HASDAI

IBN SHAPRUT  , the founder of the new culture of the Jews in Moorish Spain in the loth century . He was both physician and minister to Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III. in Cordova . A man of wide learning and culture, he encouraged the settlement of Jewish scholars in Andalusia, and his patronage of literature, science and art promoted the Jewish renaissance in Europe . Poetry, philology, philosophy all flourished under his encouragement, and his name was handed down to posterity as the first of the many Spanish Jews who combined diplomatic skill with artistic culture . This type was the creation of the Moors in Andalusia, and the Jews ably seconded the Mahommedans in the effort to make life at once broad and deep . (I .