Avraham Ashkenazi well as among Jews; and at his funeral most of the foreign consuls were present. He died at Jerusalem on January 22, 1880. Avraham Ashkenazi Avraham Ashkenazi (1813–1880) was a Sephardi chief rabbi (Rishon LeZion). Rabbi Ashkenazi was born at Janishar, near Salonica, in 1813. Aged fifteen, he was taken by his father to Jerusalem, where he studied rabbinical literature in the various colleges. The Turkish rabbis, in consulting him at the age of 35 on matters of religious law, addressed him as "Gaon." He authored several responsa and novellae. In 1850, he was appointed "dayyan" (religious judge) of the
Ashkenazi Hebrew eastern, e.g. Eastern Syriac "Peshitta" as against Western Syriac "Peshito". Ashkenazi Hebrew in its written form also resembles Palestinian Hebrew in its tendency to "male" spellings (see Mater lectionis). Others, including Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, believed that the distinction is more ancient, and represents the distinction between the Judaean and Galilean dialects of Hebrew in Mishnaic times (1st−2nd centuries CE), with the Sephardi pronunciation being derived from Judaean and the Ashkenazi from Galilean. This theory is supported by the fact that Ashkenazi Hebrew, like Samaritan Hebrew, has lost the distinct sounds of many of the guttural letters, while there are references