Jews And The Slave Trade

Jewish views on slavery are varied both religiously and historically. Judaism's ancient and medieval religious texts contain numerous laws governing the ownership and treatment of slaves. Texts that contain such regulations include the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the 12th-century Mishneh Torah by rabbi Maimonides, and the 16th-century Shulchan Aruch by rabbi Yosef Karo. The original Israelite slavery laws found in the Hebrew Bible bear some resemblance to the 18th-century BCE slavery laws of Hammurabi.Hastings, p. 619 The regulations changed over time. The Hebrew Bible contained two sets of laws, one for Canaanite slaves, and a more lenient set of laws for Hebrew slaves. From the time of the Pentateuch, the laws designated for Canaanites were applied to all non-Hebrew slaves. The Talmud's slavery laws, which were established in the second through the fifth centuries CE, contain a single set of rules for all slaves, although there are a few exceptions where Hebrew slaves are treated differently from non-Hebrew slaves. The laws include punishment for slave owners that mistreat their slaves. In the modern era, when the abolitionist movement sought to outlaw slavery, some supporters of slavery used the laws to provide religious justification for the practice of slavery.

Broadly, the Biblical and Talmudic laws tended to consider slavery a form of contract between persons, theoretically reducible to voluntary slavery, unlike ''chattel slavery'', where the enslaved person is legally rendered the personal property (chattel) of the slave owner. Hebrew slavery was prohibited during the Rabbinic era for as long as the Temple in Jerusalem is not reconstructed (i.e., the last two millennia). Although not prohibited, Jewish ownership of non-Jewish slaves was constrained by Rabbinic authorities since non-Jewish slaves were to be offered conversion to Judaism during their first 12-months term as slaves. If accepted, the slaves were to become Jews, hence redeemed immediately. If rejected, the slaves were to be sold to non-Jewish owners. Accordingly, the Jewish law produced a constant stream of Jewish converts with previous slave experience. Additionally, Jews were required to redeem Jewish slaves from non-Jewish owners, making them a privileged enslavement item, albeit temporary. The combination has made Jews less likely to participate in enslavement and slave trade.

Historically, some Jewish people owned and traded slaves. They participated in the medieval slave trade in Europe up to about the 12th century. Several scholarly works have been published to rebut the antisemitic canard of Jewish domination of the slave trade in Africa and the Americas in the later centuries,Reviewed Work: Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight by Eli Faber
by Paul Finkelman. ''Journal of Law and Religion'', Vol 17, No 1/2 (2002), pp. 125-28
Refutations of charges of Jewish prominence in slave trade:
* "Nor were Jews prominent in the slave trade. Of the 40 slave merchants in South Carolina, only 1 minor trader was a Jew." aragraph goes on to list similar breakdowns for other US states– Marvin Perry, Frederick M. Schweitzer: ''Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present'', p. 245. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002;
* "In no period did Jews play a leading role as financiers, shipowners, or factors in the transatlantic or Caribbean slave trades. They possessed far fewer slaves than non-Jews in every British territory in North America and the Caribbean. Even when Jews in a handful of places owned slaves in proportions slightly above their representation among a town's families, such cases do not come close to corroborating the assertions of The Secret Relationship." – Wim Klooster (University of Southern Maine)
Review of ''Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight'' by Eli Faber
(2000). "Reappraisals in Jewish Social and Intellectual History", ''William and Mary Quarterly Review of Books. Volume LVII, Number 1''. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
* "Medieval Christians greatly exaggerated the supposed Jewish control over trade and finance and also became obsessed with alleged Jewish plots to enslave, convert, or sell non-Jews... Most European Jews lived in poor communities on the margins of Christian society; they continued to suffer most of the legal disabilities associated with slavery. ... Whatever Jewish refugees from Brazil may have contributed to the northwestward expansion of sugar and slaves, it is clear that Jews had no major or continuing impact on the history of New World slavery." – Professor David Brion Davis of Yale University in ''Slavery and Human Progress'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 89 (cited i
Shofar FTP Archive File: orgs/american/wiesenthal.center//web/historical-facts

* "The Jews of Newport seem not to have pursued the lave tradingbusiness consistently ... henwe compare the number of vessels employed in the traffic by all merchants with the number sent to the African coast by Jewish traders ... we can see that the Jewish participation was minimal. It may be safely assumed that over a period of years American Jewish businessmen were accountable for considerably less than two percent of the slave imports into the West Indies" – Professor Jacob R. Marcus of Hebrew Union College in ''The Colonial American Jew'' (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970), Vol. 2, pp. 702-703 (cited i
Shofar FTP Archive File: orgs/american/wiesenthal.center//web/historical-facts

* "None of the major slave-traders was Jewish, nor did Jews constitute a large proportion in any particular community. ... probably all of the Jewish slave-traders in all of the Southern cities and towns combined did not buy and sell as many slaves as did the firm of Franklin and Armfield, the largest Negro traders in the South." – Bertram W. Korn, ''Jews and Negro Slavery in the Old South, 1789-1865'', in ''The Jewish Experience in America'', ed. Abraham J. Karp (Waltham, Massachusetts: American Jewish Historical Society, 1969), Vol 3, pp. 197-198 (cited i
Shofar FTP Archive File: orgs/american/wiesenthal.center//web/historical-facts

* "here wereJewish owners of plantations, but altogether they constituted only a tiny proportion of the Southerners whose habits, opinions, and status were to become decisive for the entire section, and eventually for the entire country. ... nly one Jewtried his hand as a plantation overseer even if only for a brief time." – Bertram W. Korn, "Jews and Negro Slavery in the Old South, 1789-1865", ''The Jewish Experience in America'', ed. Abraham J. Karp (Waltham, Massachusetts: American Jewish Historical Society, 1969), Vol 3, p. 180 (cited i
Shofar FTP Archive File: orgs/american/wiesenthal.center//web/historical-facts
and to show that Jews had no major or continuing impact on the history of New World slavery.Anti-Semitism. Farrakhan In His Own Words. On Jewish Involvement in the Slave Trade
an

. adl.org (December 31, 2001). They possessed far fewer slaves than non-Jews in every Spanish territory in North America and the Caribbean, and "in no period did they play a leading role as financiers, shipowners, or factors in the transatlantic or Caribbean slave trades" (Wim Klooster quoted by Eli Faber).Herbert Klein (Journal of Social History)
Review of ''Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight'' by Eli Faber
"Journal of Social History" 33.3 (2000) 743-745

American mainland colonial Jews imported slaves from Africa at a rate proportionate to the general population. As slave sellers, their role was more marginal, although their involvement in the Brazilian and Caribbean trade is believed to be considerably more significant.''The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America'', p. 43
by Rabbi Marc Lee Raphael, (Columbia University Press, February 12, 2008); . "During the 1990s, allegations that Jews financed, dominated, and controlled the slave trade captured wide attention and were widely accepted in the African American community (on the latter point, see Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s "Black Demagogues and Pseudo-Scholars", ''New York Times'', July 20, 1992, p. A15). Subsequent extensive research demonstrated this was not the case, see David Brion Davis, "Jews in the Slave Trade", ''Culturefront'' (Fall 1992): 42-45
* Seymour Drescher, "The Role of Jews in the Transatlantic Slave Trade", ''Immigrants and Minorities'' 12 (1993): 113-25
Eli Faber, ''Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight'' (New York, 1998)
Saul S. Friedman, ''Jews and the American Slave Trade'' (New Brunswick, NJ, 1998).
For numerical data demonstrating the minute role played by mainland colonial Jews in the importation of slaves from Africa and the Caribbean and their marginal role as slave sellers, see Faber, ''Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade'', pp. 131-42"; retrieved from Google Books on January 28, 2013. Jason H. Silverman, a historian of slavery, describes the part of Jews in slave trading in the southern United States as "minuscule", and writes that the historical rise and fall of slavery in the United States would not have been affected at all had there been no Jews living in the American South. Jews accounted for 1.25% of all Southern slave owners, and were not significantly different from other slave owners in their treatment of slaves.

The Exodus

The story of the Exodus from Egypt, as related in the Torah, has shaped the Jewish people throughout history. Briefly outlined, the story recounts the experience of the Israelites under Egyptian enslavement, God's promise to redeem them from slavery, God's punishment of the Egyptians, and the Israelite redemption and departure from Egypt. The Exodus story has been interpreted and reinterpreted in every era and in every location to suit or challenge cultural norms. The result over time has been a steady increase in the governance of masters in favor of slaves' rights and eventually the complete prohibition of slavery.

Biblical era

Ancient Israelite society allowed slavery; however, total domination of one human being by another was not permitted.Hezser, p. 6 Rather, slavery in antiquity among the Israelites was closer to what would later be called indentured servitude.Kushner, 457. Slaves were seen as an essential part of a Hebrew household.Hezser, p. 382 In fact, there were cases in which, from a slave's point of view, the stability of servitude under a family in which the slave was well-treated would have been preferable to economic freedom.

It is impossible for scholars to quantify the number of slaves that were owned by Hebrews in ancient Israelite society, or what percentage of households owned slaves, but it is possible to analyze social, legal, and economic impacts of slavery.

The Hebrew Bible contains two sets of rules governing slaves: one set for Hebrew slaves (Lev 25:39-43) and a second set for Canaanite slaves (Lev 25:45-46).Hezser, p. 29 The main source of non-Hebrew slaves were prisoners of war. Hebrew slaves, in contrast to non-Hebrew slaves, became slaves either because of extreme poverty (in which case they could sell themselves to an Israelite owner) or because of inability to pay a debt. According to the Hebrew Bible, non-Hebrew slaves were drawn primarily from the neighboring Canaanite nations,Schorsch, p. 63 and religious justification was provided for the enslavement of these neighbors: the rules governing Canaanites was based on a curse aimed at Canaan, a son of Ham, but in later eras the Canaanite slavery laws were stretched to apply to all non-Hebrew slaves.

The laws governing non-Hebrew slaves were more harsh than those governing Hebrew slaves: non-Hebrew slaves could be owned permanently, and bequeathed to the owner's children, whereas Hebrew slaves were treated as servants, and were released after six years of service or the occurrence of a jubilee year. One scholar suggests that the distinction was due to the fact that non-Hebrew slaves were subject to the curse of Canaan, whereas God did not want Jews to be slaves because he freed them from Egyptian enslavement.

The laws governing Hebrew slaves were more lenient than laws governing non-Hebrew slaves, but a single Hebrew word, ''ebed'' (meaning slave or servant, cognate to the Arabic '' abd'') is used for both situations. In English translations of the Bible, the distinction is sometimes emphasized by translating the word as "slave" in the context of non-Hebrew slaves, and "servant" or "bondman" for Hebrew slaves.Jewish Encyclopedia. ''Ebed'' is also used, throughout the Hebrew Bible, to denote government officials, sometimes high-ranking (for example, Nathan-melech, whose seal was discovered in archeological excavations. In translations of 2 Kings 23:11 where Nathan-melech is noticed, his title is translated as 'chamberlain,' 'officer' or 'official').

Most slaves owned by Israelites were non-Hebrew, and scholars are not certain what percentage of slaves were Hebrew: Ephraim Urbach, a distinguished scholar of Judaism, maintains that Israelites rarely owned Hebrew slaves after the Maccabean era, although it is certain that Israelites owned Hebrew slaves during the time of the Babylonian exile. Another scholar suggests that Israelites continued to own Hebrew slaves through the Middle Ages, but that the Biblical rules were ignored, and Hebrew slaves were treated the same as non-Hebrews.

The Torah forbids the return of runaway slaves who escape from their foreign land and their bondage and arrive in the Land of Israel. Furthermore, the Torah demands that such former slaves be treated equally to any other resident alien. This law is unique in the Ancient Near East.

Talmudic era

In the early Common Era, the regulations concerning slave-ownership by Jews underwent an extensive expansion and codification within the Talmud.Blackburn, p. 68 The precise issues that necessitated a clarification to the laws is still up for debate. The majority of current scholarly opinion holds that pressures to assimilate during the late Roman to early medieval period resulted in an attempt by Jewish communities to reinforce their own identities by drawing distinctions between their practices and the practices of non-Jews. One author, however, has proposed that they could include factors such as ownership of non-Canaanite slaves, the continuing practice of owning Jewish slaves, or conflicts with Roman slave-ownership laws. Thus, the Babylonian Talmud (redacted in 500 CE) contains an extensive set of laws governing slavery, which is more detailed than found in the Torah.

The major change found in the Talmud's slavery laws was that a single set of rules, with a few exceptions, governs both Jewish slaves and non-Jewish slaves.Hezser, pp. 8, 31-33, 39 Another change was that the distinction between Hebrew and non-Hebrew slaves began to diminish as the Talmud expanded during this period. This included an expanded set of obligations the owner incurred toward the slave as well as codifying the process for manumission (the freeing from slavery). It also included a large set of conditions, that allowed or required manumission to include requirements for education of slaves, expanding disability manumission, and in cases of religious conversion or necessity.Hastings, p. 620Jewish Encyclopedia, "Slaves and Slavery" These restrictions were based on the Biblical injunction to treat slaves well with the reinforcement of the memory of Egyptian slavery which Jews were urged to remember by their scriptural texts. However, historian Josephus wrote that the seven-year automatic release was still in effect if the slavery was a punishment for a crime the slave committed (as opposed to voluntary slavery due to poverty). In addition, the notion of Canaanite slaves from the Jewish Bible is expanded to all non-Jewish slaves.

Significant effort is given in the Talmud to address the property rights of slaves. While the Torah only refers to a slave's specific ability to collect gleanings, Talmudic sources interpret this commandment to include the right to own property more generally, and even "purchase" a portion of their own labor from the master. Hezser notes the often confusing mosaic of Talmudic laws distinguishes between finding property during work and earning property as a result of work. While the Talmud affirmed that self-redemption of slaves (Jewish or not) was always permitted, it noted that conditionless manumission by the owner was generally a violation of legal precept.Hastings, p. 620, citing Gitten 45b The Talmud however, also included a varied list of circumstances and conditions that overrode this principle and mandated manumission. Conditions such as ill-treatment, oral promise, marriage to a free-woman, escape, inclusion in religious ceremony, and desire to visit the Holy Land all required the master to provide the slave with a deed of manumission, presented to him with witnesses. Failure to comply would result in excommunication.

It is apparent that Jews still owned Jewish slaves in the Talmudic era because Talmudic authorities tried to denounce the practice that Jews could sell themselves into slavery if they were poverty-stricken. In particular, the Talmud said that Jews should not sell themselves to non-Jews, and if they did, the Jewish community was urged to ransom or redeem the slave.

While Jews did take slavery as a given, just as in other ancient societies, slaves in Jewish households could expect more compassionate treatment.

Methods of acquisition

Acquisition of a non-Jewish slave by a Jew is expressly stated in the Jerusalem Talmud (''Baba Bathra'' 3:1 a as being acquired in the following manner: A child who has been abandoned in the marketplace and who has been taken-up by a stranger, if his parents cannot be found, nor two witnesses who are able to claim that the child is the son of so-and-so, the child is then called an ''asūfī'' ("foundling") and may be handled as a slave by its patron, namely, the person who took him in. Even so, this is on the condition that the child is so small that he is unable to move about on his own volition, from one distant place to another distant place. Had three years passed without objection, the child can be handled as his ''bona fide'' slave. In this case, the child is circumcised, immersed in a ritual bath, and obligated to keep the commandments as Jewish women.

Maimonides, in his Code of Jewish law, lists other methods by which non-Jewish slaves may be acquired, citing the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate ''Kiddushin'': "A Canaanite slave is acquired either by money, or by writ, or by usucaption. How is usucaption performed exactly when acquiring slaves? It is performed by making use of them, just as one would do with slaves before their master. How? Had he unlaced his shoe, or shod him with a shoe, or had he carried his items f clothingto the bath house, or helped him to get undressed, or rubbed him down with edicinaloil, scratched is backfor him, or helped him to get dressed, or had he lifted-up his master, in such ayshe has acquired him s a slave ..Had he forcibly attacked him and brought him along with him, he has acquired thereby a slave, since slaves are acquired by having them drawn-along in such a manner. ..A slave who is but a child is acquired by drawing him along, without the necessity of having to attack him."

A Jewish slave is acquired differently, namely, when a Jewish court of law sells him into limited bondage (unto a Jewish master) for having engaged in thefts and not having that which to pay. In such cases, he does not work beyond six years. A Jewish bondmaid is sold by her father into servitude, usually because of severe poverty, but the girl's master, as a first resort, is required to betroth her in marriage after using her as his bondmaid. These sanctions only apply when the entire nation of Israel is settled in their own land and the laws of the Jubilee ( he, יובל) have been re-instated.

Curse of Ham as a justification for slavery

Some scholars have asserted that the Curse of Ham described in Judaism's religious texts was a justification for slavery – citing the Tanakh