Tzeidah LaDerech.

Tzeidah LaDerech contains a particularly important introduction with valuable historical material relating to the Jews of France, Spain and Germany and variation of custom among differing communities. The work covers many topics: Medicine, astrology, pedagogy and eschatology. It was commissioned by Don Samuel Abrabanel whose ministerial duties at the Court of the King of Spain prevented full-time study. See EJ, Vol. XI, cols.1303-4. Both a Rabbi and a physician, the author, Menachem ibn Zerach, was born in Estella in the northern province of Navarre, Spain to a family that fled France at the time of the Expulsion of the Jews. With the death of Charles IV, the French king who ruled over Navarre in 1328, anti-Jewish riots erupted. The author’s parents and four younger brothers were kiilled although ibn Zerach himself escaped, eventually settling in Toledo, where he studied under Rabbi Judah, son of Rabbi Asher (RO”SH)