Meir bar Hiyya Rofe (17th century; the Encyclopaedia Judaica article gives the years of 1610 and 1690 as the possible years of birth and death respectively) was a Hebron rabbi, known among other things for his tours of Europe as an emissary from the Holy Land on behalf of the Jewish community of Hebron. [1] His father, Hiyya Rofe, was a very learned rabbi from Safed. Orphaned at a young age, Meir studied in Hebron, leaving about 1648 as an emissary to Italy, Holland, and Germany. On his return journey, he stayed for two years in Italy to publish Ma'aseh Ḥiyya (Venice, 1652), his father's talmudic novellae and responsa. In Amsterdam he had influenced the wealthy Abraham Pereyra to found a yeshiva in Hebron to be called Hesed le-Avraham, of which Meir himself became the head scholar. [2]
Meir was in Gaza in 1665 when Nathan of Gaza began to prophecy on the messianism of Sabbatai Zevi. In a subsequent letter to Amsterdam, to Abraham Pereyra, he wrote that "Nathan of Gaza is a wise man fit for the divine presence to rest upon him," and urged Pereyra to come to Gaza. Pereyra reached Venice, but returned to Holland. Meir maintained his belief even after Sabbatai's conversion in 1666. In 1672 Meir left, again as an emissary of Hebron, for Turkey. He stayed for a time in Adrianople, where he was in contact with Sabbatai. On Sabbatai's exile to Albania in 1673, Meir returned to Gaza where he stayed with Nathan and even copied his writings for his own use. He then traveled again to Italy, and from 1675 to 1678 resided in the home of the Sabbatean Abraham Rovigo in Modena. [3] Throughout his stay in Italy Meir did much to encourage those who believed in Sabbatai Zevi and spread the writings of Nathan of Gaza. During the last ten years of his life he was recognized as the outstanding scholar of Hebron.
Meir Rofe persisted in his Sabbatean faith long after Sabbatai's apostasy, and even after Sabbatai's death. [4] Scholem also mentions in several places the correspondence about Sabbatean affairs he maintained with Abraham Rovigo between the years 1674 and 1678 as a very important source for the history of the Sabbatean movement. [5]
The Sabbateans were a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), an Ottoman Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1666 by Nathan of Gaza.
Jacob Joseph Frank was a Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) and also of the biblical patriarch Jacob. The Jewish authorities in Poland excommunicated Frank and his followers due to his heretical doctrines that included deification of himself as a part of a trinity and other controversial concepts such as neo-Carpocratian "purification through transgression".
Sabbatai Zevi was an Ottoman Jewish mystic, and ordained rabbi from Smyrna. His family origins may have been Ashkenazi or Spanish. Active throughout the Ottoman Empire, Zevi claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and founded the Sabbatean movement.
Mordecai Mokiach was a Jewish Sabbatean prophet and Messiah claimant.
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca was a rabbi, scholar, kabbalist, and religious writer. In 1656, he was one of several elders within the Portuguese-Jewish community in Amsterdam and for a time in Dutch Brazil before the Portuguese reconquest. He was one of the religious leaders who excommunicated philosopher Baruch Spinoza in 1656.
The Dönme were a group of Sabbatean crypto-Jews in the Ottoman Empire who were forced to convert to Islam, but retained their Jewish faith and Kabbalistic beliefs in secret. The movement was centered mainly in Thessaloniki. It originated during and soon after the era of Sabbatai Zevi, a 17th-century Sephardic Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah and eventually feigned conversion to Islam under threat of death from the Sultan Mehmed IV. After Zevi's forced conversion to Islam, a number of Sabbatean Jews purportedly converted to Islam and became the Dönme. Some Sabbateans lived on into 21st-century Turkey as descendants of the Dönme.
Nathan of Gaza, also Nathan Benjamin ben Elisha Hayyim haLevi Ashkenazi or Ghazzati, was a theologian and author born in Jerusalem. After his marriage in 1663 he moved to Gaza, where he became famous as a prophet for the Jewish messiah claimant Sabbatai Zevi.
Abraham Miguel Cardozo was a Sabbatean prophet and physician born in Rio Seco, Spain.
Abraham Yachini was one of the chief agitators in the Sabbatean movement, the son of Pethahiah of Constantinople.
Rabbi Samuel ben Abraham Aboab also known by his acronym RaSHA was a 17th-century Western Sephardic rabbi and scholar, who is considered to be one of the greatest rabbinic sages of Italy. He served as the av bet din of Venice, where he rose to great prominence due to his vast knowledge of rabbinic literature. He is known for being an adamant opponent of the Sabbatean movement, and an early supporter of the old Yishuv.
Moses Pinheiro was an Italian Jew who lived in Livorno in the seventeenth century. He was one of the most influential pupils and followers of Sabbatai Zevi.
Abraham ben Levi Conque,(Hebrew: אברהם בן לוי קונקי) also spelt Konki and Cuenque, was a 17th-century rabbi and kabbalist in Hebron.
Behr Shmuel Issachar Leyb ben Judah Moses Eybeschuetz Perlhefter was a Jewish scholar and rabbi. His educated wife Bella bat R. Jakob Perlhefter, corresponded in Hebrew and wrote the preface on the Yiddish book “Beer Sheva”. Perlhefter taught the German Christian Hebraist Johann Christoph Wagenseil Hebrew and Jewish literature. Beer Perlhefter is considered an important figure of the Sabbatian movement. After the death of the pseudo-Messiah Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676), he restored the Sabbatian theology at the school of Abraham Rovigo and called the Pseudomessiah Mordecai Mokiach to Italy.
Abraham Pereyra was a wealthy and prominent Portuguese Jewish merchant, who lived in Amsterdam from circa 1644 to his death in 1699.
Abraham Rovigo was a Jewish scholar, rabbi and kabbalist.
Samuel Primo, was a prominent Sabbatean sectarian of the 17th century.
Hemdat Yamim is a book dealing with Jewish customs and laws, including many musar exhortations. It is based on kabbalah in general, and the kabbalah of the Ari in particular.
Mattithiah ben Benjamin Ze'ev (Wolf) Ashkenazi Bloch was a 17th-century Sabbatean Kabbalist. He was appointed by Sabbatai Zevi as one of his prophets charged with the announcement of the Redemption.
Leyb ben Oyzer or Yehuda Leib ben Ozer Rosencranz (Rosenkrantz), or Leib ben Rabbi Oizers (d. 1727) was an 18th-century shamash ha-kehilla (beadle or sexton of the congregation), trustee, and secretary or notary, of the Jewish community in Amsterdam. He is the author of the Bashraybung fun Shabsai Tsvi, a Yiddish chronicle written in 1718 about the messianic Sabbateanism movement.