The name ʿAṭiyya (Attiah, Attia, Attieh) is thought to derive either from the name of a Spanish city or from the Arabic for “gift.” The family, according to its long-held tradition, originated in Spain. Generation after generation, in the centuries since the expulsion in 1492, it produced rabbis and communal leaders in Jewish communities the world over, among them Ḥayyim ʿAṭiyya, Ḥalfon ʿAṭiyya, Judah Aslān ʿAṭiyya, Moses ʿAṭiyya, and Nissim ʿAṭiyya. Some of the most noteworthy are discussed in this article.

Rabbi Isaac ben Isaiah ʿAṭiyya, born in Aleppo in 1755, was one of Alepp…