MOSES ISRAEL:

By: Gotthard Deutsch

Oriental rabbi; born at Jerusalem in the latter half of the seventeenth century; died at Alexandria about 1740. Sent out to collect alms for the poor of Safed (c. 1710), he visited Rhodes, where the congregation elected him rabbi (1715), and urged him to promise that he would never leave the position. After he had ministered there for twelve years, such serious troubles arose that Moses Israel obtained from the rabbinate of Constantinople release from his vow ("Mas'at Mosheh," part i., Yoreh De'ah, No. 8), left Rhodes, and traveled through Italy, Holland, and other countries, in the interest of the poor of Palestine. Again, at Alexandria, on his way back, he was elected rabbi; there he seems to have lived for the remainder of his life. He wrote numerous responsa, two collections of which, under the title "Mas'at Mosheh," he published at Constantinople (1734-35), while a third volume was published there posthumously by his son Abraham (1742). Of his sons, two—Abraham, author of "Amarot Ṭehorot," notes on Ṭur Eben ha-'Ezer (Leghorn, 1786), and Elijah, author of "Ḳol Eliyahu," responsa (ib. 1792), and of numerous other works—were rabbis in Alexandria, the latter from 1773 to 1784. Elijah was succeeded by his nephew Moses ben Abraham Israel (1784-1802), and the latter by his cousin Jedidiah ben Elijah Israel (1802-27).

D.