Yiḥyah Salaḥ

Rabbi Yiḥya Ṣāleḥ (alternative spellings: Yichya Tzalach; Yehiya Saleh), known by the acronym of Maharitz (Hebrew: מוהר"ר יחיא צאלח‎) = Moreinu HaRav Yichya Tzalach, (1713 – 1805), was one of the greatest exponents of Jewish law known to Yemen. He is the author of a liturgical commentary entitled Etz Ḥayyim (The Tree of Life), in which he follows closely the legal dicta of Maimonides. Rabbi Yiḥya Ṣāleḥ is widely remembered for his ardent work in preserving Yemenite Jewish customs and traditions, which he articulated so well in his many writings, but also for his adopting certain Spanish rites and liturgies that had already become popular in Yemen. In this regard, he was strongly influenced by the Rabbis of his previous generation, Rabbi Yehudah Sa'adi and Rabbi Yihya al-Bashiri. Initially, Rabbi Yiḥya Ṣāleḥ worked as a blacksmith until the age of thirty, after which he worked as a scrivener of sacred texts (Heb. "sofer"), before becoming chief jurist of the rabbinical court (Beth Din) in Sana'a.

Yiḥya was born in the lunar month of Cheshvan, in the year 5474 anno mundi, a year corresponding to 1713 CE, to Joseph b. Ṣāliḥ. Ṣāliḥ, his grandfather (d. 1749), was a survivor of the infamous Mawza Exile, the founder of the Saleh synagogue in Sana'a and one of the city's judges and ritual slaughterers (Heb. shochet). Although Rabbi Yiḥya Ṣāliḥ would later serve as chief judge (Av Beit-Din) and President of the rabbinical court at Ṣanʻā’, for most of his life he worked under the shadow of two great men of his generation: the illustrious Rabbi David Mishreqi (d. 1771), the author of Shtilei Zeitim, a commentary on the Shulhan Arukh (Orach Chaim and Yoreh De'ah), and Rabbi Shalom Iraqi al-Cohen (1685–1780), called al-'Ousṭā (the artisan), the comptroller of the customs and surveyor-general of the royal buildings and gardens who had been the favorite of two successive kings, although demoted in 1761.

...
Wikipedia