Identity Theft (4 page)

“Their religious leaders, we’re told, have promised them that if they die in battle, all their sins will be forgiven and they’ll go to Heaven
¹
—because they are serving Jesus Christ. But
where will I go if I die today?
I’m scared.

“We have always gotten along with our Muslim over-lords—at least in my lifetime. They haven’t persecuted us. In fact, my father Isaac and my older brother Michael fought valiantly with the Muslims to protect Jerusalem. Those Muslims are now dead—slaughtered one after another by the Crusaders as they broke into the city.

“They arrived in early June and surrounded our walls. Jerusalem is an isolated city, barely protected by its ramparts and surrounded by mountainous deserts. Once they encompassed us, we knew it was only a matter of time before they would break through. We could get no food into the city and they poisoned our water supplies. In mid-June, as I was helping the fighters on the wall, we could see them, see their large banners with huge crosses on them. That is their symbol. It’s painted on their shields and sewn onto their tunics.

“Finally, two days ago around midnight, just over a month after their arrival, they broke through our defenses and took the city. While some escaped, I don’t think there is a single living Muslim left in Jerusalem. As soon as they stormed through the gates, the Christians began to kill everyone around them, indiscriminately—men, women, and children, Jews and Muslims alike. There was blood everywhere. Bodies are stacked one upon another wherever you look. I have never seen anything like it—so much death. The stench is unbearable. People begged, they pleaded for their lives, but the Crusaders showed no mercy. The last image their victims saw was the vivid cross worn by their killers. It was as if these men were possessed.

“Our family, along with about 1,000 other Jews, has taken refuge in the great synagogue. Actually, the Crusaders’ leader, Godfrey de Bouillon, drove us in here. This de Bouillon, it is said, is hoping to kill every Jew because he is convinced that every Jew is responsible for the death of Jesus. I don’t know much about the New Covenant, but I thought it was a book about love and forgiveness, not killing and murder. Did this Jesus go around butchering women and children as His so-called followers are doing? And what does a thirteen-year-old boy, just bar Mitzvah’d, have to do with the death of a Jew over 1,000 years ago?

“Not that it matters what I think. Death has invaded our city. Hope is all but gone. They are mercilessly cruel. They have already murdered thousands of Jews throughout the city in the past twenty-four hours. We are the only ones left.

“How could it be that less than a month ago I was celebrating my bar Mitzvah at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount? I never dreamt that I wouldn’t see my fourteenth birthday. Such a day it was, reading from the Torah and chanting the blessings. They told me I became a man that day. Little did I know how quickly that would be the truth. Instead of playing with my friends or helping my father in our shop, I was supplying arrows to fighters on the walls of Jerusalem, fighting for our lives and watching Crusader arrows fly back at us.

“We had heard the stories of what they did in Europe. At first this was considered purely a war against the Muslims. But in Europe, greed and bloodlust perverted their cause. They reasoned, ‘Why wait until we get to Muslim territory, when there are Jews,
Christ-killers
, all throughout Europe?’ I overheard horrific tales coming from my parents—stories of rape and slaughter, stories of Jews being offered protection for money and then being killed by the very ones they’d paid!

“Inside the synagogue, I huddle together with my sisters, younger brothers, and my parents. My older brother is dead. We were told he was killed yesterday, shortly after the Crusaders broke through. He was sixteen. Will I be next? I’m too young to die. What have we ever done to these people?

“I will never grow up, never marry or be a parent. Today the Crusaders will kill me.

“Smoke suddenly makes its presence felt. Both the smell and sight of sinister tendrils of grey smoke curling their way under the heavy locked doors relay the dire extremity of our situation.

“HaShem! God!

“Flames begin licking their way in through the barred windows. It is getting hotter. The godforsaken savages are going to burn us alive. Even over the screaming inside the synagogue, I can hear the Crusaders singing hymns to this Jesus Christ. What kind of religion is this? They are burning us to death and they sing of love? They have slaughtered nearly every human being in the city and they rejoice to the smell of burning flesh?

“The people who are praying, now increase their supplication in fervency and volume. Others collapse in shock. All are in a state of panic. Some are screaming and beating on the door. Others seek to shelter their children from the smoke as most back away from the walls, which are becoming scorching hot. The flames are now clearly visible on every side. The realization that their families and little ones really are burning to death finally becomes an inescapable reality against a backdrop of voices singing
Christ, We Adore Thee!

“Incredibly, as the flames wrap themselves around rafters, which are beginning to collapse, and the intensifying heat causes some, mercifully, to succumb to smoke suffocation, the sound of these murderous Crusaders singing hymns to their Jesus Christ escalates.

“Yet, they say this Jesus was a Jew.

“It’s inconceivable! They are singing to a Jew while they burn us alive for being Jews!

“HaShem! Where are You?”

I was angry! “Ariel, how could this happen? This is so different from the first story. What changed? What happened to healing the sick and raising the dead to life? Now they are putting the living to death! Clearly Jesus is not telling them to murder in His name, for His cause! I don’t understand.”

“David, it gets worse,” he put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You will have to bear with not understanding for a bit longer. In time, all will be explained.” Once more the lights went out.

Note

1
.   Religion hasn’t changed much in the past thousand years. Al Qaeda, Hamas, and other Islamic fundamentalist groups have sweetened the pot by throwing in seventy-two virgins for suicide bombers who die in the “line of duty.” Yet, they have only copied the manipulative tricks of the Roman Catholic Church. How easy it is to motivate a poor peasant to fight for you when you promise him Heaven. We know from history that many of the Crusaders raped, pillaged, and killed without mercy. And yet, Church leaders went outside of scriptural authority, guaranteeing these men a place with Yeshua.

1496
CE
, Tangier, Morocco

A young man is sitting in a chair.

“My name is Christophe. At least that is my
baptized
name. I am a twenty-three-year-old Jewish man. Several years ago we had to make an extremely difficult decision as a family. The authorities told us that if we didn’t convert to Catholicism and join the Church, we would have to leave Spain.

“We were Jews, but Spain was home. Many of my father’s friends had already joined the Church and been baptized. For a while they secretly continued to be our friends, but then, one by one, we ceased to see them.

“Their children were not allowed to play with us anymore. It wasn’t their fault. Now that they had left Judaism, the Church forbade them to intermix with
non-converted Jews
—we were poison. The punishment, should they be caught, might well be death!

“For many, many months my father wrestled with this decision. While many of his friends had already joined the Church and been baptized, many others had chosen to pack their bags and leave for other countries, such as Morocco to the south. However, they had to leave almost everything behind. Property was sold for a fraction of its worth. Jewelry was traded for food. We heard reports that some of our friends had been robbed and even killed on the way to their new life. My father did not want this for our family.

“One evening, he sat us all down and explained that if we wanted to survive and maintain our current quality of life, we would have to play their game. He told us that we would be baptized as Catholics, but remain Jewish in our hearts. This is what many Jewish families had done.

“We knew, and our tormentors knew as well, that this had nothing to do with religion; it was about politics. Spain was seeking to unify the country under Roman Catholicism. In fact, virtually all
non-Catholics
were suffering the same fate as we were.

“When the day came, not only were we baptized, but my father had to read a public confession denouncing Judaism as a demonic religion. He promised never to celebrate any Jewish holiday or even associate with non-baptized Jews. We were told that if we ever returned to Judaism,
in any form
, we would face severe retribution from the Church. They could confiscate our property and expel us from Spain. Even death was on the table. This was one of the worst days of my life. I felt so sick and dirty. How could we have compromised to this extent, trading in our faith for acceptance?”

This was how I felt. Although no one in twenty-first century America was threatening me with expulsion, I knew, like Christophe, that to become a Christian was to deny who I was. He continued.

“We were called
Conversos
, new Christians, or the more derogatory title,
Marranos
—meaning ‘pigs’! Despite giving an appearance of welcoming us into the Church, they did all they could to humiliate us. It was clear that we would never be permitted to be one of them and yet we couldn’t be who we were. We were stuck somewhere in the middle of no-man’s land.

“My father reminded us many times that we were still Jews and would always be Jews, but that we must be very careful. Everything had to be done in secret. Just a refusal to eat pork was considered sufficient reason to have a person arrested. We could trust no one, as the Church had its spies. Imagine that, a religious institution hiring people to spy on their subjects to ensure truly Catholic behavior. How could such a system claim to represent God? And how did they expect such coercion to spawn true devotion? Well, of course, they didn’t. This was all about Spain, not about religious devotion.

“Outside the home we maintained the facade of being good Christians while inside the home we remained God-fearing Jews. We lived this way for many years and while I carried with me a permanent feeling of uneasy guilt, we were able to remain in Spain. All that came to a very abrupt end, however, when my father was finally arrested.

“A
friend
came by to greet us on the Sabbath. Candles had been lit to welcome in the day of rest. We thought this friend could be trusted. In fact, he was a spy. In the beginning we had been much more careful—
especially
on Friday nights. Spies were encouraged to poke around the homes of
Conversos
on
Erev Shabbat
, Friday evenings, hoping to catch someone honoring the Fourth Commandment. Lighting Shabbat candles, saying the Jewish blessings, and singing the songs I grew up singing on Erev Shabbat were forbidden under the threat of death.

“Tragically, we had grown careless; we’d relaxed our caution. Three days later they came for my father. He was arrested and brought before an inquisition. The Church then tortured him until he confessed to the wretched crime of lighting Sabbath candles.

“My father was given a choice. He could repent of his deceit and take a part in a
verguenza
—a ‘shaming,’ in which he would be stripped to the waist in freezing temperatures (it was winter). He would then be paraded through the streets, led by monks and mocked by the crowds, suffering countless other indignities all along the way. The other option was to be burned at the stake.

“We knew additional punishments would be imposed once my father accepted the
verguenza
. They would expect him to turn in other
Conversos
who were secretly living as Jews, but he had been humiliated enough. Hadn’t he already denied his faith, in public, for our protection? And now these Christians wanted to add insult to injury. No, it was too much. He would not!

“When my father declared he would not recant, he was taken back into custody and sentenced by the religious magistrates, apparent followers of this Christ, to be burned alive. Yes, my father would be tied to a stake and endure the inconceivable agony of burning to death as the fire slowly, painfully, consumed him.

“All this in the name of their religion!

“When the day came, my family watched. We did not want him to die alone. This was it. The
religious police
were going to kill my father—take him from me because we lit candles. They brought him out with his hands bound behind his back. He was tied to a stake. He said not a word. Even when the flames engulfed him, burning his living body, he would not scream. He was telling us, without words, ‘
Don’t give in…don’t compromise…be strong
…’ and then, my father died.