SHELOMO BONAFED

(final third of the fourteenth century–after 1445)

The youngest member of ‘Adat Nognim was SHELOMO BONAFED. A prolific poet, he wrote with apparent ease about everything he encountered, and his work is marked above all by its individuality, vitality, density, and poignancy. Far more than the other poets of the Saragossan circle, Bonafed reacted in his poems to the events of his day and the hardships faced by the Jewish community. He saw himself as both a defender of the faith in troubled times (on which see, “World Gone Wrong,” below), and, eventually, the last Hebrew poet of Spain: “When I die,” he wrote, conjuring the most famous musicians and singers of the Psalms, “Yeduthun and Heman will pass away with me. / When I disappear, my generation will be silent as a widower.” The Golden Age of Andalusian poetry was a distant memory, having come to an end in the mid-twelfth century with the emigration of Yehuda HaLevi to the east and the Ibn Ezras to the north; the Catalan-Provençal school of the thirteenth century had no heirs; Todros Abulafia’s work (unknown to Bonafed) was a thing of the past; and the founders of ‘Adat Nognim were dying out. As the self-perceived last poet of a late renascence, with his potential audience evaporating (through conversion) before him, Bonafed bore a heavy burden. Though hardly a major figure, he responded valiantly, and the extant manuscripts of his work contain several hundred poems, only a handful of which have been published. Of these, fewer still have been presented with a critical apparatus that would make his work accessible to the general reader.

Bonafed ranged widely in his studies and seems to have known both Latin and Spanish (and sometimes written in the latter). His philosophical work suggests that he was familiar with Christian Scholastic philosophers, from Thomas Aquinas to Raymond Lull. On the Hebrew and literary side of the ledger, Bonafed identifies, as did Vidal Benveniste, with the major Andalusian writers, as well as with the important poets of Provence and Aragon, including Meshullam DePiera, Avraham HaBedershi, and Yedaya HaPenini. Apart from the time he spent in Tortosa during the Disputation, Bonafed seems to have lived and taught for most of his life in the small towns of Aragon and Catalonia: Cerezo, Mora, Tarrega, Ixar, and Belchite. He also lived for a considerable period of time in Saragossa, though at the end of his life he entered into a harsh confrontation with the leaders of the Jewish community there. Like his eleventh-century namesake—Shelomo Ibn Gabirol—and the poet Yehuda Ibn Shabbetai, Bonafed was forced out of the city and wrote a scathing series of poems and prose sketches attacking his oppressors. Midway through the longest poem in this series (excerpted below), which imitates Ibn Gabirol’s “On Leaving Saragossa” in both form and content, the earlier poet appears to him (like Milton appearing to Blake) as a giant angel who confirms their common greatness. In actuality, the two poets shared little beyond their hot temper and contempt for what they perceived to be the fraudulence of the Jews who controlled the cultural and religious scene in Saragossa.

Curiously, Bonafed addresses the poem to his former friend, the new Christian Yosef Ben Lavi, who had converted, along with Shelomo DePiera, after the Disputation at Tortosa. Bonafed attended that sad event (“where most of the Kingdom’s poets gathered”) and was deeply marked by it—though he did find time for an exchange of poems with another writer, who in the midst of this most fateful of trials had criticized Bonafed’s meter in certain verses; the insulted Bonafed responded with characteristic zeal, defending his metrical honor. Following the Disputation, Bonafed and other members of the Jewish community continued to write to converted colleagues, sometimes praising their wisdom and talent and lamenting their having abandoned the faith and entered the “bitter waters” of baptism. Some wrote back, in Hebrew. One of these exchanges across the religious divide resulted in the poem “Wherever You Go” (also below) which was sent to Astroq Rimokh, a formerly Jewish poet who had converted and assumed the name Francesc de Sant Jordi. While Rimokh’s conversion may have been partly a matter of fashion, he soon took it to heart. In a letter to one Shealtiel Bonafos, the erstwhile Jew tries to persuade Bonafos to follow suit and leave his Judaism behind. Francesc ends that letter by describing himself as “your faithful soul, formerly of Israel’s fold, which knew not God. Francesc de Sant Jordi.” Shelomo Bonafed eventually saw Francesc’s letter and—having decided that his friend Bonafos’s reply had been too forgiving—he wrote back in defense of the faith. The conciliatory tone of the second half of the poem, and its encomium, are surprising, given that this poem was appended to Bonafed’s far harsher prose reply.

WORLD GONE WRONG

A VISION OF IBN GABIROL

WHEREVER YOU GO

(for the convert Francesc de Sant Jordi)