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Yitzchak Aboab II

Yitzchak Aboab II

Also known as Last Gaon of Castile

1433 CE–1493 CE · Rishonim · Castile

R. Yitzchak Aboab II (1433-1493) was the last great Talmudic authority of Iberian Jewry before the 1492 expulsion — known to history as the 'Last Gaon of Castile'. Born in Castile, he was the senior disciple of R. Yitzchak Canpanton (the head of the Castilian iyun school) and trained a generation of major Spanish-Sephardic rabbis including R. Abraham Zacuto and R. Yitzchak Karo (uncle of R. Yosef Karo).

After the 1492 Edict, he led 30,000 Spanish-Jewish refugees to Portugal, where he negotiated the conditions of their settlement with King João II. He died in Porto seven months later, a few months before the Portuguese expulsion of 1497 that would scatter his followers. His Talmudic novellae are preserved in his students' citations.

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Stop 1 of 21433–1492Born, Rosh Yeshiva

CastileקסטיליהIberia

What they did here

Born in Castile; studied under R. Yitzchak Canpanton, the founder of the Castilian iyun school. Led the major yeshiva of Castile in his maturity.

About Castile

Region of medieval Spain where Joseph Gikatilla, Abraham Abulafia, and the Zohar's compositional circle worked. Coordinates anchored at Madrid as a regional centroid.

In Castile at the same time

Yitzchak Canpanton

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Yitzchak Aboab II’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

In the same tradition

Yitzchak Canpanton

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Yitzchak Aboab II’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Jewish world

Works

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