Tzarfat
Biblical placename
Tzarfat (Hebrew: צרפת, romanized: Ṣārp̄aṯ, Israeli pronunciation: [tsaʁˈfat]) is a Biblical placename that may refer to Sarepta in Lebanon. From Medieval Hebrew and into Modern Hebrew, it has come to be identified with France. The modern term evolved from the medieval Zarfat, as seen in Joseph ha-Kohen's Dibre ha-Yamim le-Malke Zarfat we-'Otoman (Chronicles of the Kings of France and the Ottoman Empire).
The epithet tzarfati (צרפתי) was frequently applied in rabbinical literature to Jews of French birth or descent and it has become a surname variously spelled as Tzarfati, Sarfati, etc.
References
Sources
Falk, A. (1996). A Psychoanalytic History of the Jews. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 364. ISBN 9780838636602.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tzarfat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.