let's take some time to look at a long history of the jews in the byzantine empire which is an
area of research that has not seen the same amount of attention as
for example the jews of western europe and this is actually quite a significant large
period of time that we're going to be talking about in a significant amount of territory as
well but let's at least have a very brief overview so first of all where was the byzantine empire
uh you can see here on this map it is the yellow region and it is distinct from a kind of orangish
reddish region to the left which is the roman empire now both the roman empire and the byzantine
empire were a christian uh the roman empire of course becomes catholic uh with the rulership
of a single pope in rome the byzantine empire is a little bit more complex it ends up developing
several patriarchs who rule the uh the spiritual aspect of the christian nation and it has an
emperor who is based in constantinople that's this really crucial city over here you can see
on a narrow straight the bosporus that links the uh black sea with the larger mediterranean sea
and it was known originally as byzantium and then from the fourth century on it's known as
constantinople which is greek for constantine city named after the the emperor constantine and then
after the turkish conquest in 1453 which will mark the end point of today's quick video uh it
becomes named istanbul and it becomes of course a muslim city at that point but for the period that
we're talking about from the early 4th century right up until the middle of the 15th century
you have this significantly large byzantine empire with a a lot of control over north africa israel
as well and uh of course the the concentration of it is in asia minor and the balkans in greece
it's also important to note that the roman empire will shortly fall into a decline they will be
attacked by the germanic tribes from the north and rome will be sacked a few times until finally it
falls and it it ends up going into the beginning of what we call the dark ages
until the renaissance again almost a thousand years later so when roman falls the byzantine
empire becomes its inheritor particularly in terms of the transmission of christianity the city of
constantinople becomes as it were the second rome and the when it falls in the 15th century
ultimately the third rome is often considered moscow of course the first rome will come back
but that's not for our discussion today let's focus a little bit on the history of the jews
in the byzantine empire so in the byzantine empire the roman status of judaism as a religio liquita
meaning a legal religion begins to erode in the fourth century onward conversion to judaism for
example is prohibited as the church begins to gain a lot more control over how the entire
empire is run and whereas conversion to judaism is prohibited conversion from judaism is of course
encouraged and various legislations are put in place such as for example jewish parents who
have children who decide to become christian are forbidden from disinheriting them and in fact they
they have to continue to support them and these christian children of their jewish parents will
inherit them this is an issue by the way that goes on for many centuries and not only in the
byzantine empire it comes up even in the early modern period at any rate there's a remarkably
dramatic step towards greater hostility to judaism from the fourth century onward
you see the rhetoric increases in heat especially with people like saint john chrysostom the
so-called golden mouth who issued a number of really flaming nasty sermons against the jews
and his approach to judaism uh made a significant impact really on the entire eastern world
especially when you connect it to the third rom moscow and the slavic iterations of byzantine
christianity of course the the orthodox churches as they're called today are influenced by the
byzantine empire you also have some you know deep reach into the jewish practice by the emperors who
are now officially christians justinian the first for example uh attempted to forbid the
study of the mishnah especially as a use uh in its interpretive function of the torah and tries to
actually dictate which non-hebrew translations of the torah are accepted in other words which greek
versions in particular are acceptable for use among jews of the byzantine empire there are
numerous violent attacks on jews and an incidence of force conversions and you actually have jews
rebelling in the fourth and the sixth and seventh century in particular when the persians eventually
invade israel as we discussed a few weeks ago the jews will support them because they are
fed up with the uh the degree to which the uh byzantine empire tries to interfere in jewish
practice they even banned at one point um purim parties because they tended to get out of hand
and since they're associated with drunkenness and kind of frivolity and sometimes a mockery
of haman which can sometimes be extended in the political and social context to mockery of other
authority figures they actually tried to ban uh drunkenness on purim good luck with that uh under
the iconoclast so this is a movement that you see developing in the the eighth and ninth century
there's a couple of episodes where the byzantine empire goes through this kind of paroxysm of
purging of any kind of physical representation of divine figures that's the sense of iconoclasm
which means essentially to destroy icons to destroy images here's one psalter from the ninth
century that has a kind of a clever representation this is of course from the pro icon image or else
there wouldn't be any icons on it at all and you can see here is a representation of the
crucifixion scene and jesus is given gall to drink it's on a kind of a sponge on the end of a stick
and here is a representation of a 9th century iconoclast uh his face is wiped out but his hair
looks you know really wild and barbarian he's in red as well and he is in a way kind of echoing
that passion scene by using some kind of sponge to attempt to wipe out an icon at the end of a
stick so this is kind of something that was going on there's actually two distinct periods when this
was very frequent how that connects to jews is significant because the uh the the iconoclasts
often cast the heretics as jews so the even though they're talking about other christians the
the idea of heresy is is associated with jews in particular basil the first attempted to impose a
widespread force conversion the year 873 this decree was ultimately rescinded by a successor
leo iv but was attempted again in 943 by another emperor romanus the first le capenos it is at
this time that we have reports of jews fleeing from the byzantine empire to the north to the
khazarian empire which is really fascinating ends up becoming very involved with the correspondence
of khasta ibn shaproot with figures purporting to be you know khazarian leaders and during
this time italy emerges as a major center of jewish creativity there's a lot of fascinating
things coming out of south italy at this time also interesting is what's going on in bulgaria where
you have two figures saints cyril and methodius who are very much involved in transmitting the
byzantine christian heritage to the slavic peoples and ultimately they'll have a massive impact on
ukrainians and polls and russians although the polls of course are catholic but the uh
fascinating uh they seem to have some awareness of things jewish and some contact with jews as well
just to give you one example the alphabet that is associated with their activity of course the
alphabet that is used with some minor variation among many of the eastern orthodox peoples like
the russians and the ukrainians it clearly shows evidence of hebrew for example the letter which in
hebrew is shin and is pronounced in english with the sound sh you know pronounced together shu they
took that sound and they took the hebrew letter to create the cyrillic letter for that sound
sure and there are several other examples like you see the word uh saturday in hebrew is shabbat and
in russian it's i mean there's lots of borrowings from things jewish largely through the activity of
saint cyril and methodius when we get to the end of this period i think one of the most dramatic
things to to point out is the uh horrific fourth crusade which just shows how bankrupt
the entire crusading movement had become just a century after it had first been initiated and
uh the fourth crusade was uh actually the second crusade in which the crusaders actually attacked
other christians rather than going to jerusalem and trying to achieve what was the purportedly
uh you know stated idea of the crusade which was to uh you know free it from muslim rule
in the year 1204 they approached constantinople again remember it's a christian city although
under orthodox rule rather than under catholic rule and the the crusaders
ended up sacking the city of constantinople rather than heading on down to jerusalem once they got
into this massive and important capital city they found so much wealth that the vast majority
decided to stay and take their prizes and their spoils from from other christians rather than
make their way down to jerusalem and very few of them in fact did so there was latin rule in
that region until 1261. uh the jewish quarter of course was also sacked and burned apparently the
jews were fairly wealthy in constantinople at this time they were especially associated with
tanning and with the textile trades and textiles in particular a very long jewish tradition
even my own father allah shalom and he rest in peace was also involved in the textile trade the
jews of constantinople managed to survive and to recover after that attack by the fourth crusaders
but uh outside of constantinople there were notable moments of persecution particularly
in the greece and the balkans and this all ends in 1453 at least this kind of
you know conceptual unit of jewish history when the turks would invade constantinople and would
bring in an entirely new period in jewish history would be especially strengthened by the arrival of
many refugees in the sephardic diaspora after the jews were expelled from spain in 1492.
okay i hope you found that useful and thank you very much for watching
you