Ḥayyim Gagin was born in Fez, Morocco, around 1460 and died there after 1535. He was a leader of the city's indigenous Jews, or toshavim , and the author of ʿEṣḤayyim (Heb. Tree of Life), a chronicle and halakhic polemic describing their conflict over the correct mode of examining and slaughtering meat (Heb. sheḥiṭa) with the megorashim -the Sephardi newcomers who settled in Fez after the expulsion from Spain. The sheḥiṭa controversy began in 1523 and raged for many years in the Jewish quarter, pitting the two segments of the Jewish populace against each other. Ul…