Israel Moses Hazan, Sephardic rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

, Smyrna

Izmir

Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...

 1808-Beirut Oct 1862.

Life

He was taken by his father Eliezer Hazan to Jerusalem (1811), where he was educated under his grandfather, Joseph ben Hayyim Hazan. In 1840 he became a member of a rabbinical college; in 1848 he was appointed "meshullach" (messenger). While at Rome he was elected chief rabbi. In 1852 he resigned this office for the rabbinate of Corfu, and in 1857 he was called to the rabbinate of Alexandria. In 1862 he went to Jaffa; but, being in ill health, he removed to Beirut, where he died. He was buried in Sidon. In Rome and in Corfu he was held in high esteem, and the poet Ludwig August von Frankl

Ludwig August von Frankl

Ludwig August Ritter von Frankl-Hochwart was a Bohemian-Austrian writer and poet. He was a friend of Nikolaus Lenau. Also, he corresponded with Petar II Petrovic Njegos of Montenegro before he died in 1851. Frankl's Gusle, Serbische Nationallieder was dedicated to Vuk Karadžić's daughter in 1952...

, who saw him in Corfu (1856), speaks in glowing terms of his venerable personality. While a champion of Orthodoxy, he possessed sufficient independence of mind to protest against the superstitious practices customary among the Jews of Rome, who insisted on washing corpses with warm water, and who would not allow a clock in the yard of the synagogue. He wrote a letter condemning the reforms advocated in the Brunswick rabbinical conference

Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick

The Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick was a conference held in 1844 in Brunswick, convoked by Levi Herzfeld and Ludwig Philippson. Other attendees included Solomon Formstecher, Samuel Hirsch, Mendel Hess, Samuel Holdheim...

 (published in the collection "Kin'at Tziyyon," Amsterdam, 1846).

Works

• Nahalah le-Yisrael, a collection of decisions in an inheritance case (Vienna, 1851; Alexandria, 1862); linked here
• Kontres Kedushat Yom-Tob Sheni, an argument in favor of retaining the second holy days (ib. 1855); linked here
• Dibre Shalom we-Emet, a reply (in the form of an address to the Israelites of Great Britain by a Levite) to a Reform pamphlet (Hebrew and English, London, 1856);
• She'erit ha-Nahalah, a discourse in dialogue on religious questions, with a revised edition of his Nahalah le-Yisrael (Alexandria, 1862);
• Iyye ha-Yam, responsa of the Geonim
  Geonim
  Geonim were the presidents of the two great Babylonian, Talmudic Academies of Sura and Pumbedita, in the Abbasid Caliphate, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the Jewish community world wide in the early medieval era, in contrast to the Resh Galuta who wielded secular authority...
  
  , with his notes (Livorno, 1864); linked here
• Kerakh shel Romi, responsa (ib. 1876); linked here.

Other responsa, with homilies and a defence of the Kabbalah

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

, remain in manuscript.

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

• Solomon Hazan, Ha-Ma'alot li-Shelomoh, p. 114;
• Elijah Hazan, Zikron Yerushalayim, p. 131, Livorno, 1874;
• Berliner, Gesch. der Juden in Rom, pp. 152, 208, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1893.