A Hebrew poetry contest in early-fifteenth-century Zaragoza

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article studies an unknown letter found in a manuscript belonging to the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. The letter was written by Shelomo ben Reuben Bonafed (Aragon, first half of the fifteenth century), known as the last Hebrew poet in Christian Iberia and sent to one of his friends in Zaragoza. In the letter Bonafed refers to the composition and submission of one of his poems celebrating the donation of a crown for the Torah scroll in the Synagogue of the Bikkur Holim in Zaragoza. This article offers the Hebrew text of the letter as well as its English translation and brings under analysis the social and cultural background of the text paying particular attention to its original epistolary form; to its contents with respect to the process of literary creation in the context of fifteenth-century Hebrew literature; and to the sociohistorical circumstances of its composition, with a special emphasis on patronage, analyzing the figures and institutions that were involved in the episode of the crown donation and the writing of the poem.