LEVY, JUDAH (Mercado) BEN MENAHEM

LEVY, JUDAH (Mercado) BEN MENAHEM (c. 1790– c. 1875), rabbi in Ereẓ Israel. Levy was born in Sarajevo from where he moved to Ragusa, immigrating to Jerusalem in his   youth. He was appointed rabbi of Jaffa in 1825 by the Jerusalem rabbinate and may be regarded as the real founder of the Jewish community in Jaffa. Later the Turkish government recognized him and conferred on him the title Ḥakham bashi. He was responsible for the consecration of the first Jewish cemetery in Jaffa (previously its Jews had been buried in Jerusalem). Levy assisted charles netter in founding the mikveh israel agricultural school. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brill, in: Ha-Levanon, 2 (1865), 56; M.D. Gaon, Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1938), 320f.; Frumkin-Rivlin, 3 (1929), 309 no. 13. (Samuel Abba Horodezky)