Elazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga, Alluf al-Andalus & Resh Kallah - Evidence Citation?

I guess the only thing to do at this moment is open up the discussion and hope someone with knowledge takes charge.

I think what was written in Hebrew as "״רייש כלה״
should be corrected as a suggestion to [ראש קהילה] = [Head of Community].

Shmuel-Aharon Kam (Kahn / שמואל-אהרן קם (קאן

האם נעשתה פניה אליו ובקשה להוכיח את המידע שהוסיף? ואם כן מה הייתה תשובתו?

אני משתדל לא לעסוק בענפים כה רחוקים ממני,אבל לפני כשנה עבדתי על ענף של סבים קדומים שהתחבר למידע שהוא הוסיף,המידע היה אמין.לא מדובר על הענף המדובר כאן

ישנם אנשים המומחים בעץ התנכ"י,אני מסופק אם הם נמצאים בג'ני,הריטג',וכ"ו

Let's start with a simple one.

Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasdai_ibn_Shaprut - says that Hasdai's father was Isaac ben Ezra. Isaac ben Ezra's ancestry is little known as fas a I know.

Geni - Hasdai ibn Shaprut - gives Hasdai's father as Ezra ibn Shaprut (not Isaac ben Ezra), and then provides what is probably a made-up ancestry for him.

So one place to start may be to sever parent/brother connections on this profile - Ezra ibn Shaprut

Josep Palau Arruego Can you shed any light on the relationship between Eleazar ibn Shmuel and Hophni as shown in the profile you added:
Eleazar ibn Samuel al-Hurga Or did you rely on another tree?

It does seem clear to me that Eleazar ibn Samuel Hurga isn't likely to be the son of Mar Sar Shalom ben Boas I believe that Eleazar may have been involved in bringing this line of geonim to Jaen, but that this historical connection has been parlayed into a genealogical one. However, it does seem reasonable for there to be a line of descent from Mar Sar in Jaen so what I am doing on my tree is replacing the name of Eleazar ibn Hurga with 'Unknown HaCohen' and maintaining the father-son connection with Natronai Yosef "Mari" haKohen, Gaon of Sura & Jaen al-Andalus Meanwhile I am preserving the father-son connection between Eleazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga and Ezra ibn Shaprut There may be issues with that lineage, but I will leave that to persons with greater knowledge to unravel.

PS this will mean that on my tree I am severing this connection between Yosef ben Yehudah and the exilarchs and the House of David. The Abravanel claims descent from the House of David but I do not think that going through Eleazar ibn Shmuel al Hurga is the way.

שמואל קם,
תודה על התיקון ועל ההסברים על "ראש כלה". מכל מלמדי השכלתי.

בלה

Shmuel-Aharon Kam (Kahn / שמואל-אהרן קם (קאן

תודה על תשובתך,
אין לי דעה על העץ התנכ"י...אני לא מתמצא בנושא,כפי שכתבתי אני עוסק בדורות הרבה יותר קרובים אליי,מגיע מקסימום עד רש"י

I think Adam's suggestion above makes the most sense.

The site www.dutchjewry.org shows Hophni "Hakhnochi Boaz" Kohen Sedeq ben Ivomai, Gaon of Sura as being the father of Elazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga, Alluf al-Andalus & Resh Kallah. Private User Randy Schoenberg, he is not Mar Sar Shalom ben Boas, right?

Generally speaking, if the profile in question was added by Jaim Harlow, you need to confirm carefully before just accepting it.

Jorge Barriga I cannot find the DutchJewry record you refer to. Could you please provide further guidance as to how to find this record? Thanks.

Hi Private User, of course, I would not add or delete anything, not sure if I can either.

Hi Private User, it is not a record per se but rather a result on their website (https://www.dutchjewry.org/genealogy/duparc/18492.shtml). The database used is the Alexander Duparc Family Tree Collection (https://www.dutchjewry.org/duparc_family_trees/duparc_family_tree_c...). The name it appears under is Hophni "Hakhnochi Boaz" Kohen Sedeq ben Ivomai.

I just wanted to add that I am very interested in this genealogy because I am a descendant of Açach Golluf, who was the son of Oro Xaprut (Ibn Shaprut or Abensaprut), whose paternal line traces to Hasdai Ibn Shaprut. The son of Açach, Alazar, is referred to as Alazar Zadoc (Zadok). They take the name Sánchez after conversion.

Jorge Barriga Thanks, I can see the DuParc data now (which may have been the source used by Jaim Harlow on GENI back in 2013).

I was looking for the source evidence used by DuParc, which I do not think is available from these materials. This being so, I have no way to confirm what is in DuParc.

One key point for me is the designation of Kohen applied by DuParc to Hophni, and to his father https://www.dutchjewry.org/genealogy/duparc/18493.shtml, and to many ancestors in the line. It seems clear that the ancestry of Hophni is Kohenite. Then, DuParc says that Elazar Ibn Shmuel al-Hurga is the son of the Kohenite Hophni, and is the father of both Ezra Ibn Shprut and the Kohenite Gaon Natronai. Since, there is no sign that Ezra ibn Shaprut or his descending line is Kohenite. I find all of this improbable. This is why I question the DuParc data as to whether a) Elazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga is the son of the Kohenite Gaon Hophni and father of the Kohenite Gaon Natronai, or in the alternative b) supposing that somehow Elazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga was a Kohenite son of Hophni, then I question that he is also the father of Ezra ibn Shprut, whose line shows no sign of being Kohenite. I prefer to attach Elazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga to a father named Shmuel al-Hurga, and to a son named Ezra ibn Shaprut, while connecting Hophni to an Unknown Cohen son, who in turn is the father of Natronai.

It is also possible that Elazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga is not even connected to Ezra ibn Shaprut (after all shouldn't his father be named Shprut?), and that therefore the Hasdai Ibn Shaprut tree begins with Ezra ibn Shaprut rather than Elazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga.

That said I do believe that Elazar ibn Shmuel al-Hurga is an actual historical figure who was a prominent 9th Century Spanish-Jewish scholar who was in contact with Gaonim in Babylonia. I'm just not convinced that he is genealogically connected to either the Kohenite Gaonim Hophni and Natronai, or to the ibn Shaprut family of Jaen.

Private User You are correct in that Ezra Ibn Shaprut does not use the title Kohen - we do not know why - but we need to take into consideration the fact that the Ibn Shaprut family was one of the most important Jewish families both in the Abd-Rahman III caliphate, but also later in the Kingdom of Aragón (and even in Spain as his ancestors were Treasurer's of King Fernando).

I am in touch with a couple of knowledgeable rabbis of the amoraitic period who may be able to shed some light, as well as a Medieval Sephardic expert. From what I also understand, the name "Ibn Shaprut" means "tasty, delicious" (from Alvaro López Asensio, who is an expert in genealogy in Calatayud where the Ibn Shaprut family moves after Granada and Navarra), could have a been a name that developed in Granada.

Let's see what Jaim Harlow has to say. I have tried to tag him, but I have not been successful.

Jaim appears to no longer be on Geni. He stopped responding to emails several years ago as well.

I've been through all of the books in my own library trying to find anything on the ancestry of the ibn Shaprut family - nada.

On Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasdai_ibn_Shaprut - the genealogy given is that Hasdai is the son of Isaac ben Ezra (NOT Ezra ibn Shaprut as given here on Geni).

It may well be that there are no further primary sources for the ancestry of that family, and that any trees built up by others may be the result of speculation (which may be back centuries, fyi, and have taken on the form of ancient tradition).

Note also that Wikipedia gives the dates (circa 915 to 970) for Hasdai, which do not match those given here on Geni. At the very least, there's a missing generation here.

ALSO, there's a second profile for Hasdai, also created by Jaim, that has a different set of ancestors. See: Hasdai ibn Ezra ibn Shaprut

Thank you Private User, I am investigating too. This second profile of Hasdai is wrong, the date is in the 12th century.

Jorge Barriga thank you for the investigation you are doing. This period is the birth of sephardic jewry and is of interest to many researchers. Please keep us informed of your findings.

Thank you, Private User! Of course. I have one finding so far. Hasdai Ibn Shaprut's father was Isaac Ibn Shaprut Ben Ezra. Isaac was a very wealthy person. He moved from Jaén to Córdoba at some point. Córdoba was at that time the capital of Muslim Spain (Abdarrahman III). [1]

Isaac built a new synagogue in Jaén before moving to Córdoba and supported Torah learning and Torah scholars and writers. In 910, he had a son named Hasdai, likely in Jaén. Isaac gave Hasdai an excellent education. He learned Arabic, Latin (from Christian clerics), and Romance. He was not a distinguished Torah scholar. Hasdai then studied medicine and became a doctor to the Caliph and later his confidant and minister of foreign relations. [1]

Another interesting fact is that Menahem Ben Saruq, the writer of the Machberet (the first dictionary of biblical vocabulary writing in Hebrew), was the secretary of both Isaac and Hasdai. This says a lot about the power of Isaac to have such a famous secretary. [2]

Finally, according to this source |3], it is Hasdai who appoints Moshe Ben Hanoch, from Babylonia, as Chief Rabbi of the Jewish community of Córdoba. There is an interesting story from the Sefer Ha-Qabbalah (Abraham Ibn Daud) that tells the story of The Four Captives, Moshe Ben Hanoch being one of them. The effect of this is that Hasdai cuts the dependence of responsa from the Sura and Pumbedita academies.

Sources:
[1] Ashtor, Eliyahu: The Jews of Moslem Spain, Volume 1, Jerusalem 1973
[2] Domenech, Jordi: El Legado Sefardí en Jaén: Hasday Ibn Shaprut Un Principe Judio, 2018
[3] Bossong, Georg: Geschichte und Kultur der sephardischen Juden. München 2008

Now, I need to continue going upward to understand Isaac Ibn Shaprut Ibn Ezra's father. Interestingly enough, the Ibn Ezra's surname could have a link to Ezra, who returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile and the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, so not simply a patronymic. One place for me to look further is to understand about the Yeshiva in Lucena. At last, the Kohanite link would also need to be defined, working on that as well.

This is fascinating material. I just saw in the biography here Hasdai ibn Shaprut asserting that Isaac Ibn Shprut's father was Abraham.