Saul Levi Mortera

Saul Levi Mortera was born in Venice, of Ashkenazic origin. In 1612, he left for Paris as assistant to Elijah Montalto, Jewish (former converso) physician to the French queen. In 1616, Mortera escorted Montalto’s body to burial in Amsterdam and subsequently settled there. He soon rose to prominence and was appointed a ḥakham. He was the head of the Keter Torah confraternity. Baruch Spinoza was one of Mortera’s students, and later Mortera was a member of the rabbinic court that excommunicated Spinoza. In 1645, Mortera’s students published Giv‘at Shaul (Hill of Saul), a selection of his sermons, which includes a short biographical sketch. Five hundred and fifty of his Hebrew sermons are held in manuscript by the library of the Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest. A Hebrew work by Mortera on the immortality of the soul has not survived, and only fragments of his responsa have reached us. He also wrote a Portuguese work defending the divine origin of the Hebrew Bible.