Abrabanel

Isaac Abrabanel (Don Yitzchaq Abrabanel), "Abrabanel" is variously sometimes realized as Avravanel, Abravanel, and Abarbanel), (1437–1508) was born in Lisbon, Portugal. He was a Jewish statesman, philosopher, Biblical commentator, and financier.

Several times during the mid to late 1400's, he personally spent large amounts of his personal fortunes to bribe the Spanish Monarchy to permit the Jews to remain in Spain. On the eve of the 1492 expulsion, he was near an agreement with the crown to cancel the decree, when the Inquisition intervened, and convinced the crown to not relent. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel begged him to remain, but he eventually ended up choosing to leave Spain with the rest of the Jews. In the end, he managed only to get the date for the expulsion to be extended by two days. His scathing letter to the crown was the source of the Jewish curse against Spain, forbidding Jews to even set foot on Spanish soil until Franco abolished the Inquisition.

After his departure from Spain, he moved first to Genoa, then to Corfu, and finally to Venice. His riches exhausted, he died, in what he himself described as "exile", in 1508, in Venice, Italy.