Tag Archives: Yeshiva

Jew of the Week: Ishay Ribo

Israel’s Most Popular Singer

Ishay Ribo (b. 1989) was born in Marseille, France to a family of traditional Sephardic Jews from Morocco and Algeria. When he was a child, the family became more religious and made aliyah. At 13, while studying in yeshiva, Ribo began writing music and took up playing the guitar. A few years later, he formed a religious heavy metal band with friends. During his time in the Israeli military, he served in the Technology and Maintenance Corps and sang in the IDF choir. In 2012, he was invited to work with popular Israeli musician Idan Raichel, and in 2014 with renowned rabbi (and composer) Yitzchak Ginsburgh. That same year Ribo released his debut album, which was certified gold. His third album went platinum, with the song Lashuv HaBaita becoming the number one song on Israeli radio. He followed this up with Sibat HaSibot, which became the most-played song on Israeli radio in 2021. Ribo’s unique style combines modern sounds and lyrics with ancient Biblical verses and even passages from across Rabbinic literature. (His popular Seder haAvodah, for instance, weaves together verses from the Yom Kippur prayer service and Talmudic account of events in Jerusalem’s Holy Temple.) Last week, Ribo became the first Israeli ever to perform at Madison Square Garden, to a sell-out crowd of over 15,000. Ribo’s music is beloved by Jews around the world, and by both secular and religious Israelis. He has been credited with bridging the divide between the two. He also has the distinction of being the most popular Orthodox Jewish artist on YouTube (currently with 314,000 subscribers and over 400 million views). Ribo has five children and still studies Torah regularly in a kollel (a Torah-learning institution for married men).

Rosh Hashanah Begins Friday Evening! Happy 5784!

Why is Rosh Hashanah the New Year if the Torah Doesn’t Say So?

Words of the Week

The celebration of Rosh Hashanah coincides with the sixth day of Creation, the day when Man was created… For it was man who recognized the Creator within Creation, and brought about the elevation of the entire Creation to that recognition, and thus to the fulfilment of its divine design and purpose.
– Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Jew of the Week: Rabbi Yosef Karo

Code of Jewish Law

19th Century Illustration of Rabbi Yosef Karo

Yosef ben Ephraim Karo (1488-1575) was born in Toledo, then in the Spanish kingdom of Castile. The infamous 1492 Spanish Expulsion of the Jews took place when he was just four years old. The family first fled to Portugal, and were then expelled from there as well in 1497. They eventually settled in Nikopolis, in the Ottoman Empire, which had opened its doors to Sephardic Jewish refugees. (The Ottoman Sultan at the time, Bayezid II, reportedly said: “They tell me that Ferdinand of Spain is a wise man, but he is a fool, for he takes his treasure and sends it all to me.”) Karo was tutored by his rabbi father and soon became a rabbi himself. He also studied under the great Rabbi Yosef Taitazak in Salonica. For a couple of years, he served as a rabbi in Adrianople, and eventually resettled in Tzfat. At the time, Tzfat was experiencing a resurgence of Jewish life and a renaissance in Jewish scholarship, thanks mainly to an influx of Sephardic Jewish refugees. It soon became the “capital” of Jewish mysticism, and Rabbi Karo was one of its most famous mystics and scholars. It was in Tzfat that he composed the Shulchan Arukh, to this day the standard code of Jewish law worldwide. (Tzfat boasted one of the first printing presses in the Middle East, helping to spread the Shulchan Arukh far and wide and making it extremely popular and accessible.) The Shulchan Arukh was itself only a summary of the far broader and more complex Beit Yosef, which was Rabbi Karo’s true magnum opus that he worked on for over twenty years. Rabbi Karo opened his own yeshiva, with 200 students including the renowned “Ramak”, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero. Karo also served as the chief rabbi on the Tzfat beit din. In fact, he was one of the main leaders in a rabbinic attempt to re-establish the ancient Sanhedrin. Rabbi Karo was recognized as the preeminent authority for all Sephardic Jewry worldwide, and was deeply respected by Ashkenazi Jews as well who, on several occasions, asked him to intervene in local European disputes. Among his other noted publications are Kesef Mishneh, a commentary on the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, along with a textbook for Talmudic study. One of his most intriguing works is Maggid Meisharim, a personal journal which records his prophetic experiences and the teachings he received from an angel over a period of fifty years. Rabbi Karo is often referred to simply as Maran, “Our Master”.

Words of the Week

Today, what is demanded of the Jewish people is mesirut nefesh, self-sacrifice, and this is particularly true with regard to chinuch, education. The resources for which we have labored must be dedicated to the education of children – both our own, and the children of others.
– Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Jew of the Week: Moses Cohen Henriques

The Jewish Pirate Who Conquered Brazil

Moses Cohen Henriques (b. 1595) was born to a family of Sephardic Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity. The family eventually made their way to Amsterdam and returned to their Jewish faith. Henriques joined the Dutch navy, and rose up through the ranks to be the right-hand man of famed Dutch admiral Piet Hein. Together, they defeated the Spanish fleet off the coast of Cuba in 1628. Following this, Henriques went to scout the Portuguese colony of Pernambuco, Brazil as a spy, to prepare for a Dutch invasion. He was part of that invasion in 1630, leading a contingent of 3000 men to successfully capture the colony. Henriques helped to turn the area into a Jewish refuge, bringing in America’s first rabbi, and establishing the first synagogue, mikveh, and yeshiva in the New World. When the Portuguese recaptured the colony in 1654 and restarted persecution of Jews, Henriques fled along with the rest of the Jewish community. To survive harsh times, he was forced to become a pirate, soon joining the infamous Henry Morgan. He became Sir Morgan’s trusted advisor. Henriques later ventured on his own, establishing a pirate island off the Brazilian coast. The Inquisition sought to capture him for years, unsuccessfully, and Henriques saw it as his mission to avenge the evil that the Spanish and Portuguese had done to the Jews. After the English conquered Jamaica, Henriques settled there and lived out the rest of his life on the island, helping to establish its Jewish community. When his old friend Henry Morgan became Jamaica’s governor, he gave Henriques a full pardon for piracy in 1681.

Illustration depicting the burning of Jews at the stake, from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)

Words of the Week

The Jews are our chief supplyers in Barbadoes, and would sell very cheap, and give one not seldom two years to pay, by which credit the poorer sort of planter did wonderfully improve their condition.
– Sir Thomas Modyford (d. 1679), English governor of Barbados and Jamaica

*The biography above is adapted from Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, by Ed Kritzler.