AMARILLO, SOLOMON BEN JOSEPH

AMARILLO, SOLOMON BEN JOSEPH (1645–1721), Salonikan halakhic authority and preacher, father of Aaron and Ḥayyim *Amarillo. While still a youth, he wrote responsa, and in 1666, he began to preach in various Salonikan congregations. On the death of his teacher, Isaac b. Menahem ibn Ḥabib (before 1685), Amarillo was appointed to replace him until Ibn Ḥabib's son became old enough to assume the position. Amarillo was an outstanding halakhist. Communities from all parts of Turkey turned to him with their problems. In 1691, following the death of Aaron ha-Cohen *Peraḥyah, he was appointed one of the three chief rabbis of Salonika. In 1716 his bet ha-midrash was in the old Sicilian synagogue. He was the author of Penei Shelomo (Salonika, 1717), sermons, mainly eulogies, to which are appended notes on the Pentateuch, and Kerem Shelomo (Salonika, 1719), responsa. Some of his responsa under the title Olelot ha-Kerem were published by his son, Ḥayyim Moses, at the end of the Torat Ḥayyim, pt. 3 (Salonika, 1722) of Ḥayyim Shabbetai and also at the end of the responsa Devar Moshe, pt. 2 (Salonika, 1743) of his son Ḥayyim Moses. In the introduction to Kerem Shelomo, his son Ḥayyim Moses refers to his father's novellae on the Ḥoshen Mishpat.

bibliography:

D.A. Pipano, Shalshelet Rabbanei Saloniki ve-Rabbanei Sofia (1925), 6–7a; Rosanes, Togarmah, 4 (1935), 220–3; I.S. Emmanuel, Maẓẓevot Saloniki, 2 (1968), nos. 1218, 1499, 1593.