1480s – A Forgotten Chapter of Jewish Life in Gaza City

JEWISH MOMENTS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL

1480s
Wine and Worship on Gaza’s Hill:
A Forgotten Chapter of Jewish Life

In the late 15th century the City of Gaza hosted a vibrant Jewish community. Firsthand accounts from Jewish travelers Meshulam of Volterra and Rabbi Obadiah of Bartenura reveal a society rooted in agriculture, religious devotion, and warm hospitality. These testimonies offer a rare window into a thriving Jewish life along the southern frontier of the Land of Israel.

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In modern discourse, the name Gaza evokes complex associations of conflict and hardship. But scroll back to the 15th century, and a different portrait emerges—one of vineyards, synagogues, Shabbat meals, and a community deeply embedded in the rhythms of Jewish life. Thanks to the detailed testimonies of two Jewish travelers—Meshulam of Volterra (active 15th century) in 1481 and Rabbi Obadiah of Bartenura (c.1445-c.1515) in 1488—we glimpse a moment of stability and spirit in a city then under Mamluk rule.

Meshulam of Volterra, a Jewish banker from Florence, arrived in Gaza during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He writes highly about his reception by the community in Gaza and notes their religious and economic vitality. He encountered a small but thriving Jewish population of about sixty Jewish households alongside four Samaritan families living in a distinct quarter atop the city’s highest hill. This area, he wrote, was known as the “top of the Judaica.” It is known to this day in Arabic sources as Harat al-Yehud, the Jewish neighborhood.

What impressed Meshulam most was not only the setting but the vitality of the community: a “small, beautiful synagogue,” homes, vineyards, and fields—already yielding fresh wine. This detail was no mere footnote; it signaled agricultural independence and economic engagement in a city positioned strategically between Egypt and the Levant. Meshulam also named several community figures, notably Rabbi Moshe, son of Rabbi Yehuda Sephardi, “who stutters a little,” and Rabbi Meir Sephardi, a local goldsmith. The term “Sephardi” appears here strikingly before the 1492 expulsion from Spain, revealing an Iberian Jewish presence even before their mass displacement.

Seven years later, R. Obadiah of Bartenura, famed for his Mishnah commentary, passed through Gaza en route to Jerusalem, where he would settle. His letter home, written in elegant Hebrew, offers a vivid snapshot of the same community. He estimated around seventy Rabbinic Jewish families, along with two Samaritan households—confirming Meshulam’s earlier count and noting that no Karaites lived there.

R. Obadiah arrived in Gaza after a taxing desert journey through El-Arish and the dunes of Sinai. He described Gaza as “as large as Jerusalem” and “beautiful,” though unfortified, like most Mamluk cities. He was welcomed by a local rabbi, whom later sources identify as Rabbi Shlomo of Prague, an Ashkenazi rabbi who had fled Jerusalem. During his stay, R. Obadiah experienced Gaza’s famed hospitality firsthand.

His Shabbat meal with the local leaders is a scene of joy and spiritual camaraderie: “On the Sabbath, all the elders and community leaders came to eat with us. They brought out raisin cakes and fruits, which is their custom. We drank seven or eight cups before the meal, and we were joyful.” These simple words evoke a rich picture: tradition, abundance, and unity, even in a relatively remote city.

Like Meshulam, R. Obadiah also noted Gaza’s ties to biblical memory. He visited what locals believed to be the ruins of the building pulled down by Shimshon and the site in the highest areas of the city, which is typically identified as his grave.

What emerges from these two accounts is a remarkably consistent and rich portrayal of Jewish Gaza. The community was not transient or marginal; it was rooted, structured, and integrated into both local society and the broader Jewish world. With figures from both Sephardic and Ashkenazi backgrounds, it was also cosmopolitan, a microcosm of the diverse Diaspora converging on the Land of Israel even before the seismic shifts of 1492.

After the expulsions from Spain and Portugal, the Jewish presence in Gaza only grew. Refugee families fleeing Iberia found sanctuary in the expanding Ottoman domains. Gaza, now under Ottoman control, absorbed some of these migrants, who contributed to the city’s trade, scholarship, and agriculture—especially wine production. Their agricultural activities raised numerous halachic questions, reflected in the rabbinical literature of the time.

Jewish Gaza in the late 15th century was not a footnote in history—it was a community of continuity. It produced wine from its hills, offered sanctuary to travelers, and sustained sacred traditions. Through the eyes of Meshulam of Volterra and R. Obadiah of Bartenura, we are reminded that even in places now marked by conflict, once lived Jews who prayed, planted, and gathered joyfully to welcome Shabbat on a hill overlooking the desert.