Jews in Spain
Hasdai bin Shaprut was a vezir and maior domo to a local caliph Abd ar-Rahman in Cordoba. The legends of his wisdom and learning are, well, legendary. He was instrumental in curing the Christian King Sancho and helping him win back his crown (in exchange for a few border castles that went to the caliph). He was involved in receiving embassies of Constantine Porphirogenetus (helping translate a tome of Dioskyrides) and Otto I, at that time not yet emperor (helping the ambassadors not insult the caliph).
Lastly, and in keeping with our theme here, we note that it was during Hasdai’s time in office that the famous four rabbis on the way from Bari to Sebast got themselves captured (or really the ship they traveled on was captured) by admiral Romahis (aka Damahas) with the result that they got sold off in different ports – one, Moses, being sold in Cordoba. It is likely that Hasdai was then Moses’ protector and sponsor.
All of which is irrelevant for our purposes here.
Except one thing. Hasdai being in the thick of it all at the Cordoban court came across some traders who mentioned to him that there was in the East a Jewish state run by a khagan named Joseph. Yes, it was the Khazars. This piqued his curiosity (apparently he was tired of hearing that only the Jews can’t have their own state because they haven’t accepted Jesus as Christ – an assertion aid doff the mark in its very foundations even at the time as many stateless Slavs could testify, e.g., close to the events in question the Slavs of the Rus where the Rus ran things). So he decide to send an emissary with the letter to the Khazars.
Which way to the Khazars?
The first attempt was unsuccessful at Constantinople as the Byzantines likely fearing some sort of alliance between the Khazars and the caliphate sent the embassy back on the apparent pretext that it was not safe to travel between Constantinople what with all the bandits, robbers and the generally deteriorating road conditions given the late season, etc, etc, etc.
Pissed, Hasdai sent another embassy but this time through the middle of the European continent. It turned out that there were at that time in Cordoba as part of another embassy of a two Jewish travelers – Joseph & Saul. They came from the “country of Gebalim” who, we learn earlier from his letter, “of the Slavs” [al-sequeliba]. They told Hasdai that “iz no problem.”
“We will give your letter to the King of the Gebalim. He will send the letter to the Israelites that live in Hungary. Who will send it to the Rus who then will send it to the Bulgars [presumably Volga Bulgars even if those had already been driven towards the Danube by the Khazars] and from there the letter will be sent to where you want it to be sent.”
Who was this “King of the Gebalim”? We will likely never know though there are some papers on the topic. Perhaps a Croat king or one Serb? But maybe a Czech potentate? That would certainly be the simplest explanation for the path being suggested by the ambassadors. (whether the letter and/or the response were opened and read by the Gebalim is not mentioned in the literature but it seems improbable that they would not be).
And no the letter was obviously not in German. We are showing a German translation from 1840 by Joseph Zedner in his “Auswahl historischer Stuecke aus Hebraeischen Schriftstellern (2Jh – Gegenwart)” (Selection of historical pieces of Hebrew writers from the 2nd century to the present).
PS The source documents were apparently discovered in the year 1562 by Isaac ben Abraham (ben Yehuda Akrish) on his trip from Constantinople to Egypt. He then published a 32 page book in Constantinople about the year 1577. The book has four parts with the Hasdai letter and King Joseph’s reply being on pp 16-23 and 23-26, respectively. (We are not currently in possession of it). A reprint in Latin followed in 1660 in Basel by Johann Buxtorf. A printing in Cracow also occurred. After Zedner a French version was published by Carmoly in Brussels in 1847 and a German one (different from Zedner apparently) came out by Seeling Cassel in Berlin in 1848 (this one with the reply only).
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