Seafaring and the Jews

The one from a tomb in Hebron, he believes, meant the deceased had something to do with the sea. The researcher finds this symptomatic of the Jewish ambivalence to the sea. Kashtan mentioned other contradictions. The Book of Prophets illustrates the power of the coastal port city of Tyre, whereas in the Roman period Josephus cites the establishment of the inland Negev city of Arad as demonstrating the anti-sea attitude of the Jews. Pictures of ships on tombs in Beit Shean and even Jerusalem and on carvings on Masada, Kashtan continued, could be merely symbolic: This holds, too, for a geniza text relating the vision of a storm-tossed ship.

It may just be an allegory of the twelve tribes pulling together or sinking, the researcher suggested. Nonetheless, he concluded, the Israelites of the Hellenistic Roman period did have a familiarity with the sea if one judges by the terminology found in various manuscripts from that era.

As if to bolster this point, a member of the audience stated that the Book of Maccabees mentions a contract between Jews and Romans that calls for ships of the former to come to aid of the latter if needed. Daniel Sperber of Bar-Ilan University believes another search is necessary. For his lexicographic study, Nautica Talmudica, published over a decade ago, he had found very little about sea and shipping in examining years of halachic, midrashic, and rabbinic literature.

The Talmud contains only words or terms relating to the world of shipping, he said, compared to hundreds dealing with law and administration. Strangely, he did come across a word in the rabbinic literature that is not found in either Greek or Latin. Referring to the tie of a cross-beam to the mast, it was obviously a word used by sailors. Then, too, there was a story from CE, told by a Christian, about a ship setting sail from Alexandria whose captain was a religious Jew and half of whose passengers were Jewish.

The phenomenon of Jewish shipowning in talmudic times crops up in other countries, not just Egypt, he added. The cadets of this school lived aboard their training-vessel anchored close to shore. I had spent a full day at the establishment and had told the superintendent in detail of our plans to open, at Haifa, a Nautical School for the training of Jewish cadets. I asked his advice and help in selecting a British marine officer to train our boys. To my great amazement the super- intendent said to me, "Select any member of my staff.

I shall see to it that he comes to help you in your work'' I was taken aback at so very generous an offer, and asked him why he did this. His answer was, "Didn't your Jewish forefathers teach us European Christians the art and science of navigation? I am glad we can now repay the debt.

This was the first nautical academy in Christen- dom, and played a very important role in laying the foun- dations of the new science of navigation. Was he an individual Jew who happened to be a great master and scientist in nautical matters? He belonged to a family which, for many generations, had been engaged in the making of maps and the production of nautical instruments.

He and his family lived on the Island of Majorca, which lies in the Mediterranean between France and Spain. His father, Abraham Crescas, was very famous as a map-maker, and, in , he was given the title of Master-of-Maps and Compasses, by the King of Aragon. Father and son pro- duced the first mapamundi, or map of the world, which has come down to us as the Catalan Atlas, and is housed among the treasures in the National Library at Paris.

This important map served Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama and others on their voyages. Nor was the Crescas family the only Jewish family on that Island of Majorca to engage in the occupations of the sea. Of Majorca's relatively large Jewish population, many were skilled navigators and makers of nautical in- struments and of maps. Being in possession of the full body of geographical knowledge of those days, the Jews of Majorca became the cartographers of Christendom. Then came the Inquisition in , with its enforced baptisms, and the ultimate expulsion of the Jews of Majorca from their island home.

Shortly after this their scientific nautical endeavors came to an end. Yet even Majorca and the Crescas family were not isolated facts. Far, far back reaches the trail of Jewish maritime activity and Jewish interest in navigation. Though our information is still fragmentary, the studies of Jacobs, Roth and others oEer us sufficient proof that the Jews made great contributions toward modern scientific navi- gation, astronomy and the production of nautical instru- ments, and had a large share in making possible the great discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries.

They feared to venture out to sea, lest they lose their way on the return trip. Consider then, in this light, some of the important works of Jews. Roger Bacon, the English friar, as early as the 13th century, offered the Hebrew writers as evidence that one could get to Asia by sailing westward from Europe. He referred to the Talmud Jeiushalmi and to the Zohai.

In this latter the concept of the earth as a globe, rotating about its axis, is advanced. Throughout the Middle Ages, Jewish scholars were improving upon the astrolabe. The astrolabe is an instru- ment that measures the altitude, or distance up, of the sun, stars and planets. The instrument was made known to the Moslem world through a translation made from 12 the Greek by the well-known Jewish scholar, Mashaala, in the 8th century. That astrolabe was used for several centuries, and when, finally, it was supplanted, it was by an astrolabe improved upon by other Jewish scientists.

Another instrument of great importance was the quad- rant. This is a nautical instrument used to take bearings at sea, by determining the altitude of the sun. Today a sextant is used in place of the quadrant. But in those times of which we are speaking, Rabbi Jacob ben Makhir, in the 13th century, so improved upon the quadrant that his new instrument became known as Quadrans Judaicus. Incidentally, Rabbi Makhir compiled the calendar used by Dante.

In this work he devoted 1 36 chapters to astronomy. Pope Clement VI had those chapters translated into Latin. In his book ben Gershom presented an improved quadrant which he had invented. When this was later constructed according to his specifications, it became known as Jacob's Staff. This instrument was an almost indispensable item in the equipment of all the great explorers.

It continued to be used by the British admiralty up to about In the 15th century two great Jewish scholars, both physicians to the Court of Portugal, Master Rodrigo and Master Vecinho, improved upon the old instrument and produced a new astrolabe. They also worked out and com- piled the tables, of the solar declination. Cecil Roth claims that "all the more important astronomical tables of the Middle Ages, without excep- tion, were at least translated or compiled with the help of Jews; in the most important cases they were entirely of Jewish authorship.

The height of Jewish scientific activity was reached in the 15th century with the work of Abraham Zacuto, the most eminent astronomer of that period. Zacuto was Pro- fessor of Astronomy at the University of Salamanca. There he was consulted by Christopher Columbus before the latter set out on his great voyage of discovery.

In , with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Zacuto pro- ceeded to Portugal where he was appointed Astronomer Royal. When finally, again as a Jew, he was exiled from 14 Portugal, he went on to North Africa where he wrote his well-known chronicle Sepher Yuchasin.

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At Salamanca he produced his Astronomical Tables which were used by all the great discoverers. In Portugal he devised a new astro- labe made of metal instead of the clumsy wooden instru- ments formerly in use. Vasco da Gama, before setting out on his voyage to find the sea-route to India, consulted Zacuto. There is mounting evidence, which is held, by a group of scholars, to indicate that Columbus was of Jewish origin.

His own son stated that Columbus' forebears were of the "royal blood of Jerusalem. Columbus seems to have obtained both theoretical and practical knowledge of navigation from the Jews of the Island of Majorca where he had spent his apprenticeship years. The financial backing, which made possible his discovery of America, was advanced by a group of Mar- ranos and Jews among them Luis de Santangel and Don Isaac Abravanel.

The legend that Queen Isabella pawned her jewels for this purpose has been definitely disproved. Moreover, Columbus' crew included several Jews. One of these, Luis de Torres, was the first European to set foot on the soil of America. Had one visited the Admiral's cabin, in the Santa Maria or the cabin of Vasco da Gama he might have been interested to find there Crescas' Maps, Vecinho's Tables, Rabbi Levi ben Gershom's Quadrant, and Abraham Zacuto's improved Astrolabe and Astronomical Tables, — almost all those instruments and tables which made it possible to sail out to sea away from the protecting shore.

The Tables of Zacuto, incidentally, are reputed to have saved the lives of Columbus and his men! After leaving Veragua, a hurricane affected two of Columbus' three ves- sels. The natives were threatening his 15 life. Columbus found, with the help of Zacuto's Tables, that there was to be an eclipse of the moon on February 29, 1 He called together the unfriendly chiefs and told them that the God of the Spaniards was very angry with them because they did not give Columbus and his men sufficient supplies. The Spanish God was going to deprive the natives of the light of the moon as a punishment.

When night arrived and the moon was hidden, the terrified chiefs wailed and promised to be more generous in their rationing henceforth. One of the most picturesque Jewish mariners of that period was the tall, white-bearded figure of Gaspard, who achieved the rank of Admiral to the Viceroy of Goa in India. When Vasco da Gama arrived at Goa on his return voyage in , he was greeted by Gaspard who had made his way there by some obscure route from Europe. Vasco da Gama seized him, tortured him, and forcibly baptized him under the name of Gaspard da Gama and brought him back to Portugal.

Gaspard was a mariner of experi- ence and is often referred to as Gaspard de las Indias. Vespucci conferred with Gaspard da Gama at great length and in his writings he refers to Gaspard with great respect and admiration. He wrote of him that he was "a trustworthy man who speaks many languages and knows the names of many cities and provinces, who made two voyages from Portugal to the Indian Ocean and journeyed from Cairo to Malacca. He also visited the Island of Sumatra. All the great maritime activities of the Jews came tempo- rarilv to a halt with the persecutions of the Inquisition, as we have seen in the case of Zacuto and Crescas.

Re- 17 verberations of the break-up were felt in both the old and the new worlds. Others went to the West Indies,, particularly to the Island of Jamaica, and thence to the mainland of America. The maritime activities of the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, could probably be traced back to that period. There are documents in the Library of Congress, and in the City of Philadelphia as well as in the South, dated as late as the 17th and 18th centuries, recording Bills of Sale where Jewish skippers transferred their vessels to American seafaring men.

One of the strongholds of that period is fast disinte- grating before our eyes today. We refer to the case of the Jews of Salonika in Greece. They are being extermi- nated by modern Nazi methods of persecutions which ex- ceed in cruelty those of the Spanish Inquisition. Prior to the first World War ships entering the Port of Salonika on a Shabbath had great difficulties in loading and un- loading their goods.

For that harbor was almost entirely manned by Jewish stevedores and longshoremen! It was from Salonika that, in , Palestine obtained the skilled Jewish personnel to train its youths as stevedores, pilots and in general port activities.

Seafaring and the Jews

In this connection, we men- tion the findings of Prof. Slouschtz, who is making an intensive study of Jews in maritime activities throughout the ages. He submits that the Jews were formerly engaged in all maritime trades at Salonika, but were gradually ousted, by prohibitive laws and Christian competitors, until of recent years Jews are to be found there only in the lower branches of port work.

Slouschtz has reported on a number of important documents which he discovered in various European libraries. At the library of the Vatican, he came across a number of communications, dated the 12th century, in 18 which Popes, addressing the Christian Princes, complained bitterly, that they were forced to travel on the ships of infidel Jews. Slouschtz contends that, despite brief interruptions, the Jews were always occupied with the sea.

He maintains that their close relationship with the sea was furthered by the fact of the disintegration of the Phoenician Empire, involving, as it did, the loss of its navy, political might and independence. The result of the collapse of the Phoenician Empire was that this people merged with the neighboring Hebrews through intermar- riage, adoption of both the Hebrew religion and the He- brew language and alphabet. Although the Phoenicians, as a separate naval power, had disappeared,, their Mercan- tile Marine and commercial trade connections were carried on by them and the Hebrews.

In the immediate centuries to come and throughout the Dark Ages they remained the merchants of the world, though dispersed and exiled far from their old centers. Raphael Patai, of the Hebrew University at Jeru- salem, in his recent work Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times, offers illuminating proof of the intensive maritime activities of the Jews during the Talmudic period. He found, in ancient Hebrew and Jewish-Aramaic literature, more than two hundred technical terms, "concerning sea- faring, designating different types of vessels, various parts of the ship, the crew, the port.

The Jewish fishermen of Galilee are well known through references to them in the New Testament. We may, perhaps, be allowed to say that Jewish mari- time activities began as early as the times of King Solomon, when he made his famous treaty with Hiram, King of Tyre. And throughout the long history of the Jews, both in their Homeland and during their exile, these activities have scarcely ceased for any considerable length of time.

The sea provided a necessary connecting link between the scattered Jewish communities, spread as they were through- out countries bordering on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The very existence of Jewish settlements in many parts of the world enabled the Jews to handle trade on an international scale. Whenever conditions were favorable, we witness a great upsurge of maritime interests as exempli- fied by the cases of Jews of Majorca, Spain and Portugal and the Radanite Jews. But these were temporarily oblit- erated by waves of persecution and prohibitive anti-Jewish laws which forcibly prevented the Jews from continuing in the occupations of the sea.

Then, as the Jews drifted inland and dwelled in Euro- pean countries far from the sea, and unfriendly laws were 20 applied to oust them from seafaring trades, their close relationship to the sea was severed. So much so was this, that even upon their return to Palestine, it was not until sixty years of hard pioneering in agricultural work had passed, that they looked seaward again.

The attraction was immediate and electric. Consider the construction of the Port of Tel Aviv; the presence, suddenly, of thousands of Jewish stevedores and longshoremen, as well as pilots and boatmen, in Haifa and Tel Aviv Ports; the creation of the Nautical School at Haifa; the growth of Jewish ship- ping lines owned and manned by Jews; deep sea fishing in trawlers and fish culture in ponds and lakes; and the en- thusiastic enrollment of Palestine residents by the thou- sands as members in the Palestine Maritime League. These are remarkable indications of the fervor and strength of the hold on the Jews and on the Jewish imagination exer- cised by the sea.

It is as though certain energies which have lain dormant and remained latent for so many years are now re-asserting themselves in Palestine. And in the light of their maritime past, who may foretell what will be the future of the Jews on the seas and in the sciences connected with the sea. Bevan and Charles Singer, Oxford, Roth, Cecil, Who Was Columbus? Menorah Journal, Autumn , Vol. Nautical School at boating exercises on the Mediterranean. May the Har Zion and the seventeen young Jewish sailors now with her at the bottom of the sea rest in peace.

As the vessel steamed past Cyprus, an important decision was taken. The news was heartily welcomed by the Yishuv, or Jewish community, and thousands of the citizens of Tel Aviv came out in boats to greet the returning delegates on the Har Zion. The plan called for the establishment of the school on the campus of the Haifa Institute of Technology. It would thus utilize the services of the staff and the workshops of the Technical High School, also located there, and would be housed in the school's beautiful building. The principal of the Technical High School, Dr.

Shlomo Bardin now in America, on leave , was also appointed principal of the Nautical School. Negotiations with the Palestine Government and the British Board of Trade resulted in approval of the plan and the curriculum of the school. British men, prominent in the shipping world, were enthusiastic about the idea of Jews going back to the sea.

Through their efforts the services of Commander R. They also obtained, as a gift, the barquentine-rigged sailing ship, the Cap Pihi. Outfitted with auxiliary motors and a synagogue, she was presented to the school as a training vessel. When news of the opening of the school, in October , was made known in Palestine, boys flocked to the Nautical School at Haifa to register.

Candidates for ad- mission had to be years of age. This unusually low age requirement was the best approach, it seemed, to the problem of lack of Jewish tradition at sea. It takes time to make the sea part and parcel of a boy's life. The boys came from all parts of Palestine.

Among them were several refugee boys. Forty lads were admitted the first year. The cadets may then qualify for the certificate of Second Mate or Second Engineer. The language of instruction is Hebrew but the boys are expected to understand all commands in. Four departments make up the scope of the School's work: The cadets themselves erected a pavilion there. To begin with, they had one trawler, and one whaler.

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They drilled intensively in row- ing, sailing, swimming, splicing, and signaling. Early in December , the tall mast of the school was erected on the parade grounds. It was a proud moment for Haifa when forty strapping young boys filed out of the school building. They were uniformed in navy blue shorts and shirts and white belts, with trim navy-with- white wool socks, topped by a merchant service cap with their insignia, the Shield of David, a laurel wreath and anchor.

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They stood at rigid attention while the British and the Jewish flags were being hoisted up the mast. With the outbreak of the war many changes were necessarily made. Commander Miller was called back to the Royal Navy. A number of the cadets responded to the call of the Palestine naval authorities and volunteered for active duty on British and Allied vessels. But the school carried on and has just celebrated its first graduation. Of the original forty cadets of the first class there were in December , thirteen at sea, one known to be lost, two reported missing. Nineteen took part in the graduation exercises and have since joined the Naval and Merchant Marine service.

The present enrollment of the school is close to one hundred. In a letter from London dated December 15, , Commander Miller writes: Last week I got a fearful shock travelling on the over-head railway at Liverpool. He tells me there are thirteen of them at sea. He had just signed on as third officer on an Ameri- can ship. But if, in , you had told me that we would actually have produced an officer in , I would have thought you mad.

The credit is due to those who had the courage of their convic- tions, and also of course to the stamina and intelli- gence of the boys themselves and of Adam in particular. I have to confess to being touched by his producing my photograph from his pocket wallet. Each of them had a story to relate.

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For example, there was the case of Ephraim. He was fifteen years old when he first came to register at the Nautical School in With a weary look in his eager eyes, and with all his possessions done up in a handker- chief, there he stood like a modern Dick Whittington.

He walked or hitch-hiked from his village, Balfouria, where his parents were struggling to become farmers. They had ar- rived from the south of Germany some two years before. His father had been a business man and his mother a piano teacher. Ephraim applied for a scholarship and won it!

In New York, four years later, Ephraim told his story. In , with many of the other Haifa cadets, he volun- 29 teered to serve on British mine-sweepers. In August of that year, with two other cadets, he left the school and joined the crew of a captured Italian vessel, which was to be brought to England. Two men died on the trip.

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We sailed to Port Said, Aden and Mauritius. Before we reached Capetown our ship was damaged by a heavy gale. We put into port. The Jews of Capetown feted us Palestinians day and night. We pro- ceeded to Santa Lucia near Martinique. We saw Iceland in the distance. We made port the ninth month at the Firth of Forth, in Scotland, and were paid off the ship at London.

I was made a petty officer. About miles off the coast of Brazil in the south Atlantic, we were torpedoed.