viernes, 13 de diciembre de 2013

Campantón, rabino de Zamora, Gaon de Castilla

Mario Saban, author, and president of Tarbut Sefarad, summarizes the life and works of Isaac Campanton (1360-1463), Rabi of Zamora and Gaon of Castile. Saban notes that even when Campanton is not well known today, however his influence was immense through his disciples, among them Isaac Aboad II, Isaac de Leon, and Samuel Valensi. Campanton was the head of the Talmud-Torah School in Zamora for many years followed by Valensi, who headed the prestigious school until 1492. 

Campanton wrote only one book titled "The ways of the Talmud" with several editions across the Sephardic diaspora until these days. Campanton's teaching reached Safed in the 16th century impacting the cabalist circle of Jacob Berah and others. According to Saban, it is important to study Torah, Talmud and Kabbalah scholars coming out of the Zamora academy since a good number of them greatly impacted Judaism before, but particularly after 1492. 

Isaac Aboab II, born in Zamora and Campanton's disciple became the head of the Torah academy in Guadalajara and also was related to the one in Toledo. Valensi, also born in Zamora, was the first of the important rabbinical family that will led synagogues and schools in Morocco after the expulsion. Jacob Habib, disciple of Valensi, became the head of Talmud Torah school in Salamanca. All of them applied Campanton's methodlogy of critically reading Jewish religious, intellectual and mystic traditions. 

Saban concludes by affirming that the Talmud Torah School of Zamora produced the higher quality of Jewish thought during the 14th and 15th centuries impacting post 1492 center of studies in Safed, Fez, Salonica, and Constantiniple, among other places. Saban's assessment of Zamora relevance is shared by other current Jewish Sephardic Studies experts like Abraham Gross, Ben Gurion University, who considered Zamora to be the most important center of Jewish studies in the 15th in the Iberian Peninsula.