THE INQUISITION, WHAT  HAPPENED?

I am reading this outstanding book by Amos Oz and his daughter Fania and I am discovering much more that I looked for.
The name of the book : JEWS AND WORDS.
And since I am crazy about words, I felt I will surely find enough data to satisfy my permanent curiosity.

By the time I got to page 144, the subject was different. He speaks about Rabbi Simha Luzzato. I did hear about this 17th Century Rabbi but wished to know more. And this is what he claimed according to Mr Oz:
‘´The Jews are meek and obedient to rulers and kings precisely because they accept their historical fate passively.´

Hearing this I was shocked!
In his ´´Discourse on the Jews of Venice ´that was intended for gentile alongside Jewish  readership, he said that the Jews …do not wish at any time to find new ways to enhance the general situation of their people. Because they believe that any significant change that comes upon them…depends on a supreme cause and not in human efforts.

I had to stop and wonder how true that is.
I looked at my past, at the people before me and tried to remember how they behaved when facing a difficult, sad and terrible situation that was to affect their lives and their families. Yes, I remember their reaction ´it is all in the hands of God’´ ( I didn’t know that God had hands)

What can you tell them when that is their reply?
Our ancestors were not scientific , they were believers and nothing will move them from this stand. They lived a very simple life with no knowledge of the outside world. They respected their religion and its traditions and that was all.

And now we have the order of expulsion from Castille and it’s neighboring kingdoms…applied to approximately half a million persons…including men of outstanding capability.

What shocked Luzatto and myself and millions like me was : How come with all this great number of people, not a single man dared offer a firm and vigorous suggestion to save them from that bitter expulsion.

I do give credit to Oz for raising such a question, when we know how all of it ended.
As for me, because I believe that Christopher Columbus was a Jew, I truly think he is that single man who managed to save many of his co-religionists by having them join him on the ships that were heading West. Without changing the subject, it is also my belief that many of these men mingled with locals that gave generations later many Jews in Mexico and all the Canary Islands.

I hesitate raising a parallel situation when it comes to the Second World War and what happened to million of Jews who, like in Spain , close to five hundred years earlier, chose to be passive, hoping that their God will come to save them.

Today, we can ask, how much can we reproach to the Jews their behavior?
Luckily, the 19th Century brought with it a life-changing human effort, à kind of de-freezing. The Zionist movement was born and people were on the move.
Modern culture at last was available to all but sadly, it was too late for many.

Luckily, unlike the Christians, we do not give the other cheek, we now have our own country with its proud citizens ready to confront any difficult situation. We are all ready and will vanquish at all costs. Many of us are still believers while others consider that miracles can always happen.

I am sure the average reader is aware of the Inquisition and what it did to our people . This passage was meant to raise the absence of what today seems to us to be natural. Again, like you, I am very sad our people had to go through this nightmare and no wonder we will always scream  NEVER AGAIN