(ISRAEL, LAND OF).

Abraham Israel Pereira (d.1699) was born in Spain into a Marrano family and achieved great financial success before fleeing the Iberian Peninsula and reverting to the open practice of Judaism in Amsterdam in the early 1640’s. Pereira served for many years as President of the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam, and as one of the leading Jewish philanthropists of his day, founded the Torah Or yeshiva, headed by Menasseh ben Israel. In 1652 Pereira established the Chesed le-Avraham Yeshiva in the city of Hebron, in the Land of Israel. The present publication provides financial details regarding Pereira’s continued funding of the Hebron Yeshiva by earmarking a further bequest of some 46,000 florins. On Pereira’s yeshivah in Hebron, see A. Ya’ari in Yerushalayim IV (1952) pp. 185-202. <<Extremely rare.>> From the manner in which Kayserling refers to our work, it is apparent he knew of it only by hearsay; The Jewish Encyclopedia is only aware of a manuscript copy (see JE, Vol. IX, p. 599).