The Convergence of Judaism and Islam. Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions

Jewish Parody and Allegory in Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Spain r 213

as that of the troubadours. He surely would have encountered their writ-
ings on issues of morality, society, gender, and sexual relations, which
were common themes in the Jewish world. Familiarity with the poetry
in these areas, as well as the composition of that of his fellow Toledan,
Judah Alharizi’s Tahkemoni, influenced Jacob ben Elazar to carry on the
tradition of injecting another perspective into the literature of desire, that
of parody, into his Hebrew composition. As the contact between Arab
and Hebrew cultures lessened somewhat and translations of Arabic works
into Hebrew increased, Jacob ben Elazar joined the cadre of authors who
left the eloquence of Arabic poetry and language to articulate the expres-
siveness of Hebrew. Furthermore, as Andalusian poets moved northward
and encountered other cultures, especially those of Christian Spain, they
found that the Arabic language was not the lingua franca it had been in
Muslim Andalusia.
Jacob ben Elazar’s contemporary, Judah Alharizi, described in his vary-
ing dedications to different patrons the state of Hebrew: “the holy tongue,
he was informed, was fast deteriorating, having been abandoned by its
people, who now favored the Arabic language,”^26 which expresses suc-
cinctly ben Elazar’s motives for writing his “Love Stories” in Hebrew: first,
he wanted to chastise the Arabs who boast about the profundity and rich-
ness of the Arabic language and thereby mock the paucity of Hebrew to
address many subjects,

Is there such a language to cheer and smear

And love arouse, as the Arabs’?

Are there words as rich for wars and lore

as ours?^27

Ostensibly offended by this flaunting, Jacob ben Elazar stated, as his sec-
ond reason for writing his composition, his belief that the divinely or-
dained Hebrew language was eminently qualified to express profound
thoughts:

[God] has chosen the Sacred Tongue, the Hebrews’ language, over

others,’

He who mocks our tongue in turn is mocked and scorned

Because in a lesser language and alien tongue he speaks to this [Arab]

nation.^28