Garmison, Samuel

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GARMISON, SAMUEL

GARMISON, SAMUEL (17th century), scholar and prolific author. Born in Salonika, Samuel immigrated to Jerusalem. In about 1647 he traveled as an emissary of Jerusalem apparently to Italy but was taken captive during the journey by Maltese pirates, from whom he was ransomed by a society for the redemption of captives centered in Venice. He was rabbi in Malta until c. 1660. Subsequently he seems to have officiated in Jerusalem. In 1666 he attacked Shabbetai Ẓevi in a sermon which is included in his Imrei No'am. Only one of his works has been published: Mishpetei Ẓedek (1945), responsa on the Shulḥan Arukh, Arba'ah Turim and Beit Yosef. Among others still in manuscript are Kevod Ḥakhamim, sermons on the Bible; Imrei No'am, sermons on the Pentateuch; Imrei Tevunah ve-Imrei Kodesh, on the Talmud and codes; a commentary on the Mishnah; novellae to the tractates Ḥullin, Bekhorot, Zera'im, Tohorot, and Berakhot; works on the tractates Beẓah, Kiddushin, and Ḥullin.

bibliography:

Benayahu, in: Scritti… S. Mayer (1956), 25–31 (Heb. part); M.D. Gaon, Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1938), 208; Scholem, Shabbetai Ẓevi, 1 (1957), 152, 156, 201, 290; Frumkin-Rivlin, 2 (1928), 53f.

[Simon Marcus]