Born in Toledo in 1359, Ephraïm Al-Naqua is the son of the rabbi and moralist Israël Al-Naqua. Fleeing the pogroms of 1391, he settled in Tlemcen, where he became a legendary figure.
His father was an advocate of an education combining the sacred and the profane. Ephraïm studied medicine at the University of Palencia, one of the first universities in Europe, founded in 1212. At the age of 32, in 1391, he left Spain in the company of the Ribash (Rabbi Isaac Bar Sheshet Perfet) and the Rashbatz (Rabbi Shimon ben Tsemah Duran), two of the greatest legal decisors of their generation. The road led him first to Marrakech, then to the port of Honein (present-day Honaïne, province of Tlemcen), before he settled definitively in the Zayyanid capital. This journey of several months, across the western Mediterranean and then the caravan routes of the Maghreb, was shared by thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing the Iberian violence. The arrival of these megorashim (expellees) profoundly transformed the Jewish communities of the Maghreb, bringing a new intellectual and economic breath.
The legend of the lion — by which the Rab rode a wild beast — finds a rational explanation: the lion symbolizes the sultan, who implores him to save his sick daughter. Ephraïm heals the child. The Rab obtains two favors: permission for the Jews to settle in the center of the city, and authorization for Jewish families from Spain to come to Tlemcen.
The Sha'ar Kevod Hashem (שער כבוד ה׳, “The Gate of the Glory of God”) is his principal philosophical work, a systematic defense of the philosophy of Maimonides against the criticisms of Nahmanides. The original manuscript is preserved at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Samuel Sultan made copies of it at the end of the 19th century. In 1902, an annotated edition appeared in Tunis, with the commentary Petah HaSha'ar of Rabbi Haïm Beliah. A modern edition appeared in Jerusalem in 1986. The first complete French translation of this work is now accessible on Encaoua.org, from the menu Explorer → Kevod Hashem.
A piyyut for the festival of Rosh Hashanah, built according to an alphabetical acrostic, is still sung in certain synagogues of the Oran and Tlemcen tradition. Its melody, of Arab-Andalusian inspiration, is one of the most beautiful of this repertoire.
The Rab passed away on 13 November 1442 (1st of Kislev 5202) at the age of 82. His epitaph: “Here rests he who was our pride, our crown, the light of Israël…” From his death until 2005, his vault was a place of pilgrimage for Jews and Muslims of all origins. A synagogue is dedicated to him in Jerusalem; a street bears his name in Tlemcen.
To understand the exceptional welcome reserved for Éphraïm Al-Naqua, one must place his arrival within the political context of Tlemcen under the Zayyanid dynasty (1235–1554). The Zayyanids, a Berber dynasty of the Banu Ziyad, made Tlemcen one of the most brilliant capitals of the medieval Maghreb, a rival of Fès and Tunis. Eager to develop commerce and diplomacy, the Zayyanid sultans favorably welcomed the Jewish refugees from Spain, recognizing their medical, commercial, and intellectual skills. The Jewish community of Tlemcen, attested since the 10th century by the correspondence between local scholars and the geonim of Iraq, was considerably strengthened by these migratory waves. The Almohad conquest of 1146 had temporarily devastated the community, but the rise of the Zayyanids in 1248 marked the beginning of a period of reconstitution and prosperity.