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The Poet’s Rabbi

JL;DR SUMMARY Robert Browning, the eminent Victorian poet, intriguingly chose to title one of his notable works "Rabbi Ben Ezra," casting the medieval Jewish philosopher Abraham ibn Ezra as the poem’s speaker. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish PhilosophyChristianityPersecutionRabbi Ben EzraRobert BrowningMedieval JudaismAbraham Ibn EzraVictorian PoetryHoly Cross Day

Places mentioned

Lucca, Italy
"Both Browning and Ibn Ezra were spiritually-minded poets; both sojourned in Lucca, Italy (Ibn Ezra in 1145, Browning in 1849, 1853, and 1857);"
London, United Kingdom
"both were residents of London (Browning for decades in his youth and again in his later years, Ibn Ezra in 1158-1159)."
Calahorra, La Rioja Province, Spain
"Ibn Ezra is believed to have died in Calahorra (Spain), but a fanciful anecdote mentioned by Moses ben Hasdai Taku (fl. 1250-1290) in his partly extant polemical treatise Ketav Tamim (c. 1220) claims that Ibn Ezra died in England from an illness after encountering a pack of black dogs which were, in fact, demons standing and threatening him as he rode through a forest."
Holy See (Vatican City State)
"But what the poem mainly limns is the defiant attitude of the Jews compelled to endure this despicable and deeply resented practice, a form of ecclesiastical persecution imposed on Roman Jewry and Jewish communities in the Papal States, that lasted until its abrogation by Pope Pius IX in 1846 (it was only briefly revived thereafter)."
Rome, Italy
"In Holy-Cross Day, while they are supposed to be a rapt audience attuning to the bishops homily, the Jews instead recite under their breath what Browning calls Ben Ezras Song of Death:"

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