Biography
Benjamin Artom, Rabbi Binyamin Artom (בנימין ארטום), was an acharon of Italy and, from 1866 until he was niftar in 1879, Haham (chief rabbi) of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Britain. He was born in 1835 in Asti, in Piedmont, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
His father passed away when he was a child, and his uncle, his mother’s brother, oversaw his early learning. He learned from Rabbi Marco Tedeschi of Trieste and from Rabbi Terracini. By the age of twenty he was teaching Hebrew, German, English, French and Italian. He first served as minister of the congregation of Saluzzo, Italy. He then became the first rabbi of Naples, and was then called to London in 1866 to lead the Spanish and Portuguese community there.
He composed a prayer for boys to say on their Bar Mitzvah. For a time it was said in most Orthodox shuls in Britain, and the Spanish and Portuguese congregations still use it. He was niftar (deceased) in Brighton on 6 January 1879.
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Rabbi Benjamin Artom (1835–1879) was the Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Great Britain. He was born in Asti, Piedmont, in the Kingdom of Sardinia.
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