This past January we were delighted to welcome the associate professor of History at Brooklyn College of CUNY, Karen Stern, to Majorca as she investigated Hebrew writings found in Majorca. While looking at ingots made of lead that were found in the town Santa Maria de Cami and are now held in the Museu of Mallorca, we were excited to learn of the existence of two ketubot from the 13th and 14th centuries that are held in the Royal Archives in Palma, which her husband Dr. Ezra Gabbay, who is an assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell medical college, was able to read! We suddenly felt like we had been thrown into a treasure hunt! They later went to the archives and were allowed access to view them. All of the staff were incredibly nice, helpful, and friendly in their efforts to access primary source material for Karen’s upcoming book. We also visited a famous 15th century retablo that is still hanging in the Sanctuary of Sant Salvador in the town of Felanitx that depicts a scene of the Majorcan Jews conversion of 1435.
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