Abraham Saba

Avraham Saba was a Spanish teacher and exegete who spent much of his life fleeing persecution. He was born and raised in Castille, and with the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, fled to Portugal, only to be expelled again in 1497. His two sons were taken from him and forcibly baptized as Christians. He was arrested in Lisbon and tortured, but eventually escaped to Fez in Morocco. He had to flee without being able to recover his writings, which he had buried under an olive tree in Lisbon to avoid the punishment of death decreed on anyone possessing books or tefillin. He later rewrote from memory the works he had to abandon, and those versions were published and gained him renown.