Nathan, Abraham

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NATHAN, ABRAHAM

NATHAN, ABRAHAM (d. 1745), founder of the London Ashkenazi community, also known as Reb Aberle, Aberle London, and Abraham [of] Hamburg. The son of R. Moses Nathan (Norden) of Hamburg, he was a wealthy diamond merchant and a rabbinical scholar of considerable attainment. It was through him that Ẓevi *Ashkenazi was induced to go to London in 1705 to arbitrate in the dispute then dividing the Sephardi community regarding the orthodoxy of the opinions of the haham David *Nieto. In 1704 Nathan was prevented by the Court of Aldermen from erecting a separate synagogue with a yeshivah attached. Later, however, he took the lead in vindictive fashion in the divorce dispute which resulted in the setting up of the Hambro' Synagogue by his rival Marcus Moses. He ultimately returned to Hamburg in reduced circumstances.

bibliography:

C. Roth, History of the Great Synagogue (1950), 35–45.

[Cecil Roth]