Seder Olam Revisited: C42b- Disputations
- Albert Benhamou
- Oct 11
- 25 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
CHRONOLOGY OF JEWISH HISTORY
Generation 42: Hebrew years 4920-5040 (1160-1280 CE)
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Introduction
This 42nd chronological generation continues with persecutions and massacres of Jews, and the establishment of the feared Catholic Inquisition which started to organize tribunals to fight heresy, apostasy, blasphemy and so on. The period also sees the setup of debates between Christian and Jewish scholars about the scriptures: these are the Disputations, and they took place in many cities in the dominions of the Roman Catholic Church.
Hebrew Year | CE | Event | Source |
4969 | 1209 | Crusade against the Cathars | |
4972 | 1212 | War against the Almohads | |
4975 | 1215 | Fourth Council of Lateran | |
4977 | 1217 | Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg | |
4992 | 1232 | The Inquisition | |
4993 | 1233 | Burning of Maimonides' works | |
4999 | 1239 | Louis IX and the Jews | |
5000 | 1240 | Massacres of Jews | |
5000 | 1240 | Disputation of Paris | |
5002 | 1242 | Burning of the Talmud | |
5007 | 1247 | Innocent IV pleads for the Jews | |
5009 | 1249 | Crusade of Louis IX | |
5020 | 1260 | The Mongols in Jerusalem | |
5023 | 1263 | Disputation of Barcelona | |
5024 | 1264 | The Jews of Poland | |
5030 | 1270 | Altneuschul synagogue in Prague | |
5035 | 1275 | The Jews of Castille | |
5040 | 1280 | Abulafia and Pope Nicholas III | |
Year 4969 – 1209 CE – Crusades against the Cathars
In 1208, the papal legate of Montpellier, Pierre de Castelnau, was murdered while traveling to Provence. The fingers pointed to the Cathars who opposed the power of the Church in the Languedoc region, where Catharism had met with the most success. As a result, Pope Innocent III excommunicated all the followers of this doctrine, and this decision opened the door to a military campaign in Southern France. An army of 10,000 crusaders was gathered. Some asked how to recognize a good Christian from a heretic. The famous answer was: Kill them all ! The Lord will know which are His own. What followed was a campaign of massacres and destruction across the Languedoc region.
The first crusade against the Cathars lasted until 1215 and ended with the exile of some of their leaders and with the repossession of the lands to either Catholic lords engaged in the crusade or to the king of France. But other such crusades were done in the western and southern parts of France, for example against Toulouse in 1241 and until Montsegur, the last fortress held by the Cathars, fell in 1243.
Year 4972 – 1212 CE – War against the Almohads
The Almohads were a Berber dynasty that ruled parts of North Africa and Spain from the mid-12th to the mid-13th century when they unified several smaller taifas into their control. They brought a peaceful period of cultural and intellectual growth to the Jews of al-Andalus, but they were less tolerant towards the Christians.
A crusade was gathered to support a Christian coalition led by the king of Castile Alfonso VIII in a campaign against the Almohads. After the decisive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa near Jaen on 16 July 1212, most of Al-Andalus passed under Christian control with the next kings of Castile. Cordoba fell in 1236, Valencia in 1238, Murcia in 1243, and Seville in 1248. Ferdinand III even received support from a Muslim faction, the Nasrid from Granada, during the siege of Seville. As a reward, Ferdinand left the emirate of Granada to the Nasrid dynasty and this accord lasted until 1492.
Year 4974 – 1214 CE – War in France
Richard Lionheart died in 1199 and his brother, the weaker John "Lackland" (known in French as Jean "Sans Terre"), reigned after him. Philip II of France (Philippe Auguste) took the opportunity to try regaining territories of France that fell to the English rule over the years. He won a decisive battle at Bouvines on 27 July 1214 which sealed the authority of the French dynasty over western regions of Britanny and Normandy. After these campaigns, England only kept control over Gascony (and Bordeaux), a much smaller region of France.
Following these territorial reverses, the English barons forced King John Lackland to sign the Magna Carta that ensured that the king of England would not abuse authority against the aristocracy. This act guaranteed the continuation of the cooperation between the king and his landlords, unlike France where the king had full authority.
Year 4975 – 1215 CE – The Fourth Council of Lateran (Latran)
Pope Innocent III conveys this new council to discuss the limited success of the Third Crusade and the result of the other religious campaigns. The council also, for the first time, made a rule of the practice of the rouelle in France (see document C42a, year 1182), which imposed to Jews and Muslims to wear a distinctive piece of cloth on their costume.
Year 4977 – 1217 CE – Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg
Judah was the son of Samuel Kalonymus, from a family who emigrated from Lucca (Italy) a couple of generations previously and first settled in Mainz (Germany). During or after the massacres of the First Crusade (see document C41, year 1096), Samuel moved to Speyer (Germany), where his son Judah was born in 1140. Judah lost his father when he was young, and then settled in Regensburg (Ratisbon, Germany) in 1195. There he founded a yeshiva and wrote books that formed the foundation of the future Chasidic movement (his principal work, the Sefer Chasidim, was first published in 1538 in Bologna, Italy). In 1217, shortly before he died, Rabbi Judah would have made the following prediction to his disciples:
When the Ottomans (Turks) conquer Jerusalem, they will rule over Jerusalem for eight Jubilees [50 years cycles]. Afterwards Jerusalem will become no-man’s land for one Jubilee, and then in the ninth Jubilee it will once again come back into the possession of the Jewish nation – which would signify the beginning of the Messianic end time. (this text can be found in multiple sources, but it was apparently made by a Messianic magazine)
The Muslims conquered Jerusalem, with Saladin, in the year 4948 AM (1187 CE), which is about 100 Jubilee cycles from Creation, and about 50 Jubilee cycles from the Exodus. The control of the Holy City however changed hands many times until, in 1517, the Ottomans defeated the last rulers, the Mamelukes. So, the eight Jubilee cycles of Rabbi Judah's prophecy added 8 x 50 = 400 years to year 1517. And indeed, the British commander General Allenby liberated Jerusalem in December 1917. The first part of the prophecy worked. The second part worked as well, because the Jewish nation came in possession of the Holy City after the Six-Day War in June 1967, thus one Jubilee cycle (50 years) from 1917. Last, the final part of another Jubilee count brings us to 2017. What is special about it? Donald Trump became president of the USA in January 2017 and, in December 2017, recognized Jerusalem as capital of the State of Israel, one hundred years (two Jubilee cycles) after Allenby.
Year 4992 – 1232 CE – The Catholic Inquisition
To fight against heretic movements, Pope Gregory IX gave power to the Dominican Order to carry out inquisitorial tribunals. This was the beginning of the active and organized Inquisition under papal authority, although previous tribunals had been set up before. Beside fighting Christian heretics, the Inquisition also turned their attention against the Jews. Later in 1478, the Spanish king established the Spanish Inquisition (see document C44, year 1478) under his direct authority and with more disastrous effects against the Jews.
Year 4993 – 1233 CE – Burning of Maimonides' works
The translation of The Guide of the Perplexed (Moreh Nebukim) from Maimonides led a prominent rabbi, Solomon ben Abraham of Montpellier, to condemn it as heretical. The problem is that he made such condemnation as his mission in life and endeavored to gather support from the Jewish community against the works of Maimonides. He succeeded to get backing from prominent rabbis from his previous pupils, of which Jonah Gerondi (known as Rabbenu Yona), and together they issued a devastating excommunication of Maimonides' works in 1232. But they did worse: in 1233 they went to Dominican monks, the Order that was tasked to carry out the Inquisition against Christian heretics, to announce the heretical nature, as they saw it, of Maimonides' books. Although this issue was more related to Jewish doctrine and should not have involved Christian authorities, the monks seized the opportunity of this denunciation to order the public burning of all the books of Maimonides, and the same order was carried out in Paris and the rest of the French kingdom.
The French Jewry was filled with horror and condemned the over-zealous rabbis to have caused such damage to their brethren and to have put in danger the Jewish communities at the hand of the Dominicans who pursued their quest to burn the "heretical" Jewish works, from Maimonides and more. This however was not enough to stop the stubborn Solomon, as he went to further denounce to the Dominicans those Jews he regarded as supporters of Maimonides' works.
Year 4998 – 1238 CE – Nicolas Donin
Nicolas Donin, a Jew from Paris who had been excommunicated from the Jewish community, converted to Christianity, and settled in La Rochelle, Western France, where he started to preach against the Jews. Furthermore, he went to Rome in 1238 to meet with Pope Gregory IX and convinced him that the Talmud contained disrespectful comments about Jesus and Mary ! The Pope believed him and sent orders for all copies of the Talmud to be seized and examined by the Dominicans. This papal order was not followed anywhere except in France.
Year 4999 – 1239 CE – Louis IX and the Jews
In 1223, Louis VIII succeeded his father Philip Augustus and pursued his policy of expansion of the French kingdom against smaller regions in Central and Southern France. Concerning the policy towards the Jews however, he reversed an ordinance that royal officials had to record debts owed to Jews. But he died of dysentery in 1226 and was succeeded by his 12 years old son, Louis IX. Blanche of Castile, daughter of the Catholic Spanish king and mother of Louis IX, reigned as regent until Louis was 20 years old in 1234.
Louis IX was very pious. He listened to mass twice every morning and took upon himself harsh penitence. He also showed readiness to decree against the Jews, despite his mother's advice to show fairness to them. Twice, before and after his crusade, he confiscated Jewish properties. He was an anti-Jewish king, although the Church had made him a saint, as "Saint Louis". He was highly influenced by the Church and, unfortunately for the Jews during his reign, the popes of these times were not themselves moderate towards them: the list of Papal Bulls of these times gives an idea of the increased pressure against the Jews (to see this list, click here).
Year 5000 – 1240 CE – The 100th Jubilee since Creation
This Hebrew year 5000 is the 100th Jubilee from the Creation (100 x 50 years) and the 50th Jubilee from such first institutionalized count at the time of Joshua (see document C21c, Hebrew year 2500). This first Jubilee in the time of Joshua took place when the Israelites had finally conquered the Promised Land and were looking for periods of positive outcome from then on. As we know from the Bible and History, and this study, matters could only get worse for them once they had reached the pinnacle. Now, this present Jubilee of Hebrew year 5000 is the reverse: Jews were persecuted everywhere and at the bottom of their sufferings, so they could only rebounce and be revived through new thoughts in faith. And one clear winner in their faith renewal, a winner that helped them explain their miseries and find a goal in their life was Mysticism. The development of mysticism helped them revive themselves and hope for better days to come.
Year 5000 – 1240 CE – The massacres of Jews
The beginning of the 6th millennium was remembered in the Jewish communities of the Christian world as the start of mass murders (genocides) of entire populations: the pogroms. With political powers ready to act, with mobs eager to kill and steal, and now with the religious blessing from the Church hierarchy, the Jews of Europe had nowhere to hide nor to escape to.
Is there any pain like our pain? Is there any calendar like ours?
Sivan | The murdered of Frankfurt, in the first year of the sixth millennium, 1241 |
Av | The murdered of Kitzingen, 1243 |
Tishri | The murdered of Ortenburg, in the state of Bavaria |
Tammuz | The murdered of Pforzheim, neighboring Speyer |
Nissan | The murdered of Koblenz, 1256 |
Iyar | Seventy burned men of Sinzig, in the region of Koblenz |
Av | The murdered of Arnstadt, in the state of Thuringen |
Nissan | The burned men of Mellrichstadt, in the state of Franconia |
Passover | The murdered of Mainz on the seventh day of Passover, and in Cracow on the same day, 1283 |
Nissan | The murdered of Rockhausen |
Heshvan | The burned of Munich, 1285 |
Tammuz | The murdered of Weissenburg, in Alsace, the murdered of Trerbach, the murdered of Lechnich and Kirn, the murdered of Kemeno, next to Duesseldorf, the murdered of Bonn |
Av | The murdered of Muenster |
Elul | The murdered of Siegburg |
Tishri | The murdered of Logostein |
Adar | The murdered of Bernkastel by the Moselle River; the murdered of Altenhar in the district of Cologne |
For the sake of these holy people, we shall be granted salvation and comfort, and He will gather our outcasts with upraised hands. (The Scrolls of Fire, ANU Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv)
Year 5000 – 1240 CE – The Disputation of Paris
The Jewish communities also had to face an increase of forced debates about Jesus and Christianity. This is because some Christian scholars wanted to either prove that the Jews were wrong in refusing Jesus as the Jewish Messiah or, worse, that the Jewish written works blasphemed against Jesus. Also, the affair of Maimonides' books having been declared "heretical" by Jewish authorities in France a few years earlier drew the attention of the Christian authorities into the entire Jewish works, not just those of Maimonides, for potential reasons to condemn them.
In 1240, the Jewish scholar Rabbi Yechiel of Paris was forced to argue against a Jewish convert called Nicholas Donin (see above, year 1238). The latter had personal reasons to be bitter against the Jewish leader after having been excommunicated. Beside the arguments about blasphemy, Donin also argued that the Talmud taught the Jews to hate the Christians which he mentioned as referred as the Goyim (which only means the nations) or Avoda Zara (a term used to designate idolatry). This was an obvious twisting of the truth because the Talmud makes no reference to "Christians" but only to either the Hasdanim (the former Sadducees who accepted assimilation to other cultures, first Greek then Roman, see document C31b, year 107 BCE) or Minim (those Jews who belonged to a sect, including the early disciples of Jesus) or to Goyim (the non-Jewish nations, broadly speaking). But the Christian judges had no knowledge of the subtilities of the Talmud and were probably eager anyway to follow Donin's argument without further investigation of the pointed scriptures. It may be said that, until the late 19th century at least, at a time where the knowledge of the scriptures and of the Talmud was higher than in the Middle Ages, Christian scholars still believed that the arguments presented by Donin were correct and that Jews were to be reminded that:
...if Christians tolerated their presence, they did not bear their insults. (Noel Valois, Guillaume d'Auvergne, bishop of Paris (1228-1249), Paris, 1830, p. 137, translation by Albert Benhamou)
The tosafist Rabbi Moise de Coucy, who helped Rabbi Yehiel in this disputation, tried to explain that Jews were taught to behave as good subjects of the king:
He [a Jew] who seeks not to pay the tax is guilty because he steals from the Treasury of the King, whether the King is a Goy or Israelite. Now that our Exile has prolonged beyond expectation, I have preached for a long time to the exiles from Spain and to other exiles of Edom [Christendom] that the Israelites are (more than ever) to abstain from any iniquity, and rather to take over the seal the Lord, which is Truth, and not a lie either to an Israelite or to a Goy and not deceive in any way. (Moïse de Coucy, "Grand Livre des Préceptes (Sefer Mitzvot Hagadol - SMAG)", Venise, 1547, cited in Isidore Loeb, "La controverse sur le Talmud sous Saint Louis", Revue des Études Juives, 1881; translation by Albert Benhamou)
The Disputation of Paris had however made a point clear: the Jews could argue against the Christian scholars on religious matters. This is what Louis IX had told one close advisor:
"So let me tell you," The King said to me, "nobody, unless he holds a big office or is a theologian, must dispute against the Jews. But the lay man, when he hears bad mouthing against the Christian faith, must defend it, not only with words but with the cutting sword, and to hit with it these bad-mouthing people and the mécréants [unbelievers] through their body, as much as he can push it in." (Theophile Malvezin, "Histoire des Juifs de Bordeaux", 1875, page 39, quoting Sire de Joinville (translation: Albert Benhamou)
Year 5002 – 1242 CE – The burning of the Talmud
The result of this disputation was the Louis IX decreed the burning of all copies of the Talmud, without waiting for the eventual judgement from the Pope who asked for this disputation. The decree was carried out in Paris on 17 June 1242, and 24 carts fully loaded of Talmudic manuscripts that had been seized in 1239 were publicly burned. This "brulement" (burning) of the Talmud in 1242 has been "ratified" by the next Pope, Innocent IV, in his bull "Impia judaeorum perfidia" (meaning: the impious perfidy of the Jews) addressed to Saint Louis and dated 9 May 1244.
The damage done to Jewish scholarship of these times, when the press didn't exist yet and when manuscripts were rare, was immense. Jonah Gerondi (known as Rabbenu Yona), one of those rabbis who earlier denounced Maimonides' works to Christian authorities, realized the damage caused by his former master, Solomon of Montpellier. He decided to make repentance and authored several books on the topic. Carrying the blame, he decided to travel to the Holy Land to ask forgiveness on the tomb of Maimonides. He set off on this journey but was stopped in Barcelona. He then settled in Toledo where he became a known religious leader there. He died in Toledo in 1263, thirty years after his involvement in the public burning of Maimonides' works.
On the Jewish side, the result of this disputation and burning in Paris was that, from this time, all editions of the Talmud had the incriminated passages were removed completely to avoid persecutions. As of Yechiel, his son, and many disciples, they fled from France and settled in Acre in 1260 (which was still under the rule of the Crusaders at that time).
Year 5007 – 1247 CE – Pope Innocent IV pleads for the Jews
Pope Innocent IV, in response to Jewish leaders of Germany who pleaded him to intervene, issued the bull Lachrymabilem Judaeorum on 5 July 1247 to denounce the accusation of blood libel as false and to ask the German prelates to end the persecutions against the Jews:
Holy Scripture pronounces among other injunctions of the Law 'Thou shalt not kill', forbidding them [the Jews] when they celebrate the Passover even to touch any dead body. Nevertheless, they are falsely accused that, in that same solemnity, they make communion with the heart of a slain child. This is alleged to be enjoined by the Law, whereas in fact such an act is manifestly contrary to it. Moreover, if the body of a dead man is by chance found anywhere, they maliciously ascribe the cause of death to the action of the Jews.
On this, and many other fictitious pretexts, they rage against the Jews and despoil them of their possessions, against God and Justice and the privileges mercifully granted to them by the Holy See; notwithstanding that they have never been tried for these crimes and have never confessed them and have never been convicted of them. By starvation, imprisonment and many heavy persecutions and oppressions they harass them, inflicting upon them divers kinds of punishment, and condemning large numbers to a most shameful death. Hence the Jews, who are under the power of the aforesaid nobles, lords and princes, are in a worse condition than were their fathers in Egypt and are compelled to go into exile from localities where they and their ancestors have dwelt from time immemorial. Wherefore, fearing that they would be utterly exterminated, they have thought well to have recourse to the wisdom of the Apostolic See. We, therefore, being unwilling that the aforesaid Jews should be unjustly harassed (seeing that the compassionate God expects their conversion, and that we believe, according to the testimony of the prophet, that the remnant of them shall be saved), do ordain that you show yourselves favorable and benign towards them. Duly redress all that has been wrought against the Jews in the aforesaid matter by the said prelates, nobles, and potentates; and do not allow them in future to be unjustly molested by anybody on this or any other similar charge. (Cecil Roth, The ritual murder libel and the Jew, London, 1934, appendix A, to read this document online, click here)
Needless to say, no nobleman or layman was redressed or brought to Christian justice for having participated to the massacre of Jews, despite this Papal Bull. And, three years later, in 1250, Pope Innocent IV ordered the bishop of Cordoba (which was conquered from the Muslims in 1236) to reduce the size of the synagogue of that great city.
Year 5009 – 1249 CE – The crusade of Louis IX
In 1244, Jerusalem was taken by a Tartar army who was fleeing from the Mongol invasion in the East. The Pope called for another crusade, but most nations were tired of this effort that would only have limited success or short duration before the city would fall again to Muslim control.
Only pious Louis IX declared himself in favor of it. He had been successful at home by overcoming the heretic regions and may have thought himself guided by God to reconquer the Holy City. Louis IX and his army landed in July 1249 in Damietta, Egypt, then moved towards Cairo to take control of this important Muslim centre and then negotiate with the Muslims about the Holy Land in exchange. But the campaign turned into a disaster and Louis returned to Damietta a few months later. His army was finally utterly vanquished and Louis taken prisoner. France had to pay a high ransom for his release. He then sailed to Acre, which was still a Crusader possession in the Holy Land, and then returned to France in 1254. Some of his children were born in the Holy Land, called "Outremer" (which means "Overseas") in these times.
Year 5020 – 1260 CE – The Mongols in Jerusalem
Coming from Eastern Asia, the Mongols attacked the Muslim empire with an army of estimated 300,000 warriors. On their way, they destroyed over 200 fortified cities, as well as killed their populations, if a land would refuse their submission. This was the case of Bagdad, capital of the Abbasid empire, which they destroyed after a surrender, committing all sorts of atrocities against the population. The destruction of Bagdad sent a huge shockwave to the Muslim world because Bagdad was the seat of the Caliphate and such an important trade centre in these days.
Luckily, the leader of the Mongols died in 1259 and there was a dispute over his succession. Most of the Mongol army continued to head West and North, entering Eastern Europe, and the smaller rest army entered the Levant. They took Damascus and then sent a smaller army of 20,000 men to the Holy Land in 1260. The Jews, like many of the people of Jerusalem, had fled the city by fear that they will destroy it as they did to Bagdad two years earlier. The remains of this small Jewish community took the Torah scrolls with them and found refuge in Sichem (present-day Nablus). They remained there for 7 years.
The Mongols hoped to conquer or submit the Ayyubid empire based in Egypt, which was their next target in their Muslim conquest. Their leader sent an emissary to Cairo to request their submission. In response the Ayyubid leader returned the severed head of that emissary and moved his army northward. The Ayyubid army was composed of Mamluks, an army of young Christians abducted in early age from the Caucasus region and trained to the art of fighting and horse riding. Their commander was Baybars.
Against all odds, the Mamluks inflicted a severe defeat to the Mongol army in the battle of Ain Jalut in the Valley of Jezreel in Israel, at the same site where Judge Gideon defeated the Midianites in Biblical times (see document C22, year 1158 BCE).
It was the first time, since their long campaign across Asia, that the Mongols lost a battle. The Levant was saved as the Mongols retreated more north, sending warning to the second larger army in Europe of their defeat. So, the entire Mongol army gave up their initial plan to invade Europe and retreated to Asia, out of fear that the Mamluks may cut them off from their back route. The battle of Ain Jalut may have saved Europe from a Mongol invasion !
The consequence of this outstanding victory was that the weak Ayyubid also lost power because Baybars, who became known as the "Saviour of Islam", seized power and started the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt, the Levant and Syria (after he liberated Damascus from the Mongols). Jerusalem started to be under Mamluk rule from 1260 until 1517.
Year 5023 – 1263 CE – Nahmanides and the Disputation of Barcelona
In similar circumstances than in Paris, a converted Jew, Pablo Christiani, convinced the king of Aragon, Jaime [a name of Jewish origin, Chaim, which means Life in Hebrew], so-called "James the Conqueror", to put to trial the Jewish community. Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (known as Ramban in Hebrew and Nahmanides in English) from Girona, Catalonia, was called to answer the Christian accusations.
Ramban was a respected scholar at the time, author of a famous Commentary of the Bible, and was already 69 years old. He was also respected by the king himself who was in fact an open-minded character and who authored a Book of Wisdom (Libre de la Saviesa) that borrowed from other cultures, including Jewish and Muslim ones.
The timing of this disputation may be understood by the fact that the king Alfonso X of Castile was perceived of being far too tolerant towards the non-Christians. He was a king of enlightement, eager to gather the knowledge of his times, and did not hesitate to hire Muslims and Jews in Toledo to translate some of the greatest works of the time. Alfonso X, so-called the Wise, employed many Jews of Al-Andalus in Toledo to translate Arab works. They included Judah of Toledo who translated the works of Avicenna, Moses ben Tibbon from Granada who translated the (mathematical) Elements of Euclid and more (source: Theophile Malvezin, Les Juifs de Bordeaux, 1875, page 61).
The astronomical Alfonsine Tables, published in 1252 was a translation from Arabic by a Jew called Isaac ben Cid, aimed at understanding the calendar and predict the times for Christian Easter. They became very popular in Europe (until they were proven wrong by later astronomers) and may have been seen as an interference into what the Church believed and wanted to impose.
The Disputation of Barcelona, under the banner of Jaime king of Aragon, may thus be understood as a lesson to the king of Castile that he was going too far.
In his commentary of Genesis (the Creation), Nahmanides stated that all the creation was done in the very first day, ex-nihilo, whereas in all subsequent days, God did not create anything else but merely shaped the original creation (see also document C00):
Everything that exists under the sun or above was not made from non-existence at the outset. Instead He brought forth from total and absolute nothing a very thin substance devoid of corporeality but having the potentiality into reality. This was the primary matter created by God; it is called by the Greeks the 'hyly' (matter). After the 'hyly', He did not create anything, but He formed everything into existence and clothed the forms and put them into a finished condition. (Ramban, Commentary on the Torah, Genesis, translation Rabbi Dr. Charles B. Chavel, p.23)
The Disputation of Barcelona took place in four non-consecutive days. In Paris, it was an debated accusation against the Talmud. In Barcelona, it was an attempt to use the Talmud to convince the Jews of their wrongness. Because the Disputation of Barcelona was done under the umbrella of the Dominicans, empowered by the Inquisition, it was a last attempt to convert the Jews. The debate focused on three questions:
whether the Messiah had already come,
whether the Messiah is human or divine being,
who of Judaism or Christianity really holds the true faith.
Obviously, in this sort of debate, under threat, there could only be one winner. So, all the skills of Nahmanides were to bring answers that would not give way to make the Inquisition believe that the Jews would convert and yet this had to be done with all the necessary tactfulness that would not show that the Inquisition lost the debate. About the Christian belief that Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews, the Inquisitors mentioned a Midrash from Eicha (Lamentations) Rabbati 1:51. Nahmanides responded:
If the Midrash states that the Messiah was born the very day of the destruction of the [Second] Temple, then Jesus was not the Messiah as you declare, because he was born and was executed before that destruction. So, according to rabbinical tradition, he was born about 200 years before the destruction of the Temple, or, according to your account, 73 years before. (Nahmanide, "La Dispute de Barcelone", Verdier, Paris, 1984, translated by Albert Benhamou)
It is interesting to note from the above argument that Nahmanides had knowledge of the assumed birth of Jesus some 3 years before Common Era, a correction from the original Christian miscalculation, but also dared mention that the Talmud stated that his birth took place much earlier, at the time of the Hasmonean kings (see document C31b, year 89 BCE).
In the second day of the Disputation, Nahmanides was drawn into discussing the venue of the Messiah. He made his own calculation based on the last verses of the Book of Daniel:
And from the moment that the continual [burnt-offering] shall be removed (וּמֵעֵת הוּסַר הַתָּמִיד), and the giving of the abomination that causes stupefaction (וְלָתֵת שִׁקּוּץ שֹׁמֵם), there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. (Daniel 12:11)
Nahmanides declared that the Messiah should come 1290 years after the end of the divine service in the Second Temple, which he estimated to have happened in 68, so the coming of the Messiah would be in 1358. Because the Disputation took place in 1263, he thus declared that the Messiah should come in 95 years from their time. This obviously did not happen and there is no doubt that Nahmanides knew it was a wrong calculation, but this statement was only made to contradict the argument of the Inquisitors that the Messiah had already come under the character of Jesus. Why was the date of 1358 wrong? Because the verse of Daniel explicitely mentions that the duration of 1290 years is to be counted from the end of the burnt-offering (Temple service) AND the giving of an abomination that would be astonishing. Nahmanides deliberatly used the first part of the condition and not the second. But this was enough to silence his adversaries as everybody would be dead 95 years later, so his statement could not be contradicted.
The Disputation ended with James of Aragon thanking Nahmanides for his skill in the debate and gave him a substantial sum of money as a good gesture. But this was not satisfactory to the inquisitors who asked the king for his exile or banishment. Nahmanides had to leave Aragon. He sojourned in Castile and Southern France for a while but was still pursued by the inquisitors. So, he finally found refuge by going to Muslim land and from there to Jerusalem in 1267. At the time of his arrival, the Holy City was devastated by years of wars and crusades, and Nahmanides could only find a few Jews living in the holy city which had mostly been abandoned seven years earlier before the arrival of the Mongols (see above, year 1260). To his son who remained in Aragon he wrote about Jerusalem:
Many are its forsaken places, and great is the desecration. The more sacred the place, the greater the devastation it has suffered. Jerusalem is the most desolate place of all. ... There are ten men who meet on the Sabbaths they hold services at their home. ... Even in its destruction, it is an exceedingly good land. (source: Wikipedia)
Nahmanides found men willing to return to the city from Sichem where they had found refuge, bringing back to Jerusalem the Torah scrolls with them, and he opened a synagogue which is known today as the Ramban Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Some historians however believe that the original Ramban synagogue was located on Mount Sion, because the Jews only moved to the present Jewish Quarter many years later after a dispute with the Franciscans over the ownership of Mount Sion.
Nahmanides died in 1270 and James of Aragon in 1276. The era that followed their life witnessed the persecution of Spanish Jews by the Inquisition.
Year 5024 – 1264 CE – The Jews of Poland
The Jews started to come to Poland after the persecutions of the First Crusade and the expulsions in various states of Europe. On 16 August 1264 (15 Av 5024), the king of Poland, Boleslav the Pious, granted privileges to the Jews of his kingdom (see Statute of Kalisz). This new law was unprecedented in Europe and remained in force in Poland for over 500 years until 1795.
Some Jewish families, enthusiastic about the new condition they received, changed their name to adopt the name of this city: The Jewish family name Kalisch dates from this time and may be derived from Kalinomus that was changed into Kalish.
Year 5030 – 1270 CE – The Altneuschul in Prague
In the same timeframe that the world was turning against the Jews with pogroms, a new synagogue was completed in the Jewish quarter of Prague, called Josefov. It later became famous because of the Maharal of Prague and his "Golem" (see document C45, year 1600).
During WW-II, the Germans decided not to destroy this old synagogue but planned to turn it, after the destruction of the European Jewry, into a museum of a "lost civilization"... This evil regime didn't survive, and this synagogue still stands today, and is one of the oldest synagogues which is still used in Europe. The synagogue is linked to the story of the Golem and the Maharal of Prague.
Year 5030 – 1270 CE – Death of Louis IX
In 1270, Louis IX attempted another crusade. He landed at Tunis but a plague spread to his camp. Louis died in Tunis in August 1270, either from the plague or from dysentery. His corpse was brought back to France, but it disappeared from its tomb in later years during the French Wars of Religion.
Philip II "Le Hardi" succeeded his father on the throne of France in 1270. He led a crusade against Muslim Spain (he had married the daughter of the king of Aragon) but his army also suffered a disease that forced the king into retreat and defeat. Like his father, he died from the disastrous results of his crusade.
Philip III was succeeded by his son Philip IV "Le Bel". This king would too be cursed by fate, as will be seen later in this series. And the dynasty of the Capetians, who had caused so much sorrow to the Jews of France, will finally end soon after Philip IV's death.
Year 5035 – 1275 CE – The Jews of Castile
At the time of the death of Alfonso X the Wise, a census was made among the Jewish communities of Castile, Leon, Murcia and Andalucia, to establish a tax upon them of 30 deniers per head of 16 years old or above. The number of the Jewish population was then about 855,000. This was a large number, but the Inquisition started to be active in this kingdom soon after Alfonso X's death.
Year 5040 – 1280 CE – Abulafia and Pope Nicholas III
While the Inquisition started to force the Jews to convert, one Jew convinced himself it was necessary to convert the Pope ! Here is his story. Abraham Abulafia, born in Zaragosa Spain in 1240, travelled to the Holy Land at the age of 20 to find the mystical Sabbation River (see document C32d, year 71) but was forced by war circumstances to return to Europe, and settled in Capua, near Naples, Italy. There he studied the scriptures, and the works of Maimonides, and became attracted by mystical studies. He was back to Spain at the age of 30 and devoted his studies to mysticism and Gematria. He travelled to Greece at the age of 35 and taught there Maimonides' work The Guide of the Perplexed. Then he wrote his own first book, the Sefer ha-Yashar in 1279.
Then, in the summer 1280, he had visions that induced him to travel to Rome to convert the Pope, who was Nicholas III at the time and who had been in office since 1277. Abulafia was determined that the Pope needed to convert before the Jewish New Year of 5041, which fell on 3 September 1280. On hearing that a Jew was on his way to convert him, the Pope issued orders to "burn the fanatic". A stake was prepared for Abulafia in the city where the Pope was at that time but, when Abulafia arrived there on 22 August, he learned that the Pope had just died. After some weeks of trouble with the authorities, Abulafia ended up in Sicily where he settled and started to present himself as a prophet to many followers. This brought upon him condemnation from the Jewish communities and the study of his mystical books was banned.
In 1285, he travelled to Malta where he wrote his Sefer ha-Ot (the Book of the Letter). In 1291, he wrote his last book (Imrei Shefer / Words of Beauty) and then he disappeared without trace. It is assumed that he died after 1291, but nothing can ascertain his fate past that year.
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Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Tishri 5786 - October 2025
