Pinkas Shadar of R. Benzion Alkalay, Emissary from the Sephardic Community of Tiberias to Morocco and Gibraltar

R. Benzion Alkalay (1858-1913) was born in Rabat, Morocco. In 1873, he settled with his father in Tiberias. In 1886, at the tender age of twenty-eight, he was dispatched by the Tiberias community to the cities of Morocco to raise funds for the indigent of Eretz Israel. The first portion of this notebook is taken up by Torah novellae, many with the heading "Derush le-hesped" (Sermon for a eulogy). On f.18r. there is a sermon in praise of the community of Tiberias, based on the Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 31b and writings of R. Chaim Abulafia (Izmir, Turkey), who in 1740 rebuilt the Tiberias community, which had lain desolate. (See EJ, Vol. II, cols. 187-188.) On ff. 52-67, we have lists of contributors from the various Moroccan communities--Arcila, Debdou, Fez, Meknes, Melilla, Ouejda, Ouezan, Sefrou, Tetouan, etc--as well as neighboring Gibraltar, Spain. A published scholar, Alkalay authored an ethical dialogue between a rich man and a poor man, Ashir va-Rash (Jerusalem, 1884; reprinted Jerusalem 1934). The book was issued in Judeo-Arabic translation in Livorno in 1903. His commentary to R. Jacob Hagiz's Halachoth Ketanoth--"Halacha Rovachath"--was published in Jerusalem in 1895. He also produced a halachic work entitled Kise'oth le-Mishpat (Jerusalem, 1903). See Ya'ari, Shluchei Eretz Israel, pp. 649, 659, 866; S.N. Gottlieb, Ohalei Shem (1912), p. 537