Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan

Berechiah ben Natronai Krespia ha-Nakdan (ha-Nakdan, meaning "the punctuator" or "grammarian"), commonly known as Berachya (13th century), was a Jewish exegete, ethical writer, grammarian, translator, poet, and philosopher. His most famous works are Mishle Shualim (Fox Fables) and Sefer Hahibbur (The Book of Compilation).

Very little is known for certain about his life and much discussion has taken place concerning the date and native country of Berachyah. It is possible that he was a descendant of Jewish scholars of Babylonia. He is thought to have lived sometime in the 12th or 13th century, with some placing him about 1260 in Provence. Other theories give Northern France as his home while Joseph Jacobs arrived at the conclusion that Berechiah should be located in England toward the end of the 12th century. This was confirmed by Neubauer's discovery that, in the preface to his fables, Berechiah refers to the "turning of the wheels of fate to the island of the sea (=England) for one to die and the other to live," clearly a reference to the English massacre of 1190.

Berechiah is known chiefly as the author of a set of over a hundred fables called Mishle Shualim (Fox Fables), some of his own invention and some reworked from Aesop's Fables, the Talmud, and Oriental sources. Berechiah's work adds a layer of Biblical quotations and allusions to Aesop's tales, adapting them as a way to teach Jewish ethics. Manuscripts exist at the Bodleian and Munich (written before 1268). The first published edition appeared in Mantua, in 1557; another with a Latin version by M. Hanel followed from Prague in 1661. An English translation titled Fables of a Jewish Aesop appeared in 1967 and has since been republished.

The fables give in rhymed prose many animal tales passing under the name of Aesop during the Middle Ages; but in addition to these, the collection also contains fables conveying the same plots and morals as those of Marie de France, whose date has been placed approximately toward the end of the 12th century.

The following table exhibits the relationship between Berechiah's fables and those of Marie, as well as their connection with the Romulus, the Latin prose translations of the medieval Aesop. These show that Berechiah has only one-half of the additional fables of Marie, and that he has about thirty not in her collection. Some of these are from Avianus, others from Oriental sources.

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