Alfandari

Alfandari was a family of eastern rabbis prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries, found in Smyrna, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. The name may be derived from a Spanish locality, perhaps from Alfambra. The following is a list of the chief members of the family:

• Aaron ben Moses Alfandari
• Elijah Alfandari
• Ḥayyim ben Isaac Raphael Alfandari the Younger
• Ḥayyim ben Jacob Alfandari the Elder
• Isaac Raphael Alfandari
• Jacob ben Ḥayyim Alfandari
• Solomon Eliezer Alfandari

Members of this family were to be found as of 1906 in Constantinople and in Beirut. A Portuguese family of the name Alphandéry still exists, as of 1906, in Paris and Avignon. In Avignon there was a physician, Moses Alphandéry, in 1506,^[1] and a Lyon Alphanderic, in 1558.^[2] Compare the names Moses אלפנדריך^[3] and Aaron אלפנדארק.^[4]

In addition to the persons mentioned above, there is known a Solomon Alfandari (Valencia, 1367), whose son Jacob assisted Samuel Ẓarẓa in tranṣlating the Sefer ha-'Aẓamim of pseudo-ibn Ezra from Arabic into Hebrew. A merchant, Isaac Alfandari, was wrecked in 1529 on the Nubian coast.^[5] In Israeli popular culture, the principal family in the 1973 film Daughters, Daughters is named Alfandari.

For a possible explanation of the name, see Steinschneider.^[6]

Henri Alfandari has been a French Member of Parliament since 2022.

See also

• Edmond Alphandéry (b. 1943), French politician
• Alphandéry (name) [fr], several people with this name

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Alfandari". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.

This page was last edited on 24 May 2023, at 20:59