850 CHINA
Ibn Laid al-Hassan, a Moslem traveler, wrote of riots in Kanfu, China in which Jews were counted among the dead.
850 FUSTAT (Old Cairo, Egypt)
Became the largest Jewish community in the East.
850 HEBREW
Was considered the main language of trade between Paris (Aix la Chapelle) and Baghdad or Cairo.
850 POLAND
Polish legend has it that when various tribes decided to unite, they asked a Jew, Abraham Prochownik, to be their king. He declined in favor of a peasant named Piast, the founder of the Piast dynasty.
C. 850 - C. 936 ISAAC BEN SOLOMON ISRAELI (Isaac Judeaus) (North Africa)
Court physician to the Fatimite princes and philosopher. Born in Egypt, Israeli emigrated at about the age of 50 to Kairouan. He composed numerous books on medicine including, Sefer HaKadachot (The Book of Fever), Tevei HaMezonot V'Kochotom (The Nature Of Strengths Of Dietetics) and Musar HaRofe'im (The Ethics of Physicians). Those on ophthalmology remained in use for seven hundred years. His books on dietetics and fever were translated into Latin and published in Europe. As a philosopher he was referred to as "the first Jewish Neoplatonist". Among his philosophical writings, his his Sefer HaGedarim, (Book of Definitions) is the best known.rn
853 AL-MUTAVALLIL (Persia)
An Abbasid caliph, he issued a yellow badge edict. He also forbade non-Moslems to ride on horses and converted synagogues and churches into mosques.
853 LUCENA, ANDALUSIA (Southern Spain)
According to Natronai Gaon, "Alisana (Arabic for Lucena) was a Jewish place with no gentiles at all." Lucena ostensibly was founded by Jews hundreds of years earlier. It served as the cultural center of Andalusian Jewry and was known during the era of Moslem rule as an all-Jewish city.
855 EMPEROR LOUIS II (Italy)
Declared that no Jews could remain within his kingdom. The general position from the 7th
(see Perctarit 661) to the 13th century was only to permit sparse Jewish population. Most cities had less than 30 Jewish families. This was due to a fairly constant position of exclusion by the Church.
859 - 869 NATRONAI II (Babylon)
Served as Gaon of Sura. He extrapolated the theory of a divine Torah (Bible) given at Mount Sinai without vowel signs, which were later developed as a reading aid. He also began the custom of saying one hundred brachot (blessings) daily, and he completed the order of the daily prayers.
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