Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, also spelled Yosef Caro, or Qaro, (Toledo, 1488 – Safed, 1575) was author of the last great codification of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch, which is still authoritative for all Jews pertaining to their respective communities. To this end he is often referred to as HaMechaber (Hebrew: "The Author") and as Maran (Aramaic: "Our Master").
Karo was born in Toledo, Spain in 1488. In 1492, aged four years old, he was forced to f...
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Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, also spelled Yosef Caro, or Qaro, (Toledo, 1488 – Safed, 1575) was author of the last great codification of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch, which is still authoritative for all Jews pertaining to their respective communities. To this end he is often referred to as HaMechaber (Hebrew: "The Author") and as Maran (Aramaic: "Our Master").
Karo was born in Toledo, Spain in 1488. In 1492, aged four years old, he was forced to flee Spain with his family and the rest of Spanish Jewry because of Jewish expulsion from the Alhambra Decree and subsequently settled in Portugal. After the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal in 1497, the Ottomans invited the Jews to the Ottoman territory and Karo went with his parents to Nikopolis of the Ottoman Empire, and spent the rest of his life in the Ottoman Empire. In Nikopol, he received his first instruction from his father, who was himself an eminent Talmudist. He married, first, Isaac Saba's daughter, and, after her death, the...
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