History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6)Graetz, Heinrich
History
History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6)
Graetz, Heinrich
Jews -- History
would encounter, and reminded him that memories of the Divine grace
in the early days of the history of the Jews were connected also with
Egypt. He, however, replied, "In Egypt Providence manifested itself as
if in haste, but it took up a permanent residence for the first time
in the Holy Land." At length he parted from his friends and admirers,
determined to carry his project into effect. It is not known at what
place he next stopped.
In Palestine, at this time, Christian kings and princes, the kinsmen
of the hero Godfrey of Bouillon, were the rulers, and these permitted
the Jews again to dwell in the Holy Land, and in the capital, which
had now become Christian. The country, at the time of Jehuda's
pilgrimage, was undisturbed by war; for the Christians who had settled
in Palestine a generation ago, the effeminate Pullani, loved peace,
and purchased it at any price from their enemies, the Mahometan emirs.
The Jews were also in favor at the petty courts of the Christian
princes of Palestine, and a Christian bishop complained that owing to
the influence of their wives, the princes placed greater confidence
in Jewish, Samaritan, and Saracen physicians than in Latin (that is,
Christian) ones. Probably the reason was because the latter were
quacks.
Jehuda Halevi appears to have reached the goal of his desire, and
to have visited Jerusalem, but only for a short time. The Christian
inhabitants of the Holy City seem to have been very hostile to him, and
to have inspired him with disgust for life in the capital. It is to
this, probably, that his earnest, religious poem refers, in the middle
verses of which he laments as follows:
"To see Thy glory long mine eye had yearned;
But when at last I sought Thy Holy Place,
As though I were a thing unclean and base,
Back from Thy threshold was I rudely spurned.
The burden of my folk I, too, must bear,
And meekly bow beneath oppression's rod,
Because I will not worship a false god,
Nor, save to Thee, stretch forth my hands in prayer."
The closing adventures of his life, beyond the fact that he was at Tyre
and at Damascus, are not known. The Jewish community at Tyre rendered
great honor to him, and the memory of this treatment was impressed on
his grateful heart. In a poem to his Tyrian friend he grieves over
his faded hopes, his misspent youth, and his present wretchedness,
in verses which cannot be read without stirring up emotions at
the despondency of this valorous soldier. In Damascus he sang his
swan-song, the glorious song of Zion, which, like the Psalms of Asaph,
awake a longing for Jerusalem. The year of his death and the site of
his grave are both unknown. A legend has it that a Mahometan horseman
rode over him as he was chanting his mournful Lay of Zion. Thus reads a
short epitaph which an unknown admirer wrote for him:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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