Solomon Ibn Verga

Solomon ibn Verga (or Salomón ben Verga, c. 1460 – 1554) (Hebrew: שלמה אבן וירגה‎) was a Spanish historian and physician, and author of the Shevet Yehudah (Hebrew:שבט יהודה - "Scepter of Judah").

His relationship to Judah ibn Verga cannot be determined; it is certain, however, that he was not the son of the latter, for he never refers to Judah as his father. Schudt (1718) was apparently misled by the title of the Shebeṭ Yehudah when he called its author "Solomon ben Schefet". His surname is of Berber origin (related to common Berber-Jewish names like Ergas and Ergaz), which suggests that his family was native to northern Africa.

Ibn Verga himself says that he was sent by the Spanish communities to collect money for the ransom of the prisoners of Málaga (Shebeṭ Yehudah, § 64.), but he lived also at Lisbon as a marrano, and was an eye-witness of the massacre there in 1506 (ibid § 60).

Later he escaped to Turkey, probably to Adrianople, where he wrote the Shebeṭ Yehudah (Shevet Yehudah) an account of the persecutions of the Jews in different countries and epochs. In a short preface he says that he found an account of some persecutions at the end of a work of Judah ibn Verga, which he copied; to this he added a narration of the persecutions of his own time, the compilation being afterward completed and edited by his son, Joseph ibn Verga. The title "Shebeṭ Yehudah", which is an allusion to Judah ibn Verga ("shebeṭ" in Hebrew being the equivalent of the Spanish "verga", "staff"), refers to Gen. 49:10.

The work contains an account of 64 persecutions, besides narratives of many disputations and an account of Jewish customs in different countries. Ibn Verga endeavored to solve the problem why the Jews, particularly the Spanish Jews, suffered from persecutions more than any other people. He gives various reasons, among them being the superiority of the Jews ("whom the Lord loves He chastens": Proverbs 3:12), and chiefly their separation from the Christians in matters of food; their troubles were also a punishment for their sins. In general, Ibn Verga does not endeavor to conceal the faults of the Jews; he sometimes even exaggerates them.

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