TESHUVOT (RESPONSA), RABBI ISAAC BEN SHESHET PERFET, CONSTANTINOPLE: ELIEZER [BEN GERSHOM] SONCINO, 1546-1547

Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet (Rivash; 1326-1408) served as rabbi of the Jewish community in Saragossa from 1371 until 1391, when he moved to Valencia. The year 1391 saw widespread anti-Jewish riots, which struck hard in that city. In the face of the violence, Rivash fled Spain and settled in North Africa, where he became rabbi of Algiers. His responsa have wielded great influence on subsequent halakhic discourse and are an important source for the social history of Jews in fourteenth-century Spain and North Africa. Like the Jabez Talmud tractates (see lot 235), the present edition of Rivash’s responsa was sold weekly by quires and distributed on the Sabbath in the synagogues of Constantinople.