Isaac of Acre
1250 CE–1340 CE · Rishonim · Acre (Akko)
Rabbi Isaac ben Samuel of Acre was a kabbalist of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. He was living in Crusader Acre when the city fell to the Mamluks in 1291; imprisoned during the siege, he escaped the massacre and made his way to Spain around 1305. There he undertook a famous investigation into the origins of the Zohar — meeting Moses de León and, after de León's death, traveling to Ávila to probe its authorship — an episode foundational to the scholarly study of the Zohar. His own kabbalistic works include Me'irat Einayim, a commentary on Nachmanides, and Otzar HaChayim.
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Acre (Akko)עכוLand of Israel — Crusader Kingdom
What they did here
Lived in Crusader Acre until its fall to the Mamluks in 1291; imprisoned during the siege, he escaped the massacre.
About Acre (Akko)
Acre (Akko; Arabic Akka), at the northern end of Haifa Bay in northern Israel, was settled about 3000 BCE and in Hellenistic times was called Ptolemais. Taken by the Crusaders in 1104, it became the chief port of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and its capital in the thirteenth century, until the Mamluks captured it in 1291. Pope Gregory X was there on crusade when elected in 1271. Its Jewish community drew French scholars, and Nachmanides settled and taught in Acre after arriving in 1267, dying around 1270. Revived under Ottoman-era governors in the eighteenth century, it withstood Napoleon's siege of 1799. Today it is a mixed Jewish and Arab city; its Old City is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Across the traditions, in Acre (Akko) at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Isaac of Acre’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
Works
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