Isaac Abendana (–1699) was a Spanish-born Jewish scholar, translator, and religious leader who became a pioneering figure in Hebrew studies at English universities during the Restoration period.
Scholarship
Abendana arrived in England in 1662, making him one of the first practicing Jews to teach at English universities since the medieval expulsion of 1290.
From 1663, he taught Hebrew at both
Cambridge and
Oxford universities, receiving an annual retaining fee of £6 from Trinity College, Cambridge during 1664-66.
His most significant scholarly achievement was completing the first complete
Latin translation of the
Mishnah in 1671, a six-volume manuscript work commissioned by Cambridge University that remained unpublished but was later used by Christian scholar Guilielmus Surenhusius for his own Latin edition.
While he was at Cambridge, Abendana sold Hebrew books to the
Bodleian Library of Oxford.
Later career
After relocating to Oxford in 1689, Abendana taught Hebrew at Magdalen College and compiled annual Jewish calendars (
) for Christian readers from 1692 to 1699, which he later republished as Discourses on the Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity of the Jews (1706)—one of the first comprehensive explanations of Judaism written in English.
Following his brother Jacob's death in 1695, Isaac served as
hakham (chief rabbi) of London's Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue until his own death on July 17, 1699.
He maintained extensive correspondence with leading Christian scholars, including with the philosopher
Ralph Cudworth, master of Christ's College, Cambridge.
Abendana contributed significantly to Jewish-Christian intellectual dialogue during a formative period in Anglo-Jewish history.
