Levy-Bacrat, Abraham ben Solomon
LEVY-BACRAT, ABRAHAM BEN SOLOMON
LEVY-BACRAT, ABRAHAM BEN SOLOMON (late 15th–16th century), poet of Spanish origin. Bacrat took refuge in North Africa in 1492. In his native town of Malaga he had been a disciple of Judah Gabbai, to whom he dedicated several poems. At first he settled in *Tlemcen, together with Abraham *Benzamero, Abraham *Gavison, and Moses *Alashkar. He wrote an elegy on the Spanish Expulsion. His major work, a supercommentary on Rashi, is called Sefer ha-Zikkaron ("Book of the Memory") and was completed in 1507 in Tunis, where he became a close friend of Abraham *Zacuto. This work was known from its copies but it remained in manuscript until its publication in Leghorn in 1845. The author's introduction contains an instructive autobiography which contains information on Bacrat's tribulations after the Spanish Expulsion.
bibliography:
D. Cazès, Notes bibliographiques sur la littérature juive-tunisienne (1893), 234–6; H.H. Ben-Sasson, in: Tarbiz, 31 (1962), 59–71; Hirschberg, Afrikah, 1 (1965), 300, 325.
[David Corcos]