Benveniste, Isaac ben Joseph

views updated

BENVENISTE, ISAAC BEN JOSEPH

BENVENISTE, ISAAC BEN JOSEPH (d. c. 1224), physician to James I of Aragon and nasi of Aragonese Jewry. He was the leading figure in the representative congresses of the Jewish communities convened at Montpellier and Saint-Gilles in 1214 and 1215 to consider protective measures in view of the approaching *Lateran Council. Subsequently he secured for the Aragonese communities a temporary suspension of the obligation to wear the Jewish *badge. In 1220, he received from Pope Honorius iii a warm letter of recommendation to the king and the archbishop of Tarragona notwithstanding Isaac's "erroneous" views in matters of religion.

bibliography:

Neuman, Spain, index; Solomon ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah, ed. by A. Shochat (1947), 147, 223; S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews (19662), index.

[Cecil Roth]