Twelve Tribes Under God “The Jewish Roots of Western Freedom” by Fania Oz-Salzberger, in Azure (Summer 2002), 22A Hatzfira St., Jerusalem, Israel
The Periodical Observer conquered lands were never required to sur- gained a foothold in Italy when he died in the render their property—or their faith. late 15th century; Suleiman the Magnificent Each successive Crusade was better fund- failed to take Vienna in 1529 only because ed and organized, yet each was less effective freak rainstorms forced him to abandon than the one before it. By the 15th and 16th much of his artillery. centuries, “the Ottoman Turks [had] con- The real field of battle, meanwhile, was quered not only their fellow Muslims, thus fur- shifting from the military realm to industry, ther unifying Islam, but also continued to science, and trade. With the Renaissance press westward, capturing Constantinople and then the Protestant Reformation, and plunging deep into Europe itself.” European civilization entered a new era of Only happenstance prevented Islam from dynamism, and the balance of power shifted moving farther west: Sultan Mehmed II had decisively to the West. Twelve Tribes under God “The Jewish Roots of Western Freedom” by Fania Oz-Salzberger, in Azure (Summer 2002), 22A Hatzfira St., Jerusalem, Israel. Ask a political theorist to name the histor- famous commitment to the “pursuit of life, ical foundations of Western liberalism, and the liberty, and property,” Oz-Salzberger reply will be predictable: the polis of Athens, asserts, was grounded in a theory of respon- the Roman Republic, the Magna Carta, etc. sibility and charity drawn from the Bible. Few are likely to mention the Torah—the first These philosophers tended to find in the five books of the Hebrew Bible—or the ancient “Hebrew Republic” an example that Talmud.
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