Fighting in National Armies 85
a responsibility to participate. He disagreed with Karo’s decision and in his rejoinder emphasized that Karo had“forgotten that Jews fought to protect their cities along with Gentiles... furthermore it was an obligatory struggle when it was conducted to aid fellow Jews .”"? Jewish participation in such militias created to face a temporary crisis alongside more permanent military units seems to have been common. We need to remember that this was not a major discussion, but a brief set of comments on sabbath laws, much shorter than all other matters connected with shabbat.
The realities of Jewish life and the halakhah parted company, at least to some extent here as in many other areas. Jewish mercenaries as individuals fought in armies through the millennia, but were either forgotten or ignored. An exception was the Jewish mercenary unit which served in Egypt as a garrison(600 B.C.E.), before the Persian conquest, and later under the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt on the island of Elephantine in the upper Nile (300 B.C.E.). This was mentioned in Letters to Aristeas '® and further illuminated through papyri discovered in 1906-1908. The latter produced interesting religious, economic, and personal information about these soldiers, and the community, but little about their military service, organization, or the rationale for this type of“foreign legion.”
More important was the participation in local militias during times of crisis. Towns and cities were frequently besieged and none had a standing army large enough to defend themselves. In times of peace the military was intended to maintain local order and take care of brigands in the neighborhood. It had to be be sufficiently large to protect against local uprisings, and impress jealous neighbors that any attack would be costly and difficult. These forces were not sufficient to defend against a major army set on conquest. As military costs have always been high, few could afford a large army in constant readiness for any eventuality. Militias of the citizenry was the only alternative. Due to the disruption of normal life and the reluctance of the inhabitants it could not be called out till the enemy was virtually outside the walls. Jews participated as reluctantly, as everyone else.