Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra was one of the most distinguished Jewish biblical commentators and philosophers of the Middle Ages. He was born in Tudela, Taifa of Zaragoza and present-day Navarre.
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.
Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities. Since 1911, through a capitulation by Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, Israel has had two chief rabbis, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi.
Ibn Tibbon, is a family of Jewish rabbis and translators that lived principally in Provence in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Jewish writers in England during the pre-expulsion period of the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries produced different kinds of writing in Hebrew. Many were Tosafists; others wrote legal material, and some wrote liturgical poetry and literary texts.
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.
Jacob Berab, also spelled Berav or Bei-Rav, known as Mahari Beirav, was an influential rabbi and talmudist best known for his attempt to reintroduce classical semikhah (ordination).
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was produced in many different parts of the world throughout the medieval and modern eras, while contemporary Hebrew literature is largely Israeli literature. In 1966, Agnon won the Nobel Prize for Literature for novels and short stories that employ a unique blend of biblical, Talmudic and modern Hebrew, making him the first Hebrew writer to receive this award.
David ben Solomon ibn (Abi) Zimra (1479–1573) also called Radbaz (רַדְבָּ"ז) after the initials of his name, Rabbi David iBn Zimra, was an early Acharon of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who was a leading posek, rosh yeshiva, chief rabbi, and author of more than 3,000 responsa as well as several scholarly works.
Judah ben Isaac Messer Leon (1166–1224) was a French tosafist born in Paris.
Samuel Pallache was a Jewish Moroccan merchant, diplomat, and pirate of the Pallache family, who, as envoy, concluded a treaty with the Dutch Republic in 1608. His antecedents fled to Morocco during the Reconquista. He was appointed as an agent under the Saadi Sultan Zidan Abu Maali. Pallache would travel to the newly-independent Dutch Republic to discuss diplomatic terms with the Dutch against their mutual enemy, the Spanish. Pallache died in the Netherlands, brought there due to the intervention of his ally, Maurice of Nassau, who helped Pallache when he was arrested by the Spanish.
Isaac (Fernando) Cardoso was a Jewish physician, philosopher, and polemic writer.
Hachmei Provence refers to the rabbis of Provence, now known as Occitania, France that was a great Torah center in the times of the Tosafists. The phrase literally means the wise ones of Provence; hakham "wise one, sage" is a Sephardic and Hachmei Provençal term for a rabbi.
Early rabbis encompasses the Rabbi׳s in the region known as israelites from the Anshi Knesses HaGedola up until modern times, but most significantly refers to the early Jewish sages who dwelled in the ancient Holy Land and compiled the Mishna and its later commentary, the Jerusalem Talmud. The Anshi Knesses HaGeldoa was established during the beginning of the second Bais HaMikdash. These rabbis lived immediately after the Anshi Knesses HaGedola dissolved, and lived between 150 BCE and 450 CE and during the Talmudic and later Geonic period, they exerted influence over Syria and Egypt, while the authorities in Babylonia had held sway over the Jews of Iraq and Iran. While the Jerusalem Talmud was not to become authoritative against the Babylonian, the liturgy developed by Holy Land rabbis was later destined to form the foundation of the minhag of nearly all the Ashkenazic communities across Europe.
The Curiel family is a prominent Sephardi Jewish family.
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.
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