Prisoner Exchanges & Jewish Law:Part 1

Yvonne Friedman, Encounter Between Enemies: Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 149

The ransom process involved evaluating a person and paying his price. In a society where slavery was accepted, setting a price for a human being was a question of market value, not a moral quandary. At the lowest level, to make ransom worthwhile, it had to be more than the person in question’s price on the slave market. Naturally, this value fluctuated according to the market. After Hattin, when thousands were sold into slavery, prices slumped, and the price of ransom was almost certainly affected. In the East, there apparently existed a kind of minimum price for a ‘regular’ captive, namely infantry, civilians, and non-noble captives: 33 1/3 dinars. Early testimony to this price comes from Muqaddasi’s tenth-century description of the ransoming of Muslim captives from their Byzantine captors. The price quoted there is three for a hundred dinars.

A similar price was still in effect in the twelfth century. In 1140 Usamah paid 43 dinars for a young man and an old worthless one was thrown in for good measure by the dealer. This brings us to approximately the same price. The Jews, whose captives were usually civilians and who had no other options available to free their captives, were conversant with the prices. Three letters from the Geniza quote a price of 33.3 dinars for Byzantine Jewish captives taken by Muslim pirates in the 11^th century. Another famous letter describing the ransoming of Jewish captives after crusader conquest in 1099 mentions the same price. In the twelfth century the prominent poet and philosopher Rabbi Judah Halevi was busy dispatching letters to raise 32 dinars to ransom a captive, in addition to the 1.3 dinars he had himself contributed. He took it for granted that the addressees were familiar with this price. Thus the price seems to have remained stable over three centuries.

It would be rash, however, to assume that this was the price always paid. In 1099 the Jews of Jerusalem were ransomed for less than the regular price, because the crusaders were not aware of the going rate. Prices were also affected by the number of captives and their captors’ haste to unload them. When the prices of slaves dropped, one could probably strike a bargain in ransom too. But the stability of the minimum prices seems to point to a steady flow of money and prisoners, continuing the accepted convention in the East.

September 18, 1970

Allenby Bridge across the Jordan River, 11:30 AM. A lone U.S. embassy official walked up to the Allenby Bridge, an unimpressive, steel and wooden structure spanning the Jordan River at a narrow point between Israel and Jordan. He carried a box marked "special foods for [the Red Crescent] Amman." Inside were canned Israeli goods and a note that read "Kosher food for Rabbi Hutner."

Two days earlier, the American embassy in Amman learned that Rabbi Isaac Hutner, "a strict adherent to the dietary laws of Judaism, has refused to accept food which he believes to be not kosher." (In fact, eight other hostages, including me, were doing the same.) The embassy asked other U.S. embassies in the region to "obtain canned kosher items and forward [them] to Amman as soon as possible for relay to the captors." The next day, the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv offered to do so. The Amman embassy advised it to deliver the food in "inconspicuous packages" to the Jordanian police at the Allenby Bridge and request that it be turned over to the ICRC in Amman. Despite a day-long effort, the Amman embassy could not reach the ICRC to alert it to the possible arrival of the food.

Now the official walked across the bridge hoping to find someone on the Jordanian side willing to accept the package. Finding no one at the Jordanian end of the bridge, he walked about a kilometer into Jordan where he finally encountered a group of Jordanian soldiers. The corporal in charge was sympathetic but had no clue what to do; he phoned an officer. Instructed not to accept the parcel, the corporal suggested that it might be possible to deliver it in a couple of days, perhaps on Sunday. So, the official returned to the Israeli side and entrusted the parcel to the bridge commander, one Captain Ilan, who agreed to hold onto it until new arrangements could be made.

The food never reached Rabbi Hutner.