BENAMOZEGH, ELIA

BENAMOZEGH, ELIA. - Jewish writer, b. in Livorno in 1823, d. there in 1900. A rabbi, preacher, and professor at the rabbinical college in Livorno, he published in Hebrew ‘Enath mafgta’ against the opposition of Leone Modena to the Kabbalah (1858). Explanatory notes on the Targum of Onqelos (1858), a commentary on the Psalms (Nir le-Dāwīd, 1858), a commentary on the Pentateuch (‘Em lam-miqrā’, 1862-65); a polemical writing against S. D. Luzzatto’s anti-Kabbalism (‘Am alš-šadh, 1863); on the prohibition of cremating corpses (1866). Also: Storia degli Esseni (Florence 1865); Morale juive et morale chrétienne (Paris 1867; ed. Pallière, Florence 1925); Teologia apologetica e dogmatica, I, Dio (Livorno 1877); Israel et l’humanité (Introduction, 1885; complete ed., Pallière, Paris 1914). Under his influence Aimé Pallière converted to Judaism, and after B.’s death published in French his two most characteristic works.