Ashkenazi, Mordecai ben Isaac Kohen

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ASHKENAZI, MORDECAI BEN ISAAC KOHEN

ASHKENAZI, MORDECAI BEN ISAAC KOHEN (late 16th–early 17th century), rabbi and preacher in Syria. His major work Rosh Mor Deror (Venice, 1615), written in 1613, was influenced by his teacher and father-in-law, R. Samuel *Laniado. A collection of homilies on the Torah readings, written in the classical tradition of Jewish preaching, it treats the redemption, God's revenge on the Gentiles, and Israel's blessed condition after the coming of the Messiah. While Ashkenazi sometimes employed kabbalistic terms in his preaching, they are generally based directly on the Midrash.

bibliography:

D.Z. Laniado, Li-Kedoshim asher ba-Areẓ (1952), 46 ff. (second pagination).

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