Earliest History
The names of Rapa or Rappe ha-Kohen(-Tzedeq (Rapa Katz) are met with in about 1450. At that time Meshullam Kusi (abbreviated from "Jekuthiel") Rapa ha-Kohen Tzedeq, the earliest known member of the family, lived on the Rhine, probably in Mainz. Several decades later the family disappeared from Germany, probably on account of the Jews' expulsion from Mainz on October 29, 1462. In 1467, in Mestre, near Venice, the wealthy Chayyim Rappe is found as alms' collector for the poor of the Holy Land. In Venice, the physician R. Moses Rap was exempted in 1475 from wearing the Jew's badge.
In the middle of the 16th century there appeared in Italy a Kohenitic family of the name of Porto. On March 18, 1540, R. Isaac Porto ha-Kohen obtained from the Duke of Mantua permission to build an Ashkenazic synagogue. The name of the family was not derived from the Portuguese city of Porto, nor from the Bavarian city of Fürth as some authors have suggested, but instead from Porto, near Mantua, where the above-named Isaac Porto ha-Kohen lived. An alliance between the Rabe and Porto families explains the combination of the two family names in Rapoport; in 1565, officiating in the above-mentioned synagogue of Mantua, there is found a Rabbi Solomon ben Menahem ha-Kohen Rapa of Venice, while a Rabbi Abraham Porto ha-Kohen (1541–76) was parnas of the community.
During the same time period, a branch of the family settled in Prague in central Europe, as evidenced by burials with the name Porta in 1589 and Port in 1598.
Read more about this topic: Rappaport
Famous quotes containing the words earliest and/or history:
“In mind, she was of a strong and vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour to the study of the law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)