Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World

À bout de souffle (Breathless, film, Godard), music of, Solal, Martial A‘arokh Mehallel Nivi (I Will Compose Praise with My Words, poem, Ben Ḥassin), Ben Ḥassin, DavidAaron, spiritual relationship to Moses, Shiʽa and the JewsAaron of Baghdad, Southern Italy and BariAaron ben Aaron, Jebel NafusaAaron ben Amram, Aaron ben Amram, Court Jews, Joseph ben PhinehasAaron ben Asher, SyriaAaron ben Elijah of Nicomedia, Bible ExegesisAaron ben Jeshua see‘Abū ’l-Faraj Hārūn ibn FarajAaron ben Joseph, Kalām, Bible ExegesisAaron ben Mashiaḥ, Judeo-Persian LiteratureAaron ben Me’ir (gaon…

Abū ‘Imrān al-Fāsī, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm (Abraham ben Nathan)Abū ‘Imrān al-Tiflīsī, Malik al-Ramlī, Abū ʿImrān al-TiflīsīAbū ‘Isā al-Isfahānī, Iran/Persia, Isfahan, Messianism, Shiʽa and the Jews, Abū ʿIsā of Isfahan, Hamadan, YūdghānAbū Isḥāq seeIbn al-Ḥarīzī, AbrahamAbū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Aṭā’ seeIbn ‘Aṭā’Abu Iyad (Palestinian terrorist), Romano, JosephAbū Ja‘far Ibn Bābawayh, Polemics (Muslim-Jewish)Abū ’l-Jaysh Mujāhid (Taifa King), DeniaAbū ’l-Karam al-Dārānī, BukharaAbū ’l-Kathīr Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyā’ (d. ca. 932), Abū 'l-Kathīr Yaḥyā ibn Za…

Ādurbād ī Ēmēdān, Zoroastrians, (Jewish relations with)adventure stories, translations into Hebrew, Literature, Hebrew Prose (medieval) The Adventures of Tintin (film, Spielberg), Elmaleh, GadAdvertisement Foundation (Istanbul), Medina, Cefi (Jeffi)advertising sector  in Turkey, Medina, Cefi (Jeffi)  Jewish involvement in, Acıman, Eli, Barouh, N. Izidor, Barouh, Yakup, Scialom, Sedat Adwā’ ‘alā ’l-Ṣahyūniyya (Illuminations on Zionism, al-Sa‘danī), Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-ZionismAegean Sea, coastal region, Jewish communities in, Aegean Sea,…

​ Akhbār Baghdād (Chronicle of Baghdad, Nathan ha-Bavlī), Yeshivot in Babylonia/Iraq, Joseph ben Phinehas, Kohen Ṣedeq ben Joseph Gaon, Nathan ha-Bavlī on Bar Saṭya, Bar Saṭya, Joseph ben Jacob on exilarchate appointments, Baghdad on seating arrangements in yeshivot, Alluf Akhbār Majmū‘a (Arab chronicle), Al-Andalus, Muslim conquests and the Jews, Seville akhnif (cloak), Clothing, Jewelry and Make-up Aki Yerushalaim: Revista Kulturala Djudeo-Espanyola (periodical, Israel), Shaul, Moshe Akiva (The Hope, newspaper, Turkey), Turkish RepublicAkka (Morocco)  Jewish com…

“Alexandria, Egypt: Modern” (article, Elijah Bekhor Ḥazzan), Ḥazzan, Elijah BekhorAlexandru Moruzi (prince of Moldavia), Romania (Ottoman)Aley (Lebanon), Jewish community in, synagogues of, Lebanon ‘Aley Nahar (Harari-Raful), Harari-Raful, Nissim ben IsaiahAlfakhar, Judah ben Joseph, SevilleAlfandari, Aaron ben Moses, Alfandari, Aaron ben Moses, Rosanes (Rosales) FamilyAlfandari, David, Alfandari FamilyAlfandari, David ben Abraham, Bible ExegesisAlfandari, Elijah, Alfandari FamilyAlfandari, Elijah ben Jacob, Alfandari FamilyAlfandari, Ḥayyim, Qimḥi/Qamḥ…

‘Alī Burghul (ruler of Tripoli), Khalfon, Abraham‘Alī ibn Abī al-Ṭālib (fourth caliph, Muḥammad’s cousin and son-in-law, r. 656-661), Muslim conquests and the Jews, Shiʽa and the Jews, Shiʽa and the Jews, Court Jews and Noah, Shiʽa and the Jews spiritual relationship to Muḥammad, Shiʽa and the Jews‘Alī ibn al-Furāt, Aaron ben Amram‘Alī ibn ‘Īsā (vizier), Cairo Geniza, Joseph ben Phinehas‘Alī ibn Mahdī, Messianism, Messianism‘Alī ibn Mujāhid, Ibn Yashūsh, Isaac (Abū Ibrāhīm) Ibn Qasṭār‘Alī ibn Mūsā al-Riḍā (8th Shī‘ī imam), Polemics (Muslim-Jewish), Mashhad‘Alī ibn Sulaymān…

​ ​Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), Alliance Israélite Universelle Network, Camondo, Abraham de, École Normale Israélite Orientale, Paris, Judeo-Spanish Literature, Education, Club des Intimes, Salonica, Fernandez, Isaac, Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, La Nation (Salonica), L’Aurore (Istanbul) activities   in Morocco, Casablanca, Morocco, Morocco   special status of Jews in Morocco requested, Dahan, Jacques  in Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Empire  social support, in Edirne, Edirne (Adrianople) alumni associations/graduates, Nahoum (Nahum), Haim (Ḥa…

Almosnino, Abraham, Almosnino, IsaacAlmosnino, Isaac, Almosnino, IsaacAlmosnino, Joseph, Serbia, Ibn Ḥayyim, Aaron ben AbrahamAlmosnino, Joseph ben Isaac, Belgrade, Almosnino, Joseph ben IsaacAlmosnino, Moses ben Baruch, Balkans, Judeo-Spanish Literature, Sephardi Jurisprudence in the Past Half-Millennium, Salonica (Thessaloniki; Selanik), Almosnino, Moses ben Baruch writings of, Almosnino, Moses ben BaruchAlmosnino, Samuel, Levi (Le-Vet Ha-Levi) Family, SalonicaAlmosnino family, Almosnino, Moses ben Baruch almoxarife (collector of revenues), Jews as,…

anti- dhimmī measures  in Fatimid caliphate, Egypt, Palestine, Tustarī Family in Mamluk Egypt, Egyptanti-European violence, in Casablanca (1906), Zagury, Yaḥyāanti-French violence, in Syria (1936), Syriaanti-Greek violence, in Istanbul, Turkish RepublicAnti-Jewish Leagues (Algeria), Oran ​anti-Jewish measures  in Algeria, Constantine, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism of Almohads, Maimonides, Moses of Almoravids, Almoravids, Almoravids in al-Andalus, Al-Andalus, Spain, Niebla in Central Asia   Bukhara, Bukhara  Turkestan, Bukhara in the Crim…

​al-Andalus, Al-Andalus anti-dhimmi sentiments in, Ibn Naghrella, Samuel (Abū Ibrāhim Ismāʿīl) ben Joseph ha-Nagid anti-Jewish measures in, Al-Andalus, Spain, Niebla anti-Jewish violence in   in 1066, Al-Andalus    see alsoGranada  in 1391, Jaén Arab minority in, Al-Andalus Arabic tradition of, Barcelona Christian-Jewish relations in, Al-Andalus Christians in, Al-Andalus  dhimma laws in, Dhimma Jewish culture in, Al-Andalus, Al-Andalus, Sephardi (Sephardim), David (Abū ʾl-Ḥasan) ben al-Dayyan  in Almohad period, Al-Andalus  Arabic influences on, Co…

anti-Judaism/antisemitism  in Algeria, Algiers, Crémieux Decree, Mostaganem, Médéa, Hanin, Roger  fights against, Aboulker, Henri  French colonial period, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Constantine Riots (1934), Algeria, Algeria, Oran, Tiaret (Tahert), Batna   Crémieux Decree, Tlemcen, Sidi Bel Abbès   Vichy regime, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Algeria, Derrida, Jacques, Internment Camps (WWII), Internment Camps (WWII), Béchar (Colomb-Béchar)  Miliana, Miliana  Oran, Oran, Oran, Oran  Souk-Ahras, Souk-Ahras in Balkans, Ba…

​  affinities with Hebrew and Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic - History and Linguistic Description  and Bible exegesis, Bible Exegesis  ​Classical, Judeo-Arabic - History and Linguistic Description, Judeo-Arabic - History and Linguistic Description, Judeo-Arabic - History and Linguistic Description Egyptian-Sudanese, Sudan grammar   Basran school of, ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn ibn Faraj (Aaron b. Jeshua)  influences on Hebrew grammarians, Ibn Barūn, Isaac (Abū Ibrāhīm) ben Joseph, Ibn Janāḥ, Jonah (Abū ʾl-Walīd Marwān), Ibn Janāḥ, Jonah (Abū ʾl-Walīd Marwān)  Muslim scholars of,…

Arbib, Raffaele, Arbib familyArbib, Roberto, Arbib familyArbib, Ruben, Arbib familyArbib, Simon, Arbib, LilloArbib family, Arbib familyArbil (Iraq), Jewish community in, Arbilal-Arbīlī, Eli ben Zechariah, Gaon and GaonateArcady, Alexandre, Cinema, French, North African Jewish Actors and Characters in, France, Hanin, RogerArchaemenid period (550-330 B.C.E.), Judeo-Persian spoken in, Judeo-Persian languagearcheology, evidence from, of Jewish presence in ancient Tunisia, Tunisiaarchitecture  of Ahrida synagogue (Istanbul), Ahrida Synagogue (Balat) Persian, of …

Aaron ben Amram—or, as his name is given in Arabic sources, Hārūn ibn ʿImrān—lived in the second half of the ninth century and the first quarter of the tenth. He apparently began his career as a trader, as in one Arabic source he and his partner, Joseph ben Phinehas , are referred to as al-tujjār (the merchants). Eventually he became a jahbadh (banker). In this capacity, with responsibility for administering, remitting, and supplying funds, Aaron, together with the jahbadh Joseph ben Phinehas (Yūsuf ibn Fīnḥās), played a key role in the financial administration of the ʿAbbasid empire.The b…

In 921, a conflict erupted between the Babylonian yeshivot and the Palestinian yeshiva over the day on which the Passover holiday should be celebrated in 922. According to the Palestinians, the first day of Passover would be a Sunday, whereas the Babylonians held that it would be a Tuesday. The ensuing dispute was but one element in the ongoing struggle in the gaonic pe riod between the  Babylonian yeshivot and the Palestinian yeshiva for hegemony over the world’s Jewish communities. Both the calendar dispute and the overall conflict ended in a Babylonian victory.Aaron ben Me’ir led t…

Aaron ben Abraham Ḥakīmān, who lived toward the middle of the fourteenth century in Iraq, is known to us from his unique and unfortunately lacunal dīwān (poetry collection), containing 115 folios, in the Russian National Library (St. Petersburg), identified by Schirmann as MS 72 of the second Firkovitch collection (= no. 47406 in the JTS Schocken Institute online catalogue). From the variety of poetic compositions (including maqāmāt and muwashshaḥāt) in this dīwān, it is clear that Aaron was well acquainted with classical Arabic poetry, both Jewish and Muslim, and …

​Ashkelon (Israel)  in Fatimid period, and anti- dhimmī decrees of al-Ḥākim, Tustarī Family Jewish community in, Palestine, Palestine  deported from Jerusalem by Crusaders, Palestine  synagogues, Tazenakht mayor of, Abuḥaṣera, Barukh (Baba Barukh) Samaritans in, Samaritans under Muslim RuleAshkenazi, Abraham, Sephardi Jurisprudence in the Past Half-Millennium, Usque, SolomonAshkenazi, Abraham ben Raphael, Ashkenazi, Judah Ben JosephAshkenazi, Abraham Qalmanaqesh, Aben Ṣur FamilyAshkenazi, Azariah Joshua, IzmirAshkenazi, Behor, Ashkenazi, Bekhor (Beho…

astronomical tables  of Alfonso, X, Judah ben Moses ha-Kohen of Bar Ḥiyya, Abraham bar Ḥiyya of Zacuto, Science (Medieval)astronomy  Aristotelian influences on, Science (Medieval) calculations in, Ibn Matqa, Judah ben Solomon ha-Kohen, Ḥasan ben Mar Ḥasan observations of, used in religious calendars, Karaism study of   by Abraham of Toledo, Abraham of Toledo  by Ibn Tibbon, Jacob ben Machir, Ibn Tibbon, Jacob ben Machir writings on   by Dunash ben Tamīm, Dunash (Abū Sahl) ben Tamīm  by Ibn Ezra, Abraham, Ibn Ezra, Abraham (Abu Iṣḥāq), Ibn Ezra, Abraham (Abu Iṣḥāq)Astruc, I…

​ azharot (exhortations/hymns, poetical rendering of the 613 commandments), Sifre Miṣvot of al-Bargeloni, Sifre Miṣvot, Bargeloni, Isaac ben Reuben, al-, Edrehi (al-Darʿī), Moses b. Isaac and commandments, Sifre Miṣvot contemporary use of, Sifre Miṣvot of Elbaz, Samuel ben Judah, Elbaz, Samuel ben Judah halakhic content of, Sifre Miṣvot of Ibn Chiquitilla, Isaac, Ibn Chiquitilla, Isaac of Ibn Gabirol, Solomon, Ibn Gabirol, Solomon, Ibn Chiquitilla, Isaac, David ben Eleazar ibn Paquda  commentaries on, Amīnā, Benjamin ben Mishaʾel, Elisha ben Samuel (Rāghib)  rework…

Mordechai Abbadi, born in Aleppo in 1826, was a rabbi, judge, and distinguished sage. Renowned for his enormous command of legal and mystical literature, he reputedly composed his first novellae on the Talmud at the age of fifteen. His influence in the realm of Kabbala continued after his lifetime through the activities of his students Ḥayyim Saul Duwayk and Jacob Saul Duwayk (Duwayk Family), the latter of whom composed Abbadi's eulogy. Abbadi was influenced by the Bet El school of kabbalists (Bet El Kabbalists) and their quest for a purely Lurianic interpretation of Ka…

Shah ʿAbbās II (r. 1642–1666), the grandson of Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 1587-1620), was the most competent monarch of the Ṣafavid dynasty of Iran next to his illustrious ancestor. Only eight and a half years old when he ascended the throne, ʿAbbās II asserted himself early by curbing the Turcoman (Qizilbāsh) tribes, the early “power behind the throne” of the Ṣafavid dynasty. He continued the effort to increase and concentrate the power of the crown and to maintain the frontiers of his empire. Like his grandfather, but not on the same scale, ʿAbbās I, enhanced Isfahan with new palaces and repairs…

Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 1587–1629) is considered to have been the greatest monarch of the Ṣafavid dynasty. He ascended the throne of Iran at the age of sixteen during a turbulent political upheaval that included the murder of at least nine family members. Styled “the Great” for having consolidated the Iranian empire, ʿAbbās I enlarged and transformed his realm into one of the seventeenth century’s greatest powers, on a par with the Moghul empire under Akbar (r. 1556–1605), England under Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603), a…

ʿ Abbās-nāma (The Book [Chronicle] of ʿAbbās) by Muḥammad Ṭāhir Waḥīd Qazwīnī is the most important Iranian source for the history of the reign of the Ṣafavid Shah ʿAbbās II (1642–1666), covering events up to 1663. It is the only Iranian source, however brief, on the persecution of Iranian Jewry between 1656 and 1661. According to the ʿ Abbās-nāma, two Jews from Isfahan aroused the ire of the Shīʽī Muslim community by their failure to wear the badges indicating that they were Jews (see ghiyār ), thereby posing a threat for unknowing Muslims of contact with impurity ( najāsat ). The Jewish com…

Ar. – ArabicAram. – AramaicBerb.  – BerberBul. – BulgarianChin. – ChineseCl. Ar.  – Classical ArabicColl. Ar.  – Colloquial ArabicEng. – EnglishFar. - FarsiFr. – FrenchGer. – GermanGk. – GreekHeb. – HebrewHun. – HungarianIce. – IcelandicIt. – ItalianJap. – JapaneseJud.-Ar. – Judeo-ArabicJud.-Berb.  – Judeo-BerberJud.-Gk. – Judeo-GreekJud.-It. – Judeo-ItalianJud.-Pers. – Judeo-PersianJud.-Sp. – Judeo-SpanishJud.-Taj. – Judeo-TajikKurd.  -  KurdishLat. – LatinMor. Ar. – Moroccan ArabicNor. – NorwegianOtt. Turk.  - Ottoman TurkishPers. - PersianPol. – PolishPort. – P…

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saba’, also called Ibn Sawdā’ (Ar. son of the black woman), was a Jewish convert to Islam during the caliphate of Uthmā̄n (r. 644–656). Classical Sunni sources portray him as a progenitor of Shiʿism. Both Shīʿī and Sunni sources relate that a Yemenite Jew named ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saba’ was the first person to publicly proclaim that Muḥammad was the expected messiah.  After Muḥammad’s death, however, he transferred his allegiance to ʿAlī, announcing that ʿAlī was the messiah who would return (Ar. rajʿa) at the end of time, riding on the clouds. The earliest Shīʿī groups, largely…

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām (d. 663/64), a member of the famous Jewish-Arab tribe of Banū Qaynuqā’ in Medina, was one of the  ṣaḥāba (Ar. companions), or original disciples, of Muḥammad. Given the primordial status of his conversion at the hand of Muḥ̣̣ammad, ʿAbd Allāh came to be portrayed as a Jewish convert mouthing sometimes identifiably Jewish material; for example, in the Qur’ān commentary of al-Ṭabarī (d. 923). ʿAbd  Allāh b. Salām eventually functioned as a symbol of the Islamization of the Jews, and as such the tales about him have been very long-lived…

Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq al-Islāmī is known for having authored an anti-Jewish polemical pamphlet. The pamphlet, probably written between 1393 and 1396, is extant in four manuscripts, was reproduced twice in lithography as al-Sayf al-Mamdūd fī l-Radd ‘alā Aḥbār al-Yahūd (The Outstretched Sword for Refuting the Rabbis of the Jews), and was edited in 1998 under the same title. In the introduction the author informs us that he was from Ceuta in Morocco, and had converted from Judaism to Islam sixteen years earlier, along with other members of his household. Neither his o…

The second known Judeo-Persian chronicle, Kitāb-i Sar-Guzasht-i Kāshān dar Bāb-i ʿIbrī va Goyimi-yi Sānī (The Book of Events in Kashan Concerning the Jews; Their Second Conversion) by Bābāī ben Farhād, relates events pertaining to some of the Jewish communities of Iran between 1721 and 1731, a decade that witnessed the disintegration of the Safavid dynasty and Afghan and Russian invasions. A native of Kāshān, Bābāī ibn Farhād provides a detailed account of events in his community. In 1729 Ṭahmāsp Khān, the future Nādir Shāh (r. 1736–1747), demanded a considerable sum of m…

Armand Abécassis is a Moroccan-born French Judaic scholar and Bible commentator, and professor emeritus of comparative philosophy at the University Michel de Montaigne in Bordeaux. He is the father of Eliette Abécassis, with whom he co-published Le Livre des passeurs. His novel Rue des Synagogues retraces his childhood and growing up in Morocco.Armand Abécassis, renowned French philosopher, Bible scholar and commentator, and interpreter of Judaism, was born April 4, 1933 in Casablanca, Morocco. He completed his education at the School of Young Je…

Eliette Abécassis is a French writer of Moroccan heritage. Her works differ considerably in theme and content, from her Qumran trilogy, a widely translated “theological thriller,” to provocative stories set in an Orthodox Jewish milieu, like La répudiée. Her novels Un heureux événement, Une affaire conjugale, and Sepharad are in part autobiographical. The recipient of both the Prix des Ecrivains croyants and the Prix Alberto Benveniste, she has, in addition to her fiction, co-written film scenarios, one adapted from one of her novels, and directed two short movies.Eliette Abécassi…

Israeli actress Yael Abecassis has starred in numerous Israeli and international feature films. Born in Israel in 1967 to a family of Moroccan background, she worked as a model and an on-screen presenter for children’s television, and began her movie career in 1991 with the French film Pour Sacha (dir. Alexander Arcady). Her role as Rivka in Amos Gitai’s Kadosh (1999) showed her capable of portraying a deep and tragic character and propelled her into stardom. Living in a stifling ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem, Rivka is unable to conceive. The un…

see Ibn DananNorman A. Stillman

The Aben Ṣur (Ibn Ṣūr, Ben Ṣur) family of kabbalists, religious scholars, and rabbinic jurists ( dayyanim) in the cities of Salé, Meknès, and Fez was one of the supporting pillars of the Jewish community of Morocco from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth. The family produced outstanding figures in many different areas of Jewish scholarship, including law, Kabbala, grammar, and Hebrew poetry. There is little clear-cut documentation about the family’s early history.  The rabbinic scholar and historian Jacob Moses Toledano (1880–1960) thought they were descended from…

Jacob ben Reuben Aben Ṣur, known by the Hebrew acronym Yaʿbeṣ (1673–1752), was a distinguished rabbi and jurist ( dayyan) descended from the noted Aben Ṣur (Ibn Ṣūr, Ben Ṣur) family of Spanish exiles (Heb. megorashim) in Meknes. Around the beginning of the eighteenth century he moved to Fez and served as its spiritual leader until the day of his death, save for one decade in which he was exiled to the city of his birth as a result of a row with the nagidSaʿadya Lahboz. Due to wars and famine in Fez, Aben Ṣur sojourned in Tetouan in the mid-1730s; it was only during the last dec…

Abiathar ben Elijah ha-Kohen, who was born around 1041, probably in Jerusalem, was the last important gaon of the Palestinian yeshiva. He was the eldest of the four sons of Elijah ha-Kohen Gaon, and in keeping with standard practice, his father put him on an advancement track in the yeshiva. By 1067 he was already signing documents as “fourth in line,” thus making him a member of the ḥavurat ha-qodesh (sacred collegium; i.e., the yeshiva); by 1071 he was co-signing responsa with his father and, apparently as his right hand, went on missions to Egypt on his behalf.In addition to Geniza docum…

Best known as the guide of Charles de Foucault during his exploration of southern Morocco between 1883 and 1884, Mordechai Abisrur was born around 1830 to one of the oldest Jewish families in Akka (Ar. Aqqā), where he learned how to read and write in the primary religious school (Jud.-Ar. ṣ lā) of the Jewish Quarter (Ar. mallāḥ). A gifted and talented child, Abisrur earned the admiration of the community's elders, who sent him to study in Marrakesh in the hope that he would become a rabbi and return to the village to teach the young, preach in the loc…

Maklouf Abitan was born in 1908 in Casablanca. His parents had moved to this growing coastal city from the Dra’a Valley. As a child he attended traditional Jewish schools, first a ṣlā (the Moroccan version of a ḥeder - see Kuttāb) and then a yeshiva. He was a self-educated individual who taught himself French and was an avid reader of the press and literature in general. He and his wife Suliqa had three sons and five daughters. For a living, he ran a haberdashery.Abitan was active in the Hebrew and Jewish national revival that took place in Casablanca in the 1930s. In his home…

ʿAmor Joseph ben Solomon Abiṭbol (1780–1853) was a rabbinical judge ( dayyan) and liturgical poet in the Jewish community of Sefrou, Morocco, in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was the son of Solomon Abiṭbol (d. 1818) and a contemporary of Isaac Bengualid Ben Walīd (1797–1870) of Tetouan and Joseph ben Judah Berdugo (1802–1854) of Meknes. He earned high praise from Rabbi Abner Israel ben Vidal (IV) Ṣarfati of Fez (known as Ish, 1827–1884), and also from the kabbalist Jacob Abuḥaṣera (Sīdnā al-Ḥakham, 1808–1880) of the Tafilalet. Like many other rabbis of the time, Abi…

Saul Jeshua ben Isaac Abiṭbol (1739–1809), known as Rav Shisha, was a rabbi, rabbinical judge ( dayyan), and leader of the Jewish community of Sefrou, Morocco, in the second half of the eighteenth century. One of the greatest scholars in the history of Sefrou and the first member of his family to serve as a religious leader in that city, Abiṭbol was resolute and forceful, time and again rebuking the notables of the community as “insubordinate and bothersome.” He was also tough with his colleagues; he would decry pious scholars, even attacking Rabbi Petahiah Mordechai ben Jekuthiel Berd…

Isaac Mandil ben Abraham Abi Zimra (ca. 1540–1610), who lived and worked in Morocco and Algeria during the second half of the sixteenth century, was a rabbi in Fez and a scion of a family exiled from Spain. Mandil’s poetry is praised in various old and new sources and research projects. M. Zulay spoke of Mandil with great admiration and described him as “a poet the son of a poet.” It was Zulay who determined that Mandil lived between the years 1540 and 1610. H. Schirmann lectured on Mandil at the Eighth International Congress of Judaic Studies, but his text was not published an…

Misirli Ibrahim Efendi (1872–1933) was a famous Turkish oud player ( udi) born into the family of a merchant in Aleppo, Syria. His real name was Avram Levi, but he was called Misirli Ibrahim (Egyptian Abraham) because he lived and performed in Cairo for many years and first became famous there.Gradually building his career in Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, Ibrahim finally went to Istanbul. Upon establishing himself there, he studied classical Turkish music, the music of the Ottoman court and urban elite, with Haci Kirami Effendi, Hoca Ziya Bey, and the famous…

The Aboulker family of Algiers originated in Spain. The name appears for the first time in the twelfth century as Ibn Pulguer in Toledo. In Arabic, Abū  ʾl-Khayr is a kunya (nickname) meaning a good or fortunate man. In Portuguese, it could have morphed into Abulquerque. In French, it became Aboulker.      Over the centuries the family included numerous scholars, rabbis, merchants, and physicians.  In the first half of the fourteenth century, Isaac ibn Pulguer (also Pollegar, Pulgar, Policar) translated into Hebrew Book Three of the great Muslim theologian al-Ghaz…

Henri Aboulker (1876–1957), a scion of the Aboulker (Abū  ʾl-Khayr) family, was a surgeon and professor in the faculty of medicine, a wounded veteran of World War I, and a political activist devoted to defending the rights of Algerian Jewry. In January 1915 he helped to found the Comité Algérien d'Études Sociales (CAES). The committee, which continued until 1921 , focused on the fight against antisemitism. Among other things, it persuaded the Association Générale des Etudiants d’Alger (l’AGÈA) to accept Jewish students, who until then had been barred from membership.Over the years, …

Born March 5, 1920 in Algiers into the distinguished Aboulker family, José Aboulker was a leader of the French resistance in Algeria during the Second World War. In autumn of 1940, while studying medicine at the University of Algiers, Aboulker began to organize his fellow students. Supported by the “Group of Five,” a circle of patriotic French businessmen and officers in contact with the Allies, Aboulker recruited friends, family, and fellow students, including his cousin Bernard Karsenty and the young Jean Danie…

Colette Béatrice Aboulker-Muscat (1909–2005), a member of Algeria’s famous Aboulker family, was a physician, thinker, and natural healer. Born in Algiers on January 28, 1909, she was the daughter of Henri Samuel Aboulker (1876–1957), a noted neurosurgeon and Jewish communal leader. In 1927, she and her parents visited Jerusalem for the first time and met with Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (1865–1935), who had been a close friend of Samuel Abū ʾl-Khayr (Aboulker), her great-grandfather.In 1954 Colette Aboulker settled permanently in Israel with her second husband, Aryeh Mu…

Abraham bar Ḥiyya (d. ca. 1136) was a philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, and translator who worked at the Christian court of Barcelona and perhaps for Alfonso I of Aragon. Very little is known about his life other than an altercation he had with Judah ben Barzillay al-Bargeloni in connection with a wedding that Bar Ḥiyya felt ought to have been postponed for astrological reasons. It is also known that he visited France. He was still active in 1136, when he was last mentioned as a collaborat…

Abraham ben Hillel (d. 1223), known as he-Ḥasid (Heb. the pious), was a scholar, physician, and poet from a distinguished family in Fustat. His grandfather was the Av Beit Din (chief judge) of the Jewish court in Egypt. He is known to us mainly as the author of the satirical polemic  Megillat Zuṭṭa, a composition in verse and rhymed prose (written in 1196) that describes the activities of the anonymous Zuṭṭa (Aram. little man),  most likely Sar Shalom ben Moses ha-Levi, an intriguer and pretender to the office of nagid and a bitter opponent of Moses Maimonides in the power struggle that t…

Abraham ben Isaac of Granada probably lived in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, but there is no conclusive support for this dating, and nothing is known about his life. His name is cited in the introduction to the long commentary on the Sefer Yeṣira by Moses ben Isaac Botarel, a kabbalist with messianic pretensions who lived in Spain and France at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. Botarel mentions a Hebrew work entitled Sefer ha-Berit (Book of the Covenant) and attributes it to an author named Abraham ben Isaac of Granada. The work has …

Mullāh Abraham ben Mullāh Āghā Bābā Shīrāzī (d. 1910), also known as Mullāh Abram, was one of the last important rabbis in Iran. It is not known exactly when he became a rabbi or moved to Tehran, reportedly with a group of Jews from Shiraz. However, as early as 1870, he was living in the Jewish quarter of Tehran and was addressed as mullāh, a title borrowed from the Shīʿī Muslim milieu that indicates knowledge, particularly of religious matters.In 1875, after the death of Mullāh Bākhāj, whose precise dates are unknown, Mullāh Abram became the chief rabbi of Iran. He also…

Abraham ben Nathan, born around 1037, was the only the son of Nathan ben Abraham, the rival of Gaon Solomon ben Judah in the famous conflict that took place between 1038 and 1042. The dispute ended when Nathan ben Abraham was appointed Av Beit Din of the yeshiva, with hopes of obtaining the position of gaon. He apparently died before achieving this goal.Abraham ben Nathan inherited his father’s ongoing feeling of frustration and bitterness toward the Palestinian yeshiva and its leaders. His maternal grandfather, Mevorakh ben Eli, was one of the leaders of the Babylonian communi…