Gedaliah ibn Yahya ben Joseph (
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
: גדליה אבן יחיא בן יוסף; – 1587) was a 16th-century Italian
Talmudist
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the center ...
and
Biblical chronologist chiefly known for his Biblical Chronology "Shalshelet HaḲabbalah".
Biography
Born in
Imola
Imola (; rgn, Jômla or ) is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, located on the river Santerno, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. The city is traditionally considered the western entrance to the historical ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, the son of
Joseph ibn Yahya ben Solomon and Abigail. In his early years he studied in
Ferrara under
Abraham Rovigo Abraham Rovigo (born ca. 1650 in Modena, died 1713 in Mantua) was a Jewish scholar, rabbi and kabbalist.
Biography
Rovigo studied in Venice in the ''yeshiva'' of Moses Zacuto and devoted himself to study the Kabbalah. He was one of the main sup ...
, later settling down in
Rovigo
Rovigo (, ; egl, Ruig) is a city and ''comune'' in the Veneto region of Northeast Italy, the capital of the eponymous province.
Geography
Rovigo stands on the low ground known as Polesine, by rail southwest of Venice and south-southwest of P ...
, where he remained until 1562 when the burning of the Talmud took place in Italy. Following this he briefly lived in
Salonica
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
, moving back to Imola in 1567. He was later expelled with other Jews by
Pope Pius V
Pope Pius V ( it, Pio V; 17 January 1504 – 1 May 1572), born Antonio Ghislieri (from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri, O.P.), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1566 to his death in May 1572. He is v ...
, and suffering a loss of 10,000 gold pieces, he went to
Pesaro, and thence to Ferrara, where he remained till 1575. During the ensuing eight years he led a wandering life, and finally settled in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
, which perhaps is where he died in 1587. Another theory "...indicates that Gedaliah did not die in Alexandria, Egypt, but in Alessandria, a town sixty to seventy miles northwest of Genoa, Italy, along the road to Turin."
Ibn Yayha's chief work was the ''Sefer Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah,'' called also ''Sefer Yaḥya,'' on which he labored for more than forty years. This work is not without defects, having suffered either by reason of the author's itinerant mode of life or through faulty copying of the original manuscript. Its contents are as follows:
* History and genealogy of the
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
from the time of
Moses until that of
Moses Norzi (1587)
* Account of the heavenly bodies, Creation, the soul, magic, and evil spirits
* History of the peoples among which the Jews have dwelt, and a description of the unhappy fate of the author's coreligionists up to his time.
The ''Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah'' was published at
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
, 1587;
Cracow, 1596;
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
, 1697;
Zolkiev
Zhovkva ( uk, Жовква ; pl, Żółkiew; yi, זאָלקוואַ, translit=Zolkva; russian: Жо́лква, 1951–1992: ''Nesterov'') is a city in Lviv Raion, Lviv Oblast (Oblast, region) of western Ukraine. Zhovkva hosts the administratio ...
, 1802, 1804;
Polonnoye, 1814; and
Lemberg, 1862.
Gedaliah was th
alleged author oftwenty-one other works, which he enumerates at the end of his ''Shalshelet'' and which are mentioned also in
Benjacob
Isaac ben Jacob Benjacob (January 10, 1801, Ramygala – July 2, 1863, Vilnius) was a Lithuanian Jewish Maskil, best known as a bibliographer, author, and publisher. His 17-volume Hebrew Bible included Rashi, Mendelssohn, as well as his own ''M ...
's ''Oẓar ha-Sefarim.''
References
*
*
Maria L. Mayer Modena, La Masseket Hamor di Gedalyà ibn Yahia, “Italia”, In Memory of
Giuseppe Sermoneta, XIII-XV (2001), pp. 303–342
In praise of women – the article of Rabbi Gedaliah Ibn Yahya (1526-1587)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibn Yahya ben Joseph, Gedaliah
1510s births
1580s deaths
Jewish historians
16th-century Italian historians
Italian Sephardi Jews
Egyptian rabbis
16th-century rabbis from the Ottoman Empire
16th-century Italian rabbis