Sarah Gabbai Izidro

Sarah Gabbai Izidro (Ysidro) of Bayonne, France, was born Sarah bat Michael de Oxeda of Bayonne. Sometime before 1736, she married Abraham Gabbai Izidro, a former New Christian who had fled Spain and returned to Judaism. She was living with him in 1736, as he was serving as rabbi in the Jewish community of Surinam, and she moved with him to Barbados where he was a rabbi from 1753 to 1755. In 1755, they returned to London, where her husband died later that year. Sarah was executor of his will, and among his effects was a manuscript of a work called Yad Avraham (Hand of Abraham), a versified list of the 613 commandments according to Maimonides’ Sefer ha-mitzvot (Book of the Commandments), with commentary. Sarah returned to her family in Bayonne and had her husband’s manuscript printed in Amsterdam in 1758. She dedicated the volume to Abendana de Brito, her husband’s teacher.