Rhama Foinquinos picture

La photo de Rhama, soeur de Fortunato Foinquinos, elle etait la fille de Rafael Foinquinos et Sara Attias. Elle a vecu au Bresil mais a prefere retourner vivre a Tanger, la vie en Amazonie n'etait pas faite pour les femmes, et beaucoup retournaient. Simone de Haifa me dit qu'elle etait une couturiere exceptionnelle, et qu'elle travaillait de chez elle.

A picture of Rhama, Fortunato Foinquinos sister, she was Rafael Foinquinos and Sara Attias daughter. She lived in Brazil but preferred living in Tanger. Life in the Amazone, was not fitted to women and a lot of them went back home. Simone from Haifa tells me that Rahma was a very talented seamstress, her home was her atelier.

Photos of Simone Melo Foinquinos brothers & herself

Please click on the picture to enlarge.
Simone Melo sent me by email a few pictures that she scanned. This is the first attempt to integrate pictures to the blog. Simone's brother Jack Melo Foinquinos, her little brother Isaac Melo Foinquinos and Simone Melo Foinquinos herself, so cute!

They are Alegria Foinquinos Pinto and Moses Melo Pinto children.
Her grand Father was Isaac Foinquinos married to Clara Pinto.

In this picture Simone is about 3 years old, her brother Jack is 2 years older than her and her brother Isaac is maybe a year old. Isaac, regretfully, did not live more than a few years. Other children were born from Alegria and Moses Melo, Carlos who lives now in Israel and Meyer who died on his 60th birthday in 2000. Simone, our family genealogist, lives in Haifa obviously. Jack lives in Paris, he is a designer by temperament, as good in building design & renovation, as he was in jewelry design. A family trait too, a lot of designers in the Foinquinos family!

Debora Foinquinos

Hola Debora,

Welcome to the Foinquinos Family Blog.
We are all so pleased that you have decided
to join us.
We would very much appreciate if you would
introduce yourself so as to enable us to get to
know you better and to situate you in the
family tree we are building.
We very much hope and wish many additionnal
members of the family will join us in the near
future.
I and on behalf of all this family, we warmly
welcome you again in this your home.
With love
Simone M. Foinquinos

Who was Jonas in the family tree?

Jonas was the brother of our great grand father, Abraham.
Jonas, Abraham and Rafael (who married Sarah Attias) were brothers.

Our great grand father Abraham Foinquinos had 2 sons Isaac (Simone de Haifa gd father), and Moses (he was the grand father of Henri and Albert children ) and a daughter Esther.
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Jonas etait le frere de notre arriere grand pere, Abraham.
Jonas, Abraham et Rafael (marrie a Sarah Attias) etaient freres.

Notre arriere grand pere Abraham Foinquinos a eu 2 fils Isaac (le grand pere de Simone de Haifa), et Moses (le grand pere des enfants d'Henri et d'Albert) et une fille Esther.

Spelling of our name/Comment s'epelle notre nom

L'orthographe de notre nom s'est transforme de Foinquinos en Foenquinos, surtout dans les pays francophones. Il y a aussi des Foinkinos, Foenkinos, etc... Apparement nous serions tous de la meme famille.

The spelling of our family name changed in french speaking countries from Foinquinos to Foenquinos. It is also spelled Foinkinos, Foenkinos, etc... Apparently we are all related.

Jonas Foinquinos and Bensadon

As I said in my previous post, Jonas (Yona) Foinquinos was married to Reine Bensadon
daughter of Rabbi Abraham Bensadon, Rabbi of the Island of San Miguel in the Azores and a prominent Kabbalist. This is an anecdote about Rabbi Bensadon.
In October 1849, while he was in Tangier, he was mistreated badly by a group of Moslems, this provoqued a serious diplomatic incident as Rabbi Abraham was a French National.
One day that he was wandering in the streets of the city predicting the close arrival of Messianic times and the revenge of the jews, a crowd of Moslems challenged him. As this event was close to the entrance of a Mosque, they also wanted to force him to take off his shoes as a sign of submission to Islam. (Jews are considered by Islam as Dhimmis - second class people)
Of course, he refused and he was beaten severely.
As He was French, the French Charge d'Affaires M. de Chasteau, considered the affair as an
insult to his country and nearly declared war on Morocco.
France demanded the Moroccan authorities to apologize and that the responsible be punished
otherwise there will be military retaliation. The Moroccan authorities finally accepted.
Simone M. Foinquinos

Jonas Foinquinos from Tangier

Today I am going to talk about one of my Great Gd-Father brothers. Jonas (Yona) Foinquinos was a prominent and very generous man.
On one of his numerous travels to the Azores in 1869, to Ponta Delgada- Island of San Miguel, he was asked if he would contribute to the Synagogue, he accepted gladly and made a contribuion of 7620 reis for the synagogue Shaar Hashamaim in Ponta Delgada.

Jonas was married to Reine Bensadon who was the daughter of Rabbi Abraham Bensadon, Rabbi of the Island of San Miguel. He was a prominent kabbalist born in Tlemcen -Algeria .

Jonas and his family had their home in Marseille (France). He had three sons and two daughters : Messod - Abraham - Leon (Yehuda) - Fortunee and Sol.
He was a wealthy man, and any prominent visitor in Marseille will be hosted in his house which was in The Olives quarter. He was Member of Cultural Societies - lover of old scripts - he even made a donation of a very old Pentateuque script to the Museum. Unfortunately, he lost a big part of his fortune in the crash of 1925.

One of his sons : Leon was an Engineer, he was a genious, I would even say a phenomenon. At age of 22, he had more diplomas than any person could obtain in a lifetime. He was an inventor, he invented everything one can think of in our modern times : from an amphibian car - to the traffic lights - the lottery system etc. etc. He spent all his fortune on inventions, finally he died at the age of 65 sad and lonely since no one recognized his work.

Many, many years after his death, the Municipality of Marseille honored his memory by
naming the place where he used to live : Place Leon Foenquinos.
Simone M. Foinquinos