| Sumario: | Gossip and rumor as a source of historical information has occupied scholars from different fields in the humanities and social sciences for several decades. This essay addresses a series of severe accusations against the poet and musician Rabbi Israel Najara (ca. 1550–ca.1625) cast by (or in the name of) Rabbi Ḥayim Vital (1543–1620) in his Sefer ha-ḥezyonot, a revelatory and deeply personal diary that was not published in its original version until 1954. However, this text circulated secretly in manuscripts and orally among the rabbinical elites of the Ottoman Empire and beyond, mostly in abridged or censored versions, some of which were printed. In addition, Rabbi Menachem di Lonzano (ca. 1550–1626) also made a series of accusations against Najara's poetics and by implication, about his persona. The gossip and rumors unleashed by Vital and Lonzano generated counternarratives designed to clear Najara, whose musical poetry had become a staple of modern Sephardic spirituality and to some extent Ashkenazi too. Chiefly among those involved in clearing Najara's reputation were individuals associated with Sabbatian circles, while accusers included important figures of Ashkenazi orthodoxy. The toxic core of these rumors and gossip persisted until the present. The motivations behind contemporary accusers and defenders of the controversial poet-musician of Safed, Damascus, and Gaza, including those from within academia, are thoroughly analyzed in their historical and social contexts.
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