One theme that runs through press coverage about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict is that the tensions in the region date back centuries. This implies that both sides are sworn enemies through history.
How would the rhetoric and tactics change on all sides if everyone involved questioned and challenged the notion that Jews and Arabs are destined to hate each other?
What if I told you that there were times in Jewish history when Jews allied with Muslims? Would that change how you view this present conflict?
This diary does not take sides. It merely cracks open a couple of dusty pages in history simply to remind everyone that history is not so cut and dried.
Our story takes us to the Iberian Penninsula, where Sephardic Jews had lived since the 8th century BCE (before common era) more or less.
The Visagoths had taken over the penninsula and a series of kings, aided and abetted by Catholic popes, instituted a number of very oppressive and restrictive laws and from time to time, attempted to <head>drive the Jews out.</head>
This lasted until 700, when the Moors, led by Tariq ibn Ziyad, defeated the controlling Visagoth kings. They were likely aided by the Sephardic Jews.
The next two centuries that followed were known as the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry.
I was made aware of this when I visited Toledo, Spain, back in the 80's. I couldn't figure out why one of the oldest churches had a Christian name, (Santa Maria la Blanca) was called a synagogue, but looked like a mosque.
<head>The Sinagoga de Santa Maria la Blanca</head> turns out to be an excellent and enduring example of Mudejar, a Moorish style of architecture that was popular in Spain at the time. Why would the Jews adopt the architecture of a hated enemy?
As we all know, this Golden Age was ended abruptly when the Christian royal families joined forces to overthrow the Moors in the late 1400's. Many of the Sephardic Jews fled to the Balkans--namely Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time. It was not always a happy life. Jews were subject to <head>and limitations and persecution</head>as were all non-muslims at the time.
This all ended during WWII. You tell me, if left undisturbed, could these parties find peace once again?