Below you find information about prominent Sephardic Rabbis who have contributed to the Judeo-Spanish tradition:

 

Rabbi Moses Maimonides 


Maimonides's full Hebrew name was Moshe ben Maimon (Hebrew: משהבןמימון‎) and his Arabic name was AbuImranMussa bin Maimunibn Abdallah al-Qurtubi al-Israili (مرانموسىبنميمونبنعبداللهالقرطبيالإسرائيلي). However, he is most commonly known by his Greek name, Moses Maimonides (Μωυσής Μαϊμονίδης). All of these names literally mean "Moses, son of Maimon." Several Jewish works call him Maimoni (מימוני). However, most Jewish works refer to him by the Hebrew acronym of his title and name — רבימשהבןמימון (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon‎) — thus, among Jews he is known as רמב"ם (the Rambam). Maimonides was born in 1135 in Córdoba, Spain. His year of birth is disputed, with Shlomo Pines suggesting that he was born in 1138. He was born during what some scholars consider to be the end of the golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, after the first centuries of the Moorish rule. At an early age, he developed an interest in the exact sciences and philosophy. In addition to reading the works of Muslim scholars, he also read those of the Greek philosophers made accessible through Arabic translations. Maimonides was not known as a supporter of mysticism. He voiced opposition to poetry, the best of which he declared as false, since it was founded on pure invention - and this too in a land which had produced such noble expressions of the Hebrew and Arabic muse. This Sage, who was revered for his saintly personality as well as for his writings, led an unquiet life, and penned his classic works with the staff of the wanderer in his hand.  Maimonidesstudied Torah under his father Maimon, who had in turn studied under RabbiJoseph ibn Migash.The Almohades from Africa conquered Córdoba in 1148, and threatened the Jewish community with the choice of conversion to Islam, death, or exile. Maimonides's family, along with most other Jews, chose exile. For the next ten years they moved about in southern Spain, avoiding the conquering Almohades, but eventually settled in Fez in Morocco, where Maimonides acquired most of his secular knowledge, studying at the University of Al Karaouine. During this time, he composed his acclaimed commentary on the Mishnah in the years 1166-1168.Following this sojourn in Morocco, he lived briefly in the Holy Land, before settling in Fostat, Egypt, where he was physician of the Grand Vizier Alfadhil and SultanSaladin of Egypt, and also treated Richard the Lionheart while on the Crusades. He was considered to be the greatest physician of his time, being influenced by renowned Islamic thinkers such as Ibn Rushd and Al-Ghazali. He composed most of his œuvre in this last locale, including the Mishneh Torah. He died in Fostat, and was buried in Tiberias (today in Israel). His son Avraham, recognized as a great scholar, succeeded Maimonides as Nagid (head of the EgyptianJewish community); he also took up his father's role as court physician, at the age of eighteen. He greatly honored the memory of his father, and throughout his career defended his father's writings against all critics. The office of Nagid was held by the Maimonides family for four successive generations until the end of the 14th century.Maimonides was a devoted physician. In a famous letter, he describes his daily routine: After visiting the Sultan’s palace, he would arrive home exhausted and hungry, where "I would find the antechambers filled with gentiles and Jews ... I would go to heal them, and write prescriptions for their illnesses ... until the evening ... and I would be extremely weak."

He is widely respected in Spain and a statue of him was erected in Córdoba by the only synagogue in that city which escaped destruction, and which is no longer functioning as a Jewish house of worship but is open to the public.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides

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Isaac Abarbanel

 

...A descendant of an old and distinguished Spanish family, was born in Lisbon, Portugal. In addition to intensive religious training, he received a broad liberal education and acquired a thorough grounding in Greek, Latin, and Christian literature. Like his father, Isaac was highly successful in both his commercial and diplomatic careers. He served as treasurer under the Portuguese kings Alfonso V and John II. Falsely charged with plotting against the monarchy, Abravanel fled in 1483 to Castile, Spain. There he devoted himself to his commentary on several biblical books of the prophets.

In 1490 Abravanel was appointed treasurer to the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. But in 1492 Torquemada, the head of the Spanish Inquisition, persuaded the royal couple to expel the Jews from Spain. Despite Abravanel's important services to the Crown, his attempts to have the decree of expulsion revoked were unsuccessful. He went into exile with his fellow Jews and moved to Naples, where he was soon given a financial post in the government. In 1495 a French invasion forced him to leave Naples. After some years of intermittent wandering, he settled in Venice in 1503. He died there in 1508 and was buried in Padua.

Abravanel's most important works are the commentaries which he wrote on almost all the books of the Old Testament. He employed what might be termed a critical or scientific approach in his biblical studies. He examined the historical episodes in the Bible in the light of economic, political, and social factors and often drew analogies to his own times. In dating biblical books, he often deviated from tradition, and he did not hesitate to consult the works of Christian scholars. Abravanel also wrote a number of philosophical and theological works. His Rosh Amana (Pillars of Faith) and Sefer Mifalot Elohim (Book of God's Works) show the influence of the 12th-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides. In general Abravanel developed a negative view of culture and civilization. He was influenced by the Stoics in his condemnation of luxurious living and by the Cynics in his criticism of the political state. His pessimism was balanced, however, by a firm belief in the miraculous coming of the Messiah, which he expounded in Maayene Hayeshuah (Founts of Salvation), Yeshuath Meshiho (Salvation of His Messiah), and Mashmia Yeshua (Proclaimer of Salvation).

source: Encyclopedia of World Biography | Date: 2004 | Copyright 2004, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-X-Abarbane.html

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Moses de León

 

Moses de León (c. 1250 – 1305), known in Hebrew as Moshe ben Shem-Tov (משה בן שם-טוב די-ליאון), was a Spanish rabbi and Kabbalist who is thought of as the composer or redactor of the Zohar. It is a matter of controversy if the Zohar is his own work, or that he committed traditions going back to Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai in writing. His other works include Sefer ha-Rimon, written in Hebrew. He was born in Guadalajara, Spain (his surname comes fron his father, Shem-Tov de León), and spent 30 years in Guadalajara and Valladolid before moving to Ávila, where he lived for the rest of his life. He died at Arevalo in 1305 while returning to his home.

Moses was familiar with the philosophers of the Middle Ages and with the whole literature of mysticism, and knew and used the writings of Shlomo ibn Gabirol, Yehuda ha-Levi, Maimonides, and others. He knew how to charm with brilliant and striking phrases without expressing any well-defined thought. He was a ready writer and wrote several mystical and cabalistic works in quick succession. In the comprehensive Sefer ha-Rimon, written in 1287 and still extant in manuscript, he treated from a mystical standpoint the objects and reasons for the ritual laws, dedicating the book to Levi ben Todros Abulafia. In 1290 he wrote Ha-Nefesh ha-Hakhamah, or Ha-Mishqal (Basel, 1608, and frequently found in manuscript), which shows even greater cabalistic tendencies. In this work he attacks the philosophers of religion and deals with the human soul as "a likeness of its heavenly prototype," with its state after death, with its resurrection, and with the transmigration of souls. Shekel ha-Kodesh (written in 1292), another book of the same kind, is dedicated to Todros ha-Levi Abulafia. In the Mishkan ha-Edut or Sefer ha-Sodot, finished in 1293, he treats of heaven and hell, after the apocryphal Book of Enoch; also of atonement. He wrote as well a kabbalistic explanation of the first chapter of Ezekiel.

Toward the end of the thirteenth century Moses de Leon wrote or compiled a kabbalistic midrash to the Pentateuch full of strange mysticallegories, and ascribed it to Simeon bar Yohai, the great saint of the Tannaim. The work, written in peculiar Aramaic, is entitled Midrash de Rabban Shimon ben Yohai better known as the Zohar. The book aroused due suspicion at the outset. The story runs that after the death of Moses de Leon a rich man from Avila offered the widow, who had been left without means, a large sum of money for the original from which her husband had made the copy, and that she then confessed that her husband himself was the author of the work. She had asked him several times, she said, why he had put his teachings into the mouth of another, but he had always answered that doctrines put into the mouth of the miracle-working Simeon ben Yoḥai would be a rich source of profit. Others believed that Moses de Leon wrote the book by the magic power of the Holy Name.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_de_Le%C3%B3n

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Yosef Caro

 

His birthplace was Faro, Portugal[2], his family left for Portugal after the Spanish expulsion in 1492. After the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal, in 1497, Karo went with his parents to Nikopolis (now Nikopol), where he received his first instruction from his father, who was himself an eminent Talmudist. He married, first, Isaac Saba's daughter, and, after her death, the daughter of Hayyim Albalag, both of these men being well-known Talmudists. After the death of his second wife he married the daughter of Zechariah Sechsel (or perhaps Sachsel), a learned and wealthy Talmudist.

Between 1520 and 1522 Caro settled at Adrianople, where he probably met the enthusiast Solomon Molcho, who stimulated his mystical tendencies. When the latter died at the stake in 1532, Karo also was filled with a longing to be "consumed on the altar as a holy burnt offering," to sanctify the name of God by a martyr's death. Like Molkho, Karo had fantastic dreams and visions, which he believed to be revelations from a higher being. His genius, he thought, was nothing less than the Mishnah personified, which instructed him because he had devoted himself to its service. These mystical tendencies probably induced Karo to emigrate to Palestine, where he arrived about 1535, having en route spent several years at Salonica (1533) and Constantinople.

At Safed he met RabbiJacob Berab, who exerted a great influence upon him, Karo becoming an enthusiastic supporter of Berab's plans for the restitution of ordination. After Berab's death Karo tried to carry out these plans, ordaining his pupil Moses Alshech, but he finally gave up his endeavors, convinced that he could not overcome the opposition to ordination.

His reputation during the last thirty years of his life was greater than that of almost any other rabbi since Maimonides. The Italian Azariah dei Rossi, though his views differed widely from Karo's, collected money among the rich Italian Jews for the purpose of having a work of Karo's printed; and the Pole Moses Isserles compelled the recognition of one of Karo's decisions at Kraków, although he thought Karo was wrong.

When some members of the community of Carpentras, in France, believed themselves to have been unjustly treated by the majority in a matter relating to taxes, they appealed to Karo, whose letter was sufficient to restore to them their rights (Rev. Etudes Juives 18:133-136). In the East, Karo's authority was, if possible, even greater. His name heads the decree of excommunication directed against Daud, Joseph Nasi's agent; and it was Karo who condemned Dei Rossi's Me'or 'Enayim to be burned. Karo's death, therefore, caused general mourning, and several funeral orations delivered on that occasion have been preserved (Moses Albelda, Darash Mosheh; Samuel Katzenellenbogen, Derashot), as well as some elegies.

source: External links: Joseph b. Ephraim Caro jewishencyclopedia.com, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Karo

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