Obadiah ben Abraham

Biography

In an Italian municipal document, his name is recorded as "Maestro Servadio di Habramo da Bartenura", with Servadio being a translation of Ovadiah and Habramo a transliteration of Abraham (his father's name). He was also known by the Hebrew acronym יר"א (Yareh). and became rabbi in Bertinoro, a town in the modern province of Forlì-Cesena, whence he derived his by-name, and in Castello.

In Israel The desire to visit the Holy Land led him to Jerusalem, and he arrived there on March 25, 1488, having commenced his journey on October 29, 1486. At the time, the Jewish community in Jerusalem was suffering greatly from oppressive levels of taxation, which led to suffering and emigration. He succeeded in obtaining a reduction in taxation levels from the government and supported the Jewish poor using his wealth from Italy.

Bartenura's personality, eloquence, and great reputation as a scholar led to his being accepted as the community's spiritual head immediately upon his arrival. His first care was to raise the intellectual plane of the community, and for this purpose, he interested the younger generation in the study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature, and he delivered sermons every other Shabbat in Hebrew. but this title was given by a later printer rather than Bartenura himself. is the wealth of information concerning the social and intellectual conditions of the Jews in Greece, Egypt, and Israel. He shows himself not only a close observer, but a conscientious and unprejudiced chronicler. For example, he studied attentively the conditions of the Karaites in Alexandria, and did not hesitate to praise them for the possession of the very virtues which the Rabbanites denied to them, such as generosity and liberality. His description of the Samaritans in Egypt is one of the most valuable and reliable of medieval times."