>> Yoram Bitton: Thank you
 for joining us
for a conversation with
 Dr. Joseph Skloot.
Dr. Skloot is the Lilly
 Scholar in Residence
at the Library of Congress
 for summer 2024.
He holds the position of 
Rabbi Aaron Henkin,
associate professor of modern
 Jewish intellectual history
at Hebrew Union College, Jewish
 Institute of Religion.
Dr. Skloot received his PhD. 
in Jewish history
from Columbia University and 
his rabbinical ordination
from Hebrew Union College.
Dr. Skloot is a historian 
specializing in Jewish culture
and religious thought during
the early modern 
and modern periods.
His research focuses on 
the history of Hebrew books,
Jewish Christian relations,
and the development 
of Jewish law.
His book, First Impression
 Sefer Hasidim
and Early Modern 
Hebrew Printing,
published by Brandeis
 University Press,
examined how 16th century
 Hebrew printers,
both Jewish and Christians,
transformed the 
heterogeneous collections
of manuscripts into
 canonical books.
This work illustrates how
 Jewish sacred texts,
long thought to be eternal 
and unchanging,
were actually created by
 and for human beings
with specific agendas 
and interests.
At the Library of Congress, 
Dr. Skloot
is utilizing the renowned
 Hebraica collection
to begin a collective biography
 of three generations
of rabbis surnamed
 Ibn Yahya.
These rabbis were refugees
 from Portugal,
established themselves as 
leading rabbinic authorities
on the Italian peninsula 
during the 16th century.
David, Joseph and 
Gedaliah Ibn Yahya
were also created in
 the Hebrew printing.
In this presentation, 
Dr. Skloot will discuss
the history and relationship
 within this family
and their connection
 to the Hebrew press.
Please welcome Dr. Skloot.
>> Joseph Skloot: Thanks
 so much,
Yoram Bitton, 
for the invitation.
Thank you to the Lilly Endowment
for this opportunity and 
to the Library of Congress,
its extraordinary staff 
to be here to use
the treasures of the library
 to begin a scholarly project,
which I hope to tell you
 something about today.
The Library of Congress
  Hebraica collection
is a remarkable window
 into the world
of 16th century Hebrew printing.
The century when Hebrew 
books became --
the Hebrew press 
 into its own
as a result of the innovations
 of Hebrew printers,
both Jewish and Christian.
This work primarily occurred 
in Italy, and so great many,
but not all of these Hebrew
 books which are found
in the library's collection, 
were produced in Italy.
and the focus of this talk 
today is principally
about three books that emerged
 in Italy in the 16th century.
They were produced by
 the rabbis of the family
of Ibn Yahya or Yachya.
and I want to speak a little 
bit about who they were,
their interests, and 
 achievements.
I want to focus on a 
number of key themes.
The first is the experience 
of the expulsion from Spain
and what this did to Jews,
 their families,
and to Jewish culture 
and also the telling
of the story of that expulsion.
I want to speak about
 how these migrants,
these refugees fashioned 
a new Jewish community
in Italy, integrating with 
the other Jewish communities
that pre-existed them.
I want to speak about 
the work of printing
and writing Hebrew books, which
 these Jews were involved in.
I want to speak about 
the trauma of exile
and the attempts
 to heal that trauma
through the pursuit 
of Torah, of Jewish wisdom.
I want to speak about 
the turn to history,
the fact that these Jews
 who experienced
the history making
 events of exile
sought to write that history.
and finally, I want to 
speak about the relationship
of Jews and Christians 
and the Christians
increasing interest in 
the study of Judaism
during the 16th century.
Indeed, all of these 
themes are connected
to the story of the 
Ibn Yahya family.
So, I've entitled this talk,
From Lisbon to Tuscany to 
Washington, the Ibn Yahya family
and the Library of Congress 
Hebraica collection.
and indeed, what I have been
 doing here in Washington
at the Library of Congress,
 is beginning the project
of telling the story of that 
family and this moment in time.
To begin, I want to speak 
a little bit about
who this family was and
 where they came from.
They were one of the leading
 families of Jews in Portugal.
They were wealthy family who
 provided loans to the nobility
the Portuguese nobility 
and the king
and they were they 
resided in Lisbon.
It is notable that in 1496, 
when the King of Portugal
sought to forcefully convert 
the Jews of Portugal,
this is after 1492, when 
the Spanish Jews
had been expelled, 
and the remainder
decided to remain converted,
many of those Spanish Jews,
 having left Spain,
went to Portugal and took
 refuge in Portugal,
and they were supported
 by communities
led by individuals, such as 
members of the Ibn Yahya family.
It is notable that in 1496,
we know that the king 
of Portugal determines
to seek the full conversion of
the entire Jewish 
community of Portugal
to force all the Jews of 
Portugal to be converted.
Prior to that decision,
 we learn in one of
the books found in the 
Library of Congress's collection
from the testimony 
of Yosef Ibn Yahya,
that the King of Portugal sought
 to make an example
of his grandfather, David also 
named Joseph Ibn Yahya.
and his grandfather was --
the king of Portugal, wanted
 to make an example of him
and sought to bribe him
 to convert.
and his assumption was 
that if this great,
illustrious, venerable member
of the Portuguese Jewish
 community
willingly converted
 to Christianity,
then the other leaders of 
the community would follow.
and Yosef Ibn Yahya, 
the author's grandfather,
does not convert, 
in fact, and he flees.
He flees, he gets on
 a boat, and he flees.
Where? But to Castile in Spain,
which is not a pleasant
 place to be if you were a Jew
several years after the --
a few years after the 
expulsion decree of 1492.
It is in Spain that he 
with connections to other --
to Christian noblemen who
 had fled Portugal,
he is able to survive a sense
 of burning at the stake
and he then flees 
again to Italy.
and so, you see on the map, 
this family's wanderings in Italy.
the Yosef Ben David Ibn Yahya,
the grandfather
 whom I mentioned,
dies upon arriving in Italy.
He they first go to Pisa,
where they are 
imprisoned and ransomed.
Then they go to Ferrara,
 where again
they are imprisoned and ransomed
and that is where Don Yosef
 Ibn Yahya dies.
His son David survives.
His son and his three sons,
 mayor Shlomo, Solomon,
and David David, they survive.
David first goes to Rome,
 and then he is enticed
to come to move to Naples
and I will pick up 
the story with David
in a moment in Naples.
But by this time also, 
David has had a son,
namely, again named
 Yosef, Joseph.
and Joseph here moves
 to Bologna and then to Imola,
a small town outside of
 Bologna in the Papal States.
Joseph has another son,
subsequently has a son 
named Gedaliah.
and so, the focus of my project--
Oh, and Gedaliah spends
 his life traveling
moving parents pathetically
 around Italy,
but ultimately settles in the
 north in Alessandria.
So, the focus of my 
project is principally
on the three generations,
 that is
Yosef Ibn Yahya, his son David
 Ibn Yahya, and then his --
sorry, David Ibn Yahya, his son 
Joseph Ibn Yahya,
and then Gedaliah Ibn Yahya.
and it's on the --
because each of these three
 men wrote important works
especially the younger two,
Yosef Ibn Yahya and 
Gedaliah Ibn Yahya.
But as one final point to 
note is that another branch
of this family ended up in 
Istanbul, in Constantinople.
and so you see that the
 Ibn Yahya family
is part of this Spanish 
diaspora,
the diaspora of the Iberian, 
of the Jews,
of Portugal and Spain
 settling around
the Mediterranean
 especially in Italy,
in that central 
entrepot crossroads
of the world of the
 Italian peninsula.
and they established
 themselves firmly in Italy.
So, I want to turn just a moment
 and zero in on the family tree
because the names are the same, 
and it can be confusing.
So I began the story speaking 
about Hakadosh
because he died in prison,
a martyr's death in 
Ferrara, as I mentioned.
Hakadosh Yosef Ben
 David Ibn Yahya,
he was the leader of the
 Portuguese community
whom the Portuguese king 
sought to convert.
His son was David Ibn Yahya
 who you see here,
and we will come to
 him in a moment.
He's the one who ended 
up in Naples.
David's son was Yosef
 Joseph Ibn Yahya,
who authored two books 
that are in
the Library of Congress's
 collection.
We will look at them in a 
few moments.
and then finally,
 Gedaliah Ibn Yahya,
who was Yosef son who
 authored a number of books,
but the most important 
being  the book
Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah, also
 in the library's collection,
which I will show you in
 a few moments as well.
You see, on the right hand
 side of the family tree,
you see David Ben Shlomo Ibn
 Yahya, his name.
You see, on the right hand
 side of the family tree,
you see David Ben Shlomo Ibn
 Yahya, his name.
He was of the branch 
of the family
that went to Constantinople.
He was the author of
 a Hebrew grammar
known as Leshon Limmudim
 and this work --
and he was also in
 Portugal, the tutor
of his cousin David Ben
 Yosef Ibn Yahya.
and David Ben Yosef Ibn 
Yahya actually publishes
a version of that grammar
 later in his life
but that will not be the focus 
of this presentation.
I want to turn first to David
Ibn Yahya,
as you see here, the second
 level on the family tree
who ends up first in Rome
 and then in Naples.
What you see on the screen 
here
is the last page of 
an autograph manuscript.
You can even see David
 Ibn Yahya's name
his signature, the last 
words of the manuscript
on the screen and
 this is a manuscript
courtesy scanned for me,
courtesy of the Jewish 
Theological Seminary in New York
and this is one in addition
 to that grammar
that I mentioned earlier,
 this is a remarkable document.
It is a seven-page letter 
that David Ibn Yahya
wrote to the community 
of Naples,
where he was employed as 
the community's rabbi.
and in this document, 
he explains
all the manifold duties 
that were involved
in being the rabbi of the 
Jewish community of Naples.
He ended up in Naples
 because he was invited there
by the Abarbanel family 
another wealthy family
of exiles, well known 
family of exiles
who had established 
themselves in Naples.
and they need a rabbi,
and so they invited David
 Ben Joseph Ibn Yahya
to come and be their rabbi.
But unfortunately, 
the community failed
to pay David's salary
 over many years.
Meanwhile, he performed
 much more work
than he was contracted to.
So, this manuscript gives
 us a window
into the various
responsibilities and obligations
and the great labors
 involved in being
a communal rabbi in
 16th century Italy.
It's a remarkable document.
and it also testifies to 
something about the politics
of this region in Italy 
in the 16th century,
because, of course, Italy was in the midst
of a multiple great power 
conflicts between the Pope,
the Holy Roman Emperor
 Spain, France, England
were all involved 
in trying to exert
their supremacy over Italy.
Naples was following 
the sack of Rome.
Naples the Holy Roman
 Emperor sought to lay siege
to Naples which was under 
Spanish dominion
in this period 
and the Jewish community
was much impoverished, 
as was the whole town,
and was much impoverished
 because of this.
and David gives us a window
 into the impoverishment
of that community, 
which led to him
not being able 
to get his salary.
This letter was the subject
 of a study by Alexander Marx
at the beginning 
of the 20th century.
but this letter continues to
demand more scholarly attention.
But the purpose of this 
 is to speak about
the treasures of 
the Library of Congress.
and so I'd like to turn in 
point of fact, to David's sons.
Two of David's sons works, 
David's son
being Yosef Joseph Ben David 
Ibn Yahya.
and towards the end of his life
 he published two works,
one known as Torah Or, 
Sefer Torah Or
as you see here and another,
a commentary on the five scrolls
of the Hebrew Bible.
I'll come back to the commentary
 in a moment.
Sefer Torah Or as you see here
in the Library of Congress's 
collection, is a beautiful book.
and it was published --
he published it under
 the auspices of
a group of silk weavers who,
in the city of Bologna
published nearly ten books
at the end of the the 1530s.
These silk weavers who went
by the name Hafetz Tafhim,
that is, the partners, 
Hafetz Tafhim
who engaged in the 
making of silk
were a major focus of my
 book first impressions
and they published two books
by Yosef Ibn Yahya.
A word about the partners,
 Hafetz Tafhim.
First of all, it's important
 to note that Bologna
was in the Papal States and was
a significant center 
of silk production.
It was one of the most
 important centers
of silk production in Europe
 in the 16th century,
if not the most important
and Jews were involved
 in that business.
They were allowed to be 
involved in that business
and using the capital 
and the insights
of working in that business,
they determined to engage
 in the printing of Hebrew books.
Now, remember, of course,
that the printing 
of Hebrew books
is less than 100 years old
 at this point, right.
and Gutenberg prints
 his Bible in 1455.
You can see a copy here at
 the library downstairs.
In the subsequent decades 
Hebrew books
begin to appear, 
books with Hebrew,
and then ultimately, 
whole Hebrew books
begin to appear in the 15th
 century, late 15th century.
But in the 16th century,
we see new printing 
enterprises emerge
that publish full Hebrew works,
such as that of the 
partners in Bologna.
The partners in Bologna
 choose, as I said,
to print two works by Yosef
 Ben-David, Ibn Yahya,
and it is in the introduction 
to Torah Or,
the book that you see 
on your screen
that Yosef Joseph tells the
 story of his family's escape
from Portugal and
 their wanderings
through the Mediterranean.
He also describes 
how his mother --
how his grandfather and
 his father and his uncles
escaped to Castile 
and his mother
was going to remain in Portugal
and she determined to
 hide in the boat
without telling her husband and his family.
Dressed as a man and
 remained hidden in the boat
and at this point, she was 
a month pregnant with Joseph.
and she remained hidden 
on the boat
for some months until she revealed 
herself to her family.
Remarkably, they were stunned
 and thrilled to see her.
Joseph says, though 
the scholar Reuven Bonfil
questions whether there's 
 some irony here
having been left in Portugal 
than to show up on the boat.
What did it really mean 
for these men
and perhaps there was some 
recriminations involved as well.
Joseph's mother --
and when they arrive in Italy,
 Joseph's mother
the men are imprisoned, 
she is not.
and she determines 
to martyr herself
to jump out from the roof of--
 from the
jump off the roof of
 the home where she is
in Ferrara but she 
does not die.
and in fact, the fetus within
 her remains within her.
She does not miscarry 
and ultimately, she is born.
She bears, she gives
 birth to her son, Yosef.
and Yosef, as a result 
of hearing
this miraculous story 
of their escape
and then the pregnancy, 
which did not fail
determines to devote his life
to the pursuit 
of teaching Torah,
of teaching Jewish wisdom
and Jewish spiritual 
enrichment and edification.
I want to share just a 
quote from Joseph's story,
from the introduction 
of Torah Or
where he says explicitly.
Upon my hearing this story,
that is the story
of his mother's escape 
and survival
and his own survival in utero,
I stood trembling and arose
 from the sleep of the lazy,
and lifted my eyes to the 
Most High and blessed my maker.
For before I was created in 
the womb, he knew me.
He was with me in 
my time of difficulty,
in the world of creation.
Before I was created in the 
womb, he sanctified me,
without which I would have been martyred
in Portugal among 
the quarrels of Kadesh.
Now what you notice here
 in this quotation
is the rich biblical quotations
are at least four 
quotations from the Bible,
which is the style of 
these kind of paratexts
that is not these 
introductory texts that appear
in Hebrew works in the
 16th century and onward
but it is notable
 the kind of allusions
and quotations that Joseph uses.
You will note that 
there's the quotation
from Jeremiah the prophet.
Before I was created 
in the womb, he knew me.
He meaning the Lord God.
and so Joseph Ibn 
Yahya perceives himself
as akin to the biblical prophet
who was known by God
 in the womb and as a result
was commissioned by
 God to tell God's word
to the people who were
 straying and sinning.
and similarly, Joseph, 
like Jeremiah,
imagines himself in the same
 prophetic role as Jeremiah.
He sees the people, the Jews
 of Italy, straying and sinning,
among them the exiles 
of Spain and Portugal.
He sees his co-religionists
 devoting their lives
to the pursuit of wealth and
 neglecting religious matters.
and so he says he claims 
his mission as to remind,
to recall and to rebuke
 the people
and remind them to pursue
 a religious life,
a life of faithfulness 
to God and to Torah.
and that is the part of t
he message of Torah Or
responding to the
 spiritual apathy, laxity,
that Joseph Ibn Yahya 
sees in his community,
he writes this book.
The message is even 
more pronounced
in Joseph Ibn Yahya's next work,
the Peirush Hamesh Megillot,
which is a commentary 
on the five scrolls
of the writings and 
the Hebrew Bible.
and in this text, it is notable
how Ibn Yahya similarly writes 
about the temptation to sin,
the temptation to devote
 one's life to vanity.
Of course, vanity 
is a major theme
Haveil Havalim is a major theme
 of one of the scrolls
of the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes the philosopher
 notably calls out
the vanities of the world.
and so Joseph Ibn Yahya 
calls on his fellows
to forsake the vanities
 of the world
and to devote themselves
 to pious living.
In this commentary which is a message
he believes is 
especially appropriate
to the times in 
which he is living,
It's notable, too, how
 his own personal story
of flight from Spain 
and from Portugal
and from Spain 
his family's story
and then the story of 
his generation of exiles, right.
They exiled from Spain, 
arrived in Italy,
and there, of course, and 
their life in Spain and Portugal
and their life in Italy was 
devoted to commerce.
In fact, their own ability to 
remain in the place
and to remain in the settled in 
the places
where they settled 
was principally
on account of their 
commercial abilities.
If they could not provide
 the wealth that the states
where they resided needed, 
then they would be kicked out
and so the pressure to produce 
wealth was great.
and here Joseph ibn 
Yahya is pushing back
that there are other 
greater pursuits
than the pursuits 
of wealth, he says.
It's notable too in the i
introduction to this commentary
what he writes further, he says,
thenceforth the offspring 
of my house, my food,
my water were sacred books,
which from my painful
 childhood grew in me.
What wrong with you?
he speaks to his readers, 
the Jewish community.
Raising up a people of foreign children,
pleasing yourselves with 
the children of strangers,
going to the courts of kings
and their overlords for justice,
being with them 
in their financial capitals
and not dwelling with me, 
the voice of from heaven, right?
Even temporarily, foreigners
 come to my gates.
I will give them something,
since with pure
 hearts they sense
that even I knew 
what it was good
that it is good to spend 
a day in the courts
and capitals of 
the sacred books.
Here he notes how 
Jews in his community
are apathetic, have 
given up on the pursuit
of piety and Torah and
 yet Christians, note here,
and similarly, Jews are 
seeking to curry favor
and seeking out the benefits
 of living among the non-Jews,
the Christians among 
whom they're living.
He rebukes his co-religionists.
You are pleasing yourself 
with the children of strangers,
that is non-Jews, right,
using the words of 
the prophet Isaiah.
But then he says, foreigners 
come to my gates.
I will give them 
something, right.
and here, he's alluding to
 the interest of Christians
in Jewish wisdom in 
the study of Hebrew,
what becomes known in this
 period as the Hebraica veritas,
the true Hebrew upon which the
 Christian tradition is based.
Christians are seeking
 out Torah,
Jews are turning their backs
 on their sacred mission.
and Joseph wants to
 overturn that reality.
He wants to 
instill greater piety.
and so he publishes this 
commentary on the five scrolls.
Yosef judging from the
 history that I just shared,
Yosef dies 
relatively young.
and in fact, he speaks 
at length about
the psychological 
and physical pain.
In both his introductions to both his books,
he speaks at length 
about the psychological
and physical pain 
that he experienced.
So even though
 his mother survived,
and even though 
he was born healthily,
he endured the painful 
legacy of his family's flight
from their home in Portugal.
and he dies we think shortly
after his two books are printed.
His son, Gedaliah,
 subsequently publishes
a crucially important work known
as Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah
 and this is in 1587.
He published Shalshelet
 ha-Kabbalah.
Here too, Gedaliah tells the
 story of his family,
his own family's history.
and I want to note that 
this work appears in--
is composed of three parts.
The first part is a short 
history of the Jewish people
from creation until present day, 
and including his family story.
The second part is a remarkable
 anthology
of brief essays on scientific
 and themes
that we might call engineering
 at this moment in time.
He writes about magic 
and the heavenly spheres,
medicine, and most 
interesting for me,
is a short treatise on how 
paper is produced.
and then finally, 
in the third part,
he writes a historical treatise
 on the great Empires.
and it's notable again, 
as I mentioned earlier,
how Gedaliah turns
 to history, right?
Three generations
 after--
the third generation 
after the exile,
he attempts to try to understand
 his own family's place
and his own place 
within the larger history
of his people and the world,
and the great powers in 
which the his small community
has been embedded 
for so many years.
This work has been
 studied before,
but again, it deserves 
much more merits,
much more scholarship, not
 merely to verify or to dispute,
as earlier scholars have done,
the veracity of 
the accounts in it.
But why Gedaliah principally
 was interested
in the themes that 
he that he chose?
What was it about the 
moment in which he lived
and how does that fit 
into his family's story,
the patrimony that he received
 from his father, Yosef,
his grandfather David?
That is, in a nutshell, 
the story of three works
found in the Library of 
Congress's collection
Torah Or, Peirush
 Hamesh Megillot,
and Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah.
Three works that, when
 read closely and carefully,
tell the story of a family 
and a moment  and a community.
and importantly for me as a 
historian of the book,
also tell the story of 
Hebrew printing, right?
That these three men
 were all involved
in the production of Hebrew
books in the 16th century
in Italy as they were
 recreating, reconstituting,
a new community in Italy,
as they were seeking to
 provide spiritual edification
and uplift and rebuke to
 their communities,
the way they sought to do that
was to produce Hebrew books 
and they did that with aplomb.
and so I thank the
 Library of Congress
for allowing me to begin 
to tell this story
of these three generations, 
of these three men,
their remarkable lives 
and their works,
and to be able to use the
 treasures of this collection
to begin to tell that story.
Thank you very much.
>> Yoram Bitton: Okay, 
so thank you.
One minute.
So thank you, Joe, for 
the beautiful description
of this family and 
their time in Italy.
I have some 
questions to ask you.
My name is Yoram and 
I'm the Hebraica section head
at the Library of Congress.
I didn't introduce myself 
at the beginning.
So I want to ask you,
what was the motive
 of printing these books?
It was financial,
they wanted to have profit 
or it was ideology?
>> Joseph Skloot: I don't
 think it's one or the other.
I think it's likely both.
I think that these --
so when we speak about 
both the production of books
as you know very well was
 in engaged
in many different 
parties, right.
So involved both the --
what we would call 
the author or the composer,
the writer of the book 
who is involved,
if that person was living, 
but also involved
the various parties involved 
in the printing house,
the Beitah Deffusa, what we
 would call the publisher today.
But this was involved many
 different parties as well.
Investors in the process,
and we don't have all of
 those people's names.
What we do know 
is that the works --
I'll stop the share so that
 we can see better.
The works that I am
 studying here at the library,
Principally those two, Torah Or
and the Peirush 
Hamesh Megillot.
They were produced by 
these silk weavers in Bologna.
Their principal business
 was in silk.
That's how they were known,
and that's how they
 made their money.
and printing books required
a great outlay of
 starting capital.
You have to have
 money to make money.
and so the printing