Mordecai Samuel ben Benzion Aryeh Ghirondi (; October 1799 – January 4, 1852) was an Italian Jewish author and Chief Rabbi of

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

Biography

Mordecai Samuel Ghirondi was born into a rabbinic family in

. He studied at the rabbinical college of Padua, where he was later appointed professor of theology (1824). In 1829 he was appointed assistant rabbi of Padua; two years later he became chief rabbi. He was a recognized authority in rabbinics, and was consulted by rabbis of several communities. Ghirondi was an avid

bibliophile Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. A bibliophile or bookworm is an individual who loves and frequently reads and/or collects books. Profile The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often ama ...

, and parts of his book collection are now in the Montefiore Library in

Jews' College The London School of Jewish Studies (commonly known as LSJS, originally founded as Jews' College) is a London-based organisation providing adult educational courses and training to the wider Jewish community. Since 2012 LSJS also offers rabbinic ...

in London and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Among his publications were ''Tokho ratzuf ahavah'', a work on ethics produced when he was only sixteen years old (Pisa, 1818), and ''Ma'amar keriyyat ha-borot'', a treatise on artesian

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

s, showing references to them in the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

(printed in

I. S. Reggio Isaac Samuel Reggio (YaShaR) (Hebrew: , ) (15 August 1784 – 29 August 1855) was an Austro-Italian scholar and rabbi. He was born and died in Gorizia. Reggio studied Hebrew and rabbinics under his father, Abraham Vita, later rabbi of Gorizia, acq ...

's ''Iggerot yosher'', Vienna, 1834). His most important work, ''Toledot gedole Yisrael'', is a biographical and bibliographical dictionary of Italian rabbis and secular scholars. Ghirondi had in his possession

Graziadio Nepi Graziadio (Hananel) Nepi (; 1759 – January 18, 1836), also known by the acronym Ḥen (), was an Italian rabbi, Kabbalist, and physician. Biography Graziadio Nepi studied at Ferrara for twelve years under Rabbi and subsequently was himself th ...

's biographical work entitled ''Zekher tzaddikim''; to this he added 831 numbers of his own, two-thirds of which are not found in any earlier biographical dictionary. The combined work was published by Ephraim Raphael Ghirondi, the author's son: Nepi's and Ghirondi's were printed on opposite pages (Trieste, 1853). The latter also wrote ''Kevutzat kesef'', responsa, in two parts, and ''Likkute shoshannim'', novellæ, in two volumes (both unpublished). Letters of Ghirondi's on different subjects were published in ''Kerem Ḥemed'' (ii. 52; iii. 88 et seq.; iv. 13).

References

External links

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Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghirondi, Mordecai 1799 births 1852 deaths Rabbis from Padua 19th-century Italian rabbis