Shemariah Catarivas was a

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 cente ...

ic writer of the 18th century. He was originally from

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Fo ...

, and went to

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

in 1750 as alms-collector, settling there after a sojourn in

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...

. He gained a reputation for scholarship and piety. Catarivas was an intimate friend of Abraham Cohen Baberrebi, one of the oldest rabbis of Tunis, whose grandson published Catarivas's ''Zeker Tzaddiq'' (Memory of the Just), a commentary on the first two orders of the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...

, together with the ''Abraham Yagel'' of Abraham Cohen (Leghorn, 1843). Several of the

responsa ''Responsa'' (plural of Latin , 'answer') comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them. In the modern era, the term is used to describe decisions and rulings made by scholars i ...

of Catarivas are contained in the ''Yerek Ya'aqob'' of

Jacob ben Abraham Faitusi Jacob ben Abraham Faitusi (died July 1812 in Algiers) was a Tunisian Jewish scholar. He settled in the later part of his life at Jerusalem, whence he was sent as a collector of alms to Italy and Algeria. Faitusi was the author of ''Berit Ya'aqob'' ...

, Leghorn, 1842.

Bibliography

* David Cazès, ''Notes Bibliographiques sur la Littérature Juive Tunisienne'', etc., pp. 90 ''et seq.'', 193, Paris, 1889 * Jewish writers 18th-century Tunisian Jews Year of death unknown Year of birth unknown Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire Immigrants to Tunisia {{judaism-bio-stub