Eliezer Charlap

Rabbi in Salonika and Constantinople. Eliezer ben David ibn Yahia was invited to be rabbi of Tykocin. Charlap is an acronym for Chiya Rosh leGolei Portugal (later Polin), meaning: Chiya the Head of Exiles in Portugal (Poland).Yahia is Arabic for Chiya, which is Aramaic for Chaim. The Ibn-Yahia family derived the name from Chiya al-Daudi. “Ibn Yahia” means “descendant of Yahia” (or Chiya); “al-Daudi” means “the Davidic” (descendant). We recall that Chiya al-Daudi, who died in Castile in 1154, was a descendant of the Babylonian-Persian-Iraqi Exilarchs.