Creator Bio
Joseph ha-Kohen
1496–1558
A physician and historian, Joseph ha-Kohen was born in Avignon. His family moved to Genoa when he was still a child, and he spent most of his life in Piedmont and Lombardy. His letters reveal a person deeply engaged in community matters, especially in the redemption of captive Jews. His Sefer divre ha-yamim le-malkhe Tsarefat u-vet Otoman ha-Togar (Chronicle of the Kings of France and the Ottoman Empire), printed in Sabbioneta in 1554, is considered the first world history written in Hebrew. Emek ha-bakhah (Valley of Tears), composed in 1558, describes the history of the Jews as a series of persecutions from the fall of the Second Temple to the sixteenth century.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
Divre ha-yamim le-malkhe Tsarefat u-vet Otoman ha-Togar (Chronicle of the Kings of France and the Ottoman Empire)
There was a man in Castile called Americo. He had a large ship, in which he placed a great number of supplies, as much as his soul desired, and he also resolved in his heart to amass as much booty as…
Primary Source
Emek ha-bakhah (Valley of Tears)
Granada was under control of the Ishmaelites for seven hundred years, until Ferdinand and Isabel, the monarchs of Spain, besieged it, for many days, and captured the whole region of that kingdom in…