Profiat Duran

Profiat Duran (c. 1350 – c. 1415) (Hebrew: פרופייט דוראן), full Hebrew name Isaac ben Moses ha-Levi; was a physician, philosopher, grammarian, and controversialist in the 14th century. He was later sometimes referred to by the sobriquet Efodi (האפודי) through association with his two grammars entitled "Ephod." In official records he also appears under his converso Christian name Honoratus de Bonafide.

It is not known whether he was born at Perpignan, where he lived for some years, or in another Catalonian town. In his youth he attended a Talmudic school in Germany for a short time, but instead of confining his studies to the Talmud, he took up philosophy and other sciences also, in spite of the interdiction of his teachers. Duran became a tutor in the Crescas family, and during the bloody riots of 1391 was forcibly baptized, becoming a Converso.

Duran is the author of a famous satiric epistle called, after the repeatedly recurring phrase, Al Tehi Ka-Aboteka (Be Not Like Your Fathers). It was written about 1396, and was circulated by Don Meïr Alguades, to whom it had been sent. It is so ingeniously ambiguous that the Christians, who called it Alteca Boteca, interpreted it in their favor; but, as soon as they recognized its satirical import they burned it publicly. This epistle, with a commentary by Joseph ibn Shem-Tov and an introduction by Isaac Akrish, was first printed at Constantinople in 1554, and was republished in A. Geiger's Melo Chofnajim, 1840, in the collection Ḳobeẓ Wikkuḥim, 1844, and in P. Heilpern's Eben Boḥan, part 2, 1846. Geiger also translated most of it into German (Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, iv. 451).

According to an account written at the top of one of the manuscripts of the epistle, Duran and his friend David Bonet Bonjourno made up a plan to emigrate to Palestine in order to return to Judaism. The two friends set out on their journey, getting as far as Avignon, where they met up with another converso, Paul of Burgos (who had become a believing Christian priest, and had achieved the rank of Bishop). Paul disrupted their plan by persuading Bonjourno to become a true Christian, and Duran was forced to return to Catalonia. In response to these events, Duran wrote Be Not Like Your Fathers.

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