Isaac Nieto (1702–1774) () was Haham of the Portuguese congregation Sha'are Hashamayim,

Bevis Marks Bevis Marks, classified as part of the A1211, is a short street (about 150 m long) in the ward of Aldgate in the City of London. Traffic runs northwest in a one-way direction into Camomile Street, and parallel to Houndsditch which runs sou ...

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, and the son of David Nieto. He was officially appointed as "ḥakham ha-shalem" in 1733, but gave up the post in 1741 and went abroad. He returned in 1747 and took up the profession of notary. In 1749 Nieto became

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

's first

Rabbi 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 t ...

when he travelled to Gibraltar from London and established the Shaar Hashamayim congregation, the oldest synagogue in Gibraltar, otherwise known as the ''Great Synagogue''. In 1751 the London congregation requested him to accept the post of ab bet din, his colleagues being Isaac de Valle and Jacob Coronel. A few years afterward a violent dispute arose with regard to the titles of the members of the bet din and as to the relation of the members to one another. Nieto wrote a letter of resignation on 17 March 1757, and on the following 14 July he was prohibited from exercising the functions of assessor. He died in London in 1774. Nieto preached on 6 February 1756, the day of fast and penitence ordered by the king, a ''Sermon Moral,'' published in

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and English in London, 1756. Better known is his translation of the prayer-book in two volumes: ''Orden de las Oraciones de Ros Ashanah y Kipur'' (London, 1740) and ''Orden de las Oraciones Cotidianas, Ros Hodes Hanuca y Purim'' (ib. 1771). This translation was the basis of all subsequent translations (e.g., those of Pinto and of A. and D. da Sola).

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

Moses Gaster Moses Gaster (17 September 1856 – 5 March 1939) was a Romanian, later British scholar, the ''Hakham'' of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation, London, and a Hebrew and Romanian linguist. Moses Gaster was an active Zionist in Rom ...

, ''History of Bevis Marks'', pp. 129 et seq. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nieto, Isaac 18th-century English rabbis Gibraltarian rabbis English Sephardi Jews English people of Portuguese-Jewish descent 1702 births 1774 deaths Sephardi rabbis