Rabbi Isaac Abulafia (Abū ʾl-ʿĀfiya) was born in Damascus in 1825, the son of Moses and Oro Abū ʾl-ʿĀfiya and the grandson of Rabbi Ḥayyim Nissim Abū ʾl-ʿĀfiya, chief rabbi of Jerusalem from 1854 to 1861. During the Damascus Affair (1840), Moses Abū ʾl-ʿĀfiya converted to Islam under torture and testified against the chief rabbi, Jacob ʿAntebi. Afterward he returned to Judaism, but he had lost his prestige in the community. He sent Isaac to his grandfather in Tiberias. Isaac was tutored by his grandfather, and after they moved to Jerusalem, he was re…