Hamoy Abraham (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. In Hebrew. (4), 106 leaves. 208 x 155 mm. Rabbi Avraham Hamuy was born in Aleppo to Rabbi and Kabbalist Raphael and Rachel. In 1864 he married and approximately one year later his wife and their child died on the same day. He also lost his father and a sister early. These deaths devasted him and he left Aleppo and spent the next 22 years traveling in living in many cities and countries. In 1865 he was in Jerusalem, then part of the Ottoman Empire, where he studied with Rabbi Rachamim Antebi. He moved to Izmir, Turkey, studying with Rabbi Haim Palaggi. In 1870 he published, in Izmir, his first book, which is offered here, Haakh Nafshenu. He visited Austria, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Romania. In 1873 he moved to Italy, living in Livorno (Leghorn), where he received ordination as a schochet (ritual slaughter, in accordance with kosher laws). In 1876 he was in Thesaloniki. In 1878 he was in Gibraltar, Libya and very likely Lebanon. In 1879 he traveled to Algeria, Tunisia and Marocco and Yemen. In 1881 he reached India. In 1882 he was in Persia. In 1884 Baghdad. He visited more than 45 cities and wrote 65 works, 15 of which were published. He passed away, single and alone, in 1886 in the Persian port city of Bushehr. He published in Hebrew, Spanish and Ladino, and also wrote unpublished works in Arabic. He was a charismatic kabbalist and judaic scholar who proacticed folk medicine and kabbala. At some of the places he visited or lived in, for example, Gibraltar, He was offered a position as the chief rabbi, but his often acerbic personality brought him into conflict with people, and after descending to personal insults during disputes, usually over religious issues, he was kicked out of some cities. He spoke Hebrew, Spanish, Ladino, Arabic, Italian and some French. He dealt in Kabbala, medicine, amulets, alchemy and herbal medicine. Unlike many who did a great deal of traveling, he never collected alms from far flung communities on behalf of the impoverished Jews in Eretz Israel. His passion was to promote and publish his writing, which he viewed a means of atoning for sins he felt he must have committed to deserve the loss of his family. As he saw it, his books were his children.