Moses Raḥamim ben Yosef Raphael Ashkenazi

The Bekemoharar family of rabbis and scholars was descended from Menahem ben Isaac Ashkenazi (1666–1733), who was born in Timişoara (Temesvár) near the border between present-day Romania and Serbia. His family moved to Edirne (Adrianople) in the heartland of the Ottoman Empire when he was two years old. When the chief rabbi of Edirne, Abraham ben Isaac Ṣarfati, died in 1722, the city’s thirteen congregations could not agree on a candidate to replace him. Seven congregations favored the late rabbi’s son-in-law Abraham Geron (d. 1751), but the other six chose Ashkenazi as their chief rabbi. When issuing rulings in this capacity, Ashkenazi appended to his signature the Hebrew acronym bekemoharar (ben kevod morenu ha-rav rabbi, the son of his honor our teacher, the master, Rabbi). Over time he and his descendants, who signed their names in the same fashion, came to be known as the Bekemoharar family.

Menahem Ashkenazi wrote many books, among them commentaries on Maimonides’s Mishne Torah and Jacob ben Asher’s Arbaʽa Turim, but most of his works were lost in a fire in Edirne after his death. His grandson Solomon Bekemoharar published some of Ashkenazi’s surviving responsa in his own book, Mikhtav Shelomo (Epistle of Solomon).

Ashkenazi’s son Mordechai (1695–1748) inherited his father’s position as rabbi of several Edirne congregations. Mordechai wrote a commentary on the talmudic tractates Yevamot and Ketubbot, but most of it was destroyed in a fire. The parts that were saved were published more than a century after his death as Maʾamar Mordekhay (Bidding of Mordechai; Salonica, 1864).

Mordechai’s elder son, Menahem (II) (1723–1781), inherited his father’s position in the Edirne rabbinate. Mordechai’s other son, Solomon Nissim (1737–1775), published his grandfather’s works, as mentioned above, and authored numerous halakhic tracts of his own. His son, Simeon Mordechai (d. 1814), was also the author of several works. The most important were Maṭṭe Shimʿon (The Rod of Simeon), a commentary on section Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ of the code of Jewish law, and a collection of responsa (3 vols., Salonica, 1797–1819).

After Menahem ben Mordechai died, he was succeeded by his son Mordechai (II) ben Menahem (d. 1821) Mordeccai II had two sons: another Menahem (III), who served as a rabbi in Edirne from about 1800 but died before his father in 1810, and Joseph Raphael ben Mordechai (d. 1849), who became the chief rabbi of Edirne after 1821. In 1839, his position was made official by a firman from Sultan Abdülmecid appointing him haham başı of all the Edirne congregations. Joseph’s eldest son, Moses Raḥamim (1809–1878), succeeded him in 1846. Moses wrote answers to halakhic questions submitted to his father, and published a number of his own. The outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 prompted him to flee to Istanbul, where he died shortly afterward. His son Raphael Bekemoharar (1837–1899), whose refined appearance earned him the moniker ”Raphael the Angel.” Raphael lived in Plovdiv, the capital of eastern Bulgaria. In addition to his rabbinical duties, he was elected as a deputy to the Ottoman parliament.

Yaron Ben Naeh

Bibliography

Marcus, Simon. “Qorot Shalshellet ha-Rabbanim le-Mishpaḥat Bekemoharar,” Mizraḥ u-Maʿarav 5 (1930): 173–184.

Cite this page

Yaron Ben Naeh. "Bekemoharar Family." Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online, 2013. <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-...>