CHASDAI'S LIBRARY.--HIS ACCOUNT OF THE ENTRANCE OF THE JEWS INTO
EUROPE.--THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.--A TERRIBLE CARNAGE.--ISRAEL
CEASES AS A NATION.--THE DIASPORE.--THE DAUGHTER-RELIGIONS THRIVE
UPON THE SUFFERINGS THEY INFLICT UPON THE MOTHER-RELIGION.--THE
INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF ISRAEL.--HUMILIATED BUT NOT FORSAKEN.
When we were comfortably seated in the magnificent library of Chasdai
ben Isaac, which was furnished luxuriantly, and with an eye to ease
and comfort, and stocked with thousands of parchment folios, which
stood row upon row, from floor to ceiling, in beautifully arched and
decorated alcoves, along the walls of the spacious library hall, our
host, Chasdai ben Isaac, began:
"My friends, you asked for an account of 'The Entrance of the Jews into
Europe.' The task you honor me with is not an easy one. Upon these
shelves stand side by side the best that has been written upon History,
Theology and Science, the classics, old and new, in their various
tongues, both in prose and poetry, all that has been written for and
against the religions of Mohammedanism and Christianity and Judaism,
and yet among these thousands of volumes you will search in vain for
historic traces of the movements of the Hebrew people since their exile
from their native soil. Nay, more, you may even look through the vast
library of the Caliph, than which exists at present (950 A. C.) none
greater upon the face of the earth, and still you will find naught upon
this subject. You may consult the most renowned scholars of our age and
meet with no better result.
You marvel why so little is known of the History of the Jews during the
period that extends from the _Diaspore_ (70 A. C.) to the time of the
conquests of the Arab-Moors of Spain, yet you will cease to marvel when
you reflect upon the degradations, persecutions, cruelties, sufferings
heaped upon them, when you remember that histories are never written of
those who are considered outcasts, pariahs, moral lepers, the accursed
by God and man, and the so degraded and execrated, the so persecuted
and so barbarously treated are not over-zealous to rejoice their
scourgers by flaunting the history of their suffering in their face.
What I know of that period is little, and that little have I secured
only after much labor and diligent research.
Insatiable Rome, she who had made the world her slave, in whose realm
the sun ne'er set, and who, to vaunt of so vast a power, had killed
in cold blood, and for no offense at all, fully as many as she ever
claimed among the living had stretched at last her cruel hand against
Palestine, and the "separate" and "peculiar" and sacred land became
a heathen heritage. Jerusalem, the Holy City, lay in ruins. Smoking
embers marked the site where stood the Temple of Temples, and the
glory of Israel fell, and fell forever, and Israel ceased, and ceased
forever, as a nation among the nations of the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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