ASHKENAZI, JUDAH BEN JOSEPH

ASHKENAZI, JUDAH BEN JOSEPH (1730?–1791), rabbi and rosh yeshivah of Smyrna. Ashkenazi was a judge in matters of tax assessment and taught Talmud and codes in the city's yeshivot. Moses b. Joshua Soncino later financed the establishment of a yeshivah (Maḥazikei ha-Torah) for him. Ashkenazi's foremost pupil was Raphael Isaac Mayo, who later became chief rabbi of Smyrna. Another pupil, Ḥayyim Joshua Soncino, son of the yeshivah's founder, financed the publication of his teacher's first work. Ashkenazi wrote many works which were edited posthumously by his son, Raphael. Maḥaneh Ye'udah (Salonika, 1793) was originally intended as a commentary on the talmudic tractate Bava Batra but since it is essentially a clarification of the relevant halakhah in *Jacob b. Asher's Tur, it was rearranged and edited by his son as a commentary to the Tur Ḥoshen Mishpat. Among his other works are Yad Ye'udah (1816), on the tractate Shevu'ot, etc.; Gevul Ye'udah (1821), on tractate Gittin, etc.; Kehal Ye'udah (1825), on Yoreh De'ah, including a commentary to tractate Beẓah; Seridei Ye'udah (1831), homilies delivered at weddings, and eulogies, published by his grandson Abraham b. Raphael. Ashkenazi's first name appears in the title of all his works as "Ye'udah" in accordance with the pious custom of not writing the name as it is spelled since it contains the letters of the Tetragrammaton.

bibliography:

R. Ashkenazi, Mareh Einayim (1816), 222a–b; idem, Mareh ha-Gadol, 2 (1831), 29a; R.I. Mayo, Pe'at Yam (1832), 23a; Azulai, 1 (1852), 38 no. 48.