basis for black slavery: "[...] the great Jewish philosopher and statesman Isaac ben Abravanel, having seen many black slaves both in his native Portugal and in Spain, merged Aristotle's theory of natural slaves with the belief that the biblical Noah had cursed and condemned to slavery both his son Ham and his young grandson Canaan. Abravanel concluded that the servitude of animalistic black Africans should be perpetual." Abarbanel's view on slavery, however, stood in direct contradiction to that of Rashi, who, citing an earlier Talmudic source, wrote that the heathen were never included in the sanction of possessing slaves as the children of Israel were permitted to do, for the Scripture says (Leviticus 25:44): "Of them you shall buy, etc.", meaning, "Israel alone is permitted to buy from them [enslaved persons], but they are not permitted to buy [enslaved persons] from you, nor from one another." Scholars including Jonathan Schorsch and David M. Goldenberg point out Abarbanel's comments on the Book of Amos as indicating very humanistic sentiments: "[Abarbanel] responded with unconcealed anger to the comment of a tenth-century Karaite from Jerusalem, Yefet b. Ali, on the issue of Black [promiscuity]. Yefet had interpreted a biblical verse (Amos 9:7) to refer to Black women as being 'promiscuous and therefore no one knows who his father is.' Abarbanel: 'I don't know who told Yefet this practice of promiscuity among Black women, which he mentions. But in the country of my birth [Portugal] I have seen many of these people and their women are loyal to their husbands unless they are prisoners and captive to their enemies. They are just like any other people.'" Schorsch argues that concerning Abarbanel's views about the connection between slavery and the curse of Ham, Abarbanel was influenced by the writings of his contemporaries and predecessors, including Christian and Muslim writers, as well as the culture around him, and was hardly considered unique in his views. Abarbanel's commentary on Amos 9:7 and other writings, argues Schorsch, show the complexity of Abarbanel's views of Blacks. "Abarbanel's conflicting passages regarding Blacks were written at different times and addressed different realms of discourse, the one abstract myth, the other actual living Blacks." Schorsch shows how contemporary travel books described Ethiopians as barbarians, stealing each other's children to sell to Muslim foreigners. "Hence, the many statements that Ethiopians engaged in relations... with their siblings or parents. In this view, families, a