1

Communal Pride and Feminine Virtue

“Suspecting Sivlonot” in the Jewish Communities
of the Ottoman Empire in the Early Sixteenth Century

HANNAH DAVIDSON

The expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula resulted in the abrupt transplantation of a strong and vibrant cultural community. The generation of the expulsion grew to maturity in Spain, nurtured in a vital and thriving culture as members of an intact community on its native soil, a community that had long instilled in its members an intense pride in its antiquity and its unique cultural achievements, a community whose continuity seemed assured. The exiles found themselves suddenly refugees, torn from their native soil, their communities, their homes, their synagogues, their family members. In their new homes, the Iberian exiles encountered indigenous Jewish communities with their own rich cultural heritage and local customs that differed from the customs of the Iberian newcomers. Over time, the Iberian Jews and their descendents revealed a remarkable ability to maintain their distinct Sephardi culture and identity and even, in many cases, to assimilate local Jews into Sephardi culture. However, the exiles themselves, those who underwent the trauma of the initial forced transplantation, could not have foreseen the ultimate tenacity of Sephardi culture. The challenge that lay before this generation was to maintain Sephardi culture and identity in the immediate aftermath of the destruction and catastrophe of the expulsion, and in the midst of indigenous and intact local Jewish communities. For this generation, the continuity of Sephardi culture could not be assumed, it had to be ensured.

Most Spanish exiles found refuge in the Ottoman Empire, where they were welcomed by the caliphate and settled en masse in areas emptied of their former Jewish population by a deliberate policy of resettlement. Thus Sephardi communities were primarily established in cities from which the indigenous Romaniot (Greek-speaking) Jewish community had been relocated. Iberian Jews soon formed the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population in several cities including Salonika and Edirne, while Istanbul, to which the Romaniot Jews had been relocated, maintained a strong Romaniot community alongside the newly formed separate and distinct Sephardi communities.1 The Sephardim and Romaniots were bound to each other by larger ties of Jewish identity, and contact between them was inevitable. While Jewish law served as a unifying factor in contact between the two communities, in cases where the law was determined by local custom, friction arose.²

One such case in which Jewish law clearly mandates that local custom determine correct practice is the custom of sivlonot, the giving of gifts by a groom to his bride-to-be. Jewish law delineates three stages in the marriage process: the shidukhin, or engagement, in which the parties agree to the marriage and its financial terms; the kidushin, or formal consecration ceremony, during which the groom presents the bride with a ring (or any other item of monetary value) after which the couple is considered legally bound (though they are as yet not allowed to live together); and nisuin, during which the couple stand together under the marriage canopy (hupah) and may thereafter begin their married life. (Kidushin and nisuin are now performed together). The Talmud discusses the question of whether the sivlonot are given before the kidushin or afterward and if they may thus be taken as proof of the kidushin having taken place, in the event that either party wishes to break off the match. In other words, is a bride who has received sivlonot to be considered legally wed and thus in need of a divorce in order to marry another man? The matter was determined to be dependent on local custom. In places where sivlonot were given after the kidushin ceremony, a bride who had received them was to be considered legally wed.³ The question of whether to “suspect” sivlonot as proof of kidushin was discussed extensively by Jewish scholars throughout the Middle Ages.⁴

The Romaniot Jews in Istanbul gave sivlonot after the kidushin and thus considered any woman who had received sivlonot to be legally wed. The custom of the Sephardi Jews who predominated in Salonika and Edirne was to give sivlonot before the kidushin, and therefore the receipt of sivlonot was not considered proof that the woman was legally bound. Problems arose when a member of one community became engaged to a member of another community, and gifts were sent between one city and another. Local customs having been designated as the decisive factor under Jewish law, the question confronting this generation of scholars was “Which local custom?”5

The Ottoman Empire, 1481–1683. Courtesy of the University of Texas–Perry-Castañeda Collection.

The question of the marital status of a bride who had received sivlonot was discussed in the early sixteenth century in the Ottoman Empire by three Sephardi exiles, Yaakov Ibn Habib, Moshe Aroquis, Avraham Ibn Yaish, and the rabbi of the indigenous Romaniot Jewish community of Istanbul, Eliyahu Mizrahi. Their “responsa,” legal questions and answers, delineate the differences in custom and law between the two communities and reveal the tension felt by rabbinic leaders of both communities who sought to preserve their own traditions. The questions posed in the responsa reflect the realities of the process of social integration of these two initially disparate communities. The responsa also reveal the attitudes of the authors toward women, the role of women in the betrothal process, as brides and as mothers, as well as other aspects of betrothal customs, such as the role of the matchmaker, the age of the marriage partners, and changes within the marriage ceremony itself.

Communal Pride: Yaakov Ibn Habib and Moshe Aroquis

In 1509 a Jewish couple in Edirne became engaged, the groom presented his fiancé with sivlonot, they broke off the engagement, and she returned the gifts. A local rabbi, an exile from Castile, ruled that an official writ of divorce (“get”) should be granted to the woman to eliminate any doubt concerning her marital status resulting from her receipt of the sivlonot. However, his decision was opposed by two eminent Sephardi rabbis, Shlomo ben Hayim Zaken and Avraham Saba. He then asked the legal opinion of Yaakov Ibn Habib, the leading rabbinic authority in Salonika.6 In his responsum, Ibn Habib affirms that, according to the Sephardi tradition (literally “the custom of the lands where we lived”), there was no need for concern that a woman who received sivlonot should be considered a married woman. Nevertheless, he strongly objects to the overruling of the decision requiring a divorce, in the belief that the common people should not perceive division and factionalism among the rabbinic leaders.⁷

Ibn Habib then places the matter before him into the larger context of the preservation of Sephardi tradition in the wake of the expulsion and in the face of local rabbinic authority: Since the expulsion the Sephardim have not been able to publicly affirm their customs. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that they have settled near Istanbul, a great and beautiful city, known for the wisdom of its sages. Ibn Habib reveals toward the end of the responsum that he himself has never been to Istanbul. Nonetheless, his awe for what he calls the “great city” permeates the responsum.⁸ Ibn Habib is unstinting in his praise for the greatest sage of the city, Eliyahu Mizrahi.⁹ He describes Mizrahi as a lion rising from the East (a play on the meaning of his name) toward Edirne, the community of his correspondent. Ibn Habib has heard from his correspondent of Mizrahi’s erudition and strength of character, and his determination to impose the custom of Istanbul with regard to sivlonot on this peripheral community as well.¹⁰ Ibn Habib’s reverence for Mizrahi’s intellectual acumen is compounded by feelings of his own intellectual inadequacy and the loss of three great rabbis and teachers of Castile who passed away just before the expulsion.11 These great teachers could have responded effectively to the Romaniot challenge. However, Ibn Habib and his colleagues, their pupils, are unequal to the task. Their intellectual inadequacy is exacerbated by the harsh circumstances of the exile. Ibn Habib describes metaphorically the relative cultural position of the two communities. While the Romaniot scholars are securely settled in their “courts” and “castles,” the Sephardim are dwelling in tents like nomads in the desert, hungry and thirsty for Torah. Their situation is the result of wandering and unrest, which have left them unable to effectively teach or give judgment.¹²

Ibn Habib recalls having heard in his youth the opinion of the rabbis of Castile that a woman should not be considered married as a result of the receipt of sivlonot. He takes it upon himself to thoroughly research the matter in the Jewish legal literature, to elucidate and support the opinion of the Castilian rabbis, so that it will not be forgotten by their heirs. Ibn Habib’s purpose in addressing the question of sivlonot, restated throughout the responsum, is to strengthen, renew, and preserve the Sephardi tradition.¹³

Ibn Habib begins his legal discussion of the case with two general observations. His first observation is that, with regard to sivlonot, local custom is a crucial factor in determining judgment in each case. His second observation is that, in order to properly understand this legal point, it is first necessary to distinguish between marriage customs at the time of the Talmud and contemporary customs. In an effort to make this distinction, Ibn Habib provides valuable information about marriage customs in Spain before the exile. Whereas in the time of the Talmud, the initial engagement or shidukhin was merely an agreement to marry, in Spain this agreement was made under oath as a legally binding contract, formalized by the exchange of an object (a kinyan) with a sum of money set as collateral in a written document. Given the binding nature of this agreement, a groom did not suspect that it would be broken by the other side and thus did not hesitate to invest money in the relationship by sending sivlonot to his future bride. After the announcement of the engagement, the couple would exchange gifts. In the event that the wedding was called off, the sivlonot would be returned to the groom. Two customs were followed with regard to the actual marriage ceremonies. The minority would perform the kidushin, the legal betrothal, in which the groom gives a ring to the bride and declares her to be consecrated to him, immediately after the shidukhin. The majority would perform the kidushin together with the nisuin (the seven blessings) under the hupah (marriage canopy).¹⁴ Whenever it was performed, the kidushin was a public ceremony. Anyone found to have performed kidushin privately was punished.15 Ibn Habib later quotes a responsum of Yom Tov Ishbili (the “Ritva,” 13–14th c. Aragon), which explains that Sephardim do not suspect kidushin on the basis of sivlonot because any previous kidushin would be public knowledge.¹⁶

Having established that where the custom is to give sivlonot after kidushin, the receipt of sivlonot can be taken as proof of kidushin, and that in Spain a minority of the population followed this practice, Ibn Habib discusses the opinions of the great medieval Spanish authorities in Jewish law, Nissim Gerondi, Shlomo ben Aderet, and Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides, the Ramban). On the basis of this discussion he draws the conclusion that when the reason for performing kidushin before the hupah is the unwillingness of the groom to send sivlonot to a woman who is not legally bound to him, then the receipt of sivlonot may be taken as proof of kidushin. However, when the kidushin are performed early for external reasons, the receipt of sivlonot is not proof of kidushin. In Spain, the minority who performed kidushin before the hupah did so for fear of a broken engagement and never out of reluctance to risk money on sivlonot, because the binding nature of the shidukhin in Spain eliminated any source of concern. Therefore, concludes Ibn Habib, “we the Sephardim do not suspect kidushin on the basis that sivlonot have been given.”¹⁷

Later in the responsum, Ibn Habib uses this distinction to explain the difference in custom between Istanbul and Castile in historical terms. In both cases the final legal decision was the natural and logical response to historical social practice. In Istanbul, people hesitated to invest money in a relationship that had not yet been formalized, and thus gave sivlonot after kidushin. In this context the giving of sivlonot does imply proof of kidushin. In Castile, however, the terms of the engagement were so binding that there was no risk in giving sivlonot before kidushin. In this context sivlonot cannot be taken as proof of kidushin. This is the reality to which the Sephardim are now accustomed.¹⁸ Later, he reiterates this conclusion, emphasizing that the matter in its essence is a question of group mentality. “We” the Sephardim think differently on this subject than “they” the Romaniots: “The conclusion from all this is that our thinking is not like the thinking of those who suspect with regard to sivlonot, nor is their way our way.”¹⁹ The question of sivlonot is for Ibn Habib a means to establish and assert Sephardi communal identity.

Ibn Habib reveals a profound love for the Sephardi tradition and nostalgia for the study of Torah in Castile, mingled with the realization that this study had in fact been somewhat limited in scope. At the beginning of his discussion of the marriage customs of Castile, Ibn Habib appeals directly to his correspondent to recall the customs of his youth: “Do you not know, have you not heard, the scholar, my brother, who was born and raised in Castile . . .”20 With the exile, personal memory of the way things were done has become an important resource. Shared experiences and memories create a bond of brotherhood between two exiles. (It can be assumed for lack of other references that the correspondent was not in fact Ibn Habib’s brother.) This bond is referred to again at a later point in the responsum when Ibn Habib addresses his correspondent directly and explains that he decided to include the opinion of the great Sephardi sage, Moshe ben Nachman (the Ramban), for two reasons, one internal and intrinsic to his argument, and the other purely personal. Ibn Habib writes that he has included the words of this great sage “because my heart told me that you, scholar, brother, would rejoice to return to the days of your youth and remember the way that we learned the [works of the rabbinic sages] together with the words of the Ramban.”²¹

However, immediately after this appeal to nostalgia, Ibn Habib points out the inferiority of the cultural resources available in Castile as compared to the resources available in his new home: “The matter is easily understood because we have before us books of Tosafot (commentaries to the Gemara written by scholars of medieval France), which we acquired upon arrival in this area, which is full of books and authors, may God make them increase. My heart is hollow within me because in the days of my youth I had in my hands only a small fraction, two or three crumbs of the table of contents.”²² Shortly afterward he mentions a responsum of Yitzhak Alfasi, which he found in a book printed in Italy, another example of a source—this time within the Sephardi tradition—that became available to him outside of Spain.²³

At the end of the responsum, Ibn Habib notes that he has written his analysis of the legal question at hand on the basis of the books in his suitcase, in other words, the books he brought with him from Spain, another reference to his experience of exile and wandering. After seventeen years, his books are still in his suitcase, whether literally or figuratively. He is still a wanderer, unsettled in his new home. His library, and perhaps by inference his scholarship, has been brought from afar. Now, as he has finished writing, he has become aware that in the possession of the local scholars there is a new book, Terumat haDeshen, which contains a responsum on the subject of sivlonot. Ibn Habib does not name the author, but describes him as a competent modern scholar. The responsum itself he dismisses as excessively strict, perhaps the basis for the local strictness. He has found in it nothing that contradicts his own arguments and several details that may substantiate his arguments. (Ibn Habib appears to be revealing the frustration of a scholar who discovers relevant source material after the completion of a monograph!)

Terumat haDeshen is a collection of responsa written in Germany in the first half of the fifteenth century by Israel Isserlein, a leading rabbinic scholar. By the early sixteenth century the book was not new and not unknown. The fact that Ibn Habib became aware of an important scholarly work only upon his arrival in Salonika and only from the local Romaniot scholars says a great deal about intellectual ties between Ashkenaz and Sepharad in the fifteenth century and indicates a certain cultural isolation within the Jewish communities of Spain. Ibn Habib is clearly cognizant of this fact and troubled by it. His specific reference to his discovery of the book among the local scholars and his distinction between it and the books in his suitcase reveals that he is uncomfortable with his previous ignorance of the work. Ibn Habib is perhaps subtly revealing to his readers, the Sephardi community, his own growing awareness of a parochial aspect to pre-exilic scholarship in Spain.24 These references to the books in which he found his sources are as extraneous to Ibn Habib’s argument as his reminiscences of learning Torah in Castile. Both reflect the inner emotional turmoil of Ibn Habib, pained by a profound sense of the loss of his intellectual milieu and by indications of its deficiencies, and increasingly aware of the richness of the new world he has found himself in. These feelings are inextricably bound to the issue of sivlonot, centered as it was in the conflict between the Romaniot and Sephardi traditions.²⁵

Ibn Habib relates at length an incident that occurred in Salamanca over forty-five years earlier. (Before the exile, Ibn Habib headed the yeshiva of Salamanca, and thus can be presumed to be a reliable source of information on events that occurred there, even if they preceded his tenure at the academy.)²⁶ A young man became engaged to a girl and sent her sivlonot, after which the engagement was broken. The head of the local yeshiva, the renowned scholar Yitzhak de Leon, considered the leading authority on Jewish law of his generation, and one of the three intellectual giants of the last generation in Spain mentioned by Ibn Habib at the beginning of the responsum, rendered a strict judgment and required that the woman be given a get, a formal bill of divorce, in order to be considered a free woman.²⁷ The elder sages of the community disagreed with him. They decided to attend the fair at the nearby town, Medina del Campo, where the great scholars of the generation gathered to discuss Jewish law. The assembled scholars discussed the matter, ruled unanimously that from that day forward there would be no suspicion of kidushin on the basis of sivlonot, and ordered the leader of prayers at the fair to publicly announce their decision. According to Ibn Habib, this decision was a compromise, for even according to those who took the stringent view of the law, after the public pronouncement that no suspicion would arise from the giving of sivlonot, the whole country became, in legal terms, a place in which everyone gives sivlonot before kidushin, and thus no suspicion need arise in the future from the receipt of sivlonot.

Ibn Habib recounts that the great sage Yitzhak Aboab had originally supported the legal position of Yitzhak de Leon, although later, like everyone else, he accepted the judgment of the assembly of rabbis. At this time, though he was already a man of thirty and considered a great scholar, he was not yet married. After two years, at about the same time that he became the head of the yeshiva of Buitrago, he was offered a match with the daughter of one of the prominent families of the town. This girl had previously been engaged to another scholar and had received from him sivlonot, but on their wedding day the couple had quarreled and parted. Rabbi Aboab married this girl and no questions were raised about her receipt of sivlonot from her previous fiancé.28 Many years later, the wife of Yitzhak de Leon passed away and he married a learned woman from a prominent family in Toledo, who also had been previously engaged to another man from whom she had received sivlonot.

Ibn Habib concludes from this narrative that the actual practice of two of the greatest rabbis of the generation before the exile constitutes a legal precedent of not “suspecting sivlonot.” Anyone who raises suspicions concerning a woman who has received sivlonot slanders these great rabbis, the “pillars of the exile.” Ibn Habib raises the possibility that the Sephardi rabbis who opposed the strict ruling of his correspondent in favor of the traditional Sephardi practice did so out of respect for these late Sephardi rabbis.

At this point Ibn Habib further clarifies that his objective in writing this responsum is neither to render a specific judgment in the case, nor to establish future practice, nor even to maintain adherence to Sephardi traditional customs in the face of conflicting local practice. Ibn Habib’s stated purpose is to research and investigate the Sephardi legal tradition, both textual and practical. In essence he is writing the responsum in order to affirm the continuity of the Sephardi legal tradition. It is the process of his dialectic, his legal discussion as a Sephardi, of Sephardi sources and oral traditions, and not the end result of his reasoning that is important to Ibn Habib. By the very act of writing this responsum he is asserting the independence of Sephardi rabbis in legal decision-making and affirming the internal autonomy of the Sephardi rabbinic leadership.²⁹

Having affirmed the continuation of the “process,” Ibn Habib is willing to compromise with regard to actual practice. Ibn Habib thus arrives at the crux of the legal issue before him: should the Sephardi exiles, strangers in a new land, follow the local customs or adhere to their own traditions? There was ground to compel the exiles to follow the Romaniot customs, for according to a basic principle of Jewish law a stranger in a foreign land is obliged to follow the customs of the local Jewish community. This leads Ibn Habib to a poignant and trenchant observation of the plight of the exiles:

After we were exiled for our sins and came to seek shelter under their roofs, a collar has been placed around our necks and we are compelled to follow their customs, and if from the beginning we cease to maintain a tradition, its memory will be lost from the face of the earth and it will lose all viability and relevance because if the foundation falls so will the building, for the sages have declared that the law is determined by the custom of the place and if there is no place, there can be no custom.30

In these words, Ibn Habib encapsulates the uniqueness of the phenomenon of the expulsion from Spain within Jewish history and the enormity of the dilemma facing the first generation of exiles. Of the many expulsions of Jews throughout the Middle Ages, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was unique in its scope. For the first time in Jewish history all the bearers of a unique cultural tradition and ethnic identity were expelled simultaneously from every place in which that tradition and identity were indigenous. No place remained in which the traditional local custom was Sephardi. The vast majority of the exiles found refuge in established Jewish communities rich in their own traditions. By following Jewish law and adopting the customs of their new neighbors, the Sephardi exiles would be committing cultural suicide. There would be no place left in the world in which the Sephardi tradition would be maintained. The loss of the physical Jewish communities of Spain would mean the loss of their cultural tradition. Without the “place” there would be no “custom.” This, then, was the dilemma facing Ibn Habib: adherence to the legal principle of conforming to local practice versus the survival of the Sephardi cultural tradition.³¹

Ibn Habib then addresses the specific situation and rules that any Jew who comes to settle in any of the cities surrounding Istanbul, including Edirne, the home of his correspondent, must conform to the practice of the community in which he has settled. Ibn Habib thus defines Istanbul as a major cultural center with clearly defined traditions and customs, and Edirne as its periphery and cultural satellite. He compares the Istanbul of his day to the city of Babylon in the time of the Gemara, which was the center of authority, being the home of the Exilarch. This would appear to be an allusion to the fact that Istanbul was the home of the chief Romaniot rabbi, Eliyahu Mizrahi. In such a situation, the residents of the smaller peripheral city must conform to the practices of the big city. Furthermore, the exiles are obligated to adopt the practice of the community in which they have settled, even if it is stricter than the practice in Castile.32

Ibn Habib was influenced in his decision not only by the legal principle of adopting local custom. He was also keenly aware of the social position of the Sephardim in their new homes. He refers to them specifically as exiles and emphasizes their status as newcomers and strangers seeking refuge. He describes them figuratively entering the gates of the city and huddling in the shade of the rafters. Seventeen years after the expulsion, Ibn Habib still perceives the exiles as unsettled strangers. In this inferior and unstable situation, the Sephardim cannot but accept the stricter practice of their new neighbors. Ibn Habib quotes from the Talmud the story of a rabbi from the land of Israel who came to Babylonia and there ate food that was permitted in his homeland but forbidden in his new community. His behavior is justified by the assumption that he planned to return to his home. Ibn Habib points out that this excuse cannot apply to the case of the Sephardi exiles, subtly but poignantly reminding his readers that their exile is permanent. He ultimately justifies his position by finding support for the strict interpretation of the law within the Sephardi tradition itself, in the opinion of Moshe ben Nachman.³³

Having established the principle that the Sephardim are obligated to accept the stricter practices of their new communities, Ibn Habib finds a legal loophole with which to except the specific case of sivlonot. In his own words “the sages have allowed for the possibility, for us, coming from the exile of Castile, to maintain our tradition not to suspect sivlonot.”³⁴ According to Ibn Habib, newcomers are obligated to conform to the stricter practices of their new home with regard to forbidden activities. However, they are free to follow their own customs with regard to monetary matters. Ibn Habib places sivlonot in the latter category, thus allowing the continuation of the Sephardi tradition concerning sivlonot. Though they are strangers in their new communities, the Sephardim may maintain the tradition to which they are accustomed, as it is a purely monetary matter.³⁵

To further elucidate his point that in monetary matters newcomers may follow their own traditions, Ibn Habib brings another example of a difference in practice between the Romaniots and Sephardim in the realm of marriage customs: the nedunyah (dowry). According to Ibn Habib, a Jewish wife in Istanbul had control over her dowry inasmuch as her husband could not use it without her consent. In Castile, the husband controlled the dowry as though it were his own. Ibn Habib praises the custom of Istanbul (which he terms the “Romaniot custom”) as “grounded in wisdom and knowledge.” Nevertheless, he maintains that it is the prerogative of the Sephardim to maintain their traditional practice in their new home, because it is a monetary matter and not a prohibition. With regard to the Jewish community in Istanbul, Ibn Habib concludes that although the exiles are wanderers who have come to dwell as a minority in the great city, they are entitled to continue their traditional practice of both sivlonot and nedunyah because these are monetary matters.36

With regard to Edirne, the city from whence the question had been sent, Ibn Habib reaches a different, more far-reaching conclusion. He declares that Edirne can be considered a new community without a fixed custom, in which most of the residents know from whence they came. In this case, the custom of the place of origin of the majority of the inhabitants is followed. Ibn Habib states categorically that in Edirne the majority of the Jewish residents are from “the kingdom of Spain.” (It is interesting to note that after referring exclusively to “Castile” throughout the responsum, Ibn Habib now refers to the entire political entity as “Spain.”) After earlier defining Edirne as a satellite city of Istanbul, the seat of Romaniot scholarship and leadership, Ibn Habib now reveals that the majority of the Jewish community there is Sephardi. This assessment corresponds to what we know of the Ottoman resettlement policy by which cities were emptied of their inhabitants, who were then relocated, and repopulated with new residents.³⁷ This, then, is the crux of the problem: an overwhelmingly Sephardi community existing under the aegis of the Romaniot leadership and scholarship. Ibn Habib’s solution is to affirm in principle the hegemony of the Romaniot leadership while finding a back door through which Sephardi independence can be maintained. By defining the Jewish community of Edirne as a new community without fixed customs, populated mainly by Spanish exiles, Ibn Habib recognizes the reality created by the Ottoman resettlement policy. By ruling that in such a situation the custom of the place of origin of the majority, Spain, should become local custom, Ibn Habib lays the cornerstone for the continuity of the Sephardi tradition. Cities like Edirne (and Salonika, the home of Ibn Habib), depopulated of their native Romaniot inhabitants and repopulated by exiles, became in effect the “places” in which Sephardi custom was the local custom, the “minhag hamakom.”

Having laid the foundation for Sephardi juridical independence, Ibn Habib repeats his earlier caveat that he has merely written a scholarly discussion of the subject and is not rendering a judgment with any practical implications on the matter at hand. He declares that he is reluctant to permit that which may be forbidden and again indicates approval of his correspondent’s earlier decision, which required the woman to receive a get. Ibn Habib thus implicitly acknowledges the principle that sivlonot can be considered possible proof of betrothal. Having clearly stated throughout the responsum that it is his opinion that sivlonot do not constitute proof of kidushin, his protestations of doubt here are not to be taken at face value. Neither intellectual doubt nor fear of sin prevent Ibn Habib from rendering judgment in accordance with the Sephardi tradition. His motives are political, and his means to achieve them subtle. Ibn Habib concludes his responsum with the remark that having already received judgment on this matter from Eliyahu Mizrahi, “the sage who has acquired wisdom, the perfect scholar,” his correspondent should never have consulted him, but merely followed the word of Mizrahi, as the authoritative rabbinic judge of the community.38 Ibn Habib closes his responsum as he began it with expressions of reverence and awe for Eliyahu Mizrahi and recognition of his authority over all the Jewish communities of the area. He concedes judgment in the case at hand to the Romaniot position, and acknowledges the hegemony of the Romaniot leadership. Yet at the same time, by writing a learned responsum based upon the Sephardi tradition, in which he lays the legal foundation for Sephardi juridical autonomy, Ibn Habib affirms the continuity of Sephardi scholarship. The pain of the exile, and the feelings of loss, dislocation, and transience that permeate the responsum, coupled with recognition of the breadth of Romaniot scholarship and strength of its leadership, compelled Ibn Habib to concede to the Romaniot position in the issue at hand and to affirm its authority in principle. However, his intense love for the Sephardi tradition compelled him to ensure its continuity.³⁹

Another responsum in the same case was written by the Sephardi scholar Moshe Aroquis, also of Salonika.⁴⁰ From his responsum, we learn that the woman whose marital status was under consideration was the daughter of a distinguished man, Moshe Pinto. Because of the controversy concerning her marital status, the young lady in question had acquired the unfortunate status of an “agunah,” a woman legally bound to a man with whom she is not living, and prohibited from marrying another. Aroquis reveals empathy for this woman’s plight, describing her as an outcast among women, destined by a rabbi’s strict opinion to remain childless and single until her hair turns grey. He is apparently referring to the correspondent of Ibn Habib, who had ruled that the young lady must receive a divorce in order to remarry.

Aroquis writes his responsum in refutation of this strict opinion. Like Ibn Habib, he begins by reviewing the literature on the subject, emphasizing the opinions of the Sephardi scholars, Nissim Gerondi, Shlomo ben Aderet, and Asher ben Yehiel, and lavishly praising their erudition. His conclusion is that none of these great scholars suspected kidushin on the basis of sivlonot, and that furthermore the last generation of scholars in Spain, from whom the current generation learned, continued this tradition both in their judicial rulings and their own practice (possibly a reference to the marriages of the two scholars mentioned by Ibn Habib). Reverence for the previous generation and loyalty to them is the driving force behind Aroquis’s argument: None who come after them (until the coming of the Messiah) are their equals in Torah, wisdom, or piety. Those who dispute the opinion of these great scholars are in effect mocking them and their ancestors and making mamzerim (illegitimate offspring) out of the children born in subsequent marriages to women declared single by these rabbis. Aroquis asks rhetorically how anyone could differ from the opinion of these great scholars, even if they were to say that right is left, and all the more so when they say that right is right.

Aroquis next makes an emotional appeal to the Sephardi community, reinforcing communal identity by invoking the pain of the exile and recalling the threat of forced conversion that confronted the exiles before they found refuge in the Ottoman Empire. He assures the exiles that their travails have not diminished their communal strength, their vitality, or their ability to maintain the legal tradition of the sages of Spain. Their right to maintain their legal traditions stems from two sources: they are in the numerical majority in their new land and they have come with a valid legal tradition, fortified by generations of practice. Furthermore, other refugee communities in the area are adopting Sephardi customs with no objection, and it is therefore entirely appropriate that the Sephardim themselves retain their own traditions. Aroquis praises God that in the Ottoman Empire the Sephardim are superior both in quantity and quality. In a brazen, crass, and chauvinistic manner, he declares that the Romaniots are vastly inferior to the Sephardim, and that there is thus no reason why the Sephardim should fall into error by following their disparate local customs.41

Aroquis then raises as a theoretical objection to his position the legal principle cited by Ibn Habib, that a newcomer must follow the stricter custom of his new home.⁴² Aroquis argues that the Romaniot custom to be strict with regard to sivlonot is invalid because it is based on the erroneous assumption that there are places in which it is the custom to give sivlonot after kidushin. According to Aroquis, in every Jewish community known to him the custom is to give sivlonot before kidushin. In Spain it was the custom to send sivlonot before kidushin and this practice is known to all members of the local Sephardi community, young and old, male and female.43

Ultimately, Aroquis concludes that the law is not determined by reasoning but by tradition, passed down from generation to generation by the competent authorities. As to the question of whose tradition is to be followed, Aroquis leaves no doubt. The Sephardim, along with the other communities who have joined with them, are the majority. To them alone the land has been given, they are its glory and splendor and beauty, illuminating the land and its inhabitants, and those who let them in may leave. Aroquis then switches to the first person plural, directly addressing the Sephardi community: “All of these places can be considered ours and it is fitting for the minority, the original inhabitants of the land, to look to our religious customs and follow them and not create factions within the community.”⁴⁴ Aroquis does not desire cultural autonomy or equality, but hegemony. He does not want the Sephardim to fit in as equals with the Romaniots. He wants them to take over.

It is important to understand Aroquis’s words in the context in which they were written. Aroquis is not describing a current situation of Sephardi cultural hegemony. At the time of his writing, the daughter of Moshe Pinto had been left an agunah in conformity with local Romaniot custom and rulings. Aroquis writes from anger at the “victimization” of a Sephardi girl, anger above all that the fate of a Sephardi was being determined by non-Sephardi authorities and practices. His extreme expression of Sephardi superiority was the response to an overwhelming feeling of inferiority and suppression. The disparity between the numerical strength of the exiles and their judicial impotence inflamed his passion. Aroquis’s language is extreme because his words are an emotional plea to his brethren intended to galvanize them to action. He is calling upon the Sephardi community to assume a position of hegemony, to turn their numerical superiority into communal authority and to assert themselves as lords of the land in the religious and cultural sphere. We know that his vision became the reality, yet to his contemporaries, filled with the same fears and doubts that permeate the responsum of Ibn Habib, Sephardi cultural survival, let alone hegemony, must have seemed like a pipe dream in the face of an uncertain future.

Aroquis ends with a heartfelt plea to other scholars to free the young lady from her plight. As in the beginning of the responsum, Aroquis reveals a genuine concern for the welfare of the girl herself, for the human aspect of the case and not merely its cultural and communal implications. While both respondents use the question of the marital status of the daughter of Moshe Pinto as a springboard for voicing their opinions on larger questions, Aroquis is aware that as learned opinions are being exchanged, a woman remains in legal and social limbo, her personal status unclear and her life interrupted. He expresses sympathy for her plight and tries to arouse the empathy of his readers, though one may suspect that his larger motives in doing so were political and that his ultimate goal was not to free the girl, but to arouse Sephardi passion in opposition to Romaniot authority. Ibn Habib, in contrast, does not mention the human aspect of the case, perhaps because he does not intend to deal with the specific case at all, and has concurred with the stringent judgment of his correspondent, that the young woman should be required to receive a get. Ibn Habib is willing to sacrifice the daughter of Moshe Pinto to the cause of acknowledging the authority of the Romaniot rabbinate.45

Clearly for both Ibn Habib and Aroquis, the question of sivlonot was not just another legal problem. This was an issue that aroused in both men strong feelings of communal pride and deepest fears of cultural extinction. Ibn Habib and Aroquis agreed that Sephardi culture must be preserved and its communal independence asserted and that numerical superiority provided the legal, moral, and practical basis for attaining this independence. The two scholars were as one in their reverence for the previous generation of Sephardi scholars and the Sephardi tradition as a whole.

Nonetheless, the two responsa differ vastly in their assessment of the relative strengths of the Sephardi and Romaniot cultures, the ultimate goal of the reemerging local Sephardi community, and the correct approach in realizing this goal. As we have seen, Ibn Habib was in awe of the great Romaniot sage, Eliyahu Mizrahi, recognized his authority, and acknowledged the fact that Romaniot scholars possessed books that were unavailable in Spain. He perceived the Sephardim as unstable and unsettled, huddling in the rafters of the Romaniot homes. His concern was for the continuity of Sephardi culture and his means of ensuring this survival were subtle and politic. Aroquis, by contrast, asserted not only the greatness of the Sephardi tradition but its superiority over Romaniot culture. His goal was Sephardi cultural hegemony. Perhaps Ibn Habib, as a more prominent scholar, was better able to assess the true quality of Romaniot culture and, as a communal leader, was more keenly aware of the need to proceed with caution and act with finesse in relations with the Romaniot community.⁴⁶

Feminine Virtue: Avraham Ibn Yaish and Eliyahu Mizrahi

Although the opinion of the Romaniot chief rabbi, Eliyahu Mizrahi, was cited by Ibn Habib and clearly influenced the decision of his correspondent, the responsa of Ibn Habib and Aroquis in the Pinto case record a legal controversy within the Sephardi community between Sephardi scholars. Mizrahi himself was not a party to the correspondence. When the question of “suspecting sivlonot” arose somewhat later in Istanbul, it triggered a direct confrontation between Mizrahi and the Sephardi scholar Avraham Ibn Yaish.47 Ibn Yaish wrote two responsa in the same case, which were rebutted by Mizrahi.⁴⁸ The date of these responsa is unknown, though the death of Eliyahu Mizrahi in 1526 provides a terminus ad quem. The first question was tersely worded and included only a vague outline of the case, while the second question provided more details, apparently in an attempt to either appeal the first decision or clarify it in light of new information about the case.

The first query sent to Ibn Yaish, although providing little information, asked big questions: A man in Istanbul, where the receipt of sivlonot is considered proof of kidushin, became engaged to a woman in Salonika, where the receipt of sivlonot is not considered proof of kidushin. The man sent his bride sivlonot and afterward the engagement was broken off. Should we suspect that kidushin had in fact taken place and that the couple are legally tied because the sivlonot were sent from Istanbul, where sivlonot are considered proof of kidushin? What would the judgment be in the opposite situation, if the sivlonot had been sent from Salonika to Istanbul?⁴⁹

Ibn Yaish reviews the history of the controversy in Jewish law and cites the statement of Eliyahu Mizrahi that there was an agreement among the sages of the land, with almost the status of a communal ordinance, that any woman who had received sivlonot would be considered legally wed. The opinion of Ibn Yaish is that the custom of the place of receipt of the sivlonot, in other words the home of the bride, determines whether they will be regarded as proof of kidushin. He bases his opinion on the reasoning behind the varying customs with regard to sivlonot and offers a psycho-historical explanation for the origins of the differing customs.⁵⁰ Like Ibn Habib, Ibn Yaish posits that those who give sivlonot only after kidushin do so in order to eliminate the risk of the bride breaking off the engagement after receipt of the sivlonot and thereby causing the groom monetary loss and embarrassment. Those who give sivlonot before kidushin do so because they are not concerned with the possibility of a broken engagement. Ibn Yaish’s insight is that the potential behavior and trustworthiness of the bride is at the heart of the issue of the timing of the sivlonot, and that therefore the custom of the home community of the bride is the decisive factor in each case.

According to Ibn Yaish, local custom has developed in accordance with the mentality of the women of each community; because each community has determined its custom based on its assessment of the character and behavior of its women. In communities in which the women regard the unilateral termination of an engagement as reprehensible and immodest, an act tantamount to licentious behavior that will cause them shame and opprobrium, they are unlikely to break off an engagement. In these communities, bridegrooms, assuming the risk of a broken engagement to be small, are willing to take the risk of presenting expensive gifts to their fiancées and give sivlonot after the engagement but before the kidushin. On the other hand, in a society in which the breaking off of an engagement is considered a light matter and perfectly acceptable, men are reluctant to risk financial loss by investing money in a relationship that might end. They therefore do not give sivlonot until after kidushin, when the woman is legally wed to them and unable to end the relationship unilaterally.51

Though he worded his remarks in purely neutral terms, it is clear that Ibn Yaish was referring to two specific communities, the Sephardi community, in which engagements are taken seriously and thus sivlonot precede kidushin, and the Romaniot community, in which an engagement can be broken lightly and therefore sivlonot are only given after the legally binding kidushin. In his description of the mentality of those who break engagements lightly, he is in effect casting aspersions on the character and morality of the Romaniot women. Ibn Yaish’s remarks are general, without reference to specific incidents, and it is difficult to determine whether he was writing from personal observation of this community, from existing stereotypes or preconceptions within the Sephardi community, or merely theorizing. It is interesting to compare his analysis to the far more plausible explanation of Ibn Habib, that the legally binding nature of the engagement (shidukhin) in Spain, and not the frame of mind of the women, provided bridegrooms with enough peace of mind to send sivlonot before kidushin. Like Ibn Habib, Ibn Yaish explains the historical development of the custom as a response to a group mentality, which is then reinforced by the custom itself. Ibn Yaish’s discussion must be understood in the context of a society in which marriages were arranged for children by their parents, with little or no consideration for the personal feelings or preferences of the bride and groom. A young woman (or man) who refused to enter into the marriage arranged by his parents rejected parental authority and caused his family embarrassment and possible financial loss.52

His remarks are significant for what they reveal about the author’s attitudes toward women and sexual morality. Particularly revealing is the connection between the breaking of an engagement and sexual immorality, which Ibn Yaish attributes to the community that does not suspect sivlonot (the community following the Sephardi custom). In the scenario presented by Ibn Yaish, a woman who broke off an engagement would be shamed, but not because she had broken her word and revealed herself to be unstable or unreliable. The woman who breaks off her engagement “will become an object of shame and disgrace, as though she had committed a serious act of sexual indiscretion (pritzut gedola) and had left the path of modesty (tzeniut).”⁵³ According to Ibn Yaish, communities in which women can be relied upon not to break engagements are by definition communities in which the women have a reputation of modesty. In one of these communities, if a groom were to agree to give sivlonot only after kidushin, the family of the bride would be insulted and consider his offer a slur upon the character of their daughter. Ibn Yaish claims to have heard of such a case. Throughout his discussion, Ibn Yaish juxtaposes the modest woman (“tznua”) who will not break off an engagement with the licentious woman (“prutza”) who will do so.

Why should breaking off an engagement be considered an act of immodesty tantamount to a serious sexual indiscretion? The answer perhaps lies in Ibn Yaish’s discussion of those communities where breaking off an engagement is considered socially acceptable (communities that suspect sivlonot, in accordance with the Romaniot custom):

There are other places where even if a woman breaks off an engagement it will not be considered a matter of great disgrace because people say that it would be worse for her to marry a man whom her heart does not desire, and they fear the gentiles, lest this cause girls to stray from the correct path. The woman herself is not concerned that people will say that she broke off an engagement because in that place they are already accustomed not to take much notice of this.⁵⁴

In these communities the act of breaking off the match is not justified in terms of the non-binding nature of the agreement, nor explained on the basis of financial considerations. The bride’s behavior is assumed to be motivated solely by her personal feelings and accepted by others on that basis. In these communities, breaking the engagement is considered to be only mildly reprehensible because it is deemed to be worse for a woman to marry a man she does not desire. In addition, there is the fear that a woman facing the prospect of an unwelcome match, or already unhappily wed, will become involved in licentious behavior outside the Jewish community. It is not clear whether this implies formal conversion and abandonment of the Jewish community or merely association with undesirable elements in the surrounding society. From the use of the conjunctive “and,” it would appear that Ibn Yaish attributed to this society a genuine recognition of a woman’s right to marital happiness unrelated to the fear that she will ultimately behave in even less appropriate ways if forced to marry a man she does not want. Nonetheless, the concern that an unhappy woman is at risk of leaving the fold and engaging in undesirable behavior outside the Jewish community was clearly an important factor in acknowledging her feelings.55 In this climate of opinion, the individual woman is not afraid to break off her engagement, because others have done so before her without censure.

In both of the scenarios described by Ibn Yaish, the bride is motivated to break off her engagement by her desire for romantic or sexual happiness. Ultimately, her behavior is determined by the mores of the society around her. In the first scenario, the decision to dissolve her engagement would be considered by her society an act of immodesty tantamount to an actual act of sexual indiscretion because, like such an act, it is motivated by romantic or sexual desires that are allowed to override other considerations. By acting on the basis of her own feelings and making her desires paramount, the woman is behaving immodestly. In the second scenario, the society around her similarly understands the underlying motivation of her desire to end the engagement. In this case, however, her society acknowledges her feelings and perhaps even legitimizes them.⁵⁶

We must ask to what extent Ibn Yaish’s remarks reflect the social reality of his time and accurately portray different types of behavior and attitudes prevalent in the Jewish communities of his day. Even if Ibn Yaish was merely theorizing in an attempt to support his opinion that the custom of the community of the bride determines each case, he nonetheless derived his theories from the society around him. Were there women who broke off engagements on the basis of their personal desires? Were there voices that acknowledged that a woman’s right to marital happiness should outweigh other considerations, if only for pragmatic reasons, and other voices that severely censured a woman who acted, even within the parameters of the law, on the basis of her personal desires? Were these disparate voices divided along communal lines, with Sephardim maintaining a high ground of sexual morality, and the Romaniots showing more leniency, as Ibn Yaish’s words would imply? Though he did not name the respective communities, in discussing the historical origins of the disparity in customs, Ibn Yaish did imply the moral superiority of Sephardi women over Romaniot women. Communal pride remained part and parcel of the sivlonot issue for him, as it had been for Ibn Habib and Aroquis. It is unclear whether his remarks were based on self-serving theorization and generalizations or reflect genuine differences in attitudes between the communities. However, the control exercised by Romaniot women over their dowry (nedunyah) referred to by Ibn Habib would indicate that Romaniot women enjoyed more independence than their Sephardi counterparts and corresponds to Ibn Yaish’s remarks about their relative freedom to exercise control over their choice of marriage partners.57

Ibn Yaish perceived Romaniot women as less modest than their Sephardi counterparts, a distinction he used to explain differing attitudes toward the breaking off of an engagement. This perception may reflect a higher level of autonomy granted to women in Romaniot communities, as seen in the control of a wife over her dowry. Ibn Yaish viewed a unilateral decision by a woman to dissolve a match for personal reasons to be an expression of sexual immodesty. Sexual modesty as understood by Ibn Yaish clearly involved the subjugation of personal feelings and desires to communal or familial obligations.

The second responsum of Ibn Yaish was apparently in response to a second question about the same case that included many more details.⁵⁸ A Jewish man in Salonika betrothed his daughter to a man living in Istanbul. They appointed two arbitrators to determine the date of the marriage, the size of the dowry, and the amount of the marriage contract, and they agreed to delay the kidushin until after the arbitration. In the meanwhile, the groom sent sivlonot to his fiancée, as the custom in Salonika was to send sivlonot before kidushin. The father of the bride then moved his family to Istanbul. Upon their arrival, the mother of the groom went to visit her prospective daughter-in-law and gave her as a present a gilded comb. The groom himself sent a young boy to the house of the bride with presents, a pair of ladies’ shoes and candy, without specifying for whom the gifts were intended. The delivery boy handed them to the mother of the bride. Afterward a quarrel broke out between the two parties, the arbitrators refused to settle upon the conditions of the marriage as they saw that the match was not to succeed, and the marriage was called off. Although the groom did not claim that he had sent the sivlonot as kidushin, other people raised the question of whether the giving of the sivlonot rendered the bride a married woman in a legal sense, because the groom was from Istanbul, where the sivlonot were considered to be indicative that kidushin had taken place. Furthermore, the question was raised if either the comb that the mother of the groom gave to the bride or the shoes and candy that the groom sent to the bride’s family should be considered sivlonot. The groom maintained that the gifts he had sent were intended for his fiancée. The bride’s family maintained that the gifts were not intended for her, but for her mother, in return for a gift that she had sent the groom. They cited as proof the fact that the shoes were too large for a young girl.59

The wording of the responsum reflects a patriarchal society in which a man betrothed his daughter to another man and made all prenuptial arrangements and agreements. However, the mothers of the young couple played a limited role in the engagement by presenting gifts to their prospective in-laws. We can only speculate as to the motives of the mother of the groom in visiting her prospective daughter-in-law. It would appear from the wording of the responsum that this was not an established custom. Was she vetting her, satisfying a natural curiosity, or simply being courteous? Was the gift of the comb merely a gesture of goodwill, or was it intended to establish a quasi-legal bond between mother and daughter-in-law that paralleled the intensive negotiations being conducted between the male members of the families? The presents sent by the bride’s mother to the groom may have been in response to this previous gift. The bride and groom themselves were both minors; the bride did not yet wear an adult shoe size and the young couple themselves would appear never to have met.⁶⁰ Both the arrangement of the match and its dissolution were conducted by their fathers. Nonetheless, their voices are heard in the responsum. The bride herself, in addition to her parents, is quoted denying having personally received gifts from the groom. The groom himself is described as the active party in both sending the gifts and affirming that he sent them to the bride specifically.

Ibn Yaish responded that neither the sivlonot sent to Salonika nor the gifts given in Istanbul could be considered as proofs of marriage because both parties had agreed to postpone the kidushin until the finalization of the financial arrangements. Because no agreement was ever reached as to the terms of the marriage, the couple had not yet formally agreed to marry and were never properly engaged. Sivlonot are considered as proof of marriage only in the case of a couple who have formally agreed to marry. In addition, Ibn Yaish reiterates his position that because the sivlonot were given in Salonika, a city where everyone gives sivlonot before kidushin and no one considers them as proof of marriage, they cannot be considered proof of marriage even if the groom was in Istanbul, for it is the custom in the home of the bride that determines the matter. He further notes that because the gifts exchanged in Istanbul were between the families of the couple, and not the couple themselves, they were not in fact sivlonot and could not be considered as either constituting kidushin or as proof of it having occurred.61

It is important to note that in this second responsum dealing with the actual details of the case at hand, the morality or virtue of the bride is not an issue. Ibn Yaish’s discussion of feminine virtue in the earlier responsum provided the theoretical underpinnings for his ruling that the custom of the home of the bride is the determining factor. In this responsum, Ibn Yaish reiterates his previous position without reintroducing his sociological explanation. In the actual case at hand, the engagement had not been broken by the bride, and thus her motives and virtue are not relevant to the case. As a jurist, Ibn Yaish acknowledges the autonomy and credibility of the women involved in the case. He rules that the mother of the groom cannot be considered her son’s agent in the gift of the comb without explicit proof, and accepts the fact that she acted of her own volition. He notes that if anyone may be considered an agent in the giving of gifts, any engaged woman could become married by the receipt of a gift from a third party. He similarly rules that the groom’s claim that the gifts he sent to the home of the bride were intended for her personally could not be accepted without confirmation from the bride. Ibn Yaish maintains that a woman’s inherent status as free to marry cannot be taken from her without proof, certainly not on the word of the man who claims to have married her. Thus, in the absence of witnesses, the bride’s claim that she did not receive gifts from the groom determines her freedom.⁶²

In his rebuttal to Ibn Yaish, Eliyahu Mizrahi maintained that the intentions of the groom upon sending the sivlonot, and not the custom in the home of the bride, are the decisive factor in determining the legal implications of the sivlonot. Since a man can be assumed to act according to the custom of the place in which he resides, the custom of the community of the groom determines whether they are to be taken as proof of marriage. Mizrahi considers the sivlonot sent from Istanbul to be clear proof of kidushin and rejects the agreement between the two parties not to perform kidushin until after the negotiations as proof that kidushin did not take place. Mizrahi suspects that the groom sent his mother to give the comb to the bride as sivlonot. He cites the fact that in most cases the parents of the groom send the sivlonot on his behalf. According to Mizrahi, it was common for the mother of the groom to personally take the sivlonot to the bride on behalf of her son, a practice he considers a modest and dignified alternative to the practice of sending the sivlonot with a group of people in a noisy, ostentatious fashion. He supports his contention with observations about the mother-son relationship in his time. Due to the intimacy of their relationship, young men confide in their mothers (and not their fathers) in nuptial matters and rely upon them to make secret deliveries to their fiancées.63 Mizrahi perceives the mother of the groom as her son’s confidante and trusted agent in sending sivlonot. Ibn Yaish perceives her as autonomous, acting of her own volition. Both rabbis perceive the mother of the groom as acting outside the jurisdiction of her husband.

The responsa of Ibn Yaish reveal very different patterns of acculturation and demographic change from those portrayed in the responsa of Ibn Habib and Moshe Aroquis. Ibn Habib described Istanbul as a great city exerting influence over its satellite communities, including Edirne. Though the Sephardim of Edirne constituted a numerical majority, they did not have communal autonomy. In contrast, Ibn Yaish, in his first responsum, explains that Istanbul stands alone in its adherence to the Romaniot practice.⁶⁴ Edirne, like Salonika, follows the Sephardi practice and does not appear to be under the hegemony of Istanbul.⁶⁵ In his second responsum, Ibn Yaish clarifies that the prevalent custom in Istanbul with regard to sivlonot is the Sephardi custom of giving sivlonot before kidushin. Only a minority of the Jewish population of Istanbul give sivlonot after kidushin. Because of the possibility that the minority custom was followed, and the impracticality of investigating each case separately, the giving of sivlonot in Istanbul can be considered proof of kidushin.⁶⁶ Thus, the only difference between the practice in Salonika and in Istanbul is that in Salonika the Sephardi custom was practiced exclusively, whereas in Istanbul it was practiced by the majority, with a minority holding out and maintaining the Romaniot custom. This would indicate that by the time of the responsum, Sephardi Jews either constituted a numerical minority in Istanbul, considered to be the stronghold of the Romaniot population, or that a significant number of the Romaniot population had adopted the Sephardi custom.⁶⁷ Perhaps the explanation is to be found in the phenomenon described above by Moshe Aroquis, that other communities were adopting Sephardi traditions.

Likewise, Ibn Yaish describes widespread intermarriage among the three largest Jewish communities. On a regular basis, men from Istanbul become engaged to women in Edirne and Salonika and send them sivlonot, while men from Edirne and Salonika become engaged to women in Istanbul and send them sivlonot.⁶⁸ This fluidity would indicate either a significant Sephardi population in Istanbul or a high rate of intermarriage between Romaniots in Istanbul and Sephardim in the other cities.

Ibn Habib and Aroquis addressed the issue of sivlonot as a test case for the preservation of Sephardi tradition. The legal issue was discussed within the context of the integration of the Sephardim into their new communities. Though they responded to the challenge in very different ways, both Ibn Habib and Aroquis were clearly threatened by the strength of the Romaniot rabbinate. For Ibn Habib and Aroquis, the question of suspecting sivlonot exemplified the precariousness of the continuity of Sephardi culture. The entire question of sivlonot was viewed in terms of intercommunal struggle, and specific allusions to both communities of origin abound.

In contrast to Ibn Habib and Aroquis, Ibn Yaish does not make use of the terms “Sephardim” or “Romaniots.” He differentiates between the custom of Istanbul and that of Salonika, in other words, between cities, not between ethnic communities. Within Istanbul, he merely describes two groups of people, the majority who give the gifts before kidushin and the minority who deliberately insist upon giving sivlonot only after kidushin. This wording may be an indication that the division in practice was no longer drawn entirely along ethnic lines, with many Romaniots adopting the Sephardi custom. He explains that the reason for considering the receipt of sivlonot in Istanbul as possible proof of marriage in general is that it is impractical to determine on an individual level to which group each couple belongs. These remarks would indicate a high level of assimilation between the Sephardi and Romaniot communities in Istanbul, or possibly the adoption of the Sephardi practice by a significant part of the Romaniot community and other communities. It would appear, then, that the majority were a heterogeneous mix of Sephardim, Romaniots and others following Sephardi tradition, and the minority a homogenous group of Romaniots clinging tenaciously to their tradition in the face of the Sephardi onslaught. Ibn Yaish determined that in the case before him, the groom, who had already sent sivlonot to Salonika before kidushin, could be assumed to adhere to this custom and not the minority custom in Istanbul.69 The responsum of Mizrahi is similarly free from any reference to specific communities of origin.

The reality described in the responsa of Ibn Yaish is in practice a complete Sephardi cultural hegemony with a minority of the population in Istanbul adhering to Romaniot custom, which nonetheless gives that city the status of a city in which sivlonot are suspected. The numerical majority of Sephardi Jews outside of Istanbul and the adoption of Sephardi traditions by other communities attested to in the earlier responsa had produced a situation of Sephardi hegemony. Those maintaining the Romaniot tradition were an isolated minority. The continuity of Sephardi culture in general, and its tradition with regard to sivlonot in particular, was assured. In this context, Ibn Yaish felt no need to assert the predominance of the Sephardi custom. Ibn Yaish did not view the issue of sivlonot in terms of the continuity of the Sephardi tradition, because the Sephardi tradition had become dominant. The question of what was to be the local custom with regard to sivlonot, which had troubled Ibn Habib and Aroquis, had been resolved. Everywhere except Istanbul, the “custom of the place,” the minhag hamakom, was Sephardi.

Nonetheless, the unique legal status of Istanbul as a city in which sivlonot are suspected, the blurring of communal lines within the city, the fluidity in population between the major cities, and frequent marriages between residents of different towns created legal problems. In this new reality, Ibn Yaish and Mizrahi were faced with a new question: Which city, the home of the bride or the home of the groom, would determine practice regarding sivlonot? In addressing this new question, the focus of the respondents shifted from determining the decisive cultural tradition, Sephardi or Romaniot, to determining the decisive role in the transfer of sivlonot: giving or receiving, groom or bride, male or female. According to Ibn Yaish, the question of whether sivlonot are to be suspected is decided according to the practice in the home of the bride, because basic assumptions concerning the character and behavior of the bride determine the intentions and behavior of the groom. Sivlonot thus became for Ibn Yaish a women’s issue. He ascribes the historical origins of the variant traditions to the sexual morality of the women in each community. He likewise posited that the expectations and behavior of contemporary grooms in intercommunal marriages are determined by these same assumptions of female behavior in the opposite community. Any individual bride is presumed to act in accordance with the mores of her community, and any groom will act in accordance with his perception of the women in the bride’s community. This nexus between tradition, communal mores, and feminine virtue forms the basis of Ibn Yaish’s decision on the matter of sivlonot. In his rebuttal, Mizrahi accepts the basic framework of the question as presented by Ibn Yaish, yet argues instead that the behavior and intentions of the groom are presumed to be in accordance with the custom of his city, and not his perception of the societal norms in the community of his fiancée.

Communal Pride and Feminine Virtue: The Case of Jamila

A responsum of Eliyahu Mizrahi on the suspicion of sivlonot in another case of a broken engagement provides us with a test case of the issues raised in the previous responsa. A widow by the name of Jamila became engaged to a man by the name of Shlomo through the intercession of Don Shemuel Ben Benbenest.70 Jamila agreed to the match and shook hands with Don Shemuel to signify that the match had been made. Two or three hours later, Shlomo sent Jamila two scarves or veils to replace her widow’s garments. Shlomo claimed that Jamila accepted the veils from the hands of his messenger, a woman by the name of Palomba, but returned them to her to be replaced by better quality veils more befitting her dignity. Jamila, however, claimed that she had no intention of accepting the veils from Palomba because her discussions with Don Shemuel were conditioned upon the approval of the leaders of the Sicilian community. However, the leaders of the Sicilian community did not approve of the match and therefore she also withdrew her agreement to it. When Don Shemuel heard that Jamila had gone back on her word, he went to her and chastised her, reminding her that they had shaken hands on the agreement. She replied that although at the time of the agreement this condition was not mentioned, nevertheless, everything she said on this matter from the beginning to the end was based on this assumption, and therefore, there was no need to mention it at the time of the final agreement. When Don Shemuel heard this, he released her from her bond and told her that she was free to act as she saw fit. Some time afterward, Jamila became legally betrothed to another man (by kidushin). At this point, Shlomo brought two witnesses to testify that Jamila had accepted the two veils as sivlonot in her own hands and afterward handed them to Palomba to be altered. The question includes the testimony of these two witnesses who, after the engagement was broken off, went with Palomba to Jamila’s house to reprimand her for breaking off the match. According to the witnesses, Jamila initially denied receiving sivlonot. When Palomba recounted how Jamila had received from her the sivlonot, asked her whether they befitted her dignity, and then returned them to her for alteration, Jamila fell silent, and afterward said “so what” and “I don’t want him.”⁷¹

Mizrahi declared Jamila free of any connection to Shlomo and legally betrothed to her new husband. He based his decision on the strength of her claim that she did not receive sivlonot from Shlomo, a claim that in his mind was bolstered by her subsequent dissolution of the engagement and betrothal to another man. He similarly accepted her claim that her agreement to the match was conditioned upon the approval of the elders of her community, and that their disapproval forced her to break her agreement. In this judgment, Mizrahi affirmed the credibility and reliability of the testimony of a woman with regard to her marital status. We have seen above that Ibn Yaish made a similar pronouncement, when he declared the bride a free woman on the basis of her own testimony. In that case, Mizrahi had ruled differently, declaring the bride to be in need of a divorce on the assumption that the groom’s mother had acted as his agent in bringing sivlonot to the bride. It is difficult to reconcile these two judgments. Nonetheless, despite the disparity in the rulings of Mizrahi, both he and Ibn Yaish recognized the inherently free marital status of a woman and her right to testify with regard to her own marital status.72

Before examining this responsum further, it is important to establish the communal identity of the main characters involved. Jamila was of Sicilian extraction. At the end of his responsum, Mizrahi refers to her as a “woman by the name of Jamila Siciliana,” and it would appear that “Siciliana” was an appellation denoting place of origin and not a proper family name. Sicily was under the dominion of the Crown of Aragon, and the expulsion of the Jews from Sicily followed shortly after their expulsion from Spain.⁷³ The matchmaker, Don Shemuel Ben Benbenest, who still bore his Spanish title, was from an important Sephardi family that settled in Salonika after the expulsion, where he was an influential member of the community.⁷⁴ The origin of the prospective groom, Shlomo, is unclear, though his agent, Palomba, bears an Italian or Spanish name. The man to whom Jamila is ultimately betrothed is referred to by Mizrahi as “Yehuda Portugez” (“the Portuguese”). Again, it would appear that the second name was a designation of his place of origin and not a family name.

As a widow, Jamila was acting as an independent woman with regard to her remarriage. She did not negotiate directly with the prospective groom, but with a matchmaker, Don Shemuel, whose interest in the matter is unclear and was possibly professional. Don Shemuel and Jamila sealed the agreement with a handshake, a traditional means of solemnizing a formal engagement.⁷⁵ It would appear that in this final agreement Don Shemuel was acting as the proxy for Shlomo because it was deemed to be immodest for the couple to meet directly and shake hands. When the engagement was broken, Don Shemuel specifically mentioned the handshake as an indication of the finality of their agreement. Apparently Don Shemuel had no qualms about negotiating directly with a woman or shaking hands with her. Similarly, the match was officially broken through the intermediacy of the matchmaker; it was Don Shemuel who formally released Jamila from her agreement. As in the previous case, there is no indication of any direct contact between the bride and groom either in the negotiations preceding the match, the finalizing of the agreement, the giving of the sivlonot, or the dissolution of the engagement.

The responsum, as a record of a dispute between two parties, contains two conflicting explanations as to why Jamila did not keep the garments and why she broke off the engagement. Jamila’s story was that she acted out of deference to the opinion of the elders of her community. The exact reason for her deference to communal leadership in this matter is not specified. We may surmise that her decision was motivated by communal allegiance and genuine reliance upon the decisions of its elders or a sense of obligation to act in accordance with their wishes.76 According to her version of events, she never accepted the sivlonot because the match was never really finalized.

Shlomo claimed that Jamila accepted the garments from Palomba as sivlonot, but, disappointed with the quality of the veils, she returned them to be exchanged for ones more suited to her dignity. Jamila’s alleged disappointment in the veils was crucial to Shlomo’s case as an explanation of why, having received sivlonot, she did not keep them in her possession. Shlomo was also clearly insinuating that Jamila’s disapproval of the quality of the sivlonot was the real reason behind her subsequent decision to end the engagement. According to Palomba, Jamila asked her if she thought the veils to be “befitting her dignity.” Though Palomba answered in the affirmative, Jamila then returned them to her to be suitably altered.

Jamila’s reaction to the veils can be interpreted in several ways. Jamila may have been insulted by the low quality of the gifts she had received, perceiving a real or intended slight to her honor. Jamila’s disappointment in the sivlonot may also have irrevocably damaged her opinion of Shlomo. She may have perceived him as cheap or gauche or lacking good taste. (One can tell a lot about a man from the gifts that he gives.)

Another personal motive that could be ascribed to Jamila is disappointment with the financial or social position of the groom and concern for her own future social status. According to the testimony brought by Shlomo, Jamila clearly stated that she considered the veils unbefitting to her status. The quality of the gifts would have reflected poorly on the financial and social position of the groom.⁷⁷

Though not implied in the text, it is possible that Jamila was disappointed by the very nature of the sivlonot. As we will learn in a later responsum of Mizrahi, sivlonot were usually jewelry.⁷⁸ In another responsum Mizrahi defined sivlonot as objects of beauty sent by the groom to his bride for her to adorn herself with, as it is the way of the world for husbands to spend as much money as they can afford to buy beautiful things for their wives to wear. In the event of the death of either party or the dissolution of the match by either party, the sivlonot must be returned to the groom or his heirs. The exception to this rule is sivlonot of clothing, which will wear and fade and is not returned to the groom.79 The veils may have been intended as preliminary gifts to enable Jamila to take off her widow’s clothes and assume her new status as an engaged woman, and would have been followed by gifts of jewelry later. On the other hand, it is possible that Shlomo sent clothes because he could not afford jewelry, a possibility that would certainly have occurred to Jamila. Jamila emerges from the portrait painted by Shlomo as a proud woman, sensitive to a real or implied slight to her dignity, or a snob, or possibly both. In any case, her decision was personal and emotional. A witness quotes her exclaiming in frustration: “I don’t want him!”

Discerning fact from fabrication on the basis of the information presented is difficult. Shlomo’s version is buttressed by the witnesses he brings to a subsequent conversation between Jamila and Palomba in which Jamila allegedly revealed her personal dissatisfaction with the groom.⁸⁰ Shlomo’s version of events is plausible, and it is possible to conclude that her disappointment in the value of the sivlonot and thus in the groom himself prompted Jamila to cancel the match, a decision which she later explained by the more honorable excuse of needing the approval of her communal leaders (approval that could have been sought in the earlier stages of the negotiations). On the other hand, it is important to emphasize that Jamila won her case. Without witnesses, and despite the testimony brought against her, she succeeded in convincing two eminent personalities, Don Shemuel and Eliyahu Mizrahi, of the veracity of her story. Mizrahi ruled in her favor on the basis of the credibility of her testimony.⁸¹ Jamila’s ability to convince her contemporaries is some indication of the inherent credibility of her story. It is also an indication of the willingness of the male establishment to accept the testimony of a woman with regard to her own marital status.

It is possible that Jamila acted from a combination of both motives: at first rejecting the veils for their quality and later, upon hearing the advice of the elders (and possibly after informing them of the poor quality of the sivlonot), rejecting the match. It is more likely that one of the two litigants was lying, which one we are unable to determine on the basis of the evidence before us. This does not detract from the importance of this document as a record of social history. Lies are usually scenarios deemed to be believable and thus reflect the liar’s perception of social reality. We can perhaps learn more from lies than from truths about social mores. Even if Jamila did not need the approval of the elders, she considered such a need to be plausible and even honorable in the eyes of her society, and was correct in her assessment, because both Don Shemuel and Mizrahi accepted her excuse. Either Jamila’s communal identity and her respect for the opinion of its elders was the motivating factor in her decision, or she successfully played the communal identity card as a means to extricate herself from the match, fully cognizant of the importance of communal identity and obedience to communal authority in the society around her. Similarly, even if he fabricated the testimony against her (possibly with the collusion of Palomba), Shlomo considered Jamila’s alleged concern over the value of the veils to be plausible. Apparently in his society great importance was attached to the monetary value of the sivlonot.

We have before us a practical example of the theoretical case discussed by Ibn Yaish: An agreement to marry has been made by two parties, and the groom invests money in the match by sending sivlonot. The bride, after receiving sivlonot, breaks off the engagement, leaving the groom at a financial loss and humiliated. This case conforms to the second scenario described by Ibn Yaish, a society in which breaking off an engagement was clearly unacceptable. Jamila was severely chastised for her decision by Don Shemuel, Palomba, and the two witnesses. However, the case of Jamila conforms more closely to the model of Spanish societal norms presented by Ibn Habib, namely that the stigma against breaking an engagement in Sephardi society was the result of the legal force of the engagement contract. Jamila and the matchmaker made a legally binding agreement that the match between her and Shlomo would take place. They solemnized this agreement with a handshake, which is twice referred to as having the legal status of a kinyan. Jamila is censured by the matchmaker, the two witnesses, and Palomba because she went back on her word and broke the agreement. Both Don Shemuel and Palomba specifically mention the severity of breaking an agreement solemnized by a handshake.

In his theorizing, Ibn Yaish explained the woman’s change of heart as a matter of the heart. In the case before us there does not appear to have been any direct contact between the bride and groom. Never having met Shlomo, Jamila’s motive in rejecting him could not have been romantic. Nonetheless, according to the version of events presented by Shlomo, Jamila rejected Shlomo for personal reasons. The exchange of sivlonot through an intermediary, the only contact between the couple, went badly, leaving the bride determined to end the match. Yet Jamila could not officially explain her decision on the basis of these personal considerations and found legal recourse in claiming the existence of a pre-condition to the agreement. Jamila ultimately ascribed dissatisfaction with the groom not to her own heart but to the minds of her communal elders. Breaking an engagement after the handshake was clearly unacceptable in Jamila’s society. For a woman to do so, of her own volition, out of personal considerations was apparently even less acceptable.

Though the case of Jamila conforms to some extent to the model of the “Sephardi” society presented by Ibn Yaish, the association made by Ibn Yaish between sexual morality and a woman’s breaking an engagement is not reflected in this responsum. Though Jamila is harshly criticized for her behavior by both Don Shemuel and Shlomo’s witnesses, no aspersions are cast upon her sexual morality, nor is she accused of a lack of modesty. She is chastised solely for breaking a commitment. The only motives ascribed to her, by insinuation, are pride and snobbery.

The responsum reveals a high level of cross-cultural influence and intercommunal fluidity, which indicates a blurring of intercommunal boundaries. The origins of the parties involved are not presented as significant to the case, and neither their location nor the local customs are mentioned in either the question or the responsum. This lack of background information is in stark contrast to the responsa of Ibn Habib and Aroquis, in which the communal origins of the parties involved are emphasized, and to the responsa of Ibn Yaish, in which locality and local custom are emphasized. Clearly the case before us conforms to the model of the “Sephardi” society as described by Ibn Habib, Aroquis, and Ibn Yaish. Yet, according to these scholars, it is precisely in this society that sivlonot are not suspected as being proof of kidushin. As all three scholars emphasized, the Sephardi mentality does not suspect sivlonot.82 Although there is no definite indication in which city this case took place, the involvement of Don Shemuel would seem to place the events in Salonika, a city with a Sephardi majority in which sivlonot were not suspected, according to Ibn Yaish.⁸³ It is clear that the bride was Sicilian and the matchmaker and possibly the messenger of the groom were of Sephardi origin, and thus presumably not accustomed to legal significance being attached to the receipt of sivlonot. Why, then, is Jamila accosted by an acquaintance (one of the witnesses) who, after censuring her behavior, tells her that, having received sivlonot from Shlomo, she is now to be considered legally wed to him?⁸⁴ Was he a Romaniot imposing his views on a Sicilian woman, or do his words reflect the influence of Romaniot belief on the Sephardi population? Furthermore, the legal question at the heart of this case is whether Jamila personally accepted the veils as sivlonot from Shlomo, and, if so, if she is to be considered legally wed to him as a result. Yet this question is of no legal significance unless one accepts the Romaniot position that receipt of sivlonot can be taken as proof of kidushin, because the local custom is to send sivlonot after kidushin. In a society truly conforming to traditional Sephardi custom, this legal question would never have been asked. It is clearly not coincidental that the query was sent to the foremost Romaniot scholar of the day, for it is a question of relevance only under the assumption of the Romaniot position that sivlonot are proof of kidushin.

Why, then, did Shlomo bring this case against Jamila? His origins are not specified, which is in itself indicative of how marginal communal origin had become to the issue of sivlonot. Does his concern for the issue of sivlonot indicate a Romaniot origin? Yet, he chose a Sephardi as his agent for negotiating the marriage agreement and chose as his agent for sending the sivlonot a woman with the distinctly Latin name of Palomba, who, after the dissolution of the match, remained on his side, vociferously defending his claim and chastising Jamila. It would appear that Shlomo was either a Romaniot with close ties to the Sephardi community, or a Sephardi who was sufficiently aware of Romaniot custom to realize the potential of using the claim of sivlonot for vengeance or the extortion of money in exchange for a get.

Moreover, Jamila, who claimed to be dependent on the approval of the elders of her Sicilian community, negotiated with a Sephardi matchmaker apparently unaffiliated with the Sicilian community and in the end married a Portuguese man, a match that presumably was approved by the Sicilian elders. At the time of the query, Jamila was betrothed to her second husband by kidushin but apparently not yet married (under the hupah).85 They seem to have acted according to what Ibn Habib described as the minority custom of preexile Spain, performing kidushin immediately after the shidukhin and the nisuin at a later date, as opposed to the majority custom of combining the two ceremonies. It is also possible that, though neither the bride nor the groom were Romaniot, they were influenced by the Romaniot custom of performing kidushin and nisuin separately, another possible indication of Romaniot influence on Sephardi practice. In any case, the incident raises questions as to the point at which the two ceremonies were finally combined in the Sephardi community.

We have examined a legal case based upon Romaniot custom, presented to a Romaniot sage, in which a Sicilian woman becomes engaged to a man of unknown communal affiliation, through the intermediacy of a Sephardi, and subsequently marries a Portuguese. Though the details of the case reveal a blurring of communal boundaries, communal identity, and affiliation, Jamila’s own communal allegiance, her alleged dependence upon the approval of the elders of her community, forms the legal crux of this case. Like the responsa discussed above, this responsum also reveals a nexus between communal allegiance and feminine virtue. They are the two points of the axis upon which this case revolved. While Jamila wrapped herself in the mantle of deference to communal leadership, her adversaries cast aspersions upon her character, openly accusing her of the dishonor of breaking her word, and subtly accusing her of pride and snobbery. In the case of Jamila, the issue of sivlonot had lost its broader cultural and communal significance and devolved into a question of the moral character of the bride-to-be.

Toward a Comprehensive Solution: Avraham Ibn Yaish and Eliyahu Mizrahi

At some point, apparently toward the end of Mizrahi’s life in 1526, Ibn Yaish consulted him directly on the definition of sivlonot and communal regulation of the sivlonot issue. In doing so, Ibn Yaish echoed the deference shown to the great sage by Ibn Habib.86 Ibn Yaish addresses Mizrahi as the “gadol hador” and “harav hamuvhak,” terms denoting the highest rabbinic authority of the time. He presents himself as a servant or son who is seeking instruction in the matter of sivlonot. In his question to Mizrahi, unlike in his own responsa, Ibn Yaish addresses the sivlonot issue from the communal perspective. He explains that because the Sephardim were not accustomed to suspecting sivlonot, and he is a stranger in this land, he is unfamiliar with the laws concerning sivlonot, and would like Mizrahi to clarify aspects of the law that are unclear to him, so as to prevent him from making an error in judgment if a case should ever come before him. He has consulted other scholars but received conflicting answers. In this introduction, Ibn Yaish adopts the same posture as Ibn Habib toward Romaniot custom: As strangers in the land, the Sephardim are obligated to follow the customs of the land, and therefore Ibn Yaish is asking Mizrahi to teach him these customs. Throughout the responsum, Ibn Yaish addresses his questions to Mizrahi as a disciple addressing his master (“teach me, my master”). However, despite the reverential tone of his address, the actual content of Ibn Yaish’s letter is a direct confrontation with Mizrahi on the salient points of the sivlonot controversy that he had raised in other responsa. Ibn Yaish describes the enforcement of the suspicion of sivlonot in Istanbul, where only a minority give sivlonot after kidushin, as a stringency upon a stringency that encroaches upon the inherent status of a woman as single and free to marry. He describes the decision to consider gifts of food as sivlonot (apparently a reference to Mizrahi’s ruling in a previous case) as very strange.⁸⁷

After raising several technical questions as to the circumstances in which a gift may be considered sivlonot, Ibn Yaish turns to what was clearly his main objective, the proposal of possible solutions to the problem. Ibn Yaish first suggests that either the bride declare upon receipt of the sivlonot that these gifts are not being accepted as kidushin, or a communal ordinance be made within the Sephardi community imposing a fine on anyone who does kidushin without a quorum of ten men and the cantor of the community.88 Ibn Yaish’s final suggestion is that a communal agreement be made, with the penalty of a fine, that no man perform kidushin without first sending sivlonot, thus giving the entire city the legal designation of a place where sivlonot are given before kidushin.⁸⁹ Unlike in his previous proposal, Ibn Yaish does not suggest that this ordinance be confined to the Sephardi community. This is understandable, because by its very nature, for the agreement to have any legal effect, it would have to include the entire Jewish population of Istanbul, especially the minority of Romaniots who were tenaciously adhering to their tradition. This solution to the problem involves the imposition of a communal ordinance that would require the Romaniot community to abandon their practice in favor of the Sephardi tradition. The proposed agreement is reminiscent of the ordinance made more than half a century earlier by the assembly of rabbis in Spain, mentioned by Ibn Habib.⁹⁰ The proposed ordinance is in direct contradiction to the agreement or quasi-ordinance cited by Ibn Habib in the name of Mizrahi, according to which a woman who has received sivlonot is to be considered legally betrothed and in need of a get. The reverential tone of the letter, though possibly sincere, was clearly designed to ameliorate the enormity of the concession Ibn Yaish was asking Mizrahi to make.

At the same time, however, the very fact that Ibn Yaish saw the issue of sivlonot as a communal problem requiring a solution on a communal level indicates the tenacity of Romaniot tradition in this matter. If, as Ibn Yaish maintained, (like Ibn Habib and Aroquis before him) Sephardim do not suspect sivlonot, and the Sephardim and those who followed them outnumbered the Romaniots, there should not have been a “problem” of sivlonot. Clearly society at large, including the Sephardi community, had been influenced by the Romaniot mentality on this issue, if only because they feared that their daughters could be made agunot at the hands of unscrupulous men and indifferent rabbis. Ibn Yaish began his list of proposed solutions by raising the theoretical question of how to advise a man with an engaged daughter who fears that the “suspicion of sivlonot” will be raised.⁹¹ Apparently the case of the daughter of Moshe Pinto, which had so affected Moshe Aroquis, had made an impact on the Sephardi community as a whole, reinforced by subsequent cases of “suspicion of sivlonot.”

Mizrahi opens his response by addressing Ibn Yaish as his beloved friend, an appellation that apparently reflected both the warm tone of the question and a sincere friendship between the two men. In his response, Mizrahi clearly affirms the traditional Romaniot position: The prevalent custom is to send sivlonot only after kidushin, and thus the receipt of sivlonot can be taken as proof of kidushin. Mizrahi’s response provides details of current customs in the giving of sivlonot. Mizrahi perceives a certain flexibility in the social and legal norms regarding the contents of the gifs and the details of the manner of giving them. Some grooms send the sivlonot by messenger with noise and fanfare. Others bring them quietly by themselves to their fiancées without any witnesses. Both customs are acceptable. He confirms that it was customary to give jewelry but reaffirms his position that gifts of fruit or other foods are also to be considered sivlonot.92

Mizrahi then addresses the proposals raised by Ibn Yaish for the regulation of the sivlonot issue. He discounts the legal efficacy of most of the suggestions made by Ibn Yaish. He does, however, accept the final suggestion offered by Ibn Yaish: If all the Jewish communities of the country agree that everyone, without exception, will only send sivlonot before kidushin, there will no longer be any reason to suspect kidushin when sivlonot have been sent.⁹³ Whereas Ibn Yaish did not specify the scope of the communal agreement, Mizrahi clarifies that it must include all the communities of the country, not only Istanbul. In agreeing to Ibn Yaish’s proposal, Mizrahi made a huge concession to Sephardi tradition, revealing a willingness to abandon the Romaniot custom in the interests of communal unity and regulation. Mizrahi made a conscious decision to repeal the previous communal agreement upon which he had based his earlier rulings. It could be said that in deliberately advocating a proposal known by him and others to have been adopted in Spain, a proposal now raised by a Sephardi scholar and which would impose Sephardi custom on the Romaniot community, Mizrahi was making a gesture of respect or goodwill to the Sephardi community, agreeing to a compromise on the issue of sivlonot to avoid direct confrontation and friction between the two communities. It is possible that Mizrahi’s proposal reveals the largesse and self-confidence of a recognized communal leader striving to accommodate all members of the extended Jewish community for the sake of peace and unity. On the other hand, it could be argued that his desire to compromise was born of weakness, of his awareness of the growing isolation of the Romaniot community in the face of the reemerging, numerically superior Sephardi community and those who were joining them. Mizrahi’s agreement to the proposal may well have been a concession to a new reality in which only a minority of the population of Istanbul followed the Romaniot tradition.94

According to Eliyahu HaLevi, a younger colleague of Mizrahi and Ibn Yaish, the death of Eliyahu Mizrahi in 1526 prevented the promulgation of this ordinance and cast the entire matter into a state of confusion. It is understandable that the promulgation of an ordinance eradicating a Romaniot tradition would have been possible only under the authority of the great Romaniot sage. HaLevi vowed later to complete the task and bring the Jewish community of Istanbul into line with all the other Jewish communities who had long since ceased to “suffer under the burden of the sivlonot” (a play on the double meaning of the word in Hebrew).⁹⁵

Ibn Habib’s politic approach of overt reverence for Mizrahi and recognition of his authority, combined with a subtle assertion of Sephardi autonomy, was continued by Ibn Yaish with great success. The autonomy of the Sephardi peripheral communities cautiously asserted by Ibn Habib had transformed within seventeen years to the hegemony of the Sephardi tradition in the heartland of Romaniot culture, Istanbul. The vision of Aroquis had been realized in an astonishingly short period of time. Eliyahu Mizrahi, the great lion rising from the East in Ibn Habib’s imagery, whose opinion had rendered the daughter of a distinguished Sephardi family an agunah, accepted, less than seventeen years later, the proposal of a Sephardi scholar for a compromise solution that would impose Sephardi practice on the Romaniot population. Nonetheless, the Romaniot community maintained its autonomy: Ibn Yaish felt it necessary to consult Mizrahi before undertaking communal regulation of the sivlonot issue, and in the absence of the great Romaniot sage, he was unable to resolve the issue.

By piecing together details gleaned from the responsa on sivlonot, a picture emerges of the process of getting married in a Sephardi community in the Ottoman Empire in the early sixteenth century. Negotiations were held between the bride and groom’s families, possibly with the help of outside agents, arbitrators, or matchmakers. When a financial understanding was reached, a formal and legally binding agreement would be made between the two parties that the marriage would take place. The agreement would be given legal validity by a handshake between the two parties. After the formal agreement to marry, the groom sent the bride sivlonot, gifts of jewelry or clothing, or, more rarely, food. The sivlonot were often sent with a pomp and fanfare followed by a large and noisy crowd. They could also be sent quietly, by means of a single messenger or agent appointed by the groom. This agent could be a woman, possibly the groom’s mother. The value of the sivlonot was in accordance with the social and financial status of the groom and his bride. There is no indication of any direct contact between the bride and groom throughout this process. Sometime after the receipt of the sivlonot, the marriage ceremony, which combined kidushin and nisuin, would be performed under the hupah. The Romaniot custom would differ in that after an informal agreement to wed had been made, instead of a making a legally binding contract to wed, the couple would become legally betrothed through kidushin, sivlonot would be sent, and then, some time afterward, the couple would wed under the hupah.

As jurists, all of the respondents accorded to women certain basic rights and revealed an inherent respect for their credibility and reliability. Ibn Habib praised the merit of the Romaniot practice of affording women control over their dowries. Both Ibn Yaish and Mizrahi perceived women as autonomous agents and credible witnesses and accepted the testimony of women with regard to their own personal status.

The picture of the larger Jewish community that emerges from these responsa is of a new community in transition, coalescing from disparate components into an essentially cohesive unit. It was a fluid society both demographically and culturally. Families moved from one city to another and marriages were made between people from different cities. Despite strong ties to the community of origin, people of different communities married each other and were influenced by each other’s customs. Sephardi custom was dominant, yet the recurrent raising of the “suspicion of sivlonot” itself reflects the influence of Romaniot mentality on the society at large. With the salient exception of Moshe Aroquis, the respondents revealed a high level of genuine respect for the scholars and traditions of the other community and a strong and overriding desire for intercommunal cooperation and unity.

Throughout the responsa, the theme of communal identity is interwoven with the themes of the virtue of women and their rights within the process of matchmaking. Moshe Aroquis and Yaakov Ibn Habib used the plight of the daughter of Moshe Pinto as a platform from which to launch the resurgence of the Sephardi community. Aroquis’s outcry at the denial of her right to marry was intended to galvanize his community into asserting its supremacy. Ibn Yaish compared the laxity within Romaniot society, with regard to ending engagements, to the severity within his own Sephardi society, a comparison that he related to the relative modesty of the women in each community. He used this comparison to explain differences in custom between the two communities and to propose a solution to the conflicts arising from intercommunal marriages. Jamila was either persuaded by communal disapproval to withdraw from a marriage agreement, or used reliance on communal approval as an excuse to extricate herself from a match she had rejected for personal reasons. The motives and rectitude of her behavior were challenged by her peers and former bridegroom until they were finally condoned by Mizrahi. Ultimately, Ibn Yaish, arguing that the Romaniot stringency regarding sivlonot infringed upon the inherent right of a woman to marry, persuaded Mizrahi to accept an intercommunal resolution to the “suspicion” of sivlonot.

Notes

The research for this paper was done under the auspices of the Hispania Judaica Research Project: The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain and its Aftermath in the Life of the Refugees and their Children, of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, with the support of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

1. See Joseph Hacker, “The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth Century,” in The Sephardi Legacy, ed. Haim Beinart (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 113–118. On the Ottoman policy of resettlement see Joseph Hacker, “The Sürgün System and Jewish Society in the Ottoman Empire during the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries,” in Ottoman and Turkish Jewry, ed. Aron Rodrigue (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 1–65, especially 33–39.

2. See Hacker, “The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth Century,” 109–118. On the immigration of the Spanish exiles to Istanbul, interethnic encounters, and Sephardi identity in Istanbul see Minna Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul in the Formative Years, 1453–1566 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 45–98.

3. Talmud Bavli, Kidushin 51a.

4. For a concise review of the discussion in the Middle Ages and an analysis of the controversy concerning sivlonot in Italy between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Roni Weinstein, Marriage Rituals Italian Style (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 262–310.

5. It is interesting to note that the controversy over sivlonot in Italy reached its peak in the 1520s, contemporaneous to the responsa discussed here, and, similar to the responsa discussed here, it arose in the context of intercommunal conflict between the indigenous community and new immigrants. Weinstein, 303–310.

6. Ibn Habib was born in Zamora, Castile between 1440 and 1450. He served as the head of the yeshiva (Talmudic academy) of Salamanca, one of the largest yeshivot in Spain. After the exile he went to Portugal and then to Salonika by 1501, where he served as rabbi of the Congregation of the Exiles until his death in 1515/1516. Joseph Hacker, “Rabbi Jacob b. Solomon Ibn Habib—An Analysis of Leadership in the Jewish Community of Salonika in the XVIth Century,” The International Congress of Judaic Studies 6:2 (1973): 117, 120 (in Hebrew). Ibn Habib is best known for his homiletic work Ein Yaakov and was the father of Levi ben Habib, an eminent rabbinic scholar of the second generation of Sephardi exiles.

7. Sefer Zera Anashim, ed. David Frankel (Husiatin: Kahn and Fried, 1902), (#43), 66–67. On the dating of the responsum see Hacker, “Ibn Habib,” 121, n. 9. Ibn Habib addresses his correspondent as “Yaakov.”

8. Ibid., 74.

9. Eliyahu Mizrahi was born in Istanbul (then Constantinople) in 1450. He was of native Romaniot descent. After the death of Moshe Capsali in 1498, Mizrahi became the foremost rabbinic authority in the Ottoman Empire. He died in 1526.

10. Mizrahi’s contemporaries, including the Spanish exiles, regarded him as the leading authority of his time in Jewish law in the area of Istanbul. Joseph Hacker, “The ‘Chief Rabbinate’ in the Ottoman Empire in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” Zion 49 (1984): 251–254 (in Hebrew). Hacker also comments upon Ibn Habib’s unusual reverence for Romaniot scholarship and brings an example of it from Ein Yaakov. Hacker, “Ibn Habib,” 122.

11. The reference is apparently to Itzhak De Leon, Itzhak Aboab, and Shmuel Valensi, the three great disciples of Itzhak Canpanton. Ibn Habib was the disciple of Valensi. Avraham Gross, “A Sketch of the History of the Yeshivot in Castile in the Fifteenth Century,” Pe’amim, 31 (1987): 8 (in Hebrew).

12. Eleazer Gutwirth has commented on the nexus between physical and intellectual insecurity in the animus of the exiles. Eleazer Gutwirth, “Continuity and Change after 1492,” in Jews and Conversos at the Time of the Expulsion, ed. Yom Tov Assis and Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1999), 93–96.

13. Zera Anashim, 74. On the commitment of the Spanish exiles to cultural renewal see Joseph Hacker, “The Intellectual Activity of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, eds. Isidore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 133–135.

14. The fusion of kidushin and nisuin into one ceremony began in France and Germany in the eleventh century, from whence it spread to Spain, Provence, and Northern Italy during the course of the twelfth century. In Southern Italy, Byzantium, Israel, and North Africa the ceremonies remained separate. The greater legal force given to the shidukhin is generally explained as a natural result of the combination of kidushin (legally binding betrothal) and nisuin. At the end of the eleventh century, Judah of Barcelona quoted in his Sefer haShtarot an example of a written contract for a shidukhin agreement that stipulated a fine as penalty for breach of contract, which could be extracted by recourse to the non-Jewish authorities. Ze’ev Falk, Jewish Matrimonial Law in the Middle Ages (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 36, 86–87, 93–95.

15. Zera Anashim, 67–68.

16. Ibid., 72. This responsum further adds to our knowledge of marriage customs in the Jewish communities of Spain. Ishbili mentions two Romance terms for “bride,” “espanza ” and “novia,” used imprecisely by the Jews of Spain in his day (13–14th century) to designate an engaged woman who had not yet accepted kidushin.

17. Ibid., 69.

18. Ibid., 73–74.

19. Zera Anashim, 71.

20. Ibid., 67.

21. Ibid., 71.

22. Zera Anashim, 71. Israel Ta-Shma explains that the Tosafot’s method of interpreting the Gemara was in contradiction to the method of studying Gemara of the great teachers of fifteenth-century Spain mentioned by Ibn Habib (including Itzhak Aboab and Itzhak De Leon, among others). These scholars therefore deliberately ignored the commentary of the Tosafot and emphasized the commentaries of the Ramban. The Sephardi exiles became acquainted firsthand with the commentaries of the Tosafot from their contact with Romaniot scholars, who were deeply influenced by Ashkenazic scholarship. Ta-Shma cites this passage from Ibn Habib to illustrate his remarks. Israel Ta-Shma, “The State of Talmudic Studies in Fifteenth Century Spain,” in Jews and Conversos at the Time of the Expulsion, ed. Yom Tov Assis and Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1999), 52, 61–62 (in Hebrew).

23. Zera Anashim, 71. His remark is a poignant reminder of the dominance attained by the Italian Hebrew printing presses after the premature death of the Spanish Hebrew presses. See Menahem Schmelzer, “Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books among the Sephardim before and after the Expulsion,” in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardi World 1391–1648, ed. Benjamin R. Gampel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 259. Ibn Habib wrote in the introduction to his homiletic work Ein Yaakov that a dearth of books had delayed the completion of the work until he was able to avail himself of the extensive library of the Benveniste family in Salonika. Ibid., 265. Hacker, “Intellectual Activity,” 104–105. In Ein Yaakov, Ibn Habib mentions a poem he had not seen in Spain, shown to him by a local scholar. Hacker, “Ibn Habib,” 122, n. 11.

24. Zera Anashim, 75.

25. Ibid., 71. Hacker writes that the amassing of books in the Ottoman Empire after the exile led to intellectual cross-fertilization among the various immigrant groups. He attributes this mainly to the influx of books brought by the Spanish exiles. He documents other examples of exiles carrying their books with them (or attempting to). Hacker, “Intellectual Activity,” 104–105.

26. Gross, 8.

27. Ta-Shma, 57.

28. On Aboab, see Gross, 11–12.

29. Zera Anashim, 73.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid. On the pride felt by the Iberian exiles for their tradition, and scholars and the importance they ascribed to maintaining these traditions despite the injunction to follow local tradition, see Joseph Hacker, “Pride and Depression: Polarity of the Spiritual and Social Experience of the Iberian Exiles in the Ottoman Empire,” in Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel BenSasson, ed. Menahem Ben Sasson et. al. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1989), 570 (in Hebrew).

32. Zera Anashim, 73–74.

33. Ibid., 73.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid., 73–74.

36. Ibid., 74.

37. Hacker, “The Sürgün System,” 34–35. Hacker mentions Edirne as a place, like Istanbul, where the Romaniot population remained strong and continued to determine public practice (Hacker, “The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth Century,” 111). He brings no evidence for this. The words of Ibn Habib, Aroquis and Ibn Yaish (see below) contradict this and reveal Edirne to be a community in which the Sephardim achieved numerical superiority and cultural supremacy by the early sixteenth century.

38. Zera Anashim, 75.

39. Hacker uses this responsum, among others, to examine the leadership of Ibn Habib. Hacker concludes that Ibn Habib’s authority did not extend beyond Salonika, and that outside his own city, Ibn Habib conceded authority to the Romaniot rabbinate, especially in the area of Edirne, because of its proximity to Istanbul. Hacker, “Ibn Habib,” 120. As my analysis has shown, Hacker’s conclusion is only partially correct. Though Ibn Habib does, at face value, concede authority to the Romaniot rabbinate, with great subtlety he lays the foundation for Sephardi autonomy, specifically in Edirne and its environs. Hacker writes that the judgments of Ibn Habib in the matter of sivlonot, among others, were not accepted because they contradicted Romaniot practice. Even within Salonika, Ibn Habib’s authority was limited to the Sephardi community and not all his rulings were accepted even by them. Hacker draws the general conclusion that in the first two decades of Sephardi settlement in Salonika, the Sephardi rabbinate had only a limited local jurisdiction. Yet their judgments became tools in the hands of the next generation of Sephardi scholars in Salonika who extended their influence to other localities and communities (Ibid., 122–123).

40. Zera Anashim (44), 75. See Hacker, “The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth Century,” 111, and “Pride and Depression,” 570–572. Hacker remarks that in Aroquis’s words the local population does not exist and the injunction to follow local custom is not mentioned. These remarks do not reflect the content of the responsum as a whole, as my analysis will show.

41. Zera Anashim, 87. On the attitude of cultural superiority adopted by the Iberian exiles toward their new neighbors, and the conversion of these neighbors to Sephardi practice, see Minna Rozen, “The Self-Definition of Iberian Jews in the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in In the Mediterranean Routes: The Jewish-Spanish Diaspora from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries, Minna Rozen (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1993), 9–12 (in Hebrew). Rozen quotes this passage from Aroquis as an expression of Sephardi superiority. The other emigrant groups that adopted Sephardi practice were apparently from southern France and Italy. Ibid., 10. See also, Minna Rozen, “Individual and Community in the Jewish Society of the Ottoman Empire: Salonica in the Sixteenth Century,” in The Jews of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Avigdor Levy (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1994), 217–218.

42. Zera Anashim, 87.

43. Ibid., 88–89.

44. Ibid., 89. After briefly discussing the responsa of Ibn Habib and Aroquis, Freimann compares the Sephardi hegemony over the local population described by Aroquis to the situation in the Jewish community of Sofia. Avraham Freimann, The Procedure of Betrothal and Marriage from the Canonization of the Talmud to Today (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1948), 154–156 (in Hebrew).

45. Ibn Habib’s seeming indifference here to the plight of this young woman is reminiscent of his stringent ruling in the case of widows legally tied to their apostate brothersin-law in accordance to the law of levirate marriage. See Zera Anashim 53, 89–90, and my article: Hannah Davidson, “Exile, Apostasy and Jewish Women in the Early 16th Century Mediterranean Basin,” Hispania Judaica Bulletin 6 (2008), 133–162.

46. Hacker writes that Aroquis was influenced primarily by the increasing numerical strength of the Sephardi emigrants and explains the moderation and prudence of Ibn Habib as the products of his personality and contact with Romaniot scholars. Hacker, “Ibn Habib,” 121–122, n. 10.

47. Ibn Yaish came from a family of noted scholars in Spain and settled in Istanbul soon after the expulsion. He was among the most important scholars in the city and on close terms with Eliyahu Mizrahi, with whom he served as a dayan (judge) in the bet din (rabbinical court). He worked as editor and proofreader of some of the first Hebrew books published in Istanbul. Meir Benayahu, “Rabbi David ben Ben Venest of Salonika and His letter to Rabbi Abraham Ibn Yaish in Brusa,” Sefunot 11 (1977): 267–298. Schmelzer, 263. Hacker, “Chief Rabbinate,” 252, n. 133. See also Joseph Hacker, “The Responses of the Exiles to the Spanish Expulsion and to the Forced Conversion in Portugal,” in Jews and Conversos at the Time of the Expulsion, ed. Yom Tov Assis and Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1999), 228.

48. The responsa of Ibn Yaish were preserved in the collection of responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (Istanbul: 1560; Jerusalem: Darom, 1938, Jerusalem: 1984), (#17, 43–46), (#18, 49–52.) (All references are to the 1938 edition unless otherwise stated.) Rozen briefly discusses the responsa of Ibn Yaish and Mizrahi on sivlonot. I disagree with her conclusions. Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul in the Formative Years, 132–133, 137–138. Rozen provides an English translation of part of responsum 18. Ibid., 358–361.

49. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (17), 43.

50. Ibid., 45.

51. Ibid.

52. Avraham Grossman has found that despite the Talmudic injunction not to arrange a marriage for a daughter until she is old enough to declare whom she wants to marry (Talmud Bavli, Kidushin 41a), it was customary for Jewish parents in the Middle Ages to find partners for their children without consideration for the desires of the young people themselves. Exceptions can be found in Sefer Hasidim and in Renaissance Italy. Avraham Grossman, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Europe in the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 2003), 98–106 (in Hebrew). In her discussion of betrothal in Jewish society in Istanbul in the sixteenth century, Rozen concludes that “love and passion existed, but were not viewed as necessary or important issues when the marriage of a son or daughter was being considered,” (Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul in the Formative Years, 129). On sanctions against breaking off engagements in medieval Jewish society, see Grossman, 88–98. The case before Ibn Yaish was an arranged marriage. For further details, see below.

53. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (17), 45.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid. Ibn Yaish was possibly influenced by the opinion of the Babylonian Gaonim who considered the interference of a woman in the choice of her marriage partner to be an act of indiscretion: “There is no licentiousness (pritzut) or impudence (hutzpah) among the daughters of Israel such as to express their opinion and say ‘I want so-and-so.’ Rather, they rely upon their fathers.” Grossman, 98 (my translation).

56. The basis for this fear can be heard in the words of a young woman, imploring her lover to marry her, who threatens that if he does not remove her from her father’s house she will run off with a non-Jew. The story is related in a responsum of Eliyahu Mizrahi. Eliyahu Mizrahi, Mayim Amukim (Berlin, 1798), (31), 17.

57. Zera Anashim, 74. See above.

58. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (18), 49–52.

59. Ibid., 49.

60. They are described in the responsa as “katan” and “na’ara k’tana.” The delivery boy who is described as “na’ar ehad katan” is also described as being about nine years old. The bride and groom may have been older but they were clearly children. On the age of marriage in Istanbul in the sixteenth century see Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul in the Formative Years, 114. On child marriage in other Mediterranean communities in the sixteenth century see Ruth Lamdan, “Child Marriage in Jewish Society in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Sixteenth Century,” Mediterranean Historical Review 11, 1 (1996): 37–59.

61. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (18), 49–50.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid. (19), 52–53. Also see Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul in the Formative Years, 127. Rozen writes that the question at hand was whether sending presents by the mother indicated less of a commitment and concludes from this that pre-marital negotiations were often conducted by the mother. I would disagree both with this understanding of the question and the conclusions drawn from it. Rozen provides a partial English translation of the responsum. Ibid., 362–365. Mizrahi’s words would seem to imply that relationships, possibly secret, between engaged couples were normative in Romaniot society.

64. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi, 45.

65. His observations conform to what we know from other sources about the decentralization of leadership in the Jewish communities of the Levant in the sixteenth century, namely the weakening of the power of the Istanbul rabbinate and the ascendancy of the new immigrant communities in the Balkans. See Mark Alan Epstein, “The Leadership of the Ottoman Jews in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, eds. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982), 1: 101–115. See also Hacker, “Chief Rabbinate,” 253–255.

66. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (18), 52.

67. According to Hacker, the Spanish exiles became a majority in Istanbul by the beginning of the sixteenth century. Nonetheless, the Romaniot community there remained strong and assimilated to Sephardi culture at a slower rate than in other communities. Hacker, “The Sürgün System,” 34.

68. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (17), 46.

69. Freimann cites evidence of Romaniot adherence to the “suspicion” of sivlonot in Edirne in the seventeenth century and evidence that in Istanbul the suspicion of sivlonot was long regarded as a particular Romaniot tradition. In subsequent Jewish legal literature, Istanbul was regarded as a place where sivlonot were suspected. However, Freimann remarks that in addition to the Romaniot communities throughout the country that adhered to their tradition regarding sivlonot, the entire city of Istanbul, including all of its communities, maintained this tradition (Freimann, 156–160). This is contradicted by the words of Ibn Yaish, quoted by Freimann on the following page. Freimann failed to distinguish between the legal status of Istanbul as a place where sivlonot are suspected and the actual practice of most of its residents.

70. Istanbul, 1560. The name appears as Ben Beset in the 1938 edition. See below n. 72.

71. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (69), 236. (Responsum #68 in Istanbul, 1560).

72. Ibid., 236–239.

73. On the Jewish community in Sicily and Sicilian Jews in the Ottoman Empire see Simon Schwarzfuchs, “The Sicilian Jewish Communities in the Ottoman Empire,” Italia Judaica V (Atti del V convegno internazionale Palermo, 15–19 giugno 1992) (1995): 397–411, and Nadia Zeldes, The Former Jews of this Kingdom. Sicilian Converts after the Expulsion (1492–1516) (Leiden: Brill, 2003).

74. Don Shemuel was the son of the influential Don Meir Benbenest. He was about twenty-five years old at the time of the exile. In Salonika he engaged in trade and intellectual pursuits and was the owner of an extensive and famous library. Shlomo Avraham Rosanes, The History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1930), 1: 81–82 (in Hebrew). Benayahu, 269, n. 1. Schmelzer, 265.

75. On the history of the custom of shaking hands to ratify an agreement to marry in both the Jewish and European traditions, see Falk, 88, 99–109. Grossman stresses the gravity of the obligation made by a handshake in medieval Jewish society. See Grossman, 92.

76. According to Rozen, communal leaders would arrange matches for people with no parents or close relatives (Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul in the Formative Years, 127). Though as a widow, Jamila arranged the match for herself, perhaps she nonetheless felt compelled to rely upon their final judgment, in accordance with this tradition.

77. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (69), 236. (Shlomo is in fact described as “poor” by one of the witnesses, though this could have been said to elicit sympathy, and the meaning may be “unfortunate.”)

78. See below n. 82.

79. Mizrahi discussed sivlonot briefly in a responsum concerning a different type of prenuptial gift, the gifts given by the father of the bride to his son-in-law. Mizrahi addressed a long-standing question in Jewish law: in the event of the untimely death of a bride without children, must the groom return to her father the wedding gifts that he received from him? His discussion of this question also reveals the tension between the Romaniot and Sephardi traditions and the need to establish new communal norms in light of current demographic changes. Mizrahi proposes a Greek etymology for the word “sivlonot,” presumably in order to emphasize the importance of Romaniot tradition on the subject. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (16), 42–43. For a discussion of the return of wedding gifts in the event of the death of the bride, in general (though not the responsum of Mizrahi), see Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul in the Formative Years, 124–126. Simha Assaf, “The Family Life of the Jews of Byzantium,” in The Jubilee Volume of Professor Shmuel Kreuss (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1937), 174–175 (in Hebrew).

80. Rozen accepts Shlomo’s version of events and mistakenly identifies Yehuda Portuguez as the rejected fiancé. Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul in the Formative Years, 128, n. 16, 141.

81. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (69), 237, 238.

82. With regard to Ibn Yaish, see below.

83. Rozen describes Jamila as an “Istanbuli widow,” though it is not clear on what basis (Rozen, 141). The “suspicion of sivlonot,” which is at the heart of the case, is more appropriate to the context of Istanbul, for the reasons described in the responsa of Ibn Yaish.

84. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi, 236.

85. The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi, 236, 239.

86. The question of Ibn Yaish appears in another edition of the responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (Mayim Amukim, [Berlin: 1778] [38], 23a–b). In The Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi, only the responsum of Mizrahi appears immediately after the first responsum of Ibn Yaish on the question of sivlonot discussed above, and under the same caption (question number 17), 46–49. (Freimann, 156–160.) Evidence that the death of Mizrahi in 1526 prevented the promulgation of the ordinance discussed in the responsum suggests that Ibn Yaish sent his question to Mizrahi in the year or so prior to Mizrahi’s death. See Freimann, 159.

87. Mayim Amukim, 23a.

88. This later proposal had a long legal history both in Spain and Byzantium. See Frei mann, 95.

89. Mayim Amukim, 23a–b.

90. The scholars of Medina del Campo took a more direct approach to the problem (according to the account of Ibn Habib) in that they agreed simply not to suspect sivlonot without requiring every groom to give sivlonot before kidushin. Zera Anashim, 72. Ibn Yaish’s proposal was designed to create a new legal reality.

91. Mayim Amukim, 23a.

92. Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (17), 46–49.

93. Responsa of Eliyahu Mizrahi (17), 49.

94. A similar communal ordinance had been in effect in Italy since the late fifteenth century, as attested to by Joseph Colon in a responsa on the subject of sivlonot. Weinstein, 271. It is very likely that Mizrahi was influenced by Italian practice.

95. Eliyahu HaLevy, Zakan Aharon (Istanbul, 1734) (150), 83. Freimann, 159. None of Mizrahi’s students and successors, including Eliyahu HaLevy, attained his stature or level of authority. Hacker, “Chief Rabbinate,” 253. Hacker cites Freimann, yet concludes that Istanbul adhered to the “suspicion of sivlonot” in accordance with the ruling of Mizrahi (Ibid., n. 140 and 141). The opposite is true. The death of Mizrahi prevented the reversal of the custom.