RASHI lived more than 200 years before RAMBAM. RASHI was French BTW.
RAMBAM was born in Spain, afterwards lived in Egypt. His family never "secretly" observed Judaism, they were always open about it.
Don't know where you get your information.
RASHI 1040-1105
RAMBAM 1135-1204
In other words RAMBAM was born 30 years after RASHI died. In the context of discussing the "Middle Ages," I think this makes them virtual contemporaries.
I said RASHI lived in France. Maybe I should have said "Christian France," as opposed to "Islamic Spain, Morocco and Egypt."
His family never "secretly" observed Judaism, they were always open about it.
From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
Before Moses reached his 13th birthday, his peaceful world was suddenly disturbed by the ravages of war and persecution. ... The Almohads who captured Cordoba in 1148 [left] the Jewish community with the grim alternative of submitting to Islam or leaving the city. The Maimons temporized by practicing their Judaism in the privacy of their own homes while disguising their ways in public as far as possible to appear like Muslims. ... When the double life proved too irksome to maintain in Cordoba, the Maimon family left the city in about 1159 to settle in Fez, Morocco. Although it was also under Almohed rule, Fez was presumably more promising than Cordoba because there the Maimons would be strangers and their disguise would be more likely to go undetected. ... Fez proved to be no more than a short respite however. In 1165 Rabbi Judah ibn Shoshan, with whom Moses had studied, was arrested as a practicing Jew and was found guilty and executed. ... [They moved to Palestine and then to Egypt.] ... There Jews were free to practice their faith openly, though any Jew who had once submitted to Islam courted death if he relapsed to Judaism. Moses himself was once accused of being a renegade Muslim, but he was able to prove that he had never really adopted the faith of Islam and was so exonerated. [ML/NJ transcription from printed copy, so whatever typos are included are mine.]RASHI made wine.
Don't know where you get your information.
I get it from lots of places, but like I said above this comes from the Encyclopedia Britannica.
ML/NJ