Menahem di Lonsano

Menahem ben Judah ben Menahem de Lonzano was a rabbi, Masoretic scholar, lexicographer, and poet. He died after 1608 in Jerusalem. His nativity is unknown, but it has been supposed that he was born in Italy. According to Jellinek, who identified Lonzano with Longano, a seaport of Messenia, his home was Greece; it may, however, have been Longono, a port of Tuscany near Livorno. In early childhood, Lonzano lost both his father and mother, and throughout his entire life he was haunted by poverty, care, and sickness (Shete Yadot, p. 81a).

In his youth he went to Jerusalem and married there, but in consequence of the treachery of one of his friends, Gedaliah Cordovero, he was compelled to leave the city; he went to Constantinople, where he enjoyed the hospitality of a certain Solomon (Ṭobah Tokaḥat, pp. 140, 148).

There also he met Samuel de Medina, whom he calls "teacher," and under whom he studied for some time (Conforte, Ḳore ha-Dorot, p. 44a). From Constantinople he returned to Jerusalem: he was compelled to travel continually to earn his bread. In old age, again driven by poverty, he returned to Italy, having spent altogether about forty years of his life in Jerusalem. Though paralyzed in both feet and with the sight of one eye entirely lost, he preached twice in an Italian synagogue and gave the community cause to marvel at his unusual knowledge of midrashic literature. A fund was raised by the congregation to support him and to enable him to return to Jerusalem, and a petition was sent to a wealthy man asking him for a generous contribution. This letter (Mortara, No. 12) has been published by David Kaufmann (J.Q.R. viii.525 et seq.). Lonzano died in the outskirts of Jerusalem and was buried there (comp. Shibḥe Yerushalayim, p. 3a; Ḥibbat Yerushalayim, p. 42b; Luncz, Jerusalem, i.115).

Lonzano had three children; a son, Adonikam, died at an early age. He was the father-in-law of the historian David Conforte (Ḳore ha-Dorot, l.c.); Lonzano of Florence (1716), author of a responsum mentioned in Shemesh Ẓedaḳah (i., No. 15, p. 27a), may be one of his descendants (Landshuth, 'Ammude ha-'Abodah, p. 184).

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