Lady Elisheva bat Yisrael
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Proprietor, Innkeeper
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| Elisheva@CrimsonSpade.com |
Part I
Elisheva bat Yisrael—ahem, er...I mean Isabel Mendes—traces her story to that of her grandmother, Ysabel bat Avram of Segovia. In 1471, Ysabel married a young Jewish smith from Toledo named Micael. With an increase in the blood-libel rumors regarding Jews, Micael suggested that they move back to Toledo, but Ysabel preferred to stay in her hometown of Segovia. In 1474, with a toddling son and another child on the way, the couple faced anti-Jewish riots in Segovia and many other neighboring towns. Micael bade his family hide in the smith’s shed while he determined to stave off the crowd throwing rocks through the windows. Micael’s plan worked in that he distracted the throng from his young family in the back, but he did not make it through the night alive. Ysabel, ridden with grief and guilt for her previous obstinacy, took her children south: the kingdom of Granada was still ruled by the Moors, and friendly to Jews.
In the beginning of 1475, Ysabel gave birth to a daughter, Rebekah bat Micael Toledano. Despite the hardship of starting anew in a strange city—and the ever-increasing skirmishes with the Christians at the borders of Granada--Ysabel succeeded in raising two healthy, educated children. Her son, Eliezer, began an apprenticeship under a successful merchant named Ephraim ben Joseph ibn Abi Sa’d. Eliezer quickly became a valuable asset to the business, as well as best friend to Ephraim’s son Yisrael. In 1491 the tie between the two families was cemented with the marriage of Rebekah and Yisrael. The young couple enjoyed less than a year before the fall of Granada to the Christian armies and the Edict of Expulsion.
With the practicality of a business mind, Ephraim reasoned that the Christians too would appreciate the many goods his business imported, but in order to stay in Spain, he had to convert. He and his family were baptized and given Christian names. Thus, young Yisrael and his wife Rebekah became [Juan and Esperanza Mendes], outwardly devout Catholics, but continuing to practice their Jewish traditions in secret. Rebekah never felt comfortable with the false conversion, and constantly feared discovery and persecution. She had wanted to follow her brother Eliezer to Cairo, where she heard Jews were allowed to live in peace, but Yisrael followed his father’s lead in the decision to stay in Spain. Partly to appease his wife, and partly due to his own creeping anxiety regarding the increasing power of the Inquisition, Yisrael—or Juan—began making arrangements for a quick departure from Spain if the need arose.
After 5 years, the couple was blessed with Rebekah’s first pregnancy. But then catastrophe struck again. One day, on the way back home from the market, a friend told Rebekah that Yisrael had been arrested by the Inquisition that very day, and that some men had come asking the whereabout s of his wife, as well. Immediately, Rebekah put into action the emergency procedures for departure. Being a prisoner of the Inquisition was tantamount to death, and when fleeing death, time is of the essence. Within twenty-four hours, Rebekah stood at the port, awaiting the boat that would take her and her unborn child to Cairo.
In 1497 Elisheva bat Yisrael was born in the home of her uncle Eliezer in Cairo.
Over the course of her childhood, Elisheva showed interest in a few subjects that left her mother puzzled, if indulgent. Elisheva was fascinated with the dancers she saw on the streets of Cairo, and imitated their movements with a surprising amount of skill. At first her family thought it was cute, but later her mother had to forbid her quite strictly from dancing in public. No lady ever danced where she could be seen. Indeed, most respectable ladies only danced on very special occasions. Dancing was for the slaves, servants, and women of questionable virtue. +
The other love young Elisheva discovered was for words and languages. She begged to study foreign tongues, arguing that a knowledge of different languages would be an asset to any merchant. In this one her mother was more lenient. Her cousins, after all, already studied the various dialects of Arabic and Turkish spoken in Al-Islam.
Eliezer’s merchanting had grown quite profitable, taking goods from one end of the Islamic world to the other, with the help of various alliances with other merchant families. It was with the intention of solidifying one of these alliances that Eliezer suggested the marriage of his niece, then 12 years old, to the son of Aji Sinan Yahudi, a wealthy Turkish trader. After some negotiation of the hefty dowry, Rebekah and Elisheva began the journey to Istanbul to meet Elisheva’s fiancé.
Mehmed bin Aji was then a young man of 20, who regularly accompanied his father’s captain on the merchant runs. (“It builds character,” his father would say.) Elisheva and her mother had been in Istambul only two weeks before Mehmed returned from the latest trip, and they could plan the wedding arrangements. Elisheva’s new in-laws were a conservative family, and hadn’t yet caught on to the new fashion of marrying couples in one ceremony. They insisted that it be done properly, in the old-fashioned way: the bride and groom are first officially betrothed in the ceremony of erusin, which weds them by law (after erusin, the tie can only be broken by a divorce), and after one year of living apart, the ceremony of nisuin weds them in practicality. The erusin was beautiful, with many bride gifts exchanged, and the ketubah, the wedding contract, drawn up. Shortly afterwards, Mehmed left on another voyage that was expected to bring him back shortly after the necessary year of separation. Then they would have a beautiful wedding, an event Rebekah looked forward to so much that she could ignore the soft, persistent cough she had developed on the voyage to Istanbul.
Then misfortune struck again. Nine months after Mehmed left, a sailor from the ship straggled into the port. About a month after they had left the city, the ship had been struck by a violent storm, killing all those onboard, except for the one sailor who managed to find his way back to Istanbul to tell the Sinan family. Thus, at the age of fourteen, Elisheva found herself a widow and a virgin.
In the midst of funeral and mourning preparations, somehow the story of Elisheva’s family got out, and the superstitious servants started putting ideas together. For the last three generations, the women of the family all had husbands who died prematurely. Rumors started flying. “They’re witches,” they whispered. “It’s a curse.” And although the upper class folk were too educated to admit to believing in something as superstitious as a curse, it was difficult to ignore.
Rebekah was devastated. Her cough got worse and worse. She found herself
thinking more and more about her past, and wishing she could have seen
her husband once more before leaving Spain. Within six months, she was
on her deathbed, and confessed her greatest secret to her beloved daughter.
“The one thing I have regretted,” she told Elisheva. “Was
that you were not able to see Andalucía, your true birthplace.
Your father...I loved your father very much. I wish I had not left so
quickly—it’s possible that he was not killed. I wish you
could have met your father...” a fit of coughing interrupted her
for a few moments. “I have given you everything I have, and yet
I have failed. For you have no place anymore. You are alone, Elisheva,
for I will soon leave as well. Know that I ache with guilt—for
failing your father, myself, and you.”
“You have not failed, mamá,” said Eli. “You
have done wonderfully—and this is a blessing. It is freedom, mamá.
I will go to Spain, and see Andalucía. If my father is not dead,
I will find him.”
Rebekah smiled at her daughter, and took her hand. “Find him,
daughter, and my soul will rest in peace.”
Rebekah died the next day. Elisheva stayed in Istanbul only long enough to bury her mother properly, and then packed up her things and began the long journey back to Spain.