| Part of a series on |
| Jewish culture |
|---|
 |
| Judaism portal |
Jewish writers in England during the pre-expulsion period of the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries produced different kinds of writing in Hebrew. Many were Tosafists; others wrote legal material, and some wrote liturgical poetry and literary texts.
According to Joseph Jacobs, Jewish literary and scholarly culture received its prime impetus during the time of Angevin England from France. Jacobs sees Simeon Chasid of Treves as the first such writer; he lived in England between 1106 and 1146. Subsequent important Jewish English writers came from Orléans, including Jacob of Orléans, who was murdered during the anti-Jewish violence during the coronation of Richard I in 1189, and possibly Abraham ben Joseph of Orleans. [1]
The increasing degradation of the political status of the Jews in the thirteenth century is paralleled by the scarcity of their literary output compared with that of the twelfth. In the earlier century, for example, there were eminent authorities such as Abraham ibn Ezra, Judah Sir Leon of Paris, Yom Tov of Joigny, and Jacob of Orléans, in addition to a school of grammarians which appears to have existed, including Moses ben Yom-Ṭob and Moses ben Isaac. In England Berechiah ha-Nakdan produced his Fox Fables —one of the most remarkable literary productions of the Middle Ages.
In the thirteenth century, however, only a few authorities, like Moses of London, Berechiah de Nicole, Aaron of Canterbury, and Elias of London, are known, together with Jacob ben Judah of London, author of a work on the ritual, Etz Chaim , and Meïr of Norwich, a liturgical poet. Throughout they were a branch of the French Jewry, speaking French and writing French glosses, and almost up to the eve of the expulsion they wrote French in ordinary correspondence.
Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern Haskalah and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves.
Yom Tov or Yom-Tov may refer to:
Berechiah ben Natronai Krespia ha-Nakdan was a Jewish exegete, ethical writer, grammarian, translator, poet, and philosopher. His best-known works are Mishlè Shu'alim and Sefer ha-Ḥibbur.
The Tosafot,Tosafos or Tosfot are medieval commentaries on the Talmud. They take the form of critical and explanatory glosses, printed, in almost all Talmud editions, on the outer margin and opposite Rashi's notes.
Rishonim were the leading rabbis and poskim who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the Shulchan Aruch and following the Geonim. Rabbinic scholars subsequent to the Shulchan Aruch are generally known as acharonim.
Rabbi Gershon Shaul Yom-Tov Lipmann ben Nathan ha-Levi Heller, was a Bohemian rabbi and Talmudist, best known for writing a commentary on the Mishnah called the Tosefet Yom-Tov (1614–1617). Heller was one of the major Talmudic scholars in Prague and in Poland during the "Golden Age" before 1648.
Aaron of Canterbury was an English rabbi and halakhic exegete, mentioned in Minhat Yehudah by Judah ben Eliezer on Deuteronomy xxvi.2, in association with Rashi and Rabbi Jacob of Orleans, and thus, seemingly, of the twelfth century. But a passage in the Close Roll of 1242 refers the decision in a divorce case to three "magistri," Mosse of London, Aaron of Canterbury, and Jacob of Oxford, and makes it probable that the Aaron mentioned in "Minhat Yehudah" was of the thirteenth century and acted as an ecclesiastical assessor, or dayyan, in London about 1242. If so, his name was Aaron fil Samson.
Judah ben Isaac Messer Leon (1166–1224) was a French tosafist born in Paris.
Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne (c. 1080-85 – 1158) was a Provençal rabbi, also known as Raavad II, and author of the halachic work Ha-Eshkol.
Samuel ben Solomon of Falaise was a French rabbi, a tosafist of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. His French name was Sir Morel, by which he is often designated in rabbinical literature. "Kadesh Urchatz", the now ubiquitous poem at the beginning of the traditional Haggadah, is attributed to him.
Yom Tovof Joigny, also denoted of York was a French-born rabbi and liturgical poet of the medieval era who lived in York, and died in the massacre of the Jews of York in 1190. A Hebrew language hymn attributed to him, transliterated "Omnam Kayn" or "Omnam Ken" is still recited in Eastern Ashkenazi synagogues each year on the evening of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. He was a student of Rabbeinu Tam.
Hachmei Provence refers to the hakhams of Provence, now known as Occitania, France that was a great Torah center in the times of the Tosafists. The phrase means "wise ones of Provence"; hakham "wise one, sage" is a Sephardic and Hachmei Provençal term for a rabbi.
Rashi's daughters were the three daughters and only children of the medieval Talmudic scholar, Rashi and his wife Rivka. Their three daughters were Yocheved, Miriam and Rachel. They each married their father's finest students and were the mothers of the leaders of the next generation of French Talmudic scholars. Almost every Ashkenazi rabbinic dynasty traces its ancestry back to either Yocheved or Miriam, and the majority of the tosafists, were recent descendants of Rashi's daughters. All born in Troyes, France, their descendants inhabited Germany, France, and Italy in the early 11th to 15th centuries, with the majority later moving to Eastern Europe, where they established several notable rabbinic dynasties.
Jacob ben Judah Hazzan was a 13th-century Jewish legal codifier based in London, England. His grandfather was one Jacob he-Aruk. In 1287 Jacob wrote Etz Chaim a ritual code in two parts, containing 646 sections respectively, dealing with the whole sphere of Halakah, and following in large measure Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah, though Jacob utilized also the Halakot Gedolot, the Siddur of Amram Gaon, and the works of Moses of Coucy, Alfasi and the tosafists. He quotes, furthermore, Isaac ben Abraham, Moses of London and Berechiah de Nicole (Lincoln). Some verses by him are also extant.
Berechiah de Nicole also known as Benedict fil Mosse,, was a thirteenth-century English Tosafist who lived at Lincoln.
Moses ben Isaac ben ha-Nessiah of London was an English grammarian and lexicographer of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. His mother was probably a Jew nicknamed Comitissa of Cambridge.
Abraham ben Joseph of Orleans was an early 12th-century French Tosafist and the son of Joseph Bekhor Shor and the brother of Saadia Bekhor Shor. Some have suggested that he is identical with Abraham ben Rabbi Joce. Many of his interpretations of the Talmud are quoted several times in the Tosafot.
Mishlè Shu'alim is a collection of mashal as fable, including fables about foxes, written, translated, and compiled by the English Jewish writer Berechiah ha-Nakdan in the 12th–13th century. Its title reflects an older Talmudic tradition of fox fables ; for example Rabbi Meir was supposed to have known 300 of them, and it has appeared in modern Israeli popular culture through the Foxy Fables series.