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THE SPANISH INQUISITION
[size=5][color=darkred]Instauration Magazine[/color][/size] ** November 1992 ** Slightly edited by Michael Santomauro ** Editorial Director of RePortersNotebook.com **
Excerpt: ** [color=darkred]Inquisition Hype[/color] **
The chief purpose of the Spanish Inquisition, established in 1480, was to ** ensure that Jews did not create a "state within a state." The Inquisition was a ** defense of the monarchy and a defense against treason. Many European states ** applauded its creation as a needed step to rein in Jewish power. Whatever the ** Inquisition was to become once the Jews had gone, it served its primary purpose ** in ridding Spain of a hostile force of infiltrators and subversives at a time ** when the church and nation were in grave danger. The ferocity of the Spanish ** Inquisition may well stem from the fact that it was in large part staffed by ** Jewish converts, who amply demonstrated that they had lost none of their innate ** venom by switching religions. Jewish converts who fell all over themselves to ** prove their loyalty to their new faith were the driving force behind the grim ** and fanatical persecution of other Jews. Tomas de Torquemada, the ferocious ** inquisitor General, who sent so many of his brethren to the stake, is said to ** have been of Jewish descent. No less an authority than Salvador de madariaga, ** one of modern Spain's leading intellectuals, holds to the view that the peculiar ** intolerance of the Spanish Inquisition can be traced, in part, to the presence ** of Jewish converts in its highest ranks. Madariaga, by the way, made up for ** this "anti-Semitic" opinion by stating that Columbus was a converso, but not ** necessarily a Marrano (pig in Spanish), a derogatory term for a convert who ** practiced Judaism secretly. Several Jewish scholars, including the non-scholars ** of Time magazine, have accused King Ferdinand of being "part Jewish," though ** they never satisfactorily explain where the Jewish genes came from. ** To sum up, Spain's expulsion of the Jews was logical, rational and, for the ** times, not overly cruel-far less cruel than what modern Jews have done and ** continue to do to the Palestinians. The Spanish have no need to apologize for ** their actions in freeing their nation from a harmful internal enemy. The Jews ** resented their expulsion, as they have resented other forced exoduses in their ** history. The truth is, contemporary Jews should not blame Spain for their ** **ancestors' misfortunes five centuries ago. They need only to look in the mirror. **
Start: ** Every schoolboy is or should be familiar with the year 1492, the year of the ** (re)discovery of the New world by Christopher Columbus, a Genoese in the ** service of the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. For Spain, 1492 was to ** be the most important year in its history, as well as one of the most important ** in world history. It was the year the Spanish nation was consolidated, the year ** when the splendorous Spanish State took center stage in the political ** evolution of the West. In the beginning of the year, on January 2, after a long ** siege, the army of the Spanish monarchs marched into the city of Granada, thus ** reconquering the last of the real estate seized by the Arabs and moors seven ** centuries earlier. Then, on March 31, the Catholic monarchs signed a royal edict ** that ordered all Jews in Spain to convert to Christianity or ship out. Five ** months later Columbus sailed out of the Spanish port of Palos hoping to discover a ** new route to the Indies. His tiny fleet passed boats loaded with Jews ** sorrowfully complying with Ferdinand and Isabella's expulsion order. ** In this 500th anniversary of Columbus's epochal voyage, much of the ** celebration has been marred by media inspired attacks on Spain for her "cruelty" ** and "foolishness" in expelling Jews. No one seemed to care what was done to the ** Muslims, who were also given the choice of conversion or expulsion a few years ** later, just as no one these days seems to care much about what was done to ** non-Jews in WWII German and Soviet concentration camps, where the death toll ** of Gentiles was probably ten times greater than the number of Jewish fatalities. ** Actually, any Jew who converted to Christianity was perfectly free to stay in ** Spain. Those who left could take all their earthly possessions with them, except ** **gold and silver coins and trinkets. **
The current media story line is that the Spanish, in a fit of blind religious ** fanaticism, cut off their noses to spite their faces by kicking out the ** clever and enterprising Jewish community. Having heard these tearful tales over ** and over again, history buffs could be forgiven for thinking that only mass ** insanity could have led Spaniards to commit such an enormous gaffe. Jews, today's ** spin doctors insist, were the cultural and economic backbone of Spain, the most ** educated and verbal segment of the population. Only greed, envy, ignorance ** and Christian bigotry could possibly explain this act of pure folly. Once again, ** a peaceful, unoffending people were driven out into the cold because of the ** heartlessness of their wicked neighbors. But that is not the end of the story! ** As is almost always the case, there was a price to be paid for persecuting the ** Jews. The price for Spain, according to the Jewish version of history, was ** its decline and fall, following the loss of so much Jewish brainpower and the ** economic and cultural benefits which Spain's rivals, Portugal and Holland, ** **received from swarms of Jewish refugees. **
Per usual, when it comes to Jews, the story they tell is, shall we say, at ** variance with the facts. Fourteen hundred and ninety-two was the year Spanish ** civilization took off like a rocket. Within a century or two, Cervantes was ** writing Don Quixote; Velasquez was painting his incomparable portraits; Caldern ** was writing his brilliant plays. It almost seemed as if the presence of the Jews ** had kept Spanish culture under wraps and their forced removal unloosed ** tremendous bursts of artistic, literary and economic energy. (Might it be possible ** that the same unshackling of cultural forces would produce similar results if ** the Jews left the U. S.?) In A History of Medieval Spain, Professor Joseph F. ** O'Callaghan provides us with perhaps the most scholarly and precise treatment ** of Spanish history in the time between the Arab conquest and the moors' ** surrender of Granada. Spain had its origins in the Roman Empire. The Roman ** provinces in what is now Spain and Portugal furnished the Empire with some of its ** greatest emperors. With the fall of Rome, Spain was transformed into a kingdom ** of Visigoths, one of the German tribes which had inherited remnants of the Empire. ** The Visigothic kings were Christianized and ruled over a population comprised ** partly of Nordics and largely of mediterraneans, with a heavy sprinkling of ** Jews. Later, when the Arabs imposed Islam on Spain, the composition of the ** population was not greatly changed. The overwhelming majority of Arabs and ** Spaniards belonged to the Mediterranean race, though Nordic racial traits, such ** as fair complexions and blue eyes (Isabella had them), were discernible in the ** ruling circles of both peoples. Some Nordic genes had been implanted by the ** Vandals who swept through Spain before the Visigoths and fought their way as far ** as Tunis in North Africa. Here, it might also be noted, that the Muslim rulers and ** caliphs of Spain were not exactly cultural throwbacks. The Alhambra Palace in ** Granada is the most beautiful and most graceful pleasure dome to be found on ** any continent. In 675 the Muslims launched their first raid on Spain, which ** was repulsed by the Visigothic fleet. By 711, the Arabs had conquered North ** Africa and were ready to invade Western Europe. In only 21 years they penetrated ** as far north as Tours in France before being defeated and thrown back by the ** **Franks under Charles Martel. **
The reasons for the woefully poor showing of the Visigoths vis-ÃÂ -vis the Arab ** invaders had to do with treason in high places. As O'Callaghan remarks, ** "Certainly the Jews and others who had suffered under Visigothic rule welcomed ** the invaders as liberators and collaborated with them." As O'Callaghan also points ** out, perhaps to avoid endangering his academic standing, the Jewish renegadism ** was justified by the "disorder" of the Visigothic Kingdom. The reconquest of ** Spain started in the rugged mountains' of Asturias in northern Spain. There a ** Visigothic knight, Pelayo, refused to bow down to the Muslims and won the ** first battle in a 700-year-war between Islam and Christianity. The Reconquista, ** as it is known, was a glorious era in the history of the West. A proud and ** fierce people would be tried and tested in a thousand battles. The Jews, as is ** their custom, quickly burrowed into the Arab fabric of Spain. Generally ** preferring Muslim to Christian overlords, the People of the Book were allowed to ** practice their religion without interference and became key elements in Muslim ** society. It need hardly be added that the Christians who had suffered from Jewish ** moneymen in Visigothic times, came to loathe them more than ever in Muslim ** **Spain. **
By the 11th century the situation in Spain had become fluid, with the ** Christians slowly nibbling back parts of their lost lands, while constantly under ** the threat of fierce Muslim counterattacks. It is not surprising that the eternal ** "middlemen" should rise to the surface in these troubled times. In both the ** Muslim and Christian parts of Spain, Jews engaged in all their age-old ** occupational specialties: usury, the slave trade, prostitution, tax "farming" ** (contracts to collect taxes for the kings and nobles), the law, medicine, ** administration and any other type of employment that required little or no physical ** labor. Worst of all from the point of view of the pious Christian population, they ** were able to infiltrate the church in large numbers. It was this last activity ** that led to their downfall. As Muslim power waned, Jews relied more and more ** on the expanding Christian kingdoms of Spain to provide them with their ** customary perks. Employed by Spanish monarchs in the most sensitive matters ** of state, especially in finance, Jews never had it so good since the good old days ** of Solomon. The Chosen, however, could not enter the church without converting. ** It was not too long before true Christians realized that the Christianity of ** most "New Christians" was only skin deep. That converted Jews mocked the ** Christian religion, celebrated Jewish feast days, and were slowly and subtly ** introducing Talmudic themes into Christian theology were open secrets. It was no ** wonder they came to be viewed as a hostile element, busy weakening the Christian ** **nation in the very face of the Muslim enemy. **
**[color=darkred]High-Octane Religiosity[/color] **
In the Middle Ages religion was the fault line of the world. In the same way ** that the West fought communism in this century, so the Christian West fought ** the power of Islam in those crucial years. Religion was central to all aspects ** of life, there being no such thing as a secular state. It is a waste of words ** to argue that Christian Spain should have made room for Jews and Muslims. ** Such an accommodation was quite out of the question in the Age of Faith. When ** Spain expelled the Jews, England, France and other European nations had long ** since sent them on their way, for approximately the same reasons. The main ** difference was that the number of Jews and their influence and affluence in Spain ** were vastly greater than elsewhere in Europe. Ironically the European nations that ** would later condemn Spain for expelling Jews were the first to voice suspicion of ** Spain's "purity" because it had been "defiled" by the presence of so many Jews ** and Muslims. Queen Isabella agreed up to a point. She knew very well that as long ** as Jews remained in her kingdom they would constitute a political, cultural, ** philosophical and theological fifth column, not to mention a military liability in the ** event of a Muslim attempt to retake what they had lost-a scary scenario that was ** **always a possibility. **
Isabella and her husband, Ferdinand, knew in their hearts that only by building ** one undivided and indivisible Spain could they carry out the tremendous task they ** had set for themselves. They understood what we seem to have forgotten: ** You cannot build a nation out of disparate population groups widely separated ** by culture and religion. Either Jews and Muslims would leave or renounce ** their faith, or Spain, as a united Christian country, would never endure. Although ** Jews are not a race, they act like a race and should be treated as one. ** Anthropologically speaking, they are various mixtures of the Nordic, Alpine and ** Mediterranean races, with a few distinctive facial traits showing up in many of ** them. Isabella's relying on religion to define a Jew may have been adequate in ** her day, but it would be wide of the mark in 1992. Today, in the U.S. about ** [color=blue]70% of Jews are non-religious.[/color] **
The Jews in the Christian Spain aborning were not fools. They were quite ** aware that popular sentiment was rising against them. Fighting back in any way ** they could, they bribed powerful and corrupt nobles and worked their way into ** high positions in the government and church. All in vain. In 1391 massive ** anti-Jewish pogroms broke out across Spain. In that year, thousands of Jews ** were killed in Aragon and Castile. In the words of O'Callaghan: ** Hostility towards the Jews had often been manifested in the past, chiefly ** because of their involvement in money-lending and tax-farming. Complaints ** about Jewish usury and Jewish tax collectors occur again and again in the ** records of the Cones [the Spanish parliament or assembly] . . . . Though the ** Crown usually promised to attend to these complaints, Jews continued to figure ** prominently in the management of royal finances. The riots of 1391 spelled the ** beginning of the end for Spanish Jewry, although it would still hold on for another ** hundred years. The simple truth was that Spain had outgrown Jews, just as it had ** outgrown Muslims. The Jews, as stated previously, had no part to play in ** Spain's great years, which, some cynics say, is why Spain had its "great years." ** The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1963 edition, vol. 2 1, p. 122) adds: "The tide of ** national enthusiasm, religious fanaticism and indignation at Jewish financial ** operations reached its high-water mark about three months after the fall of ** Granada. . . ." Apparently there were early-bird milkens and Boeskys in the ** ranks of Spanish Jewry. Professor Philip W. Powell, in his book, The Tree of Hate ** (published in 1985) attributes the expulsion of the Jews to a religious conflict between ** Judaism and Christianity. He is not afraid to meet the issue of anti-Semitism head on: ** 'The very misleading term of 'anti-Semitism' is so carelessly, or malevolently, tossed ** about these days that it virtually has no meaning except as a convenient rock to hurl ** in anger--but, like a rock, it can hurt." **
He goes on to say: The Jews'] impassioned opinions hamper the writing of fair ** and unbiased accounts of Spain. Jewish emotion, when aroused by historical ** memory of [the] Spanish Inquisition and expulsion, exaggerates and distorts, and ** certainly gives little shrift to the Spanish side of the story .... Jewish writers are ** aided by a popular opinion, much of it created by themselves, which for centuries ** has influenced writing upon these themes. ** Powell points out that while it is true that all the 165,000 or so Jews who refused to ** give up Judaism were expelled in 1492, many more chose to stay and converted. ** Those who only converted superficially underwent various forms of capital ** punishment. Jews and other writers of anti-Spanish tendencies, have preferred ** to focus attention upon these Spanish crimes as a means of demonstrating ** Spanish cruelty and bigotry. The usual groundwork for this is a morality of ** later centuries applied to 15th and 16th century historical situations, without ** that sense of justice so essential to historical interpretations. Or, sometimes more ** simply, it may come from the well-known Jewish propensity for cultural replenishment ** out of martyrdom. Professor Powell gets to the nitty-gritty in these words: But the ** majority of the Spanish people, witnessing [all the] evidence of Jewish-Converso ** influence . . . . and simply the numbers of Jews daily discernible in the population ** **would, and did, view the situation with antagonism. **
Explaining that this antagonism sometimes led to mob attacks on Jews, Powell ** dryly adds, "If there was anything uniquely Spanish in all this, it was not ** intolerance or bigotry, but rather a notable forbearance in comparison to the ** ways the Jewish problem was handled elsewhere in Europe." **
**[color=darkred]Inquisition Hype[/color] **
The chief purpose of the Spanish Inquisition, established in 1480, was to ** ensure that Jews did not create a "state within a state." The Inquisition was a ** defense of the monarchy and a defense against treason. Many European states ** applauded its creation as a needed step to rein in Jewish power. Whatever the ** Inquisition was to become once the Jews had gone, it served its primary purpose ** in ridding Spain of a hostile force of infiltrators and subversives at a time ** when the church and nation were in grave danger. The ferocity of the Spanish ** Inquisition may well stem from the fact that it was in large part staffed by ** Jewish converts, who amply demonstrated that they had lost none of their innate ** venom by switching religions. Jewish converts who fell all over themselves to ** prove their loyalty to their new faith were the driving force behind the grim ** and fanatical persecution of other Jews. Tomas de Torquemada, the ferocious ** inquisitor General, who sent so many of his brethren to the stake, is said to ** have been of Jewish descent. No less an authority than Salvador de madariaga, ** one of modern Spain's leading intellectuals, holds to the view that the peculiar ** intolerance of the Spanish Inquisition can be traced, in part, to the presence ** of Jewish converts in its highest ranks. Madariaga, by the way, made up for ** this "anti-Semitic" opinion by stating that Columbus was a converso, but not ** necessarily a Marrano (pig in Spanish), a derogatory term for a convert who ** practiced Judaism secretly. Several Jewish scholars, including the non-scholars ** of Time magazine, have accused King Ferdinand of being "part Jewish," though ** they never satisfactorily explain where the Jewish genes came from. **
To sum up, Spain's expulsion of the Jews was logical, rational and, for the ** times, not overly cruel-far less cruel than what modern Jews have done and ** continue to do to the Palestinians. The Spanish have no need to apologize for ** their actions in freeing their nation from a harmful internal enemy. The Jews ** resented their expulsion, as they have resented other forced exoduses in their ** history. The truth is, contemporary Jews should not blame Spain for their ** ancestors' misfortunes five centuries ago. They need only to look in the mirror.