JOSEPH BEN SAMUEL BEN ISAAC HA-MASHBIR

JOSEPH BEN SAMUEL BEN ISAAC HA-MASHBIR (Rodi ; d. 1700), Karaite author and scholar. Born in Derazhnya, Volhynia, Joseph was a pupil of Nisan Kukizow and a teacher of his son Mordechai b. Nisan *Kukizow. He helped Mordechai to answer the questions on the Karaites received from the Leiden professor Jacob Trigland (incorporated in Dod Mordechai). About 1670 Joseph moved from Derazhnya to *Halicz, where his innovations brought the Galician Karaites into closer contact with those of the Crimea. This earned him the name "ha-Mashbir" ("provider of bread"; cf. Gen. 42:6). He endeavored to raise the educational level of Halicz's Karaites and established a number of regulations that were observed also by following generations of that community.

He was an author of several treatises. Most of them are known only by title: Ner Ḥokhmah (Ms. jts, ny), a commentary on the prayer book that was never finished; Porat Yosef or Tiferet Yosef, a work on Hebrew grammar (Mss. Oxford, Strasbourg); Er ve-Onah; Perush al Asarah Ikkarim (Ms. Strasbourg); Shever Yosef, an exegetical work, written in the form of questions and answers.

Fourteen of his seliḥot, prayers, and hymns are incorporated in the Karaite prayer book.

bibliography:

Fuerst, Karaeertum, 3 (1869), 86; R. Fahn, Le-Korot ha-Kara'im be-Galiẓyah (1910), 7–8; S. Poznański, in: zhb, 14 (1910), 95; Mann, Texts, 2 (1935), index, 1558.

[Isaak Dov Ber Markon /

Golda Akhiezer (2^nd ed.)]