Jacob Berab, also spelled Berav or Bei-Rav, (b. Moqueda, nr. Toledo, Castilian Spain, 1474 - d. Safed, Ottoman sanjak of Safed, April 3, 1546), was an influential rabbi and talmudist best known for his attempt to reintroduce rabbinic ordination as a prelude to Jewish autonomy in Palestine.
Berab was born at born at Moqueda near Toledo, Castilian Spain in 1474. He later became a pupil of Isaac Aboab. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain, he fled...
More
Jacob Berab, also spelled Berav or Bei-Rav, (b. Moqueda, nr. Toledo, Castilian Spain, 1474 - d. Safed, Ottoman sanjak of Safed, April 3, 1546), was an influential rabbi and talmudist best known for his attempt to reintroduce rabbinic ordination as a prelude to Jewish autonomy in Palestine.
Berab was born at born at Moqueda near Toledo, Castilian Spain in 1474. He later became a pupil of Isaac Aboab. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain, he fled to Tlemçen, then the chief town of the Barbary states. There, the Jewish community consisting of 5,000 families, chose him for their rabbi, though he was but a youth of eighteen. Evidence of the great respect there paid him is afforded by the following lines of Abraham Gavison: "Say not that the lamp of the Law no longer in Israel burneth! Jacob Berab hath come back—once more among us he sojourneth!"
It is not known how long Berab remained in Algeria; but before 1522 he was in Jerusalem. There, however, the social conditions were so...
Less
