Israel, Yom Tov ben Elijah

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ISRAEL, YOM TOV BEN ELIJAH

ISRAEL, YOM TOV BEN ELIJAH (Sirizli ; d. 1890), rabbi and posek; born in *Jerusalem. His father was the rabbi of the Cairo community, and when he died in 1866, Yom Tov Israel took his place; before that he had held a high official position, as related by Jacob *Saphir in his description of Egypt in 1858. In 1884 Yom Tov Israel returned to Jerusalem and served in the rabbinate until his death. He was the author of Minhagei Miẓrayim (Jerusalem, 1873), on Jewish religious customs in Egypt, in the introduction to which he lists all the rabbis who had served in Egypt from the days of *Maimonides up to his own time. Some of his novellae on halakhah were published in the collection Torah mi-Ẓiyyon. He led the Jerusalem rabbis who in 1888 permitted plowing and sowing in the shemittah year (the Sabbatical Year); his decision on this issue was published in Devar ha-Shemittah (Jerusalem, 1888).

bibliography:

Frumkin-Rivlin, 3 (1929), 298; M.D. Gaon, Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1937), 295–6; J.M. Landau, Ha-Yehudim be-Miẓrayim (1967), index.

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Israel, Yom Tov ben Elijah

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