Abulafia (surname)

Abulafia or Abolafia (أبو العافية , or ; or ) is a Sephardi Jewish surname whose etymological origin is in the Arabic language. The family name, like many other Hispanic origin Sephardic Jewish surnames, originated in Spain (Hebrew Sefarad) among Spanish Jews (Sephardim), during the time when it was ruled as Al Andalus by Arabic speaking Moors. The romanized version of the surname is most commonly Abolafia. Other variations also exist, mostly in English transliterations, including Aboulafia, Abolafia, Abouelafia, Aboulafiya, Abulafiya, Aboulafiyya and Abolafia.

Moorish rule in the Iberian Peninsula, lasting some 800 years, is regarded as a tolerant period in its acceptance and co existence between Christians, Muslims and Jews. The Jews of Spain were proficient in Mozarabic Spanish, Andalusian Arabic and the Andalusi variety of Hebrew. Thus, it was commonplace among Spanish Jews to use the Arabic language for secular names, including surnames, for use outside of the synagogue. Among prominent Abulafias in Spain were the kabbalists Todros ben Joseph Abulafia and Abraham Abulafia, the powerful Toledo rabbi Meir Abulafia, the poet Todros ben Judah Halevi Abulafia, and the royal treasurer Samuel ha Levi, for whom the Synagogue of El Tránsito was built in Toledo; it remains one of the city's most beautiful monuments. After the Catholic Monarchs' successful Reconquista (reconquest of Spain) from the Moors in 1492, they then issued the Alhambra Decree expelling the Jews unless they converted to Catholicism; the penalty was death. With the decree, many Abulafias, like other non converted Sephardim, left Spain and settled mostly in the Ottoman Empire, where the Turkish Muslim Ottoman sultan offered refuge. The surname did not entirely disappear in Spain itself, and there are still Spanish Catholics named Abolafio. Those Abulafias who left in 1492 and settled as Jews in Italy often became known as Abolaffio, Bolaffio and Bolaffi. The Abulafias – as with most other Sephardi expellees – settled mostly in the European portions of the Ottoman Empire, largely in what is today Thessaloniki, Greece and Istanbul, Turkey. This area is where the surname was most concentrated until later immigration to other parts of the Ottoman Empire, such as modern Tunisia and Rhodes. The Ottoman Empire collapsed following World War I, with Turkey becoming its successor state, and after World War II and the establishment of Israel, almost all the established Sephardic communities of the former Ottoman Empire moved to Israel, France and the United States. Today, Abulafia is a well known Sephardic surname in Israel, and it is also present in France, the United States, Australia and Latin America. Following the expulsion from Spain, a branch of the Abulafia family settled in what is now Israel, first in Safed, where they established a long lasting rabbinic dynasty, and then in Tiberias, where the synagogue of Hayyim Abulafia , one of the old synagogues of Tiberias, is still the principal Sephardic synagogue, and the rabbi's tomb is a place of pilgrimage. Hayyim ben Jacob Abulafia was chief rabbi in Jerusalem in the nineteenth century and had close dealings with Moses Montefiore, a philanthropist. Palestine was also under Ottoman rule at that time. It has been claimed that some of the Abulafias who settled in the Land of Israel would later convert, adopt Arabic as their primary language and assume Arab ethnic identities, today identifying as Palestinians and Arab Israelis. Other Abulafias were closely involved in the foundation of Tel Aviv at the start of the twentieth century.