ISRAEL DE CURIEL DERASHOT (SERMONS), MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER [ORIENTAL, 16TH CENTURY]

Levi ben [Shmuel Mizrachi], (inscription, pp. 4–5) —  Joseph ben [?] —David Solomon Sassoon, (sale, Sotheby's New York, 4 December 1984, lot 46)

Meir Banayhu, Sefer Baer (Jerusalem, 1960), p. 249; M. Pechter, “Identification of the author of the sermons in Sefer Or Zaddikim attributed to R. Joseph Caro, and the homiletic writings of R. Israel di Curiel,” in  Kiryat Sefer, 55 (1980), pp. 802–810; David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library (London, 1932), vol. I, pp. 85–86, no. 181; Shaul Regev, ed.; introduction by Meir Benayahu, Rabbi Israel di-Koriel Sermons and Homilies: Published for the First Time from Manuscript (Jerusalem, 2002)

Israel ben Meir Curiel (ca. 1502–1571) was born to a family of exiles from Spain and lived in Adrianople and several other cities in Turkey before settling in Safed, where he served in the rabbinical court for several decades together with Rabbi Joseph Karo and other authorities.  Curiel was one of only four rabbis who received rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Jacob Berab during the famous "Semikha Controversy" of the mid-sixteenth century between the rabbinical authorities in Safed and those in Jerusalem.  Curiel's sermons, which include many explanations of passages from the Midrash and Talmudic aggadah are collected in several manuscripts and many are included in manuscript compilations of sermons by famous scholars.  A few of the sermons were printed and mistakenly attributed to Curiel’s contemporary Joseph Karo.  This manuscript may be in the author’s own hand.  An index on pages 1–4 is written in a different script, possibly that of a disciple, and mentions that Curiel is still living. Shaul Regev published the sermons from this manuscript and others in an annotated edition (see below).