Hello everyone. Kickstarted back at L100, asked what was life like for Jews in the Byzantine Empire?

And fellow back at HW asked more detailed questions about the restrictions that Jewish people lived under,

the organization of each community and different sects.

And then we got into the century questions from AL and AK adding more queries on the same subject.

So today we talk entirely about the Jewish communities of Byzantium.

There were of course many Jews living throughout the Roman world long before Constantinople was founded.

The communities who lived in the Eastern Mediterranean were well integrated into the Empire's network of cities.

Though undoubtedly some Jews were farmers or worked in the agricultural sector,

Jewish Romans tended to be city to wireless, they were largely an urban group.

Because of their status as outsiders, it was easier to maintain a community by living in proximity to one another.

And it was easier to keep in touch with other Jewish centres if you lived in a town or a city preferably on a trade route.

The people living in these communities spoke Greek.

They would also speak and read Hebrew, at least some of them, those who could read.

But Greek was the common tongue of the Eastern Roman Empire and it was natural for everyone to be fluent and for the educated to be able to read it.

The coming of Christianity obviously saw many an assault on the Jewish position.

And in many ways they were worse off than they had been under pagan rule.

However, for several reasons the triumph of Christianity also provided something of a shelter for the Jews within the Roman world.

You see Christian polemicists needed the Jews in order to contrast them with Christians.

Just as military victory demonstrated God's approval for a particular emperor, so the dominance of Christianity clearly showed that the Christians were right and the Jews were wrong.

This sense of moral superiority is a common theme across the millennium of Byzantine literature.

The Jews were the perfect before picture in the advert for the Christian religion.

You can stay part of this small depressing sect stuck in its backwardness or you can join the winning side, the good guys, those bathed in the light of truth.

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