India and Israel Against Islamic Terror

CHAPTER 2
HISTORY OF ISRAEL 57
heard. He did not expect to be arrested, and he did not

intend to die. The story of Jesus’ sorrow at Gethsemene

(’Abba, Father, all things are possible, to thee; remove this

cup from me...’) and the final words attributed to him on

the cross (’My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’)-

these expressions of human vulnerability suggest a man who

went to Jerusalem in the same idealistic and innocent spirit

that guided his ministry in the Galilee. In that respect it was

understandable for the Gospel writer Matthew, in denouncing

Jerusalem for the crime of executing Christ, to put into

Jesus’ mouth words of condemnation: ’O Jerusalem,

Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are

sent you!’ (Luke 13:34).”
And further:
. ”If the arrest and execution were essentially political, what

are we to make of the two dramatic scenes in which Jesus

is interrogated about his messianic claim by Jerusalem’s high

priest Caiaphas, and later by the Roman procurator Pontius

Pilate? The first thing to be said is that it is doubtful that

either event, certainly in the form presented, ever took place.

Both scenes were shaped by later Christian attitudes at a

time when it was in the interest of the church to shift blame

for Jesus’ death from the Roman state authority to Jewish

religious leadership.”
”According to Mark, it is the charge of blasphemy which

prompts Jewish officials to, turn Jesus over to Roman

authorities. But if it is unlikely that Jesus ever appeared

before a Jewish court (Sanhedrin) in Jerusalem, it is equally

unlikely that he was ever charged with blasphemy. The

technical Jewish charge of blasphemy was directed not against

a claim of messiahship but rather for using the sacred,

unutterable name of God, the tetragram YHVVH (Yahweh).

Nowhere in the Gospel is Jesus depicted as so blaspheming.”
” The point of the scene in which Pilate interrogates Jesus

about his messiahship is to absolve Pilate of direct

responsiblities for Jesus’ execution by the device of allowing

a Jewish mob to make the decision.”
vi-1.
”*
58 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 2
”And Pilate again said to them/ Then what shall I do with

the man whom you call the King of the Jews?’ And they

cried out again/ Crucify him’. And Pilate said to them/

Why, what evil has he done?’ But they shouted ail the

more/ Crucify him/ So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd,

released for them Barabbas: and having scourged Jesus, he

delivered him to be crucified.”
”If there is a kernel of historical truth in this scene, it lies in

the reference to Barabbas, who supposedly belonged to the

anti-Roman revolutionary party of the Sicarii. If so, it is

conceivable that Jesus was arrested in a police roundup of

any number of persons taken to be political agitators.”
”The belief in Jesus’ resurrection took shape among the

disciples soon after his death. They were convinced of the

miraculous powers of Cod who in the messianic era would

judge the wicked and rouse the righteous from their graves.

The Pharisees held strongly to a belief in the resurrection,

sharply disagreeing with’the Sadduceean Temple priests who

rejected it. Jesus believed in physical resurrection. And the

disciples, convinced that Jesus was the messianic agent of

God’s redemption, could not accept his death as anything

more than a prelude to his resurrection and second coming.

With this attitude Mark, at the conclusion of his Gospel,

provided reports of the apparitions of Jesus which appeared

to the disciples after the discovery of the empty tomb.”
And finally:
”Upon the death of Jesus, the disciples, fearing arrest and a

fate similar to their leader, now branded a criminal, fled

Jerusalem. Undoubtedly they were disappointed that Jesus’

prophecy of the coming kingdom had not immediately been

fulfilled, and that the prophet himself had come to an

ignominious end. We cannot be certain what made them

overcome disappointment and return to Jerusalem to preach

the message of Jesus’ lordship and the coming kingdom.

The magnetism of his personality, the authority of his

teachings, the wonder of his healing, his personal courage in
CHAPTER 2 ’ HISTORY OF ISRAEL 59
the face of opposition-all these must have played a role in

keeping the memory of Jesus alive in their minds.”
” To the disciples, the Resurrection meant that the

condemnation of Jesus by his fellow Jews and his death by

crucifixion were not a human defeat but a divine revelation,

stages in the fulfillment of God’s plan to judge and forgive

human sins through the suffering and death of his chosen

son. As Saint Paul was later to preach to the gentile community

of Antioch: ”For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers,

because they did not recognize him nor understand the

utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath,

fulfilled these by condemning him.”
It is an irony of history that Jesus born a Jew and died as

onej should have caused the birth of a religion which perpetrated

the maximum attrocities on its mother religion. There are many

commonly, forgotten facets of the life of Jesus which had put the

fringe fanatics of the Pharisees against him. Jesus was inspired by

a radical and Messianic zeal to reform Judaism, which inevitably

created enemies around. The temple priests had their vested

interest in collecting taxes from the visitors to the temple and

charged usurious prices on the sale of animals meant for slaughter

and sacrifice. This priestly class got so much enmeshed in the

rituals, outdated customs and minutiae of worship that any

improvement suggested seemed to them a challenge to their

authority and worldly interests. Jesus’ teachings were simple and

rational. He spoke vehemently about the abolition of such rites

and levy of taxes. He also challenged certain rigidities and

distortions which had crept in the Jewish religion. This enraged

the Jews whose only asset and driving force during the centuries

of oppression and persecution was a rigid adherence to the

Mosaic laws, the Torah and the Talmud. It was but natural for

this section of Jewry to view with suspicion this new upstart

claiming to be the son of Cod. Jesus contributed to the confusion

by not giving a categorical answer to the question often thrown

at him whether he was the son of God or the Messiah

prophesised by Isiah the last of the Jewish prophets.
<• m

&^ ~
*% ~2
!U l\ !!| 60^ /NDM ^D is^r CHAPTER 2
I 1 Whi|e upbraiding the Jews he adopted ^ soft attitude towards
• the Can governors, and exhorted them to pay axes to Rome
I I I’ thro^hmahjS famous dictum” Give untc Caesar what belongs to
1 I i!i Qes£” Thus he did cause a confusion W equatmg temporal
I i POW^ with that of God and His Kingdom. He also enjoined the
I ! f. J^vs ^Wl< t the Roman Emperor as their worldly head. While
I : A he
• I I i life % earth and hereafter was their Lord’s command. It accepted
: li I i jl, • no temporal authority but Yahweh, and non-payment of taxes
> 1 ” ’ ^ t0 tCEoman pagans and refusal to worship their ,dols was a
I : ’|i natu^| corollary. Thus possibly unintentionally, Jesus allowed
I fl I the Perpetuation of the Roman supremacy on earth while ta king
I i I of aSom of Heaven. It was totally against the faith of the
if I! | Jews. ’”en the circumstance of the death of Jesus is shrouded
|| I in ”Vstery. !t was not the Jews in genera’ JT ° Y ^ fanutiC
ll i i frin^ who protested against the heresy of Jesus, whom they
’ i C0nsicdered as much of an enemy as the Romans at whose
’ I hanc% they had suffered for the last four centuries His trial on
I here*V as is commonly believed, was demanded not by the

Je^ Y;s ,uch but these fringe fanatics of the Pharisees. This
I disse^sion between the jewery and the followers of Christ suited

^ Romans eminentlv, since to them a growing Christianity
I P°Se^l a Beater threat than the small band of Jews accustomed
’I t0 ^Ibiugation and oppression. Thus the c^ifixion blame does
I! ’ not liie ak^ne with the Jews in general and even the Pharisees in
v i I Part^ular but was connived at by the Romans keeping in mind
’ ’I their long term interests. This was to be pPved later when the
’ i| Chri^tians suffered the same persecution asthe Jews had suffered
f| earli4r and were burnt at the stakes and thrown to the wild
•*^ anirr>nais in the Roman amphitheatres.
I , VVP 5hall now rejoin the mainstream of history and pick up
f ! : the tthreads of the narrative of the fortune ofthe Jews in medieval
7 >• : Eurci:ne The Jews enjoyed a comparative era of peace and
?H ’ °PP^rti’jnity for professional development at par with their
/-’I i ChriSan friends in French and German cities. On the other
S I I hancO the comparative peace allowed the flowering of Talmudic
tf i stud ^ and development of Jewish thought by Gershom of
T^PTER 2 HISTORY OF ISRAEL 61
Mayence, the learned Jew, popularly known as the” Light of the

Exile”. After the death of Gershom in 1040 A.D. another Jewish

scholar Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, later known as Rashi, furthered

the cause of Biblical and Talmudic studies with his commentaries

and achieved great intellectual heights. But the age of Cershom

and Rashi was short-lived and another period of oppression was

in waiting. In France, Philip Augustus refined the art of Jewish

oppression during the 3rd crusade and expelled all Jews from

his dominions around Paris, though Richard, the Lion-Hearted,

the gallant king and co-crusader with Philip, showed some

compassion towards the Jews.
But as soon as he crossed the Channel, five hundred Jews

of York were besieged in a castle and starved to the point where

they took their own lives. Then came the age of Magna Carta,

the enlightened Frederick II, the gentile St. Francis and the vigorous

St. Dominic, with Dante’s immortal literary work and

philosophical works of Aquinas. But for the Jews this period

meant further intensification of the torments, which had started

in the 11th and 12th centuries. Degraded in body and spirit,

they were forced to wear a shameful badge and witnessed the

public destruction of their sacred books. Stripped of self respect,

degraded in mind and spirit they truely represented Byron’sfamous

lines: ”The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,

Mankind their country - Israel but the grave!”
The next century opened with Pope Innocent in, young

eloquent in speech, sublime in thought, a great statesman and

a fitting successor to Emperor Constantine.
Aiming at Christian unity, he excelled in his zeal for purification

of Jews by conversion, if possible, and threatened

excommunication and penalties otherwise. An inspired fanatic

he saw his duties in the persecution of error which was translated

through his ’Constitutio Judaecorum’ and which indirectly meant

conversion of Jews. In spite of his ’Constitutio Judaecorum’,

prohibiting attack on Jews or conversion by force, the oppression

of Jews continued. He always considered Jews to be, a lower

form of human being. Later on, however, he changed and

summed up his policy.
i*«
4
62 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 2
^B I | 11! ”The Jews, like the fratricide Cain, are doomed to wander
^K tl i I’, about the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces
^•HB ’ ill] must be covered in shame. They are under no circumstances
^^^1 !J to be protected by Christian princes, on the contrary, to be
^^^1 | condemned to serfdom.”
^^^1 Thus began the tale of 400 years of Jewish persecution.
^^^1 ’ Hounded by all crusaders, disenfranchised by the Church
^^^B I i Councils, accused of ritual, murder and blasphemy, persecuted
^^^1 ’ by Jew-baiters, as the cause of Black Death, the Hussite war and
^^^B Capistrano the Jew became a poor, homeless broken man. The
^^^B ; death penalty and other horrors forced a large number of Jews
KwAB ! |: i to conversion into Christianity. This has an echo in the Indian
^^^H ( ! history during the Moslem conquest when countless Hindus
P^^B were converted to Islam or slaughtered. This revolted the
”** ••••••& i (-**
~k”3Hr conscience of Martin Luther, who exclaimed:
^B ”Our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks, have
H^ hitherto conducted themselves towards the Jews in such a
g ^^^•x „
.^P^J i manner that he who was a good Christian would have
’”Hi preferred to be a Jew. And if I had been a Jew and had seen
H such block-heads and louts ruling and teaching Christianity,
H i|,i 1 would have become a swine rather than a Christian,
|| I because they have treated the Jews like dogs, and not like
* \ |l I human beings.”
t I I | While all this was happening in Europe, Spain, where the
”’, I ’I Jews had earlier enjoyed comparative peace, also turned against
*\ them. In the later half of 14th century, the persecution

commenced. On Ash Wednesday of 1391 at Seville the Jewish
’,* | quarters were burnt down, and an orgy of bloodshed led to the
;• „ **? butchery of several thousands Jews, baptism of those who had
’**„ ) escaped death, while the rest were sold as slaves to Moors. In
.£ ’! Cordoba once the proudest city of Jews 2000 were slaughtered
Y$£ and left in heaps in the streets. Toledo the largest centre of Jews

in Spain was ravaged on the ninth of Ab, the anniversary of

’ Jerusalem’s downfall. Seventy cities of Old Castile were destroyed

leaving broken homes and broken hearts; the land from Castile
^f ’ to Aragon, the province of Valencia and the sea-port of Barcelona
.$ 3 meeting the same fate. After three months of this blood-letting
CHAPTER 2
HISTORY OF ISRAEL