Jacob Castro

Details regarding the life of Jacob ben Abraham Castro are vague. It seems that he spent most of his life in Egypt and that he engaged in trade in addition to his religious studies and duties. Castro traveled to Safed at some point before 1575 (possibly 1570), where he visited the graves of saints and met Joseph Karo. He subsequently returned to Egypt and served as rabbi of the Musta‘arabim (Arabized Jews living in Muslim lands) in Cairo. Castro composed novellae on some tractates of the Talmud and a commentary on the Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table), entitled ‘Erekh leḥem (The Setting of Bread; 1718). He was considered a legal authority, and his decisions were accepted by rabbis throughout Palestine and Egypt. Likewise, Jews from other regions, including Yemen and Salonika, also sent halakhic questions to Castro. None of his works were printed in his lifetime. Castro’s responsa, collected in Ohale Ya‘akov (Tents of Jacob), which were published in Livorno in the late eighteenth century, provide fascinating insights into Jewish life in late sixteenth-century Egypt.