Some
Notes on Censorship of Hebrew Books
by Norman
Roth
Habent
sua fata libelli
(Books have their fate)
One
of the tragedies of the Inquisition and the Expulsions – both from Spain and
Portugal– which has received very little attention is the destruction and loss
of Hebrew manuscripts and books. Since the printing of Hebrew books in Spain
began many years before the Expulsion, this loss involved printed books as well
as manuscripts. Indeed, due to these losses, since only fragments survive of some
of the earliest examples of Hebrew printing in Spain it may be impossible to
ever know with certainty when this printing actually began. [1]
The
edict of Expulsion (1492) caught the Jews of Spain completely by surprise.Even
though extensions were granted, it was not always possible to arrange for the
transport of books, perhaps especially for the several thousand Jews of
northern Castile who had to make their way on foot across the border into
Portugal. [2] Many of the Jewish exiles of 1492 returned from Portugal and
North Africa in that year and in 1493, as well as later years, to be baptized
and live again in Spain. Fernando and Isabel permitted these conversos
to keep Hebrew and Arabic books as long as they were not about the Jewish law
or glosses and commentaries to the Bible, or, specifically mentioned, the
Talmud or prayer books. A Jew of Borja who returned after the Expulsion and
converted to Christianity reported that a Jewish cofradía (religious
brotherhood) of that town had left 55 books valued at 4,000 jaqueses,
but he wanted no part of the books because he had converted.[3]
Portugal
Isaac Ibn Faraj,
one of the exiles from Portugal, reported that the king had ordered that all
the books which the Jews had brought with them from Spain were to be collected
and burned. Nonetheless, not all books were, in fact, burned. Another source
reveals that long after the Jews were expelled from Portugal, the king of
Morocco sent Jewish delegates there, one of whom was a qabalist who asked
permission to see a famous biblical manuscript brought by the Jews from Spain,
and this manuscript was among the books seized by the king and kept in a “synagogue
filled with books.”[4]
Levi
Ibn Shem Tov and his two brothers, apparently the great-grandsons of the Spanish
qabalist Shem Tov b. Joseph (not, as usually stated, Shem Tov b. Shem Tov),
advised King Manoel to seize all the Jewish books. Their intention had also
been to burn the Sefer ha-emunot of their great-grandfather, because of
his criticism of Maimonides, but they became afraid because of an order of the
king not to burn any Jewish books, and therefore they hid the book in a
synagogue in Lisbon. When the Jews were expelled from Portugal, those Jews who
had been appointed by the king to search out and seize all books discovered
this hidden manuscript and brought it, along with portions of the
yet-unpublished Zohar, to Turkey (these men were Moses Zarco, Isaac
Barjilun, Moses Mindeh [?], and apparently Solomon Ibn Verga, author of the
semi-fictitious chronicle Shevet Yehudah). This undeniably accurate
testimony appears to contradict the eyewitness account of Ibn Faraj mentioned
earlier. Either he was confused, or else the king issued contradictory orders
at different times.[5]
Italy
In
1533 the Talmud was, once again, condemned to the flames in Italy, and with it
also legal codes or summaries derived from the Talmud. As in Spain and
Portugal, censorship of all Jewish books was under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.
In 1568 a second, more sweeping, destruction of Hebrew books was carried out.
Not only Jews, but even Christians, who dared to print such prohibited Hebrew
books were subject to punishment, such as exile in the case of Jews, or loss of
license in the case of Christians. Rabbi Judah Lerma, perhaps the first
Sefardic author who so declared himself, proudly, on the title page of his
book, published his Lehem Yehudah, a commentary on Avot, in
Sabionetta (1554).

In
his introduction to the work, printed by Tuviah Foa, he states he had already
had it printed in the previous year, but the decree consigning to the flames
the Talmud and Jacob Ibn Habib’s famous anthology of the talmudic agadah
had also caught his work, as well as the laws of Isaac al-Fasi, and the entire
edition of 1500 copies of his book (a very large printing for the time) was
burned. (Later he was able to purchase, at great cost, one copy which had been
saved by Gentiles; if that copy had survived until today it would certainly be
the rarest Hebrew book in the world.)
David
Conforte (1618-1685) also briefly cited this introduction, noting that his
maternal grandfather Yequtiel Azuz, a grammarian and qabalist who lived in
Italy, lost his own copy of the Talmud in the burning which took place in the
same year. Ironically, a later Judah Lerma, a rabbi in Belgrade, an apparent
descendant of Judah Lerma, also lost most of the edition of his own responsa in
a fire in that city (ca.1650), but at least that was a natural disaster. [6]
Shortly
after the burning of the Talmud, Rabbi Samuel de Medina of Salonica,who already
had news of the event, wrote that because of this, and the general religious
persecution taking place in Italy, any Jew who remains there “without doubt
shows no fear for his soul or his Torah,” for were it not so how would a Jew
dare remain there? Furthermore, he wrote, it is impossible even to study Torah
(Talmud) in Italy. Therefore, all Italian Jews should come to the Ottoman
empire to live, since “the soul and body and also possessions are immeasurably
safer in this kingdom.”[7]
Marranos and Censorship
In
addition to this loss of manuscripts and books, the invention of printing
brought with it a new fear, that of censorship. Much has been written about the
censorship of Hebrew books at the hands of Christians, but less known is the
“internal” censorship practiced particularly by “Marranos,” or descendants of
those who converted to Christianity and then decided to become Jews. They often
brought with them the inherited Catholic condemnation of people
(excommunication, as in the case of Spinoza) and of books which they judged to
be offensive.
Amsterdam. Some
descendants of Portuguese Jews who had converted to Christianity eventually
fled to Italy, where they decided to go to Amsterdam and convert to
Judaism. One of the most famous of these was Miguel (Daniel Levi) de Barrios
(1635-1701), who was one of the greatest literary figures of the time. He was
publicly condemned for visiting “a land of idolatry” (Spain, or Portugal?) and
for public profanation of the Sabbath. The publication of his allegorical
masterpiece Coro de las musas (1672) was immediately condemned by the Mahamad
(official council of the Jewish community). Even more serious was the reaction
to his next work, Harmonia del mundo (1674), which was prohibited
altogether and was denounced by the famous Rabbi Jacob Sasportas (who led the
campaign against Shabetai Sevi) as “converting our Torah into a profane book,
making of it a poetic version.” In 1690 his Arbol de vidas [sic;
the error is perhaps due to an unconscious influence of the Hebrew plural hayim,
“life”) appeared and was also immediately condemned, or more specifically the
“conclusions” he appended to it were condemned. The Mahamad prohibited
anyone possessing, selling or giving a copy of it to any other Jew on pain of
excommunication. Finally, in 1697 he was again condemned for writing a letter
to the magistrate of Hamburg which the Mahamad considered potentially
injurious to the “Nation” (the community). Thus did the “Nation” honor one of
its greatest writers. [8]
Germany. Already in the
latter part of the sixteenth century we find mention of some few Portuguese
“new Christian” merchants in Germany. One of the most important cities where these
“Marranos” settled was Hamburg. In 1612 a five-year contract was made by the
Senate of Hamburg with the “Portuguese Nation” (the Marranos) granting them
freedom of trade and residence, but stipulating that no synagogue was to be
maintained nor were they to “offend” the Christian religion. They could bury
their dead in Altona or wherever they chose. The population was not to exceed
150 individuals. In 1617 the original contract with the Senate was renewed for
another five years, in return for a payment of 2,000 marks, and again in
1623.[9]
Having grown up
and been educated in such an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in Portugal,
it is perhaps not surprising that Marranos, new converts to Judaism, applied
hardly less intolerant measures of censorship within their own communities. For
example, the “offensive” books of Manuel de Pina (a Jew) were ordered burned by
the Sefardic communities of Amsterdam and of Hamburg (1656). In 1666 the Mahamad
of Hamburg ordered copies of Moses Gideon Abudiente’s book Fin de los dias (“End of days”) sealed and locked in the
community safe “until the time for which we hope arrives;” i.e., until the “end of days”! Furthermore,
it was decided to impose a fine on any member of the community who kept a book
which did not have the “Imprimatur” (!) of the Mahamad.[10]
England.
In 1664 the Saar Asamaim (Sha ar ha-Shamayim) synagogue enacted
the Escamot or Acuerdos adapted from those of Amsterdam. In turn,
these ordinances were adopted by the communities of Recife (Brazil), Curaçao
and New Amsterdam (New York). These
enactments included a prohibition on the printing of books in Hebrew, Ladino,
or any other language without the approval of the Mahamad.[11]
Italy. Fear of the
Inquisition and of general problems which could be caused by negative
references to Spain led to Jewish censorship even of the liturgy. Thus, the
Sefardic mahzor printed in Venice in 1519 (second edition in
1524) already omitted the Spanish Hebrew lamentations referring to the attacks
on the Jewish communities in 1391;[12] nor was any reference to the Expulsion
permitted. In a prayer book, Imrey Na’im, published probably by Menasseh
b. Israel (Amsterdam, 1628-30), appeared a poem which seems to be a general
lamentation on Jewish suffering, but which Bernstein has shown is found in its
original form in the prayer book for fasts, Arba’ah Ta’aniyot, printed
in Venice in 1671, when there was no longer fear of an Inquisition. There, in
fact, the prayer is a lamentation on the Expulsion.[13]
No
doubt there are other examples of Jewish “self-censorship” in this period, but
it is hoped that this brief introduction
will serve to arouse interest in the topic.
Notes
1.For information on early
printing, and fragments of talmudic tractates, in Spain and Portugal, see my Dictionary
of Iberian Jewish and Converso Authors (Madrid, Salamanca, 2007), pp. 39-40
(Nos. 35-37), pp. 56-58 (Nos. 86-101. The second edition of the Torah
commentary of Moses b. Nahman (“Nahmanides”) was also printed at Lisbon, 1489.
2. On censorship of Hebrew books
in Spain already before the Inquisition, books owned by
conversos, etc., see my Conversos,
Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain
(Madison, University of Wisconsin
Press, 1995; revised and updated paper ed., 2002), index; seeespecially p. 103,
Jews called upon to examine Heb. books owned by conversos, and p. 242.
3. Miguel Angel Motis Dolader, Expulsión
de los judíos del reino de Aragón (Zaragoza, 1990), vol. 2, pp. 338-39.
4. Elijah Capsali, Seder
Eliyahu zuta, ed. Aryeh Shmuelevitz, Shlomo Simonsohn, and MeirBenayahu
(Jerusalem, 1975-83), vol.1, p. 238.
5. Text edited from Ms. by Meir
Benayahu in Sefunot 11 [1971-78]: 261, and cf. there p. 234 onLevi Ibn
Shem Tov, and p. 246 on Isaac Barjilun, or Barceloni. He and Moses Zarco may
havebeen the important tailors in Portugal, the former the court tailor of João
II, mentioned in Maria Jose Pimenta Ferres Tavares, Os judeus em Portugal no
século XV (Lisbon,1982-84) vol. 1, pp. 156, 252, 361 and 301. On the Jewish
official Judas Barceloni at that time, see ibid. vol. 2, p. 669.
6. See Abraham Yaari, Meqahrei
sefer (Jerusalem, 1958), p. 360, citing the full introduction of Judah
Lerma’s commentary; Conforte, Qore ha-dorot (Berlin, 1846; photo rpt.
Jerusalem, 1969), pp. 40b and 51b. As have virtually all scholars, Yaari
ignored Conforte, and therefore did not mention the second Judah Lerma in his
own discussion of books lost in fires (p. 47 ff.).
7. She’elot u-teshuvot, hoshen
mishpat (Salonica, 1595), No. 303; cited in Meir Benayahu, ha-Yahasim
she-vein yehudei Yavan le-yehudei Italiah (Tel-Aviv, 1980), pp. 93-94 (my
translation);see there also for other important material relating to this and
to censorship, pp. 95-97.
8. See the excerpt of Arbol de
la vida in Barrios, Poesía religiosa, ed. Kenneth R. Scholberg
(Madrid [Ohio State University Press], s.a. [1962]), p. 99.
9. Alfredo Cassuto, “Contribução
para a história dos judeus portugueses em Hamburg,” Biblos (Coimbra
University) 9 (1933): 661; see also Hermann Kellenbenz, Sephardim an der
unterenElbe (Wiesbaden, 1958 [ Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und
Wirtsschaftsgeschichte No. 40] ), pp. 31-32.
10. “Protocols” (of the Sefardic
of Hamburg); summarized in Jahrbuch der jüdisch- literarischen Gesellschaft 6
(1909); 7 (1909); 10 (1915); 11 (1916); see 7: 183; 11: 27-28.
11. Miriam Bodian, “The Escamot
of the Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Community of London, 1664,” Michael 9
(1985): 23-24, No. 30 (text; in [barbaric] Spanish). Earlier editions and
studies are Lionel Barnett, ed., El libro de acuerdos (Oxford, 1931),
and N. Laski, The Laws and
Charities of the
Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation of London (1952).
12. For these, see the
translations in the journal Iberia Judaica 3 (2011): 77-113.
13. Simon Bernstein, ed. #Al
naharot Sefarad (Tel-Aviv, 1956), pp. 23, 25, 26-28.
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