(This is my seventh post in a series about the conversations between Moses and God, and how their relationship evolves in the book of Exodus/Shemot. If you would like to read one of my posts about this week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, you might try: Tetzaveh: Flower on the Forehead.)

The first time Moses and God have a conversation on Mount Sinai, God tells Moses to return to Egypt, ask the pharaoh to let the Israelites leave, and persuade the Israelites to follow him out of the country. Moses keeps making excuses to get out of this terrifying mission, certain that he cannot persuade anyone of anything. But God gives him one reassurance after another, finally promising to deploy Moses’ long-lost brother, Aaron, as his spokesman (or perhaps interpreter; see my post: Shemot: Not a Man of Words). Then Moses finally, reluctantly, heads back to Egypt.

When he leaves Egypt a year or two later, 600,000 Israelites and supporters follow him into the wilderness.¹ Although leadership comes more naturally to extraverts, introverts like Moses can become effective leaders with sufficient preparation and self-confidence. As God backs him up in his negotiations with the pharaoh, Moses earns respect from the pharaoh and his court, and his self-confidence increases exponentially.² His standing also improves with the Israelites; by the time they leave Egypt, the people view both Moses and God (as manifested in a column of cloud and fire) as their leaders.

And God was going before them, by day in a column of cloud to lead them on the way, and by night in a column of fire to give light to them for walking day and night.  (Exodus 13:21)

A junior leader when the sea splits

The pharaoh has another change of heart, thanks to some heart-hardening from God, and he pursues the Israelites with a squadron of charioteers. God tells Moses to make the Israelites turn around and camp on the shore of the Reed Sea³ so they will appear to be trapped between the Egyptian army and the water. Moses does, even though God neglects to explain the next part of the divine scheme.

And Pharaoh approached, and the Israelites raised their eyes, and hey! Egyptians were setting out after them! They were very afraid. And the Israelites cried out to God. And they said to Moses: “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt, that you took us out to die in the wilderness? What is this you have done to us, to bring us out from Egypt?” (Exodus 14:10-11)

Out of their two leaders, the Israelites address God first, but they blame Moses. The 14^th-century commentary Tur HaArokh explained: “When they noted that their prayer had not helped, they became heretical in their attitude, making above-mentioned sarcastic comments to Moses, blaming him for their present predicament.”⁴

They declare that they were better off being enslaved in Egypt. Moses replies, on his own initiative, that God will do battle for them. But then God tells Moses to order the Israelites to march forward into the sea, adding:

“And you, raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and split it! And the Israelites will come into the middle of the sea on the dry land. And I, I will be here strengthening the Egyptians’ heart, and they will come in after them. Then ikavdah by Pharaoh and by all Pharaoh’s army, by his charioteers and by his horsemen. Then Egypt will know that I am Y-H-V-H …” (Exodus14:16-18)

ikavdah (אִכָּבְדָה) = I will be considered impressive, I will be honored, I will be respected. (From the same root as koved, כֱֺבֶד = weight.)

It is important to God to acquire an impressive reputation in Egypt.^5ֶ But it is also important for the Israelites to respect Moses, so God has him initiate the miracle of the parting of the Reed Sea with a dramatic gesture.

The Egyptian charioteers urge the horses onto the dry sea-bed, still chasing the Israelites. But as soon as all the people and their livestock have reached the other side, God lets the water rush back and drown the Egyptians.

And Israel saw the great hand [power] that Y-H-V-H had used against the Egyptians, and the people feared Y-H-V-H, and they had faith in Y-H-V-H and in [God’s] servant Moses. (Exodus 14:31)

In their first conversation on Mount Sinai, God was like a patient parent reassuring an anxious young child. (See my post: Shemot: Moses Gives Up.) In Egypt, God is like a reliable parent to an adolescent uneasy with his place in the world. (See my post: Shemot to Bo: Moses Finds His Voice.) But as the Israelites journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai, God is like a mentor who takes time to make sure a young adult protégé comes to be viewed as a leader And Moses responds by turning to God when he needs advice.

A moment of panic

At Refidim, the Israelites’ last stop on the Sinai Peninsula before Mount Sinai, there is no water. The people are probably carrying some water from the last campsite, but they are anxious—or inclined to grumble.

And the people complained against Moses, and they said: “Give us water, so we may drink!” And Moses said to them: “Why do you complain against me? Why do you test God?” (Exodus 17:2)

Moses has identified so completely with his role as God’s agent that he now considers any quarrel with him a quarrel with God. After all, God makes the decisions; he merely carries them out.

But the people were thirsty for water there, and the people grumbled against Moses, and said: “Why this? To bring us up from Egypt [only] to bring death to me and my children and my livestock by thirst?” And Moses cried out to God, saying: “What can I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me!” (Exodus 17:3-4)

Moses is still insecure about his new role, afraid that at any time the people will turn angry enough to kill him.

And God said to Moses: “Pass before the people, and take with you some of Israel’s elders, and take the staff with which you struck the Nile in your hand, and go.” (Exodus 17:5)

Robert Alter noted: “… passing before the enraged people would be rather like running the gauntlet, and it is this that God compels him to do as the prelude to the demonstration of divine saving power.”⁶

In this way God nudges Moses to do something courageous. When he does pass in front of the people, they see that he is going somewhere (with witnesses) to find water, and trust him enough to wait for his return.

Calmly God tells Moses the next step:

“Here, I will be standing before you there on the rock at Choreiv. And you must hit the rock, and water with come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did thus, before the eyes of the elders of Israel. (Exodus 17:6)

Choreiv (חֺרֵב) = the alternate name for Mount Sinai, the name used for the “Mountain of God” in the passage about Moses seeing the bush that burned but was not consumed.⁷ (Ironically, from the root verb charav, חָרַב = dried up, made desolate.)

The Torah does not say that anyone actually sees God standing on a rock at the mountain. Perhaps Moses has developed a sense for the direction from which God’s instructions reach him. The 14^th-century commentary Tur HaArokh suggested that Moses saw a vision of an angel on the rock.

And why does God create the miracle at Choreiv instead of at their camp at Refidim? Hirsch speculated in the 19th century that God had planned for water to gush from a rock when they arrived at the mountain, but the Israelites complained about thirst prematurely, before their portable supplies had run out. “The only effect of their untimely murmuring was that even now, while they were in Refidim, God provided them with water from Chorev. The words … seem to indicate that the water flowed from Chorev to the people’s camp in Refidim.”⁸

A staff initiative

Moses demonstrates his new ability as a leader in one more event before the Israelites pitch camp at the foot of Mount Sinai/Choreiv.

Then Amaleik came and would do battle with Israel at Refidim. And Moses said to Joshua: “Choose men for us and go out, wage battle against Amaleik! Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill, and the staff of God will be in my hand.” (Exodus 17:8-9)

Nobody expects Moses to be a war leader. He is God’s prophet and deputy; when a warlike band of Amalekites appears, Moses appoints Joshua as the military general. Moses also decides to spend the day of the battle on top of a low hill where the Israelite troops can see him holding the staff. God does not need to instruct Moses this time; he has already taken charge.

Malbim, another 19th-century commentator, wrote “Moshe’s special abilities lay in the realm of the supernatural. … On this occasion, by contrast, God hid His face so that they were required to do battle in a natural manner. Therefore Moshe delegated command to Yehoshua, who had been chosen by God to lead the conquest of Canaan, which was to be accomplished through natural wars accompanied by hidden miracles.”⁹

Moses climbs to the top of the nearby hill with his brother Aaron and another trusted assistant, Chur.

And it happened that when Moses raised his hand, Israel prevailed. And when he rested his hand, Amaleik prevailed. Then Moses’ hands were keveidim. So they took a stone and placed it under him, and he sat down on it, and Aaron and Chur supported his hands, one on this side and one on the other side. And his hands were steadfast until the sun came in [went down].” (Exodus 17:12)

keveidim (כְּבֵדִים) = heavy. (From the same root as ikavdah,אִכָּבְדָה,in Exodus 14:18 above = I will be considered impressive, I will be honored, I will be respected.)

According to the 13^th-century commentary Chizkuni, Moses’ motivation was “to be able to follow the course of the battle while personally watching, and even more, so that the Israelite fighters could see their leader and be encouraged by this visual contact … Moses’ staff in this instance served as a flag for the Israelites fighting Amalek.”¹⁰

And Joshua disabled Amaleik and his people with the edge of the sword. (Exodus 17:13)

Enough Amalekites are killed or wounded so that they give up and run away. The immediate cause of the Israelites’ victory is that they keep swinging at the Amalekites with swords (which they must have taken from Egyptians, along with the gold, silver, and clothing). But they have the confidence to attack instead of retreat only when they see Moses holding up the staff of God.

Moses has had enough mentoring by God, and enough practice being the leader of thousands, that this time he acts on his own initiative and does exactly the right thing to save his people. He has become a worthy co-leader with God.

To be continued …

1. Exodus 12:37 says: The Israelites journeyed from Ramses to Sukkot, about 600,000 fighting men on foot, apart from non-walkers. This would mean the total number of Israelites was more than a million, which would take more miracles than the book of Exodus reports to keep alive in the arid wilderness. The next verse, Exodus 12:38, says: And also riffraff went up with them …
2. On Moses’ increasing self-confidence, see my post: Shemot to Bo: Moses Finds His Voice. On the courtiers, see Exodus 11:3: The man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the eyes of Pharaoh’s courtiers and in the eyes of the people. The pharaoh reveals his growing respect for Moses in more subtle ways. The first time Moses and Aaron speak to him, he rejects their request out of hand (Exodus 5:1-9). After the second plague, the pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron and says if they will plead with God to remove the frogs, he will let the people go (Exodus 8:4). He keeps making these deals, then backing out on them, but at least he views Moses as someone who has God’s ear and must be negotiated with. When the pharaoh and Moses make another deal after the fourth plague, Moses adds: “Only may Pharaoh not deceive us again …” (Exodus 8:25)—and the pharaoh swallows the insult. During the final plague, death of the firstborn, the pharaoh begs Moses and Aaron not only to take the Israelites out of Egypt with no conditions, but also to bring a blessing upon him (Exodus 12:31-32).
3. The Hebrew word for this body of water is yam suf (יַם־סוּף), which means “Sea of Reeds”. It is commonly translated as the Red Sea, since the northern tip of the Red Sea is one possibility for the Israelites’ crossing point.
4. Tur HaArokh, by Rabbi Jacob ben Asher, written circa 1280–1340 C.E., translation in www.sefaria.org.
5. See Exodus 14:4.
6. Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2004, p. 412.
7. Exodus 3:1.
8. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Shemos, translation by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2005, p. 293.
9. Malbim (19^th-century rabbi Meir Leibush Weisser), translation in www.sefaria.org; I substituted “God” for “Hashem” for clarity.
10. Chizkuni, by Chizkiah ben Manoach, 13^th century, translation in www.sefaria.org.

Pharaoh thinks his army of charioteers has trapped the Israelites on the shore of the Reed Sea. The Israelites think they are going to die. Then God splits the water long enough for them cross over on dry ground, and for the Egyptians to follow them onto the sea bed. At that point in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16), the water rushes back, and all the Egyptians drown.

The Israelites saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea. And the Israelites saw the great power that God had used against the Egyptians, and the people feared God … and they trusted in God and in God’s servant, Moses. That was when Moses and the Israelites sang this song to God. (Exodus 14:30-15:1)

The 18-verse “Song of the Sea” that follows may be the oldest text in the bible; Hebrew scholars date it to roughly 1100 B.C.E. (The rest of the book of Exodus, judging by the language, was written well after 900 B.C.E.) The song differs from the prose account leading up to it, but it does include descriptions of God drowning an army of Egyptian chariots.

This is the first time anyone sings in the bible, as well as the first time a human character addresses God with words of praise (instead of pleading or questions).

In the first part of the “Song of the Sea”, verses 4-10 describe God drowning the Egyptian charioteers (with no mention of Moses). In the second part, verses 14-16 describe the fear of the surrounding kingdoms when they hear about it (a theme that is premature at this point in the Exodus story). In between these two themes, there is a verse that Jews still sing at every morning and evening service:

Mi khamokhah ba-eilim, Adonai!
Mi kamokhah, nedar bakodesh,
Nora tehilot, oseh feleh!

  Who is like you among the eilim, Y-H-V-H!
  Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
  Too nora for praises, doing wonders! (Exodus 15:11)

eilim (אֵלִם) = Plural of eil (אֵל) = a god; the name of the father god in Canaanite mythology; a title of the God of Israel.

nora (נוֹרָא) = feared, fearsome, awesome. (A form of the verb yareh, יָרֵא = fear, be afraid.)

The verse beginning “Mi khamokhah” (often transliterated as mi chamocha) certainly counts as praising God. But what kind of praise is this, comparing God to other gods? Or saying that God is too fearsome to praise? In the book of Exodus, the Israelites who travel from Egypt to Canaan believe that there were many gods, all inhuman and frightening, and the best they could hope for was that their own God was the most powerful, and would help them—if not for their own sake, for the sake of God’s reputation. The straightforward translations of eilim as “gods” and nora as “feared” or “fearsome” match their point of view.

Nobody is like you

The Song of the Sea is not the only biblical text that contain references to other gods—usually serving under the God of Israel, who is the supreme creator and judge. The idea appears in the books of Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and Job. (See my posts Yitro & Psalms 29, 82, & 97: Greater Than Other Gods and Bereishit: How Many Gods?)

However, two biblical books, Deuteronomy and Isaiah, present clear statements of monotheism.¹  For example, God says:

And there are no gods [elohim] except for Me.  (Isaiah 44:6)

Because I am Eil, and there is no other.  (Isaiah 45:22)

Jewish theology was almost exclusively monotheistic by the first century C.E., when Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish Platonist, analyzed the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic laws in terms of Greek philosophical categories. Philo dealt with archaic ideas in the bible, such as an anthropomorphic god and references to other gods, by explaining that they were allegorical.

But Talmudic and medieval commentators were more attached to taking the bible literally. They strained to find alternate interpretations for the scattered references to other gods, including the comparison between God and the eilim in the Song of the Sea.

One ploy was to treat the word eilim (אֵלִם) as if it were a misspelling of the Hebrew word ilam (אִלָּם) = mute, unable to speak. This was a legitimate move, since the Hebrew in the bible was written without the diacritical marks commonly called vowel pointing until the Masoretic text was fixed in the 7^th-10^th centuries C.E. Theoretically, the Masoretes could have misinterpreted a word spelled simply אלם in the Torah scroll.

So the Talmud, extant around 500 C.E., reports:

“The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught that the verse: “Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods” (Exodus 15:11), should be read as: ‘Who is like You among the mute’, for You conduct Yourself like a mute and remain silent in the face of Your blasphemers.” (Talmud Bavli, Gittin 56b)²

Rashi (11^th-century Rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki) went farther afield when he suggested reading eilim (אֵלִם) as its homophone eilim (אֵילִים), which is the plural of ayil (אַיִל) = ram; metaphorically, a powerful man or a mighty tree.

 “באלם means ‘amongst the mighty’, just as (Ezekiel 17:13) ‘and the mighty of (אילי) the land he took away’.” (Rashi)²

Other rabbis chose to consider the eilim angels, i.e. celestial beings who have no existence apart from God. Ramban (13^th-century Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman) wrote that “among the eilim” means “among those who serve before Thee in heaven”.²

An 18^th-century commentator explained the events at the Sea of Reeds as a battle between the God of Israel and the guardian angel of Egypt:

“Israel describes that they had seen the guardian angel of Egypt die; hence they could say that absolutely no celestial force compares to the Lord our God.” (Or HaChayim)³

But in the 19^th century, Rabbi Samson Raphel Hirsch identified the eilim as powerful natural forces:

“True, there are אֵלִם, active and effective forces in nature; but though men may worship them as gods, they are subject and bound by powerful bonds to the order You have ordained for them. You alone are free; You are not bound by the was of nature, the work of Your own hands.”⁴

The “Mi Khamokha” verse in modern prayerbooks is often translated so as not to raise questions about monotheism. Rashi’s proposal, “Who is like you among the mighty?” is a common translation. The traditional Artscroll Siddur goes with: “Who is like You among the heavenly powers?”

I like the approach in Rabbi David Zaslow’s prayerbook, Ivdu Et Hashem B’Simcha, which retains the literal definition of eilim as “gods” but adds a explanatory phrase: “Who is like you among the gods that are worshipped?”⁵

Too fearsome to praise

After the difficult question “Who is like you among the eilim?”, the rest of the verse extols God by saying:

Who is like you, majestic in holiness,

Too fearsome for praises, doing wonders! (Exodus 15:11)

A strictly literal translation of the phrase “Nora tehillot” would be “fearsome praises”, but the oldest Biblical Hebrew omits many of the connecting words we rely on in English. The consensus of translators is that the sense of the phrase is “too nora for praises”. But does the word nora (a past participle used as an adjective) carry its primary meaning of “feared” or “fearsome”? Or its secondary meaning of “treated with awe” or “awesome”?

Many medieval rabbis analyzed the phrase “Nora tehillot” in terms of being afraid of God.According to Rashi in the 11^th century:

“Thou art an object of dread, so that people do not recount thy praises, fearing lest these may be enumerated less then they really are, just as it is written (Psalms 65:2) ‘To Thee, silence is praise’.”²

12^th-century Rabbi Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra added:

“However, they are obligated to praise Him because He alone does wonders.”²

In the 13^th century, Ramban had another explanation for the use of the word nora:

“In my opinion, nora t’hilot means: “fearful with praises, for He does fearful things and He is praised for them, as when He wreaks vengeance on those who transgress His will, and thereby helps those who serve Him. Thus He is [both] feared and highly praised.” (Ramban)²

But in the 16^th century, Rabbi Obadiah Sforno (who lived in Italy during the Renaissance) commented on the verse in terms of awe rather than fear.

“Anyone aware of the marvelous attributes of His cannot fail but recite these praises in awe, not because he is afraid of being punished but because the very nature of God inspires awe and reverence.”²

Yet in the 19^th century, S.R. Hirsch wrote sternly:

“Songs of praise to God that do not lead to the fear of God, or that are even intended as substitutes for the fear of God, are nothing but a profanation of God’s Name.”⁶

Most modern prayerbooks translate nora (נוֹרָא) as “awesome”, rather than “feared” or “fearsome”, probably so as not to make God sound harsh and unloving.

I believe that literal translations of the Hebrew Bible reflect the viewpoint of the original authors, and are appropriate for everyone except readers who do not grasp concepts such as allegory or cultural history, and insist on taking every word in an English translation of the bible as a simple directive from God.

But in a Jewish prayerbook, literal translations of quotes from the bible are more problematic. Some readers are comfortable with the evolution of the religion, and can mentally adapt the ancient words—even while singing them—so that the prayer becomes worthy vehicle for their heartfelt feelings. For other readers, this approach seems unnatural, difficult, or contrary. Why should one sing or recite a prayer one does not believe in literally?

For these people, it might be better to adjust the translations of Hebrew words in prayers so as to avoid raising objections about whether there is only one God, or whether God is kind rather than frightening. Then they, too, might be able to use prayer to express gratitude for the wonders of creation.

1. Deuteronomy 4:35, 10:14, and 32:39; Isaiah 37:16, 37:20, 41:4, 43:10-11, 44:6, 44:8, 45:5-6, 45:21-22, and 48:12. (Isaiah from chapter 40 on is called second Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah, and was written in the 6th century C.E.)
2. Translations from www.sefaria.org.
3. Or HaChayim, by Rabbi Chayim ben Moshe ibn Attar, translation in www.sefaria.org.
4. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Shemot, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2003, p. 247.
5. Ivdu Et Hashem B’Simcha, compiled and edited by Rabbi David Zaslow, The Wisdom Exchange, 2010, pp. 81 and 82.
6. Hirsch, ibid., p. 248.

The Israelites march out of Egypt beyad ramah, “with a high hand”, in this week’s Torah portion, Beshelach.  (To read my 2013 essay on that rare phrase in the Torah, you can click here: Beshalach: High-Handed.)

Beyad ramah, like the English idiom “high-handed”, means arrogantly doing something without consulting or collaborating with others.  In this week’s Torah portion, the Israelite slaves march out of Egypt fearlessly, even arrogantly, taking their Egyptian neighbors’ jewelry with them.

Three days later at the Reed Sea, they see the Egyptian army behind them and they feel powerless once more.  Forty years later in Canaan, they kill, plunder, and conquer the native population in a way that could be considered high-handed.  After that a few Jewish kings act arrogantly in the Torah, but the Israelites as a people rarely have the opportunity.  Both Israelite kingdoms are small and eventually swallowed up by their powerful neighbors.

For almost two millennia, from the destruction of the second temple in 70 C.E. to the founding of the nation-state of Israel in 1948, Jerusalem and its surrounding province were subservient to the government of one larger empire after another.  Jews who emigrated to other countries were only rarely considered peers of the majority group; discrimination ranged from being charged an extra tax to being murdered by mobs.  An individual Jew could be high-handed in his own sphere, but a group of Jews could not pull it off until the twentieth century.

When I started working on volunteer committees I learned that if I just did something without consulting everyone who might be involved, I was being high-handed.  I remembered how I had hated being treated unfairly and without respect when I was younger, and I learned how to collaborate better.

Can whole groups of people live together with mutual respect?

Sometimes, in some places, Jews have been one respected group living in harmony with other groups.  Over the last two millennia, this was often the case in Split, Croatia, the city where I am living this winter.

A Short Illustrated History of Jews in Split

(all photos by Melissa Carpenter)

In the first century B.C.E. the Romans acquired both Syria (which included Jerusalem) and Dalmatia (which included Split).  Julius Caesar set an example by granting Jews an exemption from Roman religious practices and permission to follow their own customs.  In Jerusalem and the district of Judea, Jews protested in 66 C.E. against Roman taxes and soldiers, and the Roman governor responded by plundering the treasury of the temple.  During the war that ensued, the Romans razed the temple.

Meanwhile in Dalmatia, Jews came with the Romans and settled along the coast.  Jewish artifacts from as early as the third century C.E. have been found in both Split and the Roman city of Solana across the bay.

Emperor Diocletian, who built his retirement palace in Split around 300 C.E., persecuted and executed local Christians, but left Jews free to observe their own religion.

The Roman Empire was collapsing when Slavs and Avars invaded Dalmatia in the 6^th century and seized the city of Salona north of Split.  Both Jews and Christians fled across the bay and built stone houses inside the shell of Diocletian’s palace.  Archaeologists have yet to determine whether the menorahs carved into buildings stones in the cellars of the palace date from this time or an earlier century.

In the 1490’s Spain and Portugal expelled their Jews.  Some ports on the Adriatic Sea refused to accept these refugees, but Split made room for them, and these Sefardic Jews settled in the northwest quarter of Diocletian’s former palace.  Eventually that became the Jewish neighborhood of Split.

Split and the rest of the Dalmatian coast north of Dubrovnik were part of the Venetian Republic from 1420 to 1796.  In the 16^th century one of the Jewish immigrants from Portugal, Daniel Rodriga, persuaded the Venetian government to turn Split into a major port by adding a lazaretto with warehouses and a quarantine building.  The doge in Venice agreed and put Rodriga in charge of building the lazaretto in 1572.  Rodriga got permission from local authorities to establish a Jewish cemetery on the slope of nearby Marjan Hill in 1573.

Split boomed thanks to Rodriga’s lazaretto, and in the 17^th century the Venetians built a defensive wall with bastions to protect their valuable port from the Ottomans, who had captured the other side of the bay. When Ottomans attacked Split in 1657, the Venetian wall was still under construction.  The local Jews were trusted with the defense of Diocletian’s northwest tower.  The Ottomans were unable to penetrate the city center inside the palace, and townspeople started calling that tower Zidovska Kula, “Jewish Tower”.

At first the Venetian ruling class was remarkably tolerant of Jews compared to the Christians in other countries, and the Jews of Split were free to follow any trades they chose.  The only restriction imposed on them was that they could not own property; they had to rent, but they could buy long-term leases.  And although Venice itself established a ghetto in 1516, Jews in Split could lease houses wherever they wanted.  Most, but not all, chose to live in the old Jewish neighborhood.

This harmony between Christians and Jews lasted until the 18^th century.  Then in 1738 the Venetian rulers of Split started requiring Jews to wear special hats.  In 1778 they ruled that Jews could no longer employ Christians, and created a Jewish ghetto by putting gates in seven of the stone archways over the narrow streets of Diocletian’s old palace.  The gates were placed so the ghetto included the buildings where most of the Jews already lived.  Jews had to be inside the gates from midnight to sunrise.

When Napoleon captured Split in 1806, all restrictions on Jews were eliminated.  But then the Dalmatian coast fell to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which did not grant Jews complete equality and freedom until 1867.

At the end of World War I,  Dalmatia became part of the new kingdom of Yugoslavia, which was conquered by the Axis powers during World War II.  In 1941 Germany installed a puppet government for inland Croatia called the Ustase, which shared the Nazi attitude toward Jews.  Meanwhile Italy annexed most of the Dalmatian coast, and the people of Split organized armed resistance against the Italian fascist occupiers.  The Jews of Split arranged for Jewish refugees from inland to escape through the port.

Although Italy refused to deport or murder Jews, in 1942 a mob including Italian soldiers attacked the Split synagogue and the people inside, and looted 60 Jewish homes. The following year Italy surrendered to the Allies, and Germany took over, assigning the Dalmatian coast to inland Croatia’s Ustase government.  Dedicated to exterminating Croatian Jews and Muslim Serbs, the Ustase created their own concentration camps.

In Split the Ustase found a new use for the barracks at Fort Gripe, which had been built by the Austrians on the north side of a Venetian fort, and occupied by Mussolini’s soldiers for two years.  In 1943 the barracks were converted into a prison for the remaining Jews of Split.  Two Split doctors, Andrija Poklepovic and Mihovil Silobrcic, managed to rescue some of those Jews by transferring them to a hospital and then claiming they were quarantined because of disease.

The rest of the Jews imprisoned in Split were deported to two Ustase camps, Sajmiste and Jasenovac, where they were all murdered.  About 150 of the 284 Jews living in Split in 1940 survived until liberation in 1945.

Croatia and its Dalmatian coastline were part of Tito’s Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from the end of the war to 1991, and due to the country’s official atheism, no rabbis were allowed.  The first president of the independent nation of Croatia, Franjo Tudman, was known for his anti-Semitic slurs, and appointed former members of the Ustase to government posts.

Under the new Croatian constitution following Tudman’s departure from office, Jews are one of twelve “autonomous national minorities”, and elect a special representative to the Croatian parliament.  The only anti-Semitic incidents I could uncover in the 21^st century were the chanting of Ustase slogans, particularly at soccer matches, and the carving of a swastika into the turf of the soccer field in Split in 2015, which resulted in a 100,000 euro fine.

Today the Jewish population of Split is small; about 100 families belong to the Jewish community, which restored the old 16^th-century synagogue in 1996 and meets there regularly.

So does Split count as a place where the Jews are respected and live in harmony with other groups?  Not always, but more often than most places over the last 2,000 years.

(My thanks to Ivica Profaca, to “Albert” at the synagogue, and to the world’s biggest library, the Internet.)