Dona was a very common name with Spanish Jews. It comes from Spanish Dona which means senora or lady.
Dona was born in Turkey and migrated to France with her husband around 1925. She lived in France until her death in 1945 or 1946, except for the year 1938
in which her son Isaac sent her to New York to spend the year with her son Albert and his family. She talked of this year to her grandchildren ,Henri and Ralph, with
amazement.
She had wonderful memories of her passage to New York in the magnificent ship, the Normandy. They even served her Kosher food on the the ship even though
she did not keep a Kosher home. Back in Paris, during the war she stayed with her daughter Becky and survived the German occupation.
Dona would tell her grandchildren Henri and Ralph over and over again that she had an ancestor who had been Grand Vizir of the Caliph of Cordoba in Spain. The ancestor was a medic, poet, foreign minister and finance minister. Henri and Ralph were skeptical because she was not very literate. Then they found a book by Koestler about the story of the Turkish Khazar tribe which mentions a man named Hasdai ibn Shaprut with all these characteristics. There is another reference to Shaprut in Aba Eban's famous book, "My People", the history of Israel and the Jewish people. To learn more about Hasdai ibn Shaprut go to www.jewishgates.com Click on Moments in Jewish History and then select Jews in Spain, 755CE-960's CE. There is a link to Hisdai Ibn Shaprut. Also, there are letters he wrote at www.fordham.edu More information: Biography of Shaprut. Also, the book Ornament of the World, How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain by Maria Rosa Menocal has an entire chapter devoted to him, the Grand Vizier of Cordoba.
According to The 1911 Edition Encyclopedia (http://77.1911encyclopedia.org/H/HA/Hasdai_ibn_shaprut.htm) :
HASDAI IBN SHAPRUT, the founder of the new culture of the Jews in Moorish Spain in the 10th century. He was both physician and minister to Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III. in Cordova. A man of wide learning and culture, he encouraged the settlement of Jewish scholars in Andalusia, and his patronage of literature, science and art promoted the Jewish renaissance in Europe. Poetry, philology, philosophy all flourished under his encouragement, and his name was handed down to posterity as the first of the many Spanish Jews who combined diplomatic skill with artistic culture. This type was the creation of the Moors in Andalusia, and the Jews ably seconded the Mahommedans in the effort to make life at once broad and deep. (I. A.)
