Yehuda Ha-Cohen Ibn Susan
Yehuda Ha-Cohen Ibn Susan | |
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Yehuda Ha-Cohen Ibn Susan (also known as Yehuda Ha-Cohen;Hebrew: יהודה הכהן אבן סוסאן; 12th century) was a rabbi and dayan in the city of Fez in Morocco. According to some sources he was the rabbi of Maimonides. He was killed on the Kiddush Hashem around 1165.
Biography
Rabbi Yehuda HaCohen Ibn Susan was a Dayan in Fez, Morocco and was known for his genius in Torah wisdom and Chassidut. His ancestors came to Fez from Babylon. Rabbi Saadia Ibn Danan writes that after the death of Rabbi Joseph ibn Migash in 1141, the yeshivot in Spain dwindled, and Rabbi Maimon the Dayan, the father of Maimonides, heard about the greatness of Ibn Susan and traveled to him from Cordoba with his two sons: Moshe - Maimonides, and his brother David, and they studied with him for a period not exceeding five years.
Around 1165 he was required by the Almohad Caliphate regime to convert to Islam, and when he refused, was killed for Kiddush Hashem. According to Ibn Danan, this event was the reason for the Maimonides' departure from Morocco.
Rabbi Saadia's descriptions correspond to another source in a manuscript attributed to a descendant of Maimonides' generation and are accepted by most historians.[1] Nevertheless, some scholars doubt this.[2]
References
- ^ Revue des Études Juives, Volume 4 Page 147; Haim Zeev Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, Page 350 ,1903-1976
- ^ Joel Kramer, הרמב"ם - ביוגרפיה, p. 91 and note 287 (2019).
External links
- Saadia Ibn Danan, Article on the Order of Generations (in Hebrew) HebrewBooks
- Maimonides entry in Jewish Encyclopedia
- Maimonides entry in the Encyclopædia Britannica
- Maimonides entry in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition
- Solomon Zeitlin, "MAIMONIDES", The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 37, pp 65 - 66.