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:

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 (1906) in Paris and Avignon. At the latter place there was a physician, Moses Alphandéry, in 1506 (Rev. Ét. Juives, xxxiv. 253) and a Lyon Alphanderic, in 1558 (ibid. vii. 280). Compare the names Moses אלפנדריך (Neubauer, Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS. No. 2129) and Aaron אלפנדארק (ibid. No. 1080). For a possible explanation of the name, see Steinschneider, Jew. Quart. Rev. xi. 591.

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 the Arabic into Hebrew. A merchant, Isaac Alfandari, was wrecked in 1529 on the Nubian coast (Zunz, Z. G. p. 425; Steinschneider, Hebr. Uebers. p. 448). In Israeli popular culture, the principal family in the 1973 film Daughters, Daughters is named Alfandari.

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