The Rabbi Prof. Meir Benayahu's Collection

Item

Country

IL

Name of institution (English)

Private Collection

Reference number

Ms. O

Ms. SP

Type of reference number

Archival reference number

Title (official language of the state)

The Rabbi Prof. Meir Benayahu's Collection

Language of title

eng

Creator / accumulator

Rabbi Prof. Meir Benayahu

Date note

12th century/20th century

Language(s)

heb

ita

Extent

c. 2,660 storage units

Type of material

Textual Material

Physical condition

Good

Scope and content

This collection comprises manuscripts, ketubot, and Hebrew fragments gathered by Rabbi Prof. Meir Benayahu. It contains documents from a wide range of subjects and disciplines, such as astrology, biology, literature, mathematics, Hebrew language, Hebrew poetry, Jewish astronomy, Jewish ethics, Jewish law, and Jewish magic, among many others. The collection includes various manuscripts of Sephardic origin, mainly related to mysticism and religious subjects.
There are some of particular interest in the collection's large amount of ketubot.
The first was produced in Hamburg and is dated 1686. It celebrates the union of Moshe Oróbio de Castro and Sarah, daughter of Jacob Abash.
Another ketubah records the marriage of Yosef ben Moshe and Virtudiosa Bat Baruch. It is written in Sephardic script and was produced in Pisa in 1749.
There is also a small fragment of a ketubah produced in London in the 18th century. The document established the marriage of Yom-Tov Bondi Azulai and Katrina Moses. The witnesses were Yitzchak Almosnino and David ben Aharon de Sola.

Administrative / Biographical history

Rabbi Prof. Meir Benayahu was a prolific Jewish scholar and manuscript collector. He was born in 1926 to Victoria and Isaac Nissim (1896-1981), a Baghdadi scholar who had immigrated with his wife to Israel in 1925 and served as Rishon le-Tzion, Chief Rabbi of Israel, from 1955 to 1972. Benayahu published extensively on subjects relating to early modern Jewish history, and his legacy includes a biography of Isaac Luria (1534-1572) and studies on the 18th-century cabalists Moses Hayyim Luzzatto (1707-47) and Hayyim Joseph David Azulai (1724-1806), among others.
Together with Israel's second president, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (1884-1963), Benayahu founded the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities of the East, having also collaborated to acquire its remarkable library. The Ben-Zvi Institute academic journal, Sefunot, was jointly edited by Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Benayahu until its 7th edition; from then on, the latter was the sole editor. Furthermore, he established the Yad Ha-Rav Yitzhak Nissim, an institution devoted to disseminating research on the history of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. He also created the journal Assufot, which published several of his books and articles.
Benayahu passed away in Jerusalem on April 26, 2009.

Sources:

Encyclopaedia Judaica: "Benayahu, Meir"

HeHaCham HaYomi: "Hacham Yitzhak Nissim"

Goldish, Matt. “Meir Benayahu (1924–2009) In Memoriam.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 100, no. 4 (2010): 657–60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25781009.

Access points: locations

Hamburg (Germany)

Livorno (Italy)

London (United Kingdom)

Pisa (Italy)

Access points: persons, families

Abash, Jacob

Adret, Solomon ben Abraham

Alfasi, Isaac ben Jacob

Almosnino, Yitzchak

Azulai, Yom-Tov Bondi

Baruch, Virtudiosa Bat

Canpanton, Judah ben Solomon

Maimon, Mosheh ben (Maimonides)

Moses, Katrina

Moshe, Yosef ben

Oróbio de Castro, Moshe

Sola, David ben Aharon de

Yitzhaki, Shlomo (Rashi)

Access points: subject terms

Sephardim in Italy

Sephardim in Germany

Sephardim in Great Britain

Ketubot

17th century

18th century

Access points: document types

Circumcisions, ketubot and burials

Personal records

Access, restrictions

Digitized manuscripts are available at:

https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/manuscripts/hebrew-manuscripts

Existence and location of copies

כתיב (Ktiv)

Author of the description

Joana Rodrigues, 2023

Item sets

WSD Roadmap

WSD Roadmap finais

WSD Roadmap Outros