Ashkelon in History

(23) the Ruler of Asqanu [Ashkelon], Khalu-kim, and all the retainers who are with him;…
(f 1) all the Asiatics—of Byblos, of Ullaza, of Iy-‘anaq, of Shutu, of Iymu‘aru, of Qehermu, of
Rehob, of Yarimuta, of Inhia, of Aqhi, of ‘Arqata, of Yarimuta, of Isinu, of Asqanu, of Demitiu,
of Mut-ilu, of Jerusalem of ‘Akhmut, of Iahenu, and of Iysipi;

320

[T]o the king, my lord, my god, my Sun, the Sun from the sky: Message of Yidya, the ruler of
Ašqaluna, your servant, the dirt at your feet, the groom of your horses. I indeed prostrate myself,
on the stomach and on the back, at the feet of the king, my lord, 7 times and 7 times. I am indeed
guard[ing] the place of the king where I am. Whatever the k[ing], my lord, has written me, I have
listened to very carefully. Who is the dog that would not obey the orders of the king, his lord, the
son of the Sun?

The (foreign) chieftains lie prostrate, saying “Peace.” Not one lifts his head among the
Nine Bows.
Libya is captured, while Hatti is pacified. Canaan is plundered, Ashkelon is carried off,
and Gezer is captured.
Yenoam is made into non-existence; Israel is wasted, its seed is not; and Hurru is become
a widow because of Egypt.
All lands united themselves in peace. Those who went about are subdued by the king of
Upper and Lower Egypt…Merneptah.

II 4.236
Now there is in Syria a city known as Ascalon, and not far from it a large and deep lake, full of
fish. On its shore is a precinct of a famous goddess whom the Syrians call Derceto; and this
goddess has the head of a woman but all the rest of her body is that of a fish, the reason being
something like this. The story as given by the most learned of the inhabitants of the region is as
follows:…

Natural History

In Egypt people swear by garlic and onions as deities in taking an oath. Among the Greeks the
varieties of onion are the Sardinian, the Samothracian, Alsidenian, setanian, the split onion, and
the Ascalon onion, named from a town in Judaea.

There is a city on the sea coast of Syria called Ascalon. While I was there at a time when I was
on my way to our ancestral temple to offer up prayers and sacrifices I observed a large number of
pigeons at the cross roads and in each house, and when I asked the reason I was told that it was
not lawful to catch them because they had been from old times forbidden food to the inhabitants.
In this way the creature has been so tamed by its security that it not merely lives under their roof
but shares their table regularly and takes delight in the immunity which it enjoys.

Midrash Rabbah

What is the reward of a Jew who is zealous in his observance of the duty of honouring father and
mother? The Rabbis have learnt thus: These are the things the fruits of which a man enjoys in
this world while the stock remains for the World to Come: the honouring of father and mother,
etc. R. Abbahu said: R. Eliezer the Great was asked by his disciples: ‘Can you give an example
of [real] honoring of parents.’ He replied: ‘Go and see what Dama b. Nethina of Ashkelon did.
His mother was mentally afflicted and she used to slap him in the presence of his colleagues, and
all that he would say was, “Mother it is enough!”’ Our Rabbis say: Once the Sages came to him
to Ashkelon, where he lived, to buy from him a precious stone [to replace one] lost from the
vestments of the [high] priest, and they fixed the price with him at a thousand golden pieces. He
entered the house and found his father asleep with his leg stretched out on the chest wherein the
stone was lying. He would not trouble him, and he came out empty-handed. As he did not
produce the stone the Sages thought that he wanted a higher price, and they therefore raised their
offer to ten thousand golden pieces. When his father awoke from his sleep Dama entered and
brought out the stone. The Sages wished to give him ten thousand golden pieces, but he
exclaimed: ‘Heaven forfend! I will not make a profit out of honouring my parents; I will only
take from you the first price, one thousand golden pieces, which I had fixed with you.’ And what
reward did the Holy One, blessed be He, give him? Our Rabbis report that in the very same year
his cow gave birth to a red heifer which he sold for more than ten thousand golden pieces. See
from this, how great is the merit of honouring father and mother.

R. Phinehas said: It is related that there were two wealthy brothers in Ascalon who had some
evil-disposed Gentile neighbors, and they said: ‘When these Jews go up to pray in Jerusalem, we
will go into their house and ransack them.’ When the time came, they went up, but God
appointed two angels in their likeness to go in and out of their houses. When they returned from
Jerusalem they shared what they had brought back with them among their neighbors. They said
to them: ‘Where have you been?’ They replied, ‘In Jerusalem.’ ‘When did you go up?’ ‘On such
and such a day.’ ‘And when did you return?’ ‘On such a day.’ They said: ‘Blessed is the God of
the Jews whom you did not forsake and who did not forsake you. We thought to ourselves: When
will these men go up to Jerusalem so that we may go in and ransack their houses? But their God
sent angels resembling them who went in and out of their houses, because they trusted in Him,’
to fulfil what is said, HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THY FOOTSTEPS [Song of Songs 7:1]

Letter 2: To the most clement prince and blessed Emperor Theodosius Augustus, Ambrose,
bishop (December, 388)

…If I were pleading according to the law of the nations, I would mention how many of the
Church’s basilicas the Jews burned in the time of Julian, two at Damascus—one of which is
scarcely yet repaired, and that at the expense of the Church, not of the synagogue—while the
other basilica is still a rough heap of unsightly ruins. Basilicas were burned at Gaza, Ascalon,
Beirut, in fact, almost all over that region, and no one demanded punishment….

 Nasir-I Khusraw
Book of Travels (c. 1050)

After Jerusalem I had decided to make the voyage to Egypt by sea and thence again to Mecca.
However, as there was such an adverse wind that the ship could not set out to sea, I therefore
proceeded by land. Passing through Ramla, I came to a town on the edge of the sea called
Ascalon, which had a fine market and congregational mosque. I saw an old arch said to have
been a mosque at one time. It was of stone and so huge that it would have cost a great deal to
pull it down.

Cairo Genizah

477 – 3 (JTS Geniza Misc. 15) 

You inquired about silk. Here, black and sky blue are mostly in demand, and,
indeed, all colors. Crimson, however, does not sell in Jerusalem, but it might be sold in
Ramle or in Ascalon. Corals are weak in Jerusalem, for it is a poor town. In any case,
bring them or a part of them, for success is in the hand of God. If Persians happen to
arrive, they may buy them. And Peace upon you.

595 (TS 8 J 41, f. 11)25
A dispute in the synagogue about whether to spend money from the heqdesh to
repair the synagogue (the community) or to buy mats (the cantor). Apparently the issue
almost came to blows until it came before a judge and was at least calmed down.
Column A
1. Not for the fixing of the building, but they will buy rugs for the synagogue,
2. in order that the community may sit upon them. The community answer was: if
they want
3. to sit upon rugs—they will gather the price of the rugs from the community, just
as the custom
4. in all the synagogues; but what is gathered for the holiness—that is, with the
exception of
5. house cleaning, because most of the community, (50 Jews), agreed
6. in one mind to fix the building of the synagogue. Then the answer of the cantor to
the community:
7. If you say to build with this money, see, I will arise against you 20, and they will
oppose
8. you in your request, in order to put among us divisions. And they went from
house to house, and the cantor
9. and his brothers, and the leader and his brothers ??? against us the community of
the Hebronites (they are 16 men).
10. And when they perceived this action ???, we stuck to
11. our houses, in order to prevent divisions and from the midst of a desire for peace,
we remained stuck
12. in our houses some time, we were fifty. And in weeks, during which we
13. were stuck in our houses, we did not pray in the synagogue, they did not open the
book of the Law in it, not on Monday
14. and not on Thursday. And more: the leader was accustomed to say, everyone who
enters into that city
15. between foreigner and between local, his neck will be under my feet. We resented
that greatly
16. but we did return a word to him from a desire for peace, and in order to prevent
divisions.
17. After that they entered the community in the house of the cantor and committed
themselves to each other, all to meet us and to strike us
18. and to argue with us, when we will go down to the synagogue. But we continued
to stay in our houses until when the judge comes,
19. the honorable judge, eight upon us, they would guard his fortress. He spoke about
his ??? and sought from him to go down with him
20. to the synagogue—May YHWH be praised in the glorious life of leadership of the
world forever—and we received
21. his words, turning to their meaning. But what we said to him: we will not go
down with you but under the condition that
22. the son of the leader will not say upon our heads the “spirit,” because we and the
rest of us in this matter only because
Column B
1. we were late, and there was peace between us and we were one heart. But now,
after
2. they formed groups against us during the weeks, we all swore that he would not
say above
3. our heads the “spirit,” but from our side would also arise a young man, to each a
sitting
4. then the judge mediated between us, after the judgment and words, that his
commentary would lengthen, in order that there would be to each his sitting.
5. On this condition the whole community entered on the following Sabbath to the
synagogue, and it was decided
6. between the men of the synagogue that all the young men would arise and say the
“spirit” in order that peace would be just.
7. But the leader and his son said to the young men: Sit down! …. It is not possible
that someone
8. will say the “spirit” but the cantor alone. And when they said this word and
lowered our young man
9. from the platform, and he was an orphan, and they heart his heart, we swore, (we
the fifty men), that we will remember
10. forever, that a young man will not say the “spirit” above our heads, we will not
have the word and they do not have
11. but the cantor alone to say. We make known to his glory he will raise his glory
and he will multiply his glory
12. all what happened, and we will do as the commandment of YHWH surpass, and
as the commandment his holy glory
13. those who wrote:
14. the sender:
15. Obadiah, the Ashkelonites, and who joined them from the Hebronites and others

Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi
Richard the Lionheart Makes Peace with Saladin

As his illness became very grave, the King despaired of recovering his health. Because of this he
was much afraid, both for the others as well as for himself. Among the many things which did
not pass unnoted by his wise attention, he chose, as the least inconvenient course, to seek to
make a truce rather than to desert the depopulated land altogether and to leave the business
unfinished as all the others bad done who left the groups in the ships.
The King was puzzled and unaware of anything better that he could do. He demanded of Saif ad-
Din, Saladin's brother, that he act as gobetween and seek the best conditions be could get for a
truce between them. Saif adDin was an uncommonly liberal man who bad been brought, in the
course of many disputes, to revere the King for his singular probity. Saif adDin carefully secured
peace terms on these conditions: that Ascalon, which was an object of fear for Saladin's empire
so long as it was standing, be destroyed and that it be rebuilt by no one during three years
beginning at the following Easter.[March 28, 1193] After three years, however, whoever had the
greater, more flourishing power, might have Ascalon by occupying it. Saladin allowed Joppa to
be restored to the Christians. They were to occupy the city and its vicinity, including the seacoast
and the mountains, freely and quietly. Saladin agreed to confirm an inviolate peace between
Christians and Saracens, guaranteeing for both free passage and access to the Holy Sepulcher of
the Lord without the exaction of any tribute and with the freedom of bringing objects for sale
through any land whatever and of exercising a free commerce.
When these conditions of peace had been reduced to writing and read to him, King Richard
agreed to observe them, for he could not hope for anything much better, especially since he was
sick, relying upon scanty support, and was not more than two miles from the enemy's station.
Whoever contends that Richard should have felt otherwise about this peace agreement should
know that he thereby marks himself as a perverse liar.

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