The Granada Massacre: The Fate of Rabbi Yosef HaNagid

At the age of 9, Yosef, the son of Rabbi Shmuel HaNagid, embarked on his first battle alongside his father. Rabbi Shmuel HaNagid, a leader of Spanish Jewry, was a scholar, poet, deputy king, and general. At night, in the general's tent, Yosef huddled in a corner and wrote a poem about his longing for his hometown of Granada.

His father sent him to the Yeshiva of Kairouan in North Africa to study under the last of the great Gaons, Rabbi Nissim Gaon. Yosef excelled among the students, and Rabbi Nissim Gaon chose him as his son-in-law. At the age of twenty, Yosef's father passed away in peace and prosperity, and Rabbi Yosef succeeded him as the leader of the Jewish community, the king's grand vizier, and the prime minister of the Taifa of Granada.

Sitting in his father's seat, Rabbi Yosef continued his father's work. He edited and published his father's writings, and in the preface, he briefly recounted his life story, even mentioning the poem he wrote during the battle at the age of nine.

Rabbi Yosef was responsible for tax collection in Granada and managed foreign policy. Many of Granada's Muslim inhabitants envied him. Although the kings could not function without the help and talents of the Jews, this did not prevent the residents from resenting the Jews who rose to prominence and ruled them. Rabbi Yosef lived in a splendid palace called Alhambra, still considered a tourist gem of Granada.

Muslims claimed that having a Jewish leader over them contradicted Islamic laws, which dictated that Jews only had the right to live if subservient to Muslims. Anti-Semitic poems and literature spread throughout Granada, and rumors circulated that the Jewish Nagid was plotting civil war using his agents and spies. A notable poem described the Nagid as a "monkey," and the lavishness surrounding his palace as exploitation of honest Muslims. The Jewish palace was said to draw all the region's streams.

On Shabbat, the 9th of Tevet in the year 4827 (December 30, 1066), a mob, incited, stormed the palace of Rabbi Yosef HaNagid. Despite disguising himself, painting his body black, and hiding among the servants to be mistaken for a Black servant, he was recognized, murdered brutally, and his body was hung on the city gate. Many other Jews were killed as well, an event later referred to as the "Granada Massacre."

Rabbi Yosef's wife and son Azaria managed to escape. Jews from Granada searched for them and smuggled them to Cordoba, where Rabbi Yitzchak Ibn Giat, one of Spain's great scholars, received them. Rabbi Yitzchak taught Azaria Torah and appointed him the head of the community in Lucena, near Cordoba.

The Raavad, author of the "Seder HaKabbalah," writes that the Fast of the 9th of Tevet is mentioned in the "Megillat Taanit," but the reason for the fast is not noted. Now, after the Granada Massacre, it is understood that wise men with divine inspiration foresaw this horrific event and instituted the fast centuries earlier!

Special efforts were made to obtain Rabbi Yosef's writings, as during the pogrom, the attackers plundered his home, and his valuable writings dispersed across the land. A scholar named Rabbi Yitzchak ben Baruch dedicated his time and money to acquire Yosef HaNagid's works from markets and merchants to preserve his legacy.