The Faraggi Families and their descendants of the Balkans -- Moshe Elie Faraggi, Omer Israel

Introduction

The origin of the Faraggi surname is unclear. Written in Hebrew characters (פרג'י) it can be pronounced in many ways. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica (EJ) the origin of the name could be either from Arabic FARAG or from a town in Spain FRAGA. According to Gugenheim the origin of the name comes from Arabic Farache, Faradj, Farag, and Faraj, which, depending where the family stayed, took the form of Farachi, Farage, Faraggi, Faragi, Fraggi, Fragi Faragie, Farach, Farash, Faradchi, Faradji and Faraci. More recently Mathilde Tagger found a village or small town named Farache (pronounced Faratche) in the Murcia province in Spain.

The name Farag is found for the first time in the 9th century in Sicily (merchants). In the 13th century (1279) Charles I of Anjou king of Sicily ordered his personal physician, Moses (Moshe) ben Solomon Farachi (Farag) to translate Al Razi’s (Rhazes) Arabic medical book Kitah Al Hawi to Latin. This book Liber Contines (medical encyclopedia) got to be the standard medical compendium of the middle ages. The king was so satisfied with the book that in the original manuscript we find the portrait of the king with Moses Farachi (1). In the Spanish book of Bonnin includes a list of names found at the Santo Officio of the Inquisition, for Jews or new Christian (15th and 16th centuries) the names Farach and Farache are listed (2). Mathilde Tagger who provided the above information wrote "This information of Farach and/or Farache in Spanish archives shows that the Spanish Farache, pronounced there as Faratshay (ג' is used for the transliteration of CH=TSH and DJ, the final E is transliterated in Hebrew by the letter Yod (י). The names Faraggi or Faradji and their variants are transliterated in Ladino as 3) פ'אראג'י). This is the real proof that the Farache and Faraggi are two variants of the same name. The original name was Farache since there is no sound for dji in Spanish and people in Italy or the ex-Ottoman Empire pronounced it as Faraggi". Rosine Nussenblatt provided the information, which was found in the book of H. Beinart (4): Aragon [Page 100-101 and note 233] ville de Magallón. The heads of the Jewish community dont Yento Farag sold the synagogue on July 11, 1492 to Miguel Coll (escudero) for 650 sueldos, the hospital and shelter for 670 sueldos and finally the ritual bath and two gardens for 300 sueldos to cover the debts of the community. Aragon, [page 205 note 352] town de Teruel after May 1492, Abraham Faraig gave power of attorney to Juan de Launata of Teruel to collect debts Christians still owed him. Kingdom of Valencia [page 240 note] town of Játiva (large Jewish community), Rabbi Nathan Faraig from Játiva represented Jews who wanted to leave Spain by boat port of Sagunto – modern name of Murviedro?- (information comes from a study of five contracts between May 7th and June 28th 1492 in Hinojesa Montalvo “Solidaridad Judia” pages 110. It is indicated in the text not the note that Jews had to pay 3 ducats a head – suckling infants and infants born on board were not charged, all this in addition to the chartering of the boat. The destination of the boat was Pisa, Naples, Civitavecchia in Italy. Castille [page 137] town of Dueñas a group of Jews requested help to settle their debt before going into exile; among them, Mose Farache, Yuce Farache and Don Symuel Farache. Later in the note one reads that there was a Yuce Harache which could be a variation of Farache. Castille [ page 171] town of Reinosa Property and promissory notes left behind by a Solomon Farache. Anne-Marie Rychner-Faraggi provided the three new references to the families Spanish origin. 1) In the book of B. Gampel (5), the name FARAG and FARACH appear in pages 30, 42, 55, 59, 60, 73 and 126. It has been found in the Spanish archives of Tudela and concerns the same family but written differently depending on the document. For example, p.60: "The four leading Tudelan families were named Acassar, Falquera, Farag and Malach. Only the Farag family was represented on lists of regidores: Jaco in 1490 and Sento in 1494". Also, you find Abraham Farach in 1495 (p. 42). So, until 1495, at least, they were in Navarra. 2) Y.H. Yerushalmi (6) provided the information that In 1500 the family was in Lisbon In page 304, you read the story of Isaac Ibn FARAJ. He says that in 1500 his brother Meir fled to Turkey and that he himself after the pogrom of Lisbon in 1506 took a boat and left for Salonica in 1507. 3) In an article of J. Hacker (7) you read that in 1507-1508 (5258) Isaac Ibn FARADJ, coming from Spain then Portugal, arrived in Salonica with two children, Clara and Jacob.

In the 16th century in Salonica four branches of the Faraggi family belonged to the following synagogues: "old Sicily or Sicilia Yashan", "Aragon" "Shalom” and "Etz Ha-Haim". In the last synagogue it is stated that they were "visitors" which means, according to the author, that they previously belonged to another synagogue (or were "marranos") and joined the Etz Ha-Haim synagogue later (8). The term "Marranos" was given to Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity (Spain, Italy, Sicily) but secretly kept their Jewish faith. When they immigrated to the Ottoman Empire they returned to their old faith. In the two books by Michael Molho and I.S. Emanuel on the Jewish cemetery in Salonica the first FARAGGI mentioned is Joseph who died in 1544 (9, 10). Also, in the book of M. Franco (11), there is a story on a Marrane, Juda FARAGGI, who was sent in 1566 by the Jewish community in Pesaro to the Ottoman empire (Salonica, Constantinople, Adrianople, Brousse and Moree) to persuade them to stop their commerce with the city of Ancona. This action was taken at the request of the duke of Pesaro-Urbino, Guido Ubaldo, after the "autodafe of Ancona" where "marranos" were burned alive. This duke saved some "marranos" from persecution by the Inquisition because of his economic interests to take over the commerce between Jews of the Ottoman Empire from Ancona to Pesaro. Also, in the Moment magazine (11/1988) a review article tells the story of Isaac FARAJI (this is how the magazine spelled the surname), an Italian Jewish scholar and manuscript collector who was the owner of 15th-century medical text written in Hebrew, Latin and Arabic. All three languages were written in Hebrew characters. The book was written by a Jewish physician (Joseph ben Isaac) and was first bound in the 17th century by its owner. It was later bought by an English bookseller and manuscripts collector (George Tomason) and brought to England. Parliament purchased the manuscript and presented them to Cambridge University in 1648. The manuscript is now in the Cambridge University Library (Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research, Stefan C. Reif, director). More information on the Isaac Faragi manuscripts collection (26 items on Medicine, Halacha, and Kabbalah) can be found in Stefan C. Reif's book (12). All the books are in Hebrew, including the first name and the surname, except one, which is in Persian. In the book the Stefan C. Reif tells us the story of the spelling of the surname. First and until 1914 it was spelled as PRAGI, later, Israel Abrahams adopting Steinschneider's conclusion about the Arabic nature of the surname (there is the Spanish alternative, see above) concluded that a "more pronunciation and transliteration" the spelling should be Faragi (13). However, Abrahams was unaware that the person lived in ITALY and where the Hebrew ג' is spelled as ggi. In June 2001 I visited Cambridge and saw some of the medical books. These books were bound by Isaac Faraggi in the 17th century red calf with gold ornamentation and stamped יצחק פראג'י יצ"ו. The same Hebrew spelling is also found on the sides of the books. This surname can be spelled in ITALIAN only as FRAGGI or FARAGGI. This is why the Judeo-Spanish spelling (Hebrew characters) were פ'ראג'י= FRAGGI and פ'אראג'י = FARAGGI. The fact that the owner’s surname is found on the sides of the books indicates that Isaac Faraggi read these books. Thus it supports his description by the Commons' Journal as "learned Rabbi". Today, in Italy, there are many Faraggi (northern part) and Fraggi (southern part and Sicily) families most of them are Christians. The information collected from the Ellis Island Data base corroborates this conclusion. It could be that they are descendants of the 16th century "Marranos" who kept their new religion.

More recently we learned that in 1780 Simon Faraggi appeared in the French consulate documents as Simon Farach (Farache) and some of the Faraggi and Fraggi families previous name was Farache. Since 1860, the Faraggi/Fraggi families were very active in the creation and development of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU) branches and schools in Salonica, Volos, Serres, Larissa and later in Monastir. According to Aron Rodrigue "French Jews, Turkish Jews" Indiana University Press (1990) the initiative was taken primarily by Jews of Italian origin which may also indicate the Italian origin of the Faraggi/Fraggi families. By the end of the 19th century most of the Fraggi/Fragi families in the Ottoman Empire adopted the Faraggi surname. Also, we suspect that because of the American pronunciation all the Faragi families (Italians emigration to the US) spelled their surname in Italy as Faraggi. The Faraci and Faras (Farache) families in today Turkey are also members of the Faraggi family.

The first Internet list was prepared from four trees (1, 2, 3, and 4) of the Faraggi Family prepared by Anne-Marie Rychner Faraggi and myself. Intermarriages between persons of Anne-Marie’s trees could be found. Further Studies by Anne-Marie showed that trees 1 and 2 could be united and start by Behor Faraggi. I have concluded that trees 3 and 4 start with the same Raphael Faraggi. It seems that all the family branches had lived in the 18th century in the Ottoman Empire. By the middle of the 19th century and the 20th century a major part of the family emigrated to France, Italy and Israel some to the USA, Canada, Chili, Argentina and Brazil. The trees were defined according to the first person in the tree. The Simon tree started with Simon Faraggi who was in 1778 a drogman (translator) at the French consulate in Salonika and the Ovadia tree. The Raphael trees from Volos, Thessalia and Constantinople Turkey. The Italian tree that started with a Faraggi who emigrated to North Italy, probably at the beginning of the 19th century, from the south part of Yugoslavia (Monastir?) via Trieste to La Spezia. They settled in Tuscany and became Catholic. Further information was obtained from the Bulletins of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (started in 1864) found in its library in Paris (BAIU), from Raphael Frezis (Volos Greece) letters and book (14), Gabriel Arie autobiography (15) and Ezra D. Moissis (Larissa Greece) book (16). Letters and trees from Moises Hasson (Santiago Chile), Ray and Gloria Fraggi, (California USA), Jack Faraggi (Montreal Canada), Raphael and Regina Faraggi (Tel Aviv, Israel), The Late Nathan Kabilis (Beer Sheva, Israel), Haim Crispin (France), Bob and Felice Bedford (USA), Olivier Kaiser (Belgium), Ani Mari Faraggi (Faraci) (Istanbul Turkey), The late Benson Hattem of Belvedere, CA USA and Mathilde Tagger, Jerusalem, Israel. More information was obtained from two books on Greece (17) and Yugoslavia (18) published by Yad Vashem. In 2001 information of the Faraggi the Ellis Island Data base has provided family’s emigration to the USA. The names of the Faraggi families from Monastir who perished during the Holocaust was taken from Zamila Kolonomos and Vera Veskovich-Vangeli (19). Moises Hasson translated the list, (http:\www.jewishgem.org\) (20). This list can be found also in Marc Cohen book (21). The names of the Faraggi persons who perished during the Holocaust by the Nazis was taken from Yad Vashem list (22). Other sources of information were: Ketubbot (marriage acts) digitization project, collection of the Jewish National and University Library (23), Marriage and burials lists from Istanbul by the American Sephardi Federation (Kazes Project). A mail from Fred Hassid with a list of books published in Salonica by the printers Rabbi Eliahu Faraggi and Daniel Faraggi and Gad Nassi book (24), Moise Franco (11). The US 1930 Federal census and the California Death records, a letter from Wendy Montgomery and French Naturalizations between 1900 and 1950. Another source of information was the Internet.

To summarize: According to our present knowledge, since we do not have (yet) direct access to information before 1780, the Faraggi family is composed of several unconnected groups: (A) The Simon tree (list No. 1). Persons of this list are linked by marriage to persons in lists No. 13, 15, 22, and 25. These families came from Salonica, Serres and Istanbul. (B) The Raphael tree (list No. 2) originated from Volos (Thessaly, Greece and Istanbul Turkey) maybe linked to lists 17, 24, 26, and 27. These families came from Volos, Larissa and Trikala (Thessaly, Greece), Monastir, Istanbul and Salonica. (C) The lists 19, and 33. These families came from Monastir. (D) List No. 8, the Italian tree.

If you think that you belong to one of these groups, you can contact:
1- Anne-Marie Rychner-Faraggi at, am.Faraggi@span.ch
2- Moshe Faraggi at, mailto:mofar@bgumail.bgu.ac.il

Acknowledgement: This list could not be achieved without the many contributions of Anne-Marie Rychner-Faraggi. Also, I wish to thank Mathilde Tagger, Raphael Frezis, Ezra D. Moissis, Moises Hasson, Ray and Gloria Fraggi, Jack Faraggi, Bob and Felice Bedford, Raphael and Regina Faraggi, Haim Crispin, Olivier Kaiser, Ani Mari Faraggi, Dean Farish and Ken Burling, Judy Freedman, Fred Hassid, Benson Hatem, Jose Klingbell, Tamara Mayer, Wendy Montgomery, Aldo Nahum, Rosine Nussenblatt, Daniel Sasson and Carole Soulema, for valuable information they have provided. The author would like to thank Moshe David Faraggi originally from Volos, Greece and now in Tel Aviv, Israel, for the translation of parts of Raphael Frezis book. Finally I would like to thank the late Nathan Aaron Kabilis, born in Volos, who for the last four years translated from Greek to Hebrew the books of Raphael Frezis “The Jewish Community of Volos”, Greece and that of Ezra D. Moissis “The Jewish Community of Larissa before and after the Holocaust”.

Remarks: The number(s) appearing with each person indicates the belonging of this person to one or more trees. These are: (1) The Simon tree; (2) The Raphael tree; (3) 1839 Census of the Sephardic Jews in Jerusalem; (4) Ketubbot (marriage acts); (5) BAIU (# year of publication); (6) Haim Beihart book; (7) Benjamin R. Gampel book; (8) The Italian tree and the new information from Jack Faraggi; (9) The Internet; (10) Ezra D. Moissis book; (11) Zamila Kolonomos books (Nazi list of deportees from Monastir and Monastir without Jews) and Marc Cohen book; (12) Yad vaShem Records and Testimonies; (13) The Late Benson Hatem; (14, 15) Ani Mari Faraggi; (16) Aldo Nahun and Jose Klingbell; (17) Raphael Frezis book and letter; (18) Anne-Marie letter; (19) Moises Hasson list from Chile; (20) Marriage list from Istanbul; (21) Rina Benmayor; (22) Kazes, Istanbul Jewish Genealogy Project; (23) Ray and Gloria Fraggi on the Faraggi and Fraggi families in Volos; (24) Bob and Felice Bedford list from the USA; (25) Olivier Kaiser list; (26) Raphael and Regina Faraggi; (27) The Late Nathan Kabilis; (28) Haim Crispin; (29) The autobiography and journal of Gabriel Arie; (30) Yad Vashem's "Pinkas Hakehilot Greece"; (31) Ellis Island Data base; (32) Judy Freedman; (33) Tamara Mayer; (34) Carole Soulema; (35) Daniel Sasson; (36) Jacky Fauxvaux; (37) Fred Hassid and Rosine Nussenblatt; (38) Moise Franco book; (39) US 1930 Federal census; (40) Wendy Montgomery; (41) French Naturalizations; (42) Mark Cohen book; (43) Alain Farhi “Les Fleurs de l’Orient”. Dates with the approximate mark (CA) are an estimated year with an error which could be (especially in later generations) very big. First names repetition is common in Sephardic families because of the tradition to name children after their living grandparents. The name of the father is given as a second name as the tradition in the old Sephardic families for boys. Although uncommon, it is also given to girls. Towns where these people lived (or living) is given in actual countries. Chilibon is a corruption of the Turkish word "celebi" which means "a gentleman". According to Asher Moissis (25) this name was given to the boy whenever his father died during the mother's pregnancy. In fact, the boy was named after the father in order to perpetuate his name. But as the family was reluctant to use the name of the deceased, they used the term "Chilibon".
Abbreviations: FR, France; NJ. New Jersey USA; CH, Switzerland; Mac., Macedonia
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