Abraham ben Mordecai Ha-Levi
ABRAHAM BEN MORDECAI HA-LEVI
ABRAHAM BEN MORDECAI HA-LEVI (late 17th century), Egyptian rabbi and author. In 1684 Abraham succeeded his father as head of the Egyptian rabbinate. His son-in-law, the physician Ḥayyim b. Moses Tawil, published a collection of Abraham's responsa (arranged in the order of the four Turim) and a treatise on divorce entitled Ginnat Veradim (Constantinople, 1716–17) and Ya'ir Netiv (1718), respectively. In Venice, Abraham printed his father's responsa Darkhei No'am (1697–98), adding to it his own treatise on circumcision which involved him in a halakhic controversy with his contemporaries. He annulled the ban on reading Peri Hadash by *Hezekiah Da Silva – imposed by Egyptian rabbis in the previous generation. A collection of brief decisions and rules entitled Gan ha-Melekh was printed at the end of Ginnat Veradim. His remaining works, consisting of Bible commentaries, sermons, and eulogies, have remained in manuscript.
bibliography:
Michael, Or, no. 177; S.M. Chones, Toledot ha-Posekim (1929), 141; S. Rosanes, Divrei Yemei Yisrael be-Togarmah, 4 (1935), 379–81; Heilperin, in Zion, 1 (1936), 84, n. 2; Sonne, ibid., 252–5.
[Yehoshua Horowitz]