User:Gsueso2/Don Yihye Family

The Don Yihye family is a Jewish family of Latvia and Lithuania, from which came many rabbis, scholars and public figures.

The family possesses a family tree going back 1000 years. Despite the surname of its first pointing to the Shum communities (Speyer, Worms and Mainz) in Germany, according to the members of the family it originates in Spain. A relationship to Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel is known. The family's progenitor was a physician at the king's court and was granted the honorific title "Don". Following the 1492 expulsion from Spain some of the family members moved to North Africa and some to Eastern Europe, mainly Latvia, where developed a dynasty of rabbis of the family who served at important rabbinical posts in the various cities and communities of Latvia and Lithuania. Most of them came to be affiliated with Chabad. Only one branch kept the original name "Don Yihye", while the rest changed it to more Russian-sounding names such as Donekhin, Donikh and Kharlap.

Category:Jewish families