The Fundación Tres Culturas (Three Cultures Foundation) and Makom Sefarad are organising a presentation of the work of Todros Abulafia, one of the most relevant Hispano-Hebrew poets, by doctor and expert Rachel Peled.
Todros Abulafia was born in 1247 in Toledo, within an important Jewish family. He lived in the city for much of his life, serving Alfonso X the Wise and his son Sancho IV, in a melting pot of Eastern and Western cultures. Author of around 1,200 poems, he is one of the main Post- Classical poets of medieval Spain and one of the most colourful characters of the period. The incarceration of the Jews in 1281 marked his life and his work, ripping him from his pleasant aristocratic lifestyle and throwing him into a miserable existence.
Following the presentation, a workshop will be held which, based on a brief selection of Abulafia’s beautiful poems, will allow the audience to discover the traditional Jewish means of study, the Beit Midrash. A Beit Midrash or study hall is the place where masters and disciplines gather to study and discuss texts in Jewish tradition.
Rachel Peled Cuartas is a doctor cum laude in Religious Sciences from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid; researcher and translator of medieval Hispano-Hebrew literature; associate of post-doctoral research of the Ibero-American Studies Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; co-director and professor of the Sephardic studies, medieval Mediterranean languages and biblical Hebrew programmes at the IEMSO (University of Alcalá); founder, co-director and professor of the Ulpán Hebreo Sefarad and Translation Workshop (Madrid).
Those wishing to attend the conference must register via the following link.
