scriptural statements on the ten tribes. Combining the two in relation to the
ten tribes was a significant development and marks the beginning of what
might be called the “scientific” approach to the topic. Implicitly, ha-Lorki also
set the scientific parameters or methodology for a successful search: follow the
itineraries of the travelers and merchants who have covered the length and
breadth of the earth. With ha-Lorki’s view, the ten tribes were now a provable
fact, not only a note in scripture. It is not incidental that the first time that this
idea appears is in the context of a debate—between a Jew and a (New)
Christian. Over time, this would become the dominant mode of discussion
of the tribes. The scriptural became the scriptural/scientific, which became the
scientific alone.
Ha-Lorki closes with a confident statement about his “strength of faith in
the physical continuity of the Jewish people.” His inclusion of the ten tribes in
this context was apt. After all, the loss of the tribes marked the greatest
demographic defeat inscribed in Jewish memory since biblical times. To insist
that they were not completely lost was one way to ensure faith and nourish
hope—and bolster in number the total world population of Jews. The question
of Jewish numerical insignificance became acutely connected to the question
of the ten lost tribes.
A century later, as anxieties became even more acute, the role of the tribes
as a source of hope became even more pronounced. The great Iberian Jewish
statesman, philosopher, and scholar Don Isaac Abravanel ( 1437 – 1508 ) stressed
that the three “unquestionable characteristics” of the messianic moment were
its coming “only after long exile, [that] the Ten Tribes exiled in Assyria would
return, [and that] God’s terrible vengeance would be wrought upon the nation
that persecuted Israel.”^19 This leader of Iberian Jewry, whose political experi-
ence was unparalleled among world Jewry of the time, wrote in the wake of the
1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Abravanel was mostly concerned with
the Jewish sentiment “that everything was lost” and with the “growing despair”
that was becoming prevalent among Jews. These feelings of despair were
“largely inspired by the numerical insignificance of Jews.”^20 Tragedy, conver-
sion, and dwindling numbers—all called for the shoring up of the Jewish
people with some massive influx. Who better to provide it than the long-lost
tribes in their countless numbers and military strength?
The expulsion from Spain, the “last Jewish stronghold,” worsened the
despair. Not only were many lives lost, along with Jewish property, during and
in the wake of the expulsions, but tens of thousands of Iberian Jews gave up their
Jewish identity and chose to stay in Spain as Christians. Thousands more lost
their Jewish identity in 1497 , when the Portuguese Crown declared all Jews
within Portugal’s borders to be Christians.^21 To Abravanel, the numbers seemed
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