Jacob sapphire
Jacob Saphir (* 1822 in Ashyany ; † 1886 in Jerusalem ; Hebrew יעקב הלוי ספיר, also Yaakov Sapir ) was a rabbi (rabbinical envoy - Meshulach ) and traveler of Romanian descent.
Life
At a young age he went to Palestine with his parents , where they settled in Safed ; after her death in 1836 he went to Jerusalem. In 1848 he was hired by the city's Jewish community to travel the southern lands to collect alms for the poor of Jerusalem. In 1854 he made a second trip to raise funds for the construction of the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem ; the trip took him to Yemen (1861), British India , Indonesia , Egypt and Australia . He founded several Jewish settlements in Yemen.
He gave the result of this trip in his work Even Sapir ( Iben Safir ). Saphir also published the book Iggeret Teman (Wilna 1868, deliberately named after Maimonides' letter to the Jews in Yemen centuries earlier), a work about the appearance of the alleged messiah Judah ben Shalom in Yemen, which was ultimately also responsible for the end of ben Shalom's career was. Saphir died in Jerusalem in 1886 (according to other sources, 1885 or 1888).
Jacob Saphir was the first Jewish researcher to recognize the importance of the Cairo Geniza and the first to publicize the existence of the Midrash ha-gadol (a medieval collection of rabbinical texts); both were later extensively investigated by Solomon Schechter .
The moshav Even Sapir on the outskirts of Jerusalem is named after his book .
Web links
- Article in the Jewish Encyclopedia
- Publications by Jacob Saphir
Individual evidence
- ^ Modern explorations of Arabia . Catholic Encyclopedia
- ^ National Library Of Australia
- ^ Hamlet on a hill: Semitic and Greek studies .
- ↑ A Journey to Jerusalem .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sapphire, Jacob |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sapir, Yaakov |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Rabbi and traveler of Romanian descent |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1822 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ashyany |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1886 |
| Place of death | Jerusalem |