Seder Olam Revisited: C45- Reformation
- Albert Benhamou
- 2 days ago
- 25 min read
CHRONOLOGY OF JEWISH HISTORY
Generation 45: Hebrew years 5280-5400 (1520-1640 CE)
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Introduction
This chronological generation witnesses new currents in Christian and Jewish faiths. On the Christian side, it is a "protestation" against the power of the Roman Catholic church in Rome and the emergence of another approach to faith. On the Jewish side, it is the emergence of new understandings of the scriptures and the pinnacle of mysticism. Both trends have been helped by the invention of the press that allowed the diffusion of printed versions of the Bible (and its translations), the Talmud, and other books.
Hebrew Year | CE | Event | Source |
5280 | 1520 | First printed edition of the Talmud | |
5281 | 1521 | The Lutheran church | |
5283 | 1523 | Eliyahu Capsali | Sefer Eliyahu Zutta |
5288 | 1528 | The Jews of Venice | |
5292 | 1532 | Shlomo Molcho | The Vale of the Tears |
5293 | 1533 | The Bible translation in German | |
5293 | 1533 | The English Reformation | |
5295 | 1535 | The school of Safed | |
5299 | 1538 | Sinan Reis, "the Great Jew" | |
5303 | 1543 | Luther turns against the Jews | |
5315 | 1555 | Joseph Ha-Cohen | The Vale of the Tears |
5315 | 1555 | Nostradamus | The Prophecies |
5315 | 1555 | The voyage of Pierre Belon | Les Observations |
5328 | 1568 | The Jews of Cochin | |
5330 | 1570 | Isaac Luria | The Kabbalah |
5330 | 1570 | Fortified synagogues in Poland | |
5332 | 1572 | The Jews of Vilna | |
5335 | 1575 | Azariah dei Rossi | Meor Enayim |
5342 | 1582 | The Gregorian calendar | |
5360 | 1600 | The Maharal of Prague | |
5365 | 1605 | The Jews of South America | |
5371 | 1611 | The King James' Bible | |
5380 | 1620 | The Pilgrims of the Mayflower | |
5382 | 1622 | The fortified synagogue of Lutzk | |
5397 | 1637 | The wooden synagogue of Zabludow | |
Year 5280 – 1520 CE – The first edition of the Talmud
Daniel Bomberg, a Christian from Antwerp who settled in Venice and became wealthy, became the first publisher of a complete edition of the Babylonian Talmud (in Hebrew). He printed it between 1520 and 1523. Italy, in particular the cities of Genoa and Venice, saw their Jewish population increased drastically in the previous decades due to the flow of refugees from countries where they had been expelled from. A few years before, in 1483, Joshua Solomon Soncino published one tractate of the Talmud, Berachot, followed by a few other tractates. But Bomberg was the first to publish the complete Talmud.
Year 5281 – 1521 CE – The Lutheran Church
In 1520, Pope Leo X rebutted Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses (see document C44, year 1517). As Luther refused to retract his writings, he was excommunicated in 1521. But his movement started to gain support in his native Saxony where churches began celebrating Lutheran services instead of Roman Catholic ones.
In a provocative essay he published in 1523, Luther blamed the Christian hierarchy for teaching the hatred of the Jews and thus alienating them from willing to convert to the Christian faith:
Our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks-the crude asses' heads-have hitherto so treated the Jews that anyone who wished to be a good Christian would almost have had to become a Jew. If I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian. They have dealt with the Jews as if they were dogs rather than human beings; they have done little else than deride them and seize their property. When they baptize them, they show them nothing of Christian doctrine or life but only subject them to popishness and monkery. When the Jews then see that Judaism has such strong support in Scripture, and that Christianity has become a mere babble without reliance on Scripture, how can they possibly compose themselves and become right good Christians? (Martin Luther, "That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew", 1523, to see text online, click here)
So, the Lutheran Church welcomed the Jews and treated them with humanity in the beginning. This attracted some Jews to Luther, but he failed to enroll the broader mass of the German Jews, as he had hoped.
Year 5283 – 1523 CE – Eliyahu Capsali and the Seder Eliyahu Zutta
Eliyahu Capsali was the Rabbi of the Jewish community of Candia in Crete. Candia was the historical name of Heraklion, the main city in Crete, during the rule of Venice until it fell to the Ottoman Empire around 1650. Capsali had helped Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition to establish themselves in Crete in 1492-1493. Some years later in 1508, he went to Jewish centres in Northern Italy to learn from the Talmudic teachings in these communities, especially in Venice where he spent two years before returning to Crete.
In 1517, he authored a book about the history of Venice and of its Jewish community: Divrei ha-Yamim le-Malkhut Venezia ("Chronicles of the dominion of Venice"). Later in 1523, he published the book for which he is better known: Seder Eliyahu Zutta. It covers the history of Ottoman dominions up to his times, with special focus on its Jewish communities. The book also contains records of the sufferings of the Jews from Spain and Portugal following the Inquisition. Capsali (written Kapsali) is the name of a small town on the southern shore of the Cythera island in Greece. This island is not far from Crete and presumably Eliyahu's ancestor borrowed the name Capsali when he moved to Crete.
Year 5288 – 1528 CE – The Jews of Venice
The Jews of Venice lived in a ghetto which was the first instance in Europe of a Jewish borough reserved for the Jews. In 1528, they completed the construction of the German Synagogue, one of the six 16th century synagogues that still exist today in the city. Venice gave birth to two features of the Jewish life in Europe: the printed Talmud and the ghetto !
Year 5292 – 1532 CE – Solomon Molcho
In December 1532, Solomon Molcho was burned at the stake in Mantua, Italy, by order of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (Carlo Quinto). He was born Diego Pires (or Peres) about 1500 in Portugal from a family who had first escaped from Spain but subsequently converted to Christianity in Portugal to remain there but as Marranos (also called Crypto-Jews).
Solomon, who was employed as a secretary to the king of Portugal, became acquainted in Lisbon with a Jewish adventurer, David Reubeni, and converted back to Judaism at that time. Forced to flee Portugal, he travelled to the Holy Land where he met the Jewish scholars of Safed (see below). Then, after gaining some reputation, he travelled to Italy where he defended Reubeni from the Jewish communities who rejected him. Solomon wrote in a letter:
Having learned that the illustrious David [Reubeni] had arrived in Italy and that some wicked persons from our people poured slander on him, I intended when I would see him to beg to teach me his wisdom, but the contrary happened because it was him who asked me questions. (Joseph Ha-Cohen, "The Vale of the Tears", 1575, translated by Albert Benhamou)
Molcho and Reubeni then travelled to Germany to meet with the emperor Carlo V who, instead, put them to jail and took them back to Italy with him. Molcho had announced that the Messiah would come in 1540. But the emperor consulted with the Christian authorities who advised that Molcho should be burned at the stake because he had abandoned the Christian faith after having converted. Molcho was thus executed in 1532. As of Reubeni, he was kept in jail until his death a few years later.
Year 5293 – 1533 CE – The Bible in German
In 1533, Luther published a first translation of the Bible in German. So far, the only languages used for the Bible were Hebrew (the Torah), Greek (the Septuagint) and Latin (the Vulgate). He undertook this task that took him several years, starting from 1523, because he declared that the Bible was the only holy book. It was of paramount importance in his mind that people would be able to read and understand the scriptures to become good knowing Christians, while Catholics were kept in the dark and only listened to sermons. And indeed, for the first time, masses of people could read the Bible in a language they could understand.
The German Bible played a decisive role in the spread of Reformation movement in Germany, the same way that the Septuagint (the Bible translation in Greek) was previously the main catalyst for the conversion of Greek and Roman Pagans to Christianity. Within a few years, the Reformation movement spread from Germany to other countries such as the Nordic countries, which vastly adopted the ideas of Luther, and Switzerland with John Calvin from 1541.
Year 5293 – 1533 CE – The English Reformation
In England, where anti-clerical sentiments already existed long before, King Henry VIII dissolved his marriage in 1533 with Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the Catholic monarch Isabella, on the pretext that she did not produce any male heir since their union in 1509. The real reason was that Henry VIII became infatuated with his mistress Anne Boleyn. This divorce caused the separation of England from Rome, who supported the Catholic Monarchs, by an Act of Parliament in 1536. By this act, the monarch of England became patron of a newly formed Church of England. Rome excommunicated Henry in 1538. This situation also started to cause tension with the Spanish monarchy.
After the failure to keep England in the Catholic faith and while Central Europe started to follow the Reformation, Rome decided in 1534 to engage in a reform of its own institution and in a repression policy to restore its authority. Some of the measures were the restoration of the Roman Inquisition and the creation of the Jesuit Order in 1540 to send missionaries to the masses and help convert them back to the Roman Catholic Church. The founder of the Jesuit Order was Ignatius of Loyola, who was born in 1491 in the Basque region of northwest Spain.
Year 5295 – 1535 CE – The scholars of Safed
From 1535, prominent Jewish scholars arrived in the city of Safed, Galilee, where a community had already established and grew to become the largest Jewish community of "Southern Syria" province in the Ottoman Empire. The Holy Land was under Ottoman rule since 1517 and the empire had become a shelter of Jewry coming from the countries where Jews had been expulsed in the past decades.
Jacob Berab, born in 1474 in Toledo, fled from Spain in 1492 and settled in Tlemcen, the main Berber city in Algeria, where he was chosen rabbi at the age of 18. He then became chief rabbi of Cairo in 1533 but finally settled in Safed about 1535. In 1538, he reintroduced the Semicha (ordination of rabbis) in the Land of Israel and ordained several religious figures there with the goal to form again the Sanhedrin. The ordination and setting of a Sanhedrin were prohibited in 425 at the time of Byzantine rule (see document C35, year 425). Berab died in Safed in 1541. The ordination of Safed lasted for four generations of rabbis. However, the Sanhedrin was never renewed and will not be so until Messianic times.
One of the newly ordained rabbis was Joseph Caro. Born in 1488 in Toledo from a family who fled from Spain in 1492 to the Ottoman empire, he settled in Safed in 1535. In 1555, he authored the most important work to practise Judaism: the Shulchan Aruch (meaning the "Dressed Table"). The book has since served as a reference for observant Jews as the ultimate compilation of the duties and observances of the divine commandments. Caro died in Safed in 1575.
Solomon Alkabetz, born in Thessaloniki in 1500 from family having fled from Spain, also settled in Safed in 1535. He is the author of the mystical song Lecha Dodi (meaning "Come my Beloved") to welcome the Shabbat. This song has been added to the Shabbat evening service in all Jewish communities, as it represents a beautiful reminder that the exiled can find comfort in the Shabbat, that exile will not last forever and that Redemption will ultimately reunite the bride (the soul) and the groom (the exiled):
Chorus: Let's go my beloved, to meet the bride, and let us welcome the presence of Shabbat.
[...]
Verse 6: Do not be embarrassed! Do not be ashamed! Why be downcast? Why groan? All my afflicted people will find refuge within you, and the city shall be rebuilt on her hill.
(Solomon Elkabetz, Lecha Dodi, extract from the translation in Wikipedia)
Alkabetz' brother-in-law was Moses Cordovero, who was also a pupil of Caro. His family was from Cordoba, as his name indicated it. They fled Spain after the fall of the Granada in 1492 and went to Portugal first. From there, they had to flee again and came to the Holy Land where, it is assumed, Moses Cordovero was then born in 1522. At the age of 20, he studied mystical works with Alkabetz and, at the age of 26, wrote the mystical masterpiece called Pardes Rimonim (meaning "The Orchard of Pomegranates"). Cordovero is known as the Ramak, by the acronym of his full name. His second work was Ohr Yakar (meaning "Precious Light") which is a set of 16 volumes of commentaries of mystical writings such as the Sefer Yetzirah (see document C34, year 240) and the Zohar (see document C43, year 1280). Cordovero was a very prolific writer. He is also known for the mystical work called Tomer Deborah ("The Palm Tree of Deborah", to read an English translation online, click here). All the works of Cordovero were rapidly spread in the Jewish communities because his son Gedaliah travelled to Venice to have them printed in the late 1580s: Venice was the centre of Jewish press in these days, after the successful printing of the Talmud. Cordovero died in Safed in 1570. One of his main disciples, Isaac Luria, became his spiritual heir.
Year 5299 – 1538 CE – Sinan Reis, "the Great Jew"
Several Jews who were expelled from Spain or Portugal in their youth swore to take their revenge and joined the Ottoman navy. This was the case of Sinan Reis who was eager to attack any Spanish or Portuguese ships. He joined the famous privateer Barbarossa in his sea war against the Holy Roman Empire of Charles V (Carlo Quinto). Over time, Sinan Reis earned fame by his own means, and his actions were noted in English State documents. In 1528, the Portuguese named him in their reports as the "Great Jew" and feared he would join a naval campaign to attack their dominions in India.
In 1538, Sinan Reis helped Barbarossa win a decisive victory by proposing a brilliant idea that his commander initially opposed. His idea was however executed and proved right, allowing Barbarossa to win against the Holy League in the Battle of Preveza (near Actium, location of another famous naval battle of the Antiquity) on 28 September 1538. The outcome of the battle was very impressive: the Ottoman fleet destroyed 13 ships and captured 36, without losing any of their own ships ! With this battle and superiority at sea, Barbarossa captured all the islands in the Aegean and Ionian seas from the Christian dominions. A year later the Holy Empire had no other choice but to accept peace conditions that gave to the Ottomans rule over previous Christian dominions, and the payment of a massive fine of 300,000 ducats of gold. The domination of the Ottoman empire over the sea remained unchallenged until a few years later in 1571 when they lost the Battle of Lepanto against a huge maritime Christian coalition.
Year 5303 – 1543 CE – Luther turns against the Jews
After having succeeded in German states with his doctrine, but having failed to rally the Jews, Luther turned against them from 1536 when he refused to intercede in their favor against an edict promulgated in Saxony.
Then, in 1543, he published a first work which was openly anti-Jewish: On the Jews and their Lies. This publication departed entirely from his earlier Christian theories, as he professed the following against the Jews:
First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools. [...]
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. [...]
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. [...]
Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. [...]
Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let them stay at home. [...]
Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. [...]
Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen. 3 [:19])
(To read the complete text online, click here)
With such rant of Jew-hatred, Luther's followers were keener in condemning the Jews as they had always done before they joined his doctrine. The book indeed met enormous success as it was re-published four times until the death of its author three years later in 1546.
This book was still widely read in Germany at the time of the Nazi party before WW-II, 400 years after it was first published. It is only in 1980 that one Lutheran church, the Church of Bavaria, distanced itself from the anti-Judaism in Lutheran theology. The other Lutheran churches have yet to follow the example from Bavaria.
Year 5305 – 1545 CE – The Council of Trent
The European continent was about to witness a succession of violent wars called the "Wars of Religion". They started from the time of the Council of Trent in 1545 and lasted for about one century. Entire populations were massacred during these bloody wars. This seemed like a price for Christianity to pay after one century during they massacred Jews. The point is that, since that council and since Rome focused in regaining the populations to its Catholic faith, Jews experienced a respite in their usual persecutions.
Year 5313 – 1553 CE – Mary Tudor and Elizabeth
When Henry VIII died in 1553, his older daughter, Mary Tudor, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, reigned. Like her mother, she was a devout Roman Catholic and was the first queen to rule England in her own right. During her reign, she tried to reverse her father's decision to move away from Rome. She persecuted the followers of the English Reformation and ordered 300 of them to be burned at the stake. She was nicknamed "Bloody Mary". But she suffered from stomach cancer and died in 1558, knowing that her imprisoned half-sister Elizabeth would reign and maintain England to Protestant faith.
Elisabeth was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and became known as the "Virgin Queen", as she never married. At the beginning of her reign in 1558, Elisabeth had to face the potential invasion from the Spanish Armada in 1588 as Spain wanted to return England to Catholic faith after the death of Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon. Against all odds, England destroyed the Spanish fleet and became, during the reign of Elizabeth, a maritime power.
Year 5315 – 1555 CE – The Vale of the Tears
In 1555, Joseph Ha-Cohen, physician and historian residing in Voltaggio, near Genoa, Italy, composed a book in Hebrew called Emek ha-Bakhah (the Vale of the Tears). He was born in Avignon in 1496, where his parents immigrated from Spain at the expulsion of 1492. He took several years to compile his book, starting from 1555 until 1563, because it took time to collect accounts from the Jewish communities in Europe about what fate fell upon them. He compiled a second version in 1575 to complete the first work with new information from other communities.
The book is a chronicle of the persecutions and murders of Jews in these ages. It circulated in the form of a manuscript for many years until it was first published in Vienna in 1852. The author introduced his book similarly as a "graveyard" of those among his brethren who died as martyrs. The period he covered starts from the massacres at the time of the First Crusade.
Year 5315 – 1555 CE – Nostradamus and Les Prophéties
Michel de Notre-Dame was born in 1503 in Provence from a family of Jewish origin, from his father, who had converted to Christianity about 1455. In 1534 his wife and two children died, presumably from the plague. As he had trained to be an apothecary, he endeavored to create a pill to be a remedy against the disease. He later re-married a rich widow and had six children. From 1550, after a trip to Italy, he wrote a book of predictions for the year 1550, an almanac, under the latinized pen name Nostradamus. When this work was met with success, he decided to change his occupation from medicine to astrology to create an almanac every year. With clients for whom he established private predictions, he gained some reputation and decided to author a book of prophecies with 1000 quatrains (stanzas): each set of 100 quatrains was called a centurie. His book, Les Prophéties, was published in 1555.
He, however, made the text so obscure that the Inquisition and the Church would not be able to condemn him. They looked at him as a fake astrologer. In his work, Nostradamus was influenced by a book published in France in 1525, Mirabilis Liber, which also gave a series of predictions. But the predictions of that book were based on Christian concepts, whereas Nostradamus' prophesies are devoid of religious background. It is yet possible that he knew about this book and thought to make a book of predictions for a broader purpose. But it is also possible that he had been influenced by some Jewish mystic in Provence or had learned sufficiently of the cryptic Jewish scriptures during his trips to Italy where Jewish works were being published.
He declared that his prophecies applied from his time until the year 3797. From his year of 1555, it means 2242 years more years to arrive to 3797. This corresponded to Hebrew year of 5315 + 2242 = 7557. But the present world, according to Jewish tradition, is supposed to continue until Hebrew year 6000. Maybe Nostradamus wanted to give a more cryptic message and point to the year 5775 (year 2015 in present calendar) by inverting the numbers 5 and 7? Both numbers have divine echo... (for Jewish symbolism of the numbers, click here).
Nostradamus was not pursued by the Church or the Inquisition, as they assumed he was just a fraud or a mad man. Fool or fraud, he had a powerful admirer: Catherine de Medici, the wife of King Henry II of France. She summoned him to Paris to explain his publication of predictions for the year 1555 and subsequently attached him to the care of her son, the future King Charles IX. Nostradamus is credited as having predicted the circumstances of the death of Henry II, although some people believe it was a postdiction rather than a prediction.
Year 5315 – 1555 CE – The voyage of Pierre Belon
Pierre Belon du Mans was a French man who travelled in the Levant and wrote a narrative of his voyage. This document in three books was published in 1555. In the second book, the author covers his travel across Judea and wrote about the population around the Sea of Galilee (Lake of Kinneret):
The villages are now inhabited by Jews who have recently built in every place around the lake and, because they created fisheries, have made it populated from being previously deserted. (Pierre Belon, "Les observations de plusieurs singularités et choses mémorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays estranges", rédigées en trois livres, Paris, 1555, translation by Albert Benhamou)
The author also records a strong presence of Jews in other cities of the Levant, including Damas, Antioch, and so on. And the chapter XIII of his third book is entirely dedicated to describing the Jews of Turkey who, he said, came there during the expulsions from Spain and Portugal. He mentioned that the personal physician of the Sultan was a Jew called Joseph Hamon and that his role with this ruling family was passed from father to son.
In the same period, another person travelled to Rhodes and noted:
Today the city of Rhodes is in predominantly inhabited by Jews. (Thevet d'Angoulême, "Cosmographie du Levant", Lyon, 1556, translation by Albert Benhamou)
Year 5328 – 1568 CE – The Jews of Cochin, India
The Jews arrived in India fleeing the persecutions in Europe. They mostly originated from Spain and Germany, transiting via Holland and using the Dutch fleet to cross the oceans. In Cochin, these European Jews were called the "White Jews" because of their fair skin compared to another Jewish community which was established in that city long before them, originating from the time of King Solomon and after because of the spice trade in Asia, and called the "Black Jews". The White Jews were also called the Paradesi which means foreigners. They built their synagogue in Cochin in 1568. The building was enlarged in 1761.
Year 5330 – 1570 CE – The Kabbalah of Isaac Luria
Isaac Luria was born in Jerusalem in 1534. When he was young, his father died, and he was sent for care to his wealthy uncle in Egypt who provided him with religious education. He was married at the age of 15 and started to study in recluse the Zohar at the age of 22.
In 1569, he returned to the Holy Land and settled in Safed where the most important scholars resided already thanks to the effort of Joseph Nasi, an advisor of the Ottoman sultan Selim II who had endeavored to re-establish Jewish life in Tiberias and Safed. Luria became pupil to Moses Cordovero and replaced him in the mystical studies at the death of the latter in 1570. Luria, who was nicknamed the Ari (name formed from the acronym of his full name, and which means "The Lion"), was not a writer as Cordovero was, but his teaching had a huge influence at the time as he is credited to be one of the founders of the Kabbalah. His lectures were noted down by his main disciple, Hayim Vital, and later compiled by him in a book called Etz Chayim (meaning "The Tree of Life").
The Ari, also called the Arizal (meaning "Ari, blessed be his memory") died from illness at the young age of 38 in 1572. He only lived in Safed about two years but set Judaism on a complete new mystical course.
Hayim Vital was the spiritual heir of Isaac Luria. Born in Safed in 1543, he already attracted attention from the young aged by scholars such as Cordovero. At the age of 14, he started to be taught by Luria, who recently arrived in Safed and shortly after replaced Cordovero as the spiritual guide of the local community of mystics. Thanks to Vital who wrote down the teachings from Luria, we today have a good understanding of them. Vital replaced Luria at his death in 1572, then went to Egypt in 1577, then back to Safed and Jerusalem, before settling from 1594 in Jobar near Damascus to avoid persecutions from a new Ottoman local ruler. Vital was credited to possess magical powers, and the ability to connect with the deceased such as his master. He authored his own books as well, such as Shaar ha-Gilgulim ("The Gate of Reincarnations"), a topic that was central in Luria's teaching (to read the text online, click here). Vital died in 1620 and was buried in Jobar. This shrine located in the synagogue of Jobar, said to be holy because of the prophets Eliyahu and Elisha, was partially destroyed during the civil war in Syria (to read related article, click here).
One of the main students of Vital was Samuel Elbaz, who is the ancestor of the family of religious leaders, the Abouhatsera, who are quite renown in Israel today. Elbaz was buried near Vital in Jobar but his son was sent as missionary to the community of Morocco and settled there where he founded the religious dynasty.
Year 5330 – 1570 CE – The fortified synagogues of Poland and Ukraine
The Jews had arrived in Poland and Ukraine when fleeing from the oppressions of the German states, and also from Central Europe such as the state of Prague when they were expelled from there around 1542 after a lengthy period of quiet (see document C42b, year 1270). In 1500, there were about 25,000 Jews in Poland and, within 100 years, their number increased three folds.
In Krakow the Jewish community built a synagogue that was also used as a shelter for the Jewish community in times of possible pogrom. The walls are thick, and the windows are high up. The entrance door is fortified. The synagogue still exists today, despite the Nazi destructions during WW-II.
This architecture was repeated in other cities of Poland where the number of Jews grew over time. In Brody, Western Poland, the Jewish population represented 70% of the city around 1600 CE. In 1870, the Jewish population represented 80% of Brody, according to an Austrian Empire census. The Jewish cemetery of the city is said to contain over 20,000 tombstones.
Year 5332 – 1572 CE – The Jews of Vilna, Lithuania
The Jews had arrived in Lithuania from 1323, fleeing the oppressions of the Western European states. They had been welcomed for their skills to build the city of Vilnius and were granted a portion of this city as a place of residence which later became the Jewish ghetto. There they prospered and built no less than 20 synagogues over time. In 1572, they built the Great Synagogue, and it gave the name to this Jewish quarter as the Shulhof, meaning the Synagogue Place.
The synagogue was part of the Jewish ghetto which was entirely destroyed by the Germans during WW-II, thus putting an end to 620 years of Jewish presence in Vilnius.
Year 5335 – 1575 CE – Azariah dei Rossi publishes the controversial Me'or Enayim
Azariah dei Rossi was an Italian Jewish physician born around 1513 in Mantua. His name dei Rossi means of Red, as a reference to the fact that his family was living in exile in Edom, the old Rome, the red-haired brother of Jacob. His masterpiece is a book called Me'or Enayim (meaning "Light of the Eyes") in which he attempted to reconcile Jewish chronology with History and non-Jewish culture in general. To do so, he had to assert that the Creation was a tale invented in a post-Talmudic time. He also contradicted some of the calculations made by the Talmudists about the Jewish chronology. Azariah dei Rossi tried to place himself as a mediator between Jewish and Christian cultures. All this obviously brought upon him the reprobation of the Jewish scholars of his time, of which the Maharal of Prague himself.
Year 5342 – 1582 CE – The Gregorian Calendar
On 24 February 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced a reform in the Julian calendar which had been used in the Christian world since the Roman Empire in 45 BCE, at the time ofJulius Caesar hence its name. The goal was to adjust the date of Easter according to the Spring Equinox. The Julian Calendar introduced a discrepancy of 3 days every 400 years. So, by the year 1582, there were already over 12 days of discrepancy, a situation which was no longer acceptable to match with the time of Spring and the period of Easter.
The Gregorian Calendar reduced the number of leap years per century. And in order to match the next coming of Spring 1582, it was decided that the 4 October 1582 of Julian Calendar would be followed by the 15 October 1582 of the new Gregorian Calendar, thus skipping 11 days.
The new Calendar was progressively adopted in Catholic Europe but took more years to be adopted in Protestant Europe. And most countries, originated from the former Eastern Roman Empire, are still using the Julian Calendar thus causing different dates for Christmas in Rome and in Moscow.
Year 5360 – 1600 CE – The Maharal of Prague
Judah Loew ben Bezalel was born around 1520, probably in Poznan or Worms, where his family originated from. His uncle was the Chief Rabbi of the Holy Roman Empire. His family was assumed to be wealthy, so he spent his life in studies and community duties. He held a rabbinical position in Moravia from 1553 to 1588 until over the age of 60. He was then known as the Maharal, which is an acronym of Moreinu ha-Rav Loew (meaning "our teacher, the Rav Loew").
He then moved to Prague and, after a time in Poznan as well, came back to Prague around 1600 where he remained until his death in 1609. It is with the city of Prague that his name has been most famous because of the legend that he gave life to a creature, the Golem, made from clay in the attic of the old synagogue of the city, the Altneuschul (see document C42b, year 1270).
He was also a prolific writer as he authored several books of commentaries and on festivals. One of his main works, Be'er ha-Golah (meaning "the Well of the Exile"), is a critics of the work published by Italian Jewish scholar Azariah dei Rossi. The Maharal's main goal was to strengthen the traditional approach to Judaism despite the trends of his times to "reform" it as the Christian world had split because of such crisis. The Maharal is buried in the old cemetery of Prague. His tombstone features a lion, remainder of his name Loew and because he was assumed to come from the Davidic lineage of the kings of Judah.
Year 5365 – 1605 CE – The Jews of South America
Several Marranos from Spain and Portugal moved to the New World to escape the tribunals of the Inquisition. The first such migrants came with the ships of Christopher Columbus. But Portugal followed soon after, with the help of astronomical tables published by Abraham Zacuto (see document C44, year 1478) which allowed navigators to find their way to travel to the southern hemisphere. The Portuguese then started to colonise Southern America and even reached the coasts of India (where they established the city of Goa) and of China. Marranos followed these maritime routes in the hope that, in the New World, the Inquisition would not reach them so that they could return to their Jewish faith.
One such Marranos was Francisco Maldonado de Silva. In 1605, his father decided to return to Judaism when Francisco was still in his youth. It seems that, for several years, the family was indeed undisturbed by the local Portuguese authorities, who surely had many other things to attend such as colonise an entire continent! But, in 1626, the wind changed because missionaries and representatives of the Inquisition reached the New World. Francisco, then a physician established in Tucuman, Northern Argentina, was thrown into a jail where he spent the next 13 years, refusing to return to Christian faith. In 1639, he was finally judged in an auto-da-fe, probably one of the first tribunals of the Inquisition in the New World, along with 60 other Marranos who had returned to the Jewish faith. He with 10 other condemned Jews were burnt at the stake in Lima on 23 January 1639. In the same execution, the tortured body of one of them, Diego Lopez de Fonseca, a merchant from Lima, was just thrown into the pyre.
Several autos-da-fe followed the one in Lima over the years. The New World, under Spanish and Portuguese grasp, offered no respite to Marranos. At time, the punishment of these tribunals was public humiliation, which was the least of the ordeals, as depicted in one drawing from Spanish artist Goya.
Year 5371 – 1611 CE – The King James Bible
Following the publication of the Bible in German, King James of England ordered in 1534 to publish it in English too. It was completed in 1611 and became the King James Version, still in use today for English speaking people. This Bible comforted the people in adopting the English Reformation and helped develop the Church of England to replace the Roman Catholic's.
Year 5380 – 1620 CE – The Pilgrims of the Mayflower
In 1620, a colony of about 100 "Pilgrim Fathers" set forth from England towards the American continent, to move away from the wars that ravaged Britain and Europe. Their ship, the Mayflower, reached the coast of the "New World" in a landing place they named Plymouth (in modern-day Massachusetts). This first colony was followed by many others in the years to come and led to the European colonisation of the land that later became the United States of America. Other parts of the American continent were also under the way of colonisation, such as South America with Spain, New France with France (a region that spread from Quebec in the north all the way down the Mississipi River until New Orleans in the south), New Netherlands a Dutch colony already established in what became New York after it was ceded to England.
Year 5382 – 1622 CE – The fortified synagogue of Lutzk
The Jews also went towards Ukraine to the city of Luchesk, modern-day Lutzk, which existed since about the year 600. It is possible that they arrived there after they came to Lithuania because the Grand-Duke of Lithuania conquered this territory and then wanted to rebuild it. He would have called for skilled men to come and help repopulate it. The fact is that it was during this time of Lithuanian rule that this city started to prosper. And in 1622, the Jews built a synagogue which was fortified, as they had done in other places.
During WW-II, the synagogue was partially destroyed. It is now rebuilt and used as a movie theatre.
Year 5397 – 1637 CE – The wooden synagogue of Zabludow
Close to the border between Poland and Russia, near Bialystok, was the small town of Zabludow. Jews settled there before 1600 and built an unusual wooden synagogue which stood until the Germans burned it in 1941 during WW-II:
"Only the very old synagogue still stood, the fire didn't touch it. Me and my father, may he rest in peace, are looking, wondering, and imagining- it's a miracle! It was but an illusion, suddenly the Nazi hooligans, may their name and memory be erased, pulled up in a car. They spilled gasoline around the very old synagogue, and they lit it on fire. . . that is how the very famous Zabludow Synagogue was erased from the earth." (Phinia Korovski, quoted from the Zabludow Yizkor Book, published in Israel, 1987, to read more, click here)
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Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Tishri 5786 - October 2025
