Ze'evi, Israel ben Azariah

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ZE'EVI, ISRAEL BEN AZARIAH

ZE'EVI, ISRAEL BEN AZARIAH (17th century), rabbi and emissary. Born in Salonika, Ze'evi settled in *Jerusalem, where he suffered under the harsh regime of the Turkish governor Ibn Faruk. In a halakhic correspondence with Joseph b. Moses *Trani (later of *Safed and then Constantinople), he described the sufferings of the Jerusalem community, in particular their financial plight (Responsa Maharit 2, Ḥoshen Mishpat, no. 60). Ze'evi was one of the signatories of a 1646 takkanah (regulation) exempting scholars from taxes. He also wrote a number of approbations (* haskamot) and twice undertook missions on behalf of the Jerusalem community, visiting *Turkey and the Balkan countries. His great-grandson, israel b. benjamin ze'evi (d. 1731), was rabbi of *Hebron for about 30 years and head of a yeshivah founded by the wealthy Abraham Pereira of Amsterdam, and visited Constantinople in 1685 as an emissary of *Hebron. He was the author of Orim Gedolim (Smyrna, 1758), consisting of talmudic novellae, sermons, and responsa.

bibliography:

Frumkin-Rivlin, 2 (1928), 14f.; E. Rivlin (ed.), Ḥorvot Yerushalayim (1928), 41, 45f.; Yaari, Sheluḥei, 266–7.

[Abraham David]