The Ashkenazim Come to Spain
History Series / Part 2

When times are bad, God sends leaders, so after the Crusades, God sent the Jewish people four great men to pull them back together: the Ohr Zarua, the Maharam of Rottenburg, the Rosh, and the Baal Ha Turim. Rabbi Wein narrates the exciting episodes of their lives, particularly the kidnapping of the Maharam of Rottenburg and how it brought the Rosh, an Ashkenazi, into Spain. And this gives rise to that eternal question in Jewish life: why does the Ashkenazi approach always seem to supersede the Sephardi?

• salaried rabbis - how the institution began
• the kidnapping of the Maharam of Rottenburg
• his refusal to be ransomed
• the Jewish hat - from a thing of derision to a symbol of pride
• the Rosh's flight to the safe haven of Jewish Spain
• Sephardi vs. Ashkenazi approaches to prayer, secular knowledge, and more