stalwart African Christian kingdom surrounded by Muslim lands.^9 All political
parties involved—Venice, Portugal, and above all the pope—saw potential
political gains if they properly exploited the story.^10 David’s great conviction
impressed Ramusio, who noted that David “was obsessed with returning the
Hebrew people to the Promised Land... .The Jews truly adore him like a
messiah.”^11 Later, when David appeared in Portugal, he caused an even stron-
ger reaction among the local “converso” community—Jews who had been
forcibly baptized just a little over two decades earlier.^12
It is clear that the story of a man claiming to come from the ten tribes
brought together a chain of connections. Yet, what counts in understanding the
episode is not so much factual knowledge of specific events and history as a
certain world historical imagination and the coming together of multiple
regional threads. Talmudic and biblical prophecies and predictions concerning
the ten tribes were at work both in David’s self-presentation and in the
reception to him. Contemporaneous elaborations on the messianic process
and the possible role of the ten lost tribes within it played a key role as well.
Finally, growing geographic knowledge about the east fused with mythic
traditions such as that surrounding Prester John to create a context in which
David was rendered intelligible—indeed, was rendered possible. These ela-
borations are significant, telling us the potent meaning of the ten tribes for
Jews, for Christians, and for sixteenth-century Europe.
The Loss of a Nation
A rare document from the beginning of the fifteenth century sheds new light
on the appearance of the ten tribes in European Jewish thought at the time. It
involves a certain Solomon ha-Levi (c. 1352 – 1435 ), a noted Talmudist and the
chief rabbi of Burgos, Spain, who converted to Christianity in 1391 , in the wake
of the notorious anti-Jewish pogroms. Shortly thereafter, ha-Levi—now Paul of
Burgos or Pablo de Santa Maria—received an admonishing communication
from his friend the physician Yehosu‘a ha-Lorki (fl. 1400 ) of Alcan ̃iz.^13 Ha-
Lorki testified that, upon hearing news of his friend’s conversion, he was
greatly upset: “My thoughts were wandering and my heart won’t rest and
sleep.” What had lured his friend to another faith? Was it material pleasures
such as “money and majesty,” or a desire “to see the pleasant face of gentile
women”? Perhaps it was “philosophical inquiry” that “deceived you to turn
things around”? Ha-Lorki’s third guess touched upon the question of history:
“Perhaps you have seen the loss of our nation [hefsed ha-ummah], and our
recent troubles... and you began thinking maybe the name of Israel shall not