Rappoport

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rap (p) oport or Rap (p) aport (Hebrew: רפפורט ) is a Jewish family name from the Kohanim family tree. It was first mentioned in Regensburg in 1380 .

etymology

There are different explanations for the origin of the family name. Almost all attempts to explain it agree that the family emigrated to Italy in the 14th century and from there spread to Western and Eastern Europe. Many researchers also agree that the family's origins lie with Ashkenazim with the name Raffa, who were driven from Regensburg to Mainz by Giovanni da Capistrano in 1420–1422 .

1. Explanatory approach

On the family coat of arms clasped hands as a sign of the priest's blessing and a raven are shown.

The family coat of arms is depicted on the title page of the book Minha B'lulah by Rabbi Abraham Menahem, the son of Jacob ha-Kohen, which was published in Verona in 1594. It comes from the Italian Renaissance . The arms in the form of the priestly blessing position within the coat of arms represent the Rappa priestly family. In the Middle Ages, the raven embodied the virtue of wisdom. The Hebrew inscription reads Abraham Menachem bar Jakob ha-Kohen Raffa mi Porto , which can mean Abraham - doctor from Porto or Abraham Raffa from Porto . (There are no vowels in Hebrew, and the consonants P and F are identified by the same letter.)

Around the year 1520, about 75 years before the coat of arms was printed, one of the family members describes himself as "the circumciser Yitzchak, the son of Yechiel the cohen of the ravens". This raven = rape as the first part of the name was used for many years. The second part of the name, Porto, is derived from the city of Portobuffolé (40 km north of Venice). The Rappa family lived in this city before 1480, almost 70 years earlier than in Porto Legnago .

Since the Jews were forbidden to learn the printing trade in the Middle Ages , it is not clear how Rabbi Meshullam Yekutiel-Kuzi Rappa was able to acquire the relevant knowledge. After the second expulsion of the Jews, he opened a printing company in the northern Italian town of Piove di Sacco . In 1472 he published the first ever Jewish book printed with movable type, the first part of the Arba'a Turim by Jakob ben Ascher . The work was completed in 1475.

This is the approach taken by Rabbi Eliakim Carmoli in The Ravens and the Doves .

2. Explanatory approach

The name Rapa or Rappe ha-Kohen (-Tzedeq (Rapa Katz)) is first mentioned in 1450. At that time Meshullam Kusi (abbreviated from "Jekuthiel") Rapa ha-Kohen Tzedeq, the oldest known member of the family, lived on the Rhine in Mainz. A few decades later the family disappeared from Germany, probably in connection with the second expulsion of the Jews on October 29, 1462. In 1467, a Chayyim black horse is mentioned as a collector of alms for the poor from the Holy Land in Mestre near Venice. In Venice, a doctor named R. Moses Rap was exempt from wearing the Jewish star.

In the middle of the 16th century, a Kohenite family of Porto appeared in Italy . On March 18, 1540, R. Isaac Porto ha-Kohen received permission from the Duke of Mantua to build an Ashkenazi synagogue . The name Porto was derived from the city of Porto near Mantua , where Isaac Porto ha-Kohen lived. A marriage of members of the Rabe and Porto families explains the origin of the name Rapaport; 1565 officiated Rabbi Salomon ben Menachem ha-Kohen Rapa from Venice in the above. Synagogue of Mantua, while Rabbi Abraham Porto ha-Kohen (1541–1576) was the head of the community. At the same time, a branch of the family moved to Prague , as evidenced by the burial sites there with the names Porta (1589) and Port (1598).

3. Explanatory approach

After the second expulsion of the Jews from Mainz in 1462, some families can be found in northern Italy in the fertile areas of the Po Valley . A son of the Raffa family moved to Venice, where he worked as a rabbi. Another, also active as a rabbi, moved to Porto, now Legnago. The second part of the name refers to the city of Porto. When the son of the family, who lived in Porto, also moved to Venice, the Jews there wanted to distinguish between the old and the newly arrived rabbi. They called him "the Raffa from Porto" while the first rabbi was known as "the Raffa from Venice". Over time, the name Raffa-Porto, hence Rapaport, solidified.

4. Explanatory approach

The name Rapaport was a combination of the meaning 'Rav' [Rabbi] from the city of Porto , a major city in Portugal .

This version is represented by the historian Ben-Zion Dinur .

Western European branches

At the end of the 16th century, the family name Ha-Kohen Rabe became established. Part of the Polish branch has changed the family name to Wrona (Polish raven). According to another version, the name Wrona has its origins in the Italian city of Verona . The ambiguity comes from the fact that the words Wrona and Verona are read the same in Hebrew (Hebrew: ורונה ).

In the middle of the 17th century the Rapa-Port family lived in Poland and Latvia . Over time, the family name was modified: Rapiport , Rapoport , Rappeport and Rappert were created. The family spread primarily from Krakow and Lviv ; in 1584 a well-known Talmudist Abraham Rapa von Port (also called Schrenzel) was born.

At the beginning of the 20th century, families began to emigrate to Anglo-Saxon countries such as the USA , Canada , England , Australia and South Africa .

Well-known namesake

Rappoport

  • Charles Rappoport (1865–1941), Lithuanian-French socialist
  • Shlomo Sanwel Rappoport , real name of Salomon An-ski (1863–1920), Russian writer, journalist and ethnographer
  • Xenija Alexandrovna Rappoport (* 1974), Russian actress
  • Vasily Aleksandrovich Rappoport (Russian: Василий Александрович Раппопорт) (1883–1952), Russian writer and journalist, publisher of several popular monthly magazines, author's name: Vasily Aleksandrovich Reginin

Rapoport

Rappaport

Rapaport

Web links