NUNES VAIS

NUNES VAIS (Nunez-Vaez), rabbinical family of Marrano extraction in Leghorn (Italy). ISAAC JOSEPH NUNES VAIS (d. 1768) was one of the rabbis of the community and colleague of malachi b. jacob ha-kohen . His Siʾaḥ Yiẓḥak (Leghorn, 1766; 2nd vol. 1768) comprised glossaries on the talmudic tractates Shevu'ot, Yoma, and Ḥagigah (forming the acrostic of Siʾaḥ). His son JACOB (d. 1814) became chief rabbi of the consistory established at Leghorn during the period of French occupation, and taught what was termed "practical theology" in the Talmud Torah when it was reorganized in 1812. He edited Da'at Zekenim (Leghorn, 1783) comprising amplifications of the tosafists on Rashi's pentateuchal commentaries, and Amar Neke (Pisa, 1810), comprising the glosses of Obadiah of bertinoro on Rashi. To the same family belonged ABRAHAM JOSEPH NUNES VAIS (1811–1898), physician to the bey of Tunis, and the former's son, the painter ITALO NUNES-VAIS (1860–1932) of Florence. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Lattes and A.S. Toaff, Gli studi ebraici a Livorno (1909), 14; M. Monteverdi, Italo Nunes-Vais (1969); M. Benayahu, Rabbi Ḥayyim Yosef David Azulai (1959), index. (Cecil Roth)