Page 15 - Journal of the Cenral Asian Society (1960)

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226 nsciiKi. 124|
may not march, without falling in rear of ilu* caravan”. Or
. . we marched again leaving the Jews behind, for that next
day was their Sabbath”, Travelers of the 18th century also
report this custom. In a narrative of a journey from Aleppo to
Basra in 1745 to 1751 it is stated: "This being the Jewish Sab­
bath, those belonging to our caravan remained behind in obedi­
ence to the Mosaic law which prohibits their traveling more
than a stated distance on that day. This they had always ob­
served, ever since we left Aleppo, commonly rejoining us in the
night. They, therefore, on our setting out, requested the Sheikh
to allow them a guard to stay with them, till the expiration of
the Sabbath and to escort them to the caravan. . .
How dangerous and fateful sometimes this practice could be
we learn from the Hebrew responsa to which we referred earlier
according to which the Jewish merchant Yahuda Gabbai from
Brusa, having remained behind the caravan because of the
Sabbath, was assassinated by Persians on his way back from
Ormuz between Shiraz and Isfahan.
y
Thk Cultural Aspect
One of the strange phenomena in Persia's historical develop­
ment is the steady shifting of political and cultural centers.
r short stay were prevented from looking deeper into the cultural
Under each dynasty and even during the lifetime of one dynast>,
•>
the residence of the ruler changed and with it also the literary
or cultural center of the respective period.
In the historical development of Persian Jewry we observe a
similar shifting of cultural centers. While in the time of Benjamin
of Tudcla, in the 12th century, the center was Isfahan — the
seat of the largest Jewish community in Persia and the residence
of its chief Rabbi, appointed by the authority in Baghdad, the
64 Cf. Pedro Ieixeira I. c., p. 59, p. 44. William Beawcs: Narrative of a
Journey from Aleppo to Basra in 1745 and J. A. Carmichael: A Journey from
Aleppo to Basra in 1751, in Ifnkylnt Society Pithl., London 1929, pp. 14, 172-
173.
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|25| PERSIAN <.1*1.1- AND ITS JI*.WISH nKTTI.K.MKNTs 227
(iaon or Exilarch - under the Il-Khan rulers in the 13th and
14th century, this role was taken over by Tabriz and probably
Shiraz. Under the Safavid dynasty Knshan seemed to have been
the cultural center, the "Little Jerusalem" as it was called, the
meeting-place of Jewish scholars and Rabbis, although along
with Knshan, previous centers such as Shiraz, Isfahan and
Mamndan continued somehow the glory of their past. At the
same time, also, the new concentration of Jewish settlements
along the Persian Gulf is probably responsible for the rise of a
new cultural center in that region, namely in Lar.
European visitors to the Persian Gulf region were not im­
pressed by the cultural and spiritual level of the Jewish settle­
ments. Figueroa calls the Jews of Ormuz, "Jews only by name.
They do not know any Hebrew and have no knowledge at all
of the Jewish religion though they still observe some ceremonies
of the ancient law, but so much changed through the mixture
with the ceremonies taken from the Maures and the heathens
that they arc not any more recognizable".49 He refers to the
Jews of Muscat as "poor and miserable and so little educated
that one could say about them that they are only Jews by
name".70 Chardin condemns the Jews of all Persia "as being the
most ignorant of all the world".7' These and similar statements
however can hardly be taken as an objective description. Most
of these travelers could hardly penetrate behind the walls of the
Jewish quarter and of Jewish life, and most likely due to their
structure and conditions of the Jewish community.
Yet the Jews of that region were far from being so illiterate
and uneducated as some observers would lead us to believe.
From a thorough study of the remnants and fragments of the
Judaco-Persian literature so far available and accessible, the
rather striking and so far unnoticed feature reveals itself that
Persian Gulf Jewry had in the City of Lar a cultural and literary
center of their own.
The first indication of the literary activity of Jews in Lar
*• Figueroa 1. c. p. 42. I. C. p. 19.
*' Chardin. I. c. Vol. VI. p. 14ft.