Joseph Karo
Preeminent halakhic authority and codifier of Jewish law, author of the Shulhan Arukh.
He is renowned as the author of the Shulhan Arukh, a major codification of Jewish law.[1] The Sephardic Jewish rabbi Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, also known as Yosef Caro or Qaro, was born in 1488 in Toledo, Spain.[1][2]
Quick Facts
- Religion
- Judaism
- Birth name
- Joseph ben Ephraim Karo
- Born
- 1488
- Birthplace
- Toledo, Kingdom of Toledo, Crown of Castile
- Died
- March 24, 1575
- Place of death
- Safed, Damascus Eyalet, Ottoman Empire
- Burial place
- Safed Old Jewish Cemetery
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Karo settled at Adrianople between 1520 and 1522.[3] He later spent several years in Salonica and Istanbul before arriving in Safed, Israel, around 1535.[3] He died on March 24, 1575.[1] Because of the Alhambra Decree, Karo, at age four, was forced to leave Spain with his family in 1492.[2]
Isaac, Karo's uncle and a biblical commentator, took him in after Karo's father died.[2][4] For the final three decades of his life, Karo's standing surpassed that of nearly every rabbi after Maimonides.[5]
What the cited sources add
The My Jewish Learning account states that Karo originally set out to write a commentary on the Arba'ah Turim that would cite sources not mentioned by Jacob ben Asher.[4] That same source notes that both Isaac and Joseph Karo became part of a community of mystics.[4] The My Jewish Learning account confirms that Karo was part of a Sephardic family expelled from Spain in 1492.[4]
References
- Wikipedia, "Joseph Karo" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rabbi Joseph Karo , OU; "Joseph ben Ephraim Karo Jewish scholar Britannica", www.britannica.com; Werblowsky, "Joseph Karo: lawyer and mystic", Jewish Publ. Society of America, 1980; Goldish, "Jewish questions: responsa on Sephardic life in the early modern period", Princeton University Press, 2008, p. lxi-lxii; Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Britannica.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Joseph Karo" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Britannica.com; Wilke, "Histoire des Juifs Portugais", Chandeigne, 2007; The Shulchan Aruch, My Jewish Learning (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Joseph Karo" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Cohen, "A Short History of Zionism", Frederick Muller Co., 1951, p. 96 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- The Shulchan Aruch, My Jewish Learning. facts only, no text reused. myjewishlearning.com
- Wikipedia, "Joseph Karo" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rev. Etudes Juives 18:133–136 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Joseph Karo (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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