How Some Muslims Have Treated Jews Through The Ages

Anyone who’s familiar with population ecology knows the Lotka-Volterra Equation. Fewer population ecologists know of Rabbi Meshullam Ben R. Menahem of Volterra and his accomplishments. I’ll quote a manuscript he wrote in 1481. The reason I’m choosing the following passage is because, although one might consider him a Florentine, he got around and made a point of writing down many of his observations, and here I will quote what he wrote when he visited the Land of Israel. There, he went to Hebron to see what Jews could readily see then (and while commenting on everything, he also mentioned how he and his companions were treated, which was not unlike the treatment received from some Muslims who live there today):

“Hebron is like Gaza, but in a valley. It has no walls and is in a fat and rich valley. I saw the cave of Machpelah which is where the ground rises and it looks like this: the cave is in a field in the midst of Hebron and the Moslems have built a mosque upon it, as is their custom, and they have made a wall over the cave and in it is a small window where the Jews pray and throw into it money and spices. I also prayed there. The Moslems honor the place place very much and give thirteen thousand loaves every day to the poor in honor of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and especially in honor of Abraham; and they put the bread in mostard and tender veal, such as Abraham gave to the angels, and in honor of Isaac they give venison and delicacies such as he loved and in honor of Jacob bread and a mess of pottage such as he gave to Esau, and this constantly every day without fail. About twenty (l.v. 80) Jewish householders live there and no more, and from them I heard that in the mosque opposite the graves of Abraham and Sarah there is a golden candlestick with precious stones, and opposite the tombs of Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, and Leah, there is a silver candlestick with precious stones, and on their graves are silk and embroidered garments. They know this from their women, for many of them go into the mosque, as they are not recognized because of the black veil they wear on their faces, and the guards of the caves think they are Moslem women; and from the mouths of these women I also heard that the cave derives income from the lands near the cave and owns vineyards and olives and houses too numberous to count which the Moslems give for their dead to atone for them, and their revenue from people is more than five hundred thousand golden ducats every year.

We left Hebron on Tuesday, the 28th July, and went in the company of two good and honored mamelukes, because there are only occasionally caravans of Christian cacinatori from Hebron to Jerusalem, for the caravan does not go to Jerusalem. So we were obliged to accompany these two men, and with them there was a bastard whose intention was to kill us. His name is Ali and he was a Moslem. We took our lives in our hands and went with him. At nightfall we reached a village called Halibi, and that bastard went into the village and induced three robbers, companions of his, to rob us on the journey, and that man Ali came and deceitfully spoke to us and said that we should go with him and two of the mamelukes and he would bring us by an indirect path so that we should not have to pay tolls until Jerusalem. THe mamelukes believed him and so did we. We journeyed forth at midnight and he brought us in a circle to a place ten miles from Hebron, where there was a house in ruins adn a cave where Jesse, the father of David, was buried; and they say that this cave reaches to the cave of Machpelah, and the cursed man led us by ways which nobody had passed before into a great wood on the hills, and when we reached the middle of the woods the cursed Ali said, ‘I now want the two ducats which you have promised me.’ My companion, the dragoman, said, ‘We only promised you one golden ducat. Anyhow, we shall give you what you want when we reach Jerusalem, and now we shall give you half a ducat because we have no more;’ and the bastard wished to see our money and, therefore, hemade excuses. He had a bow and arrows and was riding on a fine horse, a jennet, and he left us and went and called in the woods, and when the mamelukes saw this they went after him and spoke to his heart, and Joseph, the dragoman, said to them, for God had put the words in his mouth, ‘Know that if this man does any wrong to us or kills us you will not escape, for the Jews know the matter, for we went with the Niepo from Hebron and they will seek us through him, and the Niepo knows that we went with you and he will seek us at your hands, and what will you reply?’ And the good mamelukes, who had no intention to harm us, replied to him, ‘By our lives we will kill him,’ and they also had bows and arrows and they went after the man and they brought him back, and R. Joseph, the dragoman, went after them in stealth in order to hear their words, and I and Raphael, my companion, were left alone in the middle of the wood, and the dragoman heard Ali say, ‘Let me do this because I have three companions with whom I have spoken at night in Halevi, and we will kill them and take their horses and all that they have got and divide equally, because they are very rich and who will seek them at our hands?’ Then the mamelukes replied, ‘Do not think so, for it is our duty to guard them, for the Lord the Niepo of Hebron has entrusted them to our hands, and it is for us to account for them.’ Then the bastard answered, ‘You tell the Niepo that you left them near to Jerusalem or that Orbanites slew them, and that you fled with their good horses and they pursued you, because they recognized that you were mameluke, and you were not able to save them and are guiltless.’ All this the said Joseph heard when he went behind them in order to find out whether the mamelukes would consent after all the talk, and when the mamelukes saw that Ali would not listen to them they said tohim, ‘Choose one of two things: either die here, for we will slay you, or come with us, because we do not wish you to call your companions, because of the responsibility for this rests upon us. If you come with us we swear by the life of our King that we will not betray your secret to anybody;’ and for this reason he returned against his will, and the mamelukes said to us, ‘Let us go in front with this cursed fellow and you go behind us near to us. Then there was much talk between them, and the mamelukes placed him between them so that he could not flee, and thus we swent at night by moonshine until dawn, and when Ali saw that it was dawn he said to the mamelukes, ‘I wish to leave my horse here in a village,’ because he was afraid to enter Jerusalem for fear that the mamelukes would betray him to the Emir of Jerusalem. So he made himself scarce, and we went hurriedly to Bethlehem, and from there on the high road we found Rachel’s tomb. It is a high monument of stones and the Moslems have placed above her grave four pillars and an arch above. They honor her and both Jews and Moslems pray there. God protected us from the hands of that betrayer, and robber, and we gave to the mamelukes each a ducat instead of to the villain, and anyhow, we paid no tax because of the roundabout journey we made, for there are seven toll houses between Hebron and Jerusalem.

On the same day we arrived in Jerusalem, the Holy City, in peace, thanks be to the Lord, who sent us those two mamalukes to save our lives from death. On the way we found at the well of Bekr (the Virgin) more than ten thousand men who were proceeding against the Orbanites and none could go out and none could come in. You see, therefore, that if we had delayed a single day we should not have been able to get through and should have been in great danger. Blessed be He and blessed be His name who doeth good unto the undeserving.”

- from “Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages,” edited by Elkan Nathan Adler