One Glimpse

Hillel Halkin’s new book, Yehuda Halevi, is an exploration of the life and passions of this important Jewish figure of religious and philosophical significance. What this book tells us about the history of the medieval period in which he lived in Spain, however, is interesting in and of itself, and it is especially provocative in light of all the tortured attempts being made nowadays to cobble tougher a view of amicable Christian – Muslim – Jewish coexistence by referring to the ‘convivencia’ that existed in Spain before 1492. Convivencia means coexistence and the three faiths did indeed coexist in Spain during this period, but the coexistence that they enjoyed, endured, or suffered through, as the case may be, was hardly the Disneyland version of everyone holding hands and singing happy songs, each with his own little colored hat and matching flag.

Halkin explains how the great early 20th century archeological find of documents hidden away in the Cairo Geniza allowed historians to draw a picture of Jewish life in the Muslim world during exactly this period of history. What we know is that the periods of peaceful coexistence among the three faiths were punctuated quite frequently by a conquista or reconquista by either the Christian or Muslim side. The boundaries between the Christian and Muslim parts of Spain were forever shifting north or south depending on who had won the latest round. The Jewish population never took part in these wars, being a pacifistic community occupied with commerce and scholarship, primarily. But the Jews frequently ended up being displaced or slaughtered when the ruler to whom they had accommodated themselves suddenly was overthrown and replaced by the other side, thus exposing them to charges of collaboration.

This was the actual reality of convivencia, according to Halkin, not peaceful coexistence as an end unto itself, but as an interregnum merely until the next battle for territorial expansion. Why this should be so becomes clear if we read Halkin’s description of how Jews, Christians, and Muslims actually viewed themselves during this period. They did not see themselves as Spaniards, for there was no real concept of Spain as a country or nation, at that time. Spain was a geographical, linguistic, and cultural term. The most important reference point for a person’s identity, in fact, was his religion. And members of each religious group dreamed, when amongst themselves, of their group someday being dominant in all of Spain rather than having to rest content with only part of it.

Halevi’s writing makes clear that the Jews in Spain did not waste much energy in dreaming of conquering Spain or any place else they lived, being so down-trodden and defenseless themselves. What they did dream of, in their moments of idle fantasy, was restoring the Land of Israel to its former glory and to its former owners – the people who put that Land on the map, so to speak. It was the revelation at Mount Sinai that made the Jewish people a nation, but it was God’s promise to Abraham to show him the Land of Israel, and give it as a prized possession to his descendents that made that small piece of territory the important place that it has been now for thousands of years.

And it was to this small, but cherished piece of territory that Yehuda Halevi set out to spend his last years, leaving the comforts of Spain during its golden age, and then the comforts of Egypt – another flourishing cultural and economic center – to go to a land being contested by Muslim and Christian, and devoid of all but a small Jewish population.

This beautifully written and scholarly book really leads the reader to two unavoidable conclusions. The first is that the concept of convivencia, as used most commonly today by western liberals looking to promote peaceful coexistence between Muslim and non Muslims, is an illusion. It was coexistence of a sort, to be sure, but it was not peaceful if one takes a historical view of it. Nor was it meant to be. Neither Christians nor Muslims in Spain ever reconciled themselves to ruling over only part of the Iberian peninsula. Each wanted total dominion over the other and planned to achieve this over time, through the ambition of charismatic leaders and ideological factions.

Ultimately, the so-called “Catholic monarchs” of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella achieved the Catholic dream of uniting all of Spain’s regions under one monarchy and one universal church. The Jews and Muslims were expelled.
It was this emerging situation in Spain that most likely led Yehuda Halevi to the conclusion that the only solution to the fragility of Jewish existence was restoring the old homeland to Jewish sovereignty, starting by settling in it. This seemed so farfetched at that time when Jewish fortunes in Spain, Central Europe, and Crusader Palestine had declined to such a low ebb. However, one can easily see why Hillel Halkin identifies so much with Halevi, having – like him – abandoned the easy life in America for the struggles of living in a developing country like Israel of the 1970’s, that was also stuck in a permanent war zone.

This book also has a positive Zionist message to it, and one comes to the conclusion that this is probably why Halkin wrote it, thirty-three years after publishing his Zionist polemic, “Letters to an American Jewish Friend”. That book made the case for a Zionist-motivated immigration to Israel at a time when that message was doomed to fall on mostly deaf ears in the American Jewish community. However, this book has a more fateful and also more negative but realistic message to it, as its subtext, whether Halkin intended this or not (perhaps he didn’t).

Halkin is no right wing Likudnik, but neither is he the sort of person who was seduced by the fantasies of the Oslo peace process that led to the current situation of managed hostility that exists between the Israelis and Palestinians. The convivencia that existed in Spain was in no way a permanent peace between the contending religiously-motivated powers in Europe’s most important country, at that time. It was the temporary adjustment of permanent enemies to each other’s civilian populations, while the respective armies waged sporadic battles against each other for control of Iberia. The Christians ended up winning this long-term war of attrition, although the Muslims, initially at least, clearly had the more sophisticated civilization. The Christians won because they were more determined and more united, had better leaders, and because Islam simply went into long-term decline and could not sustain itself as an advanced civilization. The Jewish Golden Age in Spain was long-over by the time the expulsion edicts were finally signed in 1492, and Islam was well on its way to the state of decrepitude that still encumbers it today, while Christian Europe forged ahead on a path of development and conquest which didn’t groan its last sighs until the late 20th century.

This story may well have its mirror image in the Middle East today, with Israel as its new focus. A small but developing Jewish state surrounded by larger but fragmented, demoralized and decrepit Muslim powers has created a beachhead for itself by winning wars, and driving Arab populations away from its borders. Israel right now has no motivation to make any real concessions to two dysfunctional Palestinian polities ruled by corrupt and incompetent administrations. It should and probably will wait them out, until a major war eventually erupts and the Arabs flee in large numbers as happened in 1948 and 1967. The days of Islamic glory in el Andalus are gone and will never come back, while Yehuda Halevi’s dream of Jewish sovereignty has come true one thousand years after he wrote his love poems to Zion.

To end with Halkin’s rendering of Halevi’s famous poem:

My heart in the East
But the rest of me far in the West
How can I savor this life, even taste what I eat?
How, in the chains of the Moor,
Zion bound to the Cross,
Can I do what I’ve vowed to and must?
Gladly I’d leave
All the best of grand Spain
For one glimpse of Jerusalem’s dust

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