David Reubeni דוד הראובני
the man who declared himself envoy of a Jewish kingdom and was received by the pope and the king of Portugal
Where he really came from is unknown to this day. In 1523 he appeared at Venice and declared himself the brother of King Joseph, who ruled a Jewish state in the Arabian desert, and his envoy. His proposal was definite: give arms, and the Jews will put an army into the field against the Turks and take the Land of Israel.
What is astonishing is not that he said it but that he was listened to. Pope Clement VII received him and gave him a safe-conduct; King John III of Portugal received him in 1525 and negotiated with him. In the sixteenth century an alliance with an unknown eastern kingdom against the Ottomans was not a mad thought, and he was treated as an ambassador.
The consequence was different. In Portugal the anusim were watching him—those baptised by force who lived a double life. For them his appearance meant not policy but a sign. One of them, the royal secretary Diogo Pires, circumcised himself and became Solomon Molcho. The Portuguese authorities took alarm, and Reubeni had to leave.
In 1532 he and Molcho came to Regensburg to the Emperor Charles V with the same proposal of a joint army. The emperor ordered both seized. Molcho was burned at Mantua; Reubeni was sent to Spain and died in prison some years later—by one account, poisoned.
A diary of his survives—an account of his travels written by himself. How much truth is in it is still disputed.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- The diary of David Reubeni — his own account; its reliability is disputed
Scholarship
- Britannica, "David Reubeni" — the claim, the reception by the pope and John III, the arrest and death in a Spanish prison
- Reference literature: years of life — the years of birth and death by the agreed count of the reference literature; where the source says «about», it is marked as such
Basis: documents and evidence.