Gedaliah ibn Yahya ben Joseph

Gedaliah ibn Yahya ( Gedaliah ibn Yahya ben Joseph, * 1526 in Imola, † 1587 in Alessandria ), was a Talmudist and Jewish chronicler in Italy.

Life

Gedaliah ibn Yahya was born in 1526 in Imola is an originally Jewish- Portuguese noble family. The Talmud He studied in various Italian cities, as in Ferrara at Jacob Finzi and in Bologna in Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno. In 1549 he settled in Rovigo. When Pope Pius V in 1569 the Jews expelled from his territory, Ibn Jachia wandered through various cities of Italy and settled about 1575 in Alessandria, where he served until his death as a rabbi.

Schalschelet ha - Kabbalah

Ibn Jachia compose more than twenty books, of which only three have survived, including the Schalschelet ha - Kabbalah ( " chain of tradition "). The Sefer Yahya, as this book is also called, first appeared in 1587 in Venice and learned subsequently numerous other issues. It is divided into three parts: The first part is a chronicle of the Jewish people from Adam to the 16th century. Ibn Jachia leaning in his retelling of the Tanakh, Midrash, Abraham ibn Daud and on Josippon and wove a different hagiographic stories. The second part contains, in no particular order a collection of " scientific " texts. In these treatises he treated topics such as magic, heaven and hell, ghosts, medicine, paper making and more. The third part is again designed as a chronicle. In this part he tries to make Jewish history with the history of other nations in relationship. In the final pages of the book the persecutions of the Jews in Spain and Portugal are particularly extensively discussed.