Ḥoẓin, Ẓedakah ben Saadiah
ḤOẒIN, ẒEDAKAH BEN SAADIAH
ḤOẒIN, ẒEDAKAH BEN SAADIAH (1699–1773), Baghdad rabbi and talmudist. Ḥoẓin was born in Syria, and in 1743 was appointed rabbi of Baghdad, where he did much to spread the study of Torah. He introduced many regulations which were adopted by the Jews of Iraq, among them the ruling that pregnant and nursing women are not to fast on Tishah be-Av because of the heat generally prevailing at that time of the year. He left many books in manuscript, among them Ẓedakah u-Mishpat, consisting of hundreds of responsa on all aspects of Jewish law, some of which were published in 1926 with an introduction and notes by Isaac *Nissim; responsa Ma'aseh Ẓedakah and Me'il Ẓedakah; an extensive work on Maimonides, the Tur, and the Beit Yosef; and Avodat ha-Ẓedakah, homiletical comments on the Torah. Some of Ẓedakah's novellae are quoted in the books of his disciples. Ẓedakah died in Baghdad during a plague. His son, Moses, wrote piyyutim, many of which gained wide circulation in Iraq and adjacent countries. Among his piyyutim is the well-known Melekh Go'elu-Moshi'a, printed in many Passover Haggadot, prayer books, and collections of piyyutim.
bibliography:
Assaf, in: Zion Me'assef, 6 (1934), 97, 99–101; A. Ben-Jacob, Yehudei Bavel (1965), index; D. Sassoon, A History of the Jews in Baghdad (1949), 113–20.
[Abraham Ben-Yaacob]