Isaac Abrabanel - Biography

Biography

Abrabanel was born in Lisbon, Portugal, into one of the oldest and most distinguished Jewish Iberian families who had escaped persecution in Castile during 1391. A student of the rabbi of Lisbon, Joseph Chaim, he became well versed in rabbinic literature and in the learning of his time, devoting his early years to the study of Jewish philosophy. Abrabanel is quoted as saying that he included Joseph ibn Shem-Tov as his mentor. At twenty years old, he wrote on the original form of the natural elements, on religious questions and prophecy. Together with his intellectual abilities, he showed a complete mastery of financial matters. This attracted the attention of King Afonso V of Portugal who employed him as treasurer.

Notwithstanding his high position and the great wealth he had inherited from his father, his love for his afflicted brethren was unabated. When Arzila, in Morocco, was captured by the Moors, and the Jewish captives were sold as slaves, he contributed largely to the funds needed to free them, and personally arranged for collections throughout Portugal. He also wrote to his learned and wealthy friend, Vitale (Yehiel) Nissim da Pisa, on behalf of the captives.

Ironically, according to historian David Brion Davis, Abrabanel played a pivotal role in providing the conceptual basis for black slavery: " the great Jewish philosopher and statesman Isaac ben Abravanel, having seen many black slaves both in his native Portugal and in Spain, merged Aristotle's theory of natural slaves with the belief that the biblical Noah had cursed and condemned to slavery both his son Ham and his young grandson Canaan. Abravenel concluded that the servitude of animalistic black Africans should be perpetual." "It is most unfortunate that blame for a racist "Curse" – that is, for singling out blacks as the only people the Bible condemns with slavery – has been linked in modern times with a series of anti-Semitic mythologies that have also wrongly pictured Jews as the main traders in slaves across medieval Europe and then as the dominant force behind the transatlantic African slave trade to the New World."

Schorsch and other scholars, such as David M. Goldenberg, point out Abrabanel's comments on the Book of Amos as indicating very humanistic sentiments: " responded with unconcealed anger to the comment of a tenth-century Karaite from Jerusalem, Yefet b. Ali, on the issue of Black . Yefet had interpreted a biblical verse (Amos 9:7) to refer to Black women as being 'promiscuous and therefore no one knows who his father is.' Abrabanel: 'I don’t know who told Yefet this practice of promiscuity among Black women, which he mentions. But in the country of my birth I have seen many of these people and their women are loyal to their husbands unless they are prisoners and captive to their enemies. They are just like any other people.'" Schorsch argues that concerning Abrabanel's views about the connection between slavery and the curse of Ham, Abrabnel was influenced by the writings of his contemporaries and predecessors, including Christian and Muslim writers, as well as the culture around him, and was hardly considered unique in his views. Abrabanel's commentary on Amos 9:7 and other writings, argues Schorsch, show the complexity of Abrabanel's views of Blacks. "Abravanel's conflicting passages regarding Blacks were written at different times and addressed different realms of discourse, the one abstract myth, the other actual living Blacks." Schorsch shows how contemporary travel books described Ethiopians as barbarians, stealing each other's children to sell to Muslim foreigners. "Hence, the many statements that Ethiopians engaged in relations... with their siblings or parents. In this view, families, a cultured product, would not have been known to primitives who lived like animals. Yet Abravanel dismissed all these derogatory notions when defending the behavior of actual Blacks living in Portugal."

After the death of Afonso he was obliged to relinquish his office, having been accused by King John II of connivance with the Duke of Braganza, who had been executed on the charge of conspiracy. Abravanel, warned in time, saved himself by a hasty flight to Castile (1483). His large fortune was confiscated by royal decree.

At Toledo, his new home, he occupied himself at first with Biblical studies, and in the course of six months produced an extensive commentary on the books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel. But shortly afterward he entered the service of the house of Castile. Together with his friend, the influential Don Abraham Senior, of Segovia, he undertook to farm the revenues and to supply provisions for the royal army, contracts that he carried out to the entire satisfaction of Queen Isabella.

During the Moorish war, Abrabanel advanced considerable sums of money to the government. When the banishment of the Jews from Spain was ordered with the Alhambra decree, he left nothing undone to induce the king to revoke the edict. In vain did he offer him 30,000 ducats ($68,400 nominal value). With his brethren in faith he left Spain and went to Naples, where, soon after, he entered the service of the king. For a short time he lived in peace undisturbed; but when the city was taken by the French, bereft of all his possessions, he followed the young king, Ferdinand, in 1495, to Messina; then went to Corfu; and in 1496 settled in Monopoli, and lastly (1503) in Venice, where his services were employed in negotiating a commercial treaty between Portugal and the Venetian republic.

Several times during the mid-to-late 15th century, he personally spent large amounts of his personal fortunes to bribe the Spanish Monarchy to permit the Jews to remain in Spain. It is claimed that Abrabanel offered them 600,000 crowns for the revocation of the edict. It is said also that Ferdinand hesitated, but was prevented from accepting the offer by Torquemada, the grand inquisitor, who dashed into the royal presence and, throwing a crucifix down before the king and queen, asked whether, like Judas, they would betray their Lord for money. In the end, he managed only to get the date for the expulsion to be extended by two days.

He died in Venice in 1508 and was buried in Padua next to Rabbi Judah Minz, Rabbi of Padua. Owing to the destruction of the Jewish cemetery there during the Siege of Padua in 1509, his grave is now unknown.