Israel Najara

Israel ben Moses Najara (Hebrew: ישראל בן משה נאג'ארה‎, "Yisrael ben Moshe Najarah"; Arabic: إسرائيل بن موسى النجارة‎‎, "Isra'il bin Musa al-Najara"; c. 1555, Safed, Ottoman Empire – c. 1625, Gaza, Ottoman Empire) was a Jewish liturgical poet, preacher, Biblical commentator, kabbalist, and rabbi of Gaza.

According to Franco (Histoire des Israélites de l'Empire Ottoman, p. 79, Paris, 1897), there is another account which declares that Najara was born about 1530 and that he lived for some years at Adrianople. From his secular poems, which he wrote in the meters of various Turkish, Spanish, and modern Greek songs, it is evident that he knew well several foreign languages. He travelled extensively in the Near East, had lived in Safed, where he came under the extensive influence of Lurianic Kabbalah. After an attack on the Jews of Safed in 1579, Najara left with his family and settled in Gauhar, a town near Damascus. He later served as a rabbi at Gaza.

As may be seen from his works, he was a versatile scholar, and he corresponded with many contemporary rabbis, among others with Bezaleel Ashkenazi, Yom-Ṭob Ẓahalon, Moses Hamon, and Menahem Ḥefeẓ. His poetic effusions were exceptionally numerous, and many of them were translated into Persian. While still young he composed many hymns, to Arabic and Turkish tunes, with the intention, as he says in the preface to his Zemirot Yisrael, of turning the Jewish youth from profane songs. He wrote piyyuṭim, pizmonim, seliḥot, widduyim, and dirges for all the week-days and for Sabbaths, holy days, and occasional ceremonies, these piyyuṭim being collected in his Zemirot Yisrael. Many of the piyyuṭim are in Aramaic.

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