Joseph ibn Abitur was a Spanish

rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

of around the 10th century. He was a student of Moses ben Hanoch. Abitur was from a very prestigious Spanish family from the city of Mérida. His great great grandfather was a communal and Rabbinic leader. Besides being a great

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

scholar, Abitur was also a paytan of note. He also wrote a commentary on the Bible in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

. When Moses ben Hanoch's son Hanoch was chosen to succeed his father, Abitur felt compelled to leave Spain and travel to the yeshivoth in Bavel. On his way he stopped in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

before arriving in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

. He eventually went to

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

, where he died. He wrote many teshuvoth, some of which are extant. According to the history book

Sefer ha-Qabbalah ''Sefer ha-Qabbalah'' () was written by Abraham ibn Daud around 1160–1161. The book is a response to Karaite attacks against the historical legitimacy of Rabbinic Judaism and contains, among other items, the controversial tale of the kidnappin ...

, during his stay in Egypt, Ibn Abitur produced an

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

translation of the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

for the

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Llah. Most of Ibn Abitur's poems remain unpublished. In 2021, Dr. Yehoshua Granat published a monograph on Psalms and the poetry of Ibn Abitur, which includes an edition of 34 poetic compositions by Ibn Abitur, some of them massive works of hundreds of lines. Even this just begins to scratch the surface of publishing Ibn Abitur's poems, which number over a thousand.Yehoshua Granat, ''Psalms Recalled: Scriptural Psalms in the Liturgical Poetry of Yoseph Ibn Abitur'' (Hebrew: אזכרה מזמור: מזמורי תהילים בפיוטי יוסף אבן אביתור), Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2021.

References

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abitur, Joseph Ibn Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Bible commentators Jewish poets 10th-century rabbis in al-Andalus 11th-century rabbis in al-Andalus People from Mérida, Spain Jewish liturgical poets