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The Spread of Judaism

Jews around the world were always discriminated against by Christians and at times persecuted, often because the bible states that the Jews were responsible for sentencing their own messiah to death by crucifixion.

Because of this, Jews never truly managed to build a country for themselves, for each time they tried to, they would be crushed underfoot.

In Axum, Prince Teodros was determined to change that stigma; with incentives and military protection, Jewish settlers would migrate throughout his own domain and that of others with Rabbis attached to their columns, so as to facilitate their conversion to Judaism.

Progress was slow but steady, with more and more converts to Judaism by the year. Marrying off his daughters to nearby Lords, they too would be converted, and Axum’s power strengthened as a result.

But one must know that in Feudalist rule, vassals may at times choose to withhold their levies if they find themselves dissatisfied with their ruler. Septimia and Teodros knew this too well, and having gained stronger centralised authority under his rule, he was quick to strengthen his own army and economic power base. As a landlocked domain, Axum had 7 counties under its banner, but only three were under Teodros’s direct rulership.

Early Challenges:

The initial phases of conversion were not smooth; often times, Rabbis were attacked by opposing Christians with stones or whatever they laid their hands on. As a result, every Rabbi had to be accompanied by a heavy guard wherever he went to proselyte to the Christians.

This was made worse when other Christian Lords took offense to the conversions, and so they sent their own troops to drive away the Rabbis. Foreseeing this, much subterfuge went on behind the scenes, and sowed dissent ballooned into revolts that forced said Lords to direct their attention elsewhere.

Furthermore was the inability of the Rabbis to tailor their religious sermons to take into account local customs of other tribes, severely limiting their effectiveness.

Expansion of Axum:

Through a combination of bribery, blackmail and falsified information, Jewish spies would fabricate claims on adjacent fiefdoms to claim for the greater domain of Axum, and it was through such claims that Teodros gained the legitimacy to wage war on their ruling lords.

Though initial expansion was successful, the other Abyssinian Lords were quick to counter this by vassalizing themselves to the King, forcing Teodros to halt his campaign against them. The simple counter to that was to conquer other independent Lords and tribes to the North and West of Axum, and have Rabbi’s proselyte to their citizens.

With the support of prominently wealthy and influential backers – who especially wished to curry favour with Prince Teodros, new cities, fortress and synagogues would be built in the conquered territories, solidifying their occupation and cementing their power.

Jewish nobles would also marry with the Lords who surrendered and placed themselves under Axumite rule.

After a ten-year campaign of non-stop expansion, however, Teodros effectively put a stop to future offensive campaigns due to issues of overextension; the conquered tribes had yet to adjust to the new administration, and most construction projects were unfinished.

Armies were also depleted of their fighting strength, leaving only enough to uphold public security and guard against foreign threats.

Once again, huge amounts of gold had to be invested to bolster the economy’s and military’s recovery, and the treasury was nearly depleted as a result.

Consolidation of Axum:

Part of the driving factors behind Axum’s consolidation of its growing power was the power of Roman knowledge; the Eastern Roman Empire – which at the time refered to itself as the Byzantine Empire, was the pinnacle of civilisation at the time, still preserving vast troves of Rome’s wealth in its libraries and imparting it to promising craftsmen and bureaucrats.

The Western Roman immigrants did bring knowledge with them, true, but there was much more to gain from Byzantium.

Aman Tessema Tariku, Spymaster for Prince Teodros, was assigned to Constantinople to gleam every scrap of knowledge he could from its libraries and send it back to Axum for study.

With his agents working hard to translate the contents from Greek to Amharic or Hebrew, technological advances were not far away, and it became far more feasible to support Axum’s conquests as new water sources and methods of farming were devised.

This policy of enriching the state and strengthening the military would continue well until Prince Teodros’ eventual passing, when he was called to Heaven in his sleep. His son, Yacobe Kassa, inherited a small Kingdom well-recovered from its ailments and prepared to wage war, and he would continue his father’s campaign of uniting and converting the tribes of Abyssinia.

But in the initial years of his reign, his kingdom was anything but peaceful, for rebellious lords chose to take up arms and drive the Jews from their lands.

A/N: Merry Christmas to you all!