Yosef Taitazak

Rabbi Yosef Taitazak was among the Sephardi scholars who rebuilt Torah learning in the Ottoman lands after the 1492 expulsion from Spain. Born in Castile around 1465, he settled in Salonika together with his father and brother, where he led one of the city's foremost Talmudic academies and became a widely consulted authority in Jewish law; Rabbi Yosef Karo, later author of the Shulchan Aruch, cited his rulings. Alongside his halakhic work he was known as a Kabbalist and an ascetic, and accounts describe him lending support to the messianic figure Solomon Molcho during Molcho's time in Salonika. He guided a generation of students, among them Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, Shmuel di Medina (the Maharashdam), and Yitzchak Adarbi. His biblical commentaries and legal rulings circulated largely after his death, placed in the mid-sixteenth century.