Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: Palter; Pontiac

You wrote:

“I don’t know the number that creates the myth, but certainly, many Jews were burned at the stake and others converted from such threats. Are you saying that didn’t happen?”

I’ll say it - it didn’t happen - on the part of the inquisition. The inquisition only had authority over baptized Christians. No Jew was ever burned at the stake by the inquisition for refusing to convert to Christianity. Those who were threatened into converting were threatened into converting in the 13th and 14th centuries by civilians in pogroms. The inquisition was established in the late 15th century. One of the reasons why it was founded in Spain was to stop abuses of converted Jews by Old Christians.


12 posted on 07/10/2011 7:29:29 PM PDT by vladimir998 (Sweden - one of the next Muslim countries)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies ]


To: vladimir998

Your grasp of history is better than mine.


15 posted on 07/10/2011 7:31:23 PM PDT by Palter (Celebrate diversity .22, .223, .25, 9mm, .32 .357, 10mm, .44, .45, .500)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies ]

To: vladimir998
Spain continued to have substantial populations of Moslems right through the 1400s ~ The Reconquista took about 700 years and over that time remarkable customs grew up to mitigate the damage to society that would ensue if people failed to be tolerant to one another.

Jews benefited, as did Christians and Moslems. The North African Islamofascist dictators actually invaded Spain once to straighten out the Moslems and bring them back into conformance with Islamic law.

I referred to it above ~ but there was even a custom, with laws, governing "forced conversions" ~ and I'd guess the new local prince would make some decisions on the basis of whether or not he liked ham and eggs for breakfast.

By the time Ferdinand and isabella wrapped up the Reconquista most of the hard part had been done and people were "converted" according to law ~ with the Jews still having an exceptional status because they'd been prohibited entry into the mainstreams of Spanish society for hundreds of years.

The final forced conversion (or expulsion) was probably more of an afterthought about straightening out the kingdom than anything done in anger.

To a degree it was progressive in the sense it did offer Jews a way to enter Spanish society ~ which was shortly to become the wealthiest and most powerful on Earth!

18 posted on 07/10/2011 7:41:24 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies ]

To: vladimir998; Pontiac; Tzfat

I suggest you read Benzion Netanyahu, the PM’s father and the foremost scholar of the Inquisition.

Further, Hitler also offered Jews to leave. But where were they to go?

It was even worse during the Inquisition as travel was way more difficult and deadly and costly. Your statement that they did not want to leave their wealth and possessions minimizes all the other difficulties.

Please explain Pope John Paul’s apology to the Jews, in part, for the Inquisition?

The Left uses revisionist history. I hate to see it here.


66 posted on 07/11/2011 11:03:43 AM PDT by dervish (women candidates, the last frontier)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson