ORABUENA (
):
Spanish family; flourished in Navarre in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Many of its members were rabbis or tax-lessees. Another family, very likely related, has the similar name of Buenahora.
Judah Orabuena:Son of D. Juze Orabuena. His father appointed him his successor in the rabbinate in 1408. Like his father, he stood high in the favor of the king. He was the frequent companion of Charles III., from whom he received 200 "libras" yearly. Nothing further is known of him.
Judah b. Samuel Orabuena:Rabbi in Tudela in 1348 (with Yom-Ṭob ben Jonah Abbas). Judah b. Samuel and Vitas Benjamin, in the name of the aljama, assumed, in Jan., 1350, the responsibility of raising the sum due for taxes from 1346 to 1349.
- Judah ben Asher, Zikron Yehudah, Responsa, No. 81;
- Jacobs, Sources, No. 1420.
Chief rabbi of Navarre and physician and adviser to the king; born in Tudela toward the middle of the fourteenth century. He studied Talmud, and was practising medicine in Estella in 1385. Two years later the king recognized the value of his services by conferring upon him the title of "Maestre J. O. Fisico" and settling upon him a yearly salary and a pension of 50 "libras," which amount in 1392 was raised to 150 "libras" for life. As a visible token of appreciation for his services the king gave him, in 1401, several houses in the Jewry of Monreal, together with the courtyard belonging thereto. He supplied the queen and the infanta with rabbit-skins imported from Castile and Germany and bought mules for the king. In conjunction with Judas Levi he farmed the taxes for several years; and when Judas, after his death, was denounced as a heretic, Orabuena brought Ḥasdai Crescas, rabbi in Saragossa, and Maestre Astruc, rabbi in Tudela, to Pamplona, at the expense of the king (1401), to exonerate him. At Orabuena's request the king exempted the Jews of Tudela from their overdue taxes in order that they might repair their synagogue. Orabuena accompanied the king in 1408 to France; he was still in the service of the king as physician in 1413. In the latter year the king presented 50 "libras" to Orabuena's daughter Sorbellida (wife of the receiver-general Abraham Euxep, or Euxæp, in Estella).
Other members of this family were: Isaac (Acah) Orabuena (president of the/community of Tudela in 1367); another Isaac Orabuena (tax-farmer in Tudela; still living in 1450); Abraham Orabuena; Moses Orabuena; R. Solomon Orabuena (provided the court with pine-trees from Castile).
- Jacobs, Sources, Nos. 1513-1601;
- Kayserling, Gesch. der Juden in Spanien, i. 88, 94;
- Grätz, Gesch. viii. 413.
