Abraham Pereyra (Abraham Israel Pereyra, also Pereira) was a wealthy and prominent Portuguese Jewish merchant, who lived in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
from ''circa'' 1644 to his death in 1699.
Life and Work
Cecil Roth
Cecil Roth (5 March 1899 – 21 June 1970) was a British Jewish historian.
He was editor in chief of ''Encyclopaedia Judaica''.
Life
Roth was born in Dalston, London, on 5 March 1899. His parents were Etty and Joseph Roth, and Cecil was the youn ...
, following Kayserling, says Abraham Pereyra was born in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
"of
Marrano
Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were Forced conversion#Spanish Inquisition, forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to Crypto-Judaism, practice Judaism i ...
parentage." The respected founder of the modern academic field of historical studies on the
Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
in Jerusalem,
Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kaballah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Mystici ...
, 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
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are stud ...
'' ''Hesed le-Abraham in
Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East J ...
."
Meyer Kayserling
Meyer Kayserling (also '' Meir'' or ''Moritz'', 17 June 1829 – 21 April 1905) was a German rabbi and historian.
Life
Kayserling was born in Hanover, and was the brother of writer and educator Simon Kayserling. He was educated at Halbersta ...
, 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
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – 20 November 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (), also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, writ ...
, 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
Salo Wittmayer Baron (May 26, 1895 – November 25, 1989) was a Polish-born American historian, described as "the greatest Jewish historian of the 20th century". Baron taught at Columbia University from 1930 until his retirement in 1963.
Life
...
, 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
Euronext Amsterdam is a stock exchange based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Formerly known as the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, it merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext. The r ...
, the oldest stock exchange in the world, started by the
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
/''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
Sabbatai Zevi (; August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676), also spelled Shabbetai Ẓevi, Shabbeṯāy Ṣeḇī, Shabsai Tzvi, Sabbatai Zvi, and ''Sabetay Sevi'' in Turkish, was a Jewish mystic and ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turk ...
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
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – 20 November 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (), also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, writ ...
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
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Year 671 ( DCLXXI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 671 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar e ...
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
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Year 647 ( DCXLVII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 647 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...
*
Joseph Athias
Joseph Athias (c. 1635 – 12 May 1700) was a merchant, bookprinter and the publisher of a famous Hebrew Bible which was approved by States-General of the Dutch Republic and both Jewish and Christian theologians.
Life
Joseph was born in Lisb ...
: '' 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