Galante, Moses ben Mordecai (I)

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GALANTE, MOSES BEN MORDECAI (I)

GALANTE, MOSES BEN MORDECAI (I) (fl. 16th century), talmudist and kabbalist, one of the scholars ordained in Safed in the second half of the 16th century. Galante, who was born in Rome, was the brother of Abraham b. Mordecai *Galante. He was well acquainted with Ḥayyim *Vital's disciples. Galante was a disciple of Joseph *Caro who ordained him at the age of 22 (Responsa of Moses Galante, par. 124). His teacher in the field of Kabbalah was Moses *Cordovero. From 1580 he served as av bet din in Safed as the successor of Moses di Trani. He lived to be over 90 and apparently died after 1612. His works include: (1) responsa, only partly published (124 paragraphs) by his son Jedidiah, with the addition of his novellae (Venice, 1608); (2) Mafte'aḥ ha-Zohar, an index of the biblical passages interpreted in the Zohar (incomplete; Venice, 1566); and (3) Kohelet Ya'akov, a partly homiletic and partly kabbalistic commentary on Ecclesiastes (Safed, 1578).

Some of his sermons were published in the commentary on Ruth of Obadiah of Bertinoro (Venice, 1585).

bibliography:

G. Scholem, Bibliographia Kabbalistica (Ger. 1927), 195; Benayahu, in: Sinai, 35 (1954), 60; Tamar, in: Tarbiz, 27 (1958), 111–6.

[David Tamar]