Moses al-Ashqar, halakhic authority, was born in 1466/67 in Spain, probably in Zamora, where he spent his youth. There is an indication that he came from a noted rabbinic family. He studied in Zamora with Samuel Valensi, a student of the famed Isaac Canpanton (Campanton). After the expulsion from Spain in 1492 he went to North Africa, where he lived in Tunis for several years. He left before the Spanish invasion of the Tunisian coast in 1509, lived for a while in Patras, then moved to Cairo, where he became a rabbinic judge in the court presided over by David Ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz). It was there …