Un dictamen de Simon ben Sémah Duran sobre les dues sinagogues de Mallorca

Abstract

Simon ben Zemah Duran was one of the greatest religious authorities of his day. Born in the City of Majorca in 1361 into a wealthy family that had arrived from the Languedoc a generation earlier, he fled destitute but safe and sound to North Africa as a result of the pogrom against the Jews in1391. In Algiers in 1408, after the death of another illustrious exile, R. Isaac ben Sheshet Barfat of Barcelona, he became the spiritual leader of the Jewish communities of Hispanic origin until the time of his own death as an old man, steeped in years and wisdom, in 1444. Simon ben Zemah Duran was essentially a religious thinker, moderately critical of Maimonides, who developed his doctrines by combining more or less skilfully the elements he drew from the various philosophical, kabbalistic and exegetical traditions. However, thanks to the liberal education he had received in his youth, he was a man of encyclopaedic knowledge, fully conversant with the sciences of his day. His intellectual endeavours were focussed not only on spreading knowledge of the basic doctrines of Judaism among the Jews, but also on defending Jews against Christians and Muslims through important apologetic works. He also enjoyed considerable authority in matters of halakhah. His eight hundred or so responsa contain valuable information about the Jewish communities of the western Mediterranean. Although it is impossible to say with certainty in which year it was written, responsum III:5 gives retrospective information concerning the two synagogues of the City of Majorca. We reproduce the original traditional text together with the Catalan translation as a complement to the article by Margalida Bernat i Roca, published in this issue of Tamid, which at one point alludes to the frequently disputed question of the two synagogues.