Differences Between The Pact Of Umona Disputation

The Pact of Umar and the 1263 Barcelona disputation have many similarities and differences. The Jewish people have been intimidated and scared of the Muslims and Christians since the beginnings of time and have slowly work their way up of standing up for themselves. Rabbi Nahmanides and the Jewish people worked for years to try to develop as a stronger religious minority. The Jewish people were such a minority they just didn’t have the power to overcome the Muslims and Christians.

The similarities that I see in both are the fact that there is a huge sense of almost the Jews being intimidated and afraid of Christians and Muslims. In the 1263 Barcelona disputation Rabbi Nahmanides even said “The great priests and noblemen also sent me word that

In the Pact of Umar it was almost like they were just going to test their luck and see what privileges’ they could get, if any at all. For instance in the Pact of Umar it says “that we will open the gates wide to passengers and travelers; that we will receive any Muslim traveler into our houses and give him food and lodging for three nights.” This just shows the Jews were going to help and sort of bow down to the Muslims as long as they could still practice it private, they did whatever it would take. In the 1263 Barcelona disputation the major argument of Rabbi Nahmanides was displayed because the Christians finally gave Jews the freedom of speech to explain whether Jesus was the Messiah or not. Rabbi Nahmanides didn’t back down once and made sure he had his right of freedom in which he stated “However, in the course of the disputation, I must be free to speak [my mind] just as you are free to speak whatever you wish. [Of course], I have [sufficient] knowledge of good taste [so that I will] not overstep the bounds thereof, but I must have freedom of speech.” In the end of the disputation the Jews got what they want with the King eventually agreed “that man does not believe what he does not know.” and awarded Rabbi Nahmanides three hundred dinarim. The Jews and the Christians in this instance

The Jewish people realized that as a minority they were never going to overcome these higher religious, so they took what they got and built off of it. In history the Jewish people have overcame so much whether it was the Pact of Umar, Barcelona Disputation or the Holocaust the Jewish people have done so much for the world in which we live