Rap(p)aport, Rap(p)oport or Rapa Porto (רפפורט) is a family name from an Italian (Jewish) Kohenitic pedigree. It takes its origins in the Rapa family of Porto located in Verona, Italy.
The names of Rapa or Rappe ha-Kohen(-Tzedeq) (Rapa Katz) are met with in about 1450. At that time Meshullam Kusi (abbreviated from "Jekuthiel") Rapa ha-Kohen Tzedeq, the earliest known member of the family, lived on the Rhine, probably in Mayence. Several decades later the family disappeared from Germany, probably on account of the Jews' expulsion from Mayence on October 29, 1462. In 1467, in Mestre, near Venice, the wealthy Chayyim Rappe is found as alms' collector for the poor of the Holy Land. In Venice, the physician R. Moses Rap was exempted in 1475 from wearing the Jew's badge.
The Polish branch of the family explains its name through the following legend: one Easter a certain Jew, to prevent his enemies from smuggling the body of a Christian child into his house, closed all possible entrances and openings except the chimney. Down the chimney however, the dreaded corpse fell, but when a crowd stormed the house nothing but a partridge (Old German, "Rephuhn" or "Raphuhn") was found in the fireplace. But the "Von den Jungen Raben" (the house shield name of Judengasse "From the young crow (cf. raven)") in the signature of Abraham Menahem ha-Kohen Rapa von Port (see below link) at the end of his Pentateuch commentary, and the additional fact that the coat of arms of the family bears two ravens, clearly show that signifies "Rabe" (Middle High German, "Rappe"). The family name, therefore, at the end of the sixteenth century seems to be clearly established as Ha-Kohen Rabe. Part of the Polish branch changed their name into Wrona, which is Polish for crow.
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