Jews

[kobi118]

will they game mention the jews by anyway?
after all, the middle east is their (our) home.
I dont know if it's possible to add religion, so I think that AoR and mercenry units that link to the jews will be great (like Hebrew warrios in Zephs' KoJ)

Sadly, I dont have any information about jewish warriors, but u know, u can make one, cuz at the bottom line it's a game and not all needs to be accurate...
It will also add flavour to the game.
Think about it.

[JERUSALEM]

happy to see this topic

now about matter

add them only as a merchants

i have to say that they really were very stong in this staff as always

so some Jew merchants must be great in all over the middle east

we can add some guilds; of course i am talking about Jew guilds

as I know a lot of names of those Jews who were engaged in politics as well as in trade . some of them were politicaly very
active and some of had good sources to hire the army
but
i heard nothing about Jew armys in middle ages that is why i am not agree to
include them as a fraction or even as rebel group
but they got to have some political agenda as the games are concerned about the wars and politics so i shall be glad to receive any idea about
their political engagement and about their army in the middle ages


respect

[CtrlAltDe1337]

I would suggest adding one or two Jewish units to only Jerusalem and make a Jewish Merchants guild. I think this would add some flavor the mod and make it even more unique.

[kobi118]

guilds is also a great addon
but also 1 or 2 units...

[Miraj]

The only place in the medieval world where Jews took part in military matters is Muslim Spain. I've read a couple of spanish battles where Jews from Granada and Cordoba would serve as heavy spears in the Moorish army.

Aside from this I've really never heard of Jews partaking in any sort of military affairs in the Islamic world. Of course this is not specific to jews. After a certain point even Arab were absent from their own armies since the job had been increasingly "outsources" to Turks. And also Jews were a dispersed population and only in Spain did they form very large populations.

Jews as merchants, ancilliaries, guilds and those types of things are very legit. Jews were a very important part of the administrative and scholarly life in the Islamic world.

[deRougemont]

This idea of a Jewish merchant's guild is quite nice. It would add some more historic flavor. Also perhaps some Jewish ancillaries (doctors, scholars, administrators)? I'm not sure how realistic it would be for an Arab or Turk to have Jewish ancillaries though.

[Miraj]

This idea of a Jewish merchant's guild is quite nice. It would add some more historic flavor. Also perhaps some Jewish ancillaries (doctors, scholars, administrators)? I'm not sure how realistic it would be for an Arab or Turk to have Jewish ancillaries though.

Its very realistic. In Egypt especially Jews were very high ranking officials and administrators. Even Saladin's advisor and doctor was Maimonides - the famous jewish thinker and scientist from Spain.

The reason for this is the same reason why muslim armies were heavily composed professional slave soldiers: mistrust of your local muslim subjects and tribesmen.

[Randarkmaan]

Jews did serve in the town garrisons/militias of Syrian cities, there were many jews in the garrison which defended Jerusalem against the Crusaders in 1099 for an example, though they were very probably equipped just like the Muslims or Christians who would also be part of those militias (so this is just some info you might add into the unit descriptions).

[Beauchamp]

Jews also comprised much of the scribes and retinue of many arab rulers, especially in Egypt.

[JERUSALEM]

one Jew merchant was sent in the head of diplomatic mission in Deshti-kipchak to bring the husbend for the queen of Georgia - Tamar.
and
his name was Zanqan Zorababel
Zanqan was representative of so-called Didvachari class and if
we shall translate it into english this class will be named
as the great merchants(didi means graet and vachari means merchant) class


respect

[gaius valerius]

funny funny,

1) the jews were important concerning economics, administration, etc... no doubt about it

2) the only jew nations date back from the biblical times and from 1947, in between the Babylonians and zionism there is very little jewish state (unless certain vasals of like the romans, etc, but never really independant) and since armies are linked to a state (can't maintain one without infrastructure) one can hardly speak of a jewish army

3) thus few jews are found in military ranks

4) since in TW only one religion can be dominant - for the sake of public rest - there can be no jewish religion since there is no jewish state to defend & spread it.

5) thus including the jewish fait would in the long run just mean it will get exterminated, and honestly, that doesn't sound very nice now does it.

come to think of it, you have to admit that the TW games are very bad concerning social aspects, the well reknown tolerance in the early islamic states towards christians & jews is nowhere to be found someone should point out this black/white issue to CA

6) so including the jewish will only mean you'll have to remove it

7)... make your own conclusion

[Miraj]

Good point Valerius.

In Broken Crescent we have already modified the religious mechanics. Converting populations to your own religion is no longer an important goal. And priests will be available later and in limited numbers. You can now rule settlements with majority of the opposing religion without serious unrest problems given a proper governer. The religious compositions of settlements will be now very important to your governers. Family members with tendencies towards bigotry might not be good candidate to rule over different faiths and members with too liberal tendencies might "turn" into the locals - ie convert and lose loyalty and tax benefits.

[gaius valerius]

yes, yes, yes!! that is how it should be

pawnaaaage!!! tjeez i"m looking forward to this mod ever since i got history of the islam this term finally i can get to play with my exam

[Haqiq]

Just check the internet and it said there is Jews from England to Malta. They are massacred mostly by the Crusade.There are even anti-Jewish legislation by Pope Innocent III. Weird.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades#Jewish_community

[gaius valerius]

what is so weird about it? jews in the middle ages have always been victimised by christians. its easy since they were a minority that had crucified the saviour right well, its nothing personal but they just had bad luck. jews were rarely the victim of true antisemitism in the middle ages, ppl mostly didn't care. but when there was internal trouble, you could always blame the jews. they were the medieval christian scapegoat. if your a count and everything goes wrong and its your fault, who do you blame??? ===> those rich jewish merchants (since they were the only bankers in europe, christians were initially forbidden to ask rent and such). if you just said the word "jew, crucifixion & (for example) black death", you had a little pogrom. ppl back then were really stupid. not everybody was like that of course. you also had bisschops protection jews when they were persecuted. but in general they were the perfect scapegoat.

[Miraj]

And lets not forget that while Jews in the Islamic world were much better off their situation there wasn't exactly all hugs and kisses either. There were occasional outbursts of violence against Jews in many Islamic cities, particularly in Spain and North Africa and probably instigated for similar scapegoating reasons plus a good dose of religious fanaticism emanating from the sahara.

[gaius valerius]

yeah cuz the jews killed the prophet jezus killing that guy totally screwed their future

[SaberHRE]

Valerius, dude, saying that the Jews killed Jesus is politcally incorrect, and generally incorrect. The statement would imply that the whole Jewish nation held a referendum where ALL voted "kill Jesus".

There existed a "Jew state" during the Middle Ages, and it was called Khazaria.

[teh.frickin.pope]

However Khazaria was off the map circa 1016, IIRC.

[madscientist22]

The new system for religion is excellent, look forward to seeing it. Also support the idea of Jewish merchants, however, how would they be implemented?

Would the only merchants be Jewish or would they get bonuses for being Jewish? Either seems rather politically incorrect however true they might be. It's somewhat of a touchy subject.