Members of the family have produced numerous famous Rabbis, Court Jews, Talmudic scholars, scientists, businessmen, academics and politicians, with members in Germany, Bohemia, Austria, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Israel and the United States.
Through his maternal grandmother, Elhanan Jaffe of Dampierre was the great-grandson of Meir ben Samuel and thus the great-great-grandson of the biblical commentator Rashi who has been claimed to be a 33rd-generation descendant of Johanan HaSandlar.
[citation needed] The modern progenitor of the family, Moses Jaffe of Bologna (d. 1480) was a Polish rabbi who was forced to live in Italy, where he served as the Av Beit Din of several communities.
He and his wife Margolioth had a son, Abraham Jaffe of Bohemia (d. 1535), who established the Bohemian branch of the family.
The descendants of Joel Sirkis-Jaffe of Kraków served prominent and important rabbinic positions all over Poland and Ukraine.