From: sethr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (seth.r.rosenthal)
Subject: Epistle to the Jews of Yemen
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 14:48:15 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.jewish
Keywords: Muslim atrocities, maimonides


In article <C185wG.1x1@apollo.hp.com>, goykhman@apollo.hp.com (Red Herring) writes:
> In article <1993Jan21.1777.23046@channel1> "wayne mcguire" <wayne.mcguire@channel1.com> writes:
> ...
> >In the meantime, will one or two Maimonides experts please focus
> >on this single passage (below) from Epistle to Yemen and
> >explicate it for me? What I find troublesome is the notion that
> >"the issue of Ishmael" will not be favored by God. We also see
> >references to "the offspring of Isaac" and "the illustrious
> >scions of Isaac." The language and imagery is clearly genetic and
> >biological.
> 
>     Clearly, Maimonides knew genetics and used genetically-
>     coded language to express their hatred toward the Arabs.
> 
> >
> >Are users here arguing that the language is ONLY symbolic? Please
> >try to convince me that this is the case.
> ...


I have just finished perusing the Epistle to the Jews of Yemen (1172).
(Norman Stillman - Jews of Arab Lands - using his translation from Arabic)
What strikes me is that nowhere is "Isaac" mentioned at all.
Jacob is, Ishmael is, but no Isaac.  Neither statement
quoted above either exists in a literal sense or in the same sense
of the quotes.

So what does exist there, and why was this Epistle written?
First of all it is a defense of Judaism, and a refutation of
Islamic claims that try (as do Christian ones) to prove the
absolute correctness of their own faith using Jewish sources.
One can judge Maimonides refutations by reading them.

Why was this epistle written?  Lets look at some of it.

"You have mentioned the affair of this rebel who has arisen in
the land of Yemen and who has decreed forced apostasy upon Israel,
compelling people in all the places that have come under his sway
to abandon the Faith, just as the Berbers in the Maghreb."

(-SR- a reference to the Almohavids, the rebel is Al-Malik al-Muizz
Ismail a grandson of Saladin) 

Another quote of interest re: Ishmael

"You know, my brethren that on account of our sins God has cast us
into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who persecute
us severely and who devise ways to harm us and to debase us.  This is
as the Exalted had warned us: "Even our enemies themselves being
judges" (Deut, 32:31).  No nation has ever done more harm to Israel.
None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us.  None has been
able to reduce us as they have.  Thus, when King David of Israel
was inspired by the Divine Spirit to envision all these persecutions
which would be visited upon Israel, he cried out, wailed and appealed
for deliverance specifically from the Dominion of Ishmael, saying,
"Woe is me that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell beside the
tents of Kedar!".  Note that he specifies Kedar rather than the
Ishmaelites generally.  This is because the Madman was from the
tribe of Kedar (-SR- reference to Mohammed) as is well known from
his geneology.  Daniel, too has has depicted our humiliation and
debasement until we would become "like the dust in the threshing".
He was describing none other than our condition under the rule
of Ishmael-may it speedily be vanquished-..."

And then Maimonides goes on to relate persecutions that
occured under Islam in Isfahan, Fez.  He might have been more
kind had the Inquisition and Expulsion already occured, but
if one knows what the Byzantines did to the Jews of Anatolia
and the Balkans, one would understand what a condemnation the
above represents.  One characteristic of Muslim persecutions
that is worse than Christian ones, is that under Christian
persecutions Jews usually had the option to just get up and
leave (the Wandering Jew), but Muslims just offered convert
or die.  In Johnson's History of the Jews, this Yemenite incident
is mentioned, as well as the beheading of religious Jews who
refused to be Muslims.

Maimonides had reason to mourn his personal experiences too,
since his Jewish community of Cordova in Spain had been
severely oppressed and later destroyed by Islamic zealots
(the Almohavids) causing him to flee Spain for Egypt from
whence this Epistle was written.  Crypto-Jewish Muslims
were in those days migrating north to Christian Castille
and Navarre to escape Muslim persecution, in an ironic
switch of the 1492 scenario.

Now of what relevance is this Epistle to Mid-East politics?
Ask yourself if the remnants of the Yemenite Jews who today
live in Israel have forgotten this experience, or whether
the descendants of the remnants of Cordovan Jewry, transplanted
to Morrocco or Turkey want to go back to Arabic rule.
Even Jews from Fez, who experienced more tolerant rule
in the last 40 years in Morrocco remember what happened
in Fez during these times.

Very little has changed in Yemen since 1180, last year two Jewish
children who had just been orphaned by the murder of their
parents were taken away from the Jewish community left in
Yemen (about 4,500) to be raised as Muslims.
I can easily provide late 19th century references for Yemen
as well as 1945-1950 references as well.

		Seth Rosenthal

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own not my employers'.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish