TORQUEMADA RESOLVES UPON IMMEDIATE EXPULSION OF ALL UNCONVERTED JEWS.—THE FATAL EDICT.—THE SPANIARDS MOVED TO PITY.—DON ISAAC ABARBANEL PLEADS WITH THE QUEEN.—THE QUEEN HESITATES.—TORQUEMADA, THE FIEND, CONQUERS AGAIN.—THE ILL-FATED JEWS SEEK AMONG THE DEAD THE PITY WHICH THE LIVING REFUSE.—THE DEPARTURE.

With tearful eyes and bleeding heart we have seen portrayed the mournful and tragic fate of the Jews and Moors in Spain. We were unwilling eye-witnesses to sufferings and cruelties, which we knew had never been equalled, and thought could never be surpassed. We thought we had seen the climax of maniacal fanaticism. We thought well might Thomas de Torquemada recline now beneath the laurels of infamous immortality he had won for himself, and henceforth concentrate his frenzied zeal upon religious efforts, less iron-hearted and less murderous. We thought now that Spain had completely vanquished the Moor, had degraded the Jews, had successfully taught the "convert" Jews a most "burning" love for the Christian faith, by means of the Inquisition's pitiless, slaughtering tribunal, now that greed and bigotry and viciousness and ambition had been satiated, we thought Ferdinand and Isabella would halt in their unpitying and unmerciful career, would pause long enough to gaze upon the terrible calamities they had inflicted upon the realm and upon innocent people, and would hasten to amend their ways, and repair their great wrongs.

It was natural for us to think so. It is the experience of mankind that reaction accompanied by remorse, ever follows close upon the heels of rampant fury; that generosity and clemency, however fiercely the infuriated storms had lashed them into savage atrocity, will seek and find again their unruffled calm. It is therefore we stand aghast at beholding the next brutish inhumanity of Torquemada. Of a truth, he is not man but fiend, for to him principles which guide the actions of human beings are not applicable. For him there exists no reaction and no remorse, no generosity and no clemency. Where the most cruel of the cruel tremble at the mere thought, he executes sportively and in cold blood. Where others rest their blood-reeking weapons in the belief that they have reached, at last, the summit of crime, he heartlessly advances as upon mere stepping stones to far greater cruelties to come. He knew why he apprehended assassination now. He knew why he secured an escort now of fifty horse and two hundred foot. He was about to perpetrate a crime that should throw into the shade all that he had enacted hitherto.

The fate of the Moors had been decided. The Inquisition thinned the ranks of the "convert" Jews. The unconverted Jews, they that had preferred degradation to baptism; they that had preferred to take up their wretched abode as degraded outcasts in the prescribed outskirts of the cities, to feigning adherence to a faith which their hearts hated; they that had sacrificed with singular resignation all that honest toil had honestly secured, and donned the garberdine of disgrace, and followed the degrading vocations enforced upon them by cruel laws, and suffered everywhere meekly unprovoked jeers, insult, outrage, assault, these must be dealt with now. Torquemada was resolved, and with him resolve was equal to execution, that in Spain the sun should shine upon none but pure Catholics, that the atmosphere of Spain should no longer be polluted by the presence of Jews; that none but "pious" Christians should tread upon its holy soil. He resolved upon expelling the Jews forever. They had long clogged the wheels of his triumphal car. He knew that there was a secret communion between "converted" and unconverted Jews. He knew that it was mainly due to their religious influence that the convert Jews relapsed again into Judaism. He knew that they provided spiritually and physically for the poverty-stricken and branded families of those of their race, whom the Inquisition burned, and whose possessions it confiscated. He knew that, despite rigorous measures and Dominican spies, converted and unconverted Jews met in subterranean caverns, and counseled and worshipped together, and comforted each other. He hit upon a cure at last. He knew a remedy that would remove the clog forever. He counselled immediate expulsion of all unconverted Jews.

In the year 1492, in the year in which Columbus discovered a new world, in the year in which the Jewish sailor of Columbus' crew first set foot upon the virgin soil of the western Hemisphere,[40] strange fatality, in the same year that Spain opens domains vast, destined to become the land of the free, the blessed haven for the politically and racially and religiously persecuted; in the same year, the year 1492, she opens her portals at home, only to thrust out, mercilessly, brutally, hundreds of thousands of unoffending, industrious, intelligent people, closes the gates behind them, and keeps them barred nigh unto four hundred years.

On the 30th of March, 1492, the edict for the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was signed by the Spanish sovereigns at Granada. Torquemada had triumphed. He had conquered the scruples of king and queen and Grandees. The edict, schemed and defended by him, had passed, and the faithful execution thereof he took upon himself. Heralds proclaimed from the street corners of every hamlet and village and city of Spain, that all unconverted Jews, of whatever sex or age or condition, should depart from the realm before the expiration of four months, never to revisit it, on any pretext whatever, under penalty of death, that all who should remain in the realm after the expiration of the four months would be put to death, as also all such Christian subjects, who should harbor, succor, or minister to the necessities of any Jew, after the expiration the term limited for his departure; that the Jews dispose in the meanwhile of their possessions as best they can, but are prohibited, under penalty of death, from having gold or silver in their possession at the time of their departure.

Unfortunate Jews! It was an idle hope when, seeing the sky lurid from the burning of your brethren upon the quemaderos (places of burning heretics), you thought that the cup of your afflictions was full at last. It was an idle hope, when, thinking of the invaluable services you rendered unto Spain, you thought her people could not possibly visit still greater calamities upon your innocent heads. Unfortunate Jews! Ye thought not of Torquemada, the fiend, when you fondly nursed these hopes.

When the edict was read from the corners of the streets and from the cross-roads, as the words that convey the sentence of death, strike terror in the heart of the condemned:

Maddening thought. Frenzied they rushed to and fro. Cries of terror and despair pierced the air. The Sierra Morena to the South, and the Pyrenees to the North re-echoed the heart-rending wailing of the stricken ones.

Whither shall they flee? What country will dare offer them hospitable shores, when the greatest power in Europe thrusts them out helplessly, defencelessly, with a brand of infamy upon their brow?

Maddening thought, to go forth as exiles from the land of their birth, from their sweet domestic hearths, where they were wont to sit and tell of their long and proud and glorious past; to go forth from Spain, whose very soil seemed holy in their eyes; to leave Spain, that had been their fatherland for 1500 years, and more, long before the race of their present persecutors had heard of it, or had yet been civilized; to leave behind all that is near and dear to the human heart; the home of their proud achievements; the soil that held the graves of their own relatives and friends and of their illustrious sires, whose names had shed a brilliancy of light, that illuminated the darkness of their ages, and all the ages since; to leave Spain, whose very name was rapture to their souls; to leave it, never to return again; to leave home, possessions, friends, and go forth into the very jaws of death—on, ye Dominican fiends; slay them at once. If die they must, let them breathe their last upon the soil, which, next to Palestine, they worshipped most, but thrust them not out to perish in foreign lands.

Nay, we cannot conceive, to-day, the terror of this edict. Imagine, forbid it God—the very thought makes us shudder—imagine that an edict were suddenly to be issued that the 300,000 Jews of the United States—such was the number of the Jews of Spain—should be exiled from this country after the expiration of four months, never to return again; imagine such a calamity to befall us here, where our past is not yet a century old, and where the memories and associations of the past are not so deeply rooted as were those of Spain; imagine that we were told to go forth, branded with infamy, to cope, helplessly and defencelessly, and hopelessly with a hostile world; told to leave behind all that honest toil had gained for us; imagine that we had to assemble at the sea coast on a given day, to be packed into ships, like so many cattle, wives torn from husbands, babes from mothers, brothers from sisters, and then carried off, thousands of us to be hurled into the foaming deep, thousands to perish from want and exposure and cruelty, thousands to be disembarked upon uninhabited islands to be left a prey to wild beasts and starvation, thousands to be dropped on foreign shores, only to meet with still greater cruelties than were hitherto inflicted. Picture to yourself, if you can, miseries as terrible as these, happening unto us to-day, forbid it Heaven!—and even then will you only barely realize the calamity of this edict.

The sad fate which awaited the Jews touched the hearts of even the Spaniards. A delegation of them, including the most powerful grandees of the realm, waited upon the sovereigns, and implored them to revoke the terrible decree. Ferdinand and Isabella turned deaf ears to their entreaties. The great Don Isaac Abarbanel, the last of the brilliant lights of the Jews in Spain, a high officer in the service of Queen Isabella, threw himself at her feet, and in heart-rending sobs he burst forth:

"Ask for our life, and it is thine; ask for all our possessions, they are thine, but if live we must, then, Illustrious Queen, drive us not from off the soil of Spain which is dearer to us than our life."

For a moment her inflexible will wavered, another moment, and the mourning of 300,000 people might have been turned to rejoicing, and the doom of Spain might have been averted, and the history of Europe might have had a different reading to-day. But that other moment was never to come. Torquemada, who listened in an adjoining chamber to Abarbanel's tearful entreaty, and to the queen's yielding words, rushed into the royal presence, almost mad with fury, and pointing to the crucifix, he shrieked:

"Behold Him whom Judas Iscariot sold for thirty pieces of silver! Sell him now for a higher price, and render an account of your bargain before God!"

The fiend had conquered again. The queen is on her knees before him, imploring forgiveness for her moment's weakness.

A gloom pervaded the entire realm, as the time of the departure drew hastily on. The Jews, attired in the deepest mourning, wandered restlessly about the streets. Peace dwelled no longer in their homes. Their fountain of tears had run dry. Their words became fewer, and more and more painful. When children twined their little arms lovingly about their parents' neck, when pining husbands gazed upon their drooping wives, and in their mournful silence asked one another: A month hence, a fortnight hence, a week hence, to-morrow, where will father be? Where will mother be? What fate awaits husband, and what misery shall fall upon wife? What cruelty shall subdue brother, and to what life of infamy shall sister be sold? When upon such questions they brooded, and when did they not? madness seized upon them, and they rushed out to the burial places, and there, among the dead, they sought the pity and mercy and consolation the living could not give; there, in the graveyards, they lingered among the tombs of their dear departed, sometimes for three or four days in succession, not a morsel of food nor a drop of water passing their lips. And as they fixed their gaze upon the stately palms, that shaded them and the graves of their dead, with aching heart they lingered low:

Meanwhile the Spanish clergy was not idle. In the synagogues, in the public squares, in the open streets they preached the Love and Gentleness of the Redeemer, and appealed by argument, and by foul invectives, to the Jews, to accept the few drops of baptismal water, and remain in their adored native land. The Jews listened with a sullen indifference to these harangues. The suffering they endured for their faith convinced them more than ever of the absurdity of that religion which could inflict such cruelties. The treatment which the "convert" Jews received at the hands of their "Christian" brethren was surely not such as could inspire them with a burning desire for a change of faith. Rather exile, separation from fond home and fonder family, rather death than adopt a faith that fattened on blood and thrived on cruelty. "Let us remain firm," they cried to cheer on one another, "strong in our faith before our God, unyielding before our foes. We will live, if we are to live, if we are to die, we will die. Yet, living or dying, our covenant let us not desecrate; let our hearts never despair, let us never forsake, not even in the darkest hour, the living God of Israel." Noble sons and daughters of Israel. Ye sainted spirits of our departed ancestors of Spain, our hearts are filled with noble pride as we recount your heroic devotion to our God-given faith. In vain we turn the leaves of Historic record to find a parallel to your unswerving homage to conviction. Time can not diminish the lustre of your self-sacrificing deeds for the cause of Israel's truths. Four hundred years have silently emptied into the interminable Ocean of Time, and still Jew and Gentile, believer and unbeliever, all who worship at the shrine of political and racial and religious liberty, name you but to bless you, and are themselves inspired to virtue by their very breathing of your sainted names and heroic deeds.

At last the day for their departure arrived, August 2nd, 1492, the 9th day of Ab. Tisha b'Ab, 5252. The time had expired July 31, but they had implored for two days of grace, that this, their great calamity, might fall on Tisha b'Ab, the 9th of Ab, the annual day of fasting, the most calamitous day in the history of Israel.

It was on that day (586 B. C.) that Nebukadneezar laid the Temple of Solomon in ruins, and led the children of Israel from Palestine, as captives, to Babylon.

It was on that day (70 A. C.) that Titus destroyed the Second Temple, ended forever the political power and national life of Israel, and thrust the children of Israel from their native soil, the sacred soil of Palestine.

It was on that day (135 A. C.) that the fate of the Barkochba revolution was decided, and the last hope of Israel for political independence had vanished, and vanished forever.

And it was in the early morning of the same fatal day Tisha b'Ab, 5252, August 2, 1492, that the Jews of Spain repaired to their synagogues to worship there, for the last time, to sit upon the ground, with dust and ashes upon their heads, and girded with sack cloth, and read in accents sad, in accordance with an old established custom in Israel, Jeremiah's "Lamentations" over the destruction of the Temple, over the fall of Jerusalem and over the exile of the children of Israel into Babylon. They had read the "Lamentations" before, they had read them year after year with tremulous lips, with accents fervent and deep, but they never knew their meaning before. That morning the broken heart spoke. And oh, what wails of sorrow, what sobs of contrition, what passionate out-breaks, as they repeated the verses:

"How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people. How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations. She weepeth sore in the night and her tears are on her cheeks, among all her friends she hath none to comfort her. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, she dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest. Her adversaries are powerful, her enemies prosper, all that honored her despise her. It is nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me. Zion spreadeth forth her hands and there is none to comfort her. They cried unto them: Depart ye, ye are unclean, touch not, when they fled away and wandered, they said among the nations: they shall no more sojourn there. They hunt our steps, that we cannot go into our streets, our end is near, our days are fulfilled, for our end is come."

And forth they went from the house of God, the old and the young, the sick and the helpless, virgin and youth, bride and groom, man, woman, child, with hearts bleeding, with steps tottering, with faces haggard and hollow and wan, with figure bent, and spirit broken as they gazed with a vacant stare for the last time upon their emptied homes upon the desolate scenes of childhood and youth.

On they went, overwhelmed yet speechless. But over them a chorus of martyr spirits, they that on that day perished, for their faith's sake, at the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, they on that day breathed their last for Israel's sake, at the siege of Titus, they that on that day had died with the death of Israel's hope, at the siege of Julius Severus, over the exiles of Spain, these martyr spirits chanted with doleful voices:

TORQUEMADA.