The Last Jew
The Last Jew
Noah Gordon
When the wagon was laden he didn't return to the Plaza. In the silent and empty jail he collected his sack and the broken hoe and brought them to where Moise cropped peacefully in the shade.
Once mounted, he startled the good little burro with his heels and they departed from
Ciudad Real
at a brisk canter. He didn't see the trail or the countryside. The auto de fé was a foretaste of the cruel way he would die when he was caught. Something in him screamed that he must seek out a sympathetic priest. Perhaps it was not too late to beg for the chrism and lead a life of careful Catholic rectitude.
But he had made a promise to his father's memory, to God, to his people.
To himself.
For the first time, his hatred of the Inquisition was stronger than his fear. He couldn't erase the images, and he spoke to God not as a supplicant but in demanding fury.
What can be the Divine Plan that causes so many of us to be Hanged Men?
And, For what purpose have you made me the last Jew in
Spain
?
Also by Noah Gordon
THE PHYSICIAN
SHAMAN
THE RABBI
THE DEATH COMMITTEE
THE
JERUSALEM
DIAMOND
CHOICES
THE
LAST JEW
NOAH GORDON
A Warner Book
First published in the
United States
in 2000 by
Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of
St. Martin
's Press
First published in
Great Britain
in 2000 by
Little, Brown and Company
This edition published by Warner Books in 2001
Copyright (c) Noah Gordon 2000
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the
publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0 7515 3062 X
Typeset by MRules
Printed and bound in
Great Britain
by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Warner Books
A Division of
Little, Brown and Company (
UK
)
Brettenham House
London
WC2E 7EN
With love
For Caleb and Emma
and Grandma
Acknowledgements
Many people made it possible for me to write this book. If there are errors in my interpretation of information given to me by those cited below, they are mine alone.
For answering questions in the field of medicine I thank Myra Rufo, Ph.D., senior lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Cellular Biology at the Tufts Medical School; Jared A. Gollob, M.D., associate director of the Biological Therapy Program at Beth Israel Hospital and assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School; Vincent Patalano, M.D., ophthalmologist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School; and the staff of the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, Georgia. Louis Caplan, M.D., director of the Stroke Unit at
In
Spain
, historian Carlos Benarroch walked the old Jewish Quarter of Barcelona with me and gave me glimpses into the lives of the Spanish Jews of the Middle Ages. I am grateful for the courtesy shown me in Girona by Jordi Maestre and Josep Tarrés. Two families in Girona opened their homes to me so that I might get an impression of how some Jews had lived in
Spain
hundreds of years ago. Joseph Vicens I Cubarsi and Maria Collel Laporta Casademont showed me a wondrous stone structure, complete with a wall oven, which was found beneath their interesting house when the earthen floor of their cellar was excavated. And the Colls Labayen family took me through the gracious residence which in the thirteenth century was the home of Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, the great Nahmanides. In
Toledo
courtesy was shown to me by Rufino Miranda and by the staff of the Museo Sefardi at the Sinagoga del Tránsit.
At the Museu Marítim in Barcelona, Enrique García and Pep Savall, speaking to my son Michael Gordon who was representing his father, discussed travel by sail and suggested Spanish ports of call that might have been made by a sixteenth-century packet. Lluis Sintes Rita and Pere Llorens Vila showed me some of the waters along the coast of
Menorca
, taking me out on the Sol Naixent III, Lluis's boat. They brought me to a secluded island facility that once had been a hospital for patients with infectious diseases and now is a holiday resort for the doctors of
Spain
's national health service. I thank the director, Carlos Guitierrez del Pino, and the staff guide, Policarpo Sintes, for their hospitality and for showing me the museum of early medical artifacts.
I thank the American Jewish Congress and Avi Camchi, its erudite chief guide, for enabling me to participate in a tour of Jewish historical sites in Spain, while permitting me to go off on my own for several days at a time and then rejoin the tour; and I thank a wonderful group of people from Canada and the United States for repeatedly letting a working writer through their ranks so he could get his tape recorder close to every lecturer.
In America, for answering my questions I thank Rabbi M. Mitchell Cerels, Ph.D., former director of Sephardic Studies at the Yeshiva University; Howard M. Sachar, Ph.D., professor of history at George Washington University; and Thomas F. Glick, Ph.D., director of the institute of medieval history at Boston University.
Father James Field, director of the office for worship of the archdiocese of
Boston
, and Father Richard Lennon, Rector of St. John's Seminary in
Brighton
,
Worcester
,
Rabbi Donald Pollock and Charles Ritz each helped me to find dates of Jewish holidays in the Middle Ages. Charlie Ritz, my lifelong friend, also allowed me to borrow freely from his personal library of Judaica. Gilda Angel, wife of Rabbi Marc Angel of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in
New York City
, talked with me about the Passover celebration of Sephardic Jews.
The
Amherst
gave me faculty privileges at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, as it has for a number of years. I am particularly grateful to Gordon Fretwell, the assistant director of that library; to Betty Brace, head of user support services; and to Edla Holm, former head of the interlibrary loan office. For courtesies I also thank the Mugar Memorial Library and the Library of Science and Engineering at my alma mater,
I found that historians offer different estimates of the population of Spanish Jewry at the end of the fifteenth century and sometimes depict the events of that period from differing viewpoints. When this occurred I felt free to choose what seemed to me the most logical and likely of the versions.
A word of warning. I based my descriptions of herbal remedies on material found in the writings of Avicenna, Galen, and other early physicians. But there was little science used in the compounding of medications by early physicians and apothecaries, and their nostrums are relics of a vast ignorance. It would be irresponsible for any person to try the remedies described in this book, as they may be dangerous or life threatening.
There has been an active market for the theft and sale of religious relics, some of them spurious, since the beginning of Christianity, and it continues today. Relics of St. Anne, revered by Christians as the mother of the Virgin Mary, are to be found in many churches and in different parts of the globe. I based the fictional story of my relic of
St. Ann
, up to and including the period of Charlemagne, on events that may be found in Catholic histories of the saints.
The events that occur to the relic after the era of Charlemagne are fictional, as are the Priory of the Assumption in
Toledo
and the valley and
I am grateful for the warm support and friendship of my German publisher, Dr. Karl H. Blessing of Karl Blessing Verlag; my American agent, Eugene H. Winick of McIntosh & Otis, Inc.; and my international agent, Sara Fisher of the A.M. Heath literary agency in
London
.
My publishing house in
Spain
, Ediciones B, was exceedingly helpful in a number of ways and I thank its publisher, Blanca Rosa Roca, and Enrique de Hériz, editor-in-chief.
I sent the manuscript to
Germany
and
Spain
in segments, so translations could begin in each of those countries while I was still writing. Historian and journalist José Maria Perceval vetted my pages, offered advice and sought to ensure that the names of my characters would match the language and culture of the Spanish regions in which the action of the story took place. The difficult task, for which I thank him, made revisions an ongoing necessity, and I owe special thanks to the patience and skill of editors Judith Schwaab of Karl Blessing Verlag, in
Munich
, and Cristina Hernandez Johansson of Ediciones B, in
Barcelona
. For much of the writing of my novel I enjoyed the luxury of having Herman Gollob as my editor of first sight, until he left for
England
to research a a book on his relationship with Shakespeare. He is a great editor who loves the product of writers, and this novel is much better than it would have been without him. My American publisher, Thomas Dunne of
St. Martin
's Press, offered valuable suggestions that made this a better book, and I am grateful for help and courtesies shown me by Peter Wolverton, associate publisher, and Carolyn Dunkley, editorial assistant.
My daughter Jamie Beth Gordon was ever watchful for "a book Dad might find useful," and I always feel cherished and stengthened when I find one of the little notes she leaves for me. My daughter Lise Gordon, my own unfailing source of good books to read for interest and pleasure and always my toughest yet tenderest editor, read some of my early script and edited all of my finished copy. My son-in-law, Roger Weiss, answered innumerable cries for help whenever my computer swallowed whole sections of prose and wouldn't spit it out; he always saved the day. My daughter-in-law, Maria Palma Castillon, translated, interpreted, read the proofs of the Spanish edition, and whenever we were in the same country plied us with great Catalan food. My son Michael Seay Gordon was constantly there with intelligence, clippings, phone calls, advice, and support. He interviewed people on my behalf and was the best of companions on several of my trips in
Spain
.