Parafrasis Comentado Sobre el Pentateuco.

ABOAB, ISAAC DA FONSECA.

Jacob de Cordova

Amsterdam

1681

FIRST EDITION. Spanish text interspersed with Hebrew. Finely engraved title page by Johan van den Aveele depicting events in the life of the Biblical Isaac. Approbation by the three Hahamim of Amsterdam: Jacob Sasportas, Immanuel Aben-Atar and Selomoh de Oliveyra. Two issues (this without the portrait).

Kayserling, p. 4; Gans, Memorbook p. 99 (illustrated).

The First Rabbi to Minister on the American Continent. A paraphrastic (as opposed to literal) Spanish translation of the Pentateuch, embellished with author’s insights. Isaac da Fonseca Aboab (alias Simão da Fonseca, 1605-1693) was one of the Netherland’s most esteemed rabbinic leaders. Born in Castro Daire, Portugal, he fled as a youngster together with his parents to St. Jean de Luz, along the Franco-Spanish border. Eventually, Isaac and his widowed mother arrived in Amsterdam where he studied under Haham Isaac Uzziel. In 1639, Aboab became the Haham of Amsterdam, uniting all three Sephardic congregations under his authority. In 1642 he accepted a call as Haham to Recife (Pernambuco), Brazil, which was at the time in the hands of the Dutch. Thus, he became the first Rabbi to minister on the American Continent. The victory of the Portuguese in 1654 however, doomed the Jewish community of Recife, and most Jews returned to Amsterdam, including Haham Aboab. Others scattered to various places in the Caribbean, although a small group migrated farther North, and such was the beginning of the Jewish community of New York (aka Nieuw Amsterdam). See A. Wiznitzer, The Exodus from Brazil and Arrival in New Amsterdam of the Jewish Pilgrim Fathers 1654, in: A.J. Karp (Ed.) The Jewish Experience in America (1969) Vol. I, pp. 19-36; JE, Vol. I, pp. 74-5; EJ, Vol. II, cols. 95-6.