Obadiah ben Abraham

Obadiah ben Abraham Bartenura
Personal details
Born	c. 1445 Bertinoro, Papal States
Died	c. 1515 Jerusalem, Ottoman Empire

Ovadiah ben Abraham of Bartenura (Hebrew: עובדיה בן אברהם מברטנורא‎‎) (c. 1445 – c. 1515) was a 15th-century Italian rabbi best known for his popular commentary on the Mishnah, commonly known as "The Bartenura". In his later years, he rejuvenated the Jewish community of Jerusalem and became recognised as the spiritual leader of the Jews of his generation.

Obadiah was a pupil of Joseph Colon Trabotto (Maharik), and became rabbi in Bertinoro, a town in the modern province of Forlì-Cesena, whence he derived his by-name, and in Castello. The desire to visit the Land of Israel led him to Jerusalem; and he arrived there on March 25, 1488, having commenced his journey October 29, 1486. His advent marked a new epoch for the Jewish community there. The administration of Jewish communal affairs in Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of iniquitous officials. The poor were harshly taxed for the Muslim government; the rich were similarly treated and driven from the city by exorbitant demands upon them, so that the Jewish community was on the brink of ruin. In a letter written to his brother from Jerusalem on 24 August 1489, Obadiah mentions that Jews flock to Jerusalem from Egypt, Damascus, Aleppo and other places in order to worship God. During that same year he says that he also met Jews from Aden. He says of himself that he was living in the home of the Nagid, and that he gives regular sermons in a synagogue twice a month to the Jewish community, in the Hebrew tongue, and that he was exempt from paying the customary tax assessed to all other Jewish citizens. Later that year, on 17 December 1489, he writes that he had moved to Hebron where he found the atmosphere much more conducive, and a small Jewish community numbering some twenty households who were of a better temperament than those in Jerusalem, and where they lived along one alleyway.

Bertinoro's personality, eloquence, and great reputation as a scholar led to his being accepted as the spiritual head of the community immediately upon his arrival. His first care was to raise the intellectual plane of the community, and for this purpose he interested the younger generation in the study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature, and he delivered sermons every other Shabbat in Hebrew, although the vernacular language was Arabic, one which Bertinoro never acquired.

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