ABOAB, ISACCO, da FONSECA. — Rabbi. Born in Castres d'Aire (Spain) in 1605, died in 1693.
He was barely seven years old when his parents, to escape the Inquisition, were forced to move to St-Jean-de-Luz near the French border. After his father's death, his mother took him to Amsterdam, where he studied under the renowned Manasse ben Jisrael with Rabbi Isacco Usiel. At the age of 21, he was appointed rabbi of the Sephardic community in Amsterdam. In 1642, he emigrated with other coreligionists to Pernambuco in Brazil, then a Dutch possession. After the Jews were expelled from Brazil, A. returned to serve as rabbi and director of the Talmudic Academy in Amsterdam. In 1656, he was part of the council that pronounced the ban against Spinoza. He also signed an address of homage to the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi. He was a distinguished preacher; according to tradition, the Jesuit Antonio Vieyra, who attended his sermons in the synagogue, reportedly said: «Manasse says what he knows; A. knows what he says.»
A. translated from Spanish into Hebrew the Kabbalistic works *Puerta del Cielo* and *Casa de Dios*, and published a *Parafrase commentata sobre el Pentateucho*, Amsterdam 1681.