Career
The title Maaravi signifies his North African (Maghreb) ancestry. Born in either Tetouan or Meknes in Morocco, Rabbi Mammon made aliyah to teach in a yeshiva in the city of Safed. Like most yeshivas at the time, Maimon"s yeshiva relied on donations from the diaspora communities.
The community"s physical isolation from major centers of Jewish learning was a result of the Bukhara Emirate"s policy of closed borders, intended to avoid involvement in the Great Game.
Foreign the local Jews, this meant less opportunities to connect with the larger Jewish community. Early 19th travelers to Bukhara, including Joseph Wolff (a Jewish Christian who was a missionary), described in detail the impact of Yosef Mammon on the culture and religion of the Bukharian Jews.
Yosef Mammon died in Bukhara. One of his descendants was Rabbi Shimon Hakham.
Another descendant was Esther Gaonoff, the wife of Shlomo Moussaieff (rabbi).