Abraham Israel Pereyra

Abraham Pereyra (Abraham Israel Pereyra, also Pereira) was a wealthy and prominent Portuguese Jewish merchant, who lived in Amsterdam from ''circa'' 1644 to his death in 1699.

Life and Work

Cecil Roth, following Kayserling, says Abraham Pereyra was born in Madrid "of Marrano parentage." The respected founder of the modern academic field of historical studies on the Kabbalah in Jerusalem, Gershom Scholem, following Avraham Ya'ari, articulated his origins and importance in the following manner:
:..."a descendant of a family of marranos in Madrid and one of the wealthiest industrialists and merchant princes in Holland. Pereyra was much given to works of piety and devotion, and in 1659 he founded the ''yeshibah'' ''Hesed le-Abraham in Hebron."
Meyer Kayserling, who is actually the main secondary source for the rather scant extant biographical information on the subject, writes that his name before leaving Spain was Thomas Rodriguez Pereyra and that he was "persecuted by the Inquisition."

Cecil Roth, in his major biography of Menasseh ben Israel, then completes the picture writing that Abraham Pereyra had amassed a considerable fortune in business, and that escaping through Venice (also following Kayserling on this detail) he arrived in Amsterdam ''circa'' 1644, where he reunited with his younger brother Isaac Pereyra (Isaac Israel Pereyra). He states, furthermore, that they had "succeeded in bringing with them from the Peninsula, unimpaired, the whole of their considerable fortune."

Herbert Bloom, a student of the famous Jewish social historian Salo W. Baron, based on primary sources/documents which he researched, states that in 1655 the two brothers, Abraham and Isaac Pereyra, petitioned the government of Amsterdam for permission to establish a sugar refinery in the city. Based on a Dutch economic research work from 1908 about the Amsterdam sugar trade of the 17th century, Bloom adds the following insight: "The Pereyras are described by their fellow Jews as merchants of wealth and influence, who occupied an important place on the Exchange ank". The reference here is to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, started by the Dutch East India Company/''VOC'' in 1602.

From a different perspective, and at a later point in Pereyra's life, Scholem adds that ''circa'' 1674, the followers of Sabbatai Zevi in Amsterdam "used to meet in the house of their leader, Emanuel Benattar, the ''hazzan'' of the Portuguese Synagogue, and seem to have been unmolested by the Jewish authorities, possibly because they had the very pious and very wealthy Abraham Pereyra" as one of the prominent members in their group.

Financing of the Portuguese Jewish community religious institutions

Back to the initial period of Abraham Pereyra's mercantile activities in Amsterdam, both Roth and Méchoulan point out that he provided the main financial backing for the famous printing and publishing enterprise, as well as for the other varied intellectual activities of Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel all over Europe, until the latter's demise at the relatively young age of 52, in 1657.

In a curious but consistent parallel to the founding of the ''yeshibah'' in Hebron in 1659, mentioned above, the brothers Pereyra had also founded a ''yeshibah'' upon their arrival in Amsterdam ''circa'' 1644. They then appointed Menasseh ben Israel as the ''yeshibahs head or principal. This position provided Manasseh's main source of livelihood henceforth and until his death. Roth also refers throughout the book to many of the financial problems of Manasseh's Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam, and indicates that the business may have had other sources of funds for its daily operations, besides the bulk sale of books. Abraham Pereyra, as the main personal benefactor of Menasseh, must have been also directly involved in helping finance and support the enterprise from its inception, and throughout its period of activity.

Publications

By Abraham Pereyra

Publications by the author that come up in a search in the online catalogue:
* ''Reformacion de las eschamoth del Escher de merced de Abraham, hechas en 8. de Sebath de 5412....'', Amsterdam?, 1656?
* ''La Certeza del Camino'', Amsterdam, Estempado en casa de David de Castro Tartaz, 1666
* ''Espejo de la vanidad del mundo'', En Amsterdam : En casa de Alexandro Ianse, 671

Related to Abraham Pereyra

Publications with material related to the author that come up in the online catalogue:
* Manasseh ben Israel: ''Thesouro dos dinim ultima parte : na qual se co em todos os preceitos, ritos e ceremonias q ehua perfeyta economica, dedicata a os muy nobres e magnificos senhores Abraha e Ishak Israel Pereyra'', Amsterdam, Na officina de Ioseph be Israel seu filho 647
* Joseph Athias: '' Livro que contem otermo é condiçoẽs con que...Full title: "Livro que contem otermo é condiçoẽs con que os Srs. do Mahamad do K.K. de T.T. admitiraõ ó legado que nelle constitutió, Abraham Pereira, de fl. 46000 : aplicados seus reditos para ó Esguer que tem fundado en Hebron, intitulado Merced de Abraham : para cazar orphãs de sua decendencia, para alimentar pobres de sua geraçaõ, é para premiar moços pobres seus parentes meditantes na ley divina : juntamente o modo con que hũ é outro se ha dedestribuir : como tambem as eschamoth con que se governaõ os que meditaõ em dito Escher de Hebron : effectuousse no ano 5419. acriaçaõ do mundo.
Joseph Athias; Kahal kadosh Talmud Torah (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Amsteoldami : Ex officina de Yosephi Athias, Anno ab orbe creato VMCCCCXIX 419, i.e. 1659according to Worldcat, consulted on 29 April 2020. Kahal kadosh Talmud Torah (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Amsteoldami : Ex officina de Yosephi Athias, Anno ab orbe creato VMCCCCXIX 419, i.e. 1659 Amsterdam, 1659

Notes

References

* Amzalak, Moses Bensabat, ''Abraham Israel Pereyra; Noticia Bibliografica,'' Lisbon, 1927
* Bloom, Herbert I., ''The Economic Activities of Jews of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,'' The Bayard Press, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, 1937.
* Kayserling, Meyer, ''Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica; Dictionnaire Bibliographique,'' Strasbourg, 1890.
*Méchoulan, Henry, ''Hispanidad y Judaismo en tiempos de Espinoza: Estudio y edicion anotada de La Certeza del Camino de Abraham Pereyra, Amsterdam 1666,'' (Acta Salmanticencia), Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1987.
* Méchoulan, Henry, and Nahon, Gérard (eds.), ''Menasseh Ben Israel. The Hope of Israel,'' Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987 - .
* Roth, Cecil, ''A Life of Manasseh Ben Israel, Rabbi, Printer, and Diplomat,'' Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1934.
*Gershom Scholem: ''Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah: 1626-1676'': London: Routledge Kegan Paul: 1973: : American Edition: Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1973: (hardcover edn.).

External Links

''Jewish Encyclopedia'' (2007):
"PEREYRA, ABRAHAM ISRAEL (Marano name, Thomas Rodrigues Pereyra)" by Isidore Singer and Meyer Kayserling

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pereyra, Abraham Israel
1610s births
1670s deaths
Portuguese Jews
17th-century Sephardi Jews
Dutch Sephardi Jews
Businesspeople from Amsterdam

Jewish printing and publishing
Sabbateans
Jewish philanthropists
17th-century philanthropists