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By 1400, Palermo's thriving Jewish community probably boasted the greatest number of Jews in any Sicilian city, perhaps eclipsing Syracuse in that regard, yet the history of Palermo's Jews has often proven elusive to scholars.
What we find in Palermo is the occasional Hebrew inscription in a church or palace that was standing in 1492. The site of the chief synagogue - where a church now stands - is readily identified. Although the mikvah (ritual bath) of Syracuse is older and better-known, Palermo's, which dates from the tenth century, has also been conserved.
Fortunately, the archival record is well preserved. In fact, it is possible to identify many Jewish families and anusim (the "conversos" called neofiti in Sicily) who lived into the sixteenth century.
What do we know of Palermo's Jews? Though they were certainly present from Roman times, it was after the fall of the Western Empire, at the dawn of the Middle Ages, that the earliest records known to us emerge. In 598 the Patriarch of Rome subsequently known as Pope Gregory the Great sent a delegation to Panormus (as Palermo was then known) to resolve a dispute involving the city's Jews; since 535 Sicily had been part of the Byzantine Empire but for a few decades its clergy answered to Rome rather than to Constantinople.
We know that some local Christian priests were trying to convert the Jews, and had confiscated one of their synagogues, and that Gregory's papal bull Sicut Judeis put a stop to the coercion without discouraging voluntary conversions. Gregory, whose mother was from Palermo, took a special interest in the city but Victor, the local bishop, seems not to have heeded his orders; this should be considered in light of the fact that Sicily's hierarchy was increasingly looking to the East. In Sicily as elsewhere, the fate of the Jews was often determined by events shaped by the larger community among which they lived as a tiny minority.
When Palermo fell to Arab control in 831 the Jews, like the Christians, were considered "People of the Book." They were required to wear a distinctive badge (usually a yellow cord), pay special taxes and so forth. Jews could not hold public office or serve in the military, nor could they erect new synagogues, but otherwise they were respected. Like Muslim ladies, most Jewish women wore some kind of veil in public.
The vernacular dialect of the Jews of western Sicily was similar to Arabic. In 972 Ibn Hawqual, a traveller from Baghdad, visited Palermo - now called Bal'harm or simply al-Madinah (the city) - and described the Jewish community in some detail.
The arrival of the Normans in 1071 saw the abolition of most restrictions, and a few Jews ended up in public administration. Certain Jewish leaders, notably the outspoken Joseph ben Samuel, initially opposed the Normans because Christians usually attempted to convert Jews, whereas Muslims didn't.
Most of Palermo's Jews were traders, dyers, scribes specialized in translation, or goldsmiths. Of particular distinction we find David Ahitub (floruit 1286), a leading scholar, and Isaac Al'dahav (fl. 1380), an astronomer.
It was during the Norman period that Benjamin of Tudela, himself a Jew, visited Sicily and described Jewish life as well as providing an informal census. According to his information, there were at least 1,500 Jewish families (each with a male head of household) living in Palermo around 1170, which implies at least 4,000 people. In 1492, the jurats of Palermo claimed there were some 5,000 Jews.
Over time the Jews began to practice ever more specialized professions; by 1400 it appears that many of the best physicians in western Sicily were Jews.
At least a few Jewish men owned landed estates, mostly small feudal manors rather than larger holdings such as baronies. While Sicily was dotted with small Jewish congregations, those in Palermo, Siracusa, Trapani and Messina were important points of reference for the more isolated ones.
It used to be presumed that medieval Jews were not aristocrats. Recent research indicates that by the Late Middle Ages a few Sicilian Jews had been ennobled ipso facto through the purchase of feudal property, effectively constituting a tiny segment of the Sicilian aristocracy. They were among the first Jews in Europe to enjoy such a distinction.
In 1487 the visiting Ovadyah Yare of Bertinoro wrote a description that began, "Palermo's synagogue is without equal the world over..."
In 1393 King Martin decreed Palermo's Jewish community to be the main one in Sicily, with authority over the others, and in 1405 the Crown nominated a Judaic supreme court and other officials, though this was abolished in 1447. It is unclear whether Palermo's Jews then outnumbered those of other cities.
The infamous edict of 1492 prompted the expulsion or - perhaps just as often - conversion of Sicily's Jews, who by then numbered at least 20,000 (and perhaps as many as 40,000). Their absence has been felt ever since, and tracing Jewish roots in Sicily remains a challenge.
Several riots by converted Jews broke out in the years to follow, with a particularly violent incident reported in Palermo in 1516. The road to Christianity and the Catholic Church was often a difficult one, and not always a desired one.
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Rabbi Obadiah De Bertinoro's travelogue:
Here are some of the most important passages of Rabbi Obadiah's letter: "...
In the fourth month, on the fast day, the seventeenth of Tammuz, 5247 (1487), he set out from Naples, in the large sailing ship of Mossen Bianchi, together with nine other Jews, it was five days, however, before we reached Palermo, owing to a calm.
"Palermo is the chief town of Sicily, and contains about 850 Jewish families, all living in one street, which is situated in the best part of the town. They are artisans, such as copper-smiths and ironsmiths, porters and peasants. They are despised by the Christians, and they are obliged to wear a piece of red cloth on their garments, so that they may be identified as Jews. This badge is about the size of a gold coin, fastened on the breast. The royal tax falls heavily on them, for they are obliged to work for the king at any employment that is given them; they have to draw ships to the shore, to construct dykes, and so on. They are also employed in administering corporal punishment and in carrying out the sentence of death.
"The synagogue of Palermo has not its equal in the whole world; the stone pillars in the outer courtyard are encircled by vines such as I have never before seen. I measured one of them and it was of the thickness of five spans. The vestibule has three entrances and a porch in which there are large chairs for rest, and a splendid fountain... On the eastern side there is a stone building, shaped like a dome, the Ark. It contains the scrolls of the law which are ornainented with crowns and pomegranates of silver and precious stones to the value of 400 gold pieces; the scrolls rest on a wooden shelf, and are not put into a chest as with us... In the center of the synagogue is a wooden platform, the Teba, where the Readers recite their prayers. There are at present five Readers in the community…
"In Palermo I noticed the following custom: When anybody dies, his coffin is brought into the vestibule of the synagogue and the ministers hold the funeral service. If the departed is a distinguished man, especially learned in the law, the coffin is brought into the synagogue itself, a scroll of the law is taken out and placed in the corner of the Ark, while the coffin is placed opposite that corner…
"On my arrival in Palermo the leaders of the, Jewish community invited me to deliver lectures on the Sabbath, before the Afternoon Service. I consented and began on Sabbath, the New Moon of Ab, 5247. My discourses were favorably received, so that I was obliged to continue them every Sabbath; but this was no advantage to me, for I had come to Palermo with the object of going on to Syracuse, at the extreme end of Sicily, for I had heard this was the time when Venetian ships going to Beirut, near Jerusalem, would stop there.
The Jews of Palermo then got many persons to circulate false rumors to dissuade me from my intention, and succeeded in taking me in their net, so that I missed the good crossing...
In my further discourses in Palermo I denounced informers and transgressors, so that the elders of the city told me that many refrained from sin, and the number of informers also decreased while I was there; I do not know if they will go back to their old ways. But yet I cannot spend all my life among them, although they honor and esteem me...
"On the eve of Shevuoth, 5248 (1486), a French galley came to Palermo, on its way to Alexandria. The worthy """Meshullam of Volterra"' was on it, with his servant, and I rejoiced to travel in his company...
We were in Messina on Monday at noon. This town is a center of trade for all nations. Messina is not so large as Palermo, neither has it such good springs; but the town is very beautiful and has a strong fortress.
There are about four hundred Jewish families in it, living quietly in a street of their own; they are richer than those in Palermo, and are almost all artisans. At a wedding which took place near my residence I witnessed the following ceremony: After the seven blessings had been repeated, the bride was placed on a horse and led through the town. The whole community went before her on foot, the bridegroom in the midst of the elders; youths and children carried burning torches and made loud exclamations, so that the whole place resounded; they made the circuit of the streets and all the Jewish courts; the Christian inhabitants looked on with pleasure and no one disturbed the festivity.