Rav Chaim Pinto HaKoton

Rav Chaim Pinto II was born in Mogador (current Essaouira), Morocco. His grandfather, Rav Chaim I, was the great-grandson of Rav Yosef Pinto, who fled Spain to Rome with twenty-six talmidim after the 1492 expulsion. However, he had to flee to Damascus after local priests trapped him into a theological debate and soundly lost. When the Jewish population of Mogador began thinning out, Rav Chaim II moved to Casablanca, while his son, Rav Moshe Aharon Pinto, stayed in Mogador to prevent his father’s shul from closing down.