temporarily on the way to somewhere else nor in any other manner, under pain that if they do not perform and comply with this command and should be found in our said kingdom and lordships and should in any manner live in them, they incur the penalty of death and the confiscation of all their possessions by our Chamber of Finance, incurring these penalties by the act itself, without further trial, sentence, or declaration. And we command and forbid that any person or persons of the said kingdoms, of whatever estate, condition, or dignity that they may be, shall dare to receive, protect, defend, nor hold publicly or secretly any Jew or Jewess beyond the date of the end of July and from henceforth forever, in their lands, houses, or in other parts of any of our said kingdoms and lordships, under pain of losing all their possessions, vassals, fortified places, and other inheritances, and beyond this of losing whatever financial grants they hold from us by our Chamber of Finance. (5) And so that the said Jews and Jewesses during the stated period of time until the end of the said month of July may be better able to dispose of themselves, and their possession, and their estates, for the present we take and receive them under our Security, protection, and royal safeguard, and we secure to them and to their possessions that for the duration of the said time until the said last day of the said month of July they may travel and be safe, they may enter, sell, trade, and alienate all their movable and rooted possessions and dispose of them freely and at their will, and that during the said time, no one shall harm them, nor injure them, no wrong shall be done to them against justice, in their persons or in their possessions, under the penalty which falls on and is incurred by those who violate the royal safeguard. And we likewise give license and faculty to those said Jews and Jewesses that they be able to export their goods and estates out of these our said kingdoms and lordships by sea or land as long as they do not export gold or silver or coined money or other things prohibited by the laws of our kingdoms, excepting merchandise and things that are not prohibited. (6) And we command all councils, justices, magistrates, knights, squires, officials, and all good men of the said city of Burgos and of the other cities, towns, and villages of our said kingdoms and lordships and all our new vassals, subjects, and natives that they preserve and comply with and cause to be preserved and complied with this our charter and all that is contained in it, and to give and to cause to be given all assistance and favor in its application under penalty of [being at] our mercy and the confiscation of all their possessions and offices by our Chamber of Finance. And because this must be brought to the notice of all, so that no one may pretend ignorance, we command that this our charter be posted in the customary plazas and places of the said city and of the principal cities, towns, and villages of its bishopric as an announcement and as a public document. And no one shall do any damage to it in any manner under penalty of being at our mercy and the deprivation of their offices and the confiscation of their possessions, which will happen to each one who might do this. Moreover, we command the [man] who shows them this our charter that he summon [those who act against the charter] to appear before us at our court wherever we may be, on the day that they are summoned during the fifteen days following the crime under the said penalty, under which we command whichever public scribe who would be called for the purpose of reading this our charter that the signed charter with its seal should be shown to you all so that we may know that our command is carried out. (7) Given in our city of Granada, the XXXI day of the month of March, the year of the birth of our lord Jesus Christ one thousand four hundred and ninety-two years. I, the King, I the Queen, I, Juan de Coloma, secretary of the king and queen our lords, have caused this to be written at their command. Registered by Cabrera, Almacan chancellor.
The End!