The Jews and the role of "mercenaries"

Tyrants of history have often tried to lead and have the subordination and obedience of other levels of society using a racial, religious and ethnic minority.
The most obvious phenomenon is the recruitment of armed groups.
Swiss Guard in France before the Revolution that played an important role in supporting of the King and creating a climate of fear among the people of the Russian Empire, from the Cossack groups, is one of the examples worthy of mention.
But the most striking formation in this case was the class of "Samurai" in Japan. The word is derived from the word "Samurav" which means "serving". Servants were faithful to death to their feudal lords. This class lived quite apart from the people and followed special values, culture aristocratic and moral law. Samurai life was extremely simple, and death was an important fact, but at the same time, they had an outstanding and unique position in community and enjoyed their life very well.
Samurai was the only one who was allowed to carry weapons and if a farmer insulted him, he would have killed him.
Samurai from the eleventh century until the mid-nineteenth century, formed the backbone of the ruling class of Japan.
In the history of Islamic countries also the situation is intuitional more or less. In the second Abbasid era, the Turkish mercenaries took the same role. Mamluks governed over the land of Syria, Palestine and Egypt up to several centuries. The Mamluks were also martials who had three features like their historical counterparts:
- Cultural isolation from society;
- Engaging in combat missions;
- Having a very prosperous life.
Mamelukes were mostly of Turkish origin, and they lived in isolation from society and did not get along with none of the people and did not allow them to enter their ranks and did not intermarry with them, except in rare cases. Their spoken language was Turkish-Cherkessia, and even some of the Mamluk’s rulers did not know the Arabic language.
Being independent of the dominated society, was the main condition for joining this clan. Hence, those who joined them were imported from outside. They learned military skills and committed atrocities and had blind obedience apart from the emotional impact of family, clan and kinship. Hence, even the children of the Mamluks were not accepted as the warriors. Ultimately their jobs were secretarial and administrative tasks. These children in order not to form a group of indigenous warriors, and not to have cultural and emotional attachment to the country and their habitats, could not inherit their father's positions and properties.
The only tool of the Mamlukes was their swords and arms and the only investment of them was fighting in favor of kings and princes. They were obedient to anyone who could pay wages.
According to what passed, it should be added: in different periods of history, especially in Western societies, Jews accepted mercenary by being as useful tools of domination and exploitation than other people.
Catholic idea of "evidence" somehow reveals the role of Jews in the former societies of the West.
Catholics knew Jews as very essential people in this respect that such a lowdown religious minorities could show rightness and the greatness of dignity of the church.
This view emphasized on the need of keeping Jews as an alien element and tool that have no roots in the West, but could be useful in the realization of a Gentile purpose.
On the other hand, the economic situation of Jews in Western strengthened society to look at them as means.
Referring the title of "servants of the royal chambers, the court" to the Jews in the middle Ages is a reminiscent of the role and duties of samurais in Mamluk’s era.
In the middle ages Jews were viewed as the king's servants and court’s slaves. Their safety and property were protected under the king support and enjoyed special privileges. No power except the king could not be against them or impose tax on them, because the king had kept this right for himself, additionally, he had the right to sell them to a feudal prince or the municipality.
Court servants were similar with the Egypt Mamluks that both were in isolation from society and did a particular job. The difference is that the Mamluks were warrior tribes and they were usurer merchants.
Jacob Agues, Jewish-American historian, has said:
The Jews’ place as aliens was important, because the ruling class used them exactly like mercenaries. Ruling class preferred them to the local traders for the same reason as they preferred mercenaries to local groups.
At that time, if someone killed a Jew, the blood money was not paid to the victim's family, but it was paid to the king. Also, in many treaties belonging to the Jews, they were introduced as slaves and their chattels were introduced as luggage. Anglo-Saxon ancient laws imply that "the Jews and their property belong to the king". The same thought was echoed in the northern Spanish constitution. In the text of the law it is mentioned that the Jewish are King’s slaves. They are always the property of the royal treasury. According to the Western feudalism Jewish people are the men of King. Everyone who inherits the throne, inherits them.
Thus, the situation of the Jews had been stabilized in the West conceptual framework as an alien tool and element and slave of the court.
On the other hand, hatred of the masses more than "character of usury" was mostly due to the exclusive employment of Jews in the vindication of taxes and running feudal aristocrats’ farms till the modern times.
Jews engagement in these works returns to the half of the sixteenth century. When Poland joined Ukraine to its country after the alliance with the Lithuania kings, vast areas became under the influence of Polish aristocrats. It is natural that they were willing to invest in these lands, but they were not capable of doing so, neither had the capital nor a willing to handle it.
Polish nobles found out that Jews have provided expertise and capital, so they can run the farms. Thus, by virtue of a special contract, they sold farms’ income to Jews in advance for a couple of years by receiving guarantee fee (such as the right to exploit the mines and hotels).
This was a golden opportunity for Polish Jews and opened multiple investment areas for them, and they faced enormous profits. The feudal aristocracies constructed small towns called "Shtetl" for them. Jews lived in these cities apart from others and most of the residents of these cities were them. Thus, their contact with the outside world, the world of strangers, did not exceed the scope of various commercial activities.
In this way an intermediate sponge-like class was housed in a remote area to accomplish exploitative specific mission on behalf of absence of feudal.
This class began to suck the hands of farmers without any obstacles, with the help of military force in Poland. Military force had the task of punishing dissidents Ukrainian farmers.
Jews in this scene were an exploiting tool, obedient, faithful and sticking element to the feudal lords, because they were strangers and left by people in Ukraine, and their survival and security depended on the feudal nobilities of Poland.
Since these Jews did not expect to participate in power, and they did not even think about it, the ruling class’s confidence increased in them every day.
The tribe was an alien in the region of Ukraine and lived in complete isolation from the people and did not have a back except military power of Poland, because they:
- were in an atmosphere of Christian, Jewish;
- were moneychanger and tax Purser in agricultural areas;
- were Polish in Ukraine;
- were exploiting representatives of Catholics in exploited Orthodox atmosphere;
- were rich among the poor;
- spoke in Yiddish among people who spoke in Ukrainian.
Unlike substantive similarity and unity between the Jews and the mercenary tasks of Egypt’s Mamluks and the samurais, there has been considerable differences in the meantime:
1. While both groups were considered same exploitative tool, but their methods were different.
One resorted to economic exploitation of people by advantage of the funding and support of the armed forces dependent on the rulers, and the other one committed military exploitation by weapons and the help of the sword and force of arms.
In explaining the exploitative role of the Jews, it must be added that the Jewish usurers with high interest rates that were determined by the king, gave loans to farmers and aristocrats and gained their wealth exponentially, and the king attracted a part of their wealth by receiving heavy taxes imposed on Jews. Naming Jews and likened them to "sponge" has grown from this point that it can suck water, and then under pressure it loses the water.
2. While both groups were connected to the decision-making bodies, but the Mamluks and the samurais were able to penetrate the center of the state and participate in decision-making, and even Egypt’s Mamluks were in power, while Jews in contrast to the isolation of the people and hanging the government’s center, remained in the government’s sidelines as a mercenary elements because of the weakness and lack of military power.
At the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the new centuries, instrumental attitude to Jews continued with a fresher aspect, but after the emergence of liberal ideas and the Enlightenment and the advent of great transformations through Industrial Revolution and secular thoughts, and promoting the thesis of "profitability of Jews", this clan enjoyed a relative freedom not because of being Jewish, but of being profitable human element.