What if Jerusalem had assented to the 1538 Sanhedrin.

[Jonathan Edelstein]

1700-1701​

Autumn:

Judah the Pious had promised Jerusalem.

He’d promised it in Kraków and Warsaw; he’d promised it in Bialystok and Lublin and every village in between; he’d stood on the Żydowska Street of every city and promised it in front of the synagogue. Even after the Council of the Four Lands had banned him, he’d promised.

“It is time to return,” he’d said. “It is time to repent, mortify the flesh, purify the soul. We will go out of these cursed lands and Jerusalem will receive us.”

Hundreds had listened – a thousand and more had listened.

Menachem the tanner had listened, much as he wished now that he hadn’t.

He remembered the day when Judah had come to Brezhov, defying the Council’s proscription, followers in tow as he dared anyone to stop him speaking. Like a prophet he had seemed, although Menachem had been taught that the age of prophets was over. His voice, at that moment, had been the voice of heaven, and Menachem had heard only one word – Jerusalem.

And so Menachem, his wife Sarah, and their six children had joined the procession. They’d followed Judah from village to village, city to city; they’d prayed ecstatically at midnight, observed fast days when Judah decreed, and let their clothes fall to rags.

They’d followed Judah to Moravia and the German lands, where Sarah had died of the fever. They’d followed him to Italy, where six-year-old Mendel and three-year-old Leah had died of privation. And they’d followed him at last to Salonika, where Jerusalem was denied them.

“You have many debts,” said the official who came to port to meet them. “Who will pay them? Who will stand surety for you, so that your creditors won’t demand payment from us? If we give you refuge, we are responsible for you, and you will find that our charity has limits.”

The Jews of Jerusalem couldn’t give security – they were few and most of them lived on charity themselves. But the Jews of the Galilee, the Sanhedrin in Tzfat – they still had some of the funds that Joseph Nasi had raised for settlement, and had husbanded those funds carefully through the decades when few settlers had come. So their agent in Salonika – a Turkish merchant whose family had brokered the Galilee silk trade for generations – had made pledges. “They can come to Tzfat and Tiberias – we will take care of them.”

And so Menachem and his four surviving children had landed in Acre, and they’d followed Judah one more time up the road that led into the mountains. He’d seen the walls of Tzfat, golden in the sunset, and when the gates opened in the morning, he passed winding streets, sun-bleached limestone houses with blue-washed windows and doors, stairways that passed under buildings hanging precariously from cliffsides, workshops and markets, synagogues and mosques and churches.

It seemed almost like Jerusalem for a moment. But there had never been a Temple here, and there was no Wailing Wall.

#​

Winter:

Menachem worked at Muhammed Zuabi’s tannery half a mile outside the walls. There were Jewish-owned tanneries too, and sometimes both Arabs and Jews asked why he hadn’t sought work at one, but the others who’d followed Judah the Pious from Europe never did. They knew.

To the rabbis of Tzfat, all of Judah’s pilgrims were suspect – their prayers, their asceticism, their holy ecstasy all smelled of heresy. “You remind them of how they were in the early days, before Nasi,” said Menachem’s neighbor Reuven the cynic, but that wasn’t the reason, or was only a small part of the reason. The truth was that Judah reminded the rabbis of Sabbatai Zevi. That was why the Sanhedrin had forbidden him to build a synagogue and refused to recognize him as a rabbi; that was why Menachem had to seek long and hard to find his oldest son an apprenticeship and why he’d had to answer many questions before being admitted to a synagogue himself.

The name of Zevi seemed to follow Judah everywhere. There were those, Menachem knew, who venerated Zevi; there were those who still followed his ways, who thought him a true Messiah and a martyr rather than a false one and a destroyer. And some of those were indeed among his fellow pilgrims – Judah himself had never spoken of Zevi, but his message had been an attractive one to the Sabbateans who remained in the world.

But if that were the issue, the Sanhedrin seemed strangely timorous in confronting it. “They’re cowards,” Reuven said, and in this, maybe, he was right. The days of Joseph Karo were long past, even the days of Jacob Zemach were past; the men who sat on the Sanhedrin now seemed small next to them, and rather than confront the Sabbateans’ doctrine and fight them on their own ground, they sought simply to keep them out, to suppress them with innuendo.

And so, although Judah wasn’t allowed a synagogue, he held services in his home and many of the pilgrims attended them, and the Sanhedrin pretended it wasn’t happening. Sometimes Menachem prayed there. But most days – the days he preferred not to be reminded of Judah – he went to the Ashkenazi synagogue on Najara Street where they talked about custom.

Custom, minhag, had been the lifeblood of Tzfat for a hundred years – ever since the Sanhedrin had finished codifying the Law, custom had been the center of its work and the focus of its debate. By now there were hundreds of treatises detailing the customs of each country’s Jews, when they should be upheld and when rejected, and the practices to follow when customs conflicted – what custom to follow when traveling to a foreign land, the customs to maintain when exiled, the rules that governed when praying or eating with Jews whose native custom was different. This was, said some, the final step of codification, the ultimate fence around the Law; others said that it was stifling and insular. Menachem, whose custom was one that few spoke for, left the discussion to others and prayed in silence.

That was another reason he worked where he did. “The custom here is that we take hides and make them into leather!” Muhammad Zuabi had roared, and he cared little whether Menachem prayed according to the Ashkenazi nusach or eschewed rice at Passover. This wasn’t laxity – Zuabi was a religious man, and the qadis ruled the Muslims of the Galilee as strictly as the Sanhedrin did the Jews – but their strictness went in different directions which Menachem found far more livable.

And so his work sustained him through the winter; so, also, his surviving children sustained him, and increasingly, Reuven and the other neighbors who found that familiarity was a stronger force than custom. Slowly, the sounds and smells of Tzfat became less foreign; the map of its streets became second nature; the city, strange as its varied customs were, began to be home.

Until the day there was snow.

Snow was rare in the Galilee, even in the mountains in winter; the days were often chilly and the nights cold, but frost came only once or twice a year. Standing in the doorway on Sabbath morning, Menachem felt the snow on his face and it reminded him achingly of Poland – white-blanketed fields in the village at dawn, haze of snowfall before the synagogue door, distant white-capped mountains.

He didn’t go to the synagogue that morning, nor did he go to Judah the Pious’s home. He climbed the stairs and alleys to the highest place in Tzfat, the grounds of Joseph Nasi’s ruined palazzo, and stood on its crumbling walls while snow fell on everything below.

Was there a prayer for snow? Menachem had never heard of one, and even Judah in his holy ecstasy had never spoken one. But all the same, one began to form itself in his mind: blessed is the Name, who makes the snow fall and scatters the frost…

There was no one here to tell him it was not the custom, so he spoke the prayer aloud, and then sang it. The nusach of Menachem, he thought. A custom of one.

There were ways for customs to be made – the rabbis of the Sanhedrin had written about that too, and disputed it endlessly. This one would take root, if only in one house.

#​

Spring:

With spring came warmth and growth, sowing of seeds and flowering of trees. And with spring this year came smallpox.

Some said it had come from Acre, brought by sailors to the port. Others said it had begun in Egypt or Damascus. But it hardly mattered; wherever the sickness had come from, it was here, and it would kill one in four or one in three as it always did.

The Sanhedrin and the qadis decreed a quarantine and recruited men who’d survived previous epidemics to deliver food and water, but it was futile as it always was. Judah the Pious was one of the first to fall sick, and he was one of the first to die. Menachem caught the fever soon after, and so did three of his children; four more victims in a city of the sick and dying.

The rabbis of the Sanhedrin who were doctors went from home to home to nurse the sick and ease their fever; the rabbis who weren’t doctors came to pray. When Menachem was lucid enough to notice their presence, he saw that some had smallpox scars and others didn’t, but they came anyway. They were brave men in this even if they were cowards in other respects.

“To be a member of the Sanhedrin, one must be ready to die,” one of them said to him. There was something unsettling about that – maybe even un-Jewish – but there was a reason why most of the Sanhedrin were old men. Jacob Zemach had died this way, at ninety-two, ministering to a child who had the scarlet fever, and not only him; such was the custom here, and it was a strong one.

Twenty of the Sanhedrin did die, and so did a baker’s dozen of the qadis, who recognized the same duty. Menachem survived; he emerged after a month, weak but alive. Twelve-year-old Yitzhak and little Malka also lived. Shlomo, eight, would never be nine.

He’d died quickly, at least; in him, as with many children, the sickness had run its course in only a few days. The Sanhedrin had buried him while Menachem was still delirious, lest the sickness spread further. By the time Menachem was strong enough to sit shiva, his son was already two weeks in the grave.

There was no custom for that. But Reuven came anyway, and Muhammad Zuabi, and a few of the surviving pilgrims, and they joined with mourners in other families to make a minyan for kaddish.

“This too will pass,” said Reuven, and Zuabi said, “it is sadness to bury a child, but when you do, you become a native of this land.”

“Am I a native of Italy?” Menachem answered. “Am I a native of Moravia?” But he understood. He would never again see Sarah’s burial place, nor those of Mendel and Leah, but this dunam of land on the hillside was one he would visit forever. And this was not only the place where his child was buried; it was where he would raise the three that remained. Maybe – and it seemed strange to think of it now – this was where he would remarry.

This wasn’t Jerusalem and would never be. But Menachem’s wall was here, and so were the things that were sacred to him. He had followed a prophet here, but the customs he would make were his own.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

If there's any interest in my continuing this, I have vignettes sketched out for 1732 (the rise of Zahir al-Umar), 1765 (the Galilee as an important vassal of al-Umar, and the beginnings of a Haskalah among its Jews as they become more connected to the wider world), and 1799 (the landing in Jaffa of a certain French emperor-in-waiting). Each of these will have significant implications for the theocratic republic in the Galilee as well as Jewish communal autonomy in all of Ottoman Palestine. I may also take the story into the 19th century - my idea of what will happen then is a lot sketchier, but I'll figure it out when I get there as I usually manage to do.

You may have noticed that in the scenes thus far, I've applied a butterfly net not only to the non-Jewish world but to Jews outside the Galilee - Judah the Pious in the 1700-01 vignette is this historical person, mutatis mutandis. That will start to change in the late 18th century and will change even more in the 19th - for instance, Jazzar Pasha will not come to power, and Napoleon's Palestine campaign will have a different outcome (although not the different outcome that occurred to you first). My intent is to avoid the uprising of 1834, which was catastrophic for the Jewish communities in the Galilee, although they will face other challenges and conflicts.

 

[dcguy3]

If there's any interest in my continuing this, I have vignettes sketched out for 1732 (the rise of Zahir al-Umar), 1765 (the Galilee as an important vassal of al-Umar, and the beginnings of a Haskalah among its Jews as they become more connected to the wider world), and 1799 (the landing in Jaffa of a certain French emperor-in-waiting). Each of these will have significant implications for the theocratic republic in the Galilee as well as Jewish communal autonomy in all of Ottoman Palestine. I may also take the story into the 19th century - my idea of what will happen then is a lot sketchier, but I'll figure it out when I get there as I usually manage to do.

You may have noticed that in the scenes thus far, I've applied a butterfly net not only to the non-Jewish world but to Jews outside the Galilee - Judah the Pious in the 1700-01 vignette is this historical person, mutatis mutandis. That will start to change in the late 18th century and will change even more in the 19th - for instance, Jazzar Pasha will not come to power, and Napoleon's Palestine campaign will have a different outcome (although not the different outcome that occurred to you first). My intent is to avoid the uprising of 1834, which was catastrophic for the Jewish communities in the Galilee, although they will face other challenges and conflicts.

I suggest perhaps making a dedicated thread for yohr stories in this. Quite interesting. Jewish alt hist is a sub genre not explored much, especially in this regard

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I suggest perhaps making a dedicated thread for yohr stories in this. Quite interesting. Jewish alt hist is a sub genre not explored much, especially in this regard

I've thought about that, but the backstory is all in this thread, and it's still @jacob ningen's world, he's just letting me play in it. Anyway, there's interest in me continuing?

 

[jacob ningen]

I've thought about that, but the backstory is all in this thread, and it's still @jacob ningen's world, he's just letting me play in it. Anyway, there's interest in me continuing?

Its your world actually I am but a midwife to your story.

 

[jacob ningen]

If there's any interest in my continuing this, I have vignettes sketched out for 1732 (the rise of Zahir al-Umar), 1765 (the Galilee as an important vassal of al-Umar, and the beginnings of a Haskalah among its Jews as they become more connected to the wider world), and 1799 (the landing in Jaffa of a certain French emperor-in-waiting). Each of these will have significant implications for the theocratic republic in the Galilee as well as Jewish communal autonomy in all of Ottoman Palestine. I may also take the story into the 19th century - my idea of what will happen then is a lot sketchier, but I'll figure it out when I get there as I usually manage to do.

You may have noticed that in the scenes thus far, I've applied a butterfly net not only to the non-Jewish world but to Jews outside the Galilee - Judah the Pious in the 1700-01 vignette is this historical person, mutatis mutandis. That will start to change in the late 18th century and will change even more in the 19th - for instance, Jazzar Pasha will not come to power, and Napoleon's Palestine campaign will have a different outcome (although not the different outcome that occurred to you first). My intent is to avoid the uprising of 1834, which was catastrophic for the Jewish communities in the Galilee, although they will face other challenges and conflicts.

Can Napoleon even arise? Because with a stronger Galilee and codification is Spinoza as influential and thus the philosophes leading to the Corsican emperor. Without the butterfly net. Since Judah hahasid lacks the funds you've butterflied the Hurva Synagogue. im guessing he doesnt make Zionist promises because with a semi-autonomous Jewish Galilee that is less of a feasible or apparently magnaminous as it is IOTL. Maybe he breaks the Sanhedrin as he broke IOTL the Kahal. And with the Galilee Sanhedrin being so authoritative, his OTL Sanhedrin would either not exist or be even less legitimate and seen as a rubberstamp anit-Sanhedrin. Although if he does still make one it will have an Av Beit Din and Nasi unlike IOTL because he will remember those positions exist unlike IOTL where he was basing it on Christian accounts which ignored those offices. Its hard to ignore the Av Bet Din and Nasi when there is a living breathing Sanhedrin to model yours on.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Can Napoleon even arise? Because with a stronger Galilee and codification is Spinoza as influential and thus the philosophes leading to the Corsican emperor. Without the butterfly net. Since Judah hahasid lacks the funds you've butterflied the Hurva Synagogue. im guessing he doesnt make Zionist promises because with a semi-autonomous Jewish Galilee that is less of a feasible or apparently magnaminous as it is IOTL. Maybe he breaks the Sanhedrin as he broke IOTL the Kahal. And with the Galilee Sanhedrin being so authoritative, his OTL Sanhedrin would either not exist or be even less legitimate and seen as a rubberstamp anit-Sanhedrin. Although if he does still make one it will have an Av Beit Din and Nasi unlike IOTL because he will remember those positions exist unlike IOTL where he was basing it on Christian accounts which ignored those offices. Its hard to ignore the Av Bet Din and Nasi when there is a living breathing Sanhedrin to model yours on.

I'm keeping Spinoza in the butterfly net - the effects of the Sanhedrin and the more successful Nasi project in the 16th century are mostly on the Jews of Italy, and won't much change the Sephardic migration to the Netherlands. I'm also pretty sure the Western European Enlightenment would happen even without Spinoza - he was an important forerunner but others were covering similar ground. So I'm keeping Voltaire, the French Revolution and Napoleon in the net as well. (Also, I need Napoleon for the story I want to tell.)

This Napoleon's approach to the Jews could go any of a number of ways - on the one hand, the existence of the eastern Galilee quasi-state means there is less impetus for his Zionist promises, but on the other hand, the Galilee Jews are a potential ally, which may pull in the opposite direction. Of course, the third possibility is that the Galilee Jews are a potential enemy, which may have much to do with their place within the (still extant ITTL) Banu Zaydan polity and how content they are within it by then. Or there may be - in fact there very likely will be - factions both for and against Napoleon.

There are also varying possibilities with the Napoleonic Sanhedrin - he might not call one, he might try to finesse it by declaring that it is the European Sanhedrin (although the rabbis in Ottoman Palestine probably wouldn't accept this), or if his dealings with the Galilee Jews go badly, he might decide he just doesn't care if Jews outside his empire see it as an anti-Sanhedrin. I'm not going to commit to any of those possibilities yet. But yes, if there is a Napoleonic Sanhedrin, it will start out more procedurally authentic, although there may be parts of it that Napoleon consciously decides to "modernize."

 

[jacob ningen]

I'm keeping Spinoza in the butterfly net - the effects of the Sanhedrin and the more successful Nasi project in the 16th century are mostly on the Jews of Italy, and won't much change the Sephardic migration to the Netherlands. I'm also pretty sure the Western European Enlightenment would happen even without Spinoza - he was an important forerunner but others were covering similar ground. So I'm keeping Voltaire, the French Revolution and Napoleon in the net as well. (Also, I need Napoleon for the story I want to tell.)

This Napoleon's approach to the Jews could go any of a number of ways - on the one hand, the existence of the eastern Galilee quasi-state means there is less impetus for his Zionist promises, but on the other hand, the Galilee Jews are a potential ally, which may pull in the opposite direction. Of course, the third possibility is that the Galilee Jews are a potential enemy, which may have much to do with their place within the (still extant ITTL) Banu Zaydan polity and how content they are within it by then. Or there may be - in fact there very likely will be - factions both for and against Napoleon.

There are also varying possibilities with the Napoleonic Sanhedrin - he might not call one, he might try to finesse it by declaring that it is the European Sanhedrin (although the rabbis in Ottoman Palestine probably wouldn't accept this), or if his dealings with the Galilee Jews go badly, he might decide he just doesn't care if Jews outside his empire see it as an anti-Sanhedrin. I'm not going to commit to any of those possibilities yet. But yes, if there is a Napoleonic Sanhedrin, it will start out more procedurally authentic, although there may be parts of it that Napoleon consciously decides to "modernize."

One potential modernization is making Napoleon or a French official control of the Nasi and Av bet Din elections when they occur a la prime ministers.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

One potential modernization is making Napoleon or a French official control of the Nasi and Av bet Din elections when they occur a la prime ministers.

IOTL, the officers of the Sanhedrin were named by the French interior minister. I'd imagine something similar would happen ITTL - Napoleon thought of Jewish institutions as means of social control, not communal autonomy, and that part of his character isn't changing. There would also be pressure on the Sanhedrin to make patriotic declarations about the relationship of Jews to the state as IOTL; they could justify this to a point via dina malchuta dina, but this Napoleon may still want to push them past that point.

The Sanhedrin IOTL was also, as far as I'm aware, the first general Jewish convocation in which a forerunner of the Reform movement (the Adath Jeshurun congregation of Amsterdam) took part. The Galilee Sanhedrin, struggling with its own maskilim by then, would no doubt have its own opinion of that.

 

[jacob ningen]

IOTL, the officers of the Sanhedrin were named by the French interior minister. I'd imagine something similar would happen ITTL - Napoleon thought of Jewish institutions as means of social control, not communal autonomy, and that part of his character isn't changing. There would also be pressure on the Sanhedrin to make patriotic declarations about the relationship of Jews to the state as IOTL; they could justify this to a point via dina malchuta dina, but this Napoleon may still want to push them past that point.

The Sanhedrin IOTL was also, as far as I'm aware, the first general Jewish convocation in which a forerunner of the Reform movement (the Adath Jeshurun congregation of Amsterdam) took part. The Galilee Sanhedrin, struggling with its own maskilim by then, would no doubt have its own opinion of that.

Especially since you have Scholem's thesis of Frankism correlating with Maskillim.

 

[jacob ningen]

Something I just thought of American kashrut or the halacha of American animals and the non-Palestinian etrog industry. Would that be butterflied or not?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

THE RISE OF ZAHIR AL-UMAR
PART I: 1706-1715​

“The Nabulsi dogs are coming,” said Sheikh Umar.

He pointed down the valley, but his son Zahir, riding beside him, had already seen – a plume of dust around a bend in the road, accompanied by the thunder of horses’ hooves and townsmen’s voices shouting for revenge. What they wanted to get even for, Zahir couldn’t yet hear – some Nabulsi sheep or cattle, no doubt, that now belonged to the Banu Zaydan, or maybe a waylaid caravan and the gold in its strongbox.

He'd heard stories of such raids and counter-raids since childhood, although this was the first time his father had allowed him to ride against one. “I thought we didn’t go on razzia anymore,” he’d said once when he was very young. And his father had answered, “the Jews pay us to fight for them, so we don’t raid the villages under their protection, but the cowards of Lajjun and Tulkarm are another story, and those of Nablus a third story yet.”

The quarrel between the Banu Zaydan and the town of Nablus was an old one – a generation ago, so it was said, a rich Nabulsi merchant had kidnapped the daughter of a Banu Zaydan trader and sold her as a slave to the Turks, but the feud had long since taken on a life of its own. And now a hundred Nabulsi men were riding into the lands that the Banu Zaydan called home, and a hundred Bedouins were riding to meet them.

Zahir saw the riders now, not just their dust, and a moment later, Sheikh Umar pointed his saber and shouted an ululating cry. As one, the Banu Zaydan urged their horses into a gallop and charged toward the answering cries of their enemy.

A bullet from a Nabulsi musket whistled past Zahir’s ear, and he gave a cry of surprise followed by one of dismay that he hadn’t unslung his own weapon. He drew his saber instead and rode on toward the townsmen who were now only fifty yards away.

He saw the face of the man directly in front of him and, for a moment, their eyes met. Then they were engaged. The Nabulsi slashed his saber at Zahir, who parried as he’d been taught when he was eight; he returned the stroke and, anticipating the movement of the townsman’s horse, stabbed forward with the point. The townsman’s parry went wide and, a second later, he cried out in pain and despair as Zahir’s point went into his chest.

Zahir took a moment to look around him – dead or injured, his opponent was out of the fight – and noticed for the first time that the battle had spread across the width of the valley and that the shouts and clashes of steel were all around him. He looked for his father and saw him just ahead in close combat with a Nabulsi soldier; he spurred his horse forward with a battle-cry and a flourish of his saber, and the Nabulsi sheered off at his approach.

“It goes well?” he asked.

“Well enough,” said Umar. “But look there.” He pointed to the right, where the Banu Zaydan line was starting to give way under the Nabulsis’ pressure. “Ride to Sa’ad on the left and tell him to send men there.”

Zahir glanced left to spot where his older brother was, and was off at a gallop. And suddenly the rear of the Nabulsi line wheeled about, crashed into the Banu Zaydan again, and broke through – not on the right, but on the left.

Zahir hadn’t reached Sa’ad yet, but he was close to the breakthrough, and he was unaccountably the first to recover from shock. “To me!” he called, raising his saber above his head and making his voice carry above the Nabulsis’ cries of triumph and the Bedouins’ cries of dismay. “To me!” he called again and, after looking back to see that the others near him were following, he charged.

A heavy, thick-bearded townsman on a chestnut stallion was in his way; he slashed with his saber and missed, but he was past. Then he was face to face with the Nabulsi leader – or at least, a man who looked like a leader, given his silver jewelry and lamellar coat. He parried a vicious cut and slashed back; then it was all he could do to survive as his opponent, sitting above him on a horse nearly as massive as he was, slashed down again and again.

Zahir never learned how the duel would end. More men of the Banu Zaydan had come up behind him, and there weren’t enough Nabulsis to maintain their breakthrough. They fell back and their chief fell back with them, and Zahir realized there was no one in front of him.

“Let them go!” called Umar, and with an instinct beyond his years, Zahir understood; the battle had been a near thing, and a pursuit could yet turn victory to disaster. He watched the Nabulsi retreat with relief, but also with a sudden elation that grew as he heard the shouts of victory from the Banu Zaydan and realized that those cheers were partly for him.

It was the fifth day of Safar in the year 1118, and Zahir al-Umar had discovered that he liked to fight.

#​

“You need to get out of here,” said Sa’ad.

Eighteen-year-old Zahir, unhearing, looked down numbly at his bloodied sword and the body of the Turkish officer at his feet. Only when his brother grabbed his sword arm and shook it did he tear his eyes away.

“We need to get out of here,” Sa’ad repeated. “Now.”

Zahir pulled his arm from his brother’s grip and stared blankly at the Tulkarm marketplace, still not understanding. “He started the fight,” he said. “I swear he drew his sword first.”

“I know. I saw. But it won’t matter to the Turks. And these townsmen will hand you to the Turks as soon as look at you. In case you’ve forgotten, they don’t love us.”

It was the last phrase, spoken in tones of profound sarcasm, that finally got through. Sa’ad spoke with authority – he had been the sheikh of the Banu Zaydan since their father’s death six months before. And he was right, Zahir realized – some of the merchants’ guards, recovered from their surprise, were already moving to apprehend him.

“Let’s go” – now he was the one saying it, and he vaulted onto his horse even as Sa’ad mounted beside him. The sound of the alarm being raised echoed behind them, but they were already through the gates and riding hard for al-Shaghur where their family had its stronghold.

They were home before Sa’ad would let Zahir stop, even to bandage the wounds on his own left arm and side. “Stay the night here,” Sa’ad said. “But even here won’t be safe for you tomorrow.”

“Then where do I go?” Zahir asked. He had risen from his bed this morning with no thought of exile.

“Safad,” answered Sa’ad at once – it was plain that he had spent the ride home thinking about exactly this. “The Jews of Safad know our family – the qadis know it too – and the Turks tread lightly in that city. You will be safe there. And there are scholars in Safad too – it’s time you had an education.”

That was another thing Zahir had never considered. He could read and write and knew something of figures – that was bound to happen when one’s father and brother had held the office of local tax-farmer – and he could recite two hundred verses of the Quran and as many hadiths, but he had no formal schooling.

He would find some, in Safad. What he would learn there would have to await another day.

#​

The caravan-master looked about forty and was clothed in green silk with a black turban to match his beard. He ran slightly to fat in middle age but was still fit; he had a sword at his belt, and although it had no doubt been a long time since he’d used it, Zahir had a feeling he knew how.

“Are you David Zemach?” said Zahir with a salaam.

“I am – and you are looking for work.” It wasn’t a question.

“They say you are going to Damascus tomorrow, and that you need guards.”

“Can you fight?” Zemach’s eyes measured Zahir, taking in his stance, his alertness, the razor edge on his shamshir. “Yes, you can, and you have. The place is yours if you want it – we will be gone two weeks, and the pay is one gurush and found.”

Eight dirhams of silver, Zahir translated – the gurush had been in circulation for less than twenty years and had been money of account for only half that, but any Banu Zaydan worth his salt could reckon one currency from another. He wouldn’t get rich on eight dirhams, but for two weeks’ pay it wasn’t bad.

“It will be an honor, sir,” he said, and then, “they say your grandfather was a great man.”

“My great-grandfather,” Zemach answered. “He was a great man indeed, and if he could see me, he’d be greatly disappointed. As would yours, maybe?”

Zahir laughed almost without meaning to, and wondered how much Zemach knew – whether the caravan-master could see how tired he was of schooling and of the strict rule that the rabbis and the qadis imposed on Safad. Or maybe he knew nothing at all, and simply assumed that only a rake would want to become a caravan guard, which was true often enough.

“I’m here, and my great-grandfather is not.”

“Well said!” Zemach answered. “Be in the north marketplace at dawn tomorrow, and keep your eyes peeled for bandits even there.”

Zahir did so, and kept them open as an outrider for most of the four-day trip to Damascus, but in the event, the bandits stayed out of sight. To pass the time, he struck up conversation with Yitzhak ben Menachem, a fellow outrider a year or two older than he was, and they spoke of many things as they made their patrols.

“My father apprenticed me to Zemach when I was twelve,” Yitzhak said. “He was a tanner, but the Jewish tanners wouldn’t take me – and as kindly a man as my father is, his trade is a hard one. I’m better off keeping Zemach’s accounts, even if I have to ride guard when the caravans travel.”

“Why wouldn’t the Jewish tanners take you on?”

“It’s a Jewish thing,” said Yitzhak, and Zahir said nothing more; there were Bedouin things.

They told stories after that – Zahir of raids, and Yitzhak of Damascus and Acre and other cities where he had been and Zahir had not. One time, Yitzhak was stung by a horsefly and uttered a round of curses in a language Zahir didn’t recognize, and when asked, explained that it was what he had spoken as a child in Poland. He told stories of Poland too: harsh winters endured in poverty, ice-blue skies, wooden houses where the smell of buckwheat and potatoes never went away, the music of his barely-remembered village when the holidays came. His tales were more exotic than anything Zahir had imagined – almost enough so that when he at last saw the walls of Damascus, that fabled city seemed almost mundane.

It seemed even more so inside the walls. True, Damascus dwarfed any other city that Zahir had seen; true, its streets bustled and the marketplaces were fragrant with spices and sizzling lamb; true, the wealth of its citizens could be told at a glance from their clothing and jewelry. But the merchants’ houses, the shops, even the mosques were of plain stone, with at most some filigree on the upper story. Zahir knew the caravan’s cargo was a rich one – the silk and glassware for which the eastern Galilee was famous as well as cotton and olive oil and wine – and Zemach’s warehouse was in the wealthy district around the Bab-al-Barid, but even there, the buildings were plain.

“The showy stuff is all inside,” said Yitzhak when he remarked on that. “Courtyards, gardens, furnishings fit for a palace. You’ll see them later when we go to the hammam, and then the coffee-house. The best one is right off the Shari al-Mustaqim – I’ll take you when the warehouse work is done.”

“I’ve been to coffee-houses.”

“I’m sure you have. But in Tzfat” – that was how the Jews pronounced Safad – “they don’t have hashish or dancing girls.”

That was true, Zahir reflected. Damascus’s decadence was as much a byword as Safad’s strictness and probity. He looked around at Yitzhak and Zemach and the other men of the caravan, saw the freedom with which they walked down Damascus’s streets, and felt he might be due a little decadence.

“It’ll be on me until the master pays you,” Yitzhak said, jingling the coin-purse on his belt.

“Don’t worry. My father was a sheikh – even without Zemach’s gurush, I’m not penniless.”

“Then it’ll be on me because it’s your first time here. You can take care of me next time. Trust me, there will be many chances.”

#​

This time, there were bandits. They’d lain in wait east of Qunaitra and sprung their ambush just after dawn, hoping for easy wealth. Instead, they’d learned better than to attack a caravan of which Zahir al-Umar was captain, and after he’d seen them off, he rode into Damascus singing hymns of victory.

This was Zahir’s second time in Damascus as caravan-master. David Zemach was leading another trading expedition to Acre and Sidon, and he trusted Zahir to conduct his business in Damascus in his place; it was a high honor for one still twenty-five, but he’d given ample proof of his loyalty and he’d shown that he could buy and sell as well as fight. He would stand to gain far more than a single gurush from this expedition if the trading went well.

But that would wait for tomorrow – by the time Zahir had finished at the warehouse and seen to his and the men’s lodgings at their usual serai, it was well past the time for trading. He sought instead the house of Abd al-Ghaffar al-Shuwayki, where supper would be waiting.

Al-Shuwayki was a scholar and a teacher, who had written many treatises on religion and law. He had a distant connection to the Banu Zaydan, which was how Zahir had first come to him; his scholarship was why he had returned. Sometimes Zahir wondered why learning held so much more attraction for him at twenty-five than it had at nineteen; more often, he simply accepted that as the way things were. And besides, al-Shuwayki set a very good table.

The scholar’s house was on the Shari as-Salah near the Bab Sharqi, on the edge of the Jewish quarter. It was halfway between the synagogue of the Jews and that of the Sabbateans – the ones who, though they also called themselves Jews, believed that the Messiah had risen and been slain on the Nazareth road fifty years before. There were few or none of them in Safad, where the Sanhedrin suppressed them, but here, the Turks favored them as a counterweight to that very Sanhedrin, and they and the more traditional Jews had come to hate them like poison. More than once, Zahir had found himself in the middle of fights between them, all the more so when it became known who his master was. He’d learned that when he walked these streets after dark, it was best to keep his hand on his sword-hilt.

This time, his sword remained in his scabbard, and the windows of al-Shuwayki’s home glowed with a welcoming light. A servant brought him to the courtyard where the table had already been laid with grilled lamb, makdous, fattoush, flatbread and honey-sweetened ayran. Al-Shuwaiki was there, deep in conversation with another man.

“Ah, my friend Zahir, please sit and eat,” he said. “This is Sayyid Muhammad al-Husayni, a dear companion.”

The topic of the evening was the histories of ibn Khaldun, and al-Husayni, whoever he was, was as learned in them as their host. And that wasn’t all he knew – it became apparent from the conversation that he had commercial dealings throughout the Levant and in Cairo and Konstantiniyye as well, and that he’d been a guest of the Sharif of Mecca when he went on the Hajj. The talk flowed over dinner and then over coffee and fragrant tobacco, and when al-Husayni took his leave, it was well into the night.

“He is very rich,” said al-Shuwayki to Zahir when he had gone. “And he has a daughter. She is learned and beautiful – and unmarried.”

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

The above wasn’t the vignette I had planned, but the more I read about Zahir al-Umar, the more I realized that his backstory needed to be told rather than to happen offstage. He’s one of those people whose life story is out of a novel, and for his effect on eighteenth-century Galilee to be fully appreciated, it has to be seen. So this is Part I of his rise to power; the next installment will cover the period from 1718 to 1732, and then – or at least I anticipate – the one after that will skip to 1765 at the height of the Banu Zaydan polity and will return the point of view to the Jews of Tzfat.

This is also an example of how the butterfly net works. The village where Zahir’s branch of the Banu Zaydan lived is part of the eastern Galilee theocracy ITTL, so he can’t have the same life story as OTL, but there are plenty of ways to make it rhyme – he can still be exiled after killing a man in a fight (there are varying stories about who he killed) and can still travel with the caravans to Damascus and make commercial and marital connections. His life will diverge more in the 1720s, but it won’t be until after 1732 that it takes a truly different turn.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Something I just thought of American kashrut or the halacha of American animals and the non-Palestinian etrog industry. Would that be butterflied or not?

Sorry to have missed the above when you posted it. I hadn't known of the controversies involving etrogim, but now that I've gone down that rabbit hole, I'd imagine that, like most things, it could go either or both of two ways. On the one hand, etrogim were already being produced outside Palestine by the 1600s and the Sanhedrin might facilitate production outside the Holy Land by certifying the lineage of trees for export. On the other hand, the greater number of Jews in Ottoman Palestine would mean higher domestic etrog production and more fruits available for export to the diaspora.

Also, reading about etrog production sent me down another rabbit hole - shmita. I'm assuming that shmita years wouldn't be a big problem at first - few of the Jews who settle in the Galilee under Nasi in the 16th century or under the Sanhedrin in the 17th/18th would be farmers, and most of those who do work in agriculture would either be in silk production, which is not a plant crop, or would have orchards or vineyards, which are subject to the otzar bet din (which the Sanhedrin would control). The few Jewish farmers could be supported by the community during the fallow year while the food supply would come from the great majority of farmers who are Muslim or Christian. But eventually more Jews would farm, and the Sanhedrin would have to decide whether land could be placed in trust with a non-Jew for the year or whether that is forbidden. I'd guess that this would come to a head sometime in the 19th century much as IOTL - if I get to that point in the story, it might be a major controversy.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

THE RISE OF ZAHIR AL-UMAR
PART II: 1718-1732​

Zahir had been a year in Umm al-Fahm and still couldn’t decide whether it was a large village or a small town. It had eleven hundred people but no wall; it was prosperous, but its wealth came from its fields and livestock rather than crafts or markets. And its people cared little about the world beyond the Wadi Ara; they lacked the cosmopolitanism even of a market town like Nablus, let alone Safad or Damascus.

Still, Umm al-Fahm had its compensations. It was on the high ground and easy to defend even without a wall. The view down the Wadi Ara from Sheikh Iskander’s maqam on the hilltop went all the way to the sea. And most of all, Zahir’s dowry money had been enough to purchase the office of mutassalim – local governor and tax-farmer – where it would have been far too little to buy that post in a larger town. Umm al-Fahm would be a comfortable home for him and Laila until he was ready for something more.

Laila hadn’t wanted to live here at first – a village, even one that was large and well-off, was hardly a fitting home for the daughter of a rich Damascus Sayyid. She’d begged him to find a lesser post in a larger town – an assistant to the governor of Nazareth, maybe, or secretary to the wali in Acre. But she too had found compensations. Zahir had built the two of them a courtyard house in the Damascus style, and not only was the view to the sea from its walls a never-ending treasure, but the outskirts of the village were famed for their gardens. It also didn’t take long to discover that women in Umm al-Fahm had more freedom than in Damascus, and it didn’t take much longer for the village women to adopt Laila as their own; a Sayyid’s daughter who was a scholar and poet in her own right was an ornament that any village would be proud to have.

Umm al-Fahm’s acceptance of Laila had been the first step in its acceptance of Zahir – she had paved the way when he might otherwise have been shunned as a Bedouin and a stranger. By now, the people valued him for more than that. It helped that he was an energetic governor who always had a project to repair the cisterns or improve sanitation or find new markets for the village’s produce. He had also won a reputation as a fair and astute judge, even if his knowledge of Hanafi fiqh was far from perfect. And when the Sultan’s officers made oppressive demands or came to seize the village’s sons for the army, he didn’t hesitate to run them off.

More than just Umm al-Fahm, in fact, looked to Zahir now – several smaller villages also sought his leadership in times of trouble and his judgment in peace.

There was peace today – the fifteenth of Dhu al-Qidah in the year 1130, a perfect autumn evening with the scent of lilac on the breeze and the first stars appearing in the sky. But Zahir was more anxious than he had ever been before a battle. The midwife had exiled him from the house hours ago and he could only sit outside in the gathering darkness, listening to the cries that came at intervals from within.

“Don’t worry,” said Yahya al-Jabarin, the headman of the north quarter – the leading men of Umm al-Fahm were outside with Zahir as their wives were inside with Laila. “Your wife is strong. And Sitt Zahra is the best midwife in the Wadi Ara – they say she has never lost a mother or a child.”

Zahir wanted to believe that, and he had indeed paid good money to hire the best. But like anyone who’d grown up in a Bedouin tribe, he knew that there were dangers in childbirth that no midwife could allay, and that might strike down even the strongest woman.

Had Zahir been a Jew or a Christian, he knew, he would have drunk at least a jar of wine by now, maybe even two. That option closed to him, he sat and smoked with the men of Umm-al-Fahm and tried to talk of anything but childbirth and danger and pain.

It seemed like hours passed; when Zahir next looked to the sky, the moon had risen and the autumn constellations were bright. And another cry issued from inside, different from the ones before; the cry of a newborn baby.

“You see?” said Yahya, slapping Zahir on the back, and a moment later, the midwife Zahra stood in the doorway and announced, “you have a son.”

“Come inside, come inside,” Zahir said, and put one arm around Yahya’s shoulder and the other around the headman of the east. “Come inside with me,” he said again, because in that moment, he wasn’t sure his legs would carry him.

#​

“I hear you’ve done well,” said David Zemach.

“You heard?” answered Zahir. “What did you need to hear? You have my account books!”

Both men laughed, but what each had said was true. Zemach wasn’t Zahir’s only agent – he had others in Jaffa and Acre and, of course, the al-Husayni family managed his affairs in Damascus – but Zahir had sought Zemach’s counsel often enough that the extent of his business was no secret to him. And Zahir had done well. In his thirty-fifth year, he was mutassalim of nine villages in the Wadi Ara and had also secured the office of muhtasib, governor of their markets and trade. His ventures had prospered to the point where he counted himself fully as rich as his patron.

“Is that what brings you to Tzfat?” Zemach asked.

“No, it isn’t business this time, Da’ud Bey. Or at least not that business. There are two things…”

“A journey, so I have heard.”

“You are a wise man. Yes, there will be a Hajj caravan leaving Wadi Ara soon – I donated it, and I will be its captain. There are places still for pilgrims and guards.”

“Hajj Mubarak, and may you be blessed. But I doubt that’s why you came to me.”

“No,” Zahir confessed with a shake of his head. “I came to you about the other thing. I need people, Da’ud Bey. There are things I want to do in my towns – improve the roads, build irrigation works, build defenses – and I don’t have enough people to do them. I need working men, craftsmen… fighting men. Anyone who wants to come to the Wadi Ara – I will pay them well for their work, give them land, build them workshops…”

“You need people? We need people. Not many Jews have come here since the siege, and that was ninety years ago. There have been some, yes – once even a thousand at a time – but we are far away, and England and Holland are close. There are houses still standing empty from the smallpox. And when you go to the qadis and the priests – because I know you’ll go to them – they’ll tell you the same.”

“There must be people somewhere.” Suddenly, Zahir’s mind traveled back fifteen years, to days spent riding guard on the road to Damascus, to the long conversations he’d had with Yitzhak ben Menachem to pass the time. “The Polish Jews – what about them? The ones the Sanhedrin doesn’t care for?”

Zemach thought for a moment and then slowly nodded. Even now, a majority of the Sanhedrin viewed the pilgrims who had followed Judah the Pious from Poland and the German lands as suspect – their ecstatic worship and foreign customs made them seem like Sabbateans even though they were not. “Some of them might come, yes. The ones who are tired of customs being made into walls. And yes, some of them still look to me.”

“You can take me to meet them?”

“I can. There’s one, I know, who’ll remember you well. We can meet them tomorrow.” Zemach rose from the table. “Tonight – did you bring Laila? Na’ama would be very happy to see her.”

Zahir shook his head. “She is with child again…”

“What is this, the fourth? You work quickly, my friend.” Zemach rose from the table. “Then come have some coffee.”

The house where the two had met was in the spiritual city that stood above the working city – the upper part of Safad, a place ethereal with synagogues and mosques and churches – but in minutes, they made their way through winding alleys to the lower streets of workshops and foundries and markets. They came to a coffee-house that had been one of Zahir’s favorites in the days when he’d lived here, and there was music coming from inside. Lately Safad had become known as a city of poets; several of the rabbis in this generation’s Sanhedrin had the poetic gift and wrote hymns unparalleled since the days of Nasi, and it seemed that they had shared their inspiration with the secular population.

The light inside the coffee-house was welcoming in the gathering darkness; the mingled scents of coffee and tobacco were familiar as Zahir and Zemach took a corner table. And then Zahir realized that he wouldn’t need to wait until tomorrow for his meeting, because Yitzhak was there and was the person singing.

There are worlds above the world, he sang, accompanying himself on the oud, where the Name hides not his face; surely we who are unnamed, may look there to find a place…

Zahir had heard, when he lived in Safed, the songs Jews sang of their longing for the Holy Land. Now he saw that even in that land, a Jew might still sing of longing. It was a lesson he would not forget, tomorrow or all the days after.

#​

It was half an hour until sunrise, and from the hilltop where Zahir stood, the walls of Jenin looked made of iron. There was a formidable force inside the gates, he knew; the Tarabai emir who ruled the town had a substantial Turkish garrison to support his own guardsmen. Zahir wouldn’t care to assault those walls, even with twice the thousand men he led. But if God was willing, the razzia that would begin in half an hour would give him the town without the loss of a single life.

He signaled to Rashid al-Jabr, the Saqr Bedouin sheikh who rode with him, and they crouched close together as Zahir sketched a map in the dust. He finished the sketch, pointed, and whispered “as dawn breaks,” and al-Jabr nodded and went to gather his men.

The Saqr had been the start of this, Zahir recalled. The governors of Jenin and Nablus had joined together to suppress their raids, and after a season of difficult fighting, they’d enlisted Zahir to speak for them and negotiate peace. They could have gone to Zahir’s brother Sa’ad, the Banu Zaydan sheikh, but that would have looked too much like putting themselves under Banu Zaydan protection. Zahir had seemed the perfect compromise – a negotiator who would carry the authority of the Banu Zaydan along with his considerable personal reputation, but would not subordinate the Saqr to a sheikh from another tribe.

Zahir had spoken for them faithfully enough, buying a year’s peace and easing of taxes in exchange for a cessation of raids. But he’d spoken to others as well – the commoners of Jenin and Tulkarm who resented Tarabai’s heavy taxes and corrupted justice, the notables of the Jarrar clan whose civil offices Tarabai had usurped and whose stronghold at Sanur he was pressing hard, the small rural landowners on whose property Tarabai had designs. The Saqr were far from the only ones who wanted to turn the tables. And all of them – the Saqr, the townsmen, the upper peasantry of the southern hills led by the Jarrars’ retainers – were now on the heights above Jenin along with Zahir’s Banu Zaydan troops and the men of the Wadi Ara.

“The south gate is opening,” whispered Yitzhak, the leader of Zahir’s fifty Polish Jews, as he too crouched down and pointed at the city. “Aharon says the guards at the west gate are making ready. There’s no sign they know we’re here.”

“Then we go now, before they can learn.”

Zahir vaulted onto his horse – a greater task at forty than it had once been – and gave another signal. The Saqr, already on alert, rode at once for the west gate; a picked troop of Banu Zaydan rode out to circle the city and attack from the north, and Zahir, with his main force of eight hundred men, thundered down the hillside to the south gate.

The guards at the south gate did see, even with Zahir’s troops coming almost out of the winter sun. But they didn’t see in time – or maybe the notables in town had bought their blindness. It hardly mattered. Zahir was through the gate and riding straight for the palace, and his men overwhelmed the guards and seized Tarabai before the garrison could stir. And a moment later, one of al-Jabr’s riders came with news that all the city gates were in their hands.

Zahir called to Yitzhak, and pointed to where Tarabai was bound. “Take him to Damascus, to Sayyid al-Husayni. And take this letter. Al-Husayni will make sure the wali sees it.” The letter, signed by notables of both town and country as well as the sheikhs of the Saqr and Banu Zaydan, accused Tarabai of oppression and illegal taxation and demanded his removal from office. Al-Husayni and Zahir’s other friends in Damascus would make sure that the wali recognized the fait accompli, and they – along with much gold – would ensure that the next governor of Jenin would be Zahir.

The city would be a fine addition to a domain that already included Wadi Ara, Tulkarm, and the hills to the east. And it would not be the last addition to that realm – no, not by far.

#​

“You are brave to come alone,” said Ibrahim al-Adil, the oldest and most venerated of Safad’s qadis.

“Bravery is not needed where there are honorable men,” Zahir answered. And the qadis, rabbis, priests and notables assembled in the ruined hall of Joseph Nasi’s palazzo were honorable men. But he had no doubt that more than one of them was tempted not to be. He surely would be, if he were in their place.

In theory, he had come to propose an alliance with Safad and Tiberias and the villages under their protection. In fact, he was seeking their submission. Just over the border, and waiting for his command, was an army of six thousand men. The council of the eastern Galilee commanded barely three thousand, and even those were not what they had once been; the Livorno Guard had gone begging for recruits for fifty years now, and though the townsmen’s militia was well-drilled, funds for armaments and fortifications had been in short supply for decades.

Zahir bore the Galilee no ill will – far from it. But he wanted Acre and Tyre and Sidon, and the rich towns of the coast, and the Galilee was in his way.

That was why he had left his army at the border and come to Safad by himself – his officers had called him a madman, but it was a gesture of trust to match the trust that he would ask the Galilee to put in him. A gesture, maybe, that would make a conquest seem less like what it was.

“What terms of… alliance are you proposing?” one of the notables asked at last. It took a moment for Zahir to place him: Moshe Hagiz, the Av Bet Din, the vice-president of the Sanhedrin and one of the three, along with the Nasi and the oldest member, who sat with three imams and a priest on the executive council. A strict man, was Hagiz; a fierce suppressor of heresy and a defender of the authority of the rabbinate, and Zahir had heard that he liked to quarrel. He was indeed a man who would speak first.

“I’m not proposing anything burdensome, or anything unfamiliar. We will join our armies together and you will have the protection of both. When I invite people to come and work on this land, I will open the door to Christians and Jews, and I will send them to fill your towns as well as mine. You who are in the Sanhedrin, I will make it safe for your brothers in Jerusalem to visit you where they now must send letters. I will ensure the maintenance of your holy places.”

“And the government? And taxes?” No, Hagiz wasn’t one to mince words.

“The Sanhedrin will govern the Jews as before. The qadis will govern the Muslims, as before. And your council of seven will advise me when I appoint the mutassalim for each town, and will advise the governor as well.”

Zahir saw – no, he felt – the stir among the gathered notables. Now it was on the table – he would be the one to name the town governors and tax-farmers, even if he did so with the council’s advice, and the whole of the republic would have a governor responsible to him. The hundred years of independence within the Sultan’s empire that the eastern Galilee had enjoyed since breaking the younger Fakhr-al-Din’s siege was to come to an end.

He swept his gaze across the assembly. “And with your consent and his,” he said – the forms were to be followed – “Da’ud Bey will govern here.”

Zemach’s eyes met his – he’d given no warning of his intention, but he’d long since learned that the older man was incapable of surprise. And reflected back in Zemach’s gaze was the dawning realization of what Zahir had meant by nothing unfamiliar. The civil government would belong to a secular merchant duke as in the days of Joseph Nasi, and the Galilee would swear fealty to the strongest local warlord as in the time of the elder Fakhr-al-Din.

The rest of the notables took longer, but they realized the same thing, and they realized that the alternative was Zahir’s six thousand soldiers and his train of siege guns. First one, and then all of them, gave their assent, and if any grudged it, they kept that to themselves.

“Then come to my camp, where I have laid a feast,” Zahir said. “Everything will be prepared according to your law.” His eyes met Zemach’s again, and he spoke in a lower tone, to him alone. “Yitzhak has stories to tell you. And please bring Na’ama. Laila misses her, and would dearly like to see her again.”

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Could they then find a descendent of the Davidic line to make Exilarch?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Could they then find a descendent of the Davidic line to make Exilarch?

There would not be an Exilarch - he is the Exile-arch (Rosh ha-Galut) after all, and these events are taking place in the Holy Land rather than the diaspora. The titles to which Davidic descent would be relevant in the Galilee are Messiah and King, and the Galilee Jews ITTL have seen off a false messiah in the recent past and, although stronger and more numerous than IOTL, have neither the numbers nor the military force to declare a kingdom. There are no doubt people of Davidic lineage in the Galilee at this point - several of the Davidic families lived in Italy in the 16th century, and one or more of them might have migrated to Tzfat when Joseph Nasi was recruiting Italian Jews as settlers - but they will have to wait on the sidelines for now.

Anyway, Zahir al-Umar has now completed his rise from a near-nobody (a younger son of a Bedouin sheikh isn't a complete nobody, but still) to warlord of Wadi Ara and the Galilee. His life story still has points in common with OTL - for instance, his capture of the governor of Jenin in 1730 mirrors his OTL seizure of Tiberias a few years later - but is now on a considerably different path; he has a much stronger connection to the Jewish community (as is natural given their greater prominence) and his seizure of the Galilee in one bite gives him a path to not make his most critical OTL mistakes. We will next see this timeline in 1765 when Zahir is master of all of northern Palestine and the Sanhedrin faces a new set of challenges.

 

[jacob ningen]

There would not be an Exilarch - he is the Exile-arch (Rosh ha-Galut) after all, and these events are taking place in the Holy Land rather than the diaspora. The titles to which Davidic descent would be relevant in the Galilee are Messiah and King, and the Galilee Jews ITTL have seen off a false messiah in the recent past and, although stronger and more numerous than IOTL, have neither the numbers nor the military force to declare a kingdom. There are no doubt people of Davidic lineage in the Galilee at this point - several of the Davidic families lived in Italy in the 16th century, and one or more of them might have migrated to Tzfat when Joseph Nasi was recruiting Italian Jews as settlers - but they will have to wait on the sidelines for now.

Anyway, Zahir al-Umar has now completed his rise from a near-nobody (a younger son of a Bedouin sheikh isn't a complete nobody, but still) to warlord of Wadi Ara and the Galilee. His life story still has points in common with OTL - for instance, his capture of the governor of Jenin in 1730 mirrors his OTL seizure of Tiberias a few years later - but is now on a considerably different path; he has a much stronger connection to the Jewish community (as is natural given their greater prominence) and his seizure of the Galilee in one bite gives him a path to not make his most critical OTL mistakes. We will next see this timeline in 1765 when Zahir is master of all of northern Palestine and the Sanhedrin faces a new set of challenges.

You mean the nepotism that backfired, correct?

 

[jacob ningen]

also thank you for letting us be in the Room Where it Happened.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

You mean the nepotism that backfired, correct?

Yup - Zahir isn't going to have to fight any shooting wars against his sons ITTL. Which isn't to say that all will be wine and roses for him - his coalition is fractious, there are other powerful warlords opposed to him, and there's always the risk of going too far and provoking the Sultan into actually doing something.

also thank you for letting us be in the Room Where it Happened.

Many rooms, many happenings. BTW, it should be clear at this point who the original Galilee maskilim will be - there will certainly be common inspirations and synergies between them and their European counterparts, but at least at first, they'll combine the Enlightenment with a certain quasi-Hasidic sensibility.