Isaac ben Solomon Luria

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Isaac ben Solomon Luria (Dictionary of World Biography: The Renaissance)

Early Life

Isaac Luria, also known as ha-Ari (the acronym of the Ashkenazic Rabbi Isaac), was born in Jerusalem in 1534. His father was an Ashkenazi who had come from Germany or Poland, and his mother was of Sephardic stock. At his father’s death, his mother took him to Egypt, where he grew up in the household of his wealthy uncle, a tax collector. Details of his life are sparse; the principal source is the Toledot ha-Ari (life of the Ari), an account written fifteen or twenty years after his death in which fact and legend are freely mingled.

Luria was highly...

[The entire page is 1810 words long]

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