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Aaron Ben Asher (Abū Saʿīd Hārūn) lived and worked in Tiberias in the first half of the tenth century. He was the sixth and last member of the Ben Asher dynasty of masoretes (see Ben Asher, Moses). He is considered to have been the close and the most authoritative of the masoretes. His name is especially linked with two large literary projects:(1) Sefer Diqduqe ha-Teʿamim, dealing with clear masora matters, such as special characters, qeri and ketiv, and lists of defective and full scripts in the Bible. Along these occur neighboring grammatical matters, such as the divi…

Rich, on the northern bank of the Ziz River in the Tafilalet region of southeastern Morocco, was an oasis settled by Arab and Berber tribes from Aït Merghad and Aït Ḥdiddu. In 1916, the French turned it into a military post and administrative center. Among the Jews from the region who soon settled there were the Chetrit family from Nzala (near the sources of the Ziz), the Maman family from Boudnib, the Ḥamou from Boukhlouf, the ʿAtiyya from Kerrando (Tiʿallalin…

1. LexicographyThe Mishna has an abundance of lexicographical material. There are lexicographical elements in definitions such as Ezehu leqeṭ? Ha-nosher bishʿat ha-qeṣira (What are considered gleanings? Whatever drops down at the moment of reaping; Peʾah 4:10); Ezehu pereṭ? Ha-nosher bishʿat ha-beṣira (What is considered a grape? Whatever drops at the moment of vintage; ibid. 7:3); and Ezehu zeroaʿ? Min ha-pereq shel arkubba ʿad kaf shel yad . . . ukhnegdo baregel-shoq (What is a forearm? From the knee-joint to the palm of hand . . . and its counterpart in the leg…

Mishael ben Uzziel was active from the end of the tenth century into the first half of the eleventh, a little after the time of the Masoretes Aaron ben Asher and Moses ben Naphtali. He is known mostly for two important literary worksBib: (a) The corrections of the magnificent Torah manuscript preserved in the Cairo Karaite Synagogue (no. 18 in Gottheil’s list; Q3 in Penkower), written soon a…

Moses ben Asher lived and worked in Tiberias in the second half of the ninth century C.E. He was a member of the fifth generation of the Ben Asher family, which had earned a reputation for ra…