Captured for Ransom
In his 16th-century manuscript, Emek Habachah (Vale of Tears), Italian Jewish physician and historian Joseph Hacohen describes the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people. Among them is the following episode:
In the year 5312 (1552), the ships of the monks of Rhodes set out for Malta to take booty and met a ship coming from Salonica which had about seventy Jews aboard. They captured it and proceeded to Malta. These poor Jews had to send all over to obtain ransom money which they then had to turn over to the miserable monks, and only after that were they permitted to move on.1
Who were these monks turned pirates? And who helped the unfortunate Jews they managed to capture?
History of the Pirate Knights
The monks that Joseph Hacohen refers to are also known as the Hospitallers or the Knights of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The order originated in Jerusalem during the Crusades, when a group of knights arrived from Europe to wrest Jerusalem from Muslim rule.
After participating in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the knights discovered a hospital run by Christian monks. They were impressed with the high level of care and patient survival rates, and they decided to join the monks and help take care of Jerusalem’s sick.
In 1113, the Sovereign Order was officially recognized by the Pope as a self-governing organization. According to the Hospitallers’ website, “The Sovereign Order evolved into a Christian, chivalric, ecumenical and sovereign military order which continued the work of helping the sick and the poor while also defending Christians in the Holy Lands. In Western Europe, the Sovereign Order embodied the essence of the Crusades, uniting arms and religion to serve where needed in the name of Faith for Humanity.”
Apparently, “humanity” in the Hospitallers’ understanding did not include Jews or Muslims. When Sultan Saladin conquered Jerusalem from the Christians in 1187, the Hospitallers escaped to Acre, then to Rhodes, where they established an independent state and began to support themselves through piracy. The Encyclopedia Britannica calls these knights “the scourge of Muslim shipping on the eastern Mediterranean.”
By the early 16th century, the Muslims were fed up with the pirate knights. Sultan Suleiman laid siege to Rhodes in 1522. After six months, the knights surrendered and were allowed to leave Rhodes, which fell into Sultan Suleiman’s hands.
For the next seven years, the knights wandered the Mediterranean without a permanent home, until the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V realized that he could benefit from their “services.” In 1530, Charles V granted the Hospitallers the island archipelago of Malta, officially in exchange for an annual gift of a falcon. Unofficially, however, the emperor was fully aware of the knights’ pirate activities and wanted to utilize them to strengthen his empire.
The knights fortified Malta and built a new capital, Valletta, named after their leader, Jean Parisot de la Valette. True to their heritage, they also built a large and successful hospital, which attracted patients from all over Europe. Needless to say, the patients were Christian. Neither Jews nor Muslims had been welcome in Malta since the expulsion from Spain in 1492, when Malta had been under Spanish rule.
Jewish Slaves in Malta
Once comfortably settled in Malta, the knights intensified their pirate activities. Israeli historian Minna Rozen writes:
The knights … were the “prime movers” of piracy in the eastern section of the Mediterranean Sea … Despite the common assumption that the conflict between Christianity and Islam was the chief motivating factor for the acts of piracy in the Mediterranean basin, it should be stated that this violence was not sparked by religious principles. Beneath the self-proclaimed ideals, materialistic forces were at work in what was ultimately a profane struggle over power and resources.2
Though the stated purpose of the Order includes, “to be moved by the example of the Maccabees: those holy soldiers and martyrs who fought so gloriously to maintain their beliefs,”3 the knights fought to maintain their financial standing rather than their beliefs. Professor Rozen continues, “Piracy became their primary livelihood … it provided an excellent source of revenue that solved their financial problems.”4
The Holy Roman Empire benefited from the knights’ presence in Malta as well. The Sovereign Order’s website describes their accomplishments as follows:
The possession of Malta, with its strategic location, helped the Sovereign Order keep the seas open between Malta, France, Spain, Italy and Palestine.
In 1565, 600 knights and 6,000 men-at-arms, led by Grand Master Jean de la Valette, faced 40,000 Ottoman Turks, and despite great losses, drove off the enemy. This, and the defeat of the Turks in the naval Battle of Lepanto, which also involved the Sovereign Order, would stop the Ottomans from further expanding their empire in the Western Mediterranean and slowed their movement through Western Europe.
In other words, Charles V’s gift of Malta to the Hospitallers was paying for itself, strengthening his empire. At the same time, the pirate knights brought untold anguish and suffering to countless Jews and Muslims who fell into their hands.
Though the knights targeted merchant ships carrying goods, their main source of income came from the people on the ships, who could be redeemed for ransom or sold into slavery. Sometimes the knights extracted double benefits: the captives were used as slaves in Malta until the ransom was received and they were set free.
At the time, Jews were heavily involved in the Mediterranean trade. In addition, this was a time of spiritual revival in the Land of Israel, and Jewish spiritual seekers traveled between the Land of Israel and the Diaspora communities. Thus, many of the knights’ hapless victims were Jewish.
Author David C. Gross wrote:
For more than 250 years, the knights of St. John engaged in their lawless traffic-free and undisturbed; the Maltese Cross flying from their ships’ masts was as dreaded as the Jolly Roger of the common pirate. To the Jews—their favorite prey—the Maltese Cross was a symbol of cruelty, of inhumanity, of the most shameful abuse, in complete contrast to the original dedication of Hospitallers to the care of the sick and wounded pilgrims in the Holy Land.5
The suffering of Jewish captives is preserved in the correspondence between the captives and the leaders of the Jewish communities involved in obtaining their release. In addition, some captives were forced to go into debt in order to redeem themselves. Once released, they traveled to Jewish communities and collected donations to repay their debt, carrying with them letters of recommendation from well-known rabbis, recounting their stories.
One of the letters relates that its bearer:
left his native land to fulfill a vow he made to go to the Land of Israel, may it be rebuilt and be reestablished, to bow and prostrate himself upon the graves of the righteous ones and on the Western Wall. But when he was sailing in his ship in the midst of the sea, bandits and pirates fell upon him. They took him prisoner, and they took all that he possessed, leaving him naked and bare, with his backside exposed to the elements. And as if this were not enough, they chained him to the water trough and brought him here to Malta and sold him in a slave auction. There he fell into the hands of brutal masters, who were verily as bitter as wormwood, for they set him to perform hard labor with bricks and mortar, and to shoulder heavy loads of large precious stones. From dawn till dusk he was beaten, and he went naked and barefoot; he starved and was thirsty, and lay on the ground, and the guards would beat him brutally on the back until the blood flowed to the earth and his flesh melted like beeswax.6
The man was rescued by a non-Jew who provided him with a loan to redeem himself. Once free, he had to beg kindhearted Jews for money to repay the loan.
Other stories are just as heartbreaking. Another letter tells of a Jewish man on his way to the Land of Israel who “was trapped in the dungeon of his captivity for several years on the isles of Malta. They tortured his leg with fetters attached to a heavy stone burden. And, even after doing this, they did not leave him alone; rather, they hurried him out of the dungeon and placed him on the ships.”7 He was forced to work as a galley slave, rowing for most of his waking hours.
“With clubs and whips they beat him,” the letter continues, “dealt him wounds and contusions, and returned his bread by the weight of blood, in measure, and due to the extent of his weeping he lost his eyesight, and he did not know in what direction the light might shine. And the uncircumcised men would insult him and mock him and pelt him with stones and with disgusting objects.”8
The more fortunate captives were held in the slaves’ prison in Malta. They were permitted to leave and work during the day but required to return to the prison every night.
An English traveler, Philip Skippon, visited the prison in about 1663. He describes its occupants:
They have here several sorts of trades, as barbers, tailors, etc. There are about 2,000 that belong to the Order, most of which are now abroad in the galleys; and there are about three hundred who are servants to private persons. This place being an island, and difficult to escape out of, they wear only an iron ring or foot-lock. Those that are servants lodge in their masters’ houses when the galleys are at home, but now lie a-nights in this prison. Jews, Moors and Turks are made slaves here, and are publicly sold in the market … The Jews are distinguished from the rest by a little piece of yellow cloth on their hats or caps, etc. We saw a rich Jew who was taken about a year before, who was sold in the market that morning … for 400 scudi; and supposing himself free, by reason of a passport he had from Venice, he struck the merchant that bought him; where-upon he was presently sent hither, his beard and head were shaven off, a great chain clapped on his legs, and bastinadoed with 50 blows.9
Efforts to Free the Jewish slaves
When the captives’ communities of origin, as well as the nearby Jewish communities, heard about their plight, they were understandably horrified and resolved to do all they could to obtain their release.
The Jewish community in Venice, which is geographically close to Malta, formed a special Society for the Redemption of Captives. Besides collecting ransom money, the Society hired non-Jewish agents in Malta to check on the captives, convey messages of hope, and provide them with small sums of money for their daily needs. The agents would also conduct negotiations with the knights regarding ransom amounts and deliver the funds once the deal was agreed upon. In the Society’s correspondence, the agents are referred to as righteous gentiles and showered with gratitude.10
One of the captives, Rabbi Moshe Azulay from Morocco, became a spokesman for the Jews held in Malta. Much of the Society’s correspondence, starting from the year 1671, is addressed to him. It appears that his captor treated him fairly well, allowing him to engage in trade and spend his free time helping other captives. Rabbi Azulay took responsibility for the religious affairs in Malta, including arranging divorces for two of the captives. He also assisted the Society’s agents.
Towards the end of his life, when the number of Jewish captives decreased and Rabbi Azulay felt that his services were not as needed, he began to arrange for his own release. Unfortunately, he died in 1696, before the release was finalized. Altogether, he spent 30 years in Malta.11
Aware of the importance Judaism places on redeeming prisoners, the pirate knights demanded more money for Jewish captives than for Muslim captives. Negotiations between the Society’s agents and the knights could take months or even years. Israeli historian Meir Benayahu writes:
The lot of a captive was especially bitter if he was known to be a person of importance, particularly from Palestine [Israel]. Special efforts noticed on behalf of anyone resulted in the demand being raised, even after a price had already been agreed on …
The Society made it a principle to fix a definite sum of money for each captive and not to increase it. We know of one instance, however, the only one of its kind, where the Society made an exception in view of the individual's standing … For R. Shmuel Garmizan the sum of 200 reales had been allotted, but since he was considered one of the greatest of his generation and it was feared that even this large amount would be refused, the Society instructed its agent in Malta to add to it “however much he thought necessary.”12
Altogether, the Society managed to redeem hundreds of captives. A book of records maintained between the years of 1654 and 1660 lists 65 Jewish captives, with a total price of just over 10,000 reales.13 Over the course of two and a half centuries, a significant amount of money was handed over to the pirate knights in exchange for their victims’ freedom.
End of Piracy
The knights’ pirating and slave-trading activities were finally brought to an end by Napoleon, who captured Malta in 1798. Napoleon applied French law on the island, proclaiming liberty and equality and abolishing slavery. The Jews still held in the slaves’ prison finally went free.
Curiously, the Sovereign Order still exists, with its members scattered throughout Europe, North America, and Australia. No longer engaged in piracy, it now purports to be focused on its original mission of helping the sick.
Malta, first under French and later under British rule, began to attract Jewish families due to its strategic location and business opportunities. In fact, during the Holocaust, Malta was the only European country that did not require visas for Jews fleeing the Nazis, thereby rescuing thousands of Jews.
Today, Malta is home to a small Jewish community, as well as a popular destination for Jewish tourists.14
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