Simcha of Rome was a
Jewish scholar and
rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...
who lived in
Rome in the last quarter of the 13th century . He was given an open letter by the community and sent out to find
Maimonides' ''
Commentary on the Mishnah'' and bring it back with him. He traveled through
Provence and
Catalonia without meeting with any success. At
Barcelona, he applied for assistance to
Solomon ben Adret
Shlomo ben Avraham ibn Aderet ( he, שלמה בן אברהם אבן אדרת or Solomon son of Abraham son of Aderet) (1235 – 1310) was a medieval rabbi, halakhist, and Talmudist. He is widely known as the Rashba (Hebrew: ), the Hebrew acronym ...
, who gave him a further letter of recommendation. After a prolonged search, he found in
Huesca the commentary on the first three orders, and shortly afterward the
Arabic original of the commentary on the first five orders. The latter was thereupon translated into Hebrew by several scholars between 1296 and 1298, and Simcha returned with it to Rome, after having encountered various dangers on his journey. He appears to have written some books also, although, with the exception of certain fragments in ''
Shibbole ha-Lekhet'', nothing written by him has been preserved.
Sources
Jacobs, Joseph and Schulim Ochser. "Simhah of Rome".''
Jewish Encyclopedia
''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...
''. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906; citing:
:*Vogelstein and Rieger, ''Gesch. der Juden in Rom'', pp. 154, 265.
{{authority control
13th-century Italian rabbis
Rabbis from Rome