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Joseph Ergas
Rabbi Joseph ben Emanuel Ergas also known as Joseph Ergas (; – 3 Sivan 5490 / 1730) was an Italian rabbi and kabbalist, one of the leading critics of Nehemiah Hayyun and Sabbateanism in general. Biography He was born in Livorno in 1685 to Rabbi Emanuel Ergas, head of the community. His maternal grandfather was Moses Pinheiro, a devoted follower of Shabbatai Zevi. He studied Torah in the city's yeshiva under Rabbi Samuel De Pas. He studied Kabbalah for seven weeks under Rabbi Benjamin Kohen Vitale, a student of Rabbi Moses ben Mordecai Zacuto. In 1704 he married Sarah, who bore him six children, three boys and three girls. Later, he settled in Pisa where he established a yeshiva called "Noah Shalom." He also founded two charities in the city: "Mohar batulot" and "Malbish aryamin". Upon returning to Livorno he was appointed head of the community. He was famous for his vast Torah knowledge and many rabbis from Italy and France would send him questions which he would answer cle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livorno
Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronounced , "Leghorn" in the Oxford Dictionaries Online. or ). During the Italian Renaissance, Renaissance, Livorno was designed as an "ideal town". Developing considerably from the second half of the 16th century by the will of the House of Medici, Livorno was an important free port. Its intense commercial activity was largely dominated by foreign traders. Also the seat of consulates and shipping companies, it became the main port-city of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The high status of a multiethnic and multicultural Livorno lasted until the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nehemiah Hayyun
Nehemiah Hiyya ben Moses Hayyun (, – ) was a Bosnian Kabbalist linked to Sabbateanism. His parents, who were Sephardic Jews, lived in Sarajevo in the Ottoman Empire, where he was most likely born; later in life, he pretended that he was a ''meshulach'' born in Safed. He received his Talmudic education in Hebron. Excommunicated at Jerusalem In his eighteenth year, he was appointed rabbi of a congregation in Üsküp (, now Skopje, North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...). However, he held this position only for a brief period. Thereafter, he led a wandering life as a merchant, scholar, or mendicant: a tzadik seeking adventures of love. From Üsküp, he went to Ottoman Palestine, Palestine, followed by Ottoman Egypt, Egypt. In 1708, he appeared in Smyrn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabbateans
The Sabbateans (or Sabbatians) are a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), an Ottoman Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1666 by Nathan of Gaza. Vast numbers of Jews in the Jewish diaspora accepted his claims, even after he outwardly became an apostate due to his forced conversion to Islam in the same year. Sabbatai Zevi's followers, both during his proclaimed messiahship and after his forced conversion to Islam, are known as Sabbateans. In the late 17th century, northern Italy experienced a surge of Sabbatean activity, driven by the missionary efforts of Abraham Miguel Cardoso. Around 1700, a radical faction within the Dönmeh movement, led by Baruchiah Russo, emerged, which sought to abolish many biblical prohibitions. During the same period, Sabbatean groups from Poland migrated to the Land of Israel. The Sabbatean movement continued to disseminate throughout central Europe and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moses Pinheiro
Moses Pinheiro (d. 1689) was an Italian Jew who lived in Livorno in the seventeenth century. He was one of the most influential pupils and followers of Sabbatai Zevi. He was held in high esteem on account of his religious and kabbalistic knowledge; and, as the maternal grandfather of Joseph Ergas, the well-known anti-Sabbatean, he had great influence over the Jews of Leghorn, urging them to believe in Sabbatai. Even later, in 1667, when Shabbethai's apostasy was rumored, Pinheiro, in common with numerous other adherents of Zevi, still believed him to be the messiah. Pinheiro was "the center of the Shabbatean group in Livorno", and he maintained a correspondence with Shabbetai Zevi over the years, after his return from Constantinople to Livorno in 1667. He spent some time with Sabbatai in Constantinople in 1666-67. Nathan stayed at Pinheiro's house on his visit to Italy in 1668. Pinheiro was the teacher of Abraham Miguel Cardoso, whom he initiated into the Kabbalah Kabbalah ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi (, August 1, 1626 – ) was an Ottoman Jewish mystic and ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey). His family were Romaniote Jews from Patras. His two names, ''Shabbethay'' and ''Ṣebi'', mean Saturn and mountain gazelle, respectively. Active throughout the Ottoman Empire, Zevi claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and founded the Sabbateanism, Sabbatean movement. Central to his teachings was the belief that during the Messianic Age, acts traditionally considered sin, sinful would transform into righteousness, righteous ones. This Antinomianism, antinomian doctrine led Zevi and his followers to deliberately violate Mitzvah, Jewish commandments, a controversial practice that later inspired movements like the Frankism, Frankists. Upon arriving in Constantinople in February 1666, Sabbatai was imprisoned on the order of the grand vizier Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha. In September of that same year, after being moved from different prisons around the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moses Ben Mordecai Zacuto
Moses ben Mordecai Zacuto ( 1625 – 1 October 1697), also known by the Hebrew acronym ''RaMa"Z'', was a rabbi, Kabbalist, and poet. Zacuto, who was born into a Portuguese Marrano family in Amsterdam, studied Jewish subjects under Saul Levi Morteira (an elegy on the latter's death by Zacuto was published by D. Kaufmann in ''REJ'', 37 (1898), 115). He also studied secular subjects, such as the Latin language. As a pupil of Morteira, he may also have been, as a youth still in Amsterdam, a fellow student of Baruch Spinoza. Travels He was inclined to mysticism from his youth, and at one time fasted forty days that he might forget the Latin which he had learned, since, in his opinion, it could not be reconciled with kabbalistic truths. To continue his Talmudic studies he went from Amsterdam to Poland, as is clear from the letter of recommendation which he gave at Venice in 1672 to the delegates who had come to Italy to collect money for the oppressed Polish communities. It was his int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pisa
Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the city contains more than twenty other historic churches, several medieval palaces, and bridges across the Arno. Much of the city's architecture was financed from its history as one of the Italian maritime republics. The city is also home to the University of Pisa, which has a history going back to the 12th century, the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, founded by Napoleon in 1810, and its offshoot, the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa Information statistics History ...
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Malachi Ben Jacob Ha-Kohen
Malachi ben Jacob ha-Kohen (also known as the Yad Malachi) Montefoscoli (1695/1700? – 1772) was a renowned Talmudist, methodologist, and one of the greatest Kabbalists of the 18th century. He was a student of the famous kabbalist Rabbi Joseph Ergas, author of the original kabbalistic text known as ''Shomer Emunim''. Born in Livorno sometime between 1695 and 1700, he passed on in the year 1772 and is considered the last of the great rabbinical authorities of Italy. Praised effusively by his contemporaries and quoted frequently by major halakhic authorities of the 18th and 19th centuries, he served as Rabbi of Livorno, Italy, and apparently lived to an old age. A decision by him, dated Nisan, 1732, and referring to a civil case at Rome, is included in the responsa of Rabbi Isaiah Bassani of Reggio (''Todat Shelamim'', No. 11, 1741). During the controversy between Jonathan Eybeschutz and Jacob Emden he sided with the former (letter of the rabbinate of Leghorn in "Luḥot 'Edut," p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aharon Roth
Aharon Roth or Aaron Rote () known as Reb Arele (1894−1947), was a Hungarian Hasidic rebbe and Talmudic scholar. He first established a Hasidic community he called Shomer Emunim (Guardian of Faith) in the 1920s in Satu Mare and in the 1930s in Berehovo, before he settled in Jerusalem, where he also founded a Hasidic community of the same name. His main work is the two-volume ''Shomer Emunim'', written in 1942 in reaction to the news about the Nazi atrocities in Eastern Europe. After his death, the sect split into two groups. One, who adopted the name Shomrei Emunim, followed his son, Rabbi Avrohom Chayim (1924 - 2012), the other followed his son-in-law and became known as Toldot Aharon (Generations of Aharon) of which the Toldot Avrohom Yitzchok later split off. Life Roth was born in Ungvar, Hungary, today Uzhhorod in Ukraine, an outsider to the Hasidic world. He was unusually pious and ascetic from an early age. Until the age of 20, he studied Talmud in Vác under Yesha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (; also ''Moses Chaim'', ''Moise Vita'', ''Moses Hayyim'' or ''Luzzato''; 1707 – 16 May 1746), also known by the Hebrew acronym RaMCHaL (or RaMHaL; ), was an Italian Jewish rabbi, kabbalist, and philosopher. Biography Early life Moshe Chaim Luzzatto was born in 1707 in the Jewish ghetto of Padua, Republic of Venice. The son of Jacob Vita and Diamente Luzzatto, he received classical Jewish and Italian education, showing a predilection for literature at a very early age. He may have attended the University of Padua and certainly associated with a group of students there, known to dabble in mysticism and alchemy. With his vast knowledge in religious lore, the arts, and science, he quickly became the dominant figure in that group. His writings demonstrate mastery of the Tanakh, the Talmud, the rabbinical commentaries and codes of Jewish law and Kabbalah. Poetry and literature At an early age, he began a thorough study of the Hebrew language and of po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabbalists
Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal (). Jewish Kabbalists originally developed transmissions of the primary texts of Kabbalah within the realm of Jewish tradition and often use classical Jewish scriptures to explain and demonstrate its mystical teachings. Kabbalists hold these teachings to define the inner meaning of both the Hebrew Bible and traditional rabbinic literature and their formerly concealed transmitted dimension, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances. Historically, Kabbalah emerged from earlier forms of Jewish mysticism, in 12th- to 13th-century al-Andalus (Spain) and in Hakhmei Provence, and was reinterpreted during the Jewish mystical renaissance in 16th-century Ottoman Palestine. The , the foundational text of Kabbalah, was authore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
18th-century Italian Rabbis
The 18th century lasted from 1 January 1701 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCCI) to 31 December 1800 (MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the Atlantic Revolutions. Revolutions began to challenge the legitimacy of monarchical and aristocratic power structures. The Industrial Revolution began mid-century, leading to radical changes in human society and the environment. The European colonization of the Americas and other parts of the world intensified and associated mass migrations of people grew in size as part of the Age of Sail. During the century, slave trading expanded across the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, while declining in Russia and China. Western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example, the "short" 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
