JEWISH MOMENTS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL

1515. An Astronomer and A Kabbalist in Rags: Iberian Exiles in Jerusalem

Around 1515, a letter left Jerusalem describing two exiled Iberian scholars as the city’s poorest men. Written to a powerful patron abroad, it sought help for these refugees and anchored their suffering in the wider Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel. The story of that letter, its author, and its subjects shows how, even in extreme poverty, Jerusalem remained a chosen destination for Jews after the expulsions from Spain and Portugal.

The testimony comes from a Hebrew letter in the Cairo Geniza, composed in Jerusalem by the Spanish exile R. Moshe Castro, around 1515. R. Castro wrote as a local communal figure addressing a wealthy diaspora leader, probably in one of the established centers of the Ottoman or Italian Jewish world. His purpose was straightforward and practical: to secure sustained financial support for the struggling Jews of Jerusalem.

The letter reflects a mature, organized system of assistance from the diaspora to the Jews of the Land of Israel. Already in the late Middle Ages, emissaries were regularly dispatched from Jerusalem and Safed to collect funds in communities in Europe and the Mediterranean. These donations were understood as a unified lifeline connecting dispersed Jewish communities to a permanent Jewish presence in the Holy Land. R. Castro’s letter belongs to this genre of appeal.

At the time of the letter, Jerusalem was still emerging from the Mamluk period and on the eve of the Ottoman conquest of 1516–1517. Its Jewish........

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