Moses Gideon Abudiente

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Title page of the Gramatica Hebraica

Mose Gideon Abudiente (born around 1610 in Lisbon or Amsterdam ; died on March 4, 1688 in Hamburg ) was a Sephardic rabbi and author .

Life

Abudiente comes from a Marran family from Lisbon who emigrated to Amsterdam. His father was called Gideon Abudiente. There he received his theological training and in 1624 participated in the performance of the scenic Diologo dos 7 montes . After spending some time in Glückstadt as a rabbi and scholar, he went to Hamburg in 1633. There he was involved in the union of three independent communities to the community "Bet Israel" in 1652 and worked in various community offices.

Abudiente was married to Sara Jessurun, daughter of Rehuel Jessurun, and is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Altona .

plant

Abudiente wrote a Hebrew grammar in Portuguese , which appeared in Hamburg in 1633. The fourth part also contains some of his poems as examples of style. He announced a second part, which should also contain a dictionary, but did not appear. Other poems have only survived in manuscripts, some of which Naftali Herz Wessely later published in the magazine ha-Me'assef .

Like many Hamburg Sephardi, Abudiente was a follower of the self-proclaimed Messiah Schabbtai Zvi and in 1666 published a collection of sermons entitled “Fin de los Dìas” ( End of Days ) in Glückstadt. It contains the Spanish translation of sermons originally written down in Hebrew and is an important testimony to the impact of Shabbetaj Zvi. Abudiente was the head and preacher of the "Yeshiva Sha'arej Zedek", a brotherhood that was founded in connection with the enthusiasm for Shabbtai Zvi and which was dedicated to "prayer, penance and merciful works". The book is dedicated to the members of this association and some of them are named as subscribers in the book. It is one of the first books published in this way in Germany.

The community leadership, which itself supported Shabbtai Zvi, had all copies of the book confiscated. Since it "can cause harm to people of different faiths", so the decision of the 3rd Elul 5426 (= 1666). Abudiente also had to hand in all the prints and was only allowed to keep the manuscript. He was told, “The books should then be packed, sealed and kept in the wardrobe of the congregation until the time we hope for and which God will soon draw near! Then they will hand them over to him ”. So he should get them back if Shabbtai Zvi had proven to be the true Messiah. Since this hope was extinguished after his conversion to Islam, it did not come to that.

In Amsterdam the book was also confiscated three months later, but on the grounds that it violated the “holy law”, i.e. H. the Torah . In the meantime, Shabbtai Zvi's conversion to Islam had become known.

The book is preserved as a unique specimen in the Ets Haim library in Amsterdam.

literature

  • Michael Studemund-Halévy : Abudiente, Moses de Gideon . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 2 . Christians, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7672-1366-4 , pp. 16-16 .
  • Gerschom Sholem: Shabati Zvi and Hamburg . In: Michael Studemund-Halévy (Ed.): The Sefarden in Hamburg. Vol. 1. Buske, Hamburg 1994, pp. 201-224
  • Meyer Keyserling: Analects on the literature of the Spanish-Portuguese Jews: Moses Gideon . In the monthly for the history and science of Judaism , issue 2, 1860, pp. 69–71, digitized in the Compact Memory project .
  • Michael Studemund-Halévy: Across the Waters, Sefardi Pioneers from Hamburg in the Caribbean. In: A Sefardic Pepper-Pot in the Caribbean. Tirocinio, Barcelona 2016, ISBN 978-84-942925-5-2 , pp. 159-209.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Institute for the History of German Jews: The Jewish Hamburg - A historical reference work , Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, 2006, ISBN 978-3-8353-0004-0 , pp. 15 and 16
  2. ↑ Gerschom Sholem: Shabati Zvi and Hamburg in: Studemund-Halévy, Michael (ed.): Die Sefarden in Hamburg , vol. 1, p. 217.
  3. ↑ Michael Studenmund Halévy: Abudiente, Moses de Gideon .
  4. ^ A b Uri Kaufmann, Michael Studemund-Halévy: Documents on the Shabatai Zvi affair in Hamburg . in: Studemund-Halévy, Michael (ed.): Die Sefarden in Hamburg , Vol. 1, Hamburg, Buske, 1994. p. 232.
  5. ^ Yosef Kaplan: An alternative path to modernity, the Sephardi diaspora in Western Europe . Brill, Leiden 2000. p. 219.
personal data
SURNAME Abudiente, Moses Gideon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abudiente, Moses de Gideon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Rabbi and author
DATE OF BIRTH around 1610
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Lisbon
DATE OF DEATH March 4, 1688
Place of death Hamburg