Alfandari was a family of eastern

rabbis A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as '' semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries, found in

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Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

, and

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. The name may be derived from a

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locality, perhaps from Alfambra. The following is a list of the chief members of the family: * Aaron ben Moses Alfandari * Elijah Alfandari * Ḥayyim ben Isaac Raphael Alfandari the Younger *

Ḥayyim ben Jacob Alfandari the Elder Hayyim ben Jacob Alfandari (1588 – 1640) was a talmudic educator and writer, teaching at Constantinople in 1618. He was the pupil of Aaron ben Joseph Sason. Some of his responsa were published in the ''Maggid me-Reshit'' (He Tells from the Begin ...

* Isaac Raphael Alfandari * Jacob ben Ḥayyim Alfandari * Solomon Eliezer Alfandari Members of this family were to be found as of 1906 in Constantinople and in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

. A Portuguese family of the name Alphandéry still exists, as of 1906, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and

Avignon Avignon (, , ; or , ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the left bank of the river Rhône, the Communes of France, commune had a ...

. In Avignon there was a physician, Moses Alphandéry, in 1506, and a Lyon Alphanderic, in 1558. Compare the names Moses אלפנדריך and Aaron אלפנדארק. In addition to the persons mentioned above, there is known a Solomon Alfandari (Valencia, 1367), whose son Jacob assisted Samuel Ẓarẓa in tranṣlating the ''Sefer ha-'Aẓamim'' of pseudo-ibn Ezra from

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

into

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

. A merchant, Isaac Alfandari, was wrecked in 1529 on the

Nubia Nubia (, Nobiin language, Nobiin: , ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the confluence of the Blue Nile, Blue and White Nile, White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), and the Cataracts of the Nile, first cataract ...

n coast. In Israeli popular culture, the principal family in the 1973 film ''

Daughters, Daughters ''Daughters, Daughters'' () is a 1973 Israeli film directed by Moshé Mizrahi, who also co-wrote the screenplay. It was entered into the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. Plot Shabtai Alfandari ( Shaike Ophir) is a pure Sephardic Jerusalemite, father ...

'' is named Alfandari. For a possible explanation of the name, see

Steinschneider Moritz Steinschneider (; 30 March 1816 – 24 January 1907) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist, and an important figure in Jewish studies and Jewish history. He is credited as having invented the term ''antisemitism.'' Education Mo ...

.''Jew. Quart. Rev.'' xi. 591. Henri Alfandari has been a French Member of Parliament since 2022.

References

*{{JewishEncyclopedia, url=http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=A&artid=1183, article=Alfandari Jewish families Sephardi families Early Acharonim Surnames of Sephardic origin

See also

References