Hananiah Eliakim Rieti

Born in Bologna, Hananiah Eliakim Rieti was from an Italian Jewish banking family. A scholar, cantor, and liturgical poet, Rieti was appointed rabbi of Mantua in 1589, where he played an active role in founding a devotional Shomrim la-boker (“Morning Watchers”) confraternity. He became rabbi of Luzzara in 1604. Rieti composed numerous poems and prayers that combine the influence of earlier liturgical poetry with contemporary elements. Some were published in Ayelet ha-shaḥar (Hind of the Morn), a collection of Psalms, hymns, prayers, and supplications used by the Mantua Shomrim la-boker society for its predawn vigils (1612). Rieti’s son, David Naftali, published a collection of his father’s liturgical poems for Hoshana Rabbah (the seventh day of the holiday of Sukkot), Mekits redumim (He Who Awakens the Sleepers) in 1648, with an explanatory introduction. Further compositions are found in a manuscript entitled Minḥat Ḥananyah (The Offering of Hananiah). In addition, his writings on talmudic topics and ritual affairs have survived in manuscript. Rieti’s wife, Malkah, is mentioned in several responsa—she studied the laws of ritual slaughter and was given rabbinic authorization to practice this profession.