Raphael Asher Covo (1799– January 1874) was chief rabbi of Salonica, head of a yeshiva, and a sponsor of communal charity. The grandson of Rabbi Abraham Covo (d. 1792), he studied with his father and with Rabbi Isaac Barzilai. Covo was a rabbi in Salonica for over fifty years, during which time he founded the city’s Lishkat ha-Gazit Yeshiva. His halakhic decisions were oft-quoted by rabbis in many communities. By 1835, Covo was already a prominent dayyan (judge), and in 1849 he was appointed chief rabbi (ḥakham bashi) of Salonica concurrently with Ḥanokh Saporta. In 1856, Sultan Abdülmecid…