Abbas (Abenabez, Abenavez), Moses ben Samuel

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ABBAS (Abenabez, Abenavez), MOSES BEN SAMUEL

ABBAS (Abenabez, Abenavez), MOSES BEN SAMUEL (c. 1350–c. 1420), talmudist, poet, and communal leader in Saragossa, Spain. Moses was born in Tudela and studied under *Solomon b. Ḥasdai, settling in Saragossa after 1370. He was a close friend of the poet Solomon b. Meshullam *da Piera, with whom he corresponded in Hebrew and Spanish, and some of his poems have been included in collections of the latter's works. Moses was repeatedly elected to the office of muqaddam, or administrative officer, of the Saragossa community between 1380 and 1420, representing it at court for the first time in 1389. After the massacres of 1391 Moses did much to relieve the survivors. He represented Saragossa at the disputation of *Tortosa (1413–14).

bibliography:

Baer, Spain, index s.v. Moses abn Abez; Baer, Urkunden, index; M. Serrano y Sanz, Orígenes de la dominación Española en América (1918), 453 ff.; A. Pacios López, La Disputa de Tortosa, 1 (1957), index; S. ben Meshullam Dapiera, Divan, ed. by S. Bernstein, 1 (1943), xi, 38–40; S. ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah, ed. by E. Shoḥat (1947), 95; A.M. Habermann, in: Oẓar Yehudei Sefarad, 7 (1964), 24–42.