One David Alroy, claiming to be the…
1160 CE
One David Alroy, claiming to be the Messiah, promises to lead the Jews and take Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
One evening he tells the Jews of Baghdad that they are all going to fly to Jerusalem that night and asks them to give him their property.
That night much of the Jewish population stands on their roofs waiting to fly.
According to Benjamin of Tudela, who visits a couple of years after the event, Alroy is slain, after one “successful” battle, by his father-in-law, who had allegedly been bribed and threatened by the governor of Amaida.
Alroy's followers call themselves Menahemites and continue to live in the Adzer Bedjan area.
They eventually fade out; Benjamin Disraeli's 1933 novel Alroy will become a well-known fictionalized version of Alroy's life.
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The Near and Middle East
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