AGUILAR, MOSES RAPHAEL Dʾ

AGUILAR, MOSES RAPHAEL D' (d. 1679), Dutch rabbi and scholar. He went to Brazil from Amsterdam in 1641 with other members of his family (including his nephew, the martyr isaac de castro tartas ) and became rabbi-ḥazzan, probably in the Magen Avraham congregation of Mauricia (adjoining Recife). On his return to Amsterdam he opened a private school, and was subsequently (1659) engaged to fill Manasseh ben Israel's place in the Etz Hayyim seminary. He wrote some 20 books, but only two were published in his lifetime – a Hebrew grammar for school use (Epitome da Grammatica hebrayca, Leiden, 1660; Amsterdam, 16612), and Dinim de Sechitá y Bedicá (Amsterdam, 1681). His work on the immortality of the soul, Tratado da Immortalidade da Alma, was published by M. de Jong (Coimbra, 1935). The auction catalogue of his rich library (Amsterdam, 1680) is one of the earliest known in Jewish bibliography. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Imanuel, in: AJA, 14 (1962), 59–61; A. Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil (1960), 171; ESN, 22–23; C. Gebhardt, Uriel da Costa (1922), 250–3. (Cecil Roth) AGUILAR DE CAMPÓO AGUILAR DE CAMPÓO, fortress-town in Castile, district of Palencia, northern Spain. The earliest evidence of a Jewish settlement is furnished in the lease of a flour mill in 1187 witnessed by 17 Jews, including two blacksmiths. In the 13th century it was a medium-sized community, with 15 families or about 70 Jews. The farming and other revenues in the districts were in the hands of Don Çaq de la Maleha (Ibn Ẓadok ) and his associates. The taxes paid by the Jewish community in 1290 amounted to 10,718 maravedis. In 1311 the Infant Pedro confirmed the rights of the convent of Santa Maria to tithes and the dues of porteria paid by the Jews; these were reconfirmed in 1370, although the Jewish community had been   decimated by English soldiery during the civil war in 1367. The community in Aguilar apparently continued to exist until the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Over one of the gates of the city, Puerta de Reinosa, there is a long inscription in Judeo-Castilian (i.e., Spanish in Hebrew characters, almost unique among the Spanish Jewish inscriptions) testifying that the tower was constructed by Don Çaq (Isaac) son of Solomon ibn Malak(e) and his wife Bellida in 1380. The inscription is unique from the historical and linguistic points of view. Fourteenth-century documents speak of the location of the Jewish quarter. It seems very likely that the juderia was in what is now known as Tobalina Street. A new Jewish quarter was established towards the end of the 15th century. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baer, Urkunden, 2 (1936), index; I. Huidobro and Cantera, in: Sefarad, 14 (1954), 335–52; L. Huidobro Serna, Breve historia y descripción de la muy leal villa de Aguilar (1954); Cantera-Millás, Inscripciones, 329–31; P. León Tello, Los judíos de Palencia (1966); L. Suárez Fernández, Documents acerca de la expulsion de los judíos (1964), index. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. Ruiz, La Cascajera, no. 6 (Oct. 1982), 24, 29.