Rabbi Yehuda Bibas: Biography

Born: 1789, Gibraltar;

Died: 1852, Hebron

Yehuda Bibas was a Rabbi and Proto-Zionist. He was born in 1789 in Gibraltar to a Sephardic Jewish family. He was descended from Chaim ibn Attar, an esteemed Rabbi in the Moroccan Jewish community and author of a highly regarded commentary on the Torah and so is considered very historically significant in Orthodox Judaism. 

Yehuda Bibas continued his family’s lineage and began his studies in his birthplace, Gibraltar. However, after his father died Bibas continued his studies in Italy in the care of his grandfather. He received a traditional Jewish education and also became a doctor. He was a polyglot and was fluent in Spanish, Italian, English, and Hebrew. He returned to his birthplace in Gibraltar where he would become a very prominent leader of the Jewish community there. 

He travelled to England in 1810 where he met Sir Moses Montefiore, a prominent member of the Jewish Community in England and a philanthropist towards Jews in Ottoman Palestine. Bibas was later appointed Chief Rabbi of Corfu in Greece. Bibas was inspired by a wave of Greek and Serbian revolts against the Ottomans and advocated for Jews to return to the Holy Land and in 1839 embarked on a tour around Europe to convince Jews to make aliyah. This advocacy for Jews to immigrate cements Yehuda Bibas as a Proto-Zionist, a precursor to Zionism.

In 1852, Yehuda Bibas immigrated to Ottoman Palestine and settled in Hebron where he would die just two months later.¹

1.  HaMizrachi “Rabbi Yehuda Bibas.” Religious Zionist Leaders. ↩︎