Levi Ibn Ḥabib

Levi Ibn Ḥabib was born in Spain, and after the expulsions from there and the forced conversions in Portugal, he settled with his family in Salonika. He later moved to Jerusalem, where he was recognized as a leading religious authority. Along with Moses de Castro (formerly of Cairo), in Jerusalem he was an opponent of Jacob Berab’s attempt to renew the ancient chain of semikhah (rabbinic ordination). Ibn Ḥabib’s writings are the major historical source for these events. Levi’s father was Jacob Ibn Ḥabib, author of ‘En Ya‘akov (1516), a compendium of the aggadic (nonlegal) material in the Babylonian Talmud, whose publication Levi saw to completion after Jacob’s death.