Eiduth bi-Yehoseph [“Testimony in Joseph”: Responsa; appended commentary on Maimonides’ code]

R. Jacob Israel Algazi and R. Gedaliah Chayon Copy of Responsa Work The author of our work served as chief rabbi of the community of Belgrade (Serbia). Almosnino was a disciple of R. Hezekiah da Silva, author “Peri Chadash,” whom he oftimes cites in his work. (See e.g. f.118r.). In the appended commentary to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, the author records a novel interpretation he presented in the year 1718 (f.117r.). (Thus it is certain the appendix postdates the first edition of Eiduth bi-Yehoseph, Constantinople, 1711.) R. Jacob Israel Algazi (1680-1756) was one of the prominent sages of Izmir, Turkey, author of the halachic methodologies “Ar’a de-Rabbanan” and “Kehilath Ya’akov,” and father of the illustrious R. Yom Tov (Mahari”t) Algazi, famous for his commentaries to Nachmanides’ Hilchoth Bechoroth and Hilchoth Chalah (published in the Vilna Shas as an appendix to Tractate Bechoroth). The elder Algazi was also responsible for the publication of the highly controversial anonymous work “Hemdath Yamim” (Izmir 1731-2). By 1737 we find Algazi in Jerusalem, where he was instrumental in founding a pietist studyhouse, “Beth El.” Hence he became known as “Ha-Rav he-Chasid” (the pietist rabbi). In 1755 Algazi was chosen as chief rabbi of Jerusalem, but died a year later. R. Gedaliah Hayon (d. 1751), a native of Constantinople, was the first leader of the fraternity of kabbalists whose center was Beth El. The “Midrash Chasidim Beth El” existed in the Old City of Jerusalem until its destruction by the Jordanian Legionaires in 1948. Ariel Bension has written a most moving memoir of the interior spiritual life of Beth El. The members of this “chevraya kadisha” (holy fraternity) employed in their prayers the Lurianic meditations as set down by R. Shalom Sharabi (Rasha”sh), successor to R. Gedaliah Hayon, and second-generation leader of Beth El. The phenomenal scholar R. Chaim Joseph David Azulai (Chid”a) studied in his youth in Beth El, where he received instruction from both Rabbis Algazi and Hayon. See EJ, Vol. II, cols. 609-610; M. Benayahu, Rabbi H.Y. D. Azulai (1959), p. 15; Ariel Bension, The Zohar in Moslem and Christian Spain (1932)