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<Social and Economic Conditions.
[Political restrictions for the Jews and Christians]
The legal disabilities of the Jews during the period, known from the Basilica, were minimal and included exclusion from service in the armed forces and the government, even though Jews had been employed as tax collectors on Cyprus during the first two (col. 872)
decades of the 12th century. Jews were forbidden to buy Christian slaves, but this had little effect on them. No other restrictions existed concerning economic matters which did not also affect Christians. The charging of interest in trade and the purchase of land, except Church land, were permitted, although the emperors tried to control these matters for themselves. The question as to whether there was a specific Jewish tax seems to be open to a great deal of debate, but J. Starr (see bibl. The Jews in the Byzantine Empire) felt that such taxes did exist but were little enforced after the seventh century.
In short, the taxes provided for by Theodosius II in 429, Justinian's Corpus, and again three centuries later in the Nomocanon had little more effect on the Jewish community in the later period than on the Christian one. Such legal restrictions which did exist included:
the absence of the right of Jews to testify in cases involving Christians;
the overriding imperial authority over religious matters between Jews;
the right of Jewish testimony before Jewish judges only in civil litigation between Jews;
the prohibition of Judaizing;
and the necessity for Jews to take an oath in legal cases, which was contemptuous of the Jewish faith.
[No religious restrictions - professions]
Nevertheless, circumcision was officially permitted, the Sabbath and the Festivals were protected, synagogues were allowed, and even though the building of new ones was formally proscribed, the prohibition was not rigidly enforced. Although the Jew was restricted, he was in a much better position than Christian heretics.
Jews were active as early as the seventh century as physicians and skilled artisans, particularly as finishers of woven cloth (e.g., in Sparta), dyers (in Corinth), and makers of silk garments (in Salonika and Thebes). Jews were also involved in commerce and farming and as owners of land. In religious matters Hebrew remained the language of the Jews, although it was paralleled by the limited usage of Greek.
[Karaism - Rabbanites - writing]
Karaism began to appear in the empire in the tenth century (see Ankori, in bibl.) but only began to take root after the First Crusade.
R. Tobiah b. Eliezer of Kastoria was an important Rabbanite spokesman. Aside from R. Tobiah little if any writing was apparently done in the areas of Midrash, Talmud, and halakhah [[Jewish law]] during this entire period in Byzantium. There was literary activity in southern Italy, but then this area can only be included in the widest definition as to what was territorially part of Byzantine Greece. Additionally, about this time both Rabbanites and Karaites began to come to Byzantium from Muslim territory.
[Tudela: Jewish community places in the 12th century]
*Benjamin of Tudela, the 12th-century traveler, states that in his time there were Jews in Corfu, Arta, Aphilon (Achelous), Patras, Naupaktos, Corinth, Thebes, Chalcis, Salonika, Drama, and other localities. The Greek islands on which Jews lived were Lesbos, Chios, Samos, (col. 873)
Rhodes, and Cyprus. He found the largest community in Thebes, where there were 2,000 Jews, while in Salonika there were 500, and in other towns from 20 to 400. The Jews of Greece engaged in dyeing, weaving, and the making of silk garments.
[Normans take some Jews for silk weaving]
After Roger II, the king of the Normans in Sicily, conquered some Greek towns in 1147, he transferred some Jewish weavers to his kingdom in order to develop the weaving of silk in his country.
On Mount Parnassus Benjamin of Tudela found 200 farmers; there were also some serfs among the Jews.
During the reign of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus (1042-1055), there were 15 Jewish families in Chios who were perpetual serfs to the Nea Moné monastery. The Jews of Chios paid a poll tax - in reality a family tax - which the emperor transferred to the monastery. The Jews of Salonika also paid this tax.
[Jewish trade and Greek envy]
The majority of the Jews conducted their trade on a small scale and with distant countries. The Greek merchants envied their Jewish rivals and sought to restrict their progress. *Pethahiah of Regensburg describes the bitter exile in which the Jews of Greece lived (see also *Byzantine Empire).> (col. 874)
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