SephardicJews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the Iberian Peninsula. The term, which is derived from the Hebrew Sepharad, can also refer to the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, who were also heavily influenced by Sephardic law and customs. Many Iberian Jewish exiled families also later sought refuge in those Jewish communities, resulting in ethnic and cultural integration with those communities over the span of many centuries.
Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern Haskalah and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves.
The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, which coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, was a period of Muslim rule during which, intermittently, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life flourished.
In early modern Europe, particularly in Germany, a court Jew or court factor was a Jewish banker who handled the finances of, or lent money to, royalty and nobility. In return for their services, court Jews gained social privileges, including, in some cases, being granted noble status.
Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel, commonly referred to as Abarbanel, was a Portuguese Jewish statesman, philosopher, Bible commentator, and financier.
Manoel Dias Soeiro ;, better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel or Menashe ben Israel, also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Jewish scholar, rabbi, kabbalist, writer, diplomat, printer, publisher, and founder of the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in 1626.
Rishonim were the leading rabbis and poskim who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the Shulchan Aruch and following the Geonim. Rabbinic scholars subsequent to the Shulchan Aruch are generally known as acharonim.
Judah Leon Abravanel or Abrabanel, otherwise known by the pen name of Leo the Hebrew, was a Portuguese–Jewish philosopher, physician, and poet. His work Dialogues of Love was one of the most important philosophical works of his time.
Ezmel de Ablitas, "the rich Jew of Ablitas", had business relations with the King of Navarre and Aragon. He was the son of Don Juceph; and was born in the village of Ablitas, near Tudela, from which place he derived his name.
The history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to Jewish tradition, but the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida. From the late 6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene Creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened.
The Spanish Benveniste family is an old, noble, wealthy, and scholarly Jewish family of Narbonne, France and northern Spain established in the 11th century. The family was present in the 11th to the 15th centuries in Hachmei Provence, France, Barcelona, Aragon and Castile.
Menahem ben Aaron ibn Zerah was a Navarrese rabbi and codifier born in the Kingdom of Navarre, probably at Estella, in the first third of the 14th century.
Isaac de Castro Tartas was a Marrano and Jewish martyr.
The history of the Jews in Tudela, Spain goes back well over one thousand years.
Benvenida Abrabanel, also written as Benvenida Abravanel, was a Sephardic philanthropist and banker-businesswoman. She lived in early modern Italy and was an influential member of the wealthy Abrabanel family. She is mentioned in numerous literary, rabbinic, legal, and archival sources of the time.
In the Iberian peninsula, the crown rabbi was a secular, administrative post occupied by a member of the Jewish community for the benefit of the governing state, and existed in the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal as far back as the 13th century, and is referred to as crown rabbi by historians in English, as well as by court rabbi and other terms.
Rabbi Judah Gedalia was a Portuguese Sephardi Jew who was a rabbinic scholar and a printer. Born in Lisbon in the 15th century, he moved to Salonica after the expulsion. Gedalia died about 1526 in Salonica. His printing press was continued by his children and produced some thirty works.
Samuel Abravanel HaNasi also spelt Abarbanel (1473-1551) was a prominent Sephardic-Italian financier, academic, and supporter of Italian Jewry. He is best known as the chief financier of viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo.
The Aboab family is an old and distinguished Western Sephardic family, originally from Aragon, Spain. The family has produced several notable rabbis, scholars, physicians, and merchants - especially achieving prominence in Amsterdam, Venice and Hamburg. The progenitor of the family is Rav Abraham Aboab, who, in 1263 was given a tower in Altea, Aragon with the surrounding dairy farms along with a heraldic achievement by James I of Aragon. Some have suggested that Aboab is a spelling of the Arabic "Abdelwahab", which means "the benefactor’s servant", while others have stated that it derives from the town of Umm al-Abohav in Tunisia.
The Yahya family is a prominent Jewish family of sages, rabbis, and statesmen. Originating in the Iberian Peninsula, the family expanded into Italy and the Ottoman Empire over subsequent generations.
