Re-Sephardicized Bukhara
1752 CE–1823 CE · Acharonim · Tetouan
R. Yosef Maman al-Maghribi (c. 1752-1823) almost single-handedly re-founded Bukharian Jewry. Born in Tetouan, Morocco, he was sent in his thirties on a shadar (emissary) mission for the Tzfat community to the Bukharian Jews, whom he found in advanced spiritual decline — illiterate in Hebrew, disconnected from rabbinic Judaism, and worshipping in a degraded Persian-Bukharian liturgy.
He stayed for the rest of his life. He systematically rebuilt Bukharian Jewish life: introduced the Sephardic-Mizrachi nusach, trained a generation of Hebrew-literate teachers, established a beit midrash, and re-anchored Bukharian halachic practice to the Shulchan Aruch through the Sephardic tradition. Every Bukharian religious institution of the modern era traces back to his 40-year mission. Died in Bukhara 1823 and is buried there.
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TetouanתיטואןNorthern Morocco — Spanish-Sephardi
What they did here
Born in Tetouan, northern Morocco; trained in the Spanish-Sephardi tradition there.
Tetouan in this era
Tetouan was refounded in the 15th century by Sephardic refugees from the 1492 Spanish expulsion and the 1497 Portuguese forced-conversions. The walled Judería became the principal Spanish-Sephardi (megorashim) center of northern Morocco, with the Bengio, Bengualid, and Coriat rabbinic families anchoring its scholarly tradition. R. Yitzchak Bengualid (Vayomer Yitzchak) was its most-cited 19th-century posek. The community spoke Haketía — a distinctively Northern-Moroccan Ladino — that preserved many old Iberian forms lost in Salonika-Constantinople Eastern Ladino.
About Tetouan
Tetouan was refounded by Sephardic refugees from the 1492 expulsion and remained the principal Spanish-Sephardi (megorashim) center of northern Morocco. R. Yitzchak Bengualid and the Bengio family were active here.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Re-Sephardicized Bukhara’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.