The first school founded by the Jews in Spain was that of Cordova (948), followed by those of Toledo, Barcelona and Granada. All these institutions were thronged with eager students and formed centres of light, the rays whereof shone all the brighter amid the gloom of the Dark Ages. Not only Talmudic, Biblical, and Cabbalistic lore were there cultivated, but secular philosophy was diligently studied; and Aristotle was revered as a disciple of Solomon! Poetry, music, mathematics, astronomy, metaphysics and medicine were also included in the curriculum, and the Spanish Jews, as the result of this encyclopaedic training, were men of the broadest and most varied culture; the same individual often combining in his own person the subtleties of the Rabbinical scholar with the elegant taste of a poet; the sagacity of a financier with the practical skill of a physician. ♦915–970♦ All these talents are found embodied in Abu-Yussuf Chasdai of Cordova, a European in every respect except religion and name. From his father Chasdai inherited great wealth and liberal views on its uses. He studied the science of medicine, but he shone especially as a patron and man of letters, and as a diplomatist. Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin were almost equally familiar to him. He rendered brilliant political services to Caliph Abdul-Rahman III. in his relations with the Christian sovereigns of Northern Spain and other European potentates, and he was rewarded by his master with a post which in reality, though not in name, represented the powers of a Minister of Foreign Affairs, of Trade, and of Finance, all in one--an elevation which enabled Chasdai “to take the oppressor’s yoke from his people,” and “to break the scourge that wounded it.” Fate decreed that envoys from the Byzantine persecutors of the Jews should come to Cordova to solicit the aid of the Western against the Eastern Caliphs, and they were received by the Jewish Minister. Under the paternal, if at times despotic, rule of the Caliphs the Hebrew character cast away some of its sternness and austerity--a change which is pleasantly reflected in the literature of the period. The Hebrew Muse ceased to weep and wail over old misfortunes, and the lays of the Hispano-Jewish minstrels laugh with the sunshine or sigh with the lyric tenderness of their new country. These traits are brilliantly illustrated by the work of the Castilian poet Jehuda Halevi, born in 1086, and thus described by an enthusiastic co-religionist: “Pure and true, without blemish, Were both his song and his soul. When the Creator had formed this soul, Pleased with Himself at His work, He kissed the beautiful creation, And the glorious echo of his holy kiss Trembles yet in every song of the poet, Sanctified through this Divine grace.”