Jews in the Byzantine Empire - Historum

**pixi666** · August 20th, 2012, 06:55 PM

How were the Jewish people treated in the Byzantine empire? Was Judaism outlawed, or tolerated? Were they ghettoised? Were they expelled altogether? Were they known for specific professions like they were known for money-lending in western europe?

**Kirialax** · August 20th, 2012, 09:25 PM

This is a topic that I have long neglected to give serious study to and so I can't give you anything too specific. Judaism was tolerated, but like western Europe the level of toleration varied from time to time. The Jews lost their legal protection that Roman law had granted them under Justinian. The seventh century saw some fairly severe persecution enacted by the state. In the face of the Muslim conquests and the (apparent) disloyalty of Jews in Jerusalem when the Persians conquered it forced conversions occurred in North Africa and the Levant. The purpose of this persecution seems to have been on account of the state not wanting to take a chance with having subversive elements on their borders.

Beyond that, what is particularly interesting about Jews in Byzantium is how obscure they were. They did not stand out as moneylenders in the Roman east since usury was not taboo to the extent it was in the west. I know of only one synagogue in the post-640 AD boundaries of Byzantium and I cannot be sure that it was a synagogue for most of the Byzantine period (and given the state of the rest of Sardis, I'm going to suggest that it was probably nothing.) I do not know if Constantinople had a synagogue or a substantial Jewish population, but given the relative obscurity of the sites of the two mosques from the Byzantine period I do not believe it to be impossible. What I can say for certain is that Jews did not have a place in the aristocracy - they are almost never mentioned in the major historical sources in relation to governmental positions. I believe it would be safe to say that like pagans, they were excluded from most high government positions from the sixth century on.

**AlpinLuke** · August 21st, 2012, 01:01 AM

I remember something about the Emperor Flavius Heracluos [Eraclio I], Emperor from 610 to 641 CE, who forced Jews to baptize Christian and prohibited them to live at less than 3 kilometers from Jerusalem.

As for Justinian I [Emperor from 527 - 565] I remember he did something against Jews [he prohibited the usage of the Hebrew language in the synagogue, for example, and he limited their freedom. At Borium the Jews saw their synagogue becoming a church.

[See Procopio, historia arcana - 28 / NOV. CXLVI Feb 8th 553 / Procopio, De Aedificiis, VI 2].

So, my opinion is that they were tolerated in the limits they didn't disturb, but some action of discrimination had taken.

Overall, anyway, not comparable with what happened in Western Christianity, absolutely.

**Efendi** · August 21st, 2012, 01:26 AM

There were Romaniots in the city. But throught the time they were assimilated.

Yaunâ · August 21st, 2012, 02:16 AM

Benjamin of Tudela gives informations about the Jewish population of some cities (12th century):

The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela: Text, bibliography, and translation - Benjamin (of Tudela), Leopold Zunz, Fürchtegott Lebrecht -

**Salah** · August 21st, 2012, 05:09 AM

Weren't the Khazars supposed to have been influenced by Jews who had been expelled from the Empire?

riptor · August 21st, 2012, 02:34 PM

I don't know much about the history of the Jews in the empire either, but I'll add a little.

As previously mentioned, Jews weren't allowed to hold civilian or military offices (except for tax collectors), but how much that was enforced I don't know. Apparently the emperor Michael II had some Jewish ancestry.

There was a Jewish population in Constantinople, but they were forced to live in a their own quarter. Whether or not there were synagogues in the city is something else I don't know, but there probably was one if their was a substantial Jewish population.

Overall the treatment of the Jews just seemed to depend on who was in charge at the time. A few emperors, like Basil I, tried to convert the Jews and some ordered all synagogues destroyed, but apparently these edicts weren't carried out.

Bart Dale · August 21st, 2012, 03:22 PM

Even at the best of times, Jews were treated as second class citizens. Even before the rise of Christianity, there was a lot of ill feeling toward Jews by the pagan Greeks of the empire, and there were several anti-Jewish riots in the Roman Empire. The Jews, for example, were expelled from Rome during the reign of the Emperor Claudius.

The rise of Chrisitianity added religious antipathy to the already existing Greek pagan anti-semitism. Of course, Jewish actions, such as not one but 2 major Jewish revolts didn't help create goodwill among the larger Gentile population of the Empire. Jews were said to supported the conquest of Jerusalem by the Persias, and help massacre Christians in that city when the Persians took it over. Archaeology has found massed burials from that time period, supporting the assertions of massacres by ancient sources. The Bible and Interpretation

Quote:

Many people think that all Jews were expelled from Palestine by the Romans in the aftermath of the 132-135 Bar-Kokhba Revolt. This is not true. Many Palestinian Jews remained in Palestine, some of them converting to Christianity as this religion spread through the Roman empire, but some of them remaining Jewish. In 614, Palestine was part of the Byzantine Empire (as the eastern part of the Roman empire came to be known) and was home to communities of both Christians and Jews. There was, however, some inter-communal tension. Indeed, after the surrender of Jerusalem to the Persians on 20 May that year, several tens of thousands of Palestinian Christians were massacred by local Palestinian Jews; many of their bodies were buried in a cave at Mamilla, just outside the city walls.

Persian conquest of Jerusalem: Massacre of Christians by Jews

While perhaps understandable after centuries of persecution, these actions by Jews would not have endeared the Jews to the Christian majority of the Byzantine empire, and Heraculis actions against the Jews may have been a reaction to these atrocities. These massacres of 614 AD, and the earlier major Jewish revolts of 66-73 AD, and 132-135 AD, would have demonstrated to the majoirty of the Roman, and later Byzantine Empire citizens that the Jews could not be trusted, and represented a constant danger to the empire, which must be kept in mind when we consider their treatment under the Byzantine Empire.

Emperor Trajan · August 21st, 2012, 05:40 PM

Did Jews have an option of serving in the army like they did with the Roman empire?

Bart Dale · August 21st, 2012, 06:51 PM

Officially, no, they were not allowed to serve in the army. However, given the chronic difficulty in recruiting soldiers in the later Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, one would have to question how rigorously the rule was enforced.

Quote:

In 404, Jews were excluded from certain governmental posts.[3] In 418, they were barred from the civil service, and from all military positions.[4] In 425, they were excluded from all remaining public offices, both civilian and military--a prohibition which Justinian I repeated[3]. Such restrictions, however, inevitably compromised the theological arguments for restricting the Jewish religion; although they empowered the Christian citizens of the empire at the expense of its Jews, all laws dealing with the Jews implicitly recognized the continued existence and legality of the Jewish religion.[5]

Thus Theodosius found that he had to balance the first two of the three factors governing the treatment of Jews in the empire--theology, political pragmatism and enforceability. He could not, however, effectively control the third. In 438, Theodosius had to reaffirm the prohibition on Jews holding public office, because it had been poorly enforced.[6] Even in 527, a decree which renewed this prohibition began by observing that "heedless of the laws' command [they have] infiltrated public offices".[7]

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