Isaac Zarfati's appeal induced many Jews to emigrate forthwith to Turkey and Palestine. Their grave demeanor, extreme piety, and peculiar apparel at once distinguished them from the Jews of Greece and the Orient, and ere long the new-comers exercised considerable influence upon the other inhabitants of the countries in which they settled.
There were peculiar circumstances connected with the prohibition of the emigration of Jews to Palestine. The Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem had obtained permission from a pasha to build a synagogue on one of the slopes of Mount Zion. The site of this synagogue adjoined a piece of land owned by Franciscan monks, or rather containing the ruins of one of their chapels, known as David's chapel. When this permission was given to the Jews, the monks raised as much clamor as though all Palestine, including the Holy City, had been their peculiar inheritance since the beginning of time. They forthwith carried their complaints to the pope, and represented that, if the Jews were permitted to take such liberties as this, it would not be long before they took possession of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher itself. The pope at once issued a bull directing that no Christian shipowner should convey Jewish emigrants to the Holy Land. As the Levantine trade was at that time almost entirely in the hands of the Venetians, the doge was prevailed upon to issue stringent orders to all the shipmasters of the mainland and the islands not to give passage to Palestine to any Jews.
It is, indeed, strange that, while the Christian powers were under the impression that they had hemmed in the children of Israel on all sides like hunted animals, the Turks of Eastern Europe opened a way of escape to them. Ere another half century had passed, their Spanish brethren, savagely hunted from the Peninsula, were destined to seek the same asylum.
It must, however, be admitted that under the sway of the Castilian king, Henry IV, and that of John II, of Aragon, the condition of the Spanish Jews was one of comparative peace and comfort. But it was the calm that went before the storm. The doubly impotent Castilian king was gentle to a degree ill-befitting a ruler of men. Although, as Infante, Don Henry had allowed himself to be persuaded by his partisans to replenish his exhausted coffers by plundering the houses, not only of the Jews, but also of the new-Christians or converts from Judaism, he had no personal antipathy to the people of Israel. A Jewish physician was his confidential minister. Not long after his accession to the throne he had even sent him to the Portuguese court on the most delicate mission of obtaining the hand of the young, beautiful princess of Portugal for his sovereign. The Jewish diplomatist brought his mission to a successful conclusion, but was assassinated in the hour of his success.
