Abulafia

The Abulafia are a Sephardic Jewish family whose Arabic-derived name, Abu l-Afiyya, took its medieval Spanish form under Muslim rule in Al-Andalus. From around 1200 the family supplied leaders to the Jewish community of Toledo and Castile.

Its most famous member was Samuel ben Meir Ha-Levi Abulafia, born around 1320, who rose at the court of Pedro I of Castile to royal treasurer and judge. He backed the king against Henry of Trastámara and built the Synagogue of El Tránsito in Toledo between 1355 and 1357, with Hebrew and Arabic inscriptions. Accused of embezzlement, he was imprisoned and tortured in 1360 and died in Seville the same year.

When the Catholic Monarchs issued the Alhambra Decree in 1492, the unconverted Abulafias left Spain like other Sephardim, resettling chiefly in the Ottoman Empire and Italy.