517th anniversary since 'the Traumatic Expulsion of Spanish Jewry'

This week is the 517th anniversary since King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain signed a decree leading to "the traumatic expulsion of Spanish Jewry," to borrow the wording of Eric Lawee, "'Israel Has No Messiah' in Late Medieval Spain," Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 5 (1996): 245-279, quote at 250. Related to this article and the Messianic epoch surrounding the post-expulsion Abarbanel, see as well idem, Isaac Abarbanel's Stance Toward Tradition: Defence, Dissent, and Dialogue (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000), and idem, "The Messianism of Isaac Abarbanel: Father of the [Jewish] Messianic Movements of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," in Matt Goldish and Richard H. Popkin, eds., Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture: Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern World (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 1-39; and for a brief study on spelling of Abravanel's surname, see Sid Z. Leiman, "Abarbanel and the Censor," Journal of Jewish Studies 19 (1968): 49-61.

Thirty-two years ago, Maran Ovadiah Yosef was received by King Juan Carlos during his official visit to Spain in 1977, mentioned during his "First Day of Chol HaMoed Sukkot of 2003" lecture that I attended in Har Nof, where he discussed his visit to Spain amidst turning [=turn, turn, turn] to imitate what the conversations between Shelomo HaMelech and the birds might have sounded, which is also related to the very important question about the Rambam's return to Egypt, discussed in his Shu"t Yehave Daat 3 (#81) and about which I devoted several in-depth chaburot during my junior and senior years of High School. About the settlement ban that was lifted by the Spanish government, see Richard Eders, "1492 Ban on Jews Is Voided by Spain," New York Times (17 December 1968): 1, and for a critique of the visit of Haham Solomon Gaon, [then-] head of the British Sephardi community, to Spain, where, see Meir Amsel, "Rabbi Gaon Maliciously Violated the Early Ban on Spain," Ha-Maor 21:2 (#190) (Kislev-Tevet 5729 [1968]): 37-38 (Hebrew), even retorting to the usage of the 'ole "rabbai" appelation for his rabbinic opponent.

For background on the purported Herem against returning to Spain following the expulsion at the end of the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry, see the earlier halakhic and historical surveys, the responsum of Rav Hayyim Elazar Shapira to Rav Tzvi Hirsch Meisels, that first appeared in Tel Talpiyot (Tishrei 5692 [1931]): 1-2 (Hebrew), and reprinted in Shu"t Minchat Elazar 5 (#11); Yehuda Gershuni, "The Ban Against Settling in the Land of Spain," ha-Darom 32 (Tishrei 5731 [1970]) 48-58 (Hebrew), as well as Cecil Roth, "The Search for the Missing Cherem: May Jews Return to Spain," Jewish Life 24 (January-February 1957): 13-16, expanded in idem, "Was there a Herem against the Return of the Jews to Spain?" Le Judaisme Sephardi 15 (October 1957): 675-[...], and the more recent article by Marc B. Shapiro, "The Herem on Spain: History and Halakha," Sefarad 49:2 (1989): 381-394. See also J. David Bleich, Contemporary Halakhic Problems (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1977), 1:206-209, and the earlier studies by Hirsch Jakob Zimmels, "The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust in the Rabbinic Literature," in Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division 2 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1969), 2:198, where the late Hirsch Jakob Zimmels cited the perspective of Rav Meshullam Roth -- from his article in Sinai 7:11-12 (1945): 232, later published in his volume of Shu"t Kol Mevassar 1 (#13) -- ideas that were later expanded (as with all other aspects of this article) in Hirsch Jakob Zimmels' very important and excellent tome, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust in Rabbinic Literature (Ireland: Maria Publications, 1975), esp. 16-19. For an early review of Zimmels' work, see Louis Jacobs, "The Indomitable," London Jewish Chronicle (17 December 1976): 13, who noted how the author

"appears to have consulted practically every reference in Rabbinic literature to the Holocaust...[and which is] painful in the extreme to read and yet inspiring and even life-affirming in [its] astonishing account of how Orthodox Jews under a foul tyranny and in the face of certain death managed, insofar as they possibly could, to regulate their lives by the halacha, wresting in the process sanity, order and even sanctity out of chaos, lawlessness and the most obscene wickedness in the history of mankind.... [Zimmels' volume is] irrefutable testimony to the power of the halacha to act as a guide through the valley of the shadow and to the tremendous courage of Jews loyal to the halacha to obey the word of God as they heard it no matter how frightful the cost. The heroism of these martyrs makes us all feel totally unworthy."

In reviewing this volume by Zimmels, Jacobs noted the then-recent publication of another related volume and how the two authors -- one working from the United States and Zimmels in London -- "working independently and without knowledge of one another's researches," is highly reminiscent of a curious little comment that appeared in a long-forgotten anonymous article in the London Jewish Chronicle some half-century earlier in the "Notes on Books and Authors" section (16 September 1932): 14 -– a clear and direct outgrowth of Israel Abrahams' early twentieth-century column "Books and Bookmen" -– which noted that

"[s]ome time ago, a plea was made in this column," lamenting the lack of academic coordination amongst scholars worldwide, "which would prevent needless duplication in Jewish research and literary work. Now there comes a somewhat pathetic instance of how badly this is needed. For many years, almost no work has been done upon the important question of the Marranos in Rabbinical sources. However, in the latest number of Zion, published in Hebrew in Jerusalem, there is a detailed monograph by S[imha] Asaf on the 'Marranos of Spain and Portugal in the Responsa Literature.' Simultaneously there has appeared in Germany 'Die Marranen in der Rabbinischen Literatur,' by H.J. Zimmels. The method of the two works is completely different, but the ground covered is identical. Both are admirable specimens of the products of the new school of Jewish historiography, based upon rock-bottom source material. One can only express regret that they were not produced in collaboration instead of competition" (14).

The reference to Zimmels' work is to idem, Die Marranen in die Rabbinischen Literatur: Forschungen und Quellen zur Geschichte und Kulturgeschichte der Anussim (Berlin: Rubin Mass, 1932), which appeared a half-decade following his doctoral dissertation from the University of Vienna, entitled: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland im 13. Jahrhundert, insbesondere auf Grund der Gutachten des r. Meïr Rothenburg (Vienna: Israelitisch-theologische Lehranstalt, 1926); both later reworked into idem, Ashkenazim and Sephardim: Their Relations, Differences, and Problems As Reflected in the Rabbinical Responsa (London: Oxford University Press, 1958).