Ḥayyim Mordechai Labaton, son of Rabbi Ḥalfon and Luna Labaton, was born in Aleppo around the year 1780. He engaged in the soap trade to support himself. For many years, he served as deputy to Chief Rabbi Abraham ʿAntebi. Their joint tenure was marked by stability and by efforts to strengthen the standing and authority of the rabbinical court (bet din), because in the aftermath of the Ottoman reforms (Tanzimat), which left only matters of personal status under its jurisdiction, the court had been somewhat undermined. Their Torah scholarship, the popular belief …