Hasdai Ibn Shaprut - Jewish Activity

Jewish Activity

Hasdai was very active in behalf of his co-religionists and Jewish science. Allegedly, When he heard that in Central Asia there was a Jewish state with a Jewish ruler, he desired to enter into correspondence with this monarch; and when the report of the existence of the state of the Khazars was confirmed by two Jews, Mar Saul and Mar Joseph, who had come in the retinue of an embassy from the Croatian king to Córdoba, Hasdai entrusted to them a letter, written in good Hebrew addressed to the Jewish king, in which he gave an account of his position in the Western state, described the geographical situation of Andalusia and its relation to foreign countries, and asked for detailed information in regard to the Khazars, their origin, their political and military organization, etc. See also the Khazar Correspondence.

Hasdai sent a letter to Empress Helena of Byzantium in which he pleaded for religious liberty to be granted to the Jews of Byzantium. He pointed to his own warm relations with the Muslim Caliph in Córdoba as well as his benevolent attitude towards the Christians of Spain. See http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/exhibition.html, T-S J2.71.

Hasdai sent rich presents to the yeshiva of Sura and that of Pumbedita, and corresponded with Dosa, the son of Saadia Gaon. He was also instrumental in transferring the center of Jewish theological studies from Babylonia to Spain, by appointing Moses ben Hanoch, who had been stranded at Córdoba, director of a school, and thereby detaching Judaism from its dependence on the East, to the great joy of the caliph, as Abraham ibn Daud says (Sefer ha-Kabbalah p. 68). Ibn Abi 'UKaibia writes of him: "Hasdai b. Isaac was among the foremost Jewish scholars versed in their law. He opened to his coreligionists in Andalusia the gates of knowledge of the religious law, of chronology, etc. Before his time they had to apply to the Jews of Baghdad on legal questions, and on matters referring to the calendar and the dates of the festivals" (ed. Müller, ii. 50).

Hasdai marks the beginning of the florescence of Andalusian Jewish culture, and the rise of poetry and of the study of Hebrew grammar among the Spanish Jews. Himself a scholar, he encouraged scholarship among his coreligionists by the purchase of Hebrew books, which he imported from the East, and by supporting Jewish scholars whom he gathered about him. Among the latter were Menahem ben Saruq of Tortosa, the protégé of Hasdai's father, and Dunash ben Labrat, both of whom addressed poems to their patron. Dunash, however, prejudiced Hasdai to such a degree against Menahem that Hasdai caused Menahem to be maltreated.