Menahem ben Michael ben Joseph
MENAHEM BEN MICHAEL BEN JOSEPH
MENAHEM BEN MICHAEL BEN JOSEPH , medieval Karaite scholar. He was author of a Hebrew polemical epistle in verse addressed to "Akylas the Proselyte, in care of Saadiah the Rabbanite," dealing with the laws of slaughtering. S.P. *Pinsker, who first published the poem, assumed that it was directed against *Saadiah Gaon and that therefore the author must have lived in the first half of the tenth century. His vocabulary, however, is that of a Byzantine Karaite of a later date, presumably the 12th century, and he is very likely identical with Menahem b. Michael, the author of several hymns included in the Karaite liturgy.
bibliography:
S. Pinsker, Likkutei Kadmoniyyot (1860), index, s.v.Menaḥem Giẓani ha-Goleh; S. Poznański, Karaite Literary Opponents of Saadiah Gaon (1908), 11–12.
[Leon Nemoy]