I’ll end on a less dire note with this introduction to the life and work of Abraham Ibn Daud (1110–1180), a Cordovan rabbi who spent most of his adult life in Toledo, and could be considered the Diaspora’s first Jewish historian. Tamar Marvin explains his most famous work, Sefer ha-Kabbalah, or the Book of the Tradition:
Sefer ha-Kabbalah is, to our modern eyes, largely unsourced and at times clearly fabricated, for example, lifting tropes from well-known aggadot [rabbinic tales] of the Babylonian Talmud. It is also a masterpiece of premodern historiography that serves as one of our best and only sources for many events, especially those occurring in medieval Spain. In its partial truths, as we would identify them today, it also records kernels we know to reflect historical realities, as well as informing us about the communal-historical beliefs of Jewish elites in 12th-century Spain.
Read more on Stories from Jewish History: https://trmarvin.substack.com/p/before-history-avraham-ibn-daud-and-819