From all over Spain foreign tourists flock to Granada to see the historical sights of this city.
“1492 was a very important year in the history of Spain,” the tourist guide on the bus declares.
“In the beginning of that year King Ferdinand, Queen Isabella and their troops entered the city of Granada. It was the last Moorish stronghold in Spain and the city’s surrender to the Catholic monarchs marked the completion of the Christian conquest of the Iberian peninsula.
“In that year another great event took place,” the guide continues. “In 1492, Christopher Columbus, sailing from Spain, discovered the New World.”
It was in Santa Fe, not far from Granada, that the contract between the Spanish Crown and Columbus was arranged.
The guide made no mention that in 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain. Three months after the Catholic monarchs entered Granada, they signed there the edict of expulsion. Several months later there were no more Jews in Spain with the exception of those who had succumbed to baptism.
As our bus was making its way through Granada, my thoughts dwelt on the history and fate of Granada’s Jews.
There is no Jewish community now in this city. There has been none since the Jews were banished from Spain. However, during the more than seven hundred years of Moslem rule there were periods when a large Jewish community flourished in the city.
There was a time when the Jews formed the majority of the population. The city was then called “Granada of the Jews.” The Jews gave it a Hebrew name “Rimon Sefarad” (the Pomegranate of Spain).
The happiest period in the history of the local Jews was in the eleventh century when Shmuel Hanagid served as vizier of the Berber principality of Granada.
Shmuel Hanagid was born in Cordova. He studied there at the Talmudic academy of Rabbi Chanokh ben Moshe. For some time he had a spice shop in Malaga. Subsequently, he joined the Berber administration, rising eventually to become vizier and intimate advisor of Habbus and his son Badis, the Berber kings of Granada.
Shmuel was not only a very able administrator and statesman, he was also an outstanding warrior, leading his king’s troops in successful campaigns against rival Moslem principalities.
He was a man of many accomplishments. He was well-versed in the sciences, was an excellent Hebrew poet, a fine Hebrew grammarian and a beloved and devoted leader of his fellow Jews. Himself a great Talmudist, he supported Talmudic academies and Talmudic scholars in Babylonia, the Land of Israel, North Africa and Spain. He wrote a great Halakhic work Hilkheta Gavrata. The work has been lost but quotations therefrom have been preserved in the writing of early rabbinic authorities.
Despite his great achievements and the high positions he held, Shmuel Hanagid remained throughout his life a modest and humble man.
“He was crowned with four crowns,” Abraham Ibn Daud, the twelfth century chronicler, writes about Shmuel Hanagid in his Sefer Hakabbala. The crown of Torah, the crown of majesty, the crown of the Levites, and the greatest of all—the crown of a good name and of good deeds.”
After his death, his place as Nagid (leader) of the Jewish community and as vizier of King Badis was taken by his son Yehosef Hanagid.
Yehosef was learned and talented. He was well trained by his father who married him to the daughter of Rabbi Nissim of Kairouan, one of the great rabbinical authorities of that time. Yehosef was a good administrator and statesman; he was also a poet, but he lacked the humility of his father. “Because he grew up in riches and in his youth had never experienced hardship, he became spoiled and arrogant,” Abraham Ibn Daud, the above mentioned chronicler, writes about Yehosef. His arrogance earned him many enemies. Yehosef and a large number of Granada Jews were killed in a popular uprising.
When Yehosef Hanagid was murdered, Moshe Ibn Ezra was still very young. He grew to become one of the great Hebrew poets of Spain. He was a native of Granada. Judah Ibn Tibbon, the famous translator, too, was born in that city…
The train of my thoughts was interrupted by our bus coming to a halt. We had arrived at one of the principal sights of the city.
There are two chief tourist attractions: The Royal Chapel, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are buried and where some of their personal belongings are exhibited, and the Alhambra, the extraordinary palace of the Moorish rulers, which after the fall of the city became one of the seats of the Christian kings.
At these two places the guides who accompany the tourist buses which come from outside the city, are replaced by local specialized guides. The visitors are divided into groups in accordance with the language they speak and to each group a guide which speaks its language is assigned.
We had gone to Granada chiefly to see the Alhambra but we were not so much interested in seeing the splendid decorations of its halls or what use the Christian kings had made of the palace…we were eager to see the remains of the grandeur of Yehosef Hanagid, the Jewish vizier of the ancient Berber kingdom.
We walked through the halls, chambers, corridors and patios of the Alhambra, following the guide who explained the inscriptions and pointed out the exquisite decorations. There were the private rooms, including luxurious steam bath of the rulers and their families, and the large halls where the business of the state was conducted.
The guide moved and spoke rather fast, and at times I found it difficult to follow his explanations. When I asked why he was in such a rush, he answered that if he would speak and move slowly it would take him a half a day to show us around the palace—and this he could not afford. The groups also could not linger too much in one place, for they had to make room for others. There was seemingly an unending stream of visitors. The palace was packed with people and one had to take care not to lose one’s group.
The “Sala de los Embajadores” (Hall of Ambassadors), a grand reception room, is one of the principal sights of the Alhambra. In this richly-ornamented room stood the throne and great political decisions were taken here.
Standing in this room, I thought that it was probably here that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella signed on March 31, 1492, the decree ordering all Jews, on pain of death, to leave all the lands of Spain until the end of the month of July of that year.
The leaders of Spanish Jewry and their friends from among the nobles pleaded in vain with the king to withdraw the edict. Don Isaac Abarbanel appealed to the King and Queen on behalf of his people.
He was to describe later his intercession and pleadings with royal couple. In the introduction to his commentary on the Book of Kings, he writes that he had started to compose the commentary in the year 5244 (1483-1484), when he was called to the royal court. “G-d made me find grace in the eyes of the royal couple and in the eyes of the most influential nobles and I served them for eight years.” Thus he had not much time left for study and the work on the commentary was interrupted. After the conquest of Granada, the King and Queen decreed that all Jews who did not convert must leave the country. “When I was at the court I grew weary of crying; my throat became dry; I spoke several times to the King. I appealed to him saying: ‘Help O King! Why do you do this to your servants? Ask of us much gold and silver, and we’ll give what we possess.’” Abarbanel continued: “I called upon my friends, the intimates of the King, to plead on behalf of my people. The nobles spoke strongly with the King, demanding that he revoke the cruel decree, but he would not listen. His wife was at his side urging him to stick to his decision.”
Abarbanel had served as treasurer of the royal house of Portugal. In 1483, after he was falsely accused of having taken part in a plot against the king, he fled to Spain. One year later he entered the service of the Spanish sovereigns. He served ably and faithfully King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella as royal tax farmer and agent of the Crown. He advanced huge sums to the royal couple and to the state and helped finance the war against Granada.
The years of the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella, even before the decree of the expulsion, were not happy ones for Spanish Jewry. The Inquisition, instituted in Spain by the royal couple, persecuted the “Conversos,” Jews who had adopted Christianity under duress and were suspected of practicing their former faith in secret. Many hundreds of “Conversos” were burned at the stake. Many thousands were sentenced. Jewish communities, too, were harassed. They were accused of encouraging the “Conversos” in their attachment to Judaism. These developments under Ferdinand and Isabella seemed to foreshadow the ultimate fate of Spanish Jewry, but Abarbanel and the other Jewish leaders apparently did not sense the danger.
After the fall of Granada, after the last stronghold of the Moslems in Spain had been taken, came the turn of the Jews. They were given the cruel choice: Conversion or exile. The main reason for the expulsion stated in the decree was that the Jews urged the “Conversos” to remain faithful to Judaism and thus constituted a danger to the Christian religion. Actually, King Ferdinand was prompted in his actions not by religious considerations alone. There were also political and economic reasons. He instituted the Inquisition for he knew that it would secure for the Crown the property of the “Conversos.” The expulsion was to make the Crown the beneficiary of the fortunes the Jews were forced to leave behind.
Abarbanel left with the exiles. His first station was Naples, where he entered the royal service. There he also completed his commentary of the Book of Kings…
Thoughts about the fate of the Jews of Spain crowded my mind as I stood in the famous “Sala de los Embajadores.” They followed me as I traversed other halls and chambers, and all of a sudden I found myself in the place, which to see was the main purpose of our visit to the Alhambra. I was in the “Patio de los Leones” (Court of the Lions), the most beautiful spot in the palace. It is called so because in its center is found a fountain, whose basin is supported by twelve stone lions through whose mouths com forth the water of the fountain.
This fountain is a remnant of the glory and grandeur of Yehosef Hanagid, the Jewish vizier of the Badis, the eleventh century Berber king of Granada. According to Frederick P. Bargebuhr, a modern scholar, this fountain had been erected by Yehosef Hanagid who had his private mansion on the Alhambra Hill.
By: Tovia Preschel
Jewish Press
September 23-30, 1977