דוד ניטו

Rav David Nieto (5414/1654–5488/1728) was the Chacham of the Spanish and Portuguese kehillah of London and one of the sturdiest defenders of the mesorah in his generation. Born in Venice, he served first in Livorno as physician and darshan — publishing there a learned work on the calendars and their errors — and in 5462/1702 was called to London as its Chacham, where he led for a quarter century.

His deepest storm became his vindication. When he taught in a derashah that what men call “nature” is nothing but the hand of Hashem governing His world, opponents raised the cry of Spinozism against him. The question was carried at last to the Chacham Tzvi, whose famous teshuvah not only cleared Rav Nieto entirely but praised his teaching as the faith of the chachamim — and the kehillah had peace. He repaid the debt in kind: a resolute fighter against the Sabbateans, he stood with the Chacham Tzvi and Rav Moshe Chagiz in the war over Nechemiah Chayun, wrote his Esh Dat against Chayun’s work, and sheltered both fighters in London when Amsterdam turned against them. The anusim arriving from Spain and Portugal, returning to a Judaism they barely knew, found in him a patient father.

His enduring sefer, the Matteh Dan, which he called the Kuzari Sheni: written as dialogues in the manner of Rav Yehuda HaLevi‘s classic, it stands in proof of the truth of the Torah she’be’al peh and the words of Chazal — and he asked the teachers of every kehillah to learn its opening dialogues with their talmidim. The Chida praised him among the greats. He was niftar in London and rests in the old Sephardi cemetery at Mile End; his son Rav Yitzchak Nieto succeeded him.