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Menahem (ben-Zerach) of Estella

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Menahem (Ben-Zerach) Of Estella

a Jewish savant, was born in 1306 at Estella, whither his father had fled after the expulsion of the Jews from France. In 1328, six years after his marriage to the daughter of Benjamin Abiz, the rabbi of Estella, the Navarrese massacre occurred, in which his father, mother, and four younger brothers were murdered, while he himself, severely wounded, was left for dead. A soldier riding by, late in the night, heard him groan, and lifted the unfortunate Jew upon his horse, bound up his wounds, clothed him, and secured a physician's care for him. Thus preserved, Menahem repaired to Toledo, and studied the Talmud for two years. Thence he went to Alcala, where he joined R. Joshua Abalesh in his studies.: Upon the death of the latter in 1350, Menahem succeeded as ruler of the college, and held this place till 1368. Having lost all his property during the civil war, Don Samuel Abarbanel, of Seville, liberally supplied him during the remainder of his life, which he spent at Toledo, where he died in 1374. To this benefactor he dedicated his book on Jewish rites and ceremonies, in 327 chapters, entitled Provision for the Way, לְאָרְחָא צֵרָה לִדֶּרֶךְ וּזְוָדָא (Ferrara, 1554). Comp. Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden (Leipsic, 1873), 7:312; Jost, Gesch. d. Judenthums u. s. Sekten,. 3:86; Zunz, Zur Gesch. u. Literatur (Berlin, .1845), p. 415; Dessauer, Gesch. d. Israeliten (Breslau, 1870), p. 323 sq.; First, Bibl. Judaica, 2:353; Lindo, History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal (London, 1848), p. 157 sq.; Finn, Sephardim, or the History of the Jews in Spain and Portugal (London, 1841), p. 307; Etheridge, Introd, to Hebr. Literature, p. .265; Manasseh ben-Israel, The Conciliator, transl. by E. H. Lindo (London, 1842), p. xxx; Zunz, Literaturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie (Berlin, 1865), p. 506. (B. P.)