Mr. Mani (42 page)

And so, even though young Yosef did not study with Rabbi Haddaya himself but rather in a school where his education was so laxly supervised that he spent much of the time roaming the streets of Constantinople, all were in favor of his remaining at the rabbi's house: his father because of the connection this gave him with his revered teacher; the rabbi's wife because the boy helped occupy her solitude; and the rabbi himself because he regarded the youth highly, even if the reason for this was none too clear to him.

Early in 1844 the news reached Dona Flora that her younger sister's daughter, Tamara Valero, whom she had not seen since Tamara was little, was planning to travel to Beirut with her stepmother Veducha in order to attend the wedding of Veducha's brother, Tamara's step-uncle Meir Halfon. Dona Flora asked and received her husband's permission to travel to Beirut and meet her niece there—and since he himself was unable to accompany her, it was decided that Yosef Mani, who was by now already a young man, should go with her. Avraham Mani raised no objections, and Yosef and Doña Flora sailed to Beirut. They remained there longer than expected and returned with the announcement that—subject of course to the consent of the two fathers and Rabbi Haddaya—Yosef and Tamara were betrothed.

And indeed, when Tamara returned to Jerusalem, her father gave his approval. But although it was agreed that she would come to Constantinople for the wedding, which was to be presided over by her renowned uncle, the revered Rabbi Haddaya, she failed to arrive—and in the end, unable to restrain himself, Yosef set out by himself for Jerusalem in the winter of 1846 with the intention of bringing his bride back with him. Instead, however, as the families in Constantinople and Salonika later found out, the two were married in a modest ceremony in Jerusalem, where Yosef Mani found work in the British consulate that had opened there in 1838.

Avraham Mani and Flora Haddaya were both greatly disappointed, since they had looked forward to a grand wedding in the rabbi's home in Constantinople and to the young couple's being close to them. Apparently, however, young Mani felt sufficiently drawn to Jerusalem to wish to remain there. In any event, since the mails between Jerusalem and Constantinople were highly irregular and a long while went by without any word from the newlyweds, Avraham Mani decided to travel to Jerusalem in the hope of persuading them to settle in Salonika, or at least, in Constantinople.

Avraham entrusted his shop to his son-in-law, took with him several bags of his favorite rare spices in the hope of finding a market for them in Jerusalem, and sailed for Palestine, arriving there in the late summer of 1847. Although he had expected to be back within a few months, he remained there for over a year, during which nearly all contact with him was lost. Meanwhile, a mysterious rumor that reached Constantinople in December 1847 told of Yosef Mani's being killed in a brawl. And indeed, in February 1848, a rabbi from Jerusalem who arrived in Constantinople on a fund-raising mission confirmed this story, to which he added that Avraham Mani had remained in Jerusalem with his son's wife Tamara in order to be present at the birth of the child she was expecting.

Throughout the first half of 1848, the elderly Rabbi Haddaya and his wife Flora were greatly upset at being out of touch with Jerusalem, especially since they did, not even know when the birth was supposed to take place. The infrequent greetings or bits of news that arrived from Avraham Mani were vaguely worded and confused. And then, unexpectedly, on the first night of Hanukkah, Avraham Mani arrived at the inn in Athens where Rabbi Haddaya had been lying ill for several weeks.

 

FLORA MOLKHO-HADDAYA
was born in Jerusalem in 1800 to her father Ya'akov Molkho, who had moved there several years previously from Egypt. In 1819 her younger and only sister married a man named Refa'el Valero, and soon after a son was born to them. Flora Molkho herself, however, remained unmarried, for there was a dearth of eligible young men in Jerusalem and her attachment to her sister and her little nephew made her spurn all suggestions to travel to her father's family in Egypt, or to her mother's family in Salonika, in the hope of finding a match. When Rabbi Shabbetai Haddaya visited Jerusalem in 1827, he stayed with the Valeros and met Flora Molkho, whose refusal to leave the city in search of a husband intrigued him. Indeed, Flora's adamance wa§ now greater than ever, because her sister, having gone through two difficult miscarriages after the birth of her son, was well into another pregnancy.

Soon, however, all this changed, because shortly after Rabbi Haddaya's departure a devastating cholera epidemic broke out in Jerusalem that took the life of Flora's beloved nephew. Her sister, who meanwhile had given birth to a daughter, sank into a depression that led to her death in 1829. Flora Molkho, fearing that her widowed brother-in-law Refa'el Valero would feel obligated to propose marriage to her, hastened to leave Jerusalem for her mother's family in Salonika. Rabbi Haddaya followed her arrival there with interest and even sought, in 1833, to arrange a match between her and his protégé Avraham Mani, whose wife had recently died. Avraham Mani was keen on the idea, but Flora, although already a woman of thirty-three, refused. Her unmarried state troubled Rabbi Haddaya so greatly that he tried proposing other husbands for her, every one of whom she turned down, until he offered in his despair to marry her himself. Despite being forty years younger than he was, she did not reject his offer. The two were wed within a year and in 1835 Flora Molkho took up residence in Constantinople.

Although the rabbi and his wife had no children and he was away on his travels for weeks on end, the two appeared to get along well. As for Avraham Mani, he quickly recovered from his hurt at being spurned by Flora in favor of his elderly teacher, resumed his ties with the rabbi more intensely than ever, and in 1838 brought him his son Yosef to be his pupil. The rabbi's wife received the youngster with open arms and—quite taken by his charms, his keen intelligence, and his many interests—chose to have him keep her company. Whenever Rabbi Haddaya went away, he asked his wife to take young Yosef into their home because the latter was an independent and adventurous boy who took advantage of the rabbi's absence to enjoy the freedom of the city and needed to have an eye kept on him. And indeed, Flora Molkho Haddaya watched Yosef closely. He helped her around the house and sometimes, when the rabbi was gone, even slept beside her in his bed.

In 1844 Doña Flora was informed that her niece Tamara was planning to travel to Beirut with her stepmother Veducha for a family wedding. At once she had the inspiration of arranging a match between Tamara and Yosef in order to formally link her young favorite with her family. She received permission for Yosef to escort her to Beirut from both the rabbi and Avraham Mani, who was thrilled by the prospect of a marriage bond with his revered master. Although Tamara, for some reason, seemed doubtful about the match, the firm inducements of Doña Flora, coupled with Avraham Mani's encouragements from afar, resulted in a hasty betrothal in 1845. Tamara returned to Jerusalem to prepare for the wedding, which was to be held in Constantinople. She did not, however, set out, and the rather vague letters that arrived from Jerusalem implied that the groom was expected to come there first in order to meet the bride's family and make the acquaintance of her native city. Finally, in 1846, Yosef Mani complied, and eventually word reached Constantinople that he and Tamara had been married in Jerusalem and that he was working for the British consul there.

In 1847, Flora Haddaya and Avraham Mani, doubly distressed by the wedding's not having been held in Constantinople and by their separation from the newlyweds, decided to travel to Jerusalem themselves in order to visit their relatives there and persuade Yosef and Tamara to move back to Constantinople. Since Rabbi Haddaya, however, did not consent to his wife's making the trip alone with Avraham Mani, the latter had to go by himself. Once there, not only did he fail to bring his son and daughter-in-law back with him, he disappeared unaccountably for a long time himself until it became known that his son had been killed and that he was attending the birth of his daughter-in-law's child.

In 1848 Rabbi Haddaya, who was now over eighty, set out for Jerusalem and Avraham Mani, but on the way he suffered a stroke and lost the power of speech. He now had to be constantly cared for by his wife, who served as the link between him and an outside world that still looked to him for answers that it could no longer understand.

 

RABBI SHABBETAI HANANIAH HADDAYA
did not know the exact date of his birth. His rapid walk and young, energetic exterior often misled people as to his age. He himself did not take the question seriously, and since he had no family, there was no way of ascertaining the truth. In any event, he was in all likelihood born no later than 1766. His birth was known to have occurred aboard a ship that had set sail from the eastern Mediterranean, and it was jokingly said that he had been born straight from the sea, since both his parents died without reaching land from an outbreak of plague that swept through the vessel on its way from Syria to Marseilles. In France the little baby made the rounds of several charitable institutions until, inasmuch as it was circumcised, it was given for adoption to a Jewish family. Its foster parents were a childless old couple named Haddaya; according to one version, the infant was named Shabbetai for the false messiah Shabbetai Tsvi, who had lived in the previous century but whose remaining followers the Haddayas were connected with. The child did not remain with them for long, however. He was soon transferred to a Jewish orphanage, where he was raised and educated and given the additional name of Hananiah. Before long his intellectual capacities became apparent to his teachers, who arranged a special curriculum whereby he could advance in his studies.

Eventually, Shabbetai Hananiah was accepted into the talmudical academy of Rabbi Yosef Kardo, a descendant of a family of Marranos that had returned to Judaism in the early 1700s. So greatly did he excel in his studies that he was chosen headmaster after Rabbi Kardo's death, even though he was often away on his travels to various Jewish communities, which was something he had a passion for. He was thought highly of by his fellow French rabbis and in 1806 was even invited to Napoleon's famous convocation of Jewish leaders in the Tuilleries Palace in Paris, which met to debate the civil and national status of the Jewish people in the postrevolutionary era. His experience there, and in the discussions that took place in 1807 concerning the possible reconstitution of the Sanhedrin, was a deeply disturbing one for him. Unlike most of his colleagues, who basked in the honor accorded them and believed they were acting to ameliorate the Jewish condition, Rabbi Haddaya was seized by a strange pessimism. In 1808 he decided to leave the academy in Marseilles. After parting from his pupils, he sailed eastward to Sardinia and from there to southern Italy, from which he proceeded to Venice, where he resided for a considerable period. Subsequently, he moved on to Greece, wandered among its islands, reached as far as Crete, returned to Athens, and worked his way up along the Aegean coast until he arrived in Constantinople. Wherever he found himself, he offered his services as a preacher and a rabbinical judge. Although he kept up his legal erudition, theoretical studies did not greatly interest him and he preferred the active life of sermonizing and sitting on courts.

Not the least remarkable thing about Rabbi Haddaya was his bachelorhood, which seemed particularly inexplicable in light of his fondness for arranging matches and raising doweries for brides. Sometimes he even traveled great distances for the sole purpose of presiding at some wedding. And yet he himself declined to take a wife, a refusal that he justified by claiming that a childhood injury had left him unable to have children.

When Rabbi Haddaya first came to Salonika in 1812, he stayed at the home of Yosef Mani, Avraham Mani's father, and made a great impression on him and his family, especially by virtue of his observations about Napoleon, who was then in the midst of his Russian campaign. After spending several months in Salonika, the rabbi continued on to Constantinople, where he finally appeared to settle down. He ceased his wandering and opened a small school in the Haidar Pasha quarter along the Asiatic coast, and soon after Avraham Mani arrived to study there. Although the boy was not a particularly good student, Rabbi Haddaya appreciated his good qualities, among which was a great capacity for loyalty.

Young Avraham Mani sought the closeness of the old rabbi and grew so dependent on him that Rabbi Shabbetai sometimes referred to him in private as “that little
pisgado
” Nevertheless, he was sad to see the boy go when he had to return to Salonika after the failure of his father's business. Indeed, the emotion that he felt on that occasion quite surprised him. Soon after, his old wanderlust returned. Once again he began to travel all over the Ottoman Empire, particularly to Mesopotamia and Persia, although he also journeyed southward to Jerusalem, where he stayed at the home of Refa'el Valero and became acquainted with Refa'el's wife and his sister-in-law Flora, whose unmarried state was a cause of great wonderment to him.

Upon his return to Constantinople in the early 1830s, Rabbi Haddaya resumed his ties with ex-pupil Avraham Mani, who crossed the Bosporus from time to time to visit his former teacher. Rabbi Haddaya even tried to arrange a match between Avraham, whose wife died in 1832, and Flora Molkho, who had in the meantime moved from Jerusalem to Salonika after her sister's death. When Flora Molkho showed no interest in such a marriage, the rabbi invited her to Constantinople in the hope of changing her mind, and when this proved impossible, he suggested several other possibilities, all of which she rejected too. Finally, in a surprising and perhaps even despairing step, he proposed to her himself and was astonished when she accepted. The betrothal took place secretly in order to avoid hurting his dear disciple Avraham Mani; similarly, not wanting tongues to wag over his marriage to a woman forty years his junior, Rabbi Haddaya wed Flora in a ceremony conducted by himself in a remote town in Mesopotamia, for which he was barely able to round up the ten Jews needed for the occasion.