הרב יהודה ביבאס

Rabbi Yehuda Bibas, Judah Bibas, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leon Bibas (יהודה אריה ליאון ביבאס), was a Sephardi acharon, a rav of Gibraltar and later rav of the community of Corfu, a posek and mekubal (master of kabbalah) who also trained as a physician. He was among the first to call on the Jewish people to return to Eretz Yisrael and settle it. He was niftar on 17 Nisan 5612 (1852).

He was born in Gibraltar. His father, Rabbi Shmuel, came from a family of talmidei chachamim descended from the exiles of Spain, who settled in Tetouan in Morocco and later, after persecution there, moved to Gibraltar, where they were among the founders of the Jewish community. His mother was a relative of Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar. As a child he learned in the yeshiva of Gibraltar. After his father was niftar he moved to Livorno in Italy, to the home of his mother’s father, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, and there he received much of his Torah and his general education; he came to speak English, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew. In Italy he became a rav and trained as a physician.

He returned to Gibraltar and headed a yeshiva there, which drew talmidim from Italy, England and North Africa. He traveled to London in 1810. He later served as rav of the Jewish community of Corfu.

He called on the Jewish people not to wait passively for the geulah (redemption) but to act to bring it closer. His talmid Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai brings his view that the teshuvah that must come before the geulah is the return of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisrael and settling the Land. In his last years he went up to Eretz Yisrael himself and lived in Chevron.

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