SID (Sidilyo; Sirilyo), SAMUEL IBN

SID (Sidilyo; Sirilyo), SAMUEL IBN (c. 1530), rabbi in *Egypt. Samuel studied under Isaac de *Leon in his native Toledo where he married the daughter of Isaac *Aboab. After the Expulsion from *Spain in 1492 Samuel arrived in Egypt, where he was a member of the bet din of Isaac Shulal. Before 1509 he signed, together with the other members of the bet din, a legal decision concerning the exemption of scholars from the payment of taxes (Keter Torah of R. Samuel de *Avila, Amsterdam, 1725, p. 1b). He was referred to as Ba'al Nes ("miracle worker"); according to local tradition, when the Egyptian governor, Aḥmed Pasha, rebelled against the Turkish sultan and persecuted the Jews in 1524, Samuel offered up prayers in his synagogue which resulted in the downfall of the governor. In memory of this event it became known after him as the Sidilyo Synagogue.

Samuel became famous for his small and important work Kelalei Shemu'el, which was written in 1522 and published in the book Tummat Yesharim (Venice, 1622). This was a handbook for the study of the Talmud, wherein the "rules" of the Talmud are presented in alphabetical order. In this work Samuel also describes the method of study used in the Spanish yeshivot. Parts of Samuel's commentary on Avot were published in the Midrash Shemu'el of Samuel b. Isaac *Uceda.

bibliography:

E. Capsali, Likkutim Shonim mi-Sefer de-Vei Eliyahu, ed. by M. Lattes (1869), 106–7; Neubauer, Chronicles, 1 (1887), 140, 145, 152, 159, 161f.; Ashtor, Toledot, 2 (1951), 477–81; Dimitrovsky, in: Sefunot, 7 (1963), 43, 84–88, 90, 92, 95; Hirschberg, in: Bar Ilan Sefer ha-Shanah, 4–5 (1967), 445–6.

[Abraham David]