Alfandari was a family of eastern rabbis prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries, found in Smyrna, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. The name may be derived from a Spanish locality, perhaps from Alfambra. The following is a list of the chief members of the family:
Aaron ben Moses Alfandari Elijah Alfandari Ḥayyim ben Isaac Raphael Alfandari the Younger Ḥayyim ben Jacob Alfandari the Elder Isaac Raphael Alfandari Jacob ben Ḥayyim Alfandari Solomon Eliezer Alfandari
Members of this family were to be found as of 1906 in Constantinople and in Beirut. A Portuguese family of the name Alphandéry still exists, as of 1906, in Paris and Avignon. In Avignon there was a physician, Moses Alphandéry, in 1506,Rev. Ét. Juives, xxxiv. 253 and a Lyon Alphanderic, in 1558.Rev. Ét. Juives, vii. 280 Compare the names Moses אלפנדריךNeubauer, Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS. No. 2129 and Aaron אלפנדארק.Neubauer, Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS. No. 1080
In addition to the persons mentioned above, there is known a Solomon Alfandari (Valencia, 1367), whose son Jacob assisted Samuel Ẓarẓa in tranṣlating the Sefer ha-'Aẓamim of pseudo-ibn Ezra from Arabic into Hebrew. A merchant, Isaac Alfandari, was wrecked in 1529 on the Nubian coast.Zunz, Z. G. p. 425; Steinschneider, Hebr. Uebers. p. 448 In Israeli popular culture, the principal family in the 1973 film Daughters, Daughters is named Alfandari.
For a possible explanation of the name, see Steinschneider.Jew. Quart. Rev. xi. 591.
Henri Alfandari has been a French Member of Parliament since 2022.
See also Edmond Alphandéry (b. 1943), French politician , several people with this name
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