David Reuveni

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David Reuveni (also Reubeni , Hebrew: דוד הראובני; born around 1485 apparently in Chaibar ; died 1538 in Llerena ) was a Jewish pretender of the Messiah .

Life

Little is known about Reuveni's origins. There is little information about him other than Reuveni's own notes. He was dark-skinned, of noticeably short stature, often showed himself in oriental clothing and claimed that he was an envoy from his brother Joseph, who ruled as king over the lost biblical tribes Ruben , Gad and Manasseh in the oasis region of Chaibar in Arabia . In his diary, which is largely preserved, he reports that he spent several years in Alexandria and Jerusalem . In 1523 he appeared in Cairo , apparently coming from the upper reaches of the Nile , and turned to the head of the Jewish community there, Abraham de Castro . From there he traveled via Gaza to Hebron , where he also visited the graves of the patriarchs. In Jerusalem he stayed on the Temple Mount for a few weeks and is said to have removed a stone from the western wall of the temple that King Jeroboam had placed there. He traveled on to Alexandria . The Jews of the Levant have meanwhile informed their fellow believers in Italy by letter about Reuveni. In the autumn of 1523 Reuveni appeared in Venice . There he found the support of the Jewish painter Moses da Castellazzo . In February 1524, with the help of the Venetian Jews, he reached Rome, where he rode in like a king on a white horse and announced that he had an important message for the Pope.

In fact, Pope Clement VII granted him an audience. After the Ottoman armies had captured Belgrade and occupied Malta , the Roman Church found itself in distress, and so the Pope accepted Reuveni's offer to forge a Christian-Jewish alliance against the Muslims and to Reuveni's brother, King Joseph, and his troops support. With a papal letter of recommendation, Reuveni went to the court of the King of Portugal in 1525 . In it, Clemens VII asks King John III. about weapons and ships for the Jewish warriors who want to liberate the Holy Land . Reuveni spent two years at the Portuguese court with the status of ambassador.

Diogo Pires, the king's scribe, a Marrane , was attracted to Reuveni's Judaism and sought its proximity. When Pires indicated that he wanted to convert to Judaism , Reuveni saw his political mission in jeopardy, since conversion to Judaism and the promotion of it were prohibited under threat of the death penalty. Pires then circumcised himself and gave himself the Jewish name Salomon Molcho . Reuveni recommended that he flee to Jerusalem . Since the king knew about Reuveni's connection to Pires, Reuveni also had to leave Portugal. On his escape he was taken prisoner in Provence , but the local Jews bought him free.

In 1530 he appeared again in Venice. Here, too, he was received as a messiah by many Jews, but rejected as a deceiver by others. Federico II. Gonzaga , Duke of Mantua , led the evidence against Reuveni, after which he was a heretic, to Pope Clement VII. And Emperor Charles V on. When Reuveni met Molcho again in Venice in 1532, they decided to travel together to the Reichstag in Regensburg to request an audience with the emperor. But Charles V did not receive her, had her arrested and took her with him on his way to Italy to Mantua, where Molcho was tried as a recidivist Marrana. Since only conversion and not membership of Judaism was persecuted, Reuveni survived, but initially remained in custody. He was later sent to Spain , where he died in 1538.

Literary afterlife

The story of Reuveni and Solomon Molchos was processed literarily several times, for example in a Hebrew-language trilogy of novels by Aharon Avraham Kabak and Marek Halter's novel The Messias (French 1996, German translation 1999) from 1913 to 1927 . Max Brod's "Reubeni, Prince of the Jews" had already taken up the topic in German in 1925 (later reworked into a play).

literature

• Moti Benmelech: History, Politics, and Messianism: David Ha-Reuveni's Origin and Mission. In: AJS Review. 35 (2011), pp. 35-60.
• Ernst Schulin: The Spanish and Portuguese Jews in the 15th and 16th centuries. A minority between compulsory integration and repression. In: Bernd Martin, Ernst Schulin (ed.): The Jews as a minority in history. 4th edition, dtv, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-423-01745-7 .
• Reinhold Mayer, Inken Rühle: The Messiahs. History of the Messiahs of Israel in three millennia. Bilam, Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-933373-05-0 (First edition under the title: Was Jesus the Messiah? History of the Messiahs of Israel in three millennia. )
• Marek Halter: The Messiah. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-499-22897-1 (A novel-like biography that contradicts the article on many points).
• Heinrich Graetz : History of the Jews. 9th Volume, pp. 238, 250, 255, 533-548.
• Max Brod : Rëubeni, Prince of the Jews. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-10-008304-0 (literary processing of the story of David Re'uvenis).
• Haïm Harboun: Les Voyageurs juifs du XIVe siècle, David Reübeni. Editions Massoreth, Aix-en-Provence 1989 (Contains a transcription of David Re'uveni's diary).
• Julius Voos : David Reubeni and Salomo Molcho : a contribution to the history of the messianic movement in Judaism in the first half of the 16th century, Bonn 1933, OCLC 923839028 (Inaugural dissertation Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelsuniversität 1933, 69 pages).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica , Volume XVII (Ra-Sam), Thomson Gale, 2nd ed., Detroit, 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865945-9 , p. 251
2. ↑ Curt Leviant: Masterpieces of Literature Hebew - Selections from 2000 Years of Jewish , The Jewish Publication Society, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8276-0880-1 , page 503
3. ↑ Kurt Schubert : Jüdische Geschichte , CH Beck, 7th edition, 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-44918-5 , pp. 77 and 78
4. ↑ Gaëlle Vassogne: Max Brod in Prague - Identity and Mediation , Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 2009, ISBN 978-3-484-65175-3 , p. 84