#sefarad

A Sephardic Torah manuscript with golden Stars of David, Soria/Tudela 1300–1312. ✡

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Hébreu 21, fol. 98v.

Rambam ate and left no crumbs.

blushes when he is drunk,

and his beautiful curls and wonderful hands,

he would not have written in his Torah: do not lie with a man.”

(Translated by Jeffrey Gorsky, Exiles in Sepharad: The Jewish Millennium in Spain)

🇪🇸 La posibilidad de obtener la nacionalidad española o portuguesa por la vía sefardí ofrece a los descendientes de judíos expulsados durante la Inquisición una oportunidad única para reconectar con sus raíces. En Portugal, el proceso es accesible y permite obtener la ciudadanía mediante la demostración de ascendencia sefardí a través de documentos y apellidos, sin necesidad de residir en el país. En España, aunque la ley que permitía la obtención de la nacionalidad sefardí concluyó en 2019, la opción de hacerlo mediante una carta de naturaleza sigue vigente para casos excepcionales, como personas con vínculos históricos o culturales significativos con el país. Obtener la ciudadanía en cualquiera de estos países otorga los beneficios de ser ciudadano de la Unión Europea, incluyendo el derecho a vivir, trabajar y estudiar en cualquier país miembro, además de acceso a beneficios sociales. Para los dominicanos con ascendencia sefardí, estas opciones representan una valiosa conexión con su herencia cultural y oportunidades en Europa.

The historical Hasdai Crescas/Hasday Cresques

@asongofstarkandtargaryen

Hasdai Crescas (Barcelona, Catalonia, 1340-Zaragoza, Aragon, 1412) Jewish philosopher jurist and writer.

A Talmudic authority and a philosopher of great originality, his ideas exerted influence on his student, the Jewish theologian and writer Joseph Albo (Monreal del Campo, Teruel, Aragon, 1380-1444) in his work of Sefer Ha’ikkarim (Book of Principles), a classic work on the fundamentals of Judaism. As well as Baruj Espinoza (Amsterdam, 1632 - The Hague, 1677) Dutch philosopher, son of Sephardic Jews who emigrated to the Netherlands.

Hasdai was born in Carrer Marlet, in the old Jewish quarter of Barcelona. His family came from a wealthy lineage of scholars, traders and rabbis.

He enjoyed a certain material wealth and the esteem of the powerful, so that in 1393 he was appointed exclusive executor of the will of his uncle, Vitalis Azday, by Juan I of Aragon. However in 1378 he was imprisoned on the basis of a false accusation.

As the secretary of the administration of the Jewish district (aljama) of Barcelona since 1373, Hasdai acted as the king's representative on Jewish affairs. He was the great rabbi of Zaragoza from 1389, and in 1390, because of his friendship with with Juan I, he was named the Supreme Judge of all the Aljamas of Aragon. Thanks to his presence and the fact that the king was in Zaragoza during the summer of 1391, the community of the capital was not destroyed, and the destruction of most of the Aragonese Jewish quarters was also avoided. His only son was martyred for his faith, and died in the course of the anti-Semitic pogroms in Barcelona. Since then, all his efforts were directed at rebuilding the Jewish quarters of the Crown of Aragon from Zaragoza, and specially the one from Barcelona, but without any success.

However, these tests did not cloud his faculties or his faith, since he wrote his greatest works after this period. Another episode that marked his life was his reunion with the false messiah Mošeh Botarel of Cisneros, of whom he was briefly a supporter.

Moses studied medicine and philosophy; and he was instructed in the Kabbala. He believed in the efficacy of amulets and cameos, and declared that he was able to combine the names of God for magical purposes, so that he was generally considered a sorcerer. He stated that by means of fasting, ablution, and invocation of the names of God and of the angels prophetic dreams could be induced.

In 1401 Hasdai went to visit Joseph Orabuena at the request of Carlos III of Navarra, whose annals show that the trips to various towns of the Kingdom of Navarra of the "Rabbi of Zaragoza" were paid for.

In The Jewish Religion, Rabbi Louis Jacobs described Crescas as “one of the most influential personalities of Spanish Jewry, in particular in his efforts to prevent Jews from being lured away from Judaism in the wake of persecution.”

Crescas is best known for three written works: a letter to the congregations of Avignon, in which he relates the incidents of the persecution of 1391; a Spanish tractate refuting the main doctrines of Christianity and explaining why Jews stuck to their ancestral faith; and a work entitled Or Adonai (Light of the Lord).

In Or Adonai,  Crescas argued against Aristotelianism, the famous Greek philosopher’s influence on Jewish thinkers like Mošeh ben Maimon aka Maimonides (Córdoba, al-Andalus, Almoravid Empire, March 30, 1138 - Cairo, Ayyubid Egypt, December 12, 1204)

Drawing on his thorough knowledge of philosophical literature, Crescas argued that Aristotle’s arguments were far from infallible, deploring Maimonides for introducing Greek philosophy into Jewish doctrine. While he admired much of Maimonides’ scholarship, Crescas believed that Maimonides was responsible for influencing other Jewish thinkers who were too enamored of Aristotle at the expense of Jewish teachings.

The character of Hasdai Crescas in LCDM is probably a reference of the historical one, they have in common the name, that they lived in 14th century Barcelona and they're somehow related with trading.

But the fictional Hasdai is shown mainly being a trader, and was born years before the historical Hasdai was born and died before.

The son of historical Hasdai dies in the progroms in 1391, but Jucef and Raquel are saved by Arnau during the first attacks to the Jewish quarter around 1348, and Jucef decides to convert into Christianism around 1391 after the progrom. Hasdai is the one who is executed around 1367, and his kids Raquel and Jucef are the ones who live longer.