Johanan ben Joshua Ha-Kohen
JOHANAN BEN JOSHUA HA-KOHEN
JOHANAN BEN JOSHUA HA-KOHEN (c. ninth or tenth century), liturgical poet. *Zunz assumed, with reservations, that Johanan, one of the principal representatives of the older piyyut, lived in the period after Eleazar *Kallir, and was of Greek extraction. The discovery of Johanan's poems among the Genizah fragments in Cairo, and the new light on synagogal poetry that has been acquired over the past century indicate that Johanan lived in Palestine, and that although it is difficult to determine his dates he may have lived before the Muslim conquest. Johanan composed three lengthy piyyutim: (1) a kerovah for Shavuot (found in a number of manuscripts of the Greek ritual); (2) a kerovah for Musaf of the Day of Atonement (printed in two different versions in the MaḥzorRomania (see *Romaniot and Roman rituals); (3) an *Avodah for the day of Atonement (which figures in the Roman ritual). Other piyyutim by Johanan are found in manuscript form, notably in the Genizah texts.
bibliography:
Dukes, Poesie, 49, 143; Zunz, Poesie, 81, 108; Zunz, Ritus, 81f.; Zunz, Lit Poesie, 98–100; Landshuth, Ammudei, 82f.; I. Elbogen, Studien zur Geschichte des Juedischen Gottesdienstes (1907), 84f.; Davidson, Oẓar, 4 (1933), 398; M. Zulay, in: YMḤSI, 2 (1936), 324–5, 347, 358; 5 (1939), 155–7. add. bibliography: E. Fleischer, Hebrew Liturgcal Poetry in the Middle Ages (1975), 118 (Heb.).
[Jefim (Hayyim) Schirmann]