Taitazak or Taytazak, Joseph
Taitazak or Taytazak, Joseph
a Spanish Jew, belonged to those 300,000 exiles who had to leave their country in 1492. With his father and brothers, he settled at Salonica, where he wrote , the fruitful bough of Joseph (after Gen 49:22), a commentary on Ecclesiastes, in a homiletico-philosophicaI style (Venice, 1599): , i.e. excerpts from his commentary on the Psalms, published with Penini’s work, , the tongues of gold (ibid. 1599). The MS. of his complete commentary on the Psalms is to be found in the libraries of Paris and Oxford: , the bread of sacredness, in allusion to Pro 9:17; a commentary on Daniel and the five Megilloth, viz. the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther (ibid. 1608). In its present form this work only contains fragments of Taitazak’s commentaries on three books, and MSS. of the entire commentaries are still extant: , a commentary on Job, extant: , i.e. questions and decisions (ibid. 1622). See Furst, Bibl. Jud. 3, 412; De Rossi, Dizionario Storico, p. 314 (Germ. transl.); Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr. Hebr. in Bibl. Bodl. col. 1533; Kitto, Cyclop. s.v.; Finn, Sephardim, p. 413. (B. P.)