On a recent trip to Spain, Morocco and Israel called “In the Footsteps of Maimonides,” the members of our group from Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills were the honored guests at a reception at the residence of the American ambassador to Spain, which became the occasion for a gathering of many of Spain’s Jewish leaders.
I told them that we had come there because so much of Jewish tradition and culture was shaped there. Hebrew poetry blossomed in Spain and Morocco because Jewish poets interacted with their Muslim counterparts. Maimonides was born in Spain, and through his studies in Morocco he was profoundly influenced by Muslim philosophers. It is impossible to understand modern Judaism without acknowledging the debt to Muslim and Christian culture during the period we call the Golden Age of Spain, from the ninth through the 12th century.
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