Ḥayyim ben Jacob Abulafia (Abū ʾl-ʿĀfiya), known as “the Second,” was the grandson of Ḥayyim ben Jacob Abulafia “the First.” He was born in Hebron around 1660 and studied Torah in Jerusalem after his family moved there in 1666. His teachers were the rabbis Moses Galante, Abraham Amigo, and Solomon Algazi. In 1699 he was sent to Salonica as an emissary. He served as a rabbi in Izmir (Smyrna) in 1712 and from 1721 to 1740; from 1718 to 1721 he served as a rabbi in Safed.

In 1740, Abulafia was invited by Shaykh Ḍāhir al-ʿUmar, the ruler of the Galilee, to settle there and renew the communi…