Avraham entrusted his shop to his son-in-law, took with him several bags of his favorite rare spices in the hope of finding a market for them in Jerusalem, and sailed for Palestine, arriving there in the late summer of 1847. Although he had expected to be back within a few months, he remained there for over a year, during which nearly all contact with him was lost. Meanwhile, a mysterious rumor that reached Constantinople in December 1847 told of Yosef Mani’s being killed in a brawl. And indeed, in February 1848, a rabbi from Jerusalem who arrived in Constantinople on a fund-raising mission confirmed this story, to which he added that Avraham Mani had remained in Jerusalem with his son’s wife Tamara in order to be present at the birth of the child she was expecting.
Throughout the first half of 1848, the elderly Rabbi Haddaya and his wife Flora were greatly upset at being out of touch with Jerusalem, especially since they did, not even know when the birth was supposed to take place. The infrequent greetings or bits of news that arrived from Avraham Mani were vaguely worded and confused. And then, unexpectedly, on the first night of Hanukkah, Avraham Mani arrived at the inn in Athens where Rabbi Haddaya had been lying ill for several weeks.
FLORA MOLKHO-HADDAYA was born in Jerusalem in 1800 to her father Ya’akov Molkho, who had moved there several years previously from Egypt. In 1819 her younger and only sister married a man named Refa’el Valero, and soon after a son was born to them. Flora Molkho herself, however, remained unmarried, for there was a dearth of eligible young men in Jerusalem and her attachment to her sister and her little nephew made her spurn all suggestions to travel to her father’s family in Egypt, or to her mother’s family in Salonika, in the hope of finding a match. When Rabbi Shabbetai Haddaya visited Jerusalem in 1827, he stayed with the Valeros and met Flora Molkho, whose refusal to leave the city in search of a husband intrigued him. Indeed, Flora’s adamance wa§ now greater than ever, because her sister, having gone through two difficult miscarriages after the birth of her son, was well into another pregnancy.
Soon, however, all this changed, because shortly after Rabbi Haddaya’s departure a devastating cholera epidemic broke out in Jerusalem that took the life of Flora’s beloved nephew. Her sister, who meanwhile had given birth to a daughter, sank into a depression that led to her death in 1829. Flora Molkho, fearing that her widowed brother-in-law Refa’el Valero would feel obligated to propose marriage to her, hastened to leave Jerusalem for her mother’s family in Salonika. Rabbi Haddaya followed her arrival there with interest and even sought, in 1833, to arrange a match between her and his protégé Avraham Mani, whose wife had recently died. Avraham Mani was keen on the idea, but Flora, although already a woman of thirty-three, refused. Her unmarried state troubled Rabbi Haddaya so greatly that he tried proposing other husbands for her, every one of whom she turned down, until he offered in his despair to marry her himself. Despite being forty years younger than he was, she did not reject his offer. The two were wed within a year and in 1835 Flora Molkho took up residence in Constantinople.
Although the rabbi and his wife had no children and he was away on his travels for weeks on end, the two appeared to get along well. As for Avraham Mani, he quickly recovered from his hurt at being spurned by Flora in favor of his elderly teacher, resumed his ties with the rabbi more intensely than ever, and in 1838 brought him his son Yosef to be his pupil. The rabbi’s wife received the youngster with open arms and — quite taken by his charms, his keen intelligence, and his many interests — chose to have him keep her company. Whenever Rabbi Haddaya went away, he asked his wife to take young Yosef into their home because the latter was an independent and adventurous boy who took advantage of the rabbi’s absence to enjoy the freedom of the city and needed to have an eye kept on him. And indeed, Flora Molkho Haddaya watched Yosef closely. He helped her around the house and sometimes, when the rabbi was gone, even slept beside her in his bed.
In 1844 Doña Flora was informed that her niece Tamara was planning to travel to Beirut with her stepmother Veducha for a family wedding. At once she had the inspiration of arranging a match between Tamara and Yosef in order to formally link her young favorite with her family. She received permission for Yosef to escort her to Beirut from both the rabbi and Avraham Mani, who was thrilled by the prospect of a marriage bond with his revered master. Although Tamara, for some reason, seemed doubtful about the match, the firm inducements of Doña Flora, coupled with Avraham Mani’s encouragements from afar, resulted in a hasty betrothal in 1845. Tamara returned to Jerusalem to prepare for the wedding, which was to be held in Constantinople. She did not, however, set out, and the rather vague letters that arrived from Jerusalem implied that the groom was expected to come there first in order to meet the bride’s family and make the acquaintance of her native city. Finally, in 1846, Yosef Mani complied, and eventually word reached Constantinople that he and Tamara had been married in Jerusalem and that he was working for the British consul there.
In 1847, Flora Haddaya and Avraham Mani, doubly distressed by the wedding’s not having been held in Constantinople and by their separation from the newlyweds, decided to travel to Jerusalem themselves in order to visit their relatives there and persuade Yosef and Tamara to move back to Constantinople. Since Rabbi Haddaya, however, did not consent to his wife’s making the trip alone with Avraham Mani, the latter had to go by himself. Once there, not only did he fail to bring his son and daughter-in-law back with him, he disappeared unaccountably for a long time himself until it became known that his son had been killed and that he was attending the birth of his daughter-in-law’s child.
In 1848 Rabbi Haddaya, who was now over eighty, set out for Jerusalem and Avraham Mani, but on the way he suffered a stroke and lost the power of speech. He now had to be constantly cared for by his wife, who served as the link between him and an outside world that still looked to him for answers that it could no longer understand.
RABBI SHABBETAI HANANIAH HADDAYA did not know the exact date of his birth. His rapid walk and young, energetic exterior often misled people as to his age. He himself did not take the question seriously, and since he had no family, there was no way of ascertaining the truth. In any event, he was in all likelihood born no later than 1766. His birth was known to have occurred aboard a ship that had set sail from the eastern Mediterranean, and it was jokingly said that he had been born straight from the sea, since both his parents died without reaching land from an outbreak of plague that swept through the vessel on its way from Syria to Marseilles. In France the little baby made the rounds of several charitable institutions until, inasmuch as it was circumcised, it was given for adoption to a Jewish family. Its foster parents were a childless old couple named Haddaya; according to one version, the infant was named Shabbetai for the false messiah Shabbetai Tsvi, who had lived in the previous century but whose remaining followers the Haddayas were connected with. The child did not remain with them for long, however. He was soon transferred to a Jewish orphanage, where he was raised and educated and given the additional name of Hananiah. Before long his intellectual capacities became apparent to his teachers, who arranged a special curriculum whereby he could advance in his studies.
Eventually, Shabbetai Hananiah was accepted into the talmudical academy of Rabbi Yosef Kardo, a descendant of a family of Marranos that had returned to Judaism in the early 1700s. So greatly did he excel in his studies that he was chosen headmaster after Rabbi Kardo’s death, even though he was often away on his travels to various Jewish communities, which was something he had a passion for. He was thought highly of by his fellow French rabbis and in 1806 was even invited to Napoleon’s famous convocation of Jewish leaders in the Tuilleries Palace in Paris, which met to debate the civil and national status of the Jewish people in the postrevolutionary era. His experience there, and in the discussions that took place in 1807 concerning the possible reconstitution of the Sanhedrin, was a deeply disturbing one for him. Unlike most of his colleagues, who basked in the honor accorded them and believed they were acting to ameliorate the Jewish condition, Rabbi Haddaya was seized by a strange pessimism. In 1808 he decided to leave the academy in Marseilles. After parting from his pupils, he sailed eastward to Sardinia and from there to southern Italy, from which he proceeded to Venice, where he resided for a considerable period. Subsequently, he moved on to Greece, wandered among its islands, reached as far as Crete, returned to Athens, and worked his way up along the Aegean coast until he arrived in Constantinople. Wherever he found himself, he offered his services as a preacher and a rabbinical judge. Although he kept up his legal erudition, theoretical studies did not greatly interest him and he preferred the active life of sermonizing and sitting on courts.