From Quora
Paula R. Stiles, Templar historian
Answered May 23, 2018
I wrote an entire PhD thesis that discussed Templar relations with their associates, including Jews and Muslims. I’ll try to boil this down to short and sweet: Yes, the Templars protected Jews. In fact, they were noted for protecting Jews. Yes, they did this to the point that it affected their reputation (mostly positively) with local Jews and (negatively) with the more antisemitic of their Christian neighbors.
This mostly occurred in southern France, the Mediterranean (Iberia, Italy) and the Holy Land. The British Isles and the Holy Roman Empire, not so much. In Iberia, especially, Jews and Muslims were coveted by kings and nobles as tax cash cows. Jews were noted for being skilled agricultural workers, especially with citrus orchards; Muslims as builders, especially bricklayers and other types of masons. Also being vulnerable as non-Christians, they were more likely than Christians to be taxed heavily, and double-taxed by different lords.
The Templars, being closely associated to the Count-Kings of Aragon and Catalonia (for reasons too complex to get into here), had more influence with the Count-Kings than other lords, so they were able to offer better legal, tax and even military protection than the nobility or other church groups. Being desperate for resources to send to the Holy Land (the Crown of Aragon was their bread basket), they were also more willing to offer concessions in exchange for Jewish groups, especially, pledging loyalty and tax obligations exclusively to them. Being desperate for powerful allies, the Jews generally were happy to oblige and some even carried their association in their name, such as the famous Judah de la Cavalleria, which they passed down to their children.
Especially poignant is the case of the call (community) of Jews at Monzon, on the border between Catalonia and Aragon. The Jews at Monzon had a dispute with the Jewish call at Zaragoza (who were supported by the King), in which they enlisted the Templars in legal court. There was also a case in the mid-13th century where a Christian mob attacked the Jewish call and the Templar commander of the fortress came down the hill to plead with the mob to stand down. He was unsuccessful, though the call did survive the riot.
The community did not, however, survive the siege of the Templar castle during the Trial half a century later. The Templars were eventually forced to give up and surrender after the Pope suppressed the Order, but the Jewish call had already been destroyed early on in the siege. It’s not known precisely why, but the location of the call (right up against the cliff under the castle, where the Jews could easily have given the Templars aid) may be a clue.