Part IV

This economic prosperity the Jews enjoyed in Safed in the mid-16th century did not last long, notes historian Aryeh Morgenstern. Toward the end of the 16th century, a serious financial crisis that battered the country hurt Safed’s wool industry. Government leaders, who had become increasingly antagonistic to the Jews, tried to banish 1,000 families to Cyprus. As a pretext for persecuting the Jews in Safed, the authorities claimed that they had not obtained government consent to build their synagogues in the city. This crisis, which ended the life of the Jewish community in Safed, and which was felt throughout Palestine, did not stop Jews from returning a number of decades later.

A new movement of immigration that included major rabbinic figures and their families arrived in Palestine prior to 1648, the year the redemption was to begin with the resurrection of the dead, according to a passage in the Zohar. The majority of the rabbis were kabbalists, including Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz, author of “Shnei Luhot Habrit,” and known as the “Shelah,” because of the acronym of his famous work.

Failure to Fulfill the Mission

Settling the land was essential to bring the redemption, the Shelah claimed adamantly, and was profoundly disturbed that Jews did not fulfill this mission. “For my heart burned continually when I saw the children of Israel building houses like princely fortresses, making permanent homes in the world in an impure land … which seems, heaven forbid, as if they were turning their minds away from the redemption.”

Arriving in 1622, Rabbi Horowitz remained in Safed for a short time before moving to Jerusalem, where he believed the redemption would come.

Between 1625 and 1627, the Ibn Farukh family ruled Jerusalem after buying control of it from the Ottoman government. The poor in Jerusalem were forced to pay high taxes, and those not able to do so were penalized, Morgenstern points out. The Jews were singled out because they had no political power, and aid sent from the Diaspora for their support was easily confiscated. As part of their persecution, religious objects were destroyed, Torah scrolls were used for clothes and bags, liens were placed on synagogues and religious courts and schools were shut down. Those who could flee sought refuge outside the reach of the governor. In 1624, there were 2,500 to 3,000 Jews living in Jerusalem, and by 1627 only a few hundred remained.

Messianic Fervor Did Not Wane

The messianic fervor that preceded Ibn Farukh did not wane after the end of his reign, Morgenstern said. Eugene Roger, a Christian traveler who visited the region between 1629 and 1634, saw several attempts by Jews to welcome the Messiah. He described two such occasions where he saw more than 2,000 Jews on Shavuot in 1630, and again in 1633.

The attempt by Shabtai Tzvi to bring large numbers of Jews to Palestine failed in 1666, after this false messiah converted to Islam. However, a new movement began in 1700 under Rabbi Judah Hasid. The expectation that in the year 1740 the Messiah would come precipitated another messianic movement. Within a decade, several thousand Jews, mostly from the Ottoman Empire and Italy, settled in Jerusalem and Tiberias. In 1740, the Ottoman authorities asked Rabbi Haim Abulafia, the rabbi of Izmir, to rebuild Tiberias. He used the opportunity to encourage Jews to believe the Messiah would arrive soon.

Muslims Began to Complain

During this period, Morgenstern said, Jews began arriving in such great numbers that the Muslims began to complain, “Behold the people of the children of Israel are too numerous to count, and there are ten thousand Jewish men.” Their arrival forced the price of food and housing to increase radically. This influx precipitated the need to establish eight new yeshivot, build new synagogues and repair the old ones. Among the leading rabbinic leaders who came were Rabbi Moses Haim Luzzatto, author of “Mesilat Yesharim” (Path of the Just: Self Perfection and Cleaving to the Divine); the kabbalist Rabbi Haim ben Atar, author of “Or Hahaim,” one of the fundamental mystical texts; Elazar Rokeah, chief rabbi of Brody and Amsterdam; Rabbi Gershon of Kutow; Rabbi Gedaliah Hayun and R. Shalom Sharabi (known as Rashash), who were the heads of the Beth-El yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, attempted to move to the Holy Land to work together with Rabbi Haim ben Atar, in the hope that they might bring about the redemption through mystical powers. From 1740-1781, many of the Baal Shem Tov’s closest friends and followers made aliyah. Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk (a disciple of Rabbi Dov Ber, the “Maggid of Mezritch”), led the largest group of about 300, arriving in 1777.

The Vilna Gaon

Significantly, Elijah of Vilna, the “Vilna Gaon,” the leading rabbinic leader of Lithuanian Jewry in the 18th century who was known for his mastery of the Talmud and Kabbalah and as an opponent of Hasidism, also attempted to immigrate to Palestine. After reaching the Netherlands, he was forced to turn back home. Had he succeeded in reaching his destination, he had planned to write a “new Shulchan Aruch.”

Decline in Messianic Aliyah

Toward the end of the 18th century, there was a decline in messianic aliyah and a deterioration of Jewish life in Palestine. The Ottoman authorities and the local Muslims instituted economic restrictions, the Jews suffered violent attacks at the hands of the local Arabs, and there were internecine clashes within the Jewish leadership. A significant number of Jews decided to emigrate rather than tolerate such abuse. The approximately 3,000 Jews remaining in Jerusalem studied the Torah, while the rabbis wrote halachic responsa, commentaries, homiletics and Kabbalah that were published by Western European and Ottoman Empire publishers.

The Jewish community in Palestine remained in contact with the Diaspora, which provided financial and diplomatic support enabling the Yishuv (Jewish settlement in Palestine) to endure and grow. Awareness of the Yishuv throughout the world during the first half of the 19th century made Diaspora Jews view the land of Israel as a place of future relocations. Jewish life in Palestine, which was considerably influenced by a messianic fidelity to the land of Israel, had laid the foundation for the influx of Jews who would soon be arriving.

To be sure, there were significant and substantive distinctions between the messianic aliyot and the new form of Zionism that followed, Morgenstern stressed. Yet the profound yearning for Zion—the fervent belief in the possibility of physical and spiritual redemption of the land— which finally compelled the waves of Jewish immigrants to immigrate to Palestine, was at the core for this return to their ancestral home. Thus, one can regard the messianic migration and secular Zionism “as milestones on the same historical path, different chapters in an ongoing national story.”

Dr. Alex Grobman, a Hebrew University-trained historian, is senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society and a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.