It should be remembered that although nation-states began to form even before the introduction of the system of universal compulsory education, only with its help were they able to take root and strengthen.

The highest priority of state pedagogy from the very beginning was the dissemination of the transplanted “national memory”, and its heart was national historiography.

The cultivation of homogeneous groups in the modern era requires, among other things, the construction of a long-term historical plot demonstrating a continuous connection in time and space between today's members of these groups and their ancient “forefathers.”

Since this strong cultural connection, which reliably “functions” in the body of every nation, has never existed in any society, professional “memory agents” must work hard to invent it.

Scientific evidence, accumulated largely through the efforts of archaeologists, historians and anthropologists, has undergone a series of impressive cosmetic surgeries by historical novelists, essayists and journalists. As a result, the face of the past, furrowed with deep wrinkles, turns into a proud national portrait, shining with impeccable beauty.

Undoubtedly, no historical study is complete without myths, but in national historiography they play a particularly brutal role. The histories of peoples and nations are built to the same standards as monuments in capital squares: they must be large, powerful, reaching towards the sky and radiating a heroic radiance.

Until the last quarter of the 20th century, studying national historiography was like flipping through the pages of the sports section of a daily newspaper. Dividing the world into “us” and “them” was the most natural historiographical device. The creation of a collective "we" has been the life's work of "national" historians and archaeologists, licensed "agents of memory", for more than 100 years.

Before national fragmentation began in Europe, many Europeans seriously believed that they were descendants of the Ancient Trojans. However, from the end of the 18th century, mythology became scientific.

With the advent of fantasy-filled works produced by professional scholars of the past, Greek and European, the citizens of modern Greece began to consider themselves both the biological descendants of Socrates and Alexander the Great and (in a parallel narrative) the direct heirs of the Byzantine Empire.

The ancient Romans, starting from the end of the 19th century, with the help of successful teaching aids, began to degenerate into typical Italians. The Gallic tribes, who rebelled against Rome during the time of Julius Caesar, turned into true Frenchmen in the schools of the Third Republic (though with a completely non-Latin temperament).

Other historians have argued that the adoption of Christianity by the Frankish king Clovis in the 5th century AD e. is the undoubted moment of the birth of the French nation.

The pioneers of Romanian nationalism traced their current identity to the ancient Roman colony of Dacia. This majestic kinship prompted them to call their new language “Romanian.” In the 19th century, many people in Great Britain saw Boudicca, the leader of the Celtic Iceni tribe, who fought desperately against the Roman invaders, as the first Englishwoman.

Indeed, her revered image was immortalized in a magnificent London monument. German authors tirelessly quoted the ancient work of Tacitus, telling about the Cherusci tribes led by Arminius, whom they considered the forefather of their ancient people.

Even Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the third American president who owned about a hundred black slaves, demanded that the state seal of the United States bear the images of Hengist and Horsa, the semi-legendary leaders of the first Saxons to invade Britain. in the same century that Clovis was baptized. The basis for this original proposal was the following thesis: “ We consider ourselves their descendants and implement their political principles and forms of government».

This was the situation in the 20th century. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the citizens of the newly created Turkey suddenly realized that they were actually white people, Aryans, and their distant ancestors were the Sumerians and Hittites. A certain lazy British officer arbitrarily drew an almost completely straight line on the map of Asia - the border of Iraq.

People who unexpectedly became Iraqis soon learned from the “most authoritative” historians that they were both descendants of the ancient Babylonians and Arabs, great-grandsons of the heroic soldiers of Salah ad-Din.

Many citizens of Egypt know for sure that the ancient pagan empire of the pharaohs was their first national state, which, of course, does not prevent them from remaining devout Muslims.

Indians, Algerians, Indonesians, Vietnamese and Iranians still believe that their peoples have existed from time immemorial, and their children are taught thousands of years of historical narratives in schools from an early age.

In contrast to these obvious and naked mythologies, a set of indisputable and absolute “truths” is rooted in the transplanted memory of every Israeli man and every Israeli woman (of course, of Jewish origin).

They all know for sure that immediately from the moment of the giving of the Torah, the Jewish people existed on Sinai and that they are its direct and only descendants (except, of course, for the ten tribes, the location of which has not yet been precisely established).

They are convinced that this people “emerged” from Egypt, captured and colonized “Eretz Israel”, which, as is known, was promised to them by the Almighty, founded the majestic kingdom of David and Solomon, and then split in half and created two kingdoms - Judah and Israel .

They are absolutely sure that this people was expelled from the “Land of Israel” after the heyday of their statehood, and not once, but twice: with the destruction of the First Temple in the 6th century BC. e., and then in 70 AD. e., after the destruction of the Second Temple. Even before the last tragic event occurred, this special people managed to create the Hasmonean Jewish kingdom, eradicating the influence of the Hellenizing villains in their country.

They believe, that this people, or rather “their people,” according to the general belief, an extremely ancient people, wandered in exile for almost two thousand years and, despite such a long stay surrounded by non-Jews, brilliantly preserved themselves from mixing and assimilation. These people were scattered throughout the world.

In his arduous journeys, he reached Yemen, Morocco, Spain, Germany, Poland and distant Russia. Nevertheless, he always managed to maintain strong ties of blood that connected communities far from each other, so that the identity of the people did not suffer at all.

Only at the end of the 19th century did conditions arise that gave rise to a unique historical chance: the ancient people awakened from a long hibernation and prepared the way for their second youth, that is, for a return to their ancient “homeland.”

And indeed, a massive return began, accompanied by general enthusiasm. Many Israelis still believe that if not for the massacre carried out by the dreaded butcher Hitler, the “Land of Israel” would have been populated within a short period by millions of Jews who came there with joy and enthusiasm. After all, they dreamed of this land for thousands of years!

Just as the wandering people needed their own territory, the desert and uncultivated country longed for the return of the people without whom it could not flourish. True, uninvited guests managed to settle in this country, but since “the people remained faithful to it in all the countries of dispersion” for two thousand years, this country belongs only to him, and not to a small number of “aliens”, devoid of historical roots and who came here by pure chance.

That's why all the wars that were waged by the wandering people with the aim of conquering the country were fair, and the resistance of the local population was criminal. And only thanks to Jewish (not at all Old Testament) mercy, strangers were allowed to continue to live side by side with the people who returned to their delightful fatherland and to their biblical language.

Nevertheless, in Israel, these memory blockages did not arise spontaneously. They accumulated layer by layer, since the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the activities of talented historical “restorers”, manipulated mainly fragments of Jewish and Christian religious memory and sculpted of them with the help of a rich imagination the unbroken lineage of the “Jewish people.”

The technology for cultivating collective “memory” simply did not exist before this time; Oddly enough, it hasn’t changed much since then. The academicization of the study of Jewish history, which began with the founding of the Hebrew (Jerusalem) University in Mandatory Palestine, which then became Israel, and culminated in the creation of numerous departments of Jewish studies throughout the Western world, changed nothing. The concept of Jewish historical time remained the same - holistic and ethnonational.

Of course, in the vast historiography devoted to Jewry and Jews, there are different approaches. Factory, engaged in the production of a “national” historical heritage, is constantly shaken by controversy and disagreement.

However, until now practically no one has tried to challenge the basic ideas that were formed and took root at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The most important processes that radically changed Western historical science at the end of the last century, as well as significant changes in the field of studying nations and nationalism, did not affect the departments of “history of the Jewish people” in Israeli universities.

To the greatest surprise, they had almost no impact on the scientific output supplied by the “Jewish” departments of American and European universities.

If data was discovered from time to time, not fitting into a model of Jewish history as a continuous linear process, they hardly received any mention.

However, when they did occasionally surface, they were quickly “forgotten” and hidden in the abyss of oblivion.

National needs were powerful censors, preventing the slightest deviation from the dominant narratives. “Closed systems” devoted exclusively to the accumulation of information about the Jewish, Zionist and Israeli past (that is, the departments of “History of the Jewish People”, completely fenced off from the departments of general history and history of the Middle East), also contributed greatly to this astonishing paralysis, as well as to the stubborn reluctance to accept new historiographical ideas regarding the origins and identity of the Jews.

The fact that the practical question of who exactly should be considered a Jew has troubled Israeli society from time to time, mainly because of the legal difficulties associated with it, has also not bothered Israeli historians at all. They had a ready answer: all the descendants of the people expelled two thousand years ago are Jews!

The heated controversy launched by the so-called new historians in the late 1980s seemed to undermine the foundation of Israel's collective memory for some time.

However, “licensed” researchers of the past took virtually no part in it. Most of the few who were involved in the public debate came from other scientific disciplines or not from academia at all.

Sociologists, political scientists, orientalists, philologists, geographers, literary scholars, archaeologists, and even independent essayists offered new insights into the Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli past. They were joined by young scholars, holders of doctorates in history, recently arrived from abroad and not yet settled in Israeli academic institutions.

From the camp of specialists in the “history of the Jewish people”, who should have been at the forefront of a research breakthrough, only cautious conservative attacks were heard, flavored with apologetic rhetoric based on traditional consensus.

“Alternative historiography” of the 90s was mainly concerned with the ups and downs and results of the 1948 war. The moral results of this war received the main attention.

Indeed, the significance of this debate for understanding the morphology of Israeli collective memory is beyond doubt. The '48 Syndrome, which continues to haunt the Israeli collective conscience, is extremely important for the future policy of the State of Israel. One might even say that it is an essential condition of its existence. Any meaningful compromise with the Palestinians, if it is ever achieved, must take into account not only the Jewish past, but also the recent history of others.

Unfortunately, this important debate did not lead to significant research achievements. And it occupied only a small place in the public consciousness. Representatives of the older generation categorically rejected the new data and the conclusions arising from them. They failed to reconcile their professional responsibilities with the uncompromising morality that defined their historical path.

The younger generation of intellectuals was probably ready to admit to the “sins” committed during the creation of the state, but their (not so stiff) morality easily swallowed “some excesses.”

Indeed, is it possible to compare the Palestinian drama with the Holocaust? How can one compare the suffering of Palestinian refugees, short-lived and limited in scope, with the fate of the people? wandered in painful exile for two thousand years ?

Socio-historical studies, devoted not so much to political events, in other words, to “sins”, but to the long-term processes of development of the Zionist movement, received much less attention and, although they were written by Israelis, never published in Hebrew.

The few works that questioned the paradigms underlying national history did not attract the slightest attention.

Notable among them is Boaz Evron's bold essay, "The National Account," as well as Uri Ram's intriguing essay, "History: between reality and fiction" Both of these works posed a radical challenge to professional historiography concerned with the Jewish past, but they were largely ignored by the “licensed” producers of the past.

The writing of this book became possible thanks to a scientific breakthrough made in the 8s - early 90s of the last century. The author would hardly have dared to radically reconsider the very roots of his self-identification and, moreover, would not have been able to get through the rubble of memory that had cluttered his ideas about the past since childhood, if not for the daring steps taken by Evron, Ram and other Israelis, and, most importantly, most importantly, if not for the enormous contribution of “foreign” researchers of the national question, such as Ernst Gellner and Benedict Anderson.

In the forest of national history, the crowns of many trees close together so closely that it is impossible to see any broad perspective beyond them, and, consequently, to challenge the dominant “metanarrative.” Professional specialization forces researchers to focus on specific fragments of the past, thereby thwarting any attempt to consider the entire forest.

Of course, a growing set of fragmented narratives cannot but eventually shake the “metanarrative.” However, for this, historical science must exist within the framework of a pluralistic culture that is not under the pressure of armed national conflict and not constantly worrying about her identity and her roots.

This statement may (not unreasonably) seem pessimistic in light of the situation in which Israel found itself in 2008. In Israel's sixty years of existence, its national history has not matured much, and it is difficult to imagine that it will begin to mature now.

Therefore, the author has no illusions about how this book will be received. He only hopes that there will be at least a few people who are ready (even today) to take risks, that is, to expose radical I will reconsider my national past. Such a revision could help to at least slightly undermine the indivisible identity under the pressure of which almost all Jewish Israelis reason and make decisions.

The book you are holding in your hands was written by a “professional” historian. However, the author has taken risks that would normally be considered unacceptable in his profession. Clear rules of the game adopted in scientific fields oblige the researcher to remain in the rut prepared for him, that is, in the field in which he is a “real” specialist.

But even a cursory glance at the list of chapters in this book clearly indicates that the range of topics explored in it goes far beyond the boundaries of any one “scientific” specialization. Biblical scholars, researchers of the Ancient World, archaeologists, medievalists and, in particular, “specialists” in the history of the Jewish people will be outraged by the behavior of an ambitious author who illegally invaded other people’s research spaces.

Their claims have certain grounds, and the author is fully aware of this. It would be much better if this book was written by a group of researchers rather than a lone historian. Unfortunately, this did not happen, because the “criminal” did not find “accomplices”. Therefore, it is quite possible that there will be some inaccuracies in this work. The author apologizes in advance for all the mistakes he made and calls on critics to help correct them.

Since the author in no way compares himself to Prometheus, who stole fire for the Israelites historical truth, he is not at the same time afraid that almighty Zeus, in this case the corporation of Jewish historiographers, will send an eagle to peck out the theorizing organ - the liver? - from his body chained to the rock.

He only asks to pay attention to a well-known fact: being outside the boundaries of a specific field of study and balancing on the boundaries separating such spheres sometimes contributes to the emergence of a non-standard view of things and allows one to discover unexpected connections between them. It is often thinking “from without” rather than “from within” that can enrich historical thought, despite all the weaknesses associated with a lack of specialization and an unusually high degree of speculativeness.

“Specialists” in Jewish history are not in the habit of asking fundamental questions that are surprising at first glance, but at the same time elementary. From time to time it is worth doing this work for them and instead of them.

For example: did the Jewish people really exist for thousands of years, while all other “peoples” dissolved and disappeared?

How and why the Bible is undoubtedly an impressive collection of theological works, the time of which it was written and edited no one really knows, has become a reliable historical treatise describing the birth of a nation?

To what extent did the Hasmonean kingdom of Judah, multi-tribal whose subjects did not even speak a common language and most of them could not read and write, can be considered a nation-state?

Were the inhabitants of Judea really driven out after the destruction of the Second Temple, or is it just a Christian myth, not by chance perceived Jewish tradition?

And if there was no expulsion, then what happened to the local population?

And who were the millions of Jews who appeared on the historical stage? in the most unexpected corners of the world?

If Jews scattered all over the world really form one people. What common features do the cultural and ethnographic characteristics of the Jews of Kyiv and Marrakesh indicate - in addition to common religious beliefs and some religious practices?

Perhaps, contrary to everything we have been told, Judaism is “just” a fascinating religion that spread throughout the world before its competitors Christianity and Islam triumphed, and, despite persecution and humiliation, managed to survive until our time ?

Is the concept that defines Judaism as the most important religious culture existing from antiquity to the present day, which has never been a unified folk culture, diminishes its significance, as the apologists of the Jewish national idea have constantly argued over the past one hundred and thirty years?

If the various Jewish religious communities did not have common secular cultural denominator, can we say that they were united and distinguished by “blood ties”?

Are Jews really a special “people-race”, as the anti-Semites have been trying to convince us all of since the 19th century?

Did Hitler, who suffered military defeat in 1945, ultimately achieve an intellectual and psychological victory in the “Jewish” state?

How can one defeat his teaching that Jews have special biological properties (in the past it was “Jewish blood”, today it is “Jewish gene”), if so many Israelis sincerely believe in its correctness?

Another ironic grimace of history: Europe knew a time when anyone who argued that all Jews belonged to the same people of foreign origin was immediately classified as an anti-Semite.

Today, anyone who suggests that the people who make up the so-called Jewish Diaspora (as opposed to modern Jewish Israelis) have never been and are not now a people or a nation is instantly branded as a hater of Israel.

Adaptation by Zionism very specific The national concept has led to the fact that the State of Israel, from the very moment of its founding, for sixty years now, has not been inclined to consider itself a republic that exists for the sake of its citizens.

As is known, about a quarter of them are not considered Jews in Israel, so, in accordance with the spirit of Israeli law, the state should not be affiliated with or belong to them. From the very beginning it deprived these people of the opportunity to join the new metaculture, created on its territory.

Moreover, it purposefully pushed them out. At the same time, Israel refused and still refuses to transform itself into a federal democracy like Switzerland or Belgium, or into a multicultural democracy like Britain or Holland, that is, into a state that approves and accepts its cultural diversity and considers itself obliged to serve everyone equally. to its citizens.

Instead, Israel stubbornly considers itself a Jewish state, belonging to all Jews of the world without exception, despite the fact that they are no longer persecuted refugees, but full citizens of the countries in which they live by their own choice.

The rationale for such a gross violation of the fundamental principles of modern democracy and the preservation of unbridled ethnocracy, cruelly discriminates against some of its citizens, to this day based on the actively exploited myth of the existence of an eternal people who are destined to return to their “historical homeland” in the future.

It is not easy to view Jewish history from a different angle, but still through the thick prism of Zionism: the light it refracts is constantly colored in bright ethnocentric tones.

Readers should take into account the following: this study, which advances the thesis that Jews have always belonged to important religious communities that emerged and settled in different regions of the world, and not to “ethnicity”, who has a single origin and constantly wandered in exile, is not directly involved in the reconstruction of historical events.

Its main task is to criticize the established historiographical discourse. Along the way, the author inevitably had to touch on some alternative historical narratives.

When he began writing this book, a question posed by the French historian Marcel Detienne rang in his head: “ How can denationalization be carried out?(dénationaliser) national history?» How can we stop walking along the same roads paved with materials once smelted from national aspirations?

The invention of the concept of nation was an important stage in the development of historiography, as well as the process of modernization itself. Since the 19th century, many historians have made active contributions to it.

By the end of the last century, national “dreams” began to fade and fade. Researchers began to more and more often dissect and literally dismantle majestic national legends, especially myths about common origins, which openly interfered with historical research.

Needless to add, the secularization of history unfolded under the hammer cultural globalization, taking the most unexpected forms in various parts of the Western world.

Yesterday's identification nightmares are not identical to tomorrow's thoughts about identity. Just as many fluid and diverse identities coexist within each person, so human history is, among other things, an identity in flux. The book offered to the reader makes an attempt to illuminate this individual-social aspect hidden in the labyrinth of time.

The lengthy excursion into Jewish history presented here differs from conventional narratives, but this does not mean that it lacks a subjective element or that the author believes himself to be free from ideological bias.

He deliberately attempts to sketch some of the contours of a future alternative historiography, which may perhaps hasten the emergence of a different kind of transplanted memory: a memory that is aware of the relative nature of the truth contained in it and tries to bring together again and together emerging local identities and a universal, critically reflective picture of the past.

***

This is an excerpt from the book of the Jewish historian S. Zand “Who and how invented the Jewish people” .

The only question that I humbly ask both the German Nazis and the racially concerned Jews: tell me, gentlemen, how are you going to separate the noble Aryan blood of dirty, fair-haired savages from the blood of the despicable Semites who were baptized in the IV-VII, even in the IX centuries? And how are you going to separate the genes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from the genes of the Germans so reviled by you?

This is just one example of the mass mixing of Jews with other peoples, and I cited it only because it is directly related to the Germans. But these ancient Jews, who mixed with the Germans, were not “pure-blooded Semites” at all. The Greeks and Romans who converted made up at least half of their ancestors... If not more. And those who began to mix with the Greeks and accept Greeks into communities, even earlier mixed with the Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Arameans, Philistines... God knows who else.

So whose racial traits were the specialists of the Third Reich capturing?! “Semites” or Roman-Aryans”?! Oh vey! There are always problems with these Jews... You even have to think, and this is a non-Aryan activity. And not Semitic.

However, for now Jews are a large and wealthy layer of people in Christian Europe - at least in the warm countries familiar to them. The largest communities were in Rome, Venice, Naples, and on the island of Sicily. And they are not only engaged in trade.

In the empire of Charlemagne they were artisans, traders, collectors of various duties, musicians, and engaged in medicine and construction.

In Narbonne in 768–772, Jews became large landowners and had Christian serfs working their fields and vineyards. As you can see, society has not at all developed any specific attitude towards Jews as bad and “wrong” people.

There were so many Jews in Lyon and they occupied such an important position that in 849 the market day, at the request of the Jews, was moved from Saturday to Sunday. Christian bishops, including the famous Bishop Agobart, protested against this desperately but to no avail.

The Church did not treat Jews very well... I would even say suspiciously. Gallic bishops complained that Jews were buying Christian slaves and forcing them to observe Jewish rituals. That Jews kidnap Christian children and sell them into slavery to Muslims, that they call pork “Christian meat,” that they open the gates of cities to Muslims and Normans.

It’s sad about the surrender of cities, but there have been such cases. Muslims were more tolerant than Christians, especially in Spain, where Jews were consistently driven to extremes for a hundred years.

I would like the same boring, prosaic specifics about stolen and sold children. Well, at least one case, I beg you! Bring them out, these traitors and kidnappers of innocent babies! Give me weapons against the accomplices of Muslims, Normans and Satan himself!

But the trouble is that no specific data is provided. There are emotions, there are creepy-sounding but unproven accusations. Oh yes! As for “Christian meat”... Well, what can I advise offended Christians... Well, let them stick out their tongues or make a “goat” to the first rabbi they come across. Or, let’s say, they will start calling kosher meat “Jewish poop” among themselves. In general, some kind of childhood grievances, for which only the same childish forms of satisfaction can be recommended.

It is difficult to say whether there were many baptisms in this era. From time to time, the church noted with great satisfaction that someone from a persecuted tribe was convinced that Christ was truly the Messiah.

But there were also opposite cases. In 847, a young monk from Alemannia (Germany) converted to Judaism, married a Jewish woman, went to Spain and there incited Muslims to persecute Christians and conducted anti-Christian propaganda. The church perceived such stories very painfully.

However, there was no persecution of Jews at this time. Sometimes Christian monks came to synagogues and had long theological debates with them. At times the popes were especially eager to convert the Jews, and then the intensity of the disputes increased. Pope Gregory the Great in 590 even began to give various kinds of privileges and made monetary gifts to Jews who wanted to be baptized.

–?But then they will convert to Christianity insincerely, for the sake of profit! - they told Papa.

-?So what? But their children and grandchildren will already be real Christians...

A descendant of one of the crosses himself became pope under the name of Anacletus II (1130–1138).

Perhaps it was this story that formed the basis of the Jewish myth about the “Jewish Pope Elchanan.” The myth says that the learned Rabbi Simon from the city of Mainz had his son Elhanan kidnapped. The boy was baptized and sent to a monastery, and thanks to his innate genius, he made a career all the way to the papal throne. This former Jewish boy, and now a great uncle and Pope, really missed his own dad and his native faith. In order to see his own pope, the pope began to oppress the Jews of the city of Mainz, hoping that they would send smart old Simon to Rome. This is what happened, and, left alone with the old pope, the pope confessed who he was.

This story has two versions of the end: one, the Pope secretly fled back to Mainz, returned to Judaism and lived happily as a Jew. According to another, he threw himself from the tower of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome - the repentant Elhanan wanted to atone for his deviation from the true faith at the cost of his life.

It was invented so well that it’s even a pity - in all versions of this myth there is literally not a word of truth. But the real “Jewish Pope” Anacletus II did not even think of repenting, and he was already the fourth generation of converts; it is not difficult to calculate that only one-eighth of Jewish blood was in him. That's not to say it's incredibly high.

Kings and dukes treated Jews much better: after all, Jews were useful. And they are interesting, unlike the barely literate and generally illiterate Europeans. Charlemagne was also illiterate, despite the fact that he was a great warrior and a very intelligent emperor. At his home in Aachen, he loved to talk with Jews who had returned from distant countries. After all, these people could talk about some interesting things, but monks and knights, for all their merits, could not.

Sending an embassy to Baghdad, to Caliph Harun Ar-Rashid, Karl included in the embassy, ​​among others, the Jew Isaac. This Isaac was the only one who returned and brought a white elephant to the king: a reciprocal gift from Caliph Harun ar-Rashid. Probably Isaac did not read the necessary anti-Semitic books and did not know that he was an insidious and vile creature. The Frankish nobility also did not know that they were much greater patriots than Isaac; Apparently, they took root in the warm, rich east, leaving Isaac alone to return to his wild, hungry homeland.

But the most important thing is that in the early Middle Ages Jews led the lifestyle of a small national-religious minority, in whose behavior Europeans did not see any fundamental, much less vicious, differences from the behavior of Christians. Even the church does not accuse the Jews of any particular cunning, deceit or cunning. They are accused of crucifying Christ, of following the “wrong” law, and so on.

At the same time, Jews are proficient in all urban professions that are known in the Western European Middle Ages, among them there are many farmers. In addition, they act as teachers of Christians in the field of finance, international and transit trade.

From Empire to Europe

Not everyone realizes to what extent everything changed in the Western world at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries. Until the 10th century, the West lived on the legacy of the Western Roman Empire. Until this time, the Romans and Romans continued to exist. In different parts of the former Roman Empire, they already spoke different versions of Latin, but they still understood each other. The Romans lived according to their own laws, according to the Roman way of life. Barbarian tribes - each according to its own tribal law. A unified empire remained an ideal... but had long been unattainable. Society looked back to the lost empire, and not forward, to the emergence of new communities on the ruins of the empire.

In the 11th century, several important events took place at once, which testify: a new civilization was born on the ruins of the Roman Empire!

1. The “great clearing” began: the area of ​​cultivated lands stopped shrinking, people began to attack forests and wastelands. There has been an increase in population.

2. The last old people who still spoke the languages ​​of barbarian peoples: the Lombards or Burgundians are dying out.

3. The first “real” universities are created (obviously without the influence of yeshivas).

4. New nationalities appear.

Already by the 10th century, according to O. Thierry, a “territorial revolution” took place - nationalities began to form: Breton, Aquitaine, Provencal, French, Burgundian, Italian, German. Moreover, the German “nation” consisted of Saxons, Franconians, Bavarians, Swabians-Alemannics, and Thuringians. But these are no longer tribes, these are nationalities that arose in different territories. Most of the inhabitants of Europe began to think of themselves not as Romans and not as people of this or that tribe, but first of all as “local”, “Tuteish”, with their own language and culture.

5. The first crusade takes place - a new civilization moves from passive defense to aggressive influence on the outside world.

Cities are growing, and in these cities there are merchants who already know how to do business. Local artisans appear, the quality of their work is not inferior to Jewish, or even superior to it. Calling a spade a spade, there are now European Christian city dwellers to whom the Jews are their bitterest competitors. Jews were increasingly forced out of the sphere of trade and crafts: these activities became the responsibility of guilds of townspeople, which only Christians entered. The process of ousting Jews from all other spheres especially intensified after the Crusades - a direct route to the East appeared, and intermediaries again became unnecessary.

What is characteristic is that this was clear to the Jews even then, and it is also clear to the distant descendants of those whom the victorious competitors turned into “fiends of Satan.” “In Europe itself, as urban life developed, the number of Christian merchants grew, and Jews were increasingly pushed into the area of ​​petty trade.”

More and more Jews turned to usury, “paying for it at the price of general self-hatred.” By the way, Judaism prohibits usury for the same reasons as Christianity. Jewish moneylenders violated the prohibition of their own religion... But you have to live! By calling a spade a spade, Jews are pushed into the sphere of low-prestige occupations, which are considered shameful and tarnished their reputation. Thus, in Buddhist Japan, the “eta” caste (emphasis on the last syllable) was forced to slaughter and butcher animals, and tanning leather. In India, sweeping cities and removing garbage were carried out by members of the lowest castes.

The Jews, too, managed to act in accordance with Dale Carnegie’s famous advice: “Fate hands you a lemon... make lemonade out of it!”

And kings and dukes can now receive from Christians what is necessary for their states. Accordingly, they can do without Jews... which is what they do.

If earlier Jews were called to come to the country because there were not enough citizens there and the kings took care of these restless but useful people, now they are only tolerated and, moreover, impudently used to squeeze out money.

In the 13th century, Jews turned into the main bankers of England, and, moreover, into bankers who were not respected and treated like pigs.

The Treasury introduces new and new taxes all the time - especially for Jews, of course! There was a tax on bachelors, but if a Jew wanted to get married, let him pay another tax, on marriage! For every transaction concluded by a Jew there is also a tax. And after the death of a Jew, a third of the property went to the treasury.

The treasury is constantly borrowing and borrowing... King Henry II owed Aaron of Lincoln about one hundred thousand pounds, an amount almost equal to the kingdom's annual tax income, approximately 45 tons of silver. Didn't give it away.

John the Landless extorted a huge sum from the Jews. Not by law, but simply by blackmail, threats, even torture. Just because it's possible. He wanted to “borrow” 10 thousand silver marks from a rich man in Bristol. He did not want or could not give, and then the king ordered to pull out tooth after tooth until he gave this amount. Ultimately the Jew gave.

In the same way, in France, King Philip the Fair squeezed out money through arrests and blackmail, and simply took away sums of money from rich people.

It is characteristic that the expulsion of the Jews itself directly depended on the appearance of Lombard bankers in France - those who could take over their functions. People from the northern Italian principality of Lombardy actually learned to conduct financial transactions faster than other Christians in the West, including mastering (or stealing from Jewish bankers?) the idea of ​​a loan letter.

In 1306, Jews were expelled from France. Within a month they were ordered to leave, taking with them only what they could carry and food for the duration of the journey. The king declared the goods of the Jews his property and sold them to Christians. By the way, how does the king’s act differ from the “Aryanization of property” in Germany in 1935–1937? I can't understand this.

Much in the behavior of Europeans of the 13th–14th centuries can cause a feeling of awkwardness in us, the distant descendants of these people and their co-religionists. But perhaps the most unpleasant thing: how those expelled did not want to leave! These Jews also did not read the necessary books and did not know that they were cosmopolitans, that their true fatherland was only Israel and that they should proudly shake off the ashes of all sorts of Frances and Englands from their soles.

Probably, these were also some “wrong” Jews, like Isaac, the courtier of Charlemagne. But the French Jews did not leave far and settled in the provinces of Southern France, independent of the king’s decrees. They lived there, waiting to be allowed back. Philip IV died, and Louis X took the throne. In 1315, he allowed the Jews to return, since this was “demanded by the common voice of the people.”

As for the people's voice, it is difficult to judge. But it is a fact that the French financial system did not benefit from the expulsion of the Jews. That is, the Lombards were quite capable of doing the same thing as the Jews. But they did it, firstly, still worse, and secondly, they were much less controllable and submissive. The Jews had nowhere to go; they could be crushed as much as they wanted.

One involuntarily recalls the word “tayage”, which was a legal term in the European Middle Ages. The conqueror received the right of tyage over the conquered: for example, the Normans, who captured England in 1066, received the right of tyage over the Angles and Saxons. “The word is not translated into Russian. Its root forms a variety of words denoting the concept: plan, let out juice, incise, cut, cut stone... It’s clear - a person’s transformation is possible when he, a person, is reduced to the status of a thing.” In relation to the Jews, no one declared the right of tayazh de jure, that is, according to the law; however, de facto it was much easier to implement this old feudal right towards them than in relation to Christians.

As a result, the good king graciously allowed the Jews to return to his kingdom... Only he “forgot” to return the property stolen from them.

In the 14th century in France, the same thing was repeated more than once on a national scale - but now on a, so to speak, municipal scale: Jews were more than once returned to cities from which they had already been expelled - after all, after their departure, interest rates increased!

But the flywheel was already spinning in a predictable direction. More and more Lombard merchants and moneylenders entered the rich countries of Western Europe, Christian townspeople only grew in number and became stronger; The question was only about the lines.

In July 1290, the English king Edward I gave the Jews until November 1 to leave. 16 or 16.5 thousand Jews left, often before November, most of them to France.

In 1394, the final expulsion of Jews from France took place - approximately 100 thousand people left, mainly to Italy.

In Italy

Of course, in Italy there was also a need for loan capital, for borrowing money, for trade. But in Italy, which had not lost the heritage of Rome so much, there were more Christians who could do all this. Another thing is that even in merchant republics such as Florence, Venice or Genoa, giving money on interest was considered despicable, and self-respecting people tried not to do it.

Pope Innocent III assured that many Christian kings, monasteries and princes themselves are afraid to engage in usury and therefore attract Jews as their agents.

In any case, it is known that Christian moneylenders treated their debtors much worse than Jews treated Christians, and they also charged higher interest rates. In 1430, Jews were called to Florence to lower the interest rate on loans to 20%, instead of the 33% charged by Christians.

Maybe Christians were simply more confident in themselves, in their position and in the right to offend fellow believers? Maybe. But this did not make it any easier for their debtors, and this did not make matters any more orderly. Even in the despicable role of moneylenders, Jews were more suitable for society than pawnbrokers.

In addition, the rich trading cities of Italy had a very rich internal market, there was a place for everyone. And foreign trade, the influx of goods from all over the world, gave a place in the sun to a variety of people. As a result, Jews were not pushed out of other areas of life as much as in the rest of Christian Europe.

In Italy there are known not only Jewish peasants and landowners, not only Jewish bankers, artisans and moneylenders, but also a thick layer that can most accurately be called the Jewish “middle class”. Jews were circus performers, magicians, trainers, cattle traders, tailors, shoemakers, peddlers, sailors, spice traders...

At the bottom of this layer there were many people who worked manually: blacksmiths, jewelers, laborers.

At the top, along with the Jewish bourgeoisie, there was a layer of Jewish intelligentsia: actors, playwrights, artists and sculptors. Even women of the Jewish faith became actresses, singers and dancers, even doctors and bankers (or should we say “bankers”?).

There were many Jewish doctors in Italy, and these doctors no longer studied only at home, but received their education at the highest medical schools of Salerno, Padua, etc. There were also Jewish professors of medicine who gave lectures not only to Jews.

The Jewish doctor Foltinho, a professor at the University of Padua, had wide fame and long posthumous fame; he died of the plague, having become infected from his patients - he cared for dangerously ill patients (1348).

The church spread rumors about the “damage” of patients by Jewish doctors and forbade treatment from them. There are known cases when priests asked during confession: did their parishioner go to Jewish doctors?! This is especially funny because later these zealots of the faith themselves fled to the Jewish doctors.

These unworthy shepherds did not take their example from their leadership - Pope Boniface IX always had the Jews Manuelo and his son Angelo with him as his personal physicians. They received from the pope and the Roman magistrate a charter exempting their offspring from taxes for free treatment of the poor (1399).

Among the writers, well-known supporters of the philosophy of Maimonides, translator of Arab philosophers Jacob Anatoli and physician Hillel Verona (13th century). They, however, are relatively little known, but Immanuel of Rome, a personal friend of Dante (1330), wrote magnificent poetry. And not church... or rather, synagogue chants, but cheerful and intelligent secular songs, where he sang love, wine and happiness, and ridiculed stupidity and ignorance.

His most famous poem was the poem “Hell and Paradise”, and in hell Immanuel placed Talmudists who despise secular sciences, charlatan doctors and mediocre writers. And in heaven he found a place for virtuous goyim who recognize monotheism.

The rabbis declared Immanuel of Rome a freethinker and tried to ban his books, but smart Jews, of course, read them anyway. And not only Jews.

During this era in Italy, in general, much was subtly reminiscent of the Hellenistic period. Including the fact that Orthodox rabbis could not find words to “properly” scold the “corrupt” and “depraved” Italians. These people, as befits the leaders of patriarchal communities, “absolutely” “knew” what every Jew should do and even think. “As is known,” all Jews must be devoted to their families, and all Jewish girls become innocent at the crown and with embarrassment on their cheeks. Oh vey! The unheard-of corruption of morals coming from these vile, obscene Italians has also captured “Israel in the flesh”! A certain rabbi, who visited Sicily in 1487, notes with disgust that “most brides are already pregnant under the wedding canopy.”

Some rabbis were no less disgusted by the extramarital affairs of some Jews. Or were they simply jealous? But the ravings of the rabbis, who were probably born in the process of reading the Talmud, remained their private matter. In Italy, after the burning of the Talmud by the hand of the executioner, a good joke appeared: they say, the laws of the Talmud for Jews were abolished... What remains for them? Live according to the laws of the Decameron, that’s what!

Of course, there were many mixed marriages. There were a lot of christenings. At the end of the 15th century, many immigrants from Spain appeared in Italy, but by the 17th century the number of Italian Jews had fallen sharply. If not because of the assimilation of Jews, then why?

"The Spawn of Satan"

It was at this time, and not earlier, that Jews began to be portrayed as greedy, pathologically calculating, vile, cunning, and tricky. Vile types who will fit anywhere without soap and seep into any hole because of their disgusting greed.

This myth has many supporters because there are many interested parties. Almost all Christian townspeople will only be glad if there are no more Jews in Europe.

The Church has previously sought to demonize Jews and drive a wedge between them and Christians. Previously, she had not been able to do this, because Christians needed Jews, and even in Spain, large sections of Christians had nothing against Jews.

Councils in the Lateran Church in Rome were previously considered Ecumenical, and their decisions were binding on the entire Catholic world. But Pope Innocent III convened the Lateran Council of 1215 at a special time. At this time, heretical movements spread across Europe in a wide stream, and the fight against them became almost the main task of the Church. The Lateran Council of 1215 devoted most of its time to the fight against the Waldensians, Albigensians and other heretics. This Council created a gloomy social institution called the Inquisition.

The Council, of course, could not help but say its word about the Jews, and it said it. According to the decisions of the Lateran Council of 1215, Jews had to live in a special part of the city reserved for them. They lived in special quarters before, simply because it was more convenient to comply with religious regulations. But before this was not a law, but a custom, and, of course, the custom was violated. Now the everyday norm is turning into a strict law.

Jews now have to wear clothes with special signs sewn on them, and hats of the established type - with wide brims and a stupid high pipik in the middle. These caps are depicted on Jews, for example, on the bas-relief of Nuremberg Cathedral; The bas-relief depicts Jews (wearing the caps prescribed by the Lateran Council) paying Judas Iscariot his thirty pieces of silver.

Outside the Roman Empire

Byzantine Jews lived throughout the Near East, in Greece, and Asia Minor. They spoke Greek.

Already from the Babylonian captivity, Jews settled in the East. They lived in Persia, Transcaucasia, Ethiopia, India and even China. I didn't make a reservation - in China.

“It is strange to see a poor Persian,” notes the Chinese writer and poet Li Shang-Ying. In the notes to this we find: “Many notes have been preserved in Chinese literature about the Persians of the Tang times - rich merchants, connoisseurs of all kinds of jewelry, in particular precious stones. During the time of Li Shang-Yin, Persians lived in various regions of China, mainly in the south - in large coastal cities."

It remains to be clarified that the era of the Tang dynasty, Tang time, is the period from 618 to 907 years after the birth of Christ. And that the “Persians” who then settled in China were very strange - for some reason they were not building temples for worshiping the Sun or “towers of silence”; There is not a single such temple in China, not a single “tower of silence”, and there never have been. But for some reason these “Persians” are building synagogues intensively, and it was from the Tang era that Jews appeared in China. Why then the Persians?! But because the Persians are already known, they trade with them, and anyone who comes from their country is also a Persian in the eyes of the Chinese.

In all the countries of their settlement, Jews retained the same mobile, mobile, intellectual Judaism that arose during the Babylonian captivity (although, as we will see, Judaism changed greatly over time). They retained some parts of the culture, especially those associated with Judaism, but completely lost others.

Living in different countries, the Jews began to dress differently, eat differently, and behave differently. If the reader thinks that Chinese Jews eat fish fish, stuffed eggs or boiled chicken on Saturdays, he is very much mistaken. If he believes that in Ethiopia the Jews wore a black caftan of the most terrible cut in the Pale fashion and the legendary black hat or caps in the style of the Lateran Council of 1215, he is even more mistaken.

In Ethiopia, beyond the rapids of the Nile, the Jewish people also appeared.

In Ancient Rus'

The chronicle tale about the “test of faith” tells that the Jews also praised their faith to Prince Vladimir. The prince did not have the slightest need to go to communicate with Jews in other lands: if the prince wanted, he could communicate with Judaists without leaving Kyiv.

Kyiv of the 9th–13th centuries developed as a multinational city. Thanks to the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” and caravan roads, it looks more like the cities of Italy than Britain or Germany. And in this city “in the first half of the 11th century, the Jewish and Khazar element... played a significant role.”

In Kyiv, part of the city was called Kozary - probably the Khazars settled there, but they converted to Judaism. Within the city walls of Kyiv (completed in 1037) there was a Jewish Gate, adjacent to which was the Jewish Quarter.

In 933, Prince Igor took Byzantine Kerch and led some of the Jews from Kerch to Kyiv. There, on Kozary, he settled prisoners from the Crimea in 965. In 969 - the Khazars from Semender. In 989 - Jews from Korsun - Chersonese, in 1017 - Jews from Tmutarakan.

Such an authoritative scholar as Abraham Garkavi thought that the Jewish community of Kievan Rus "was formed by Jews who migrated from the shores of the Black Sea and from the Caucasus, where their ancestors lived after the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities."

These eastern Jews, who had not experienced the influence of ancient culture at all, penetrated Rus' before the fall of Tmutarakan from the Polovtsians (1097) and, at least from the 9th century, spoke the Slavic language in everyday life.

Probably, Jewish settlers from Byzantium and neighboring Asian lands went to Kievan Rus. After all, in Babylonia and Persia from ancient times there lived “countless tens of thousands, and it is impossible to determine their number,” according to Josephus. These tens of thousands in the 13th–10th centuries moved to the North Caucasus, Dagestan and could well have moved to Rus'.

As a result, a kind of hodgepodge of Byzantine Jews and Khazars arose in Kyiv. Western Jews were also added to this explosive mixture - due to the fact that the city stood on the caravan routes. In particular, refugees from Germany and Hungary from the first crusade of 1095 reached Kyiv.

Ancient Jewish population of Poland

Jews have also lived in other Slavic countries since pagan antiquity. And they were also treated as “our own”.

Polish legend says that around 842 the Polish prince Popel died. At the assembly in Kruszowice, the Poles argued for a long time about who to elect as the new prince, and decided to resolve the matter with a kind of divine judgment: let the prince be the one who first comes to the city in the morning. This first one, quite by chance, turned out to be the old Jew Abram Porokhuvnik. He, however, did not agree to become a prince and gave his lot to the village charioteer Piast: they say, Piast is also an intelligent man, and he is more worthy. Such an act did not contradict the morality of the pagans and was quite understandable to them. The Judaist Porokhuvnik acted in full accordance with the laws and morals of pagan society, it makes sense to note this.

There is another version of the legend: they say, a Jew asked for a day's delay, locked himself in a room and began to pray. The people got excited. The peasant Piast took an ax in his hands and called on the people to force the Jew to accept the crown. And then Abram announced to the people: you already have a leader! Here he is, leading the people with an ax in his hand... It was he who placed the crown on Piast’s head.

Throughout their history, the Poles treated the Piast dynasty with respect and a little sentimentality: a very popular dynasty, made up of peasants. When kings in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were elected (since 1569), the candidate of Polish blood was called “Piast”.

And who gave up his lot to the first Piast? Who put the crown on his head? Jew Abram. He crowned the first Piast. This Jew Abram bears the Slavic nickname or even the family name “Porokhovnik” - that is, Porokhovnik.

Judging by the attitude of the Poles, he is not at all an impudent alien. Consequently, Porohuvnik personally, and, most likely, Jews in general, are among those who are familiar and do not cause irritation. That is, both the Jew and the Poles behave the same way as representatives of two indigenous tribes who have studied each other for a long time behave.

There is a legend confirming an even more ancient appearance of Jews in Eastern Europe. It is connected with the construction of Prague.

No longer a legend, but the oldest Czech historical chronicle, created at the beginning of the 14th century by Dalimil Mezheritsky, tells how Czech Jews joined Czech Christians to defend their common homeland from the German invasion in the 9th–10th centuries.

The chronicle was written 400 years after the events and contains many inaccuracies. But, as you can see, the story about the participation of Jews in the struggle of the Slavs against German colonization remained relevant.

Dubious tradition

Modern scientists repeat Jewish traditional tales that Jews moved strictly from West to East. From Germany to Poland, from Poland to Rus'... In the spirit of “The movement of Jews to Poland intensified from the end of the 10th century, when the Polish people adopted Christianity and thereby associated themselves with the Western Catholic Church and Western peoples, among whom Jews lived in significant numbers.”

From the point of view of official science, “the Jewish population of Eastern Europe was basically just an offshoot of Western European Jewry.”

Or this: “German Jews, fleeing the robberies of the Crusaders, settled in Poland by 1100. Here they flourished. More and more Jews fled Germany and Austria to Poland, where they were welcomed with open arms. King Bolesław V granted the Jews the liberal privilege of self-government."

Indeed, very logical. German Jews penetrate into Poland - simply spreading across the face of the Earth, without any special intention. “It is believed that already from the time of Charlemagne, Jewish merchants from Germany came to Poland on business and many remained there permanently.”

But all of these are not even scientific assumptions and hypotheses, but simply folk legends. Because there are no documents. Absolutely not. There is only Jewish folklore.

J. D. Klier is among the most reliable Jewish historians. And he speaks quite honestly: “there is no consensus about how and when Jews appeared in Poland - this event is shrouded in legends, myths and fiction.”

German scientists have no doubt at all that it was from German territory that the Jewish settlement of Poland came. But here’s an interesting detail: all the authors I’ve ever read very confidently report: “Jews settled in Poland and Holland in the 16th–18th centuries.” But the resettlement to Holland is documented with German scrupulousness, almost every settler is listed, and if necessary, it is possible to look up archives and even establish the names of many settlers. But the resettlement to Poland is not documented in ANY way. There is no specific information about which families, which Jews and when they moved to this or that Polish city.

The German free cities kept their own archives. The town hall of such cities would never allow city citizens to disappear from the city and their departure would not be taken into account. There was no reason not to note that, say, “twenty families of Jews moved from Magdeburg to Krakow in 1240.” However, there are no such documents. Any assumptions about the departure of Jews from Germany to Poland are just speculation.

A characteristic map of the settlement of Jews in Germany from the “Jewish Museum” in Frankfurt. It shows with German precision who moved, when and from where. Neat little arrows show the movement of people between the little red dots: resettlement points. But a huge red arrow leads towards Poland, and it rests on a huge red spot, on the entire territory of Poland. No specifics. Not a single definite fact.

Resettlement of non-resettled people

If we talk about facts, then in general there is no one to move to the east. Because in all the cities of Germany, in England, in France, in Switzerland we are talking about very small Jewish communities.

By the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, there were many Jews in the Mediterranean regions, the countries of Italy, Spain, North Africa, and the Near East; there the climate is more familiar, and long-standing and relatively stable relations have been established with the non-Jewish population, although not always peaceful.

In Gaul, there were many Jews in the south - where the climate is Mediterranean. This Southern Gaul was called Narbonne - after its main city, Narbonne. The Loire River divides Gaul almost exactly into two halves; there were far fewer Jews north of the Loire than to the south.

Between 80 and 100 thousand Jews were expelled from France in the 14th century. They went either to Italy or to the southern principalities - Languedoc and Burgundy, which were vassal principalities of France, but to which the decrees on the expulsion of Jews did not apply. Only a very few French Jews headed to distant, too cold Germany for them.

The number of people expelled from England varies, but all estimates range between 12 and 16 thousand people. This is very little compared even to the Italian colony, not to mention the Spanish Jews and the Jews of the Muslim world.

German city archives have always been kept in order (which makes life very easy for historians). We know very well which Jews arrived in which German cities in what numbers, how many there were and where they moved. It is known that the community in Frankfurt am Main was founded by Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan, who came to this city with his family from Mainz in 1150, and the same accuracy reigns in all other cases.

Sometimes Jews were counted not by "heads", but by families: the chronicles noted how many families arrived in a city or moved from Mainz to Frankfurt or from Zwickau to Berlin.

So, the numbers are absolutely insignificant. There were very few Jews in Germany. After all, Germany for the Jews, even more than Britain, was only the extreme northern periphery of their habitat: a cold and wild country where they settled not because of a good life. The further from the Mediterranean coast, the fewer Jews there are.

In Frankfurt, the recognized capital of German Jews, in 1241 there were only 1811 of them. In 1499 there were even fewer - only 1543. I emphasize that these figures include ALL Jews, including newborn babies. However, even in later times there were few Jews in Frankfurt. In 1709 - only 3019 people with a total urban population of 17–18 thousand. In 1811 - about 2–3 thousand, with a total number of citizens of 40,500 people.

The moral of this story is simple: there are many Jews in Mediterranean countries; There are very few Jews in Germany.

And in the most indigenous Poland, even without Rus', by 1400 at least 100 thousand Jews lived. By the beginning of the 16th century there were hundreds of thousands of them. How could tiny German communities bring this huge community into existence? The number of Polish Jews (settlers) is significantly greater than in the country from which the resettlement is taking place! In full accordance with the saying about the hen who gave birth to a bull.

In general, John Doyle Klier is deeply right - there are too many legends, myths and fictions here.

Mysterious Yiddish

The language spoken by Ashkenazi Jews is called Yiddish. The translation is exactly that - “Jewish”. Official science has long believed that just as Spagnol came from Spanish, and Ladino from Latin or Italian, so Yiddish came from German. The authoritative reference book believes that Yiddish “began to take shape in the 12th–13th centuries. in Germany, where there were large settlements of Jews who used German speech in everyday life with the use of other words - Hebrew. words and phrases to denote religious, cult, judicial, moral and other concepts.<…>

With the resettlement of the mass of Jews to Poland and other glory. countries (XV-XVI centuries) Slavs began to penetrate into India. words and morphemes.<…>

Spoken I. is divided into three dialects: Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian-Belarusian (these names are arbitrary, since they do not coincide with the boundaries of these territories).

It would probably be a good idea to study the earliest Yiddish texts, written in Germany, before the onset of Slavic influence: much would immediately become clear. But such texts do not exist, that’s the point. It is surprising that no one has seen texts written in Yiddish, made in Germany, and without late Slavic admixtures. So to speak, early versions born in Germany in the 12th–14th centuries, when it “began to take shape,” or at least in the 14th century.

All Yiddish texts are known only from the territory of Poland, all of them are much later, not earlier than the 16th century. All known early texts already reflect borrowings from Slavic languages, primarily from Polish. And thus the origin of Yiddish does not indicate in any way the migration of Jews from Germany.

Moreover, Yiddish is widespread throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - both in native Poland and in Western Rus' - but it could only arise in Poland and only in a very limited period, from the 14th to the beginning of the 16th century. The fact is that Polish cities, including Krakow, were formed as German ones... Only during this period did the townspeople in Poland speak German or a mixture of German and Polish; later the city assimilated and became almost completely Polish... except for the Jewish quarters, of course.

Jews were “following the Germans... the second most important migrant element that restored the Polish cities destroyed by the Tatar hordes.”

Moreover, the cities of the north of present-day Poland, Pomerania, spoke only German - this was the territory of the Livonian Order. There was no mixing of German with Polish; there was no assimilation of Germans by Poles. The Poles could call this city Gdansk as much as they wanted, but Danzig remained a purely German city in language, management style, population, connections, and political orientation.

In Western Rus', the city spoke Polish and Yiddish... The German Quarter was only in Vilna, and it did not determine the face of the city. It is unknown what language the Jews of Western Rus' spoke before the formation of Yiddish.

Yiddish quite definitely originated in southern Poland and from there spread to Western Rus'. Does this talk about the movement of Jews from Poland to Western Rus'? Or the language was borrowed, but the population remained unchanged?

Yiddish is usually classified as a Germanic group of languages. Its grammar is predominantly Germanic, and its vocabulary consists of about 65% words of German origin, about 25% Slavic, 10% Hebrew and Aramaic. In literary Yiddish there are about 25% Slavicisms, and in the popular spoken language there are incomparably more Slavicisms.

There are significantly more Hebrew words in Yiddish (about 10% of the vocabulary) than in the language of the Jews of Spain, medieval France or Jewish-Arabic. After all, if the Jews came from there to Eastern Europe, then they could only lose along the way, but not enrich their Hebrew vocabulary.

Alexander Bader also breaks down the most “weighty” argument in favor of the movement of Jews from West to East - the wide distribution of ancient surnames derived from the names of West German cities: Landau, Shapiro, Mintz, Bachrach and many others.

Not only the origin of some surnames from city names is doubtful (for example, Minz from Mainz). It is even more doubtful that most Jews bearing these surnames are actually descendants of these families of famous medieval rabbis. In the 18th century in Austria and Germany, and in the 19th century in Russia, Jews were forced to take surnames, and many took “prestigious” surnames. Among the Jews of that time, the surname was considered as another invention of the “goyish” authorities in order to infringe, force them to pay taxes, or force them to become soldiers. The surname had no meaning for them, and the imperial officials did not have time to figure out who came from whom, and they wrote down the surnames from the words of the Jews themselves.

96 Wexler P. The Ashkenazic Jews: A SlavoTurkic People in Search of a Jewish Identity. Columbus: Slavica, 1993.

97 Jewish migrations from Germany to Poland: The Rhineland hypothesis revisited by Jits van Straten, Mankind quarterly Vol. XLIV, No. 3&4, 2004.

Jews are not even a people, not a nation, but a general name for a number of Semitic nationalities

They are not allowed to shave their beards, but modern representatives do this. In schools in Nazi Germany, special lessons were held to teach children to recognize them by their characteristic external features. They make up 0.27 percent of humanity. They are more than three thousand years old, and the theme of opportunism and success of these people remains relevant throughout the entire period of their existence. Jews are not even a people, not a nation, but a general name for a number of Semitic nationalities.

They are not liked for their intelligence, cunning and constant search for profit. Meanwhile, such qualities are not unique to Jews, but are associated exclusively with this race. Here we will try to answer the question of where the roots of hostility come from and try to dispel some myths about the Semites.

The loser Jew is no longer a Jew

One of the greatest mysteries for all non-Jewish humanity is how the Semites achieved such heights in various fields. Science, music, medicine, literature, art, business... They account for 27% of all Nobel Prizes and 50% of world chess champions. If we list the most influential people of the last two centuries, the top three would be Einstein, Freud and Marx. Not only individuals, but also entire clans came to the fore: the Rothschilds, Fords, Rockefellers, etc.

Jewishness is a cultural-religious rather than a genetic phenomenon. In Yiddish there is a term “seychel” that explains some aspects of this culture. In the dictionary, it is interpreted as “striving to acquire new knowledge and leave behind the world better than it was when you appeared.” Jews attach great importance to education and work. These values ​​are passed on from generation to generation. The fantastic successes of the Semites can be explained precisely by this cultural tradition, along with Judaism itself. After all, the main religious books of this faith develop the habit of independent thinking. Because the basic principle of studying the Talmud is a deep understanding of the text, not extensive knowledge of it. That is, the main thing for a Jew is personal understanding, perception, individualism. Hence independence, independence, money and success.

A Jewish fool is also a Jew

Some features of Semites' behavior are based on facts, others are far-fetched. For example, the specific mindset of the Jewish mind. On average, Semites are indeed more educated and cultured than non-Jews. This is due to the fact that the bulk of them live in cities, mainly in capitals. Therefore, they have more opportunities to obtain higher education. But they are no smarter than others. In this prejudice, the decisive role is played by the prevalence of education, and not intelligence. Moreover, the average intellectual level of a Jew is lower than the average level of any non-Jew.

By concentrating and assimilating in the centers, Jews inevitably interfere in the national life of others. At the same time, they, wittingly or unwittingly, pursue their own goals, live by their own rules, displaying the Jewish mentality. In other words, they interfere with neighboring people by creating their own national public, which controls the levers of economic, political, cultural and informational power of the state.

A good Jew is your own Jew

Their success lies not only in adaptability, but also in cohesion. Like any small nation, Semites try to stick together and help their own. This unity has deeper roots and is based on the archaic feeling of a common enemy. The essence of Talmudic ethics is that norms apply only to “our own” and do not apply to “strangers.” Jews are not unique in this. This is normal behavior of a minority who want to preserve their cultural characteristics. All united small nations act in much the same way. The only difference is quality and quantity. However, the majority of people perceive the Jewish orientation towards their own culture as a hidden threat, a conspiracy against the majority.

Who is for whom, and the Jew is for himself

Innate cunning is another reproach against this race. The reason probably goes back to the first century AD. e., when the Jews lost their state. Semites lived for almost two thousand years in alien social systems, the responsibility for whose existence was borne by representatives of the indigenous population. And Jews acted as managers, advisers, bankers or prime ministers. That is, movers, innovators, not guardians or conservatives. They risked more for someone else's property than for their own. If a state ceased to exist, then the Semites, as a last resort, moved to another, leaving the aborigines the opportunity to deal with the situation themselves.

Despite all the wars, exterminations and oppressions, the Jewish community is very resilient. Stability is explained by cultural characteristics. Many peoples have such a concept as counting maternal kinship. This is the principle of transferring basic rights and types of property through women. Among the Jews, this system was elevated to the rank of a mandatory tradition and requires strict implementation. It does not allow any exceptions to the rules, unlike non-Jewish society. It is on this that the vitality of Semitic communities is based. After all, nationality is also “inherited” from a Jewish mother. Therefore, children born into such families are automatically enrolled in the clan.

In addition, in the early medieval European environment, Jews were either expelled from their host countries or received the right to reside in these states, subject to measures for their social isolation. In particular, a ban on mixed marriages with them.

The one who is Jewish does not work

What is not a Jew is Rabinovich

Let's dispel another stereotype. Rabinovich is not the most common Jewish surname. In Russia, it is rather a common name for the hero of stories or anecdotes included in modern urban folklore. Much more common are surnames such as Levin, Kogan or Kagan, Shapiro and Gurevich.

The surname Rabinovich is of Hebrew origin, derived from the name of the profession. All derivatives from it have a common root raabi, that is, “rabbi” or otherwise “priest.”

It is curious that among Jews, abbreviated surnames are common, which not everyone knows about. For example, Shub, in Hebrew it sounds like “shochet u bodek”, that is, “reznik” or “controller”.

Semites in Russia began to be given surnames only in 1804. And in the pre-family period, Jewish families bore surnames derived from their occupation, hobbies, place of birth, etc. For example, Shae der Shlöser - Shaya's mechanic, Leibe der melamed - Leib's teacher.

Results

Wit, giftedness, talent, success. All this is inherent in the Jewish ethnic group, just like any other. Perhaps the negative attitude is based not only on history, culture and religion, perhaps it is the envy of some nations over the capabilities of others? And Jewish superiority is just the ability to use the same opportunities much more competently than everyone else.

Days of creation of the world and living beings. For a very, very long time there was nothing, there was not even the Earth itself, but there was complete darkness, cold, emptiness - and only one almighty God. God began by creating the heavens and the earth. But they did not yet have a specific appearance, and, as the Bible says, only the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. Then God separated the light from the darkness and called the light day and the darkness night.

The first day of the creation of the world.
From Kedmonovskaya
manuscripts, ca. 1000 g

On the second day, God created a firmament that divided the water so that part of the water was above it, and part was below it. He called this firmament the sky [more accurate meaning of the Hebrew word translated as “firmament of the sky” is “gaseous layer”].

On the third day, God gathered the water that was under the sky into one place, and dry land appeared. He called it earth, and the waters seas. God liked what he created, and according to his desire, grass and trees grew on the earth. And God saw that it was good.

On the fourth day, God created the luminaries to give light to the earth and separate day from night. Days, months, and years could be counted by the luminaries. The big one shone during the day, the smaller one gave light at night, and the stars helped it.

On the fifth day, God took care of living beings. First, fish, aquatic animals and birds were created. God liked them all, and he wished that there would be as many of them as possible.

God creates a helper for himself. On the sixth day, God created creatures that were supposed to live on land: cattle, snakes, and wild animals. But He had many other things to do, and He created an assistant for Himself - a man. Outwardly, he had to resemble God himself. And just as God rules over the whole world, so man had to rule over the whole earth and all living creatures. God created a man from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him, and after a while he created a woman (we will find out exactly how later). And God blessed them, saying: “Fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that walks and crawls on the earth.”

God looked at the heaven and earth he created, and he liked everything created. On the seventh day God rested from his labors. And He decided that from now on every seventh day would be a holiday.

Creation of the world.
From a manuscript of the late 13th century.

Adam in heaven. Eve.

Adam had to care for and protect the Garden of Eden. He could eat fruit from all the trees except one: God forbade him to touch the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” saying that Adam would die as soon as he ate fruit from this tree.

Adam was bored alone, and then God ordered all living creatures to come, fly, crawl, and swim to the man, and Adam gave them all names and found himself an assistant among them. Adam called all the animals, birds, fish and reptiles by their names, but there was no one among them who could help man in everything. Adam got bored again. God took pity on him, put him to sleep, and while Adam was sleeping, he took out one of his rib and created a woman from it. Then He brought her to the man and woke him up. Adam was very happy and decided that now this woman, a part of himself, would be his wife and helper.

Jewish legend

The son and daughter of Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha were captured, he to one Roman, she to another. As time passed, both of these Romans began to talk when they met.
“I have a slave,” said one, “more beautiful than whom there is no one in the world.”
“And I,” said the other, “have a slave of such beauty that her equal cannot be found in the whole world.”
And the Romans decided to marry a slave to a slave and share the children that would be born from them among themselves. They brought both prisoners in and left them in the same room. Huddled in different corners, they sat, mourning their fate.
“I,” said the young man, “a priest, a descendant of the high priests, should take a slave as a wife!”
“For me,” the girl wailed, “the daughter of the high priests, to become the wife of a slave!”
They spent the whole night in tears. By the light of dawn they recognized each other. With screams, they rushed into each other's arms and sobbed until their souls flew away.

Jewish parable

To the question: “Where are you going, teacher?” - Hillel sometimes answered:
“I’m going to refresh myself with food and thereby provide a warm welcome to my guest.”
- What kind of guest do you have in your house every day?
- Isn’t the poor soul the same guest in our body? Today she is here, and tomorrow, lo and behold, she is not there.

Og, king of Bashan

Jewish legend

As Moses approached the borders of Edrei, he announced to the people:
“We’ll stop here for the night, and tomorrow we’ll go on an attack and take Edreya.”
At dawn, when the eye could barely discern the surroundings, Moses, peering into the distance, saw some gigantic mass towering over the top of the city wall. "What is this? - thought Moses. “Didn’t they make a new superstructure overnight?” But this gigantic mass was the king of Bashan himself, Og. The giant was sitting on the wall, and his legs reached the ground.
“Do not be afraid of him,” the Lord said to Moses.
Og, sitting on the wall, thought like this:
- How long does the entire camp of Israel take? There are only three Parsis. I will go and break out a rock three pars in length, bring it down on the Israelites and kill every single one of them.
Og broke out a rock three parsas long and carried it, placing it on his head. An angel of the Lord appeared and drilled a hole in the rock just above Og’s head. The rock fell onto Ogu's shoulders. He began to make efforts to free himself from the rock, but then his front teeth began to stretch out, lengthen like elephant tusks, stuck into the rock, and Og never managed to free himself from the rock.
Moses was ten cubits tall. He took an ax ten cubits long and, jumping the same cubits, cut off Oga's ankles and killed him.