Bridging Empires

How Jewish Scholars Preserved Knowledge Between Civilizations

An opening anecdote on the disappearing art of wound care

In classical antiquity Greek physicians such as Hippocrates and Celsus understood that wounds needed to be cleaned. They recommended washing injuries with boiled water, vinegar or wine and prescribed honey or herbs to prevent infection. Centuries later, Europe had forgotten these lessons. During the Middle Ages and early modern era surgeons believed that the formation of pus (called “laudable pus”) was a necessary part of healing and routinely poured boiling oil into gunshot wounds.

This regression lasted until pioneers such as Ambroise Paré in the 16th century and, much later, Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur in the 19th century introduced gentle dressings and antisepsis, dramatically reducing the need to amputate infected limbs.

This story is often told as a tale of rediscovery: Europe lost ancient medical knowledge and had to “catch up” centuries later. Yet the picture is more complex. As empires rose and fell, a dispersed but literate Jewish community preserved classical knowledge, translated it into new languages and added its own insights. Their story reveals how human knowledge can survive dark ages when a culture is committed to education and mobility.

Maimonides and the Jewish medical tradition

One of the most striking figures in this narrative is Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides). Born in Córdoba in 1135 and eventually settling in Cairo, he served as court physician to the sultan’s vizier.

Maimonides mastered Greek medical texts in Arabic translation and studied Muslim authors such as Avicenna and Ibn Zuhr. He insisted on reason and empirical observation, criticizing Hippocrates or Galen when they conflicted with his experience.

Beyond scholarship, Maimonides practiced what he preached. In a celebrated letter to his translator Samuel ibn Tibbon (1199 CE) he described his exhausting daily routine. After returning from the palace he would find his antechamber full of patients. He wrote: “I dismount from my animal, wash my hands, go forth to my patients … then I go to attend to my patients and write prescriptions.”

Centuries before germ theory, Maimonides recognized that physicians should wash their hands between seeing different people. The historian Peter Poczai notes that he “began washing his hands after handling a sick person, dismounting a horse, and treating patients” even though his peers did not appreciate the practice.

“I dismount from my animal, wash my hands, go forth to my patients … then I go to attend to my patients and write prescriptions.”

— Maimonides to Samuel ibn Tibbon (1199 CE)

Maimonides viewed medicine holistically. He divided it into preventive, curative and convalescent care, stressed diet and hygiene and rejected the medieval belief that pus signified healing. His works, written in Arabic, were quickly translated into Hebrew and Latin; his Medical Aphorisms were printed in Bologna in 1489 and Venice in 1497, influencing physicians across Europe long before antisepsis was rediscovered.

A culture of literacy – portable human capital

The capacity of Jews to act as cultural brokers stemmed from a radical decision taken after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The rabbis and scholars of Judea and Galilee mandated universal literacy.

In a world of near–universal illiteracy they required every Jew—child or adult, rich or poor—to learn to read and study the Torah. Rather than restricting knowledge to an elite, they made education a community duty. As economic historians Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein explain, this “odd choice” of universal literacy produced unexpected dividends centuries later: it endowed Jews with the ability to read contracts, learn new languages and develop analytical skills.

Reading the Torah in Hebrew trained them to read Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Arabic; studying the Talmud honed their reasoning and debate. Literate Jews could migrate across the Mediterranean, maintain networks via letters and enforce contracts through rabbinic courts. Their education became “portable human capital.”

This combination of literacy and mobility positioned Jews to translate and transmit knowledge when empires collapsed.

Toledo and the translation movement

During the 12th century, Toledo became the key center for translating scientific texts from Arabic into Latin. The city’s archbishop Raymond of Toledo enlisted Mozarabic Christians, Muslim scholars and Jewish translators to work together.

Among them was Avendauth (Abraham Ibn Daud), a Jewish philosopher who collaborated with the Christian scholar Dominicus Gundisalvi to translate Avicenna’s De Anima and other works. In manuscripts he is called “Avendeuth Israelita, philosophus.” His expertise in Arabic made it possible to render complex texts into Latin for Western scholars who could not read Arabic.

Jewish translators were also crucial in producing Hebrew versions of scientific works. Judah ben Moses ha-Kohen, Isaac ibn Saʿid, and Abraham Ibn Shoshan worked for King Alfonso X (“the Wise”) in the 13th century, translating astronomical treatises into Castilian and Hebrew. The Tibbon family in southern France translated philosophical and medical texts from Arabic into Hebrew, sometimes preserving works whose Arabic originals were lost.

Why knowledge survived when empires collapsed

Jewish scholars did not work in isolation; they were integrated into the societies around them. Maimonides served the Muslim government in Cairo; Avendauth worked under a Christian archbishop in Toledo; later Jewish physicians taught at Christian universities.

When the Western Roman Empire collapsed and Europe entered a “Dark Age,” Jews in the Islamic world copied and studied Greek works in

Arabic. When the Abbasid Caliphate declined, Jewish translators carried those works into Latin Christendom. When censorship threatened books, Hebrew translations kept them alive.

This network also preserved practical knowledge. While European surgeons were cauterizing wounds with boiling oil, Jewish medical texts continued to discuss the Hippocratic tradition of cleaning and suturing wounds. Maimonides’ insistence on washing hands and treating patients gently illustrates how ancient hygienic wisdom could persist in a community committed to learning.

A living chain of knowledge

The tale of wound care shows how fragile human knowledge can be. Between Hippocrates and Lister, European medicine oscillated between empirical healing and harmful superstition. Yet during the same millennium, a dispersed community preserved, translated and developed classical wisdom.

Maimonides washed his hands before seeing patients when his peers scoffed at the idea. Jewish translators in Toledo rendered Avicenna’s philosophy into Latin, and colleagues in Provence created a scientific Hebrew that could carry Greek and Arabic ideas into new eras. Universal literacy after 70 CE empowered Jews to become scholars, physicians, translators and merchants across the Mediterranean, giving them the mobility and networks to keep knowledge alive.

In times when empires crumble and libraries burn, the survival of knowledge depends not only on institutions but on communities dedicated to learning. The Jewish experience shows how education can become a form of resilience — a portable asset that preserves the threads of human wisdom until they can be woven into new tapestries.