161 Abraham Gross GERONA: A SEPHARDIC CRADLE OF ...

A Sephardic Cradle of Jewish Learning and Religiosity
of the yet unwritten book about the Jews of
Gerona. Within Aragon, the above mentioned
Geronese scholars are at the forefront of Jewish
learning, be it in biblical exegesis, Qabbalah,
Talmudic commentaries, Halakhah, and ethical
literature. To our list of personalities one might
add the towering Barcelonian figure of Solomon
ben Adret who was a Nahmanides’ disciple. And
while later qabbalistic trends took the place of
the Geronese circle - partly incorporating them
in the Zoharic literature - the works of
Nah manides, Jonah Gerondi, and Nissim
Gerondi are being read and studied widely to
this day by thousands of students all over the
world as the works of the Ramban, Rabenu
Jonah, and Ran, (all be it, without being aware
of the common geographical background and
historical context of these figures).
***
As we have hinted above, the significance
of the spiritual ambience in Gerona might go beyond
the realm of intellectual history. As is evident
by the above survey of famous scholars,
Gerona’s heydays as a center of Jewish learning,
was during the 13 th -14 th centuries. There is
a certain religious character of its spiritual leaders
and one might safely assume that it reflected
on the community at large. Now one might wonder
whether this spirit persisted after the age of
Nissim Gerondi when religious leaders of a lesser
stature led this community 18 . Given the generalities
in scholarship about the Sephardic religious
mentality, was there any shred of the
Gerona «spirit» left in the end of the 14 th century?
We would like to suggest that what we
know about the response of the Jews there
to the persecutions of 1391 goes well with the
character and name this community acquired
for itself. Hasdai Crescas who summarizes
in a well-known letter, written for
the Avignon Jewish community, the extent
of the damages to the communities in Spain,
writes thus:
«In the city of Gerona, a community which
combines learning and humility [Torah weanavah
be-maqom ehad] 19 , the local rabbis
sanctified the Name of God in public [qiddewu ha-
Wem ba-rabim]. Only few converted, and the
majority found refuge in the houses of the burghers’
houses and as of today they are at the tower
[ba-migdal ]».
This should be contrasted with most other
communities about which Crescas tells us that
the majority did convert 20 . Similar sentiments
are echoed by Profiat Duran who writes three
years later a eulogy to a friend whose father
«The great rabbi, scholar, leader, and poet
Abraham Isaac Ha-Levi» passed away 21 . The
deceased was a rabbi in «the community of
Gerona which has risen a mother in Israel for
Torah learning and for God-fearing [we-qamah
em la-Torah u-le-yir’at w amayyim be-
Yisra’el]». He extols him as a person who had
been well-versed in «Torah, Talmud,
Halakhah, and Aggadah», and mentions his
colleagues «the scholars, rabbis, pious, three
shepherds in Gerona [...] who died by the
sword and in the flames, whose merit, so I believe,
protected the remnant» 22 .
18 For some of the less known rabbis in the
middle of the 14 th century, see: L. FELDMAN, Tewuvat
hakme Gerona odot zilzul bi-kevod talmid hakam:
«Sinai» 89 (1981), pp. 1-5.
19 The original phrase is: «Torah u-gedullah bemaqom
ehad».
20 One should point out that at least three
communities are recorded as having chosen to
perform active martyrdom rather than convert
to Christianity. Crescas relates such incidents
during the siege of the Jews in Barcelona. About
Toledo see, e.g., C. ROTH, A Hebrew Elegy on the
Martyrs of Toledo: «Jewish Quarterly Review»
39 (1948), pp. 135-150. About such behavior in
the community of Zaragoza (and possibly about
others as well) we learn from an Aragonese Crown
letter dated 22.9.1391; see F. BAER, Die Juden im
Christlichen Spanien, I, Berlin 1929, no. 434, p.
687.
21 P. DURAN, Qinah we-Hesped, Ma‘aseh Efod,
Vienna, 1865, p. 191.
22 Ibid., p. 193.
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