Leonte (Judah) ben Moses

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LEONTE (Judah) BEN MOSES

LEONTE (Judah ) BEN MOSES (12th century), liturgical poet. Leonte, who lived in Rome, is most probably identical with the scholar Judah b. Moses who, in the name of the Roman community, addressed an inquiry to *Judah b. Kalonymus and "the sages of Mainz" (Zedekiah Anav, Shibbolei ha-Leket, ed. S. Buber (1886), introd. 11 n. 87). A Leon of Rome in 1210 is mentioned in A. *Zacuto's Yuḥasin (ed. by H. Filipowski (1857), 221); *Joseph ibn Ẓaddik (Neubauer, Chronicles, 1 (1887), 94) mentions a Leon of Rome in the year 1216. Leonte is named as the author of about ten seliḥot, which, though formerly common in the Roman ritual, remained nevertheless in manuscript. In the acrostic he signs his name in the Hebrew form, Judah, or in the Romanic form, Leonte, occasionally adding עני or ענו; he presumably belonged to the Roman-Jewish family *Anav.

bibliography:

Davidson, Oẓar, 4 (1933), 431, s.v.Lionti b. Moshe; Landshuth, Ammudei, 157f.; Vogelstein-Rieger, 1 (1896), 227, 372f.; Zunz, Lit Poesie, 314f.; Schirmann, Italiah, 80–81.