CASES

CASES, Italian family mainly centered in Mantua, where they maintained their private synagogue until the 20th century. Over many generations, members of the family were physicians, rabbis, and secretaries of the Mantua community. The family spread in due course to Ferrara and elsewhere. The first noteworthy member was the rabbi and halakhic scholar SAMUEL BEN MOSES (d.1572). His son MOSES BEN SAMUEL was rabbi of Mantua from 1586 to 1617, and wrote treatises on the Talmud and Mishnah. LULIANO SHALOM BEN SAMUEL served as rabbi of Mantua from 1622 to 1630, and compiled the communal regulations for taxation of 1626. MENAHEM BEN ELHANAN (or Elisha), rabbi of Modena (1642) and Ferrara (1655), was the author of responsa and halakhic decisions. JOSEPH BARUCH BEN MOSES was rabbi of Mantua from 1704 to 1721; some of his halakhic decisions are included in Paḥad Yiẓhak by isaac lampronti and in Shemesh Ẓedakah by samson morpurgo . ISRAEL GEDALIAH (Laudadio) BEN JOSEPH BARUCH, rabbi of Mantua from 1754 to 1793, was the author of responsa, poems in Italian and Hebrew, and a medical treatise (Giornale medico storico, Venice, 1776). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ghirondi-Neppi, index; S. Simonsohn, Toledot ha-Yehudim be-Dukkasut Mantovah, 2 (1965), 540–2; Mortara, Indice, 10–11. (Attilio Milano) CASÈS, BENJAMIN BEN DAVID CASÈS, BENJAMIN BEN DAVID (1680–1749), rabbi and author. Casès was born in Adrianople where he lived until 1730, when he moved to Constantinople. In 1740 he settled in Safed and headed a yeshivah. His novellae to the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol of moses b. jacob of Coucy were published under the title Megillat Sefer (pt. 1, Constantinople, 1750). He also wrote commentaries to the Jerusalem Talmud, Midrash Tanḥuma, and Rashi's commentary on the Pentateuch, as well as a book on Maimonides' Mishneh Torah called Ḥelko shel Binyamin. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fuenn, Keneset, 172; Rosanes, Togarmah, 5 (1938), 293; M.D. Gaon, Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1938), 595; M. Benayahu, Rabbi Ḥayyim Yosef David Azulai (Heb., 1959), 82.