Raphael Chayyim Isaac Carregal

Raphael Chayyim Isaac Carregal (also "Carigal", "Carrigal", "Karigal", "Karigel", "Karigol", "Kargol", "Kragol") (October 15, 1733, Hebron, Palestine—May 5, 1777, Barbados) was an itinerant rabbi and preacher.

Carregal refers to David Melammed as his teacher. He was an ordained rabbi at the age of seventeen, and in 1754 set out on a series of voyages, usually remaining a brief time in the places he visited; e.g., two years in Constantinople (1754-56); two years in Curaçao, (1761-63); four years in Hebron (1764-68); two and a half years in London (1768-71); one year in Jamaica (1771-72); and one year in the British colonies of North America (1772-73). July 21, 1773 he sailed for Suriname, and in 1775 he was at Barbados. In London, according to his own statement, he was teacher at the Bet ha-midrash, earning a salary of £100 per annum. At Curaçao, he appears to have held the office of rabbi, though no record of his incumbency is to be found in local annals. He spent some time in New York and Philadelphia, and sojourned in Newport, Rhode Island (March-July 1773), as the guest of the community. Though not connected with the congregation, he often officiated at divine service, preaching in Spanish.

While in Newport, Carregal became an intimate friend of Ezra Stiles, afterward president of Yale College. They studied together, discussing the exegesis and interpretation of Messianic passages in the Bible, and corresponded, mostly in Hebrew. The letters still exist among the unpublished Stiles papers in the library of Yale University. Stiles, in his diary, speaks lovingly and admiringly of his Jewish friend; gives a long account of his dress, manner, and personality; and, in a series of entries occupying many pages, draws up a complete memoir of his career in Newport.

Carregal appears to have written only two brochures (both sermons), published in Newport in 1773. The published sermons are the first Jewish sermons published in the United States.

References

*Abiel Holmes, "Life of Ezra Stiles", Boston, 1798
*Hannah Adams, "History of the Jews", London ed., 1818
*"Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society", No. 3, pp. 122-125; No. 6, p. 79; No. 8, pp. 119-126
*"The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles", edited by F.B. Dexter, New York, 1901
*G.A. Kohut, "Ezra Stiles and the Jews", New York, 1902
*Yosef Goldman, "Hebrew Printing in America", New York, 2006