ABENDANA, JACOB BEN JOSEPH
- ABENDANA, JACOB BEN JOSEPH
- ABENDANA, JACOB BEN JOSEPH (1630–1685), biblical commentator
and polemist, elder brother of isaac abendana ; probably born in
Hamburg, of Portuguese parents. Together with Joshua Pardo and Imanuel
Abenatar Melo he studied at the Academia de los Pintos in Rotterdam. In
1655 he became principal of the Maskil el Dal fraternity in Amsterdam,
where he delivered a memorial address on the inquisitional martyr
Abraham Nuñez Bernal. In 1658, after completing his studies, he was
appointed haham in Amsterdam.
Around 1660 he was in contact with Adam Boreel, the continental
Christian Hebraist of the circle dominated by John Dury and Samuel
Hartlib, who commissioned him to translate the Mishnah into Spanish. The
translation made by Abendana was used by later Christian scholars such
as Surenhusius, but was never printed and is now regarded to be lost.
In 1660/1661, Jacob and Isaac published Solomon ibn Melekh's Bible
commentary, Mikhlol Yofi, with a supercommentary, Lekket
Shikḥah (3rd ed., 1965), on the Pentateuch, Joshua, and
part of Judges (Vienna, 1818). The work was published with the
approbations of Christian scholars, including the celebrated
johannes buxtorf of Basel. Jacob Abendana followed up his success
with a Spanish translation of Judah Halevi's philosophical work
Kuzari (published in Amsterdam, 1663, with a dedication to
the British merchant-diplomat Sir William Davidson).
By the beginning of 1668, Jacob had joined his brother Isaac in England,
and with him set about selling Hebrew books to a devoted clientele that
included Henry Oldenburg, Robert Boyle, and Thomas Barlow of the
Bodleian Library.
In 1681 Jacob became haham of the Spanish and Portuguese
synagogue in London (which he had already visited in 1667–68). In that
year he was host to Princess Anne, who came to the synagogue during
Passover, the first occasion on which a member of the royal family
visited the Jews at prayer.
-BIBLIOGRAPHY:
MGWJ, 9 (1860), 30 ff.; Solomons, in:
JHSET, 12 (1931), 21–24, 39–40; Samuel, ibid.,
14 (1939), 39 ff.; ESN, S.V.; P.T. van Rooden and J.W.
Wesselius, in: Quaerendo, 16 (1986) 110–30; D.S. Katz, in:
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 40 (1989), 28–52; idem,
in: C.S. Nicholls (ed.), The Dictionary of National Biography:
Missing Persons (1993),
2.
(Harm den Boer (2nd ed.)
Encyclopedia Judaica.
1971.
Look at other dictionaries:
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