Israel ben Moses Najara, born in Safed in 1550, was a rabbi and scholar who was educated by his father, Moses Najara, and his grandfather, Rabbi Israel ben Me’ir di Curiel.  The family was of Iberian origin, probably from the Spanish town of Nájera.  In the Arabic-speaking Levant, the name was sometimes pronounced Najjāra, and in one poem, he actually says of himself in Aramaic Yisraʾel ʿavdakh hen ana naggara u-var naggara (Israel your servant I am indeed a carpenter the son of a carpenter) and in Hebrew naggar u-var naggar (see Mirsky, Sefunot 6, pp. 261-262).   In 1575, when Israe…