(Ramban) Moshéh ben Najmán

Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides, Ramban) was born in Girona, Catalonia, in 1194 and became the leading rabbi of Catalonia. He was a physician, a Talmudist and a Kabbalist. His Torah commentary weighs Rashi and Ibn Ezra, argues for creation from nothing, and hints at mystical meanings "for those who know grace". His Talmudic novellae and his defense of the Rif against Zerachiah HaLevi shaped Spanish learning for centuries.

In July 1263 King James I of Aragon summoned him to debate the convert Pablo Christiani in Barcelona about whether the Messiah had come. Ramban's frank written account led the Dominicans to prosecute him, and in 1267 he left Spain for the Land of Israel. He wrote to his son that he had found only a handful of Jews in Jerusalem after the Mongol raid of 1260. He restored a synagogue there, remembered today in the Ramban Synagogue of the Old City, and he counted settling the Land of Israel as a commandment binding in every generation. He died in 1270, probably in Acre.