What if Jerusalem had assented to the 1538 Sanhedrin.

[Jonathan Edelstein]

While I finish sketching out the 1765 update, a note on population.

IOTL, the Jewish population in the Galilee increased steadily through the 16th century. Exact numbers are impossible to determine because Ottoman censuses counted households rather than people, but households were multi-generational and large families were common, so the 232 Jewish households present in Tzfat/.Safad in 1525 probably amounted to 1200-1500 individuals. By 1553, there were 716 Jewish households and 56 Jewish bachelors, rising to 945 households in 1567-68 (apparently bachelors were not counted in this census) and an estimated 7000 people in 1576. Tzfat accounted for nearly all the OTL Jewish population - Tiberias was largely deserted during this period and the villages such as Peki'in accounted for less than 100 households.

ITTL, the population curve starts to diverge in the 1560s - the early days of the Sanhedrin wouldn't have much effect on migration patterns, and the upheaval of that period might actually discourage some Jews from moving in. After 1561, though, Joseph Nasi is actively recruiting Italian Jews and investing money and resources in his settlement project. There were maybe 20,000 Jews in Italy at this time - again, hard numbers are impossible, not only due to sketchy censuses but because of a series of expulsions that caused forced migration from city to city. Let's say Nasi recruits about a quarter of them, particularly those in the Papal States, and that he also finances the migration of a couple thousand Sephardim from the Maghreb. So instead of the ~8000 Jews who lived in the Galilee IOTL at the time of Nasi's death in 1579, there would be about 15,000 ITTL, making them a majority in Tzfat and Tiberias (the latter of which Nasi actually succeeded in rebuilding ITTL) and a larger minority in the villages where Nasi encouraged the growth of silk production and wine-making.

The migration would continue at a slower pace during Reina Nasi's rule (1579-96) and the early days of the theocracy; a lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, but funds for resettlement are still available. Between that and natural increase, we might see a TTL population of 20,000 to 25,000 by the time of the 1634 siege, which means I need to retcon my prior mention of "thirty thousand strong" but is still substantial and is a sharp divergence from the decline that the Galilee Jews were undergoing at that point IOTL.

After the siege, migration becomes much more episodic. There would be an influx of Polish Jews after the Khmielnitsky pogrom of 1648-49, some substantial pilgrimages such as the one shown in the 1700-01 vignette, and individual families, but probably no more than 5000 to 7000 throughout this period - we're getting to the time when England and the Netherlands were closer and more attractive destinations for Sephardic and eastern European refugees, and many of the Jews sold as slaves by Khmielnitsky's Cossacks would return home or settle in Constantinople or Salonika after being ransomed rather than going to the Galilee. Set against that are the losses from the siege itself and from epidemics - the smallpox of 1700-01 is the worst, but epidemics of one kind or another are a fact of life in any premodern city. So the Jewish population of the Galilee in 1730 ITTL might be little more than it was in 1634 - which is still far more than OTL and would likely make Jews a plurality in the eastern Galilee and 8 to 10 percent of the total population of Ottoman Palestine, but definitely means that Zahir al-Umar is able to vassalize them rather than the other way around.

Anyway, trends are going to change again in the mid-18th century, and the Jewish population is also going to become more diverse, both in ways that I've foreshadowed and at least one that I haven't.

 

[St. Just]

Well, there's Ashkenazis and the existing Sephardis already -- wonder if the new diversity will involve Romaniotes, North Africans or Yemenis, or perhaps even Baghdadi, Indian or Ethiopian Jews...

 

[Zealot]

Congrats for your TL. THIS the TL I'd have liked to write if I had the necessary resources & knowledge....


Can't wait for next updates!!

 

[SpaceRome]

[/QUOTE]

While I finish sketching out the 1765 update, a note on population.

IOTL, the Jewish population in the Galilee increased steadily through the 16th century. Exact numbers are impossible to determine because Ottoman censuses counted households rather than people, but households were multi-generational and large families were common, so the 232 Jewish households present in Tzfat/.Safad in 1525 probably amounted to 1200-1500 individuals. By 1553, there were 716 Jewish households and 56 Jewish bachelors, rising to 945 households in 1567-68 (apparently bachelors were not counted in this census) and an estimated 7000 people in 1576. Tzfat accounted for nearly all the OTL Jewish population - Tiberias was largely deserted during this period and the villages such as Peki'in accounted for less than 100 households.

ITTL, the population curve starts to diverge in the 1560s - the early days of the Sanhedrin wouldn't have much effect on migration patterns, and the upheaval of that period might actually discourage some Jews from moving in. After 1561, though, Joseph Nasi is actively recruiting Italian Jews and investing money and resources in his settlement project. There were maybe 20,000 Jews in Italy at this time - again, hard numbers are impossible, not only due to sketchy censuses but because of a series of expulsions that caused forced migration from city to city. Let's say Nasi recruits about a quarter of them, particularly those in the Papal States, and that he also finances the migration of a couple thousand Sephardim from the Maghreb. So instead of the ~8000 Jews who lived in the Galilee IOTL at the time of Nasi's death in 1579, there would be about 15,000 ITTL, making them a majority in Tzfat and Tiberias (the latter of which Nasi actually succeeded in rebuilding ITTL) and a larger minority in the villages where Nasi encouraged the growth of silk production and wine-making.

The migration would continue at a slower pace during Reina Nasi's rule (1579-96) and the early days of the theocracy; a lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, but funds for resettlement are still available. Between that and natural increase, we might see a TTL population of 20,000 to 25,000 by the time of the 1634 siege, which means I need to retcon my prior mention of "thirty thousand strong" but is still substantial and is a sharp divergence from the decline that the Galilee Jews were undergoing at that point IOTL.

After the siege, migration becomes much more episodic. There would be an influx of Polish Jews after the Khmielnitsky pogrom of 1648-49, some substantial pilgrimages such as the one shown in the 1700-01 vignette, and individual families, but probably no more than 5000 to 7000 throughout this period - we're getting to the time when England and the Netherlands were closer and more attractive destinations for Sephardic and eastern European refugees, and many of the Jews sold as slaves by Khmielnitsky's Cossacks would return home or settle in Constantinople or Salonika after being ransomed rather than going to the Galilee. Set against that are the losses from the siege itself and from epidemics - the smallpox of 1700-01 is the worst, but epidemics of one kind or another are a fact of life in any premodern city. So the Jewish population of the Galilee in 1730 ITTL might be little more than it was in 1634 - which is still far more than OTL and would likely make Jews a plurality in the eastern Galilee and 8 to 10 percent of the total population of Ottoman Palestine, but definitely means that Zahir al-Umar is able to vassalize them rather than the other way around.

Anyway, trends are going to change again in the mid-18th century, and the Jewish population is also going to become more diverse, both in ways that I've foreshadowed and at least one that I haven't.

Will a Jewish Fallah class eventually develop? Zahir's suggestion to settle the Poles in Wadi Ara suggests so.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Well, there's Ashkenazis and the existing Sephardis already -- wonder if the new diversity will involve Romaniotes, North Africans or Yemenis, or perhaps even Baghdadi, Indian or Ethiopian Jews...

Nasi's recruitment in the Maghreb focused on Sephardim, but some non-Sephardic Maghrebi Jews will definitely follow (and by this point in the story, have followed). Romaniotes are doing fine in Constantinople and would lose rather than gain by moving to the hinterland. As to the others... you're right about one group and close on one more.

Congrats for your TL. THIS the TL I'd have liked to write if I had the necessary resources & knowledge....

Can't wait for next updates!!

Thanks! Anything in particular that strikes you, or that you'd like to see?

Will a Jewish Fallah class eventually develop? Zahir's suggestion to settle the Poles in Wadi Ara suggests so.

There's already been some movement of Jews onto the land - as mentioned, Nasi encouraged silk and wine culture (the former of which already existed among the Peki'in Jews) and some of the Sephardic immigrants bought olive groves. This will certainly accelerate, and not only with the Polish Jews - Zahir does want Jewish yeomen as part of his military and political base, and the Haskalah will also bring with it some back-to-the-land attitudes. Whether this will lead to something like a fellah class is uncertain, though, given that Jews were largely outside the Muslim class system and had their own class divisions.

 

[Zealot]

Thanks! Anything in particular that strikes you, or that you'd like to see?

I'd like to see an earlier version of Religious Zionism with Re-Hebraization stuff among Polish Jewry. Kinda "Back to the Land" movement with Messianic flavour, to get a class of "Hebraic Boers"!

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I'd like to see an earlier version of Religious Zionism with Re-Hebraization stuff among Polish Jewry. Kinda "Back to the Land" movement with Messianic flavour, to get a class of "Hebraic Boers"!

There's going to be some of that - I've mentioned back-to-the-land, and any Haskalah is going to involve the promotion of Hebrew as a literary and spoken language (although ITTL, possibly accompanied by more Yiddish and Ladino entering the religious sphere). The 18th century is early for modern nationalism, though - the attitude toward the Holy Land is still the "longing for Zion" of medieval times - and the Polish Jews' formative experiences are very different from those of the trekboers. There might actually be more of the messianic flavor among the Sabbateans.

 

[SpaceRome]

Will the Partition of Poland and the institution of the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire cause a wave of economic immigration into the holy land? An economically viable and self-sustaining Jewish community in Palestine would be extremely attractive to Jews in the pale on all fronts: religiously, economically and politically. At the very least, there would be a steady trickle from the poorest Shtetls.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Will the Partition of Poland and the institution of the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire cause a wave of economic immigration into the holy land? An economically viable and self-sustaining Jewish community in Palestine would be extremely attractive to Jews in the pale on all fronts: religiously, economically and politically. At the very least, there would be a steady trickle from the poorest Shtetls.

That could happen, but not immediately. The Pale didn't initially change much about where and how Jews lived in Russian Poland and elsewhere in the Russian Empire (the 1791 law actually increased the territory open to Jews); it was the restrictive laws of the 19th century, the beginning of widespread pogroms, and the extension of cantonist conscription to Jews in the 1820s that made conditions much worse. The community of Polish Jews already in Palestine ITTL will be an additional pull factor and will start the trickle going, but the Pale will mostly be a 19th-century immigrant pool.

Another Thanksgiving Day teaser for 1765:

• A wave of persecution of Jews in Yemen took place in 1761.
• The Baladi rite practiced by Yemeni Jews is distinct from any other (and not only in prayer - among other things, they still used the Seleucid calendar for chronicles and legal documents).
• At this time there were controversies over how much of the Sephardic ritual to incorporate, and Rabbi Yihyah Salah, one of the greatest Yemenite Jewish sages, was attempting to codify the rite.
• The Sanhedrin ITTL, as we have seen, is very concerned with custom, and may become more so now that it has returned to the role of communal administration and law court, and may have its own opinion of the Yemenites' practices.
• One of the traditional occupations of the Yemenite Jews was blacksmithing, including the making of weapons. (This is not a foreshadowing of civil war - but in combination with the previous items, it may influence where Yemenite immigrants are likely to go.)

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

FOUR HOLY CITIES
I: ACRE, SPRING 1765​

In another world, as the Malik sailed into Acre harbor, Anshel the tailor from Chelm might have taken in the sights in front of him: the massive city walls; the hulking Crusader fortress; the menacing cannon atop the new fort of Zahir al-Umar; green-domed mosques and red-steepled churches; the ruined Phoenician tower on the jetty and the ancient, crowded buildings behind. Or he might have thought of Jerusalem, of the Wailing Wall where he hoped soon to pray. But this was the world where a cutpurse in Beirut had relieved Anshel of nearly all his meager wealth, so rather than either of those things, his mind was on how he might survive.

His fellow passengers – Melkite and Maronite, Muslim and Jew – were crowding to the railing as the docks grew closer. They had all come here to work; they were among the thousands who had answered Zahir Bey’s call to build this land. Anshel, it seemed, had been involuntarily added to their number.

And then the ship docked, sailors calling in profane Arabic to the workers on shore as they threw out ropes for mooring, and the passengers swarmed down the gangplank. It seemed to Anshel that they knew where they were going. Maybe they had jobs waiting for them, or family already in Acre who would take them in hand. Anshel wondered where he would find such things. There were Jews here, he remembered – surely they might take him in for a few days, or know where work might be found?

There were many streets and alleys leading from the harbor, all looking much the same; Anshel chose one at random and made his way through the dockside crowds and into the city. He scanned the passers-by for anyone who looked like he would know where a synagogue was, but before he found one, he saw a cookhouse instead. It was third in a row of mortared stone buildings that looked like they’d been laid down when Caesar ruled Rome, with a green-washed door and a signboard bearing a crudely-painted oak tree and the Hebrew words Arba' Aratzot – Four Lands.

Not only Jews, but Polish Jews. And the smell of cooking from inside was irresistible.

Inside was a dimly lit room with mismatched tables and stools, all of which were taken by middle-aged men who were in no hurry to finish their conversations. None of them looked approachable, and Anshel was about to leave when a voice called in Yiddish from the kitchen. “You look lost,” said a man of no more than twenty, thin to the point of gauntness and with red flecks in his beard. “Come in, sit down.”

Anshel did, and the landlord – for that was who had greeted him, uncanny as it might be for the landlord of a cookhouse to be slender – motioned him to a bench across from the hearth. “You look straight from the shtetl,” he said, taking in Anshel’s clothes. “Don’t you know it gets hot here? Do you have a name?”

“Anshel from Chelm.”

“Chelm? There are stories about people from your city.”

“I’d hoped that no one here would know them,” said Anshel, startled into speaking naturally. He remembered again his carelessness in Beirut and wondering what a storyteller might make of it.

But the landlord only laughed. “I won’t tell you any,” he said, and then put his right hand over his chest. “Amnon Yitzhaki. A good Polish name, right? But my grandfather had ideas.”

It seemed to Anshel that Amnon had ideas too, but it didn’t seem like the right time to bring that up. He told Amnon what had happened to him in Beirut, and brought up work instead.

“Work? First things first – if you don’t have a penny, then you need to eat.” Amnon cut a slice of kugel that was made of thin egg noodles and bulgur wheat with black pepper and cinnamon – kugel tzfati, he called it – and laid it on a plate next to a cucumber and pickled turnips. “Work,” he said again as Anshel took the edge off his hunger. “You could enlist in the Polish regiments, and after twelve years they’ll give you some land. But they’re up in the Chouf now, fighting the Joumblatt clan. There are places for road-menders, or you could find work on the docks, but you don’t know much Arabic yet, do you…”

“There’s no work for tailors?”

“You’d have to fight the tailors already here. They’ve got a guild together. It’s a shame we’re not in Tzfat – it’s much more open there – but we’re not.” He stirred the soup-kettle hanging above the fire. “We do need a shammes at the kollel katan. Someone to sweep up, fix things, keep clean. We can’t pay much, but you can work there for a couple weeks and have some money to get you to the next town.”

The kollel katan – the small academy? Either word, by itself, made sense; together, they hinted at the unknown. Anshel didn’t ask; he was sure he’d find out soon enough. He finished his meal.

__​

The kollel katan turned out to be an old Crusader hostelry which had been made into… from what Anshel could tell, several things. What had been the large common room of the inn was a synagogue and library, the old kitchen a meeting-place, smaller rooms had been converted into classrooms or storage, and in the stable where itinerant knights had kept their horses, there were two presses, a binding-frame, and tables full of books. The hour was drawing late, but three workers were still there, putting away type, stacking manuscripts and making ready for the next day.

“You can help them clean,” Amnon said, and at his words, one of the workers pointed Anshel to a pile of loose type and then to the cabinet where it was stored.

The type was in Hebrew, Anshel saw. He remembered hearing about the Hebrew presses in Tzfat and Tiberias, and once he’d even seen an edition of the Shulhan Arukh that had made its way from there. But the books made here, he realized, were a different sort. On one of the tables he passed were fifty copies of a novel titled “The Exiles of Mawza,” and on another, waiting to be bound, a stack of translations of Spinoza’s Ethics.

That, finally, after all that had happened this day, brought Anshel up short.

“Spinoza?” he asked. Hebrew novels were daring enough, but that? “The Sanhedrin – they can’t be happy.”

Anshel had directed his question to no one in particular, but one of the workers answered – a dark, intense man of about thirty wearing a homespun robe and over-tunic and a cloth cap that wasn’t quite a turban. “The Sanhedrin has authority throughout the Land of Israel,” he said, “but we’re not in the Land of Israel, are we?”

Anshel, thinking frantically back to his few years of schooling, seemed to remember that there were two schools of thought on that. But the kollel katan clearly hewed to the opinion that the Land of Israel ended at the walls of Acre rather than within them, and just as clearly, Zahir Bey was doing nothing to stop them.

The worker turned halfway back to what he was doing, but remembered something else. “Suleiman Tasa,” he said.

An Arab name, although he’s obviously a Jew? Anshel was uncomprehending for a moment, but then it clicked; he’d heard of the Yemenite Jews who’d come to the Land after the persecutions four years past, and that they were Arabic in their speech and naming customs. But what was a Yemeni doing in a Polish kollel? And…

“I thought you were in the Galilee, not here.”

“Most of us are, or in the Wadi Ara where Amnon’s grandfather lives. But a few, like me… we’re baladi, rationalist like the Maharitz, but we don’t think philosophy ended with Maimonides. You’ll see, there are all kinds in this place. Yossi here” – he gestured at one of the other workers – “is from a Portuguese family, and there are Italians and Moroccans along with the Ashkenazim – all of us who are more comfortable with the Land when we’re just outside it.”

That wasn’t Anshel’s ambition. This close to the Wall, he could practically feel its presence; he yearned to be in the Land of Israel, not near it. He would not stay here. But in the meantime, he’d been given something to think about.

When he looked up again, his work was done. “It’s an hour until ma’ariv,” said Suleiman. “Let’s find something to eat. And” – he let the silence draw out for a moment, and smiled slyly – “have you heard the story of the schoolteacher of Chelm?”

___
​

People began drifting in half an hour later, men of all descriptions and, to Anshel’s surprise, a few women. “We prayed together under the sky when Judah the Pious led us,” said Amnon, who had returned. “Why should we not pray together here?”

It wasn’t time for prayer yet, and instead, the talk was of philosophy, literature, science. It sounded strangely like prayer, though, and after a moment, Anshel realized why; everyone was speaking Hebrew. He wasn’t used to hearing the loshen kodesh, the holy language, used for such things. But these too are holy things, the others said, all part of Ribono Shel Olam’s creation.

The prayers, when they did come, were in the same language, and were like any other evening service Anshel had attended. That in itself came as a surprise – after so much about this place that was outlandish, a sedate service with all its traditional components was the last thing he’d expected. Even the women sat on one side of the room while the men sat on the other; there was no wall or separate gallery to separate the sexes, but they didn’t mingle.

“Wait for Shabbat,” Amnon said when the prayers were done. He paid Anshel twenty para for the day’s work and pointed him to the wine.

___​

A new day followed and another after that. Anshel swept and washed and fixed, read from the books in the library when he had moments to himself, found the cookhouses and market stalls where he could feed himself for as little as possible of his half-piaster a day, and explored the city. Eventually it was Friday.

It was a fine late spring day smelling of spices and salt, the earth and the sea. At midday the Muslims gathered in the mosques for jumu’ah; an hour later the Jews ceased work to clean their houses and prepare their Sabbath clothes, leaving the streets to the Christians.

People began drifting into the kollel katan hours before sunset. They gathered in the classrooms to learn – Talmud, which Anshel found familiar, and Spinoza and Liebniz and Newton, which were not, and least familiar of all was when they all ran together. He’d never heard so much about the Gemara passages that dealt with mathematics and natural science, and certainly never so much about where and how the rabbanim had gone wrong – but in spite of all that, the lesson ran back to the Talmud in the end, and to an understanding of the divine.

The lesson seemed to flow naturally into prayer, and before Anshel quite realized, everyone was in the sanctuary greeting the Sabbath. The liturgy was a mix of Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Yemeni, as might be expected given the motley congregation, but like the weekday minyans, it was recognizably the service for erev Shabbat. Everyone even sang the Lekha Dodi; it was a mystic hymn, and Anshel had heard that many of the Yemenis rejected it, but they joined in the singing with no apparent complaint. “Wait for Shabbat,” Amnon had said; what was there to wait for?

But it turned out that Anshel needed only to wait a little longer, because after kiddush, after wine, the kollel katan adjourned to the roof.

The men, at one end, threw their arms across each other’s shoulders and danced a wild, athletic dance. The women, at the other end, broke into a dance of their own. They prayed under the stars as Judah the Pious’s followers had done – and as Judah had never done, prayed and sang in an ecstasy of Hebrew and Yiddish and Ladino and Arabic. As they used Hebrew for ordinary things, so did they use their everyday speech for prayer; every language a loshen kodesh, every one a way of speaking to the Master of the starry universe above.

The men’s dance was in a circle now, and at its center, Suleiman danced alone. “The bride, the bride!” he cried – lekha dodi, come, beloved, to greet her. This could not be the lover of Spinoza that Anshel knew from the print shop, but all at once Amnon whispered in his ear: “we see the world with reason, but the Name can be known only with joy.”

“What would the Sanhedrin or Spinoza make of that?” Anshel asked, but so low that no one could hear. He might find out when his piasters multiplied enough to put him on the caravan to Tzfat. It would be a step closer to Jerusalem.

And, thinking of that, he threw his arms in the air and took a step closer to the Name.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Notes to the above scene, which as should be obvious, will be the first of four from 1765:

1. Kugel tzfati is similar to what IOTL is called kugel yerushalmi, and as IOTL, is an adaptation made by 18th-century Ashkenazi immigrants to the Holy Land.

2. According to Gittin 1:2, Acre is outside the Land of Israel, although a disagreement is recorded on the part of Rabbi Meir, who says that it is within Israel for purposes of divorce litigation (and presumably for jurisdiction of the courts that adjudicate matrimonial cases). Zahir al-Umar, for political purposes, has tacitly adopted the majority view and allows the Jews of Acre to have communal institutions separate from the Sanhedrin.

3. The Yemenite Jews who participate in the kollel katan are similar to the Dor Daim movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries IOTL, albeit with more willingness to adapt mysticism in ways that they consider rational (an attitude acquired by exposure to Spinoza and to the kollel’s Polish founders). They've joined the Spinozist-Hasidic consensus.

 

[acgoldis]

Would a modern Sanhedrin have made the law too rigid? As in "that's just this one way and that's it"? As in "you get excommunicated for waiting 3 hours between milk and meat instead of 6"?

Ideally the rule should be "find the original rationale for the law in the Torah given the context of 1st century CE community and encourage all practitioners to find whatever method works best for them that achieves that end?"

 

[jacob ningen]

Would a modern Sanhedrin have made the law too rigid? As in "that's just this one way and that's it"? As in "you get excommunicated for waiting 3 hours between milk and meat instead of 6"?

Ideally the rule should be "find the original rationale for the law in the Torah given the context of 1st century CE community and encourage all practitioners to find whatever method works best for them that achieves that end?"

Johnathan's solution was to basically expand the Tablecloth IIRC.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Would a modern Sanhedrin have made the law too rigid? As in "that's just this one way and that's it"? As in "you get excommunicated for waiting 3 hours between milk and meat instead of 6"?

Ideally the rule should be "find the original rationale for the law in the Torah given the context of 1st century CE community and encourage all practitioners to find whatever method works best for them that achieves that end?"

Johnathan's solution was to basically expand the Tablecloth IIRC.

Jacob is right, but there's a range - extrapolate "two Jews, three opinions" to the number of rabbis in the Sanhedrin, and keep in mind that it's a Fibonacci series rather than a linear one.

The main schools of thought regarding custom - which as Jacob says, has been more closely studied and codified than IOTL - are "follow the custom of your birth," "follow the custom of the place where you live," and "follow the customs that bring you closest to God, and it's OK to mix and match," with side disputes regarding marriage between people who follow different minhags and what to do when an event involves a mixed group. None of these factions are numerous enough to force their view on the Sanhedrin as a whole, especially since the rabbis prefer to govern by (or at least give the appearance of) consensus and only decide issues by majority vote when they can't avoid it.

As we'll see in the next scene, the consensus is about to be put to a serious test with the arrival of the Yemenite Jews, and particularly, their sage Yihya Saleh (the Maharitz). The baladi Yemenis follow a very old ritual - they reject the Shulhan Arukh and much of the Sephardic liturgy and are liberal regarding choice of custom - and the Maharitz is codifying the baladi ritual, but there is also a group of more Sephardic-influenced Yemenis that are opposed to him and that will want the Sanhedrin to take sides.

Also, it's interesting that you mention the rabbinic prohibition against mixing milk and meat, because the next scene will also involve another fence around the Torah that has a similar rationale and relates to a topic that rhymes with bravery.

 

[jacob ningen]

Jacob is right, but there's a range - extrapolate "two Jews, three opinions" to the number of rabbis in the Sanhedrin, and keep in mind that it's a Fibonacci series rather than a linear one.

The main schools of thought regarding custom - which as Jacob says, has been more closely studied and codified than IOTL - are "follow the custom of your birth," "follow the custom of the place where you live," and "follow the customs that bring you closest to God, and it's OK to mix and match," with side disputes regarding marriage between people who follow different minhags and what to do when an event involves a mixed group. None of these factions are numerous enough to force their view on the Sanhedrin as a whole, especially since the rabbis prefer to govern by (or at least give the appearance of) consensus and only decide issues by majority vote when they can't avoid it.

As we'll see in the next scene, the consensus is about to be put to a serious test with the arrival of the Yemenite Jews, and particularly, their sage Yihya Saleh (the Maharitz). The baladi Yemenis follow a very old ritual - they reject the Shulhan Arukh and much of the Sephardic liturgy and are liberal regarding choice of custom - and the Maharitz is codifying the baladi ritual, but there is also a group of more Sephardic-influenced Yemenis that are opposed to him and that will want the Sanhedrin to take sides.

Also, it's interesting that you mention the rabbinic prohibition against mixing milk and meat, because the next scene will also involve another fence around the Torah that has a similar rationale and relates to a topic that rhymes with bravery.

Jacob is right, but there's a range - extrapolate "two Jews, three opinions" to the number of rabbis in the Sanhedrin, and keep in mind that it's a Fibonacci series rather than a linear one.

The main schools of thought regarding custom - which as Jacob says, has been more closely studied and codified than IOTL - are "follow the custom of your birth," "follow the custom of the place where you live," and "follow the customs that bring you closest to God, and it's OK to mix and match," with side disputes regarding marriage between people who follow different minhags and what to do when an event involves a mixed group. None of these factions are numerous enough to force their view on the Sanhedrin as a whole, especially since the rabbis prefer to govern by (or at least give the appearance of) consensus and only decide issues by majority vote when they can't avoid it.

As we'll see in the next scene, the consensus is about to be put to a serious test with the arrival of the Yemenite Jews, and particularly, their sage Yihya Saleh (the Maharitz). The baladi Yemenis follow a very old ritual - they reject the Shulhan Arukh and much of the Sephardic liturgy and are liberal regarding choice of custom - and the Maharitz is codifying the baladi ritual, but there is also a group of more Sephardic-influenced Yemenis that are opposed to him and that will want the Sanhedrin to take sides.

Also, it's interesting that you mention the rabbinic prohibition against mixing milk and meat, because the next scene will also involve another fence around the Torah that has a similar rationale and relates to a topic that rhymes with bravery.

On a related note how has Nabulsi industry fared under Zahir's rule?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

On a related note how has Nabulsi industry fared under Zahir's rule?

You'll see that firsthand a couple of scenes from now, along with which side of that border Nablus is on in the first place.

BTW, there was a synagogue in Nablus at this time - but not a Jewish one.

 

[jacob ningen]

You'll see that firsthand a couple of scenes from now, along with which side of that border Nablus is on in the first place.

BTW, there was a synagogue in Nablus at this time - but not a Jewish one.

Samaritan?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Samaritan?

Yes. The Jews will have to figure out their relationship with the Samaritans a lot earlier than OTL, not to mention the Karaites in Jerusalem.

 

[Michael B]

Will the Partition of Poland and the institution of the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire cause a wave of economic immigration into the holy land? An economically viable and self-sustaining Jewish community in Palestine would be extremely attractive to Jews in the pale on all fronts: religiously, economically and politically. At the very least, there would be a steady trickle from the poorest Shtetls.

If you already have a flow of Jews to the Holy Land there is less leverage for ther Zionists to demand a homeland. In addition, a large Jewish community under the auspices of the Ottomam Empire could be seen by the WW1 British as pro Central Powers. Thus the the Balfour Declaration is not declared.

 

[jacob ningen]

If you already have a flow of Jews to the Holy Land there is less leverage for ther Zionists to demand a homeland. In addition, a large Jewish community under the auspices of the Ottomam Empire could be seen by the WW1 British as pro Central Powers. Thus the the Balfour Declaration is not declared.

OTOH with such a vibrant Old Yishuv do you even need Balfour. I mean it definitely will kill Hessian Herzlian and especially Jabotinskyan Zionism but it simultaneously strenghtens and weakens Haamian Pinskerian strands. Strengthens by showing feasibility but weakens by showing the Haamian Hessian and Pinskerian theories of Antisemitism to be wrong. The Galilean Renaissance since 1538 shows how it isnt a lack of a national ouvre or political autonomy that drives European bigotry. Furthermore unless something big happens in the mid 19th century, the Ottomans really only have nominal control of Palestine ITTL