Aboab family

• Aboab family Wikipedia

The Aboab family (Hebrew: אבוהב) (also Abohab, Abuab, Aboaf, Abof, Aboav and Abuaf) is an old and distinguished Western Sephardic family, originally from Aragon, Spain. The family has produced several notable rabbis, scholars, physicians, and merchants especially achieving prominence in Amsterdam, Venice and Hamburg. The progenitor of the family is Rav Abraham Aboab, who, in 1263 was given a tower called Altea, near Pelof, Aragon with the surrounding dairy farms along with a heraldic achievement by James I of Aragon. Some have suggested that Aboab is a spelling of the Arabic "Abdelwahab", which means "the benefactor’s servant", while others have stated that it derives from the town of Umm al-Abohav in Tunisia.

The family progenitor Abraham Aboab had one son, Isaac Aboab I who was a Talmudic scholar in Aragon. He later moved to Toledo, Castile, where he headed his own yeshiva, teaching Jewish ethics. He is best known for his work Menorat ha-Maor, which is a collection of midrashic sermons. His son Abraham II was a close contemporary of Judah ben Asher and Abraham II's great grandson Isaac Aboab II, was a Posek and Torah commentator in Toledo. Following the Alhambra Decree of 1492, he with thirty others of the most respected Jews of the land went to Lisbon in order to negotiate with King John II of Portugal for the reception of his banished coreligionists. He and his companions were allowed to settle under favourable conditions in Porto, Portugal. However, his son Abraham Aboab IV was the victim of forced conversion in 1497 and thus he and all his descendants became Crypto-Jews. In the early 17th-century, the majority of the family immigrated to Western Europe. With Elijah Aboab Cardoso, and Abraham Aboab V in Hamburg. Immanuel Aboab, Isaac Aboab V, and Isaac Aboab da Fonseca in Amsterdam, and Samuel Aboab and his son Jacob Aboab VI in Venice.

• Aboab The Jewish Encyclopedia

An ancient and widely distributed Spanish family, among whose members were many most able scholars. The family can be authentically traced to the thirteenth century, and representatives thereof are to be found in Holland, Italy, Turkey, Africa, and America. Some branches of this family, in which the names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Samuel frequently occur, can be followed genealogically.

Notable Aboabs

• Abraham Aboab - The oldest Aboab known to us. He lived at Pelof, Aragon. He received in 1263 from the king Don Jaime a tower called Altea, with the surrounding dairy farms and all rights and privileges of ownership.
• Abraham Aboab II - A learned contemporary of Judah ben Asher, lived in 1340 at Toledo.
• Abraham Aboab IV - A 15th-century Crypto-Jew and progenitor of the modern Aboab family.
• Abraham Aboab V - Philanthropist and rabbi, who was an early founder of the Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg.
• Abraham ben Jacob Aboab - A grandson of Samuel; a learned and benevolent man. He died in Salonica in the middle of the eighteenth century.
• Daniel Ẓemaḥ Aboab - A physician in Amsterdam. In 1668 he married Rebecca, the daughter of Jacob Lopez.
• David Aboab - In Amsterdam, was the author of a work completed in 1685 (but never printed), entitled "Catalogo de Diferentes Remedios para Diversas Sortes de Achaques, Achados por Experiencia Haverem Sido Bonos" (Catalogue of Diverse Remedies for Various Ailments, Found by Experience to Have Been Good)
• Elijah Aboab - A publisher of Hebrew books in Amsterdam about 1645.
• Immanuel Aboab - Portuguese scholar; a greatgrandson of Isaac Aboab (died 1493); was born in Oporto, Portugal, about 1555; died at Venice in 1628.
• Isaac Aboab I - Author of "Menorat ha-Maor"; lived in Spain about 1300. A
• Isaac Aboab II - Spanish Bible commentator; presumably a descendant of preceding; born at Toledo in 1433; died in January, 1493. He was the pupil and successor of Isaac Campanton, and was called "the last gaon of Castile."
• Isaac Aboab V - Son of Mattathiah, he was born in Amsterdam, where he became ḥakam of the Portuguese congregation.
• Isaac da Fonseca Aboab - Ḥakam at Amsterdam; born at Castrodaire, Portugal, in 1605; died on April 4, 1693, aged eighty-eight; was the son of David Aboab and Isabel da Fonseca, who was in her fifty-first year at the time of his birth. In order to be distinguished from Isaac de Mattathiah Aboab, he added his mother's name to his own.
• Isaac Ẓemaḥ Aboab - A physician, like his brother Daniel, at Amsterdam. He was a friend of Benedict de Castro, physician in ordinary to Queen Christina of Sweden, and of Benjamin Musaphia in Hamburg.
• Jacob Aboab VI - Rabbi at Venice; was the son and successor of Samuel Aboab. He died after 1727 at Venice.
• Joseph Aboab II - Son of Samuel; was for some time rabbi at Venice. He was the author of rabbinical decisions, as yet not printed. He emigrated to Palestine and died at Hebron.
• Judah Aboab II - A grandson of Isaac Aboab, the "last gaon"; was a dayyan (juez) at Alcazarquivir in Africa.
• Mattathiah Aboab - Represented the congregation Bet Jacob in Amsterdam, in 1639
• Samuel Aboab - He was a very prominent rabbi of the seventeenth century. He was born in Hamburg in 1610; died in Venice on Aug. 22, 1694.