Rabbi Yosef Karo

A journey · 5 stops

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Rabbi Yosef Karo · 1488 – 1575

1. Toledo 1488 – 1492
He is born in Spain. When he is about four, the Edict of Expulsion drives out every Jew who will not convert.
2. Lisbon 1492 – 1497
His family flees over the border to Portugal. Five years later, the Jews there are forced to convert, and they must run again.
3. Constantinople 1498 – 1520
The Ottoman Empire takes in the refugees. In the Ottoman lands he grows up, studies and begins to teach.
4. Adrianople 1520 – 1535
He begins the Beit Yosef, a vast study of Jewish law that will occupy him for some thirty years.
5. Safed 1536 – 1575
He joins the mystics in the Galilee and heads its great rabbinical court. He finishes the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law still used today.