SERUYA, Moroccan family. The first known member was R. ISAAC ṢERUYA, a signatory in 1494 to the first takkanah of the Spanish expellees in *Fez. The Ṣeruyas, who engaged in maritime trade, were established in *Sale-Rabat. When the sultan Moulay Yazīd seized power in 1790 and persecuted the Jews, they settled in Gibraltar. SOLOMON was a wealthy merchant as well as a pious scholar who contributed to the publication of Hebrew works, including R. Pethahiah Berdugo's Rosh Mashbir; it was published in Leghorn in 1840 by Samuel *Levy-Yuly, a former dayyan of Gibraltar. JACOB, a wealthy merchant, established himself in Rabat in 1839, where he was appointed consular agent of Great Britain, Spain, the United States, and Portugal. He returned to Gibraltar in 1847 after he had some disputes with the Moroccan government. SOLOMON (1926– ), was Gibraltar's minister of ports and tourism (1959–64) and minister of economic development (1965–69).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

J.M. Toledano, Ner ha-Ma'arav (1911), 78; Miège, Maroc, 2 (1961), 243, 251, 333.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.

Seruya