ABRAHAM COHEN "DO BRASIL"For 25 years now I have been researching Abraham Cohen, also known as Abraham Cohen "do Brasil". Yet his precise identity eludes me, even after all these years, and after all that I found about him. Isaac Emmanuel mentions that his background, once, he is from the Orient, second, he is from the Levant. Both times he does not provide a source for that. First time he is mentioned is in Brasil, Recife, in 1642 (Günter Böhm, Los Sefardies en los dominios olandeses del America del Sur y del caribe, 1992). In subsequent years we see him as a broker and a slavetrader (Archives of the Old Westindian Company, 59 (.http://tinyurl.com/zmt8fud). He signs the Escamot of the Jewish Community Zur Kahal, in 1648 - see first image - in Hebrew, while most members did so in latin script.In 1654 he fled Brasil, along with all the Jews, Daniel Levy de Barrios wrote a poem about him, and his wife, praising Abraham Cohen for his help to "Jews and Christians alike" during the ensuing chaos. He also mentions his closeness to Johan Maurits of Nassau--Siegen, governor of Dutch Brasil from 1637-1644. His daughter Eva Cohen is quoted in a pamphlet, published in Dutch and in English, saying that he was worth a million guilders in brasil, in 1680, she estimated that about a 100.000 guilders is left from that capital. In 1685, after the death of Rebecca Palache, wife of Abraham, each of his surviving five children gets 10.000 guilders.He was a man of means, then. Yet, his name is not on the fintarolls of the portuguese Jewish Community in Amsterdam, showing that he was not a Jehid, a member of that community. His name is on the lists of the promesas, a voluntary contribution to said community. His name is given there alternatively as Abraham Cohen do Brasil, or Abraham Cohen tudesco, showing that the community considered him an Ashkenaz. Yet, in a notarial deed from 1662 before notary Adriaen Lock - see image, he proudly presents himself as Abraham Cohen, Portuguese merchant. And again he signs in hebrew. Abraham Cohen is buried in Bet Haim, although by then the community forbade Ashkenazim to be buried there (the latest resolution forbidding that, dates from a month before his death in 1672.) The next year, his son Jacob Cohen, is admitted as a jehid to the fintarolls, meaning he was a fully fledged member of that community, like his father never was. Question: does the signature of Abraham Cohen betray something about his origin? What kind of script is it?