history politics and messianism david

HISTORY, POLITICS, AND MESSIANISM: DAVID

HA-REUVENI’S ORIGIN AND MISSION

by

Moti Benmelech

In the last weeks of 1523, a colorful traveler arrived in Venice from Alexan-dria: “Dark in aspect, short in stature, gaunt, his language Hagarish [Arabic] and alittle Jewish. … He wore striped silk according to the custom of the Ishmaelites,and on his head a white scarf, with which he covered his head and most ofhimself.”1 The traveler presented himself to local Jews and community leadersas “David,” the ambassador of an independent Jewish state on the Arabian penin-sula, where he claimed that his brother, King Joseph, ruled over the tribes ofReuven, Gad, and half the tribe of Menashe. The “Jewish ambassador” announcedthat he was on his way to Rome to hold a state meeting with the Pope, as an emis-sary of the Seventy Elders, the advisers of his brother the king. He added, ofcourse, that he needed money.2

The leaders of the Venice Jewish community were far from eager to assistthe mysterious traveler, who shortly began to be called David Ha-Reuveni, buthe did manage to enlist the support of several wealthy community members andset out for Rome. He remained there for about half a year, met several timeswith the Pope, and even received a letter of recommendation from him to theking of Portugal. After prolonged delays, in late 1525 Ha-Reuveni finally leftfor Portugal, where the open presence of Jews had been forbidden since theforced conversions of 1497. He remained close to the royal court there forseveral months, holding negotiations about political and military cooperationbetween the alleged independent Jewish state in the Habor Desert3 and the Euro-pean power. His presence aroused religious and messianic fervor among the New

1. This is how he was described by Daniel of Pisa upon Ha-Reuveni’s arrival in Rome a fewweeks later. See Aharon Zeev Aescoly, Hatenu’ot hameshih. iot beYisrael (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik,1988), 371.

2. Regarding Ha-Reuveni’s stay in Venice, see Aharon Zeev Aescoly, Sippur David Ha-Reuveni(Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik 1993), 31–32. Regarding the tribal state in the Habor Desert, see ibid., 7. Theaccount below offers merely general outlines as background for the more detailed discussion to follow.

3. According to I Chronicles 5:26, the tribes of Reuven, Gad, and half the tribe of Menashe wereexiled to Habor ( רובח ) by Tiglathpileser, king of Assyria (according to II Kings 18:11, all Ten Tribeswere exiled to Habor).

AJS Review 35:1 (April 2011), 35–60© Association for Jewish Studies 2011doi:10.1017/S036400941100002X

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Christians of Portugal, and he finally lost favor with the king and was expelledfrom Portugal in the summer of 1526. After tribulations on sea and land, including,apparently, capture and imprisonment in France, Ha-Reuveni reappeared in Italyin early 1530. There, however, he was shown to be an impostor and forger.4 Never-theless, he was soon joined by Shlomo Molkho, who had met him in Portugal, andin August 1532, the two men set out to meet Emperor Charles V in Regensberg.After the meeting, the two were arrested. In December of that year, Molkho wasburned at the stake in Mantua, while Ha-Reuveni remained incarcerated, woundup in Spain, and was executed, apparently, in 1538, in an auto-da-fé in Llerena.5

THE STATE OF SCHOLARSHIP

This strange but fascinating episode, a mixture of fantasy and reality, cap-tured the imaginations of writers, poets, and dramatists, and also aroused consider-able scholarly attention. Yet many scholars have been unable to define the limitsbetween reality and imagination in the episode nor to discern the purpose and atti-tude of the mysterious traveler whose identity is still unknown.

The main source of the events is Ha-Reuveni’s journal, which includes adetailed account of his activities from the day that, as he claimed, he left thetribal kingdom in the Habor Desert until he was imprisoned in France6 afterbeing deported from Portugal in June 1526.7 Ha-Reuveni describes at length hissojourns in Italy and Portugal, his meetings with Jews, Marranos, and Christians,and the essence of his meetings with the Pope, the king of Portugal, and others.Many details in the journal have been confirmed by external Jewish and Christiansources.8 A comprehensive list of his income and expenditures is attached to thejournal.

4. See Shlomo Simonsohn, “Shlih. uto hashniya shel David Ha-Reuveni beItalia,” Zion 26(1961): 198–207.

5. A survey of the various opinions that have been advanced regarding the exact circumstancesand location of Ha-Reuveni’s execution can be found in Eliahu Lipiner, “Iyyunim befarshat DavidHa-Reuveni uShlomo Molkho,” in Aescoly, Sippur, 52–58.

6. Ha-Reuveni’s account about his arrest and captivity in France as well as the identity of the“Lord of Clermont,”who allegedly arrested him there, are unclear. There are also several contradictionsbetween the descriptions in his diary and in his interview with Ramusio (compare Aescoli, Sippur, 136,143, 148; Aescoly, Hatenu’ot, 404). This whole episode is plausibly imaginary and was probablywritten to explain Ha-Reuveni’s absence from the public sphere in Italy between his expulsion fromPortugal in 1526 and his reappearance in Italy in 1530.

7. This is the date that appears in the official Portuguese documents regarding the matter. SeeLipiner, “Iyyunim,” xlvi. Ha-Reuveni’s journal, in contrast, indicates that he remained in Portugal fornearly ten more months (he states that shortly after he left Portugal, he was imprisoned by “Lord Cler-mont” in Iyar 5287 [April 1527]). See Aescoly, Sippur, 143 (Elkan Nathan Adler, Jewish Travellers[London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1930]), 328. All the quotations are from this out-of-date and incom-plete edition; it is the only English translation of the journal.

8. See the list of sources assembled by Aescoly in appendix B to his edition of the journal(Sippur, 167–91). Other sources have recently been published in Lipiner, “Iyyunim.”

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The only manuscript of Ha-Reuveni’s journal was discovered in the first halfof the nineteenth century. Bought by the Bodleian Library in 1848, it was lost in1867. Fortunately, a facsimile of the manuscript had been created and has been thebasis for research and other editions.9 Nevertheless, the fact that it is only a facsi-mile reduces the possibility of reaching codicological conclusions about the timeand place of its writing. It cannot be determined if the manuscript was written byHa-Reuveni himself, was dictated to a servant, or was copied at a later date.10

Many articles and differing opinions exist, but none suggests a way toresolve the truth about the story. Thus, for example, it has been argued thatHa-Reuveni was Ashkenazic,11 Sephardic,12 Yemenite,13 Ethiopian,14 or evenIndian.15 Research has not yet managed to transform the episode from a strangeand sometimes amusing anecdote to a report of a significant event that can beexamined in its historical context and from which conclusions can be drawnabout the nature and character of Jewish society at that time.16

In this article, I propose a new reading of this episode. The focal points ofthis interpretation are to identify and analyze the purpose of his journey and toplace it within both the geopolitical events of the first third of the sixteenthcentury and within the time of messianic arousal and activities among Jews atthat point in history. I will point out the deep influence that Abraham benEliezer Halevi, the famous Jerusalem kabbalist and messianic propagandist, had

9. On the genealogy of the manuscript, see Adolf Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles andChronological Notes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893), 2:xii–xiii. Neubauer published the full manu-script in Hebrew for the first time, ibid., 133–223. It was reprinted by Yehudah David Eisenstein,Otsar masa’ot (New York: privately printed, 1927), 140–66. The first scholarly edition was publishedby Eduard Biberfeld, Der Reisebericht des David Reubeni; Eine Beitrag zur Geschichte dex XVI Jahr-hunderts (PhD diss., Universität Leipzig, 1892). A second Hebrew edition was published by AvrahamCahana, Sippur nesi’at David Ha-Reuveni (Warsaw: Di Welt, 1922). A scholarly edition with a com-prehensive introduction was published by Aharon Zeev Aescoly, Sippur David Ha-Reuveni (Jerusalem:ha-H. evrah ha-Eretz Yisraelit le-historyah ve-etnografyah, 1940). This edition was reprinted withoutrevision in 1993, accompanied by two introductory articles by Moshe Idel and Elias Lipiner.

10. On the manuscript’s paleography, see Sonne’s review of Aescoly’s edition: Isaiah Sonne,“Biblioteca Historiographica Hebraica,” Jewish Quarterly Review (NS) 34 (1943–44): 243–59.

11. Aescoly, Sippur, 196. Aescoly accepts Neubauer’s opinion on this matter.12. Abraham Shalom Yahuda, “David Ha-Reuveni, Motsao, leshono ute’udato,” Hatequfa 34–

35 (1950): 599–625. This opinion was also espoused in Yitzhak Baer’s review of Aescoly’s edition,Qiryat sefer 17 (1940): 312.

13. Azriel Shoh. at, “Lefarashat David Ha-Reuveni,” Zion 35 (1970): 96–116. Zvi Ben-dorBenite, The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 113–33.

14. Moshe David Cassuto, “Mi haya David Ha-Reuveni,” Tarbiz 32 (1963): 339–58.15. Ervin Birnbaum, “David Reubeni’s Indian Origin,” Historia Judaica 20 (1958): 3–30.16. Miriam Eliav-Feldon has discussed this episode and placed it in the broader context of

sixteenth-century impostors. Most of the impostors at that time are to be understood against the back-ground of geographical discoveries and the development of communications. Yet Ha-Reuveni differs inboth the religious-messianic meaning attributed to him and in not gaining material profit from hisimposture. See Miriam Eliav-Feldon, “Invented Identities: Credulity in the Age of Prophecy andExploration,” Journal of Early Modern History 3 (1999): 203–32.

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on Ha-Reuveni, and will show how his misunderstanding of Halevi’s intentionsbrought on a new messianic concept.

HA-REUVENI’S PURPOSE

Ha-Reuveni quite explicitly set out his goals for his journey in his diary,describing his first meeting with the Pope, which took place in Rome on 17Adar 5284 (March 3, 1524).17 In this interview he explained the purpose of hismission, his reasons for coming to Rome, and his plans for future action. None-theless, the plans themselves are vague and unclear:

And I said to him: “King Joseph and his elders ordered me to speak to thee thatthou shouldst make peace between the Emperor and the French King for it willbe well with thee and them if thou makest that peace, and write for me a letterto these two kings and they will help us and we will help them; and write alsofor me to King Prester John.”18

The Pope replied that such a task would be beyond his abilities:

The Pope answered me, “As to the two kings between whom thou askest me tomake peace, I cannot do it, but if thou needest help—the King of Portugal willassist thee, and I will write to him, and he will do all.”19

Although it is difficult to discern Ha-Reuveni’s definite plan here, it appears thathe went to Rome to forge ties between the imaginary Jewish state in the HaborDesert and the two central European powers—the Holy Roman Empire (includingSpain) and France20—and to make peace between them. The Pope explained thatthis was an impossible mission and that he lacked the power to work out a com-promise in the struggle between these powers, instead proposing that Ha-Reuvenibe content with forging ties with a different power, Portugal. As described in thejournal, Cardinal Egidio [Giles] da Viterbo was present during Ha-Reuveni’s audi-ence with the Pope.21 The cardinal, who apparently had considerable knowledgeabout Judaism and also knew Hebrew and Arabic, served as an interpreter.22 Thisis corroborated by Ha-Reuveni’s later statement, that when Egidio was forced to

17. Aescoly, Sippur, 33–34 (Adler, Travellers, 271–72).18. Ibid., 35 (Adler, Travellers, 272).19. Ibid.20. On Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and his political struggles as a whole, see Geoffrey

Parker, “The Political World of Charles V,” in Charles V, 1500–1558, and His Time, ed. Hugo Soly(Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 2000), 113–26. The classic work on the tense relations between CharlesVand Francis I of France is François-Auguste Mignet, La rivalité de Francois Ier et de Charles-Quint(Paris: Didier, 1876).

21. “And we went, I and he [Egidio], to the apartment of the Pope,” Aescoly, Sippur, 34–35(Adler, Travellers, 271).

22. On Egidio’s knowledge of Hebrew, see Francis Xavier Martin, “The Problem of Giles ofViterbo,” Augustiana 9 (1959): 365–66.

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leave Rome and return to Viterbo, he needed a different interpreter for his audi-ences with the Pope: “And I wondered who would help me and stand betweenme and the Pope. I saw a man whose name was R. Daniel of Pisa who used tofrequent the Pope . . . a very rich man and a Kabbalist, and I decided to askhim.”23 Egidio thus served as an interpreter for Ha-Reuveni until Egidio had toleave Rome, at which point Daniel of Pisa took his place.

Other sources give a different impression about both the content of the dis-cussions and the participants. A detailed account of the first meeting between thePope and Ha-Reuveni appears in a letter sent by Daniel of Pisa himself.24 Thisdocument, which M. D. Cassuto correctly described as “the most important docu-ment about the figure of Ha-Reuveni,”25 contains the first physical description ofHa-Reuveni, mentioning his appearance, dress, language, and habits. Two centralpoints arise from it and contradict Ha-Reuveni’s journal. Daniel says that he hadalready served as an interpreter in Ha-Reuveni’s first interview with the Pope.26

Daniel also describes the purpose of Ha-Reuveni’s mission in an entirely differentlight:

This David was sent from Habor Desert, from the three hundred thousandpeople of Israel there to make a treaty with the Pope. And to ask forweapons from him, such as corteti and falconeti fire-throwers [i.e.,cannons] and the like, through the king of Portugal, to a port namedJeddah, which is about a three day journey to their country, ten days at most.27

According to this account, Ha-Reuveni came to Rome with a clear andwell-defined purpose: to obtain a recommendation from the Pope to the king ofPortugal so that the latter would supply him with a ship and firearms (Danieleven mentions the names of the weapons that Ha-Reuveni sought). Ha-Reuveniwished to sail to the port of Jeddah, which, he claimed, was close to the placewhere the tribes of Reuven, Gad, and half the tribe of Menashe lived.

Support for this account appears in other sources. The Venetian ambassadorto Rome wrote a letter (copied in the journal of Marin Sanuto)28 describingHa-Reuveni’s appearance in Rome: “He came to ask for a craftsman to makecannons and gunpowder, saying that in a Portuguese ship it was possible toarrive there easily through the Red Sea.”29 Similarly, the account of Abraham

23. Aescoly, Sippur, 41 (Adler, Travellers, 276).24. Aescoly, Hatenu’ot, 371–72.25. Cassuto, “Mi haya,” 339.26. “And when he arrived he was brought to the cardinal and spoke with him at length. In the

end he did not rest nor was he silent until the cardinal brought him to the Pope, and I was called as theinterpreter between them,” and see Aescoly, Hatenu’ot, 371.

27. Ibid., and see Aescoly, Sippur, 151.28. 8 See Marin Sanuto, I diarii di Marino Sanuto, 54 (Venice: Visentini 1903): 145–48.29. Cited by Aescoly, Hatenu’ot, 373. Interestingly, Aescoly remarks that Marco Foscari, the

Venetian ambassador to Rome, who sent this information to Venice, mentions the Pope’s aspirationto achieve peace between the emperor, the king of France, and the Venetian Signoria in other lettersthat he sent to Venice. If Ha-Reuveni actually presented his mission to the Pope as he describes it in


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Farrissol, though based on hearsay, claims that the Pope agreed to sendHa-Reuveni “with honor in a great ship full of weaponry and Jewish and Christiancraftsmen via Portugal to arrange with the king to fill it as he wished.”30

Further confirmation of this account appears in the Pope’s letter of rec-ommendation to the king of Portugal. This source demonstrates that Ha-Reuveni’srequest was not considered problematic. In his letter, the Pope asked the king ofPortugal to assist Ha-Reuveni:

May it please you to assist him according to your ability and to send himaccompanied by your fleet after he has obtained what he wished, especiallysince he is not asking for a great thing, so it appears, and is only asking for afew cannons and a few people who know how to maintain and operate them.31

In addition to these external sources, Ha-Reuveni’s journal also indicates thatPortugal was indeed his original destination and not a fallback solution rec-ommended by the Pope. Ha-Reuveni states that before he had left Jerusalem forItaly, he had asked a local goldsmith named Abraham ha-Ger to “[m]ake me amodel showing Venice, Rome, and Portugal.”32 Thus even at that early point inhis journey, he had tried to obtain maps not only of Venice, via whose port hewould reach Rome, but also of Portugal. Later, in describing how he had askedthe Venetian consul in Alexandria to arrange his voyage to Venice, he wrote thathe told the consul of his wish “to go to the Pope and then to the King of Portugal.”33

These sources show that Ha-Reuveni planned to go to Portugal, and went first toRome to obtain a letter of recommendation from the Pope to the king of Portugal,which is indeed what finally occurred. Most likely, after the abject failure of hismission to Portugal, he sought to diminish its importance and later removed Portugalfrom the original list of his destinations, presenting his trip there as the Pope’s initiat-ive. It also appears that in order to vitiate the arguments of Daniel da Pisa,Ha-Reuveni removed him from the scene of the audience in his journal and placedEgidio there instead. However, while editing the journal, he apparently forgotabout the references to Portugal in the conversation with the goldsmith in Jerusalemand with the Venetian consul, and the text is preserved in its original, unedited form.

These sources indicate that Ha-Reuveni addressed the Pope with a clear,concrete request. Rather than wishing to intervene in world politics or make

his journal, it is likely that the Pope would have been interested in including him in the process, whichhe himself favored, of making peace among the various European powers, and he would not have senthim to the king of Portugal. Thus the Pope’s directing of Ha-Reuveni to Portugal shows that he wantedto be sent there in the first place. See Aescoli, Sippur, 171.

30. Aescoly, Hatenu’ot, 375.31. Ibid., 378. Petrus Balan, ed. Monumenta Saeculi XVI, Historiam Illustrantia Vol. 1: Clem-

entis VII Epistolae Per Sadoletum Scriptae, Quibus Accedunt Variorum Ad Papam Et Ad Alios Episto(Oeniponte: Libararia Academica Wagneriana, 1885), 28–29.

32. Aescoly, Sippur, 27 [Adler, Travellers, 265].33. Ibid., 29 [Adler, Travellers, 267].

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peace between France and Spain, he wanted to acquire a Portuguese battleshiploaded with guns and cannons, a request that the Pope termed not “a greatthing,” and to sail to the Arabian Peninsula to the city of Jeddah.34 Thus, at thisstage Ha-Reuveni’s mission had a concrete purpose, and there is no reason toassume that this request was merely a camouflage for some other activity in thereligious or messianic sphere.35 But we must ascertain why Ha-Reuveni neededa Portuguese battleship. What use would he have made of it, had he succeededand had the king of Portugal equipped him with a ship loaded with firearms tosail toward the port of Jeddah, a long and dangerous voyage along a route thathad only recently been discovered?

HA-REUVENI’S PLAN AND HIS MESSIANIC CONCEPT

The key to understanding Ha-Reuveni’s intention is in his explicit statementof his destination: the city of Jeddah, a seaport on the western coast of the ArabianPeninsula, and the nautical gateway to Mecca. Jeddah is mentioned several timesin the sources cited above. In Daniel of Pisa’s letter, it is explicitly named asHa-Reuveni’s destination: “And to borrow weapons from him . . . through theking of Portugal, to a port named Jeddah.”36 In Iggeret orh.ot ’olam, Farrissol men-tions Jeddah in his description of the place where the remaining tribes live:“Because this Jew is one of the sect of the two tribes . . . and beneath them andbeyond are the other Ten Tribes, and they are close to the desert to go toAmicca and Jeddah.”37 Daniel of Pisa, as well as Farrissol and the Venetianambassador to Rome,38 cite Ha-Reuveni’s declaration that the cannons wouldenable the conquering of Mecca from the Muslims, and that the port leading toit was Jeddah.

However, Portuguese intervention in Jeddah is mentioned in yet anothersource, one that likely provided the background to Ha-Reuveni’s mission.Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi’s messianic propaganda characterizes Ha-Reuveni’sgoal and defines the relations between its various political and messianiccomponents.

34. Shoh. at proposed a similar hypothesis, but argued that Ha-Reuveni wanted to sail to Aden inthe ship. Shoh. at believed that Ha-Reuveni was a Yemenite Jew who wanted to connect his activity inItaly and Portugal to the messianic awakening that he estimated to have taken place at that time inYemen. He suggested that Ha-Reuveni truly regarded himself as the messiah according to the criteriaproposed by Maimonides. See Shoh.at, “Lefarashat,” 112–13. Yet there are not sufficient proofs aboutsuch a messianic awakening in Yemen at that time, and in addition Ha-Reuveni emphasizes, throughouthis sojourn in Italy and Portugal, that he is a diplomat and soldier and not a messianic herald.

35. Yitzhak Baer, review of Sippur David Ha-Reuven, by Aharon Zeev Aescoly, Kiryat Sefer 17(1940): 303–304. For a discussion of the various approaches in scholarship regarding Ha-Reuveni’spurpose, see Idel, “Introduction,” in: Aescoly, Sippur, 19–24.

36. Aescoly, Sippur, 151.37. Ibid., 153.38. Aescoly, Hatenu’ot, 373.


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The City of Jeddah and Abraham Halevi’s Messianic Propaganda

The greatest Jewish messianic propagandist in the first third of the sixteenthcentury was the renowned kabbalist from Jerusalem, Abraham ben Eli’ezerHalevi.39 Halevi, who was born in Castile, left Spain at or near the time of theexpulsion and apparently moved to Portugal.40 After a few years he fled to Italyand from there set out for Salonika, Constantinople, and Cairo on his way tothe Land of Israel. Around 1514 he settled in Jerusalem. In 1508 he wroteMeshare qitrin (Steeping of the Incense), a book on calculating the end of daysand determining the time of redemption based upon verses in the Book ofDaniel. The text was printed in Constantinople two years later. From Jerusalem,Halevi continued to conduct an extensive messianic propaganda campaign. In1517 he wrote a commentary on Nevuat hayeled (The Prophecy of the Child), acollection of five brief, obscure prophecies in Aramaic that are attributed toNah.man, a child prodigy endowed with prophetic gifts who transmitted hiswords in an obscure manner so as not to reveal the end of days.41 In his commen-tary, Halevi wrote that these prophecies alluded to contemporary events that, heclaimed, heralded the imminent advent of redemption. Thus he states thatOttoman military victories in southern Europe, the appearance of Martin Luther,Hebraism in Italy, as well as lesser events such as internal intrigues in Europe,Persia, and the Ottoman Empire, were all signs of the redemption, insinuated inthe obscure prophecies of Nah.man.

Two years later, in 1519, he sent Iggeret sod hageula (Epistle on the Secretof Redemption) to the leaders of Italian communities, producing a long and com-prehensive epistle that lays out the stages and events of redemption in detail.Halevi’s writings were widely circulated in Italy and aroused great interest.42

A number of epistles, sent to various personages and dealing with aspects of his

39. For general information about Abraham Halevi, see Ira Robinson, “Abraham Ben EliezerHalevi: Kabbalist and Messianic Visionary of the Early Sixteenth Century” (PhD diss., Harvard Uni-versity, 1980) and “Messianic Prayer Vigils in Jerusalem in the Early Sixteenth Century,” Jewish Quar-terly Review 72 (1981): 32–42; Gershom Scholem and Malachi Beit Arieh, introduction to Ma’amarmeshare qitrin (Jerusalem: Beit ha-sfarim ha-leumi ve-hauniversitai, 1978) [Hebrew]; Moshe Idel,“Al mishmarot u’meshih. iyut bi’Yerushalayim bame’ot 16–17,” Shalem 5 (1987): 83–94; AvrahamDavid, “Letoldot ha h. amim bi’yerushalayim bamea hashesh e’sre,” Shalem 5 (1987): 236–43.

40. On his sojourn in Portugal, see Moti Benmelech, “Anuse’i Portugal be-reshit ha-me’a ha-16le’or Megilat-starim le-Rabbi Abraham Halevi,” Zion 73 (2008): 299–310.

41. On Nevuat hayeled, see Yoseph Dan, “Lequtot lema’ase Nevuat hayeled,” Shalem 1 (1974):229–34.

42. Halevi’s intense messianic propaganda campaign was waged by means of epistles to whichwere attached other compositions of his, which were not printed, the most prominent being his com-mentary on Nevuat hayeled. Meshare qitrin was also well known at that time in Italy, as we seefrom the description of Halevi by R. Moshe Basola in his travel journal: “An eminent and modestman the honorable Abraham Halevi, who wrote Meshare qitrin” (in Avraham David [ed.], EretsZion veYerushalayim; masa’ot Erets Yisrael leR. Moshe Basola beshanim 5281–5283 [Jerusalem:Proyekt Yerushalayim, 1999], 22). The treatise is also mentioned in an epistle that R. Yisrael Ashkenazisent from Jerusalem to R. Abraham of Perugia and also in an epistle that reached Monte Castello con-taining information about a special stone upon which signs of redemption were engraved (see Avraham

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calculation of the end of days, have also been preserved.43 Thus Halevi’s writingnot only aroused great interest, but also created a dialogue in which readers par-ticipated and responded.

Cassuto was the first to suggest that Ha-Reuveni was influenced, directly orindirectly, by Halevi, especially in connection to the idea of 1524 as a messianicyear.44 Idel notes that although Ha-Reuveni was probably aware of Halevi’s mes-sianic calculations he does not explicitly refer to them, and therefore suggests thathe did not regard him as an important source.45 I suggest that Ha-Reuveni readHalevi’s writings as a “messianic blueprint” according to which he built his mes-sianic mission.

In his commentary on Nevuat hayeled, Halevi twice mentions events con-nected to the city of Jeddah as part of the signs of redemption. In his interpretationof the first prophecy, he writes about the sentence umigdal bnei gadya ot (and thetower of the sons of Gadya is a sign):

And he [i.e., Nah.man] said that the tower of the sons of Gadya is a sign thatwhen it will fall, it will be a sign and a symbol from the signs that will be at thetime of the end of days. And that place is called Gidon in the Holy Tongue,and it is close to the city of Mecca, and in Arabic it is called Goza. And Ifound written in a book about a dream that the holy Rabbi Shim’on barYoh.ai of blessed memory dreamed and those wars that he mentioned thereare at the time of the end of the reckoning of the sons of Ishmael the son ofAbraham, which is in the year five-thousand-two-hundred-eighty-two.46

Neubauer, “Qibutsim al inyenei aseret hashevatim uvenei Moshe,” Qovets al yad 4 [1888]: 34). Theseepistles were widely circulated; they were copied and disseminated beyond their original addressees.

43. Several epistles were already published. See Ira Robinson, “Two Letters of Abraham benEliezer Halevi,” in Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Literature, ed. I.Twersky, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 2:403–22; Avraham Ya’ari, Iggrot eretsIsrael (Tel Aviv: Gazit, 1943), 160–66; Malachi Beit-Aryeh, “Iggeret me’inyan aseret hasehvatimme’et R’ Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi hamekubal mishnat 1528,” Kobez al yad 6 (1966): 371–78;Avraham David, “Iggeret Yerushalmit mereshit hashilton haothmani be’eretz Israel,” in Prakim be’tol-dot Yerushalayim be’reshit ha-tkufa ha-othmanit, ed. Amnon Cohen (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1979),39–60; Avraham David and Uri Melammed, “‘Megilat starim’ le-Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi: Iggeretmeshih. it mishnat 1524,” Shalem 8 (2009): 453–67. On this letter, see also Yosef Hacker, “Rik’ah‘umashmautah shel ‘Megilat starim’ le-Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi,” ibid., 468–77.

44. Cassuto, “Mi haya” 351–52.45. Idel, “Introduction,” xxiii–xxiv.46. ארקנהזהםוקמהו.ץקהתעבתויהלםידיתעהתותואהןמןמיסותואאוהלופישכיכתואאידגינבלדגמיכרמאו

ןבןועמש’רשודקהםלחשדחאםולחרופסבבותכיתאצמו.אזוגארקנברעהןושלבו,אכמריעלבורקאוהושדקהןושלבןודיג

.ב"פרוםיפלא’התנשבאוהשםהרבאןבלאעמשיינבןובשחץקתעבםהרכזשוללהתומחלמהוה"עיאחויAmnon Gros (ed.), Shloshah maamrei geulah: perush nevuat hayeled, iggeret sod ha-geula,

Maamar Meshare qitrin le-Rabi Avraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi (Jerusalem: privately printed, 2000),Perush nevuat hayeled, 21. Because of the obscurity of Halevi’s messianic texts I have included theHebrew-Aramaic source.


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He mentions the destruction of a fortress (tower) in a city near Mecca known asGadya, Gidon, or Goza. The name Jeddah is not mentioned explicitly, but thesound of the name of the city and its proximity to Mecca indicate that the referenceis to Jeddah. Halevi also wrote that the event would take place in 5282 (1522).

Later, in his interpretation of the fourth prophecy of Nah.man, Halevi onceagain discusses events in Gadya at the end of days:

Gadya is a city in the East near Mecca and it is mentioned in the first prophecywhere he said the tower of the sons of Gadya is a sign, and it is called Gadyaafter a nation who have that name and a few people from whom settled in thatcountry long before Muhammad, and the people of that nation are calledGodiim and in the foreign language Godosh. And in my opinion they tookthat name in honor of their heroism and because they wanted to be relatedto the sons of Gad in strength and heroism, not that they were, perish thethought, and certainly the heroism of the Godiim was not like the heroismof the tribe of Gad, but in any event they were very heroic.47

Here Halevi connects the residents of Jeddah to the tribe of Gad, suggesting a geo-graphical relationship between them. Moreover, in the view of the kabbalist fromJerusalem, the events that were to occur in Gadya were related to the Portuguesedrive to expand to the east:

He [i.e., Nah.man] said that after king Salem [i.e., Sultan Selim I] will conquerEgypt, afterward ha-katzavim hacor’im le’azabim [the butchers who kneelbefore idols] who are the men of Portugal, will enter.48 And he said thatwhen they will enter they will build a building and a dwelling close to thedesert, and he did not say in what land they would enter and on what sideof the desert they would build the building. But we can understand it fromwhat comes after, since the men of Portugal look to the end of the earth,and since they go to the end of the eastern seas, therefore they will enterthe eastern lands near the city of Mecca as he says. And he said that theirfortune will overturn on them and will uproot them and overturn their joyand that evil will come at their hand. … And he said: sof yama h.arev ’al10 milin mith.arev [the edge of the sea will dry out; at ten miles it will bedestroyed], which might hint that the Ishmaelites in that land will flee fromall the places on the sea coast around ten miles, and the whole border ofthe sea will be destroyed to that measure. That is to say, the settlement of Ish-maelites at the edge of the sea… and it means that they will waste away, that isthe people from Portugal who come to fight in that land, their power will

47. לעאידגתארקנו,תואאידגינבלדגמוםשרמאשהנושארההאובנבהרכזנואכמלצאחרזמבתחאריעאיהאידגוםיידוגאיהההמואהינבםיארקנודמחומדמעשםדוקמאיההץראבהנממםישנאתצקובשיתנשןכתארקנשתחאהמואםש

אלםגיאדובוו"חםהמויהשאלהרובגוחכבדגינבלסחיתהלוצרשםתרובגםשלעהזםשוחקליתעדיפלו.שודוגזעלןושלבו.דאמויהםירובגמ"מלבא,םתרובגומכםתרובג

Ibid., 74.48. Halevi refers to the Portuguese as “butchers” (katsavim) because he claims that no other

nation had hated the Jews as much as the Portuguese did. See ibid., 73.

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weaken and their fat and flesh will become thin. And that will make the Turkshappy and will be a fulfillment of their hopes. For they will seek strategies toattack them [i.e., the Portuguese], and to fight against them and take revengeon them. Such a strategy may be that the Ishmaelites flee, as well as the Turkswho dwell there with them, until many Edomites [Christians; i.e., the Portu-guese invaders] will move from the sea into the dry land. And then they[the Ishmaelites] will ambush them there from behind and those who fledwill turn to the pursuer, or other strategies of warfare that they will do tothem.49

Halevi interpreted the child’s prophecy as describing a future Portuguese failure topenetrate the Arabian Peninsula via Jeddah. This failure would take place after apreliminary Portuguese success, the establishment of a bridgehead on the ground(apparently in Jeddah), and a Muslim retreat from Jeddah to the interior of thecountry, alluded to by the words that the edge of the sea will be destroyed forten miles. When the Portuguese try to advance to the interior of the country,they will encounter a Muslim ambush and be wiped out.

It is not clear how the sign mentioned in the first prophecy—the fall of the“Tower of the sons of Gadya”—fits into this sequence of events. Was the towersupposed to fall during the Portuguese penetration or later during the Muslimcounterattack? Either way, the Portuguese failure in Gadya was to be one signof redemption.

Abraham Halevi’s interpretation of Nevuat hayeled is based on a goodacquaintance with the geopolitics and martial reality of the time (the first thirdof the sixteenth century). To understand his emphasis on Jeddah as the arena ofimportant messianic events, we have to examine its role in early sixteenth-centurypolitics and trade.

The Portuguese spice trade with India was based on three key strengths thatensured their control over major trade routes in the Indian Ocean: Goa andMalacca (two of the most important seaports and trade centers of the East), andthe island Ormuz in the Persian Gulf.50 By occupying Ormuz, the Portuguesegained control over the entrance to the Persian Gulf, prevented passage of mer-chant vessels to the ports of the gulf, and ensured control over nautical trade

49. .לגוטרופישנאםהשםיבצעלםיערוכהםיבצקהוסנכיןכירחאש,םירצמתאםלשךלמהשובכישירחאיכ,רמאאבהןמוהניבנלבא.ןינבהונבירבדמהןמדצהזיאבווסנכיץראהזיאברמאאלו,רבדמלךומסהרידוןינבונביוסנכישכשרמאואכמריעלצאחרזמהןמתוצראבוסנכיו,וכלהתיםייחרזמהםימיהתועצוקמלו,וטיביץראהתוצקללאגוטרופישנאיכ,וירחאאבתהעריכ,םהלהנוכהו.ערהברקתיםהידילעוםתחמשךפהתתו,םתציבעקעקתו,םהילערדסהךפהתישרמאו.רמאישומכתפשלעשתומוקמהלכמוחרביאיההץראבשםילאעמשיהשזומרישןכתי,′ברחתמןילימ′ילעברחאמיףוס′:רמאו.םהילע

םהשל"רו]...[םיההצקלארשאםילאעמשיהבושי,רמולכ.אוההרועישהםיההצקלכברחיו,ןילימרשעבוריקבםיה

םימרגותהתחמשבהזהיהיוהזריםרשבןמשמוםחכשלחי,איההץראבםחלהלםיאבהלאגוטרופישנארמולכושחכי

.םהמםקנהלולכוישםוקמבםבםחלהלםירכזנהםישנאההלאםהילעואבישדעהזלעתולובחתושקביםהיכ.םתשקבוובראיו.השביהלאםיהןמהברהםיימודאהתאםקייתהדעםהמעםשםיבשויהםימרגותהו,םילאעמשיהוחרבישןוגכ.םהלושעישהמחלמהתולובחתמתורחאתולובחתוא,ףדורהלאךפהיסנהםעהו,םיהדצמםהל

Ibid., 75–76.50. Charles Ralph Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–1825 (London: Hutchinson

1969), 46–49.


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routes.51 The Portuguese also tried to block the entrance to the Red Sea, and thusattempted to close all nautical routes from the Indian Ocean westward, except forthe one surrounding Africa which they controlled. Had they succeeded, theywould have made the Indian Ocean a mare claustrum. In 1507 they occupiedSocotra island for that purpose, but it proved to be too distant and impoverisheda place to serve as a naval base and in 1510 it was abandoned. In 1513 anattempt to seize Aden failed, and the Red Sea remained the only nautical routebetween Europe and Asia that was not in Portuguese hands.52

Jeddah was one of the most important seaports of the Red Sea. As the portfor Mecca, it attracted thousands of Muslim pilgrims from all over Asia who, enroute to participate in the Hajj, made it the major trade center of the Red Sea.53

Merchants and caravans arrived in Jeddah not only by sea, but also by landthrough the ancient trade trails of Arabia. From Jeddah goods were sent byships to Suez; thence caravans brought them to Cairo and Alexandria for distri-bution in Europe by Italian merchants. Thus, Jeddah became a center of Asiancommerce that bypassed the Portuguese, and was an important competitor tothe Portuguese monopoly in commerce with the East.54

After the Portuguese failed to block the entrance to the Red Sea, AfonsoAlbuquerque, the viceroy and governor of Portuguese India, planned to attackJeddah; in a letter of 20 October 1514 to King Manuel, he wrote: “When thesethings are accomplished it will be time to think of Jeddah, Mecca, and Suez,and, as there are plenty of horses in Prester John’s territories [i.e., Ethiopia], itwould be an easy matter for 500 Portuguese horsemen, in some good taforeasand caravels, to land near Jeddah, and proceed from thence to Mecca (one day’sjourney) and reduce the town to ashes.”55

51. The Portuguese permitted passage of pepper to Safavid Iran in exchange for silk. Since theSafavids fought several wars with the Ottomans, the Portuguese tried to establish good contact withthem. See Michael Naylor Pearson, The Indian Ocean (London: Routledge, 2003), 130.

52. Boxer, Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 46–49. On the consequences of the Portuguese pen-etration to the Indian Ocean, see Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 63–80; Patricia Risso,Merchants and Faith: MuslimCommerce and Culture in the Indian Ocean (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995), 72–87. From the 1540son, the Red Sea became an important route in the spice trade between the Atjehnese Sultanate inSumatra and Europe, and by the end of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese pepper trade was downby 25 percent (Boxer, Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 59). On the spice commerce through the RedSea, see Charles Ralph Boxer, “A Note on Portuguese Reactions to the Revival of the Red SeaSpice Trade and the Rise of Atjeh, 1540–1600,” Journal of Southeast Asian History 10 (1969):415–28.

53. Risso,Merchants and Faith, 72. On Indian pilgrims to Mecca, see Michael Naylor Pearson,Pilgrimage to Mecca: The Indian Experience, 1500–1800 (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1996).

54. The importance and wealth of Jeddah, as seen by Portuguese eyes, are apparent in Luiz DeCamões’s Lusiads, canto 9, st. 3–4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 177.

55. Frederick Charles Danvers, The Portuguese in India (London: Nelson, 1966), I:305–306.See also George William Frederick Stripling, The Ottoman Turks and the Arabs (Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press, 1942), 30. Some scholars suggest that Albuquerque even planned to steal the bodyof the Prophet Muhammad from its burial place and hold it for ransom until all Muslims had left theHoly Land. See Andrew James McGregor, A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman

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The people of Jeddah were aware of the Portuguese threat. FerdinandMagellan tells that after the defeat of the Muslim fleet in the Battle of Diu in Feb-ruary 1509, Emir Hussein, captain of the defeated Arabian fleet, came to Jeddah tobuild a fortress to protect the port from Portuguese attack.56 In the second and thirddecades of the 1500s, Jeddah was rumored to be the next place of conflict betweenPortugal and the Islamic world. Such a clash would have served two Portuguesepurposes: Economically it would have diminished Muslim trade in the Red Searegion, and politically it would have threatened the holy cities of Islam and anunprotected corner of the Ottoman Empire. When Abraham Halevi referred toJeddah in his commentary to Nevuat hayeled, he indicated, once again, his knowl-edge of the political and military news of the time.

It appears that the plan behind Ha-Reuveni’s mission is stated in AbrahamHalevi’s commentary on Nevuat hayeled that refers to Jeddah and to a possiblePortuguese attack there. Ha-Reuveni was thus artificially trying to bring aboutthis Portuguese intervention in the Arabian Peninsula, which Halevi had predicted;hitherto, it had not occurred naturally. It is difficult to estimate which part ofHalevi’s messianic scenario Ha-Reuveni sought to set in motion. Did he plan toenter the port of Jeddah and bombard the “Tower of the sons of Gida” (i.e., thenew fortification built in the early 1500s), or did he plan to drag the Portugueseinto the interior of the country to some meeting place with representatives ofthe tribes who dwelt “about a three-day journey to their country, ten days atmost,”57 hoping that on the way they would be attacked and destroyed by theMuslims? Did he wish to fulfill both prophecies together?

We find a new model here of messianic activity, which I suggest that we callhistorical messianism. The arena where the messianic drama is to take placeaccording to this conception is in historical and geopolitical reality, and theapproach or advancement of redemption will be accomplished by creating a his-torical and political situation to serve as background for the messianic event,and by shaping it according to the messianic scenario. The means needed forthis are not magical nor religious: They are political and diplomatic actionsguided by the messianic scenario. Martin Jacobs recently claimed that historicalevents such as rivalry between Christian Europe and the Muslim OttomanEmpire, and the struggle over the spice trade in particular, fed Jewish messianichopes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that Ha-Reuveni’s story is an

Conquest to the Ramadan War (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 20–21; CharlesRaymond Beazley, “The Colonial Empire of the Portuguese to the Death of Albuquerque,” Trans-actions of the Royal Historical Society, N.S. 8 (1894): 122.

56. Duarte Barbosa, A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar (London: HakluytSociety, 1867), reprint 1970, 23–25. The book was published as the work of Duarte Barbosa but wasactually written by Ferdinand Magellan; see H. E. J. Stanley, “Note to Thirty-fifth Publication of theHakluyt Society Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar,” ibid., not numbered.

57. Aescoly, Hatenu’ot, 371.


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expression of a Jewish perspective on this power struggle.58 I suggest thatHa-Reuveni’s activities reflect an attempt to affect and design the historicalevents, and not merely passively watch and interpret them.

The choice of a type of action that is neither magical nor linked to particularkabbalistic action accords with Abraham Halevi’s positions, as expressed in hisIggeret sod hageula, where he tells the story of R. Yosef Della Reina. DellaReina, a Spanish kabbalist and magician, tried to expedite the redemption bymagical means and is said to have almost succeeded. According to Haveli, his una-voidable failure in the last minute resulted in disastrous consequences includingpostponement of the redemption for forty years following 5250 [1490], to 5290[1530], a postponement during which the expulsion from Spain and forced conver-sions in Portugal took place. Della Reina’s attempt is the most prominent exampleof the dangers encountered when magical action is applied to advance redemp-tion.59 Ha-Reuveni, in contrast, proposes a different pattern of action. On theone hand, his suggestions are actively messianic, but on the other hand, theylack the problems or dangers entailed by magical action or by the use of practicalKabbalah. These messianic conceptions in the wake of Halevi’s writings are notsurprising. Halevi asserted, as I have already mentioned, that history and especiallygeopolitical reality provide the stage on which the messianic process will occur andbe seen. By means of the intense messianic propaganda campaign that he wagedfrom Jerusalem, he created ardent messianic fervor, while at the same timemaking a categorical demand for absolute passivity with respect to magicalaction to advance redemption. The tension between these two poles, which inten-sified as the dates for the end of days predicted by Halevi approached, with novisible messianic events,60 was likely to be released by the creation of a new mes-sianic channel, which would be sufficiently active to give actual expression to themessianic fervor but would not contradict Halevi’s demand for passivity.61

Ha-Reuveni’s plan is an exceptional interpretation of Halevi’s doctrine, deriv-ing from a blurring of the differences between Halevi’s various works. His book,Meshare qitrin, is primarily theoretical. As an exegetical work in the kabbalisticmanner, it explains parts of the Book of Daniel. In the framework of his exegesis,Halevi came to conclusions about the date of the redemption; it seems that these mes-sianic conclusions were the purpose of the book. However, the work is theoretical.

The commentary on Nevuat hayeled, Iggeret sod hageula, and Halevi’sother epistles belongs to a different genre. Halevi’s conclusions in Meshareqitrin are the point of departure for these works, and their purpose is to publicize

58. Martin Jacobs, “David ha-Re’uveni—ein ‘zionistisches Experiment’ im Kontext der euro-päischen Expansion des 16. Jahrhunderts?” in An der Schwelle zur Moderne: Juden in der Renaissance,ed. Giuseppe Veltri and Annette Winkelmann (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 191–206.

59. Halevi, “Iggeret,” 41–42.60. The dates of the different stages of the redemption according to Halevi were 1520, when the

first stage was suppose to occur, the second in 1524, the third in 1530, and the final stage in 1536. SeeHalevi, “Iggeret,” 20.

61. Halevi referred to doubts and questions aroused because of the absence of visible progress inthe messianic realm in some of his epistles; see Robinson, “Two Letters.”

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his conclusions and to find support for them in historical reality or in other sourcessuch as the prophecies of the child Nah.man, dream divination, magic, gematria,and astrological calculations.62

These works were part of a general discourse on the subject of redemption.In them, Halevi responds to questions, ideas, and doubts about redemption, itsdate, and its nature. In this respect, they present details about events surroundingthe messianic event itself. Halevi regarded himself as part of a broad messianicdiscussion, and in this framework he offered his own interpretation of Nevuathayeled as a suggestion, not as a final answer.63 In this respect, one can perhapsdistinguish between the character of Halevi’s activity while he was living inGreece and Turkey, where he composed and printed Meshare qitrin, which wasfundamentally a theoretical discussion, and his activity in the Land of Israel,where he dealt with messianic propaganda.

Ha-Reuveni, by contrast, read Halevi’s propagandist works as theoreticalcompositions. From his point of view, the commentary on Nevuat hayeled andthe Iggeret sod hageula did not just analyze historical events and consider themas the historical framework in which messianic action would take place, butrather presented the essence of messianic action. Consequently, Ha-Reuvenitook what Halevi had presented solely as an anecdote (something that wouldtake place on the margins of the messianic process) and turned it into a substantialcomponent of that process.

ABRAHAM HALEVI’S INFLUENCE ON HA-REUVENI

Up to this point, I have presented the influence of Abraham Halevi’s writ-ings on the general schema of Ha-Reuveni’s historical messianic activity.However, echoes of this influence are also notable in many other details ofHa-Reuveni’s story and in his invented biography.

The Connection with the Tribes of Reuven and Gad

In describing the independent Jewish kingdom in the Habor Desert,Ha-Reuveni claimed that his brother Yosef ruled over the tribes of Reuven,Gad, and half the tribe of Menashe. The choice of these tribes can be explainedin light of the special emphasis given to them by Halevi in his writings, andespecially in the latter’s description of stages of the messianic process.

As I have pointed out, Halevi connected Jeddah and the tribe of Gad, claim-ing that the name of the city of Gadya was an allusion to the tribe of Gad, whoseheroism the Gogites sought to imitate.64 The aspiration of the people of Gadya-

62. On the place of gematria in Halevi’s calculations of the end of days, see Halevi, “Iggeret,”2–3. On dream divination, see p. 48 there; on Halevi’s magical interpretations, see pp. 13–14. Regard-ing the centrality of astrological calculations in determining the end of days and in Halevi’s messianicpropaganda, see Gershom Scholem, “Hamequbal R. Avraham ben Eli’ezer Halevi,” Qiryat sefer 2(1924–26): 271–72. And see also Halevi, “Perush,” 23–25 as well as “Iggeret,” 38.

63. Halevi, “Perush,” 11.64. Ibid., 74; and see p. 44, near n. 45.


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Jeddah to present themselves as descended from “the sons of Gad in power andheroism”65 is explicable in light of the geographical proximity of Jeddah andthe tribe of Gad, as presented by Ha-Reuveni.66

Halevi pinned high messianic hopes to the sons of Reuven as well. Hebelieved that the first and preliminary stage of the redemption had already takenplace in 5279–80 (1519–1520). While he refrained from stating with certaintywhat had occurred in those years, he did estimate that this first stage of redemptionwas connected to the tribe of Reuven:

Even in the first of those eleven years, which is the year 5280 of the Creationof the Universe something of the matter of redemption will be renewed, andthat year will be the beginning of the visitation, and some of our brethren willbe redeemed, and they will shed the shafts of the yoke of the gentiles fromtheir neck. And I do not know where this will be or how it will be. Andperhaps it will be that the sons of Reuven who will go out and redeemsome of their brethren who are close to them in that year, that the Zohar said.67

In an epistle of 5285 (1525), Halevi again mentioned events connected with thetribe of Reuven as part of the early stages of redemption. He answers a questionabout the second stage in the redemption process, which was supposed to haveoccurred a year earlier:

And similarly it is possible that in the year 5284 (1524) there was a redemp-tion even if it has not yet been made public to us where it was. And my hearttells me that the people of Reuven and also a few others from the other tribessent out and transferred their place and went out of their frameworks in thatyear and were redeemed by a few of their brethren in every place theyreached. And what I say about the people of Reuven is because in theZohar it says that they will be the first to go out at the time of the end.68

Ha-Reuveni, who took upon himself to set the process of redemption in motion,chose to identify as a member of the tribe of Reuven because the first steps herald-ing the advent of the messiah were said to be connected to that tribe.69

65. Ibid., 74.66. The proximity of Ha-Reuveni’s kingdom and Jeddah is mentioned in Daniel of Pisa’s

epistle; see Aescoly, Hatenu’ot, 371, and by Abraham Farrissol in his Iggeret orh.ot olam (Itineramundi), 374.

67. Halevi, “Iggeret,” 1.68. Robinson, “Two Letters,” 408 (the quotation is from an epistle of 5285 in which Martin

Luther is also mentioned). Although Ha-Reuveni set out on his journey before this epistle was com-posed, it is informative regarding the centrality of that date in Halevi’s messianic conception.

69. Although Ha-Reuveni introduced himself to the Pope and to the king of Portugal as amember of the Tribe of Judah and even presented a family tree to them, showing him to be descendedfrom King David (see the epistle of Daniel of Pisa, Aescoly, Hatenuo’ot, 371, and Sippur, 85, 101[Adler, Travellers, 306]), there is no doubt the Jews saw him as a member of the tribe of Reuven,and he explicitly connected himself with that tribe, declaring that his brother was ruling the tribes of

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Pretending to be a Member of the Prophet’s Family

Halevi’s writings contain two other characteristics related to Ha-Reuveni’sactions. In his commentary on Nevuat hayeled, Halevi devoted a long discussionto splits within Islam and the differences between Sunnis and Shiites, the latter ofwhom he calls shufiza (Sufis).70 Halevi claims that in 5245 [1485] a new leaderwas born to head the Shiites, a group he believed had been nearly assimilatedinto broader Sunni Islam. The new leader would bring them to mighty achieve-ments. In addition to Nah.man’s prophecy, Halevi bases his claim on othersources: information that had reached him “from a trustworthy Jew in thatcountry,” and on the calculations of a well-known astrologer in Greece.71

Halevi also states that the Shiite-Sufis are outstanding in their swordsmanship,and that “the sword is their main weapon.”72

This lengthy discussion is apparently what led Ha-Reuveni to write in hisjournal that during his trip from the Habor Desert to Alexandria, where heboarded a ship to Venice, he pretended to be a member of the family of theProphet. Halevi predicted the appearance of a figure from the Prophet’s familyand attributed great importance to his activity. Ha-Reuveni thus disguisedhimself not only as an emissary from the tribe of Reuven, whose arousal was,

Gad, Reuven, and half of Menashe. Shoh. at’s assumption that Ha-Reuveni did not present himself as amember of the tribe of Reuven, and that he even opposed the very epithet (Shoh. at, “Lefarashat,” 103) isnot convincing, especially since Shlomo Molkho calls him by that name even when addressing himwith great respect and admiration, as a disciple before his master (see Abraham Rotenberg, H. ayatkaneh [Amsterdam: Uri Feibesh, 1660], 5v). It is difficult to assume that Molkho would have calledHa-Reuveni by the very epithet to which he objected. In my opinion, the contradictions to whichShoh. at referred between Ha-Reuveni’s identification as a member of the tribe of Reuven and hisfamily tree from the tribe of Judah, and also the fact that at the beginning of his journal he first mentionsthe tribe of Gad and only then the tribe of Reuven, are the key to understanding some of the centralpoints of his mission. The connection of the tribe of Gad with Jeddah and his membership in thetribe of Reuven, despite the difficulties presented, derive from the desire to emphasize the messianictask of the tribe of Reuven at the start of the redemption, rather than the family tree from the tribeof Judah. It is possible that Ha-Reuveni presented two identities: one as a descendant of the tribe ofJudah, which he displayed to Christians, and the other as belonging to the tribe of Reuven, which hedisplayed to Jews.

70. See Halevi, “Perush,” 42–46. It is possible that Halevi refers here to the rise of the SafavidShiite Empire in Iran at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The early Safavids arose from the Safa-viya, a mystical Sufi order popular in northwestern Iran. Indeed, Halevi refers to them as Shiites andSufis. The name Shufiza might be a confusion of the original Safavid or Safaviya. Ismail I, the firstSafavid Shah of Iran, was born in 1487, close enough to 1485; Halevi noted this as the birth year ofa new Shiite leader. Another possibility is that Ha-Reuveni himself was born that year (in 1530 hewas described by the Venetian geographer Giovanni Battista Ramusio as a man in his forties). SeeSanuto, I Diarii di Marino Sanuto, 6:146–47. On the Safavids, see Hans Robert Roemer, “TheSafavid Period,” in The Timurid and Safavid Periods; The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. PeterJackson and Laurence Lockhart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 6:189–350; RogerSavory, Iran under the Safavids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).

71. Halevi, “Perush,” 45.72. Ibid.


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as noted, a sign of redemption, but also as a Sufi leader whose ascendancy wasalso a sign of redemption according to Halevi.73

The Advantage of Modern over Antiquated Arms

Another prominent detail in Halevi’s commentary characterizesHa-Reuveni’s action: the decisive advantage of modern arms over more antiquatedweapons in determining the outcome of a battle. Halevi attributes the victory ofCrusaders over Muslims, and the success of the former in conquering Jerusalem,to the superiority of Crusader weapons over antiquated Muslim arms: “And in theend [the Christians] aroused arrows and catapult stones and spear blades anddaggers [against the Muslims] and shocked those whom they pressed andemptied from the land, who are Ishmael. And the nation of Ishmael chose toflee before Edom and they despised their weapons of war.”74 Later, as well,Halevi attributes the victory of the Turks over the Persians to their use of firearms:“And they brought with them many catapults and destructive weapons with fireand sulfur, and the king of Persia was with three hundred and fifty thousand caval-rymen. And the Turkish king camped close to him and launched all the catapultsand the destructive weapons with fire together against the Persians and they turnedtheir horses around to flee.”75 Here, too, Halevi’s writings are the background toHa-Reuveni’s presentation of his mission to obtain advanced armaments.

The Timing of Ha-Reuveni’s Appearance and Action

The date of Ha-Reuveni’s appearance is connected to the messianic plan laidout by Halevi. Ha-Reuveni left Alexandria for Venice in Kislev 5284 (December1523).76 In his mind, that year held great importance in the Jewish calendar.Ha-Reuveni appeared among the Jews and Christians as a representative of theTen Tribes, met the Pope, and obtained his recommendation. Had it not beenfor delays on the part of the Portuguese ambassador in Rome, Ha-Reuveniwould even have reached Portugal that year.77

The year 5284 had great importance in the second stage of the messianiccourse plotted by Halevi.78 Exactly what was supposed to happen in that yearwas not clear even to himself,79 but he raised the possibility that “the messiahthe son of Joseph will crown himself in the crown of delight to do battles for

73. Cases of Jews who disguised themselves as Muslims in order to travel more easily in aMuslim environment, especially in Africa, are mentioned in Abraham Halevi’s epistle on the TenTribes and on the Falashas. There is no mention of disguising oneself as a member of the Prophet’sfamily, but rather a description of the situation, and it is possible that Reuveni was also aware of it.See Beit Arieh, “Iggeret mi’inyan hashevatim,” 376.

74. Halevi, “Perush nevuat hayeled,” 38.75. Ibid., 53.76. Aescoly, Sippur 31 [Adler, Travellers, 268].77. On this delay, see ibid., 48–49.78. Halevi, “Iggeret,” 20.79. See for example ibid., 38–39.

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the Lord, and he will awaken in the place where he awakens.”80 He did state posi-tively that the year was destined to play a central role in the messianic scenario:“And since that year is the year of visitation and it is likely that some greatarousal will be in the world, and miracles and wonders will be renewed, fromwhich we will perceive and know that God has visited His people.”81 Evenafter 5284, Halevi continued to believe that the events he had predicted hadtaken place, and he suggested that the activities of Martin Luther were part ofits expression:

And behold recently trustworthy Jews from Germany and Bohemia havecome to Jerusalem, and both writings from here and from there, indicateand testify to the matter of a man who arose in those countries whose nameis Martin Luther; he is a man whose fame reaches every country. In theyear 5280 [1520] he began to differ with the religion of the uncircumcised,and to teach them that their ancestors inherited a lie and vanity, and there isnothing useful in them. And it can be understood from their words that lastyear, that is 5284 (1524), he revealed things from within it and showed pub-licly the falsity of their belief, for your banner is a lie, and he showed himselfto be against the hanged man.82

It is clear that the time Reuveni chose to set the messianic process in motion byaction in the arena of history was not coincidental, for it derived from knowledgeand dependency on the central place of that date in Abraham Halevi’s messianicmodel.

HA-REUVENI’S HOSTS IN ITALY

One cannot assume that Halevi was aware of his connections to Ha-Reuveni.He did indeed hear about the appearance of the Jewish ambassador in Rome andabout his activities there and in Portugal, but he assumed the man in question wasan Ethiopian Jew.83 Nevertheless, it is interesting to discover that throughout hissojourn in Italy, Ha-Reuveni’s main supporters and the people with whom he wasin close contact also maintained contacts with Abraham Halevi.

During Ha-Reuveni’s very first encounter with the Jews of Italy, the leadersof the Jewish community of Venice refused to support him financially. The manwho did come to his assistance was Shim’on ben Asher Meshulam,84 a scion ofthe well-known Venetian family of bankers.85 His father, Asher Meshulam,

80. Ibid., 38.81. Robinson, “Two Letters,” 408.82. Ibid.83. Beit Arieh, “Iggeret Mi’inyan Hashevatim,” 376.84. Aescoly, Sippur, 32 [Adler, Travellers, 269–70].85. On the Meshulam family, see David Jacoby, “New Evidence on Jewish Bankers in Venice

and the Venetian Terraferma (c. 1450–1550),” The Mediterranean and the Jews: Banking, Finance andInternational Trade (XVI–XVIII Centuries), ed. Ariel Toaff and Simon Schwarzfuchs (Ramat-Gan:Bar-Ilan University Press 1989), 159–77, and Daniel Carpi, L’individuo e la collettività: Saggi di


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corresponded with Halevi and was one of the two addressees of Megilat starim(The Scroll of Secrets), an epistle sent by Halevi in 1524, in which he explainshis predictions and tells how he obtained his messianic knowledge.86 Thisepistle was very important from Halevi’s point of view, as he reveals detailsabout his past as a converso, facts that had not been known. The title of thisepistle implies its sensitive contents, which Halevi preferred not to revealexcept to close associates. One of those men was Asher Meshulam.

Ha-Reuveni’s next stop was Pesaro, where he arrived at the beginning of themonth of Adar (February 1524), after leaving Venice for Rome. In Pesaro, hestayed at the home of R. Moshe of Foligno.87 R. Moshe’s name is mentioned inan epistle sent by Rabbi Yisrael Ashkenazi from Jerusalem to R. Abraham ofPerugia, in which he reports about the Ten Tribes and various signs that wereseen in Jerusalem and grasped as having messianic significance.88 In this letter,to which was appended Abraham Halevi’s interpretation of Nevuat hayeled, weread: “Your friend, the honorable rabbi Moshe of Foligno, may take pleasure init and copy it if he wishes.”89 Moshe of Foligno was thus interested in Halevi’swritings and message, and R. Yisrael Ashkenazi of Jerusalem even obtainedHalevi’s authorization so that Moshe could copy his commentary on Nevuathayeled. We then see that at the next stage, after leaving Venice, Ha-Reuveniwas again assisted by the good offices of one of Halevi’s followers in Italy.

His most outstanding patrons for the rest of his stay in Italy, the members ofthe da Pisa family, were also connected to Halevi.90 When Ha-Reuveni left Rome,at Purim 5285 (March 1525), Daniel of Pisa, who served as his interpreter and asan intermediary between him and the Pope, sent him to his cousin Yeh. iel.Ha-Reuveni stayed with Yeh. iel in Pisa until leaving for Portugal in the middleof the month of Tishri 5286 (October 1525). Yeh. iel of Pisa was involved to a

storia degli ebrei a Padova e nel Veneto nell’età del Rinascimento (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 2002),61–110.

86. On Megilat starim, see David and Melammed, “Megilat starim”; Hacker, “Rik’ah,” andBenmelech, “Anussei Portugal.” On the economic aspects of the activities of Asher Meshulam andhis family, see Brian Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), 479–83. Ruth Lamdan suggested that Asher Meshulam was the addressee of Iggeret bnei hayeshiva (theepistle to members of the yeshiva), which Abraham Halevi wrote (see Ruth Lamdan, Moshe Basolah.ayav veyetsirato [Master’s thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1983]), 11. If her conjecture is correct, it ispossible that, in the wake of the epistle to members of the yeshiva, which was sent in 1521, a personalconnection was made between Halevi and Asher Meshulam, which then found expression in Megilathasetarim of 1524.

87. Aescoly, Sippur, 33 [Adler, Travellers, 270].88. Avraham David, “Iggeret R. Israel Ashkenazi miYerushalayim leR. Avraham miPerusha,”

Alei Sefer 16 (1990): 121, and in the notes on lines 190–91.89. Ya’ari, “Iggrot,” 177.90. On the members of this family, see David Kaufman, “La famille ‘de Pise,’” Revue des Etude

Juives 31 (1895): 62–73 and “La famille de Yehiel de Pise,” Revue des Études Juives 26 (1893): 83–110, 220–39.

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considerable degree in Ha-Reuveni’s mission to Portugal: He supported him finan-cially, put him in contact with the Avrabanel family, and even arranged his voyagefrom Leghorn to Portugal.91

Yeh. iel himself was connected by marriage to the Meshulam family, as hiswife, Diamenta, was the sister of Shim’on Meshulam of Venice.92 However, inaddition to his ties to the Meshulam family, Yeh. iel also corresponded withAbraham Halevi. In an epistle from the year 1528, dealing with rumors aboutthe Ten Tribes, Halevi addresses an anonymous correspondent but mentions“Megilat setarim, which I have already sent to the esteemed and fortunate sageyour father-in-law.”93 Hence the addressee of this epistle was the son-in-law ofone of the two addressees of Megilat setarim, mentioned above, which wasaddressed to Asher Meshulam of Venice and to Mordecai of Modena.

Mordecai of Modena’s eldest son was nine years old in 1530. Thus it appearsunlikely that two years earlier, when the epistle was sent, R. Mordecai would havehad a son-in-law who corresponded with Abraham Halevi. We must assumeinstead that the epistle was addressed to the son-in-law of Asher Meshulam ofVenice. As noted, one of his daughters was indeed married to Yeh. iel of Pisa. Itis very probable that he was the son-in-law to whom Halevi sent the epistle in1528. Although that epistle was sent a few years after Ha-Reuveni had left thehome of Yeh. iel of Pisa, it is evidently addressed to someone well versed inHalevi’s writings, and it gives the impression of a long-standing connection.94 IfYeh. iel of Pisa is indeed the addressee of that epistle, he had direct contact withAbraham Halevi and deep familiarity with his works and messianic writings.

All the prominent figures who assisted Ha-Reuveni in Italy with the Jerusa-lem kabbalist Abraham Halevi are thus connected. The correspondents of Haleviwere most interested in messianism and in the progress of redemption among theJews of Italy. They were also aware of the political, cultural, and religious occur-rences and vicissitudes of their time, interpreting them as different stages in themessianic process. They would most likely have understood the arrival of amessenger from the lost tribes of Israel (i.e., Ha-Reuveni) as another piece inthe messianic puzzle outlined in Abraham Halevi’s writings.

Although the deep connection between Ha-Reuveni’s mission and Halevi’swritings is clear, I must emphasize that Halevi was not aware of Ha-Reuveni’sactions, and that Ha-Reuveni’s interpretation of Halevi’s messianic interpretationwas fundamentally erroneous. The extent to which Ha-Reuveni was directly orindirectly influenced by Halevi in person or by his writings is unclear, but there

91. See Aescoly, Sippur, 52–60 [Adler, Travellers, 280–84].92. Ibid., 53 [Adler, Travellers, 282].93. Beit Arieh, “Iggeret,” 373. In the body of the letter the word h.amif appears, but this should

probably be emended to h.amiv (his [formal for “your”] father-in-law), both because of the content andalso because later in the epistle the word h.amiv appears explicitly. See ibid., n. 1. The conjecture thatthis epistle was originally addressed to a rabbi named H. amav, H. amif, or H. amui, which was advancedby Beit Arieh, seems groundless, since the original ofMegilat setarim has been found, and in it are thenames of the addressees.

94. Ibid., 377.


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can be no doubt that Halevi, who opposed any intervention in the messianicprocess, was uninterested in action of the kind initiated by Ha-Reuveni.

WHO WAS DAVID HA-REUVENI?

In light of my conclusion about connections between Ha-Reuveni andAbraham Halevi, it is obvious that Ha-Reuveni must have come from a placewhere Halevi’s teachings and writings were known and influential. The mainarena of Halevi’s activity was Jerusalem and the Land of Israel in general.There he strove to confirm the conclusions found in Meshare qitrin by meansof astronomical findings,95 commentary on prophecies, and other sources. Therehe composed his commentary on Nevuat hayeled, Iggeret sod haegula, and hisother writings, and also instituted vigils for study and prayer in order to alleviatethe imminent end of days.96 Halevi’s writings also enjoyed extensive circulation inItaly. Halevi himself lived in Italy for a short time after leaving the Iberian Penin-sula; he sent his epistles there, and they were copied and preserved.97

It is unlikely that Ha-Reuveni encountered Halevi’s teachings in Italy or thathe had spent any significant time there before arriving disguised as the ambassadorof the Lost Tribes. In his journal, he repeatedly states how impressed he was by theway of life of the Jews of Italy; in particular, he mentions the behavior, character,and education of the Jewish women.98 The Italian Jewish communities are theonly ones Ha-Reuveni writes about in his journal—he hardly describes the Jewsof Egypt and the Land of Israel. His journal gives the impression that this washis first exposure to a new way of life and a community. Moreover, if indeed hehad lived in Italy for a significant amount of time, and his messianic conceptionhad been formed there, it is unlikely that he would have risked being identifiedby someone in Italy.

Hence, it is probable that Ha-Reuveni’s acquaintance with the doctrine ofAbraham Halevi originated in the Land of Israel. The detailed and precise descrip-tions in his journal of the places he visited in the Land of Israel support thatassumption.99 Ha-Reuveni rarely describes the physical sites and places through

95. Malachi Beit Arieh and Moshe Idel, “Maamar’al haqets vehaetstagninut me’et R. AvrahamZakut,” Qiryat sefer 54 (1980): 175.

96. On this subject, see Robinson, “Messianic Prayer Vigils in Jerusalem in the Early SixteenthCentury,” 32–42, and Idel, “Al mishmarot u’meshihiyut bi-Yerushalayim bameot XV–XVI,” 83–94.Halevi composed and printed his book Meshare qitrin within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire(in Seres and in Constantinople), but it appears that we must distinguish between this article and hiscommentary on Nevuat hayeled and the epistle on the secret of redemption. On this see above. Regard-ing the time of his arrival in the Land of Israel, see David, “Letoldot h. akhamim biYerushalayim,” 239.

97. See Beit Arieh and Scholem, introduction to Ma’amar meshare qitrin, 38–42.98. Regarding Ha-Reuveni’s attitude toward the Jews of Italy, see Aescoly, Sippur, 43, 92

[Adler, Travellers, 278]. The strong impression that the Jewish women of Italy made on Ha-Reuveniis evident throughout his account of his sojourn in Italy. See ibid., 37, 38, 39, 52, 53, 57 [Adler, Tra-vellers, 275, 282–83]. About the role of women in Ha-Reuveni’s diary see my forthcoming article“Ha-ah. erot beinei ha-Ah. er, nashim be-yomano shel David Ha-Reuveni,” Festschrift in Honor ofRobert Bonfil, eds. M. Ben-Sasson, E. Baumgarten, A. Raz-Karkotzkin, and R. Weinstein (Jerusalem:Bialik Institute (forthcoming): 147–64.

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which he passed, except for places in the Land of Israel. His description of theMakhpela cave is consistent with its physical and archaeological state,100 andthe description of the guards’ behavior and the atmosphere is similar to descrip-tions of other travelers of his time, including R. Ovadia of Bartanura101 or Meshu-lam of Voltera, who relates that Jewish women enter the cave disguised asMuslims, with veils over their faces so that they cannot be identified. Perhapsthis account is the source behind Ha-Reuveni’s story that he entered the cave dis-guised as a Muslim member of the Prophet’s family.102

The description of a visit to the Temple Mount, Ha-Reuveni’s stay under theDome of the Rock, and his travel to other sites in Jerusalem also mention featuresthat appear in other local descriptions from that period: candles burning under theDome of the Rock,103 a large building beneath the Temple Mount,104 and descrip-tions of burial caves on the Mount of Olives and of the Tomb of David on MountZion.105

Ha-Reuveni’s choice of the Temple Mount as the place where various signsoccurred to confirm his mission (the arrival of the emissaries of the seventy eldersfrom the state of the Ten Tribes, the inclination of the crescent on the dome towardthe east twice[!], and other events that he does not list in detail, including actionshe was ordered to do by the seventy elders)106 is also not coincidental. In thoseyears, descriptions of signs, especially omens appearing on the Temple Mount,occupy a central place in epistles sent from the Land of Israel to Italy.

It is difficult to determine with certainty whether Ha-Reuveni actuallyvisited those places or if he based his descriptions on other accounts. It is also dif-ficult to know whether the sources we have mentioned reached Ha-Reuveni’seyes. We must remember that the epistles in which these descriptions appearwere sent to and circulated in Italy, and, as I have argued, Ha-Reuveni did notlive in Italy for a significant time. It is likely that his acquaintance with theseplaces took place in the Land of Israel and not abroad. A picture emerges of funda-mental internalization of traditions from the Land of Israel and of the mood there,especially regarding holy places in the early sixteenth century. These were the tra-ditions and sentiments to which anyone who lived in Israel at that time was cer-tainly exposed.

99. Ibid., 22–28 [Adler, Travellers, 259–68].100. Regarding the inner structure of the Makhpela Cave and study of the Cave and its sur-

roundings, see Oded Avisar (ed.), Sefer H. evron (Jerusalem: Keter, 1978): 265–95.101. Ya’ari, “Iggrot,” 126.102. Eisenstein, Otsar masa’ot, 98.103. Aescoly, Sippur, 25 [Adler, Travellers, 263–64]. Meshulam of Voltera also mentions the

candles. See Eisenstein, Otsar masa’ot, 200.104. Aescoly, Sippur, 26. R. Ovadia of Bartenura also mentions such a building. See Eisenstein,

Otsar masa’ot, 119.105. Aescoly, Sippur, 26–27 [Adler, Travellers, 265]. Bartenura also tells about two caves on

the Mount of Olives (Ya’ari, “Iggrot,” 135). Meshulam of Voltera (Eisenstein,Otsar masa’ot, 100–101)and Moshe Basola (in Avraham Ya’ari, Masa’ot Erets Yisrael [Tel Aviv: Gazit, 1946]: 145); bothdescribe the Tomb of David.

106. Aescoly, Sippur, 25–27 [Adler, Travellers, 265].


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Ha-Reuveni’s awareness of European politics, and the fact that he was capableof presenting himself as an emissary from a distant land in an epoch of discoveriesand of encounters with remote lands and cultures, shows his acquaintance withevents in Europe. He also names places in the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa,claiming to have visited them. It is not clear whereHa-Reuveni acquired this extensiveknowledge of geography and of geopolitics. However, Halevi’s epistles also containconsiderable historical, political, and geographical information, and one gets theimpression that despite the physical marginality of Jerusalem at that time, a gooddeal of rather detailed and precise information about events in the world—inEurope and the Orient—reached it, and was available to Abraham Halevi’s circle.107

Many scholars have endeavored to discover, on the basis of the place namesmentioned by Ha-Reuveni, his country of origin and geographical route. However,no clear and unequivocal answers to these questions have emerged.108 It seems tome that this lack of clarity derives from the fact that Ha-Reuveni never made sucha voyage at all. Rather, he constructed a route based on information that reachedJerusalem, expressed in Halevi’s writings. Ha-Reuveni strove to construct alogical route for himself based on the partial geographical information at his dis-posal, and this effort has misled modern scholars in their effort to turn an imagin-ary route, based on partial and fragmentary information, into a route based onphysical and geographical reality.

One indication that could shed light on Ha-Reuveni’s origins or at least onhis cultural milieu is found in an anomalous halakhic detail mentioned in hisjournal. He claims that while he was in Portugal he bought a Muslim slavewoman from a converso to help his servants in the housework. Immediatelyafter buying her, Ha-Reuveni converted her to Judaism, apparently so that hecould eat the food she cooked without concern that it was cooked by anon-Jew. Here is Ha-Reuveni’s description of the slave woman’s conversion:

I sent Shlomo Cohen the elder and two of my servants to the river with theslave woman, and the elder Shlomo brought the slave woman into thewater and washed her and completely immersed her in the water threetimes. After they returned to the house I asked them to cut her nails and alittle of the hair on her head.109

In addition to the slave woman’s willingness to convert (mentioned a few linesbefore this passage) and her immersion in the river, the cutting of her hair and

107. An indication of the pace of the transfer of information can be gleaned from the letter ofDavid min-Ha’adumim (Ya’ari, “Iggrot,” 186) dated March 1535, in which he recounts that threemonths previously the rumor had reached Tripoli about the death of Pope Clement VII. Clementdied in late September 1534, and news of his death reached Tripoli at the end of December thatyear, giving us an idea about the content of the information and also about the length of time that ittook to arrive.

108. See Aescoli, Sippur, 64–85; Samuel Hillelson, “David Reubeni an Early Visitor toSennar,” Sudan Notes and Records XVI (1933): 55–66.

109. Aescoly, Sippur, 74. See also the description as it appears on p. 71.

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fingernails is mentioned as part of the process of conversion. Since these thingswere done after the immersion, they were not intended to prevent blocking ofher body’s contact with the water. Rather they are an act with independent signifi-cance in the process of conversion.110 One might claim that this was an error orconfusion in the order of writing. However, the custom of cutting a convert’snails and hair was customary not in cases of conversion, but in those of repentanceof converted Jews to Judaism.111 Although the origins of this custom were in med-ieval Ashkenazi,112 it was practiced in southern France and appears in the writingsof Sephardic scholars in early fourteenth century.113 Evidence that it was custom-ary in the Iberian Peninsula appears in testimony before an Inquisition tribunal inHuesca, from 1489. It was argued that thirty years earlier the Jews had held a con-version ceremony, “and then it was the custom of the Jews in accepting converts toremove signs of Christianity from the convert by immersion and by cutting thenails, and by rubbing the forehead of the convert at the place where the baptismalchrism touched it.”114 Jews denied the existence of this custom, but it seems thatthe acts that the Christians interpreted as efforts to erase signs of Christianity werethe cutting of fingernails and hair, and it is likely that, despite denials, this customwas observed in Spain in the fifteenth century with conversos returning toJudaism. Thus it appears that Ha-Reuveni lived in a milieu in which conversosreturning to Judaism underwent ceremonies of this kind (that is to say, a Sephardicmilieu) and that he interpreted these acts as part of conversion and so applied themwhen he wanted to relate the conversion of the slave woman.

Ha-Reuveni’s conception of the ceremonies for the return of conversos toJudaism is similar to his reading of Halevi’s writings. In both cases Ha-Reuvenishows himself to be familiar with small details but does not understand theirbroad context, and as a result he translates them into acts that were not part ofthe original intention.

Evidence that Ha-Reuveni was a Sephardic Jew has already been putforward by Avraham Shalom Yehuda through an analysis of Ha-Reuveni’s

110. This custom, as part of the conversion ceremony, appears in the Tur yore de’a sig. 278; andsee Bayit h. adash and Beit Yosef there; see also Shulh. an ’arukh Yore de’a sig. 278. Nevertheless, there isalmost no reference to this custom in the responsa literature, and it is not part of the conversion cer-emony as practiced today or in the past.

111. This custom is based on a homily presented in the name of R. Moshe Hadarshan, accordingto which anyone who had committed idol worship was required to be shaved as though he were a leper.See Rashi’s commentary on Numbers 8:7 and the comment of Bayit h. adash in Tur, yore de’a sig. 278.

112. On the medieval Ashkenazi attitude to converts returning to Judaism see Jacob Katz, “Af alpi she’h. ata Yisrael hu,” Tarbitz 27 (1958): 203–17, and see the recent discussion of Ephraim Kanarfo-gel, “Returning to the Jewish Community in Medieval Ashkenaz: History and Halakhah,” in Turim:Studies in Jewish History and Literature Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander, ed. Michael Shmidman(New York: Touro College Press, 2007), 1:69–97.

113. See Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, “The Inquisition and the Jews of France in the Time ofBernard Gui,” Harvard Theological Review 63 (1970): 317–76; Joseph Shatzmiller, “Converts andJudaizers in the Early Fourteenth Century,” Harvard Theological Review 74 (1981): 63–77.

114. Yitzhak Baer, “Hatenu’a hameshih. it biSefarad bitequfat hagerush,”Ma’asaf Z. ion 5 (1933):72–73 and see the source on p. 73, n. 1.


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language.115 These conclusions are consistent with the information mentionedabout Ha-Reuveni’s familiarity with life in the Land of Israel, that was in thoseyears a focus of attraction for conversos who wished to return to open Jewishlife.116 We may thus conclude that Ha-Reuveni lived in the Land of Israel closeto the Sephardic community, where Marranos who returned to Judaism wouldsettle.

CONCLUSION

Our discussion of Ha-Reuveni’s identity and the goals of his mission in dis-guise permits us to present him within a broader historical perspective of Jewishmessianic expectations and activities in the first third of the sixteenth century.

This discussion reveals the full extent of the influence of the figure of theJerusalem kabbalist and enthusiastic messianic propagandist Abraham Halevi,whose intense messianic propaganda was influential and reverberated extensivelyamong the Jews of Italy. I have presented Ha-Reuveni as the product of the mes-sianic “pressure cooker” created by Halevi. The tension between the demand forpassivity and the pressure to refrain from intervening in the messianic process ledto the formation of a new kind of messianic action.

According to this model, of which Ha-Reuveni is the most prominent,though not the only example, messianic action focuses upon the creation of a his-torical situation (for example, complications arising from a Portuguese militarydebacle on the Arabian Peninsula near Jeddah), which was meant to be the back-ground for the messianic activity itself. The central innovation in this model is theconception of the historical and political situation as the arena for messianic dramaand the focusing of messianic activity on this arena in particular, so that therewould be no forbidden (magical, mystical, or metaphysical) intervention in themessianic process itself but only in its background.

This new model can be the basis for a discussion of Jewish self-consciousness and self-conception about the place of the Jewish people inhistory and their ability to shape and influence historical processes and thusbecome an active and formative agent in history, not merely await developmentsshaped by external factors. This new conception had its origins in the sharp andrapid changes and crises that affected European society at that time in the areasof religion, politics, society, economics, and geography.

Moti BenmelechHebrew University of Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Israel

115. Yehuda, “David Ha-Reuveni, motsa’o,” 606–14.116. On this see Avraham David, “Tsefat kemerkaz leyeshivat anusim bameah hatet-zayin,” in

H. evrah u-kehila, ed. Avraham Hayim (Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim, 1991), 183–204.

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history politics and messianism david

Documents

venice jewish community

hareuvenis arrival

jewish studies

alittle jewish

state meeting

leftfor portugal

expelledfrom portugal

theking of portugal