Netanel Crescas

The name of Algerian rabbi and poet Netanel Crescas suggests that his family originated from Catalonia or Provence. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, members of the Crescas family in Algiers, among them Netanel, became respected rabbis, kabbalists, and poets. Indeed, Netanel was a major halakhic authority in his generation. Many other rabbis sought his counsel, and his name appears alongside other prominent rabbis as a signatory to documents and contracts. However, only a few examples of his halakhic decisions have survived, quoted in other works. He was also known for his Hebrew piyyutim (liturgical poems), some of which have been preserved in manuscripts. This lament for the Ninth of Av, written in the Maghrebi tradition, mourns the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and alludes to the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. At the same time, it expresses great faith in the future Redemption.