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"In 1523, a man named David Reubeni appeared in Venice, claiming to be the ambassador of a powerful Jewish kingdom deep in the heart of Arabia. With his army of hardy desert warriors from lost Israelite tribes, he pledged to deliver the Jews to the Holy Land by force and restore their pride and autonomy. Traveling from Arabia to Africa and then Europe, he spent a decade shuttling between Christian rulers in Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France, pitching himself as an ally against an ascendent Ottoman empire and offering support in exchange for weaponry. Reubeni was hailed as a messiah by both wealthy Jews and Iberia's oppressed conversos, but his grand ambitions came to a halt in Regensburg when the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, turned him over to the Inquisition and, in 1538, he was likely burned at the stake. Diary of a Black Messiah is the first English translation of Reubeni's Hebrew-language diary, detailing his travels across Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean and personal travails. Written in a Hebrew drawn from everyday speech, entirely unlike other literary works of the period, the diary reveals in very concrete terms what it would take to raise a Jewish movement to conquer the Holy Land"--
List of contents
Introduction
1. Africa
2. Egypt and the Holy Land
3. Italy
4. Portugal
5. Spain
Appendix: Solomon Cohen's Addendum
About the author
Alan Verskin is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Rhode Island.
