ḤAVER

ḤAVER, 16th-century family of rabbis, originally from Damascus. The best-known members of the family are Isaac and his son Ḥayyim. ISAAC (d. 1541) was a rabbi and posek. According to moses basola , before 1522 he was the head of the Sicilian community of Damascus and a physician. He discussed halakhic problems with jacob berab i . He died in Damascus and in 1564 his remains were taken by his son ḤAYYIM, to Safed for burial. Ḥayyim was already an important rabbi of Safed before his father's death, since his signature appears on a ruling of 1536 together with those of other great Safed halakhists (see responsa avkat rokhel , of Joseph Caro, no. 124). He was apparently called to Damascus to succeed his father. In 1546, in accordance with his father's custom, Ḥayyim sent to Safed from Damascus the yearly calendar of the Sicilian community. He appears to have returned to Safed after a number of years and to have become one of the members of the bet din of moses di trani , his signature appearing on a halakhic ruling of 1557 together with that of Di Trani and Shem Tov Bibas (Moses di Trani, Responsa Mabit, 1:287). A ruling by Ḥayyim from his Damascus period appears in Avkat Rokhel (no. 114). He died in Safed. ISAAC, one of his sons, is mentioned in a responsum of 1567 (Mabbit, 2:88). Apparently JOSHUA ḤAVER, the friend of israel najara and a merchant in Syria, was also a member of this family. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ashtor, Toledot, 2 (1951), 494; Assaf, in: KS, 22 (1945/46), 244; Frumkin-Rivlin, 1 (1929), 82; R.J.Z. Werblowsky, Joseph Karo, Lawyer and Mystic (1962), 92 n. 6. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. David, in: Zion and Jerusalem, The Itinerary of Rabbi Moses Basola (1521–1523) (1999), 87. (Abraham David)