Don Todros ibn Yahya (Navarro)

Moses Navarro of Santarem, was personal physician to King Pedro I and his (treasurer and receiver-general of taxes) , serving for nearly 30 years as chief rabbi (*arraby moor) of Portugal. King Pedro granted Moses Ibn Yahya and his wife, Salva, the right to adopt the family name Navarro and to bequeath it to his descendants.

MOSES NAVARRO of Santarem (d. c. 1370), personal physician to King Pedro I and his chief tax collector, served for nearly 30 years as chief rabbi (*arraby moor) of Portugal. The king granted Moses and his wife, Salva, the right to adopt the family name Navarro and to bequeath it to his descendants. His son, JUDAH, inherited the posts of personal physician and chief tax collector under Pedro I and continued in the latter capacity under John I. He and Solomon Negro agreed to pay some 200,000 livres annually for five years for the privilege of farming taxes.

He is also known to have given the king a rich estate in Alvito, Alemtejo. Moses' grandson (or son according to Amador de los Rios), also called MOSES (d. c. 1410), was likewise chief rabbi and personal physician to the king, in this case John I. All three Navarros used their offices to benefit their fellow-Jews. Particularly noteworthy are the efforts of the younger Moses Navarro at the time of the large-scale massacres of the Spanish Jews in 1391. In that year he presented the Portuguese king with the bull decreed on July 2, 1389, by Pope Boniface IX (based on a bull of Pope *Clement VI), forbidding Christians to harm the Jews, desecrate their cemeteries, or attempt to baptize them by force. On July 17, 1392, the king ordered the promulgation of this bull throughout Portugal, reinforcing it with legislation of his own. Moses was also instrumental in acquiring the king's protection for Jewish refugees from Spain.

Reference: "Divrei ha-Yamim le-Bnei Yahya,( דברי הימים לבני יחייא )", by Eliakim Carmoly, Printed in Frankfort am Main/Rodelheim, Published by: Isak Kaufman, 1850. Genealogy of, and biographical work on, the Yahya family by Eliakim Carmoly. There is an introduction from Carmoly, in which he informs that the Yahya family is one of distinction from the time of Maimonides. Originally achieving greatness in Portugal and Spain, they after settled in Italy and Turkey. The text is preceded by a chart of the family, beginning with the Nasi, Don Yahya, and concluding with Don Gedalia. The text, in seven chapters, is set in a single column, primarily in rabbinic type although there are instances of vocalized square letters, and is accompanied by extensive footnotes. The final page is an announcement of the forthcoming publication of seven minor Yerushalmi tractates by Carmoli. The text of this book was compared to the "bin Yahya Family Tapestry", currently stored in the antiquity archives of Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, by Abraham Greenstein - grandson of Abraham Gindi HaKohen. The text matches the Tapestry.

The notation on the Tapestry says:

Don Todros was a great scholar and was to be found in Palpo (Pamplona) with the Lutgi who had become an Apostate. He was called Girolmo before the Pope in Tortosa as can be seen in Shivat Yehuda (the Tribe of Judah) and he was not heard from and naught was heard from him afterwards and there is a Gedaliah from whom were descended the ibn Todros Family.