TRABOT

TRABOT (Trabotto), Italian family of French origin which flourished from the 14th to the 17th centuries. The name is most probably derived from Trévoux, once Trévou, a town located in Burgundy, from where the Jews were definitely expelled in 1488. The most important members of the family are PEREZ TRABOT (14th–15th centuries), also known as Zarfati or Catalani which seems to indicate that he went from France to Catalonia in 1395, then to Italy. He composed Makrei Dardekei, a Hebrew–French and Hebrew–Catalan dictionary (Naples, 1488). JEHIEL TRABOT, rabbi at Pesaro in the early 16th century, was a grandson of R. Joseph Colon\>\> , whose own father was known as Solomon Trabot. Jehiel is mentioned in Naḥalat Ya'akov, Jacob Alpron's collection of responsa. His son AZRIEL (d. 1569), rabbi in Florence and Ascoli in the second half of the 16th century, was noted for his responsa. Following the bull of February 1569 of Pope Pius V, decreeing that all Jews in the Papal States except Rome and Ancona should be driven out, the congregation of Ascoli, with Azriel at its head, found refuge at Pesaro. There Azriel was entrusted with the valuable Ark. He died in Pesaro in July of the same year. His son JEHIEL was rabbi at Pesaro and Ferrara. AZRIEL, son of Jehiel, was rabbi of Ascoli at the beginning of the 17th century. He composed a list of rabbis (cf. REJ, 4 (1882), 208–25) and several responsa. NETHANEL BEN BENJAMIN BEN AZRIEL (1576–1653), was rabbi of Modena. Several of his rulings are extant. Especially important is his responsum on reform of music in the synagogue. In 1711, RAFAEL TRABOTTO was given permission by the Austrian authorities to engage in moneylending in Mantua. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gross, Gal Jud, 219–21; Mortara, Indice, 65–66; Ghirondi-Neppi, 179, 271, 296; S. Simonsohn, Toledot ha-Yehudim ba-Dukkasut Mantovah (1962), index; D. Kaufmann, in: JQR, 9 (1896/97), 255ff.