After the Abarbanel family left Spain in 1492, they found a safe haven in the Kingdom of Naples. But even there trouble began to brew and the Jewish community once again faced an edict of expulsion. Who would save the day? In a curious twist of events, the role fell to Benvenida Abarbanel, the niece and daughter-in-law of Spanish Jewry’s most famous advocate.
The Abarbanels were no strangers to the fickleness of kings and the vagaries of history. Therefore when Rabbi Yitzchak Abarbanel arrived in Naples in 1492 — after being expelled from Spain along with that country’s other Jews — he most likely took the warm greeting and assurances of Naples’s King Ferdinand I with a grain of salt.
And rightly so. Within two years King Ferdinand was dead the Kingdom of Naples had been conquered by France and the Jewish community was once again facing an uncertain future.
It was within this pungent mix of political upheaval and court intrigue that a new Jewish heroine arose Benvenida Abarbanel. Like Queen Esther before her she was forced to plead the cause of her people. How she came to be chosen for that role is as the saying goes a whole megillah.
A Mishmash Otherwise Known as European Politics
To the very end the Jews of Spain prayed for a miracle. Rabbi Yitzchak Abarbanel finance minister to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella brought chests filled with gold to the Spanish monarchs in the hope of convincing them to annul their edict of expulsion. But Hashem rules the world and the decree remained in place. On Tisha B’Av 5252 (July 30 1492) the Abarbanel and his family left Spain along with the hundreds of thousands of Spanish Jews who had become penniless exiles. The Abarbanels settled in the Kingdom of Naples which in those times stretched across the southern half of what is today Italy.
Create a free account to keep reading.
