In Search of the Sephardic Family Name Turiel/Touriel/Tourial

A few years ago this journal published my article tracing my patronymic name, from its earliest appearance in print, in the Middle Ages, up until the early 20^th century. What follows here is a similar search for my maternal line, the family name Turiel (or Touriel/Tourial), a relatively uncommon Sephardic name. Once again, what has interested me is not a bloodline or family branch but rather the historical origins of the name in the more distant past, its meaning, if possible, and the people who bore that name in the past, beyond the basic knowledge I had of a family tree going back a few generations. What I offer here is the record of what I discovered, a personal itinerary, in a sense beyond genealogy, through references found online and in print.

The only special skill to which I can lay claim is a reading knowledge of the Romance languages, and a very little Hebrew. I have also had the luck of having easy access to good libraries, including the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Since a genealogical project is always ongoing, I will be grateful to receive contributions from readers for additional clues, corrections or new information to what is found below. Further, along the way, it is my hope that some of the references here will prove helpful to others with clearly Sephardic names who would like to explore their own more distant heritage.

There were few guideposts to follow when I began my search.² What I found was primarily the result of following a few leads found on library shelves and on the internet, where references from one good find led to others. Several invaluable guidebooks to Sephardic genealogy have by now appeared,³ providing extensive lists of names and references and techniques of research that will make other such searches easier -- that is, at least to get things started. Lists of names, after all, no matter how helpful they may be in determining that a family lived somewhere in Spain and the Ottoman empire over the last few centuries, will almost certainly not lead to finding references to where they came from before their arrival in the Ottoman Empire. This is where personal research becomes necessary.

Origin of the name

Reflecting the peregrinations of the Jews throughout their history in the Mediterranean basin, from the Near East to Spain to the old Ottoman Empire, did the name Turiel have a Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Spanish or other origin? The name Turiel sounds very much as though it might come from the Hebrew. One of the meanings for the word Tur (Tet-Vav-Resh) is “mountain,” and a closely related word phonologically, Tsur (Tsadi-Vav-Resh), means “rock,” “fortress.” Adding the suffix “-el,” then, gives either “Mountain of God” or “Rock of God.” Remaining within this hypothetical Hebrew context, we can find references to a number of “Watchers” or “fallen angels” in the apocryphal First Book of Enoch, one of whom is named Turiel. But the Book of Enoch, an early mystical work full of visions, dreams and revelations, was rejected for inclusion in both the canonic Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.⁴ The legend of the angel Turiel also seems to have given rise to a mystical cult that in the 16^th century produced among other things a book of magic spells entitled The Grimoire of Turiel.

But what, if anything, does any of this have to do with the family name Turiel? The Hebrew version of the Book of Enoch may have disappeared already at the time of the Second Temple except for a few fragments, and in any case it seems dubious that a Jewish family would take on the name of a rebellious, sinning angel. More importantly, however, is the fact that Turiel is a current family name in Spain and other Hispanic lands today, as an online search will show. Could these be the descendants of conversos? As a rule, however, the Jews of Spain who converted to Christianity before and after 1492 took on new, more ‘Christian’ names. It would be useful, then, to cast a wider net and consider the possibility that the name may not have a Hebrew origin.

The renowned scholar of Jewish history in Spain, Yitzhak Baer,⁵ may have had such reservations in mind when he theorized that the name is likely to be a place name, a local medieval pronunciation of Teruel, the small inland Aragonese city northwest of Valencia. The Roman name was Turolus, and its Arabic version Tirwal. The Christians seized the city from the Arabs in 1176 when it already had a thriving Jewish population.⁶ Phonologically the pronunciation “Turiel” for the original Latin name for the city, Turolus, is perfectly consistent with the tendencies for Latin words to evolve into Old Spanish (or, in this case, Aragonese), as confirmed by an online entry generated by the city of Teruel itself: “Turolus > Turolo > Toruelo. O mozárabe local teneba una tendencia a perder a –o final n’estas terminacions (Bunyuel, Aranyel, Estercuel, Almochuel, Exatiel, Castiel Fabib, Claudiel), tendencia que heredó l’aragonés medieval”⁷ [The Local Mozarabic had a tendency to lose the final –o in such endings (Bunyuel, Aranyel [...] Exatiel, Castiel Fabib, Claudiel), a tendency that medieval Aragonese inherited].

All of the above is speculative, of course. One might even go so far as to imagine that the medieval Jews of Teruel/Turiel found a particular satisfaction in linking the name of their city with the Hebrew expression for “Rock/Mountain of God,” since the city sits on a promontory in a region of high mountains and deep valleys. One might also speculate that both Jews and non-Jews might have adopted the identifying name of their city when moving to some other region. But it is quite possible that some other explanation not envisioned in my presentation here may yet prove to be conclusive.

Early history of the Turiel name

The earliest Turiels may well have come from the Arab-occupied portion of Spain, since the earliest versions of the name come with the Arabic prefix Ibn (son of) or its other common versions in Spain – Aben, Aven, -- but eventually these names – Ibn Turiel, Ben Turiel, Abenturiel, Aventuriel – gave way to simply Turiel. Note that one researcher (see under 1351 below) gives the name Curiel as a variant of Turiel, but I do not explore that here. Today, Turiel is the correct Spanish spelling, Touriel is the French spelling. The spelling Tourial, probably dating from an Ellis Island record of entry into the United States, is also found in this country.

One of the most important discoveries in my search was a book by Pilar León Tello.⁸ This is one of several hundred books listed by the Library of Congress catalog (under the LOC number beginning DS135.S7) relating to the Jews of Spain. They are for the most part written in Spanish and Catalan, consisting of studies of the juderías – the Jewish quarters -- of various medieval Spanish towns and cities, the relationship between Jews and Christians as revealed through notarial records and commercial contracts, and the ‘confessions’ of crypto-Jews at the end of the 15^th century. The source materials – for the most part handwritten notations by town clerks, bookkeepers and clerics -- have miraculously survived the centuries ensconced in town and church archives, libraries in monasteries, ducal palaces and similarly secure places. These manuscripts are a treasure trove of information for anyone interested in tracing Sephardic genealogies back to Spain. The fact that many of the publication dates for these studies occur in the 1980’s and onwards suggests that Spaniards are increasingly interested in the Jewish factor in their national history, and that there will be more such studies to come.

León Tello’s book (referred to here as PLT) is in two volumes.⁹ The first consists of a historical study of notarial records found in medieval Toledo and surrounding towns and villages; the second gives the actual transcription of manuscript entries upon which the first volume is based, listed by year, file number and folio number. Following is a list of early entries, in chronological order. It should be recalled that deciphering medieval manuscripts can be notoriously difficult; scholars mark uncertain readings with a question mark. Also to be noted is the various forms a name can take: Hasdai/Hassai, Pétrez/Pérez, Aben/Aven, etc. The proper names of Jews can take on very different forms in medieval Spanish: Çag (Yitzhak), Mosse (Mosheh), etc.

1188 This is the earliest date I have found. There are numerous documents from Talavera, near Toledo, that show a well organized Jewish community in their own quarter of the town (the aljama), with merchants living alongside farmers. The owner of the largest properties in Talavera was the Monastery of San Clemente de Toledo. Christians and Jews sold land properties and goods to each other, the main sales being olives and produce. We learn the following:

The Jew Yacub ben Sabí owned land in Canales on the other side of the Tajo River, inside an orchard owned by the nuns. “En el pago de Baric, camino de Alcoba, tienen una zumaquera¹⁰ los hijos de Aben Turiel” (PLT 47) [In the area of Baric, the Alcoba road, the children of Aben Turiel own a zumaquera.

“Setí la judía, viuda de Hasdai ben Turiel vendía al convento de San Clemente un olivar en el pago de Canales, dentro de un huerto que tenía el monasterio al otro lado del Tajo” (PLT 65) [Setí the Jewess, widow of Hasdai ben Turiel sold to the convent of San Clemente an olive grove in the area of Canales, within an orchard owned by the monastery on the other side of the Tajo]

Leon Tello cites several other notarial entries regarding what appears to be this same property:

1203 September, Folio 70. “Doña María, mujer que fue de Domingo Pétrez, vende a Domingo Antolín, una viña en el pago de Baric, jurisdicción de Talavera, lindante con zumaquera? de los hijos de Aven Turiel el judío, con el camino de Alcoba y con tierra inculta de los heredores de Domingo Pétrez, hijo de Pedro Algazel.” (PLT 22)

1216 January, Folio 97. “Setila, judía [or Seti la judía?] de Abulhasan Bono el Belas, esposa que fue del judío Hassai ben Turiel, vende un olivar en el pago de Canales, jurisdicción de Talavera.” (PLT 30)

1298 August 4, Folio 288, in Toledo: “Ferrand Yuanez vende a Ferrand Gómez una casa en el adarve que linda con casas de Domingo Pérez Aben Turiel.” (PLT 85)

1339 June 9, Folio 391. An agreement was reached between the city council (el cabildo) of Toledo and the Jewish quarter (aljama) of Illescas (in Toledo) for the Jews to henceforth pay an annual sum of 1500 mrs. [maravedís] in lieu of the old tolls, “de la moneda nueva blanca” [in new white money], for the right to move their merchandise about. Among the witnesses signing (in Hebrew): Jacob, hijo de don Çag Çaragoci [Isaac Saragossi] y don Abrahem, hijo de don Çag aben Turiel. (PLT 113)

Summer 1349 – Fall 1350, the Black Plague. There does not appear to be any evidence in Castile or Aragon that the Jews were held responsible for this event, as was the case in other countries. Around 30 tombstones still exist in Toledo for the Jewish victims of the Black Plague. Buried among the more numerous families, “Otras victimas son miembros aislados de familias menos conocidas” [Other victims are isolated members of less well known families] including Asher, hijo de r. Yosef ben Turiel. The epitaph reads “Aser, hijo de R. Yosef ben Turiel. Murió de la peste” [He died of the plague] (PLT 127) “De menor edad, casi un niño, era Asher ibn Turiel, hijo de R. Yosef ibn Turiel, que desde niño leía la Ley y estudiaba la Misna y la Guemará, aprendidas de su padre” (Juan Blazquez Miguel, p. 105¹¹) [Of a lesser age, almost a child, was Asher ibn Turiel, son of Rabbi Yosef ibn Turiel, who since childhood read the Law and studied the Mishna and the Gemara, learned from his father]. The same notation appears in PLT, I, 113. The complete version in Hebrew appears in F. Cantera Burgos y J. M. Millas Vallicrosa, Las inscripciones hebráicas de España [LOC no. PJ5034.8.57.C3], p. 133-134. A translation can be found in Jacob R. Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 1938, p. 47-48 (as an example of Jewish life during the Black Plague):

“This stone is a memorial
That a later generation may know
That ‘neath it lies hidden a pleasant bud,
A cherished child.
Perfect in knowledge,
A reader of the Bible,
A student of the Mishnah and Gemara.
Had learned from his father
What his father learned from his teachers:
The statutes of God and his laws.
Though only fifteen years in age,
He was like a man of eighty in knowledge.
More blessed than all sons: Asher – may he rest in Paradise –
The son of Joseph ben Turiel – may God comfort him,
He died of the plague, in the month of Tammuz, in the year 109 [June or July, 1349].
But a few days before his death
He established his home;
But yesternight the joyous voice of the bride and groom
Was turned to the voice of wailing. [Apparently he had just been married.]
And the father is left, sad and aching.
May the God of heaven
Grant him comfort.
And send another child
To restore his soul.”

The other major center showing frequent mentions of the Turiel name is Murcia, in southeastern Spain.

1281 Mosé Aventuriel (Ibn Turiel) of Toledo was the almojarife (customs/tax collector) and arrendador (rent collector) in Murcia under King Alfonso X of Castile, and he continued this position under the next king, Sancho IV. A letter of 1288 regarding the king’s decision to raise taxes in Murcia was sent to Aventuriel, proving that he was still chief recaudador de impuestos (tax/tithe collector). In 1291 he was named almojarife once again. In 1296 King Jaime II of Aragon named him to continue on.¹²

Yitzhak Baer¹³ writes that as of 1293, under the reign of Sancho IV, Jewish officials continued to serve the state. Most were from Toledo, but some were from elsewhere; e.g., Moses Ibn Turiel came from Murcia (Baer, I. 135). There is also a German version of Baer’s work (see above) in which we find that Mosse Aventuriel was an almoxarife (p. 90), and further references to Abrahen aben Turiel, Mose aben Turiel (244).

1351 King Pedro I of Castile named Mayr Avencuriel [Aventuriel], the son of Don Çag, and also the two sons of Mosé Aventuriel, Yuçaf and Çulayman (Yosef and Salomon), as arrendadores for three-quarters of the position of almojarifazgos for the reign of Murcia. Another of Mosé’s sons, Haym, was one of the arrendadores for the rest of these collection positions: Yhuda [Yehuda], hijo de Yuçaf Axaques, y Haym Aventurial [sic] eran cogedores de los impuestos en 1353 (NR 41).¹⁴

1352 The recaudadores of the alcabalas (tolls, sales tax) for the region of Murcia were the king’s treasurer and two Jews, one of whom was “Çuleyman Aventuriel de Murcia”.¹⁵

1353 The king’s chamberlain wrote to “his Jew,” Çuleyman Aventuriel, to set the penas (court sentences?) and caloñas (libel?).

1365 David Aventuriel, Çuleyman (son of Mayr) Aventuriel., Samuel Aventuriel, Haym Aventuriel were arrendadores in Murcia.

1372 Zag [Yitzhak] Abenaex [Ben-Aísh?] and Yucaf Aventuriel, arrendadores for half the alcabalas, name Salomón Aventuriel as one of the recaudadores. Also, Yucaf Aventuriel sees an increase of one tenth in their collection of toll taxes to compensate for a decrease in the amount of uncollected taxes.

1373 Samuel Abravanel of Seville (the grandfather of the famous Isaac Abravanel) became almojarife of the royal taxes for the kingdom of Murcia, although he had first put forward Mayr Abenaex, also of Seville, and Mosé Aventuriel, the principal steward for the government of Murcia.

Samuel Aventuriel, collector of the veintena tax, complains about the existence of fiadores (guarantors) for tax collectors. What can be noted in these financial operations is that Jews and Christians often worked together in the collection of rents, tithes and taxes.

1374 Mosé, son of Mayr Aventuriel (therefore presumably the grandson of the original Mosé), chief tax steward for the government of Murcia, was named almojarife. He named his brother Çuleyman as recaudador for one-quarter of the alcabalas. The same occurred again in 1376, adding his brother Çag.

After 1378, no Jews, only Christians, can be found among Murcia officials until the reign of Enrique IV.

For the final entries in Spain, after the widespread attacks against Jews of 1391 and the beginning of mass conversions to Christianity, it should be noted that Jews were still collecting public funds:

1449 Folio 843. From the ledgers of the Archbishopric of Rodillas (near Toledo): “Todo diezmo de coronados remató en don Hudá [Yehuda] Abenturiel por 1.000 mrs.” (PLT) [Meaning not clear: Every tenth percent of crowns he sold off to Yehuda Abenturiel for one thousand maravedís]

1450 Symuel Aventuriel, “fisico, judío, vesino y morador en la judería de Murcia, arrendador mayor de las alcavalas…” (Baer, p. 323) [doctor, Jew, neighbor and resident of the judería of Murcia, principal collector of the sales tax] .

1497 Fol. 37: In Guadalajara, Catalina García, wife of Rodrigo Alveres de Turiel, was fined 300 mvs. (maravedís), as part of being “habilitada por la Inquisición,” which suggests that some Jewish Turiels became conversos after the Expulsion decree but were now being hounded on suspicion of behaving like Jews (Cantera Burgos & Leon Tello, p. 116).

Turiel names appear sporadically on lists from other medieval Spanish cities; they include the following, in chronological order.¹⁶ Note that some likely refer to the same individuals as stated above but in the context of a different town.

1357 Seville: Semuel Aventuriel

1415 Valencia: Vites Turiel

1428 Avila: Habib Turriel

1462 Borja: Mosse Toriel

1473 Avila: Abraham Thuriel

1489 Lorca: Salomon Aventuriel

After the Expulsion of 1492

After 1492 the name Turiel appears in print sporadically in various parts of the Ottoman Empire. I have found nothing thus far to indicate where they came from or how they got there. Some of the more likely transition points were Portugal, Naples and other towns in Italy. In what appears below I have tried to avoid going beyond the mid-20^th century so as not to impinge upon the privacy of living individuals.

For Safed, the following name appears in print:

1560 ca. Solomon ben Shimon Turiel, who is reputed to have been numbered among the Safed kabbalists, wrote a commentary on Sefer yetsirah entitled Eshet ne’urim (Wife of Youth) [EliorNave&Mil, The Jewish Mystical Library]. Gershon Scholem published a sermon on redemption by Salomon Turiel. This mystic, who believed in the imminence of redemption, believed that at the heart of the messianic reign the Kabbalists would occupy a privileged place. Whereas the Messiah would dominate over the Talmudists and the Literalists, the esoterists [mystics] would not be subservient to them. (Recherches récentes sur l’ésoterisme juif, II (1954-1962), 2^nd article, Georges Vajda, in Revue de l’histoire des religions, vol. 164, 191-212. See “A Homily on the Redemption by R. Solomon of the House of Israel, Sefanot, I, 1956, 62-79).

For Alexandria:

1840 The Montefiore Census of Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, shows the following Touriel names, all classed as “poor” (but note that extremely few are classed as “rich”):

Shemuel T., age 45, bread merchant, married, children: Moshe, Miriam, Esther

Haim T., 50, bread merchant, married to Simha, children: Moshe, Rosa, Esther

Esther T., 60, widow of David T.

Esther T., 60, widow of Moshe T.

Rivka T., 70, widow of Moshe T. (blind)

Djamila T., 70, widow of Moshe T.

For Istanbul, we have the Rabbinate Jewish Records as compiled by Dan Kazez (on SephardicGen.com), listing Jewish marriages from the late 19^th century to the 20^th century (children indicated in parentheses):

Haim Turiel (Behor)

Yeshaya Turiel (Saul Ezra T.)

Salomon Turiel (Avram T., Toviya T.)

Tobia Turiel (Moshe T.)

Yaakov Turiel-Berkmen (Avraam T.)

Moshe Turiel (Toviya Avram T.)

For the Rhodes and Izmir areas:

1752 Jacob Turiel was among those who signed an eskama (5512) in Rhodes (AG VII 124).¹⁷

1906 In Fethiyé, a town on the Turkish coast opposite Rhodes, the local Talmud Tora became a school headed by Elie Touriel, originally from Rhodes (AG IV 152). Other notables in Fethiyé include Elyakim Touriel, an important merchant, and Jacob Touriel.

1910 ca. The most important Jewish business in Rhodes was Alhadeff Frères, founded in 1819 by Hadji Bohor Alhadeff. Other businesses included Isaac Touriel [Also cited in Rabbi Marc D. Angel, The Jews of Rhodes, NY: Sepher-Hermon, 1978, 52]. Among Jewish businessmen of the last years of the 19^th century were Elyakim Touriel (AG VII 119).

Jacques Touriel was a member of the Izmir Jewish community council after World War I.

Moise Touriel was a doctor in Rhodes (AG VII 146).

Emigration from the Ottoman Empire

At the end of the 19^th century, Jewish men began emigrating to France and the U.S. After accumulating enough money they would return to their home city to marry (usually arranged by parents) and also bring over siblings, parents, etc. Such was the case with my own uncle Ezra Tourial, who left Rhodes to become a prosperous wholesale shoe-leather dealer. He married Joya Alhadeff in the Sephardic synagogue in Atlanta. He and Joya returned to Rhodes in 1920 upon the death of his father Refael Turiel (son of Mosheh). He brought back to Atlanta two sisters, Roza and Estreya (my mother), and his mother Tamar. They emigrated to the U.S. in June 1921. Meanwhile Ezra’s two brothers, Zedekiah and David, had already emigrated to the U.S.

After the U.S. imposed severe immigration limits in 1924, Jews emigrated in greater numbers to France, Italy, the Belgian Congo, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil and other places. Those who remained in Rhodes did well under the Italian occupation that began in 1912 and they were granted Italian citizenship. But by 1938 they began to suffer discrimination under the newly imposed Italian Race Laws and their movements were blocked. Finally, after the collapse of the Italian government in 1943, the Germans took over all Italian territories, including Rhodes.

The Nazi Deportations

The Jews of Rhodes and Cos (about 1,700 persons) were rounded up by the Germans on July 21, 1944, including several persons named Turiel, placed on ships to Greece where they joined other Jews from Greece being deported by train to concentration camps, primarily Mauthausen, Dachau and Auschwitz.¹⁸ Their names are given in Hizkia M. Franco’s book, The Jewish Martyrs of Rhodes and Cos, 1994 (see also AG VII 310). Only three of them survived the war.

The family of Daniel Turiel were among those rescued by the Turkish consul in Rhodes, Selâheddin Ülkümen, on the basis that anyone holding a Turkish passport could exit to Turkey – and Turkey was a safe haven for Jews during the war. Ülkümen was later recognized by Israel as a “Righteous Among the Nations,” at Yad VaShem. Bernard (Boaz) Turiel, one of the survivors and now a long-time citizen of the U.S., has frequently given talks in honor of this Turkish consul. It should be noted that Turkey came to play an important role for many Jews in danger during the Nazi period, including the placement of German Jewish professors in Turkish universities, thereby echoing the role played by the Turks in offering sanctuary to the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.

The records of the Holocaust Museum indicate three men named Turiel who were taken by convoy from France to death camps: Nessim (born 1897, Istanbul), Albert (born 1923, Marseille) and Salvator (born 1929, “of Hungarian nationality”). There may be records of other deportations of people named Turiel with which I am not familiar.

Today

Jewish people bearing the name Turiel/Touriel/Tourial can be found in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Israel and perhaps other places as well. Who they are and how they got there calls for a different story, going well beyond the scope of this article. Anyone wishing to trace genealogical trees has available such superb online resources as SephardicGen, which provides lists of extremely useful databases including those of Jeffrey S. Malka, Victor Alkana, Harry Stein, Mathilde Tagger, and so on. What I have wanted to do here is to shed some light on the origins and early citations of the name and, more importantly, to go beyond a simple listing of the name in order to associate it with real persons, living in Spain over 500 years ago and later in the Ottoman Empire –- persons who were in all likelihood the flesh-and-blood ancestors of people bearing that name today.