(RaLBa”Ch). She'eloth U’Teshuvoth [responsa]

R. Levi ibn Chabib (c. 1483-1545), a native of Zamora, Spain, was taken by his father to Portugal, where he was forcibly baptized in 1492. Eventually the pair escaped to Salonika where they provided successive leadership to the Gerush Community of Spanish exiles settled there. In time, Levi ibn Chabib moved to Eretz Israel in order to atone for the baptism of his youth. Settling in Jerusalem, he became embroiled over the issue of renewing the ancient Semicha (ordination) in Safed - an innovation to which he was bitterly opposed. Included in the volume of responsa here is the famous Kuntress HaSemicha, the vitriolic exchange between R. Jacob Berav of Safed and R. Levi ben Chabib. See M. Benayahu, "Chidushah shel Hasemichah B’Tsefat," in: Yitzhak F. Baer Jubilee Volume (1960), pp. 248-69; EJ, Vol. XI, cols. 98-99; Vol. VIII, cols. 1176-1178. For textual variants of our work, see I. Rivkind, Dikdukei Sefarim" in: Sepher HaYovel L’Chevod Alexander Marx (1950) pp. 419-20, no. 23