The quality of rabbinic leadership in the generation of expulsión
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/aem.2012.42.1.387Keywords:
Aboab, Abravanel, backshadowing, “conversos”, disputed question, expulsion, inquisition, kabbalah, martyrdom, Netanyahu, philosophy, response, Seneor, sermons, syllogism, Spanish JewryAbstract
Not a few Jewish historians have strongly criticized the spiritual and intellectual leaders of Spanish Jewry in the years leading up to the expulsion of 1492, as expressed by the following statement in a 1995 academic book by Norman Roth: “An important characteristic of fi fteenthcentury Spanish Jewry was the almost complete lack of leadership”. This article will challenge some of the underlying assumptions of this claim, especially pertaining to the failure of these leaders to foresee and prevent the expulsion, and the charge of intellectual mediocrity in the areas of Jewish law, philosophy and Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). Passing briefly over the best-known Jewish leader of the generation, Don Isaac Abravanel, about whom much has been written, the second part of the article will focus on Rabbi Isaac Aboab, based largely on material from his sermons, much of which remains in unpublished manuscripts.
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