Joseph Colon Trabotto
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Joseph Colon b. Solomon Trabotto, also known as Maharik, was the foremost Talmudist of Italy in the second half of the 15th century; born probably at Chambéry, Savoy, about 1420; died at Pavia in 1480, though one source lists 1484 as the year of his death.
Colon (whose name is related to the French word "colombe," or 'dove') was a scion of the Trabotto family, which was known for its large number of scholars. After the final expulsion of the Jews from the French Kingdom in 1394, his family emigrated first to the Franche-Comte and subsequently settled in the city of Chambery, the capital of the Duchy of Savoy. Chambery was the home to a significant population of rabbinic scholars. Among these were R. Yohanan Treves, the last chief rabbi of France and R. Jacob HaLevi, better known as Maharil. Overwhelmingly, the Jewish population was made up of individuals of French, rather than German, origin. It was within this ambience that the young Joseph Colon received his Talmudic education, which was heavily imbued with the style, traditions and Talmudic methodology of medieval French Jewry. Chiefly, he studied under the tutelege of his father, R. Solomon Trabotto, a noted Talmudist and Kabbalist, though he does refer to others as his teachers, and recalls participating in learned discussion with other local scholars. Colon left Chambery in the early 1450's and settled in the Italian Piedmont, which had become part of the Duchy of Savoy. This move was the result of a combination of new opportunities on the other side of the Alps, combined with increasing anti-Judaism in Trans-Alpine Savoy. It was not, however, as Grätz claims("Gesch." 3d ed., viii. 253), a consequence of the expulsion of the Jews from Savoy, which only occurred in 1471. For a time he led a wandering life, and was forced to gain his living by teaching children.
About 1469 he officiated as rabbi in Pieve de Sacco, in Venetian territory, whence he went to Mestre, near Venice. There he became acquainted with a pupil of Israel Isserlein, and was influenced by him in favor of the German Talmudists. Subsequently Colon was rabbi at Bologna and Mantua, and he became involved in a quarrel with Messer Leon, both being banished by the authorities. Thereupon he was made a rabbi at Pavia, and there he became the center of Talmudic learning in Italy. At the same time Colon's decisions in civil as well as religious questions were sought from far and wide—from German cities, such as Ulm and Nuremberg, as well as from Constantinople. He wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch, and novellæ on the Talmud and on the legal codex of Moses of Coucy; but the responsa, collected after his death by his son-in-law Gershon and by one of his pupils, Ḥayya Meïr b. David, are all that have been printed of Colon's works (ed. princeps, Venice, 1519; several later editions).
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[edit] His Responsa
Colon's responsa, which are among the classical productions in this field of rabbinical literature, exercised a great influence on the development of rabbinical law. One of the most important was his responsum No. 1, in which he decided that no one could be forced to take a case to an outside court when there was a court in the place where the defendant was living; for it often happened that rich people took their cases to foreign rabbis in order to make the poor surrender. His responsum No. 4, addressed to the congregation of Regensburg, is also highly important. A number of Jews of that community having been falsely accused, and a sum of money having to be raised for their ransom, the surrounding places and neighboring communities refused to contribute, at least in so far as it was a question of paying a fixed tax instead of making voluntary contributions. Colon decided that the communities in question could not refuse to pay their share, since the same false accusation might be made against them also, and if the accused in this case were proved innocent and ransomed, they would then be safe from danger.
In his responsa Colon endeavored not only to decide the case in hand, but to establish general principles according to which similar or related cases might be decided. In addition to an astonishing range of reading in the entire rabbinical literature, Colon displays a critical insight into the treatment of the Talmud that is remarkable for his time. This is all the more noteworthy since he was entirely under the influence of the German Talmudists, which preponderated in northern Italy. Colon's great selfconfidence is remarkable; he paid little attention to Jacob ben Asher's "Ṭurim," even then considered the most authoritative law codices; and he cared as little for mere custom (Responsa, No. 161, end). He had, besides, an inflexible regard for right and justice, and never stopped to consider persons. This becomes especially evident in the sharp yet duly respectful manner in which he reproved Israel Bruna, the foremost Talmudist of Germany of his time, when the latter presumed to act as judge in a certain dispute, though he was himself one of the contending parties.
[edit] His Dispute with Capsali
It was natural that a man of Colon's stamp should sometimes be carried too far in his zeal for truth and justice; and this happened in his dispute with Capsali, the ḥakam-bashi of Turkey. Having been falsely informed by an emissary ("meshullaḥ") in behalf of the people of Jerusalem that Capsali was very lax in divorce decisions, that he had declared that the betrothed of a man who had become converted to Christianity should be considered as single, and that he had declared an engagement void because it had not been entered into according to the laws of the community, Colon, in order to establish the sanctity and inviolability of marriage beyond the power of any individual rabbi, wrote three letters (Resp. Nos. 83, 84, 85) to the president and leaders of the community of Constantinople, threatening to place Capsali under the ban if he did not recall his decisions and do public penance; and at the same time making it understood that in no case would Capsali ever again be allowed to fill the office of rabbi (Resp. No. 83). This decree of an Italian rabbi pronounced against a Turkish colleague was àn unprecedented attack on the rights of the community, and provoked the righteous indignation of the Constantinople community—all the more as it proved to rest upon a groundless and vulgar calumny. Capsali, conscious of having been maligned, did not mince matters in answering Colon's letters; and a bitter discussion arose between the two men, in which the leading rabbis of Germany, Italy,and the Orient took part. It is characteristic of Colon that as soon as he became convinced that he had been the victim of an intrigue, and so had done injustice to the ḥakam bashi, he did not hesitate to make amends. On his death-bed he commissioned his son Perez to go to Constantinople and ask, in his father's name, the forgiveness of Capsali.
[edit] Bibliography
- Grätz, Gesch. 3d ed., viii., passim;
- Güdemann, Gesch. des Erziehungs wesens und der Cultur der Juden in Deutschland, pp. 246-251;
- Gross, Gallia Judaica, pp. 221-223;
- Zunz, Z. G. p. 106.
- H. A. Rabinowicz, The Life and Times of Rabbi Joseph Colon, PhD Dissertation, University of LOndon 1947;
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] External links
- [1] Online copy of Jewish Encyclopedia
