THE REMNANT

Mada on deed sea the last Bastion of the Jewish nation which fell to the Romans in the Year for [Music] 2000 the Eternal Light presents the remnant the story of the renewal of European jewelry part one before the destruction of the temple in the year 70 of the Common Era a sizable Jewish Community was established in Rome the first European power with which the Jews came in contact Rabbi Ariel TOA of Rome comments we know that about two centuries before the Common Era Judah makabi met the leaders of the Jewish community in Rome so we think that the Jewish community of Rome is the oldest of all the Jewish communities of the diaspora under the Roman Republic the Jews flourished their Kingdom Judea became a Roman province [Music] Jews enjoyed positions of great prominence under the Republic which imposed no restraints on religious or national differences many Jews were Roman citizens yet they preserved their own [Music] [Music] traditions in AA the port of Rome the ruins of an ancient synagogue attest to the affluence of the Jews who built it and to their freedom to worship as they pleased the synagogue the oldest Jewish archaeological remain in Europe was large enough to hold a Congregation of 500 worshippers still recognizable is the oven for baking [Music] matah and the sanctuary facing Jerusalem with the symbols of the manora lulab etrog and [Music] chofar the Jews supported Julius Caesar in his struggle for power against pompy and received his favor as their reward but with his death their fate passed into other hands Rome became an Empire the Arch of Titus in Rome commemorates his victory over the Jewish nation which rebelled against Imperial tyranny in the year 68 of the Common Era within 2 years the temple was destroyed and the dispersion began by the 3D Century Jews had settled throughout the most distant provinces of the Roman Empire by the time the Empire collapsed they were identified with European civilization which For Better or Worse was to mold their Destiny and the destiny of the world [Music] as the Jews spread through Europe they settled on the Left Bank of the vlatava river at Prague one of the major Market towns along the great trade Highway that led from the Middle East to the Rin [Music] land pavl colan president of prague's Jewish Community recalls the origins of his people in the Czech land the existence of Jews in this city was first recorded more than thousand years ago in the year 965 the record was made by a Jewish Arab Diplomat Abraham I yov who came to this city as a Envoy of the Calif of Cordova this synagogue was built built 700 years ago in the last 60s of the 13th century in Gothic style it is one of the last real Gothic synagogues which exists and it is the most venerable place of Jewish worship as throughout these seven centuries never Services SE East to take place in this synagogue prague's greatest Rabbi was Judah Loy whose chair is preserved in the aloi synagogue he was the spiritual leader of the ghetto at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries the outstanding Jewish scholar of his time Loy was respected by Christians and revered by the Jewish es yearning for Redemption they ascribed to him the creation of the legendary Golem a clay robot believed hidden in the synagogue's Attic who had one day reckon to protect the threatened [Music] Community the pro ghetto became virtually an autonomous town with its own flag awarded to the the Jews for their part in the Czechs war against the swedes its own judges police and fire department its town hall is still used by the Jewish Community today [Music] [Applause] in the old Jewish cemetery of Prague Jewish dead were buried in tombs piled on top of each other crowded together in the graveyard as they had been forced to live in the [Music] ghetto Rabbi Loy lies in his sarcophagus surrounded by 35 of his disciples [Music] prague's miselle synagogue testifies to the rich spiritual and cultural life of the Jews in Bohemia and Moravia in one of the world's greatest collections of ritual objects it displays the silver Treasures of these old Jewish [Music] [Applause] [Music] communities throughout Europe a pattern emerged the establishment of a tenuous Jewish Community the initial support of the local ruler then inevitably persecution Annihilation or flight dubnik Yugoslavia a Haven for Spanish Jews who almost two centuries before the formal expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula foresaw the persecutions to [Music] come a descendant of this unbroken line is Emilio Tolentino the president and deao Rabbi of the Jewish Community the synagogue is the first synagogue Yugoslavian on the all in the Balkan on the thir in Europe when beginning in year 1,352 150 year for Spanish Inquisition the first coming here in Du in 1,36 from Spain me first family when come here in is family from too is my name for my family Tolentino Toano the deik synagogue with its Baroque Arc and Toro Scrolls which date from the 13th century was enriched by the migration of Jews from Spain where Jewish poets philosophers scientists Scholars doctors Statesmen and financiers flourished under seven centuries of Muslim rule as Catholic monarchs took over Spain many Jews were forcibly converted to Christianity but continued to practice Judaism [Music] secretly in 1478 the Inquisition set out to destroy these moros or secret Jews nearly 30,000 were tortured to death or burned alive at the stake in 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella expelled all the Jews from Spain 150,000 refugees The Heirs of a culture that had produced The Poet Judah Hali and Scholars Solomon I gabirol and myones were robbed of almost all their possessions and given 4 months to leave the country it was the most most traumatic event in the history of the diaspora until the 20th [Music] [Music] century the Jewish community in France which dates back to Roman times reached its peak in the 11th and 12th centuries When It produced such great Scholars as gam called the light of the Exile and Rashi whose commentary made him world famous rabinal schools in provance rivaled those of Spain in prominence but by the time of the expulsion from Spain the Catholic kings of France had turned against the Jews some of the Spanish refugees found a Haven however at aino where under the personal protection of the popes they were able to form one of four holy communities part of the pontifical states [Music] while Europe was being transformed by the Renaissance the Jews prayed for Redemption [Music] the symbol of their hope in the synagogue at cabayo in southern France is the chair of Elijah reserved for the prophet who will Herald the coming of the Messiah the deterioration of Jewish life under the popes is recalled by Rabbi toaf you may know that in 1555 Pope Paul IV decided to build in Rome a ghetto so the Jewish uh people of our community were clothed in a small uh place here near the synagogue and they live there for many centuries and uh that position of the Jewish people uh was very difficult because in every place of Italy there was a Renaissance but in Rome for the Jewish was a middle age a Dark Age each year leaders of the Rome ghetto paid homage to the pope by presenting him with a Torah which he would return with a contemptuous remark Jews lived confined behind the Ghetto Walls the gates were locked at night heavy penalties were assessed against those who left the ghetto without wearing a distinctive yellow or red hat money was extorted from the Jews for the upkeep of a house of converts where kidnapped Jewish children were baptized the indignities were endless yet the Jews [Music] endured mikelangelo sought inspiration from Jewish faces for his portrayal of biblical figures vasari in his lives of the artists wrote how the Jews of Rome streamed out of the ghetto on Saturday afternoons to watch Michelangelo work on his [Music] Moses the Jew transfigured by his encounter with God a god whom the Christians worshiped while reviling the people through whom he was revealed it is the Paradox of the heart of Western Civilization which has never been [Music] resolved Venice in the Renaissance was an oligarchical city state which had dominated Mediterranean Commerce since the 10th Century Jews participated early in the city's Banking and Maritime trade Jewish Merchants were taxed exorbitantly by the city government and Jews were forced to live separate from the Christian Community but because the policy of the city's rulers was relatively lenient the Jewish community of Venice was enlarged by successive waves of refugees from other lands the spiritual leader of modern venice's small Jewish Community is 34-year-old Rabbi Abraham patelli a descendant of the anavim one of the distinguished Jewish Ames Titus is said to have brought to Rome after the destruction of the temple he is Rabbi of the Spanish synagogue built in 1550 late in the history of Venetian [Music] jewry today it is 1,000 years that Jew live in Venice after they lived in Venice for more than 500 years the Jews were enclosed in the area around the synagogues that you see today the place was named GTO and the GTO the word GTO is Venetian one because in this area was a foundary for the canons and and get in Italian language means to throw this jetto to throw the iron the material to make canons and the Gate of Venice is the first gate in the world it was founded on the in the 1516 the ghetto began when large numbers of German Jewish refugees poured into the city they were segregated into the area of around the new Foundry the ghetto Novo later in 1541 Jewish Traders from the Middle East were settled near the adjacent old foundry the ghetto Veo where they were joined by moros who were permitted to live in Venice after [Music] 1589 to the ordinary Jew in the ghetto Venice was the city of books here the Bible was printed in Hebrew and for the first time the complete talmud enabling the masses of European jurry to own and study their own copies of the Sacred texts despite restrictions imposed on them Venetian Jews also developed their own Banks which had originated in pawn shops to lend money at no interest to the poor the banks prospered Jewish financiers with their International connections contributed greatly to the city's wealth Jews participated actively in the Renaissance of Italian culture surrounding them [Music] Jewish merchants and Artisans migrated to Great Britain in the wake of the Norman Conquest in 1066 William the Conqueror and his immediate heirs protected the Jews later however Jews were robbed pillaged massacred and finally expelled in 1290 by Edward first there were said to be 16,000 Jews in England at the time the coronation throne in Westminster Abbey on which every British monarch since the 14th century has been [Music] crowned beneath it the stone of scone reputedly Jacob's pillow at bethl like the church the state claimed legitimacy from an association with the people in had [Music] rejected Vias marks site of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in London this synagogue was the first to be built in England after the readmission of the Jews by Oliver Cromwell in 1656 cromwell's decision was influenced by the writings and personal appeals of manasa Ben Israel the chief Rabbi of Amsterdam the philosemitism of the Puritans absorbed with the Bible and the people of the book and the appreciation of what Jewish Merchants could do for British trade made England a Haven for persecuted Jews in the centuries to follow [Music] beginning in 1880 a great new wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe reached England their descendants in petticot Lane in the East End of London [Applause] [Music] [Music] a half a [Music] doz another one of another one of those I'll tell what I'm going to you can [Music] [Applause] for 125 years the history of the Jewish community in England has been recorded by the influential weekly newspaper the Jewish Chronicle its editor William Frankle talks about Great Britain's contemporary Jewish Community today there are about 400,000 to a half a million Jews in this community there's no accurate figure but we can say that most of of them have been born in England and it's a very well integrated Community for example in the House of Commons where there are some 600 members over 40 of them are Jews which is about six times the national average and in all aspects of National Life the Jews in this country take a very prominent and active part and yet fully integrated though we are the community preserved a strong Jewish identity one year after after their return to England in 1657 Jews were admitted to Denmark the first Jewish settlement in Scandinavia the Danes granted the Jews full religious freedom in 1814 and complete civil and political equality in 1849 [Music] the great synagogue of Copenhagen built in 1833 Rabbi bent melor son of the chief Rabbi of Denmark the Jewish community in Denmark now more than 350 years old has changed in its General Outlook and changed in its frame those Jews who wished the Jewish of their families to continue moved little by little towards Copenhagen and we have in Copenhagen the Central Community today of all Denmark and only very very few Jews living in the Danish provinces we are today made up I would say of two major parts and namely the part that is today the greater part uh descendants of those Jews who came to Denmark in the beginning of this century and those Jews who are descendants of so-called old Danish Jews or as they also are named The Viking Jews to some extent I belong to them myself seven and eight and nine Generations back uh in my family there were rabbis of this community in Paris Baron Edmund of Rothchild recalls his grandfather's reaction to the emergence of modern anti-Semitism in zaris Russia an anti-Semitism officially promulgated as a policy of the state my Recollections are very small because my grandfather died when I was was only uh 8 years old he was himself very old he was 91 in 1934 but I still do remember how the whole story came up my family had interest in Baku and the pet in the petrols of Baku and my grandfather went in 1884 to Russia he then saw and heard of but not visualized uh the pogroms the attitude of the darar towards the Jews and the attitude of general population to towards the Jews he also saw the enormous desire of wanting to go back to Palestine the famous story that every one of us knows each year next year in Jerusalem was really a living desire in Russia he then decided two things he convinced his cousins and nephews to sell the interest we had in Russia at the time in order not to have anything to do with these people anymore and to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire the buying of land in Palestine to establish the Jewish people the Jews decided to redeem themselves the yearning of the masses to return to the land of their fathers found politically expression in the writings of a vienes journalist Theodore Herzel who founded the Zionist [Music] movement according to the Bal for Declaration of 1917 Great Britain promised to view with favor The Establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish [Music] people April 1st 1933 Joseph Gerber propaganda minister of the third right announces the anti-jewish [Applause] laws Jewish businesses closed Jews stripped of their civil rights their German citizenship the first steps toward the premeditated mass murder of the Jewish people who had survived among the alien nations of Europe for so long on May 10th 1933 Geral calls for the burning of all books considered subversive an ominous portent of things to come the fires of the Holocaust were lit [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w for