Notes
166 Brief Biographies 62. Moses ben Mordecai Basola (died 1560 in Safed). Member of a family of French extraction, Moses Basola was one of the outstanding sages in sixteenth-century Italy. Basola held rabbinic posts in several Italian cities: Fano, Pesaro, and Ancona, where he settled before 1540.341 In 1521-23 he journeyed to Eretz-Israel and kept a written diary of his experiences.342 In 1560, the year of his death at the age of eighty, Basola settled in Safed. Moses Basola was a frequent participant in the halakhic debates of his day. His halakhic decisions have been preserved in the works of his contemporaries. Also extant are some letters and sermons.343 63. Moses ben Mordecai Galante (died c. 1614). Halakhic authority (posek) and kabbalist active in Safed in the latter half of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; member of a family of Spanish expellees who had settled in Rome. In his youth, he immigrated to Eretz-Israel and settled in Safed, where he studied under Joseph Sagis. One of Joseph Caro's closest disciples, Galante sat in judgment on the Safed bet din, which was composed of Caro's disciples, and pursued kabbalistic studies under the tutelage of Moses Cordovero . Sometime between 1596 and 1599 Galante received ordination from Jacob Berab 11.344 Moses Galante headed the Provem;al yeshivah in Safed, which was under the direct aegis of his mentor, Joseph Caro.345 After Caro's death on the 13th of Nisan (25 March) 1575, Moses continued in this capacity, now in conjunction with his brother, Abraham Galante.346 In addition to his responsa, collected and published by his son Yedidiah (Venice, 1608) along with novellae on several talmudic tractates, Moses wrote a commentary on Qohelet, titled Qohelet Yaaqov (published in Safed in 1578). Mainly homiletic in nature, this commentary also contains some kabbalistic interpretations.347 He also composed Mafteal;1 ha-Zohar (published in Venice in 1566), an index of biblical references in the Zohar.348 Some of his sermons were preserved in Obadiah Hamon of Bertinoro's commentary on Ruth (Venice, 1585).349 64. Moses ben Shem Tov Alfaranji (born c. 1431 or 1441 in Spain; died 1511, "aged 70 or 80."). Safed and Jerusalem sage active in the early sixteenth century.350 Born in Spain, he studied under Isaac Canpanton ,351 and he headed a yeshivah in the city of Valladolid.352 Alfaranji was evidently among the Spanish expellees, and he arrived in Safed after 1499, following a stay in Bursa, Turkey. In 1504 Alfaranji was already a leading figure in the Safed kehillah; in that year, his name headed the list of signatories on a letter sent by the Safed sages to their Jerusalem counterparts concerning the sabbatical year.353 Subsequently , he moved to Jerusalem, where he died in 1511 at the age of seventy or eighty. A laconic reference to his presence in Jerusalem in his old age is found in a letter sent by Nagid Isaac Sholal to "the Brief Biographies 167 sages in the holy yeshivah in Jerusalem."354 His son, Shem Tov AIfaranji , was also among the signatories on the above-mentioned letter . Shem Tov accompanied his father to Jerusalem and later served as head of the Musta'rab congregation in Damascus.355 65. Moses ben ~addik Castro (died in the 1540s, before 1547, in Jerusalem ). Jerusalem sage active in the first half of the sixteenth century ; member of the Spanish Castro family, a branch of which had settled in Egypt in the late fifteenth century. Abraham Zacuto was Castro's maternal uncle; his stepfather was Abraham ben Eliezer haLevi , who had married Castro's mother in Spain, prior to the expulsion .356 A letter sent by Moses Castro from Jerusalem to Egypt in 1513 indicates that early in that decade, he was already actively involved in the leadership of the Jerusalem kehillah. In Jerusalem,357 he studied under Levi ibn I:Iabib and David ibn Shoshan; at a later date, he studied under Jacob Berab as well. Little is known, however, of Castro's spiritual or intellectual nature. In 1521 we find his name, "Moses ben ~addik de Castro," among those of other sages, as a signatory on the letter of beney ha-yeshivot (members of the rabbinical academy).358 In the celebrated ordination controversy (1538) between Levi ibn I:Iabib and Jacob Berab, Castro sided with the former , outlining the reasons for his disagreement with his teacher, Jacob Berab, in a detailed responsum. Berab...
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