European centers were frequent.'* Jews were also buried there from time to time, especially in Hebron, the burial site of the patriarchs.' Aliyah remained infrequent, however, except among Kara ites , who propagandized for it and were motivated by Messianism , and for small waves of immigration from Islamic lands. Rabbinic Jews came only in small numbers.’ In the Gaonic responsa, and those slightly later, were some questions about the mitzvah of aliyah and the right of a husband to force an unwilling wife to settle in the Land of Israel or to remain there, but the number of such questions is small.'” This was not a matter of major concern, nor were other questions raised about the Land of Israel except as isolated incidents. The Talmudic statement was misused by husbands who sought to avoid ketubah payments by threatening to force their wives to move to Jerusalem ; Maimonides therefore tested such husbands through a ban of excommunication and the need for a general reputation of honesty before he permitted it. He thus repudiated the Talmudic law."®
The conquest by the Crusaders destroyed all Jewish settlement, but their rule did not last long; then Muslims were in control once more. Some Jews , like Yehudah Halevi , felt a longing for the Land, but few settled there even when harsher conditions elsewhere led to some emigration. The Jews of neighboring countries like Egypt visited as pilgrims or for commerce but did not settle, although a major community there followed the guidance of the Yeshiva of Jerusalem. ! Trade, with constant visits of merchants, continued throughout the centuries, but settlement in the Land of Israel remained rare.
The first larger group of which we hear in the Middle Ages comprised three hundred rabbis from medieval France who moved
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