Meir (Moses Meir) ben Ephraim of Padua
MEIR (Moses Meir) BEN EPHRAIM OF PADUA
MEIR (Moses Meir) BEN EPHRAIM OF PADUA (d. 1583), scribe, printer, and teacher in Mantua. Meir was presumably born in Padua but lived in Mantua, where he served in various communal capacities. Meir's exceptional talent and his skill as a scribe were attested to by his disciple, Abraham *Portaleone. Meir noted down detailed descriptions of all 43 Torah scrolls written by him. Questions addressed to his close friend, Moses b. Abraham *Provencal, the rabbi of Mantua, indicate Meir's rabbinical scholarship, as does his treatise on the diacritical marks of the Torah, Rimzei ha-Tagim. In 1556 Meir founded a printing establishment at Mantua, in collaboration with Jacob b. Naphtali of Garolo (d. c. 1570), and his considerable contribution to the printing of Hebrew books included the first edition of the Zohar (1558–60).
bibliography:
D.W. Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1909), 323–33; Kaufmann, in: jqr, 11 (1899), 266–90; S. Simonsohn, Toledot ha-Yehudim be-Dukkasut Mantovah, 2 (1964), 531f.