ḤAZZAN, ISRAEL MOSES BEN ELIEZER

ḤAZZAN, ISRAEL MOSES BEN ELIEZER (1808–1863), rabbi and author. Ḥazzan was born in Smyrna, and in 1811 went with his father to *Jerusalem, where he studied in the yeshivah of his grandfather Joseph Raphael *Ḥazzan. In 1842 Israel was appointed a member of the bet din in Jerusalem and in 1844 journeyed to London as an emissary of the Jerusalem community. During his stay in London he wrote a pamphlet, Divrei Shalom ve-Emet, against a pamphlet issued by the recently established Reform movement in England; and another pamphlet against the decisions of the Rabbinical Synod at Brunswick under the title Kinat Ẓiyyon (Amsterdam, 1846). The same year he joined a group established for the purpose of fighting the Reform movement. He later went to Rome, where he was appointed rabbi (1847–54), and interceded on behalf of the Jews of Italy in the court of Pope Pius ix. From Rome he proceeded to Corfu, where he was rabbi for five years. He was then invited to *Alexandria, serving as rabbi and av bet din there until the end of 1862. He then settled in *Haifa but died in *Beirut, where he had gone on account of ill-health. His remains were taken for burial to Sidon since it was regarded as being within the borders of Ereẓ Israel. Ḥazzan also wrote Naḥalah le-Yisrael (Vienna, 1851), on the obligation of deciding laws of inheritance according to Torah; Kedushat Yom Tov (ibid., 1855), against the attempt in Italy to abolish the second day of the festivals; and She'-erit ha-Naḥalah (Alexandria, 1862), a dispute between a merchant and two emissaries of Ereẓ Israel. It was later combined with the Naḥalah le-Yisrael (1862) but is part of a work Neẓaḥ Yisrael, which has remained in manuscript and is an attack on the Vikku'aḥ al Ḥokhmat ha-Kabbalah of S.D. *Luzzatto. Other works are Iyyei 'ha-Yam, in two parts (pt. 1 Leghorn, 1869; pt. 2 is still in manuscript), a commentary on the responsa of the geonim, and Kerakh shel Romi (Leghorn, 1876), responsa. Still in manuscript are Ḥoker Lev, responsa, and Yismaḥ Lev, sermons preached in Jerusalem and during his activity as an emissary.

bibliography:

Frumkin-Rivlin, 3 (1929), 303; A. Galanté, Les Juifs d'Izmir (1937), 74f.; M.D. Gaon, Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1938), 251f.; Yaari, Sheluhei, 176f., 729–32.

[Simon Marcus]