Immanuel Aboab ( 1555 – 1628) was a Portuguese Jewish scholar. He was a great-grandson of

Isaac Aboab of Castile Isaac Aboab of Castile (1433 – January 1493), also known as Isaac Aboab II, was a Spanish-Jewish Rabbi, Posek and Torah commentator. Biography Born at Toledo, the great great grandson of Isaac Aboab I. He was the pupil and successor of Isaac ...

(died 1493).

Life

Born at

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

, he early became an orphan and was reared by his grandfather Abraham Aboab. He emigrated to Italy, and after living some time at Pisa he moved to Corfu, where he became acquainted with Orazio del Monte, a nephew of the

duke of Urbino The Duchy of Urbino was an independent duchy in early modern central Italy, corresponding to the northern half of the modern region of Marche. It was directly annexed by the Papal States in 1625. It was bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the east ...

. In Reggio Emilia he became acquainted with

Menahem Azariah da Fano Menahem Azariah da Fano (also called Immanuel da Fano, and Rema MiPano ( he, רמ״ע מפאנו)) (1548 – 1620) was an Italian rabbi, Talmudist, and Kabbalist. Life He was a disciple of Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, to whose widow he off ...

; thence he went to

Spoleto Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome. History Spolet ...

and elsewhere in Italy, and finally settled at Venice. Here he had occasion, in 1603, to defend his correligionists. He died in Venice in 1628.

Works

Aboab had the intention of going to Palestine and publishing there his works, ''The Kingdom of the Intellect'' and ''The Foundations of Truth'', which he had written in defense of the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

. He was the author of a defense of the traditional law and of a chronological list of that law's exponents. He worked at this treatise, which was much prized by the pious, for ten years, and completed it in 1625. It was published by his heirs at

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, in 1629 (2d ed., ibid., 1727), under the title ''Nomologia o Discursos Legales, Compuestos por el Virtuose Hakam Rabi Imanuel Aboab de Buena Memoria''. A manuscript of this work exists in the library of the Historical Academy in Madrid.

References

De Rossi De Rossi () is an Italian surname, and may refer to: Actresses * Alessandra De Rossi (born 1984), Philippine actress * Assunta De Rossi (born 1983), Philippine actress *Barbara De Rossi (born 1960), Italian actress *Portia de Rossi (born 1973), A ...

, ''Dizionario Storico'', Germ. transl. by Hamberger, pp. 12–13 * Kayserling, ''Immanuel Aboab'', in Jeschurun, iv. 572 et seq., v. 643 et seq.; * idem, Gesch. d. Juden in Port. pp. 271 et seq. * Orfali, Moises, ''Imanuel Aboab's Nomologia o discursos legales - The Struggle over the Authority of the Law'': Jerusalem 1997 * Roth, Cecil. “Immanuel Aboab’s Proselytization of the Marranos.” JQR 23(1932-33): pg. 121-62.

External links

Link to digitised text of ''Nomologia''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aboab, Immanuel 1550s births 1628 deaths Jewish Portuguese writers 16th-century Portuguese rabbis 16th-century Italian rabbis People from Porto 17th-century Italian rabbis