The medicus of Saragossa

The Medicus of Saragossa is a novel by Noah Gordon about a growing Jewish orphan named Jona who clung to the faith of his fathers during the turmoil of the Spanish Inquisition . After losing his livelihood through crimes supported by the Inquisition, the young Jonah has to fight his way through 15th century Spain on his own. Carrying out a wide variety of activities, he matured into a man and one of the last representatives of Judaism in Spain. As a doctor, he testifies to and causes the downfall of those who tore his family to ruin, and lays a silent foundation for the continued existence of the Jewish faith. - History painting with extravagant subplots.

The original edition appeared in 2000 under the title The Last Jew . Although the German title is reminiscent of Gordon's 1986 book Der Medicus (orig. The Physician ) and the plot is similar, Der Medicus von Saragossa has nothing to do with it in terms of content.

overview

Jona works on an estate, tends a flock of sheep and is forced to help with a heretic cremation. A gypsy court jester, whose life he saves, places him as an apprentice to an armorer. Meanwhile, traces are growing in the circles that are responsible for the downfall of Jonas' family. But as a Jew who continues to practice his faith secretly, he must exercise caution. The jealousy of a journeyman armorer for his success forces Jonah once more to run away. In Saragossa he was apprenticed to his master’s brother, a doctor, and eventually became a medicus himself. The people who ruined his family now need him as a healing artist. An ex-inquisitor devoured by syphilis reveals the name of his brother's murderer. Jonah eventually gets to this in a castle where his family's possessions are being held back. He safeguards this inheritance, testifies to the death of whoever took it illegally, and punishes his brother's henchman and murderer.

Course of the plot

Spain, 15th century. By robbery in connection with precious relics, Jonah, son of the widowed Jewish silversmith of Toledo , loses his older brother. The investigations of a doctor who converted from Jewish to Christianity on behalf of the stolen monastery point in the direction of the city inquisitor. He uses a royal decreed expulsion of Jews to incite the people against Jonah's family. The father is killed, the little brother escapes with his uncle towards the coast, 14-year-old Jona flees penniless to the south. He swore to his dying father not to give up the Jewish faith. Jona makes his way first as a farm laborer, then finds a job in a prison, where he meets the doctor and robbery murder investigator who suggests that the deeper reason for what happened to his family is relic pushing. The Inquisition now accuses the doctor and other Jews who have converted to Christianity for hidden homage to the old faith, and in order not to betray himself as Jewish, Jonah has to serve as henchmen in their public cremation. He moves on to a manor, where the first woman he sleeps with recognizes and betrays him as a circumcised man; he's just escaping. After an interlude on the cathedral construction site in Salamanca , he was given responsibility for a flock of sheep, which he tended as a young man. Then he ends up in the caves of the gypsies above Granada , where he practices metalworking. In the city he falls in love with the daughter of a silk merchant who has remained secretly a Jew, but, as he is told, does not have the means to bring her home. He flees from the impending burning of the Jews on a barge and finally sails as an ordinary seaman up the Spanish east coast to Barcelona and via the Balearic Islands back to Gibraltar , where he is apprenticed as an armorer. In the course of his training he learned about the location of a saint's grave above Gibraltar and was targeted by the southern Spanish relic mafia. Armor that is being worked on at great expense in the workshop is for a count near Toledo, who not only used the expulsion of Jews to withhold very high debts from Jonas father, but is also said to be the head of the northern Spanish relic mafia. Jonah knocks on the bush through his crony, the local inquisitor, with hints of the Gibraltar find, and the count is immediately at service when he gets the relics. Instead of recognizing the son of the defrauded debtor, he removes the southern Spaniards, whose sights he is targeted, from Jonah. When an assistant to the master, who envious Jona of his growing skill in handling weapons, threatens to blacken him at the Inquisition, he fled to Saragossa to see his master's brother, who is a doctor there. Jona translates a Jewish textbook for him, is trained as a medic and works in his place after his master has died. He made a name for himself in the district of Saragossa, where the inquisitor who once incited the crowd against Jonah's family (the count's crony near Toledo) has settled. He seeks the doctor's advice on his illegitimate children, who are plagued by syphilis. In himself, the disease has already attacked the brain. During a seizure, shortly before he disappears forever in the dungeons of an insane asylum, he admits his involvement in the robbery that Jonah's older brother fell victim to, and mentions an additional name without explaining who it is acts. Jona goes on a business trip north to buy additional medicines. He discovered a fertile high valley in which the Christianized descendants of the secretly Jewish silk merchant from Granada settled, with whose daughter Jona was once in love. This time he is leading her niece home. He turned down the offer to settle down as a doctor in the new congregation because it would make it more difficult for him to practice his Jewish life, which has been preserved up to now. As a healing artist, a letter calls him to the castle of the count, who once failed to repay his father's large debts and Jona later got rid of the southern Spanish relic hunters. He was struck down by a stroke. His wife and a guy who bears the name that the inquisitor had mentioned in connection with the robbery of Jonas' older brother watch over his bedside. It is about the reliquary of the count, who, now that his employer dies, wants to secure the treasures that he knows to be hidden in the castle. Jonah, on the other hand, is concerned with saving unpaid silver work from his father's hand, which must still be here, for the family inheritance. His search comes into conflict with that of the other when he discovers the silver bowl made by his father with the relic, the robbery of which cost his brother his life. He kills the robbery attacking him. With the silver work from his father's hand, he equips a hidden prayer room, which he sets up after the birth of his first son in order to familiarize him with the secrets of his Jewish faith in due course.

success

The book was number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list for a week in 2000 .